Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 22
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

33. At about this time a Carthaginian spy who for two years had eluded capture was caught in Rome, and after his hands had been cut off, was allowed to go; and five and twenty slaves were crucified, on the charge of having conspired in the [p. 311]Campus Martius. [2] The informer was rewarded with¹ freedom and twenty thousand sesterces. [3] Ambassadors were dispatched to Philip,² King of the Macedonians, to demand the person of Demetrius of Pharus,³ who, beaten in war, had fled to him for refuge; [4] and others to expostulate with the Ligurians, because they had aided the Phoenician with supplies and men, and at the same time to observe at close range what was going on amongst the Boi and the Insubres.⁴ [5] Ambassadors were likewise sent to King Pineus⁵ in Illyria, to demand a tribute which was overdue, or, in case he wished the time extended, to take hostages. [6] So far were the Romans, though bearing upon their shoulders the burden of a mighty war, from permitting any concern of theirs to escape them, in however remote a part of the world it lay. [7] They were troubled, too, that the contract for the temple of Concord, which the praetor Lucius Manlius had vowed two years before in Gaul, during the mutiny of the soldiers,⁶ had hitherto not been let. [8] Accordingly the city praetor, Marcus Aemilius, appointed for the purpose two commissioners, Gaius Pupius and Caeso Quinctius Flamininus, who arranged to have the temple built on the Citadel.⁷

[p. 313]The same praetor, acting on instructions from the⁸ senate, wrote to the consuls, requesting that, if it seemed good to them, one of them would come to Rome to hold an election of consuls, and promising to appoint the comitia for the day which they [9] should designate. To this the consuls answered that they could not withdraw from the presence of the enemy without detriment to [10] the republic; it would therefore be better that the election be conducted by an interrex than that one of the consuls be called away from the seat [11] of war. To the senators it seemed preferable that the consuls should appoint a dictator to preside at the election. They appointed Lucius Veturius Philo, who named Marcus Pomponius Matho master of [12] the horse. There was a flaw in their appointment and they were commanded on the fourteenth day to resign their magistracy, whereupon the state reverted to an interregnum.