38.43
M.
Fulvius and M. Aemilius were on bad terms with one another, the main
cause being Aemilius' suspicion that it was owing to Fulvius that he had been
made consul two years later than he ought to have been. In order to stir up
odium against him, he introduced into the senate some delegates from
Ambracia who had been suborned to bring charges against him. They
asserted that while they were at peace and had done all that the former
consuls had required of them and were prepared to show the same obedience
to M. Fulvius, war was declared against them, their fields were ravaged, the
terror created by the bloodshed and pillage reached their city and compelled
them to close their gates. Then they were besieged, their city carried by
storm, and all the horrors of war, fire and slaughter, wreaked upon them,
their homes demolished, their city completely sacked, their wives and
children dragged off into slavery, their goods carried away, and what they
felt most bitterly of all, the temples in the city stripped of their adornments,
the statues of their gods, or rather the gods themselves, torn from their
shrines and carried away. All that was left to the Ambracians were the naked
walls and the columns to receive their worship or hear their supplications
and prayers. Whilst they were stating these grievances the consul, as
previously arranged, questioned them as to other charges, and elicited
answers made with apparent reluctance.
The House was impressed by these statements and the other consul
took up the cause of Fulvius. He pointed out that the Ambracians had taken
an old and outworn course; just in the same way had M. Marcellus been
accused by the Syracusans, and Q. Fulvius by the Campanians. Why might
not the senate allow charges to be brought on similar grounds against T.
Quinctius by Philip, against Manius Acilius and L. Scipio by Antiochus,
against Cn. Manlius by the Gauls, against M. Fulvius himself by the
Aetolians and Cephallanians? "Ambracia," he went on to say, "has been
taken by storm, the statues and temple ornaments have been carried away,
and everything has happened which usually does happen at the capture of
cities. Do you think, senators, that either I, speaking for Fulvius, or M.
Fulvius himself, will deny this? He is going to demand a triumph just because
he has done all this, and will carry in front of his chariot and fasten on the
pillars of his house the captured Ambracia and the statues which he is alleged
to have criminally removed. There is nothing to separate the case of the
Ambracians from that of the Aetolians, the cause of the one is the cause of
the other. My colleague must display his enmity in some other case or if he
prefers the present one, he must keep his Ambracians till Fulvius returns. I
will not allow any decree to be passed in respect of either the Ambracians or
the Aetolians in M. Fulvius' absence."
