Before the consuls left for their provinces it was resolved that various portents should be expiated according to the directions of the pontiffs. [2] The temple of Juno-Lucina in Rome was struck so seriously by lightning that the pediment and great doors were much damaged. At Puteoli, one of the gates and numerous portions of the wall were similarly struck and two men killed. [3] At Nursea it was definitely reported that a thunderstorm suddenly burst out of a cloudless sky; there also two men were killed, both freemen. [4] The people of Tusculum announced that a shower of earth had fallen in their district, and at Reate a mule was said to have had a foal. [5] These portents were duly expiated and the Latin Festival was celebrated a second time owing to the Laurentians not having received their due portion of the sacrifice. [6] To allay the religious fears which these various incidents aroused, a solemn intercession was offered, as directed by the Keepers of the Sacred Books, to those deities which, after consulting the rolls, they named. [7] Ten free-born boys and ten maidens, all of whose fathers and mothers were alive, were employed about that sacrifice, and the Keepers of the Sacred Books offered up sacrifices of sucklings in the night. Before his departure, P. Cornelius Scipio erected an arch on the Capitol facing the road up to the temple, with seven gilded human statues and two equestrian ones. [8] He also set up in front of the arch two marble basins. During this time forty-three of the Aetolian leading men, including Damocritus and his brother, were brought to Rome by two cohorts sent by Manius Acilius. On their arrival they were thrown into the Lautumiae, and the cohorts were ordered to the army. [9] A deputation came from Ptolemy and Cleopatra to offer their congratulations on the expulsion of Antiochus from Greece by the consul Acilius, and to urge the senate to send an army into Asia, as not only in Asia but even throughout Syria there was a universal feeling of alarm. [10] The two sovereigns declared their readiness to carry out the behests of the senate, and a vote of thanks to them was passed. [11] Each member of the deputation received a present of 4000 ases.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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