31.20
About
this time L. Cornelius Lentulus returned from Spain where he had been
acting as proconsul. After giving a report of the successful operations which
he had conducted there for several years, he asked to be allowed to enter the
City in triumph. The senate were of opinion that his services quite deserved a
triumph, but they reminded him that there was no precedent for a general
who had not been Dictator or consul or praetor enjoying a triumph, and he
had held his command in Spain as proconsul, not as consul or praetor.
However, they went so far as to allow him to enter the City in ovation, in
spite of the opposition of Tiberius Sempronius Longus, one of the tribunes
of the plebs, who said that there was no precedent or customary authority
for that any more than for the other. In the end he gave way before the
unanimous feeling of the senate, and after they had passed their resolution,
Lentulus enjoyed his ovation. 43,000 pounds of silver and 2450 pounds of
gold, captured from the enemy, were carried in the procession. Out of the
spoil he distributed 120 ases to each of his men.
