16.
The Latin festival
1 was held on the third day before the Nones of May, and a religious scruple arose because at the sacrifice of one victim the magistrate of Lanuvium had not prayed for the Roman people,
2 the Quirites.
[
2]
When this was reported to the senate and the senate had referred the question to the college of pontiffs, the decree of the pontiffs was that the Latin festival should be repeated, since it had not been correctly performed, and that the people of Lanuvium, to whom was due the necessity of the repetition, should furnish the victims.
[
3]
Their religious fear was increased by the fact that Gnaeus Cornelius the consul fell on his return from the Alban Mount, and, paralyzed in some of his limbs, set out for Aquae Cumanae
3 and, his illness growing more severe, died at Cumae.
[
4]
But after his death he was removed to Rome and was carried out and buried with an elaborate funeral. He was, in addition to being consul, a pontiff.
[
5]
The consul Quintus Petilius, as soon as the auspices permitted, was ordered to hold an election to choose his colleague and to proclaim the Latin festival; the election he declared for the third day before the Nones of August, the festival for the third day before the Ides of August.
[
6]
At a time when men's minds were already filled with religious fears, to add to them prodigies were reported: at Tusculum, a firebrand was seen in the sky, and at Gabii the temple of Apollo and numerous private houses, at Gravisca the wall and gate, were struck by lightning. The Fathers ordered expiation for these, in a manner to be prescribed by the pontiffs.
[7]
[p. 235]
While the two consuls were delayed first by4 religious observances, then one consul by the death of the other and the election and the repetition of the Latin festival, in the meantime Gaius Claudius led the army toward Mutina, which the Ligurians had captured the year before.
[8]
Within three days from the beginning of the siege he recovered it and restored it to the colonists. Eight thousand of the Ligurians perished there within the walls;
[9]
and dispatches were at once sent to Rome, in which he not only stated the facts but also boasted that as a result of his valour and good fortune there was no longer an enemy of the Roman people on this side of the Alps, and that a large amount of land had been captured which could be divided individually among many thousands of men.
