39.6
The time
for the consular elections was now at hand, and as M. Aemilius, to whom
the task of conducting them had been assigned, was unable to undertake it,
C. Flaminius went to Rome for the purpose. The consuls elected were
Spurius Postumius Albinus and Q. Marcius Philippus. The new praetors
were T. Maenius, P. Cornelius Sulla, C. Calpurnius Piso, M. Licinius
Lucullus, C. Aurelius Scaurus and L. Quinctius Crispinus. At the close of the
year, after the new magistrates had been appointed, Cneius Manlius Vulso
celebrated his triumph over the Asiatic Gauls. The reason why he deferred
his triumph to so late a date was his anxiety to avoid a prosecution under the
Petillian Law whilst Q. Terentius Culleo was praetor, and the possibility of
being caught by the flames of the verdict which condemned Scipio. He
thought the judges would be even more hostile to him than they had been to
Scipio owing to reports which had reached Rome of his allowing the soldiers
every kind of licence and completely destroying the discipline which his
predecessor Scipio had maintained. Nor were the stories of what had gone
on in his province far away from men's eyes the only things that discredited
him. Still worse things were witnessed amongst his soldiers every day' for it
was through the army serving in Asia that the beginnings of foreign luxury
were introduced into the City. These men brought into Rome for the first
time, bronze couches, costly coverlets, tapestry, and other fabrics, and -what was at that time considered gorgeous furniture -pedestal tables and
silver salvers. Banquets were made more attractive by the presence of girls
who played on the harp and sang and danced, and by other forms of
amusement, and the banquets themselves began to be prepared with greater
care and expense. The cook whom the ancients regarded and treated as the
lowest menial was rising in value, and what had been a servile office came to
be looked upon as a fine art. Still what met the eye in those days was hardly
the germ of the luxury that was coming.