§24.18.1nec minore animo res Romana domi quam militiae gerebatur.
Nor was the Roman state conducted with less spirit at home than in the field.
§24.18.2censores vacui ab operum locandorum cura propter inopiam aerarii ad mores hominum regendos animum adverterunt castigandaque vitia, quae, velut diutinis morbis aegra corpora ex sese gignunt, eo nata bello erant.
The censors, free from the care of leasing public works on account of the poverty of the treasury, turned their attention to regulating the morals of the people and punishing the vices which, as diseased bodies breed them from themselves in long sicknesses, had been produced by this war.
§24.18.3primum eos citaverunt, qui post Cannensem cladem deserendae Italiae consilia agitasse dicebantur.
They first summoned those who, after the disaster of Cannae, were said to have agitated plans for abandoning Italy.
princeps eorum M. Caecilius Metellus quaestor tum forte erat.
The leader of them was Marcus Caecilius Metellus, who happened then to be a quaestor.
§24.18.4iusso deinde eo ceterisque eius. dem noxae reis causam dicere, cum purgari nequissent, pronuntiarunt verba orationemque eos adversus rem publicam habuisse, quo coniuratio deserendae Italiae causa fieret.
Having then ordered him and the other defendants of the same guilt to plead their cause, when they could not clear themselves, they pronounced that they had held words and speeches against the state, to the end that a conspiracy might be formed for the purpose of abandoning Italy.
§24.18.5secundum eos citati nimis callidi exsolvendi iuris iurandi interpretes, qui captivorum ex itinere regressi clam in castra Hannibalis solutum, quod iuraverunt redituros, rebantur.
Next to them were summoned those too-cunning interpreters of releasing an oath, who, of the captives, having secretly returned to the camp of Hannibal from the journey, thought that what they had sworn to return was fulfilled.
§24.18.6his superioribusque illis equi adempti, qui publicum equom habebant, tribuque moti aerarii omnes facti.
From these and those former ones, who had a public horse, their horses were taken away, and all were removed from their tribes and made aerarii.
§24.18.7neque senatu modo aut equestri ordine regendo cura se censorum tenuit; nomina omnium ex iuniorum tabulis excerpserunt, qui quadriennio non militassent, quibus neque vocatio iusta militiae neque morbus causa fuisset.
Nor did the care of the censors keep itself only to regulating the senate or the equestrian order; they selected from the registers of the younger men the names of all who had not served for four years, for whom neither a just exemption from service nor illness had been the cause.
§24.18.8et ea supra duo milia nominum in aerarios relata tribuque omnes moti; §24.18.9additumque tam truci censoriae notae triste senatus consultum, ut ei omnes, quos censores notassent, pedibus mererent mitterenturque in Siciliam ad Cannensis exercitus reliquias, cui militum generi non prius, quam pulsus Italia hostis esset, finitum stipendiorum tempus erat.
And those, above two thousand names, were referred to the aerarii, and all were removed from their tribes; and to so harsh a censorial mark was added a severe decree of the senate, that all those whom the censors had marked should serve on foot and be sent to Sicily to the remnants of the Cannae army, for which class of soldiers the time of service was not finished until the enemy had been driven out of Italy.
§24.18.10cum censores ob inopiam aerarii se iam locationibus abstinerent aedium sacrarum tuendarum curuliumque equorum praebendorum ac similium his rerum, convenere ad eos frequentes, §24.18.11qui hastae huius generis adsueverant, hortatique censores sunt, ut omnia per —: inde agerent locarent, ac si pecunia in aerario esset: neminem nisi bello confecto pecuniam ab aerario petiturum esse.
When the censors, because of the poverty of the treasury, were already abstaining from the leasing of the maintenance of sacred buildings, the providing of curule horses, and similar matters, there came to them in crowds those who had been accustomed to this kind of auction, and exhorted the censors to manage and lease everything just as if there were money in the treasury: saying that no one would seek money from the treasury until the war was finished.
§24.18.12convenere deinde domini eorum, quos Ti. Sempronius ad Beneventum manu emiserat, arcessitosque se ab triumviris mensariis esse dixerunt, ut pretia servorum acciperent; ceterum non ante quam bello confecto accepturos esse.
Then met the masters of those whom Tiberius Sempronius had manumitted at Beneventum, and said that they had been summoned by the triumviri mensarii to receive the prices of their slaves; but that they would not receive them until the war was finished.
§24.18.13cum haec inclinatio animorum plebis ad sustinendam inopiam aerarii fieret, pecuniae quoque pupillares primo, §24.18.14deinde viduarum coeptae conferri, nusquam eas tutius sanctiusque deponere credentibus qui deferebant quam in publica fide.
When this inclination of the minds of the plebs to support the poverty of the treasury took place, first the money of wards, then of widows also, began to be brought in, those who brought them believing that they could deposit them nowhere more safely and holily than under the public faith.
inde si quid emptum paratumque pupillis ac viduis foret, a quaestore perscribebatur.
From there, if anything was bought or provided for the wards and widows, it was written down by the quaestor.
§24.18.15manavit ea privatorum benignitas ex urbe etiam in castra, ut non eques, non centurio stipendium acciperet, mercennariumque increpantes vocarent qui accepisset.
This liberality of private individuals spread from the city even into the camp, so that no cavalryman, no centurion received his pay, and they called anyone who had received it a mercenary, rebuking him.