41.
The two consuls led their armies against the Ligurians from different directions.
[2]
Postumius, with the first and third legions, attacked the mountains of Ballista and Letum, and by blocking with guards their narrow passes cut the enemy off from supplies and subdued them because of their complete lack of everything.
[3]
Fulvius, with the second and fourth legions, attacking from the side of Pisa the Ligurian Apuani (those of that people who lived along the Macra river), after receiving the surrender of about seven thousand men, loaded them on boats and sent them along the shore of the Tuscan sea to Naples.
[4]
Thence they were transferred to Samnium and given [p. 129]land among their countrymen.
[5]
Aulus Postumius1 destroyed the vineyards and burned the crops of the Ligurians of the mountains until, compelled by the disasters of war, they submitted and gave up their weapons.
[6]
Then Postumius proceeded by boat to explore the coast of the Ligurian Ingauni and Intemelii.
[7]
Before these consuls2 came to the army which was mobilized at Pisa, Aulus Postumius was incommand. The brother of Quintus Fulvius, Marcus Fulvius Nobilior3 —this Fulvius was tribune of the soldiers of the second legion —during his months4 dismissed the legion, binding the centurions by an oath that they would turn the money in to the quaestors for
[9]
the treasury.5 When this was announced [p. 131]to Aulus at Placentia —for he had happened to go6 there —following with the light cavalry the men who had been released, he punished and brought back to Pisa those of them whom he could overtake; as to the rest, he notified
[10]
the consul. On his motion the senate passed a decree that Marcus Fulvius should be banished to Spain beyond New Carthage;7 and a letter was given to him by the consul for delivery to Publius Manlius in Farther Spain; the soldiers were ordered to return to
[11]
the standards. As a mark of disgrace it was voted that the legion should receive only six months' pay for that year: the consul was directed to sell the person and property of any soldier who had not returned to the army.8
1 B.C. 180
2 The text and the meaning are alike uncertain. By hi consules one would infer that A. Postumius and Q. Fulvius were meant, but just below A. Postumius is named as the commander of troops at Pisa which belonged to the army of Q. Fulvius. Possibly hi consoles venirent should have been singular, referring to Fulvius, and the meaning is that Postumius preceded Fulvius to the province and assumed command temporarily of both consular armies. It is also possible that the name A. Postumius in this sentence is an error, or that another man of the name is meant, whom Livy fails to distinguish from the consul. If it is the consul, he took emergency action, notified the proper commander (Fulvius) of the troops concerned, and then proposed the exile of Nobilior.
3 The brother of either Q. Fulvius Flaccus —the consul of 180 B.C. or the consul of 179 B.C., who was at this time still in Spain or on the way back [8] —should have had the cognomen Flaccus, unless he had been adopted by some Fulvius Nobilior, and of such an adoption there is no record. There is moreover no Q. Fulvius Nobilior known to have lived at this time. One naturally assumes from Livy's language here that Q. Fulvii refers to the consul of 180 B.C., but no brother Marcus is mentioned elsewhere. The consul of 179 B.C. had a brother Marcus (xxx. 4 above), but it is not likely that after serving in some unspecified capacity under his brother in Spain in 181 B.C. he should have served as military tribune under his cousin in 180 B.C. in Italy. The consul of 179 B.C., during his censorship in 174 B.C., expelled from the senate his own brother, and Valerius Maximus (II. vii. 5, repeated by Frontinus, Strat. IV. i. 31) asserts that the degradation was due to the discharge of a legion of which he was military tribune. The brother is called simply Fulvius, with no praenomen. Livy (XLI. xxvii. 2) and Velleius (I. x. 6) likewise refer to the expulsion, the former calling the brother L. Fulvius and the latter Cn. Fulvius; neither gives any explanation of the censor's action. The evidence therefore is so contradictory as to produce hopeless confusion. All one can say is that at this time Livy apparently thought that the tribune was the brother of the consul under whom he served. In this connection, I believe that it has not been pointed out that the other censor of 174 B.C. was the other consul of 180 B.C., who, in sect. 10 below, procured the banishment of Nobilior. Perhaps he was actually more responsible than his colleague for the degradation. The cognomen Nobilior remains unexplained on any hypothesis.
4 The six tribunes in each legion rotated in the command of the entire legion.
5 This must be the portion of the pay which had not yet been distributed to the troops: cf. sect. 11 below.
6 B.C. 180
7 This is one of the earliest examples of relegatio.
8 The punishment of the soldiers seems relatively too severe, since in general they followed the instructions of presumably competent authority. The action of Nobilior, so far as one can judge, was entirely irregular, even if it was not technically illegal: probably no one had ever considered such an offence as possible and had prescribed no penalty. But the text of the entire chapter is so uncertain that one cannot feel sure that the episode is clearly and correctly interpreted.
Livy. Books XL-XLII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1938: published without copyright notice.
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