Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 40
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

37. [49] [48] [47] [46] [45] [44] [43] [42] [41] [40] [39] [38] [37] [36] [35] [34] [33] [32] [31] [30] [29] [28] [27] [26] [25] [24] [23] [22] [21] [20] [19] [18] [17] [16] [15] [14] [13] [12] [11] [10] The praetor Tiberius Minucius died and not much later the consul Gaius Calpurnius, and many other distinguished men of all ranks. Finally the disaster came to be regarded as a portent. [2] Gaius Servilius the pontifex maximus was directed to inquire into the manner of averting the wrath of the gods and the decemvirs to look into the Books; the consul was ordered to vow gifts and to give gilded statues to Apollo, Aesculapius and Salus;¹ these he vowed and gave. [3] The decemvirs proclaimed a two day period of prayer for health, not only in the City but in all the rural settlements and communities; all people above the age of twelve, wearing garlands [p. 117]and carrying laurel branches in their hands, made² the supplication. [4] Moreover, the suspicion that human guilt was to blame had entered men's minds; and the investigation of the poisonings which had taken place in the City or nearer to it than ten miles was, by decree of the senate, entrusted to the praetor Gaius Claudius, who had been chosen to succeed Tiberius Minuicius, and beyond the tenth milestone throughout the rural settlements and communities, to Gaius Maenius before he departed for Sardinia. The death of the consul was especially suspicious. [5] He was said to have been killed by his wife Quarta Hostilia. [6] When indeed her son Quintus Fulvius Flaccus³ was proclaimed consul in place of his stepfather, the death of Piso began to cause many more ugly rumours; and witnesses came forth who said that after Albinus and Piso had been declared consuls at an election in which Flaccus had suffered defeat, Flaccus had been upbraided by his mother because this was now the third time⁴ that his candidacy for the consulship had been refused; let him, she had added, prepare to apply again: within two months she would bring it to pass that he should become consul. [7] Among much other testimony bearing on the case, this one speech, being all too well confirmed by the actual result, availed to bring about the conviction of Hostilia.

[8] In the beginning of this spring, while the levy was detaining the new consuls in Rome and then the death of one and the election to choose a new consul in his place had caused delay in all business of state, in the interval Publius Cornelius [9??] and Marcus Baebius, who had in their consulship done nothing worth recording, led the army against the Ligurian Apuani.

[p. 119]