41.27
Q.
Fulvius Flaccus and A. Postumius Albinus were elected censors this year and
revised the roll of the senate. M. Aemilius Lepidus, the Pontifex Maximus,
was chosen as leader of the House. Nine names were struck off the roll, the
most important being those of M. Cornelius, Maluginensis, who had
commanded as praetor in Spain two years before, L. Cornelius Scipio, who
was at the time exercising the civic and alien jurisdictions, and L. Fulvius the
censor's brother, and according to Valerius Antias, co-proprietor with him of
the family estate. After the usual prayers and vows the consuls left for their
provinces. M. Aemilius was charged by the senate with the task of
suppressing the outbreak of the Petavines in Venetia, amongst whom, as
their own envoys reported, the strife of rival factions had led to civil wars.
The commissioners who had gone to Aetolia to put down similar
disturbances brought back word that the frenzy of the nation could not be
restrained. The consul's arrival was the salvation of the Petavines, and as he
had nothing else to do in his province he returned to Rome.
These censors were the first to make contracts for paving the
streets of the City with flints and the roads outside with gravel, and
footpaths raised at the sides, and also for the construction of bridges at
various points. They furnished the praetors and aediles with a stage, placed
the barriers in the Circus and provided egg-shaped balls to mark the number
of laps, turning-posts on the course and iron doors for the cages through
which the animals were sent into the arena. They also undertook the paving
of the ascent from the Forum to the Capitol with flint and the construction of
a colonnade from the temple of Saturn to the Capitol, and then on to the
senaculum, and beyond that to the senate-house. The market-place outside
the Porta Trigemina was paved with stone slabs and enclosed by a
palisading; they also repaired the Aemilian colonnade and made a flight of
stone steps on the slope leading from the Tiber. Inside the same gate they
paved the colonnade leading to the Aventine with flint and made a road from
the temple of Venus by the Clivus Publicius. These censors also signed
contracts for the erection of walls at Calatia and Auximium, and the money
which they received from the sale of portions of the State domain was spent
in building shops round the forums in both these places. Postumius gave out
that without the orders of the Roman senate or people he would not spend
their money, so Fulvius Flaccus, acting alone, built a temple to Jupiter at
Pisaurum and at Fundi and brought water to Placentia. He also paved a
street at Pisaurum with flint. At Sinuessa he added some suburban residences
with aviaries, constructed sewers, enclosed the place with a wall, built
colonnades and shops all round the forum, setting up three statues of Janus
there. These works contracted for by one of the censors were greatly
appreciated by the members of the colony. The censors were strict and
painstaking in the regulation of morals; several of the equites were deprived
of their horses.
