27.8
While the
public attention was fixed on more important matters an old controversy was
revived on the occasion of the election of a Curio Maximus, in place of M.
Aemilius. There was one candidate, a plebeian, C. Mamilius Atellus, and the
patricians contended that no votes ought to be counted for him, as none but
a patrician had ever yet held that dignity. The tribunes, on being appealed to,
referred the matter to the senate, the senate left it to the decision of the
people. C. Mamilius Atellus was accordingly the first plebeian to be elected
Curio Maximus. P. Licinius, the Pontifex Maximus, compelled C. Valerius
Flaccus to be consecrated, against his will, a Flamen of Jupiter. C. Laetorius
was appointed one of the Keepers of the Sacred Books in place of Q.
Mucius Scaevola, deceased. Had not the bad repute into which Valerius had
fallen given place to a good and honourable character, I should have
preferred to keep silence as to the cause of his forcible consecration. It was
in consequence of his careless and dissolute life as a young man, which had
estranged his own brother Lucius and his other relations, that the Pontifex
Maximus made him a Flamen. When his thoughts became wholly occupied
with the performance of his sacred duties he threw off his former character
so completely that amongst all the young men in Rome, none held a higher
place in the esteem and approbation of the leading patricians, whether
personal friends or strangers to him. Encouraged by this general feeling he
gained sufficient self-confidence to revive a custom which, owing to the low
character of former Flamens, had long fallen into disuse; he took his seat in
the senate. As soon as he appeared L. Licinius the praetor had him removed.
He claimed it as the ancient privilege of the priesthood and pleaded that it
was conferred together with the toga praetexta and curule chair as belonging
to the Flamen's office. The praetor refused to rest the question upon obsolete
precedents drawn from the annalists and appealed to recent usage. No
Flamen of Jupiter, he argued, had exercised that right within the memory of
their fathers or their grandfathers. The tribunes, when appealed to, gave it as
their opinion that as it was through the supineness and negligence of
individual Flamens that the practice had fallen into abeyance, the priesthood
ought not to be deprived of its rights. They led the Flamen into the senate
amid the warm approval of the House and without any opposition even from
the praetor, though every one felt that Flaccus had gained his seat more
through the purity and integrity of his life than through any right inherent in
his office.
Before the consuls left for their provinces they raised two legions in
the City to supply the necessary drafts for the armies. The old City army was
made over by the consul Fulvius to his brother Caius for service in Etruria,
the legions which were in Etruria being sent to Rome. The consul Fabius
ordered his son Quintus to take to M. Valerius, the proconsul in Sicily, the
remains, so far as they had been got together, of the army of Fulvius. They
amounted to 4344 men. He was at the same time to receive from the
proconsul two legions and thirty quinqueremes. The withdrawal of these
legions from the island did not weaken the occupying force in either numbers
or efficiency, for besides the two old legions which had now been brought up
to full strength, the proconsul had a large body of Numidian deserters,
mounted and unmounted, and he also enlisted those Sicilians who had served
with Epicydes and the Carthaginians, and were seasoned soldiers. By
strengthening each of the Roman legions with these foreign auxiliaries he
gave them the appearance of two complete armies. One of these he placed
under L. Cincius, for the protection of that part of the island which had
constituted the kingdom of Hiero; the other he retained under his own
command for the defence of the rest of Sicily. He also broke up his fleet of
seventy ships so as to make it available for the defence of the entire
coast-line of the island. Escorted by Muttines' cavalry he made a tour of the
island in order to inspect the land and note which parts were cultivated and
which were uncultivated, and commend or rebuke the owners accordingly.
Owing to his care and attention there was so large a yield of corn that he
was able to send some to Rome, and also accumulate a store at Catina to
furnish supplies for the army which was to pass the summer at Tarentum.
