43.14
Then
notice was given of the election of censors. Some of the leading men in the
commonwealth were candidates, such as C. Valerius Laevinus, L. Postumius
Albinus, P. Mucius Scaevola, M. Junius Brutus, C. Claudius Pulcher, and
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. The two latter were elected censors by the
people of Rome. Though, owing to the Macedonian war, greater care than
usual was being shown in the raising of new troops, the consuls complained
of the plebs in the senate, the younger men were avoiding enlistment. The
two praetors C. Sulpicius and M. Claudius put forward the case for the
plebs. The difficulty was due to the consuls, not because they were consuls,
but because they were popularity-hunting consuls, they made no man a
soldier against his will. That the senate might see how true this was, they, the
praetors, though they had less power and authority, were prepared, if the
senate approved, to carry the enlistment through. The senate quite approved
and the praetors were entrusted with the task, not without some insulting
remarks from the consuls. In order to help them the censors announced in a
meeting of the Assembly that they should make it a rule in their assessment
that in addition to the oath taken by all the citizens, the following questions
must be answered: "Are you under 46 years of age? Have you come forward
to be enrolled as required by the edict of the censors, C. Claudius and
Tiberius Sempronius? As long as these censors are in office, will you,
whenever troops are being raised, come forward to be enrolled if you have
not already been made a soldier?" Moreover, owing to a report that many
men in the legions in Macedonia were absent from the army, the
commanders having granted furloughs for all sorts of reasons, that they
might be popular, they issued an edict requiring all soldiers who had been
conscripted in the consulship of P. Aelius and C. Popilius or subsequently,
and were at the time in Italy, to return to Macedonia within thirty days after
making their returns to the censors. Those who were under the guardianship
of father or grandfather must give in the names of these to the censors. The
censors would investigate the reasons for discharge, and where men had
been discharged before serving their time simply as a favour they should
order them to resume their place in the ranks. This notice of the censors was
published in all the towns throughout Italy, and such a multitude of men of
military age flocked to Rome that the City was inconveniently crowded by
the unusual influx.
