35.2
C.
Flaminius had not left Rome when these things happened in Spain. Naturally
he and his friends talked much more about the defeats than about the
successes, and as a widespread war had broken out in his province and he
was going to take over from Sex. Digitius a miserable remnant of an army,
and that utterly demoralised, he had tried to induce the senate to assign to
him one of the City legions. From this and from the force which the senate
had empowered him to raise he could select 6200 infantry and 300 cavalry,
and with that legion -for there was not much to be expected from Digitius'
army -he said he could manage very well. The senior members of the House
said that their decisions must not depend upon rumours started by private
individuals in the interest of particular magistrates, and that no importance
should be attached to anything but the despatches of the praetors from their
provinces or the reports which their officers brought home. If there was a
sudden rising in Spain they considered that emergency troops ought to be
promptly raised by the praetor outside Italy. What they had in their minds
was that these troops should be raised in Spain. Valerius Antias asserts that
C. Flaminius went to Sicily to enlist men, and that whilst on his way from
there to Spain he was carried by a storm to Africa, where he administered
the military oath to soldiers who had belonged to the army of P. Africanus.