44.
While Aemilius was thus assailing the shrewd hostility of his enemy as if known to all, and was claiming that Fulvius would drag out the time by delaying, that he might not come to Rome while his foe was consul, two days
[
2??]
were wasted by the bickering of the consuls; and it seemed that no decree could be passed while Flaminius was present.
[
3]
Aemilius took advantage of an opportunity when Flaminius was kept away by illness, and on his motion the senate passed a decree that the Ambraciots should recover all their property;
[
4]
that they should be free and should enjoy their own laws; that they should collect port duties at their pleasure, by land and sea, provided that the Romans and the allies of the Latin confederacy should be exempt from paying them;
[
5]
that as to the statues and other works of art which they complained had been taken from their sacred shrines, when Marcus Fulvius had returned to Rome, the question concerning them should be referred to the college of pontiffs, and that whatever they should have ordered should be done.
[
6]
The consul was not
[p. 153]satisfied with this, but later, in a sparsely attended
1 meeting, added a decree of the senate, to the effect that it did not appear that Ambracia had been captured by force.
2
[7]
Then a three-day period of prayer was proclaimed in accordance with a decree of the decemvirs for the health of the people, because a severe pestilence was wasting the City and the country districts.
[8]
Next the Latin Festival was held. The consuls, released from these ceremonies and having finished the levy —for each of them preferred to employ new soldiers —departed to the province and discharged all the veterans.
[9]
After the departure of the consuls, Gnaeus Manlius the proconsul arrived in Rome; when an audience before the senate in the temple of Bellona had been granted him by the praetor Servius
[10??]
Sulpicius and he, after relating his exploits, had demanded that on account of them honour should be paid to the immortal gods and that he should be permitted to ride into the City in triumph, the majority of
[11??]
the ten commissioners who had been with him opposed it, and, beyond the rest, Lucius Furius Purpurio and Lucius Aemilius Paulus.
