28.
While this was going on in Asia things1 were quiet in the other provinces. At Rome2 the censors Titus Quinctius Flamininus and Marcus Claudius Marcellus chose the senate; as princeps senatus3 Publius Scipio Africanus was chosen for the third time; only four senators were passed over, none of whom had held curule
[2]
office. In the review of the equites4 also the censorship was quite
[3]
lenient. Contracts were let for the building of a substructure above the Aequimelium5 on the Capitoline and for the paving with flint of the road from the Porta Capena to the temple of
[4]
Mars.6 The Campanians asked the senate for a decision as to where they should be listed by the censors; it was decreed that they should be listed in Rome.7 There were great floods that year; the Tiber on twelve occasions overflowed the Campus Martius and the level districts of the
[5]
city.
The war with the Gauls in Asia having been finished by the consul Gnaeus Manlius, the other consul, Marcus Fulvius, after conquering the Aetolians, crossed to Cephallania8 and sent agents around the island to inquire of the cities whether they preferred to surrender themselves to the Romans or to try the fortune of
[6]
war. Fear prevailed upon all of them not to refuse submission. Hostages were then [p. 97]requisitioned and supplied by the cities, poor in proportion9 to their strength, twenty each by the Cranians, the Palensians and the
[7]
Sameans.10 The radiance of unexpected peace had shone upon Cephallania when suddenly one city, the Sameans, it is uncertain for what reason,
[8]
revolted. Because the city enjoyed a strategic position, they said that they were afraid that they would be compelled by the Romans to move away. But whether they had invented this alarm for themselves and in baseless terror had roused a sleeping evil, or the subject had been discussed by the Romans and reported to them, nothing has been ascertained, except that when they had already given hostages they suddenly closed their gates and not even in response to the prayers of their own people
[9]
—for the consul had sent some of them to the foot of the walls to stir up pity for their parents and fellowcountrymen —were they willing to abandon their undertaking. Then, when their replies showed no pacific intent, the siege of the city
[10]
began. He had all the equipment of artillery and siege-engines transferred from the siege of Ambracia, and what works had to be constructed the soldiers zealously
[11]
undertook. Accordingly, the battering-rams were moved up in two places and the walls attacked.
1 B.C. 189
2 Livy now enumerates briefly events in Rome during the period occupied by the Aetolian and Galatian campaigns. The narrative thus supplements that of XXXVII. lii —lviii incl.
3 Cf. XXXIV. xliv. 4 and the note. Scipio had received this distinction in 199 B.C. (when he had been one of the censors) and in 194 B.C.
4 The censors performed the function of revising the list of equites and removing from the list such individuals as the facts as they found them warranted.
5 Neither the meaning of the word nor the situation of the place is quite certain, although if it was near the vicus Iugarius the work may have been necessitated by the landslide of 192 B.C. (XXXV. xxi. 6).
6 This temple lay between a mile and two miles outside the Porta Capena on the Via Appia.
7 These were probably Campanians who had been driven from their homes during the Second Punic War and had settled in other parts of Italy. They were not, however, citizens of the towns in which they resided, and the censors could not take cognizance of them there.
8 Cf. ix. 10 above and the note.
9 B.C. 189
10 The text is hopelessly corrupt, and I have not indicated the lacuna in the translation. It is uncertain whether pro viribus goes with imperatos, with inopes, as I have translated it, or with something omitted. Moreover, the fourth city on the island (Thuc. II. xxx. 2; Plin. N.H. IV. 54) is not mentioned. Finally, the number of hostages is very large (cf. xi. 6 above), which ill accords with inopes, unless the interpretation here given of pro viribus nopes is accepted.
Livy. Books XXXVIII-XXXIX with an English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1936: published without copyright notice.
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