22.57
When
the despatches from the consul and the praetor had been read it was decided
that M. Claudius, who was commanding the fleet stationed at Ostia, should
be sent to the army at Canusium and instructions forwarded to the consul
requesting him to hand over his command to the praetor and come to Rome
as soon as he possibly could consistently with his duty to the republic. For,
over and above these serious disasters, considerable alarm was created by
portents which occurred. Two Vestal virgins, Opimia and Floronia, were
found guilty of unchastity. One was buried alive, as is the custom, at the
Colline Gate, the other committed suicide. L. Cantilius, one of the pontifical
secretaries, now called "minor pontiffs," who had been guilty with Floronia,
was scourged in the Comitium by the Pontifex Maximus so severely that he
died under it. This act of wickedness, coming as it did amongst so many
calamities, was, as often happens, regarded as a portent, and the decemvirs
were ordered to consult the Sacred Books. Q. Fabius Pictor was sent to
consult the oracle of Delphi as to what forms of prayer and supplication they
were to use to propitiate the gods, and what was to be the end of all these
terrible disasters. Meanwhile, in obedience to the Books of Destiny, some
strange and unusual sacrifices were made, human sacrifices amongst them. A
Gaulish man and a Gaulish woman and a Greek man and a Greek woman
were buried alive under the Forum Boarium. They were lowered into a stone
vault, which had on a previous occasion also been polluted by human
victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings.
When the gods were believed to be duly propitiated, M. Claudius
Marcellus sent from Ostia 1500 men who had been enrolled for service with
the fleet to garrison Rome; the naval legion (the third) he sent on in advance
with the military tribunes to Teanum Sidicinum, and then, handing the fleet
over to his colleague, P. Furius Philus, hastened on by forced marches a few
days later to Canusium. On the authority of the senate M. Junius was
nominated Dictator and Ti. Sempronius Master of the Horse. A levy was
ordered, and all from seventeen years upwards were enrolled, some even
younger; out of these recruits four legions were formed and 1000 cavalry.
They also sent to the Latin confederacy and the other allied states to enlist
soldiers according to the terms of their treaties. Armour, weapons, and other
things of the kind were ordered to be in readiness, and the ancient spoils
gathered from the enemy were taken down from the temples and colonnades.
The dearth of freemen necessitated a new kind of enlistment; 8000 sturdy
youths from amongst the slaves were armed at the public cost, after they had
each been asked whether they were willing to serve or no. These soldiers
were preferred, as there would be an opportunity of ransoming them when
taken prisoners at a lower price.
