1.
Publius Cornelius Scipio, the son of Gnaeus,1 and Manius Acilius Glabrio2 were inaugurated consuls, and were directed by the
[2??]
Fathers, before they took up the question of provinces, to perform sacrifices with full-grown victims at all the shrines at which the lectisternium3 was customarily celebrated throughout the greater part of the year, and to offer prayer that what the senate had in mind regarding the new war might turn out well and successfully for the senate and the Roman people.4
[3]
All these sacrifices were favourable and good omens were obtained from the first victims,5 and the interpretation of the haruspices was this, that in this war the boundaries of the Roman people were being enlarged and that victory and a triumph were foreshadowed.
[4]
When this had been reported, the Fathers, their minds freed of religious scruples, directed that the question be proposed to the assembly, whether they wished and ordered6 war to be entered upon with King Antiochus and those who had followed his path;7
[5]
if this motion should be adopted, then, if the consuls saw fit, they should lay the whole question before the senate.
[6]
Publius Cornelius carried the motion; the senate then decreed that the consuls should cast lots for the [p. 157]provinces of Italy and Greece8 ; the one to whom9 Greece should be allotted was instructed, in addition to that number of troops which the consul Lucius Quinctius had enlisted or levied for service in that province in accordance with the action of the senate,10 to take over the army which Marcus Baebius11 the praetor had the year before transported to Macedonia with the authorization of the senate;
[7]
he was permitted also, if the situation required it, to accept from the allies outside of Italy for auxiliaries not to exceed five thousand men.
[8]
It was the senate's pleasure that Lucius Quinctius, the consul of the preceding year, should be taken to this war as a lieutenant.12
[9]
The other consul, to whom Italy should have fallen as a province, was ordered to carry on war with the Boii, using whichever he preferred of the two armies which the preceding consuls had had, and to send the other. to Rome, and that these, as reserve legions,13 should be ready to move wherever the senate should direct.
1 B.C. 191
2 For their election cf. XXXV. xxiv. 5.
3 The lectisternium was a festival at which the images of the gods were exposed on couches (hence lecti-) on the streets and were served with food.
4 For the formula cf. XXI. v. 4.
5 The entrails of the victims were inspected; if the first animal sacrificed did not yield a favourable result the ceremony was repeated until good omens were secured.
6 For the formula cf. XXXI. vi. 1.
7 Cf. XXXV. xlix. 5; the alliterative phrase has a half-proverbial sound.
8 In XXXV. xli. 3 one province was left undetermined; the conduct of the war against Antiochus is now specifically named as that province, though the designation “Greece” is somewhat vague. (Livy's method separates events which probably were close together in time. In XXXV. xxiv. the imminence of the war demanded an early election; in XXXV. xli. the question of the provinces was under consideration, but the decision is reported only here.)
9 B.C. 191
10 Cf. XXXV. xli. 5.
11 Cf. XXXV. xxiv. 7.
12 Nothing more is heard of this proposal, and in xvii. 1 two other legati are mentioned. It has been reported (in XXXV. xxiii. 5) that Titus Quinctius was one of five legati sent to Greece to exercise auctoritas, and Plutarch (Flamininus xvii) speaks of him as legatus to Acilius. It is therefore probable that the sources confused the two Quinctii and that thus the tradition came into existence that one of them had been legatus to Acilius.
13 The urbanae legiones were normally new troops. The drafts for the year had been heavy, and, since Minucius also was in Gaul (XXXV. xx. 6), the forces there seemed sufficient. This gave Rome a mobile reserve of veterans.
Livy. Books XXXV-XXXVII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935: published without copyright notice.
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