History of Rome

​These things were performed in Spain under the leadership and auspices of P. Scipio. He himself, having handed over the province to L. Lentulus and L. Manlius Acidinus, returned to Rome with ten ships, and when the Senate was granted to him outside the city in the temple of Bellona, ​he detailed what things he had performed in Spain, how many times he had fought in pitched battles, how many towns he had taken from the enemy by force, and what nations he had brought under the dominion of the Roman people: that against four generals ​and four victorious armies he had gone into Spain, and had left no Carthaginian in those lands.

​Because of these achievements, a hope of a triumph was rather sounded out than persistently sought, because it was established that up to that day no one had triumphed who had performed achievements without a magistracy.

​When the Senate was dismissed, he entered the city and carried before him into the treasury fourteen thousand three hundred and forty-two pounds of silver and a great quantity of coined silver.

​Then L. Veturius Philo held the assembly for electing consuls, and all the centuries with immense favor declared P. Scipio consul;

​added to him as colleague was P. Licinius Crassus, the pontifex maximus. Moreover, it is recorded in memory that this assembly was attended with a greater crowd than any other during that war:

​they had assembled from all sides not only for the sake of voting, but also of seeing P. Scipio, and they kept flocking both to his house and to the Capitol when he was sacrificing, as he sacrificed to Jupiter with a hundred bulls vowed in Spain, and they pledged in their minds ​that just as C. Lutatius had ended the former Punic war, so P. Cornelius would end this one which was imminent, and, ​just as he had expelled the Carthaginians from all Spain, so he would expel them from Italy; and they were destinating Africa as his province, just as if the war had already been finished in Italy.

​Then the praetorian assembly was held. There were elected two who were then plebeian aediles, Sp. Lucretius and Cn. Octavius, and from private citizens Cn. Servilius Caepio and L. Aemilius Papus.

​In the fourteenth year of the Punic War, when P. Cornelius Scipio and P. Licinius Crassus entered upon the consulship, the provinces were named for the consuls: Sicily for Scipio, outside the lot, by the concession of his colleague, because the care of sacred rites detained the pontifex maximus in Italy; the Bruttii for Crassus. Then the praetorian provinces were cast into the lot.

​The urban jurisdiction fell to Cn. Servilius, Ariminum—for so they called Gaul—to Sp. Lucretius, Sicily to L. Aemilius, and Sardinia to Cn. Octavius. The Senate was held on the Capitol.

​There, on the motion of P. Scipio, a decree of the Senate was made that he should celebrate the games which he had vowed during the military mutiny in Spain, out of that money which he himself had brought into the treasury.