Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 38
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D., Ed.

^{1 2} and adjust themselves to the laws and institutions of the Achaeans: thus, they said, they would all become one body and would agree more readily on all matters. They obeyed no command more willingly than the order to tear down their walls,³ nor were they more reluctant to accept any than the one which required that the exiles be [2] restored. The decree for their restoration was passed at Tegea in the common council of the Achaeans,⁴ and when the report was submitted that the foreign auxiliaries had been discharged and that the newly-registered Lacedaemonians —for so they called the men who had been set free by the tyrants —had left the city and had scattered through the country, they ordered the praetor, before the army was dismissed, to go with the light-armed troops and arrest men of this category and sell them under the law governing [3] booty. Many were arrested and sold. Out of this money, with the permission of the Achaeans, they rebuilt a portico at Megalopolis which the Lacedaemonians had destroyed. Also the ager Belbinates,⁵ which had been wrongfully seized by the tyrants of the Lacedaemonians, was given back to that state under an old decree of the Achaeans which had been passed while Philip, the son of Amyntas, was on the [4] throne.⁶ The Lacedaemonian state, thus, so to speak, emasculated, was long at the mercy of the Achaeans; yet nothing did them so much injury as the subversion of the discipline [p. 115]of Lycurgus to which they had been accustomed for⁷ eight hundred years.⁸

[5] XXXV. From the council at which the case of the Achaeans and the Lacedaemonians had been argued before the consul,⁹ Marcus Fulvius, since his year was now near its end, set out for Rome to hold the elections and announced the selection as consuls of Marcus Valerius Messala and Gaius Livius Salinator, when he had secured the defeat of his personal foe, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who was a candidate that year [6] also.¹⁰ Next the praetors were elected; Quintus Marcius Philippus, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Gaius Stertinius, Gaius Atinius, Publius Claudius Pulcher, and Lucius Manlius Acidinus. When the elections were over it was decided that the consul Marcus Fulvius should return to the province and the army, and for him and for his colleague Gnaeus Manlius the imperium was prolonged for one [7] year. In that year in the temple of Hercules a statue of the divinity himself was installed in accordance with a decree of the decemvirs, and a six-horse chariot of gold was set up on the Capitoline by Publius Cornelius;¹¹ the inscription read that “one who had been consul had dedicated it.”¹² Also twelve gilded shields were set up by the curule aediles, Publius Claudius Pulcher and Servius Sulpicius Galba, out of the money which they had condemned the grain-dealers to pay for hoarding the [8] grain-supply; likewise the plebeian aedile, Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, [p. 117]after convicting only one defendant —for they had¹³ prosecuted independently¹⁴ —dedicated two gilded statues; his colleague Aulus Caecilius condemned no one. The Roman Games in their entirety were repeated three times, the Plebeian Games five times.

[9] Then, when Marcus Valerius Messala and Gaius¹⁵ Livius Salinator had been inaugurated as consuls on the Ides of March, they consulted the senate regarding the general policy and regarding the provinces and armies. No change was made respecting Aetolia and Asia; to one consul was assigned Pisa together with the Ligurians, to the other Gaul, as their [10] provinces. They were directed to arrange between them or to cast lots and to enroll new armies of two legions each and to requisition from the allies of the Latin confederacy fifteen thousand infantry for each and twelve hundred cavalry.¹⁶ The lot gave to Messala the Ligurians and to Salinator Gaul. Then the praetors cast lots: Marcus Claudius received the jurisdiction between citizens and Publius Claudius that between citizens and aliens; Quintus Marcius Sicily, Gaius Stertinius Sardinia, Lucius Manlius Nearer Spain and Gaius Atinius Farther Spain.