42.21
Up to
this time the consuls had not left for their province. They did not comply
with the desire of the senate to bring up the question of Popilius, and the
senators were determined not to make any decrees till this was settled. The
feeling against Popilius was intensified by a despatch received from him in
which he stated that he had fought another battle with the Statellati and had
killed 6000 of them. This iniquitous proceeding of his drove the rest of the
Ligurians to arms. Now, however, it was not only the absent Popilius who
was attacked in the senate for having, in defiance of all law, human and
divine, commenced an aggressive war upon a people who had made their
submission; the consuls also were severely censured for not having gone to
their province. This attitude of the senate determined two of the tribunes of
the plebs -M. Marcius Sermo and Q. Marcius Scylla -to warn the consuls
that if they did not go to their province they should impose a fine on them.
They also read to the senate the terms of a proposal which they intended to
bring forward regarding the treatment of the Ligurians after they had made
their submission. It was to the effect that where any of the Statellati who had
made their surrender had not been restored to liberty by August 1, the senate
should on oath empower a magistrate to seek out and punish the persons
through whose criminal act they had passed into slavery. This order, thus
sanctioned by the senate, was announced to the Assembly. Before the
consuls left the City the senate gave an audience to C. Cicereius in the
temple of Bellona. He gave an account. of what he had done in Corsica, but
his request for a triumph was refused, and he celebrated his triumph on the
Alban Mount, without the sanction of the senate, a thing which had become
quite customary. Marcius's proposal about the Ligurians received the hearty
assent of the plebs, and was carried. Acting on this plebiscite, C. Licinius
consulted the senate as to whom they would choose to conduct the enquiry,
and the senators ordered him to conduct it himself.
