27.21
The
question of depriving Marcellus of his command was debated in the Circus
Flaminius before an enormous gathering in which all orders of the State were
represented. The tribune of the plebs launched his accusations, not only
against Marcellus, but against the nobility as a whole. It was due to their
crooked policy and lack of energy, he said, that Hannibal had for ten years
been holding Italy as his province; he had, in fact, passed more of his life
there than in Carthage. The Roman people were now reaping the fruits of the
extension of Marcellus' command, his army after its double defeat was now
passing the summer comfortably housed in Venusia. Marcellus made such a
crushing reply to the tribune's speech by simply recounting all that he had
done that not only was the proposal to deprive him of his command rejected,
but the next day all the centuries with absolute unanimity elected him consul.
T. Quinctius Crispinus, who was praetor at the time, was assigned to him as
his colleague. The next day came the election of praetors. Those elected
were P. Licinius Crassus Dives, the Pontifex Maximus, P. Licinius Varus,
Sextus Julius Caesar and Q. Claudius. In the middle of the elections
considerable anxiety was created by the intelligence that Etruria had
revolted. C. Calpurnius, who was acting in that province as propraetor, had
written to say that the movement was started at Arretium. Marcellus, the
consul elect, was hastily despatched thither to ascertain the position of
affairs, and if he thought it sufficiently serious to require the presence of his
army he was to transfer his operations from Apulia to Etruria. The Etruscans
were sufficiently intimidated by these measures to keep quiet. Envoys came
from Tarentum to ask for terms of peace under which they might retain their
liberties and their laws. The senate directed them to come again as soon as
Fabius arrived in Rome. The Roman Games and the Plebeian Games were
celebrated this year, each for one day. The curule aediles were L. Cornelius
Caudinus and Servius Sulpicius Galba; the plebeian aediles, C. Servilius and
Q. Caecilius Metellus. It was asserted that Servilius had no legal right to be
either tribune of the plebs or aedile, because there was sufficient evidence
that his father, who was supposed to have been killed by the Boii near
Mutina ten years previously when acting as agrarian commissioner, was
really alive and a prisoner in the hands of the enemy.
