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19. Many dreadful prodigies were both observed in Rome that year and reported from elsewhere. [2] In the precinct of Vulcan and Concord1 there was a shower of blood; and the pontiffs announced that the spears2 had been shaken, and the people of Lanuvium sent word that the image of Juno Sospita had shed tears. [3] The pestilence was so severe in the country and in the villages and rural communities and in the City that Libitina3 could scarce take care of so many funerals. [4] Being disturbed by these prodigies and deaths, the Fathers decreed, both that the consuls should sacrifice full-grown victims to whatever gods it seemed proper, and that the decemvirs should consult the Books.4 [5] According to their decree one day of prayer was proclaimed at all the banquet-tables of the gods5 in Rome. On their suggestion also there was both a decree of the senate and an edict of the consuls that for three days [p. 63]throughout Italy there should be a supplication and6 festival. [6] The violence of the plague was so great that when, on account of a rising of the Corsicans and a revolt begun by the Ilienses in Sardinia, it was decided to enlist eight thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry among the allies of the Latin confederacy, whom Marcus Pinarius the praetor should take with him to Sardinia, the consuls reported that so [7??] many deaths had occurred among the men and so great was the number of sick that this number of troops could not be raised. [8] The shortage in the number of troops the praetor was directed to make up from the army of Gnaeus Baebius the proconsul, who was wintering at Pisa, and thence to cross to Sardinia.

[9] To Lucius Duronius, the praetor to whom the province of Apulia had been allotted, has also been assigned an investigation to the Bacchanalia, from which some seeds, as it were, left over from the earlier troubles, had already begun to show themselves in the previous year; but the inquiries had been begun before the praetor Lucius Pupius rather than brought to any conclusion.7 [10] The Fathers ordered the new praetor to extirpate the trouble, to prevent it from again secretly spreading furthur. [11] Also the consuls, with the authority of the senate, brought before the people a law on bribery.8

1 Cf. XXXIX. xlvi. 5; lvi. 6.

2 They were probably the hastae Martiae at Rome (Gellius IV. vi. 1-2). There were similar spears at Praeneste (XXIV. x. 10).

3 >7 The goddess of funerals.

4 The Sibylline Books (XXXI. xii. 9 and the note).

5 9 Cf. XXXI. viii, 2 and the note.

6 B.C. 181

7 Cf. XXXIX. xli. 6.

8 The last law to control bribery had been passed in 358 B.C. (VII. xv. 12). No special reason for a new law at this time is known, unless it was the vigorous campaign reported in XXXIX. xxxii. It is not certain whether one law or two passed at this time, and the only clause recorded fixes as the penalty disqualification for holding office for a period of ten years (Scholia Bobiensia, p. 361).

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load focus Notes (W. Weissenborn, 1875)
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load focus Summary (English, Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., 1938)
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load focus Summary (Latin, Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., 1938)
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load focus Latin (Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., 1938)
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load focus English (William A. McDevitte, Sen. Class. Mod. Ex. Schol. A.B.T.C.D., 1850)
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  • Commentary references to this page (18):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 35.40
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 36.36
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 39.28
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 39.3
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 39.32
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 39.46
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 39.46
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.12
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.14
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.21
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.21
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.8
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 42.10
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 42.20
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 42.20
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 43.13
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 43.14
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, book 45, commentary, 45.2
  • Cross-references to this page (26):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Libitina
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Pestis
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Prodigia
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Senatus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Supplicatio
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Ambitus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Area
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Vulcanus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Concordiae
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Corsi
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Ilienses
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Iuno
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), AM´BITUS
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), BACCHANA´LIA
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), FUNUS
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), LEX
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CO´RSICA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ILIENSES
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LANU´VIUM
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ROMA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), SARDI´NIA
    • Smith's Bio, Conco'rdia
    • Smith's Bio, Duro'nia Gens
    • Smith's Bio, Libiti'na
    • Smith's Bio, So'spita
    • Smith's Bio, Vulca'nus
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (9):
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