1.
...Aepulo1 was said to have armed a people2 which had been kept in peace by his father and thus to have won great favour with the youth, who were desirous of plundering. When a council regarding a war with the Histrians3 was held by the consul,4 some argued that it should be begun at once, before the enemy should be able to draw his forces together, others that the senate should first be consulted.5
[2]
That opinion prevailed which proposed no delay. The consul, setting out from Aquileia, encamped near the lake of Timavus; this lake lies close to the sea.
[3]
Gaius Furius,6 the duumvir navalis, came to the same place with a fleet of ten ships. To oppose the fleet of the Illyrians duumviri navales had been elected, who, with twenty ships to protect the coast of the upper7 [p. 187]sea, were to make Ancona the hinge or pivot,8 so9 to speak; thence Lucius Cornelius10 was to defend the coast to the right as far as Tarentum, Gaius Furius the coast to the left as far as Aquileia.
[4]
These ships were sent to the nearest harbour in Histrian territory with transports and a large quantity of supplies, and the consul, following with the legions, encamped about five miles from the sea.
[5]
In a short time a market, visited by throngs, was established at the harbor, and from there everything was transported to the camp.
[6]
And in order that this might be done in greater safety, outposts were established on all sides of the camp: facing Histria there was a permanent post, and an emergency cohort from Placentia stationed there; to a position between the sea and the camp, with the additional mission of protecting water-carriers at the river, Marcus Aebutius, military tribune of the second legion, was ordered to bring two maniples of his troops;
[7]
Titus and Gaius Aelius, tribunes of the soldiers, had led the third legion, which was to guard the parties searching for forage and wood, on the road which leads to Aquileia.
[8]
In the same area, about a mile distant, was the camp of the Gauls:11 their chief, Catmelus, was in command of not more than three thousand armed men.
1 The loss of the first two quaternions of V, the only manuscript containing these books (the second, which contained the text from i. 1 to edic. in ix. 10 was lost between 1531 and 1669, see the Preface), has deprived us of the beginning of Book XLI. Comparison with the Periocha shows that a relatively large number of topics was treated in the lost chapters. The details which I add in the translation have been derived from Florus I. xxvi. (II. x.); I have added only enough to give the sentence a possible grammatical construction.
2 B.C. 178
3 For earlier dealings with the Histrians, cf. XXXIX. Iv. 4; XL. xxvi. 3
4 A. Manlius Volso (XL. lix. 4); his appointment to Gaul has not been mentioned, but was probably reported in a lost chapter.
5 There is no record of a declaration of war against the Histrians, except as one may be implied in XL. XXVI. 3. Florus (l.c.) says that they had earlier assisted the Aetolians. Technically Manlius should have consulted the senate before proceeding against them, since their territory lay outside his province: cf. vii. 7 below.
6 His choice in this capacity has not been mentioned before.
7 The Adriatic.
8 Cf. XL. xviii. 8 and the note.
9 B.C. 178
10 Cf. XL. xlii. 8.
11 Gallic auxiliaries of the Romans: cf. v. 9 below.
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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