History of Rome

​Near the close of the year, the consul Marcus Valerius came from the Ligurians to Rome to hold the elections for the subrogation of magistrates, without having performed any memorable achievement in his province, so that this might serve as a plausible excuse for his delay, in that he had come to the comitia later than usual.

​The elections for choosing consuls were held on the twelfth day before the Kalends of March;

​Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Gaius Flaminius were elected. On the following day, the praetors elected were Appius Claudius Pulcher, Servius ​Sulpicius Galba, Quintus Terentius Culleo, Lucius Terentius Massaliota, Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, and Marcus Furius Crassipes.

​After the elections were completed, the consul laid before the senate the question of what provinces it pleased them to assign to the praetors. They decreed two at Rome for the administration of justice, two outside Italy, namely Sicily and Sardinia, and two in Italy, namely Tarentum and Gaul;

​and they were immediately ordered to draw lots, before they should enter upon their office. Servius Sulpicius drew the urban jurisdiction, Quintus Terentius the peregrine, Lucius Terentius Sicily, Quintus Fulvius Sardinia, Appius Claudius Tarentum, and Marcus Furius Gaul.

​In that year, Lucius Minucius Myrtilus and Lucius Manlius, because they were said to have assaulted the Carthaginian ambassadors, were by order of Marcus Claudius, the urban praetor, delivered up through the fetials to the ambassadors and carried away to Carthage.

​Among the Ligurians there was a rumor of a great war, growing more serious every day. Therefore, on the very day the new consuls made their motion concerning the provinces and the state, the senate decreed the province of Liguria to both of them.

​The consul Lepidus vetoed this decree of the senate, declaring it to be an indignity that both consuls should be shut up in the valleys of the Ligurians, ​while Marcus Fulvius and Gnaeus Manlius had now for two years been reigning, the one in Europe, the other in Asia, as if substituted in the place of Philip and Antiochus. If it was approved that armies should be in those lands, it was proper for consuls rather than private persons to command them.

​They were wandering with the terror of war through nations against whom war had not been declared, selling peace for a price. If it was necessary to hold those provinces with armies, just as the consul Lucius Scipio had succeeded Manius Acilius, and the consuls Marcus Fulvius and Gnaeus Manlius had succeeded Lucius Scipio, ​so the consuls Gaius Livius and Marcus Valerius ought to have succeeded Fulvius and Manlius. Now certainly, since the Aetolian war was finished, Asia recovered from Antiochus, and the Gauls utterly defeated, either consuls ought to be sent to the consular armies, or the legions ought to be brought back from there and finally restored to the republic.

​The senate, having heard this, persisted in their opinion that the province for both consuls should be Liguria; but they decided that Manlius and Fulvius should leave their provinces, withdraw the armies from there, and return to Rome.