63.
Of the consuls designate, Flaminius, to1 whom the legions wintering at Placentia had been assigned by lot, dispatched an edict and a letter to the consul, commanding that these troops should be ready in the camp at Ariminum on the Ides of March.
[2]
It was here, in his province, that he designed to enter on the consulship, for he remembered his former controversies with the senators, which he had waged when a tribune of the plebs,2 and later as consul —in the first place about his [p. 189]consulship, which they tried to annul, and again3 concerning his triumph.4 He was also hated by the senators on account of an unprecedented law which Quintus Claudius the tribune of the plebs had introduced, despite the opposition of the senate, with the backing of Gaius Flaminius alone of all that body, providing that no senator or senator's son should own a sea-going ship of more than three hundred amphoras burden5 —this was reckoned to be sufficient to transport the crops from one's fields, and all money-making was held unseemly
[4]
in a senator. The measure, which was vehemently opposed, had been productive of great resentment on the part of the nobles against Flaminius, who had advocated its enactment; but had procured for him the favour of the plebs and afterwards
[5]
a second consulship. Believing, therefore, that his enemies would falsify the auspices and make use of the Latin Festival6 and other means of hindering a consul, to detain him in the City, he pretended that he had to take a journey, and departing, as a private citizen, slipped away secretly
[6]
to his province. This behaviour, when the truth came out, aroused fresh indignation in the breasts of the already hostile senators: Gaius Flaminius, they said, was waging war not only with the senate, but this time with
[7]
the immortal gods. He had formerly been made consul without the confirmation of the auspices, and, though both gods and men had sought to recall him from the very battle-line, he [p. 191]had not obeyed; now, conscious of having spurned7 them, he had fled the Capitol and the vows that were regularly undertaken, that he might not, on the day of entering upon his office, approach the temple of
[8]
Jupiter Optimus Maximus; that he might not see and consult the senate, which hated him and which he alone of all men hated; that he might not proclaim the Latin Festival and offer the accustomed sacrifice to Jupiter Latiaris on
[9]
the Alban Mount; that he might not, after receiving auspices, go up to the Capitol to make his vows, and thence proceed, in the general's cloak8 and accompanied by lictors, to his province; like some camp-follower, without insignia and without lictors, he had set out in secret and by stealth, precisely as though
[10]
going into exile; he thought, forsooth, that it was more in keeping with the dignity of his high command to begin his magistracy in Ariminum than in Rome —to assume the purple-bordered toga9 in an inn than in the presence of
[11]
his household gods! With one accord they voted to recall him and drag him back and compel him to discharge in person all his obligations to gods and men, before he went to his army
[12]
and his province. On this commission —for commissioners they resolved to dispatch —Quintus Terentius and Marcus Antistius set forth, but moved Flaminius no more than the letter sent him by the senate had moved him in
[13]
his former consulship. A few days later he entered on his magistracy, and as he was offering up a calf, it escaped —after being struck —out of the hands of those who would have sacrificed it, and spattered many of the bystanders
[14]
with its blood. The dismay and confusion [p. 193]were even greater among those who stood farther B..217 off and knew not what was occasioning the panic. By most people it was regarded as an omen
[15]
of great terror.10 After this the army comprising the two legions received from Sempronius, the consul of the year before, and the two taken over from Gaius Atilius the praetor, began its march into Etruria through the passes of the Apennines.
1 B.C. 217
2 In the year 232 B.C. he had carried a law in the Comitia Tributa providing that certain Picentine and Gallic lands should be divided among the poorer citizens.
3 B.C. 217
4 In 223 B.C. the senate commanded the consuls Furius and Flaminius, who had marched against the Insubrian Gauls, to return to Rome and resign their magistracies on the ground that unfavourable auguries had been reported. But Flaminius refused to return, fought and won a battle, and triumphed in the face of senatorial opposition [3] —by virtue of a decree of the people.
5 The amphora —a wine-jar with two handles —was standardized as a liquid measure roughly equal to six gallons. In our terminology such a vessel would be described as of about seven tons burden.
6 The new consuls were required to fix the date of the Feriae Latinae, at the first session of the senate after their entering upon office, and they might not take the field for the summer's campaign before they had duly presided over the sacrifice to Jupiter Latiaris, which was the essential feature of the celebration.
7 B.C. 217
8 The paludamentum, typifying military imperium, might be assumed by the consul on leaving the City, the toga praetexta, white with a purple border, was worn by the consul while in Rome.
9 The paludamentum, typifying military imperium, might be assumed by the consul on leaving the City, the toga praetexta, white with a purple border, was worn by the consul while in Rome.
10 This dreadful omen is not mentioned by Polybius and looks like an invention of the aristocratic opponents of Flaminius. Livy perhaps found the story in Coelius.
Livy. Boooks XXI-XXII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1929: no copyright notice.
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