22.25
This
state of affairs led to constant discussions in the senate and the Assembly.
Amidst the universal rejoicing the Dictator stood alone; he declared that he
did not place the slightest credence in either the report or the despatch, and
even if everything was as it was represented, he dreaded success more than
failure. On this M. Metilius, tribune of the plebs, said it was really becoming
intolerable that the Dictator, not content with standing in the way of any
success being achieved when he was on the spot, should now be equally
opposed to it after it had been achieved in his absence. "He was deliberately
wasting time in his conduct of the war in order to remain longer in office as
sole magistrate and retain his supreme command. One consul has fallen in
battle, the other has been banished far from Italy under pretext of chasing the
Carthaginian fleet; two praetors have their hands full with Sicily and
Sardinia, neither of which provinces needs a praetor at all at this time; M.
Minucius, Master of the Horse, has been almost kept under guard to prevent
him from seeing the enemy or doing anything which savoured of war. And
so, good heavens! not only Samnium, where we retreated before the
Carthaginians as though it were some territory beyond the Ebro, but even
the country of Falernum, have been utterly laid waste, while the Dictator was
sitting idly at Casilinum, using the legions of Rome to protect his own
property. The Master of the Horse and the army, who were burning to fight,
were kept back and almost imprisoned within their lines; they were deprived
of their arms as though they were prisoners of war. At length, no sooner had
the Dictator departed than, like men delivered from a blockade, they left
their entrenchments and routed the enemy and put him to flight. Under these
circumstances I was prepared, if the Roman plebs still possessed the spirit
they showed in old days, to take the bold step of bringing in a measure to
relieve Q. Fabius of his command; as it is I shall propose a resolution
couched in very moderate terms -'that the authority of the Master of the
Horse be made equal to that of the Dictator.' But even if this resolution is
carried Q. Fabius must not be allowed to rejoin the army before he has
appointed a consul in place of C. Flaminius."
As the line which the Dictator was taking was in the highest degree
unpopular, he kept away from the Assembly. Even in the senate he produced
an unfavourable impression when he spoke in laudatory terms of the enemy
and put down the disasters of the past two years to rashness and lack of
generalship on the part of the commanders. The Master of the Horse, he
said, must be called to account for having fought against his orders. If, he
went on to say, the supreme command and direction of the war remained in
his hands, he would soon let men know that in the case of a good general
Fortune plays a small part, intelligence and military skill are the main factors.
To have preserved the army in circumstances of extreme danger without any
humiliating defeat was in his opinion a more glorious thing than the slaughter
of many thousands of the enemy. But he failed to convince his audience, and
after appointing M. Atilius Regulus as consul, he set off by night to rejoin his
army. He was anxious to avoid a personal altercation on the question of his
authority, and left Rome the day before the proposal was voted upon. At
daybreak a meeting of the plebs was held to consider the proposal. Though
the general feeling was one of hostility to the Dictator and goodwill towards
the Master of the Horse, few were found bold enough to give this feeling
utterance and recommend a proposal which after all was acceptable to the
plebs as a body, and so, notwithstanding the fact that the great majority were
in favour of it, it lacked the support of men of weight and influence. One
man was found who came forward to advocate the proposal, C. Terentius
Varro, who had been praetor the year before, a man of humble and even
mean origin. The tradition is that his father was a butcher who hawked his
meat about and employed his son in the menial drudgery of his trade.
