16.
When the new consuls Quintus Aelius and Marcus Junius1 put to the senate the question of provinces, the Fathers voted that Spain should again [p. 297]be made two provinces, after having been one during2 the Macedonian War;
[2]
also that the same officers, Lucius Paulus and Lucius Anicius, should command in Macedonia and Illyricum until on the advice of senatorial envoys they had made a settlement for these states which had been upset by war, and which were to be given a constitution other than monarchical.
[3]
To the consuls Pisa and Gaul were assigned with two legions apiece, each legion to be composed of five thousand two hundred infantry and four hundred cavalry.3 The assignments for the praetors were: to Quintus Cassius, the City Praetorship; to Manius Juventius Thalna, the jurisdiction over aliens; to Tiberius Claudius Nero, Sicily; to Gnaeus Fulvius, Hither Spain; to Gaius Licinius Nerva, Farther Spain.
[4]
Aulus Manlius Torquatus was assigned Sardinia, but was unable to go to his province, since he was held by vote of the senate to preside over trials for capital crimes.4
[5]
The question of the prodigies which had been reported was next put to the senate. The temple of the Household Gods on the Velia had been struck by lightning, as well as two gates and a section of wall in the town of Minervium. At Anagnia there had been a rain of earth and at- Lanuvium a meteor had been seen in the sky; and at Calatia on state-owned land Marcus Valerius, a Roman citizen, reported that blood had trickled from his hearth for three days and two nights.
[6]
Especially for this last the Board of Ten was ordered to consult the books; they [p. 299]proclaimed to the people a single day of prayer and5 offered a sacrifice of fifty goats in the forum. Because of the other prodigies, another day of prayer was observed at all the banquet-tables of the gods, sacrifice with greater victims was offered, and the city purified.
[7]
Another matter concerning the paying of respects to the immortal gods was the senate's decree that, whereas the enemy had been conquered and the kings Perseus and Gentius along with Macedonia and Illyricum were under the sway of the Roman People, therefore the praetors Quintus Cassius and Manius
[8??]
Juventius should see to the presentation at all the banquet-tables of the gods of gifts as great as those given in the consulship of Appius Claudius and Marcus Sempronius because of the victory over King Antiochus.6
1 Both these consuls were plebeians, as in 172 B.C., XLII. x. 9. 172 was the first year in which two plebeians were elected, according to the Fasti Capitolini, C.I.L.2 I. i., p. 25.
2 B.C. 167
3 The number sounds like the allied cavalry; a reference to Roman cavalry and allied infantry may have been lost. The usual number of Roman cavalry is 300, see XXII. xxxvi. 3; but the number 400 also appears in XXIII. xxxiv. 13 and XL. xxxvi. 8.
4 Again the new praetor did not go to Sardinia, see above, p. 284, note 1. For similar special inquiries into crime, cf. XL. xliii. 2; XXXIX. xxxviii. 3; xli. 5. For Spain cf. p. 405, note 1.
5 B.C. 167
6 These are mentioned in XXXVI. ii. 2-5; the consuls served in 185 B.C.
Livy. Books XLIII-XLV With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1951: published without copyright notice.
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