History of Rome

​Scipio was heard with less favorable minds, because it had been commonly reported that, if he did not obtain from the senate that the province of Africa should be decreed to him, he would immediately bring the matter before the people.

​Therefore Q. Fulvius, who had been consul four times and censor, demanded of the consul that he should declare openly in the senate whether he would permit the senators to decide concerning the provinces, and whether he would stand by what they should determine, or whether he would bring it to the people.

​When Scipio had answered that he would do what was for the good of the commonwealth, then Fulvius said:

”I did not ask because I was ignorant of what you were going to answer or do, especially since you openly show that you are testing rather than consulting the senate, and, unless we immediately decree to you the province which you want, you have a proposal ready.

​Therefore, tribunes of the plebs,” he said, “I demand of you that you assist me, who for this reason am not expressing my opinion: because, even if a division should be made in favor of my opinion, the consul will not hold it valid,” ”you should be of assistance to me.” Thence an altercation arose, since the consul denied that it was fair for the tribunes to intervene to prevent any senator, when asked in his turn, from expressing his opinion. The tribunes decreed thus:

”If the consul leaves it to the senate concerning the provinces, it is our pleasure that there should be adherence to what the senate shall have decided, and we will not suffer a proposal to be brought to the people concerning that matter; if he does not leave it, we will be of assistance to anyone who shall refuse to express his opinion on that matter.”

​The consul requested a day to confer with his colleague. On the following day, it was left to the senate. The provinces were thus decreed: to one consul, Sicily and thirty war-ships which C. Servilius had had the previous year, and it was permitted that he should cross over into Africa if he should judge it to be for the good of the commonwealth;

​to the other, the Bruttii and the war with Hannibal, with whichever of the two armies that were there he should prefer. L. Veturius and Q. Caecilius were to draw lots or arrange between themselves which of them should conduct affairs in the Bruttii with the two legions which the consul should have left, and the command should be prorogued for a year for whichever of them that province should fall to.

​And to the others, besides the consuls and praetors who were to be in command of the armies and provinces, commands were prorogued.

​To Q. Caecilius it fell by lot that he should conduct the war against Hannibal in the Bruttii along with the consul. Then the games of Scipio were celebrated with a great crowd ​and the favor of the spectators. M. Pomponius Matho and Q. Catius were sent as ambassadors to Delphi to carry a gift from the spoils of Hasdrubal. They carried a golden crown of two hundred pounds weight, and representations of the spoils made of a thousand pounds of silver.

​Scipio, since he had neither obtained permission to hold a levy nor had striven for it very greatly, carried his point that he should be allowed to lead volunteer soldiers, ​and, because he had denied that the fleet would be of any expense to the commonwealth, that he might accept what was given by the allies to build new ships. First, the peoples of Etruria promised that they would assist the consul, each according to his means:

​the Caerites, grain for the naval allies and provisions of every kind; the Populonians, iron; the Tarquinians, canvas for sails; the Volaterrans, the internal timber-work of ships and grain; ​the Arretines, three thousand shields, as many helmets, javelins, Celtic javelins, long spears, intending to make up a total of fifty thousand with an equal number of each kind; axes, spades, sickles, basins, hand-mills, as many as were necessary for forty warships; ​a hundred and twenty thousand modii of wheat, and to contribute to the travel-money for the decurions and rowers;

​the Perusians, Clusians, and Rusellans, fir-wood for building ships and a great quantity of grain; he used fir-wood from the public forests.

​The peoples of Umbria, and besides these the Nursians, Reatines, Amiternians, and all the Sabine territory promised soldiers; many volunteers from the Marsi, Paeligni, and Marrucini gave their names for the fleet.

​The Camertians, since they were in an equal treaty with the Romans, sent an armed cohort of six hundred men.

​When the keels of thirty ships, twenty quinqueremes and ten quadriremes, had been laid, he himself so urged on the work that on the forty-fifth day after the timber had been brought down from the forests, the ships, equipped and armed, were launched into the water.