2.
The Carthaginians that year brought to Rome the first instalment of the tribute imposed upon them.1
[2]
Because the quaestors reported that it was not [p. 159]pure silver and since a fourth part of it melted away2 -3 while they were testing it, the Carthaginians made up the shortage in the amount of money by borrowing in Rome.
[3]
At their request that, if the senate was now favourably disposed, their hostages should be returned to them, one hundred hostages were given back;
[4]
hope for the rest was offered if they remained faithful. When they asked also
[5]
that the hostages who were not returned should be moved from Norba, where they were not comfortable, to some other place, it was permitted them to go to Signia or Ferentinum.
[6]
A concession was also made to the people of Gades, who asked that no prefect4 should be sent to Gades contrary to what had been agreed upon with Lucius Marcius Septimus5 when they put themselves under the protection of the Roman people. Also, when ambassadors from Narnia complained that the colonists there were not up to the number determined,6 and that some persons of alien race, mingling with them, were conducting themselves as colonists, by reason of this report the consul Lucius Cornelius was directed to appoint a board of three to investigate.
[7]
This board consisted of Publius and Sextus Aelius —both surnamed Paetus —and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus. What had been granted to the people of Narnia, to wit, the increasing of the number of colonists, the people of Cosa asked but did not obtain.
1 An initial payment was reported at XXX. xliv. 4.
2 The quaestors melted up sample coins and the bullion proved to be 25 per cent. short in weight. This was due to the presence of base metal in the coins.
3 B.C. 199
4 The term praefectus was applied sometimes to a resident military governor, sometimes to a minor official sent by a provincial governor to administer affairs in individual communities, sometimes to an official designated to oversee civil and legal administration in a town. In Italy, communities so governed enjoyed only limited privileges. Probably a person of the last class is meant here.
5 Marcius, a centurion, assumed command of the Roman forces in Spain after the death of the two Scipios (Cicero, pro Balbo, 34), and in 206 B.C. concluded a treaty with the people of Gades (XXVIII. xxxvii. 10).
6 The act establishing each colony determined the number of colonists assigned. The burdens imposed upon a colony were proportioned to the legal, and not to the actual number of colonists.
Livy. Books XXXI-XXXIV with an English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935: no copyright notice.
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