1.
When the consuls Lucius Postumius Albinus and
1 Marcus Popilius Laenas had first of all referred to the senate the question of the provinces and the armies, the Ligurians were decreed to them both, with the provision that they should each enlist legions with which to hold this province —two
[
2]
were decreed to each —and for each also ten thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry of the allies of the Latin confederacy, and as a reinforcement for Spain three thousand Roman infantry and two hundred cavalry.
[
3]
It was also ordered that fifteen hundred Roman infantry and one hundred cavalry be enrolled, taking whom the praetor to whose lot Sardinia should have fallen was to cross to Corsica to prosecute the war there; in the meantime Marcus Atilius, the old praetor, was to hold the province of Sardinia.
[
4]
The praetors then cast lots for the provinces.
[
5]
The civil jurisdiction was received by Aulus Atilius Serranus, that between citizens and aliens by Gaius Cluvius Saxula, Nearer Spain by Numerius Fabius Buteo, Farther Spain by Marcus
2 Matienus, Sicily by Marcus Furius Crassipes, Sardinia by Gaius Cicereius.
[
6]
The senate decreed that before the magistrates departed for their provinces, Lucius Postumius the consul should proceed to Campania to determine the boundaries between the public and private lands,
[p. 295]since it was well known that private persons, by
3 gradually moving their boundaries outward, were occupying a very large part of it.
4
[
7]
Postumius being angry at the people of Praeneste because, when he had journeyed thither as a private citizen for the purpose of offering sacrifice in the temple of Fortune, no mark of respect
5 had been shown by that people, either officially or unofficially, before he set out from Rome sent a message to Praeneste to the effect that the magistrate should come out to meet him, that they should engage at public expense quarters for his entertainment, and that when he should leave there transport-animals should be in readiness. Before his consulship no one had ever put the allies to any trouble or expense in any respect.
6
[
8]
Magistrates were supplied with mules and tents and all other military equipment, precisely in order that they might not give any such command to the allies.
[
9]
The senators generally had private relations of hospitality,
7 which they generously and courteously cultivated, and their homes at Rome were open to the guests at whose houses they themselves were wont to lodge.
[
10]
Ambassadors who were sent on short notice to any place would call upon the towns through which their route took them, for one pack-animal each: no other expense did the allies incur in behalf of Roman officials.
[
11]
The anger of the consul, even if it was justifiable, should nevertheless not have found vent
[p. 297]while he was in office, and its silent
[
12??]
acceptance by the
8 Praenestines, whether too modest or too fearful, established, as by an approved precedent, the right of magistrates to make demands of this sort, which grew more burdensome day by day.