43.1
During this summer
the commander whom the consul had sent into Illyria attacked two wealthy
and prosperous towns. Cerenia was forced into surrender and he allowed the
inhabitants to retain their possessions, hoping by this example of his
clemency to induce the people of the strongly fortified city Carnuns to go
over to him. He was unable, however, either to compel them to surrender or
to take the place by siege, and in order that the fatigues which his men had
undergone in the two sieges might bring them some return, he sacked the
city which he had previously left unmolested. The other consul, who had had
Gaul assigned to him, C. Cassius, did nothing worth mentioning there and
tried, unsuccessfully however, to lead his legions through Illyria into
Macedonia. The senate heard of his proposed expedition through a
deputation sent from Aquileia. They explained that theirs was a new colony
and not yet in a satisfactory state of defence, lying as it did between two
hostile nations, the Histri and the Illyrians. They asked the senate to consider
how the colony could be protected. On the question being put to them
whether they would like that matter to be entrusted to the consul C. Cassius,
they replied that he had ordered his army to Aquileia and had started through
Illyria for Macedonia, -the thing was at first thought incredible, and the
senators all supposed that he had probably commenced hostilities against the
Carni or the Histri. Then the Aquileians observed that they knew nothing
further and would not venture to assert anything more than that corn for
thirty days had been given to the soldiers and that guides who knew the
routes from Italy to Macedonia had been found and taken with the army.
The senate were intensely indignant at the consul's having dared to take so
much upon him as to abandon his own province and trespass upon that of
another, leading his army by an unknown and perilous route through strange
tribes, and opening up the way for so many nations into Italy. They made a
decree in a crowded House that the praetor C. Sulpicius should select three
members of the senate who were to start that very day and, making their way
as speedily as possible, find the consul wherever he was, and warn him not to
make a hostile move against any nation without the authorisation of the
senate. The commissioners selected were M. Cornelius Cethegus, M. Fulvius
and P. Marcius Rex. Fears for the consul and the army prevented for the
time any attention being given to the fortification of Aquileia.
