History of Rome

​The year was now coming to a close, and ambition had flared up more than ever before for the consular elections. Many powerful candidates, both patricians and plebeians, were seeking office: Publius Cornelius Scipio, son of Gnaeus (who ​had recently returned from his province of Hispania after performing great deeds), Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, who had commanded the fleet in Greece, and Gnaeus Manlius Volso;

​these were the patricians; the plebeians, on the other hand, were Gaius Laelius, Gnaeus Domitius, ​Gaius Livius Salinator, and Manius Acilius. But the eyes of all were cast upon Quinctius and Cornelius; for both patricians were seeking the single place, and the recent glory of military achievements commended each of them.

​Moreover, above all things, the brothers of the candidates, the two most famous generals of their age, kindled the contest. Greater was the glory of Scipio, and the greater it was, the closer it was to envy; that of Quinctius was more recent, ​since he had triumphed in that very year. There was also the fact that the former had now been almost constantly in the eyes of men for nearly ten years—a circumstance which, by its very satiety, makes great men less revered; he had been consul for a second time after the defeat of Hannibal, and censor;

​in the case of Quinctius, everything was new and fresh for winning favor; he had neither sought nor obtained anything from the people since his triumph.

​He said that he was seeking office for his own brother, not for a cousin; for his own lieutenant and partner in the conduct of the war;

​that he himself had acted on land, and his brother on sea. By these arguments he succeeded in being preferred to the candidate whom his brother Africanus was leading, whom the Cornelia gens supported while a Cornelius was holding the election as consul, and whom the senate had given such a great prejudgment, having been judged the best man in the state to receive the Idaean Mother when she came into the city from Pessinus.

​Lucius Quinctius and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus were elected consuls; so little, indeed, did Africanus prevail even in the election of a plebeian consul, ​though he exerted himself on behalf of Gaius Laelius. On the following day, the praetors were elected: Lucius Scribonius Libo, Marcus Fulvius Centumalus, Aulus Atilius Serranus, Marcus Baebius Tamphilus, Lucius Valerius Tappo, and Quintus Salonius Sarra. The aedileship of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Aemilius Paulus in that year was remarkable;

​they condemned many public land graziers; from that money they placed gilded shields on the pediment of the temple of Jupiter, and they constructed one portico outside the Trigeminam gate, with an emporium added to the Tiber, and another from the Fontinal gate to the altar of Mars, where the road led into the Campus.