§25.1.1dum haec in Africa atque in Hispania geruntur, Hannibal in agro Sallentino aestatem consumpsit spe per proditionem urbis Tarentinorum potiundae.
While these things were being done in Africa and Spain, Hannibal spent the summer in the Sallentine territory in the hope of gaining possession of the city of Tarentum through treachery.
ipsorum interim Sallentinorum ignobiles urbes ad eum defecerunt.
Meanwhile, some insignificant cities of the Sallentines themselves defected to him.
§25.1.2eodem tempore in Brittiis ex duodecim populis, qui anno priore ad Poenos desciverant, Consentini et Tauriani in fidem populi Romani redierunt; §25.1.3et plures redissent, ni T. Pomponius Veientanus, praefectus socium, prosperis aliquot populationibus in agro Bruttio iusti ducis speciem nactus tumultuario exercitu coacto cum Hannone conflixisset.
At the same time, among the twelve peoples in the territory of the Bruttii who had defected to the Carthaginians in the previous year, the Consentini and the Tauriani returned to the allegiance of the Roman people; and more would have returned, had not Titus Pomponius Veientanus, a prefect of the allies, who had acquired the reputation of a regular general through several successful raids in the Bruttian territory, clashed with Hanno after collecting a makeshift army.
§25.1.4magna ibi vis hominum, sed inconditae turbae agrestium servorumque, caesa aut capta est.
A great multitude of men, but an undisciplined crowd of peasants and slaves, was slain or captured there.
minimum iacturae fuit, quod praefectus inter ceteros est captus, et tum temerariae pugnae auctor et ante publicanus omnibus malis artibus et rei publicae et societatibus infidus damnosusque.
The least of the losses was that the prefect was captured among the rest, a man who was then the promoter of a rash battle, and previously, as a tax-farmer, unfaithful and damaging both to the state and to the tax-farming companies by all kinds of evil arts.
§25.1.5Sempronius consul in Lucanis multa proelia parva, haud ullum dignum memoratu fecit et ignobilia oppida Lucanorum aliquot expugnavit.
The consul Sempronius fought many small battles in Lucania, but none worthy of mention, and stormed several insignificant towns of the Lucanians.
quo diutius trahebatur bellum §25.1.6et variabant secundae adversaeque res non fortunam magis quam animos hominum, tanta religio et ea magna ex parte externa civitatem incessit, ut aut homines aut dei repente alii viderentur facti.
As the war was drawn out longer, and as prosperity and adversity altered not so much fortune as the minds of men, so great a superstition, and that for the most part foreign, invaded the state, that either the men or the gods suddenly seemed to have become different.
§25.1.7nec iam in secreto modo atque intra parietes abolebantur Romani ritus, sed in publico etiam ac foro Capitolioque mulierum turba erat nec sacrificantium nec precantium deos patrio more.
And no longer were Roman rites being neglected only in secret and within walls, but even in public, in the Forum and on the Capitol, there was a crowd of women neither sacrificing nor praying to the gods in the ancestral manner.
§25.1.8sacrificuli ac vates ceperant hominum mentes; quorum numerum auxit rustica plebs, ex incultis diutino bello infestisque agris egestate et metu in urbem conpulsa, et quaestus ex alieno errore facilis, quem velut concessae artis usu exercebant.
Sacrificers and prophets had seized the minds of men; whose number was increased by the rustic common people, driven into the city by poverty and fear from lands uncultivated and infested due to the long war, and by the easy profit from the error of others, which they practiced as if by the exercise of a permitted art.
§25.1.9primo secretae bonorum indignationes exaudiebantur; deinde ad patres etiam ac publicam querimoniam excessit res.
At first, the secret indignation of the good citizens was heard; then the matter reached even the senators and became a public complaint.
§25.1.10incusati graviter ab senatu aediles triumvirique eapitales, quod non prohiberent, cum emovere eam multitudinem e foro ac disicere adparatus sacrorum conati essent, haud procul afuit, quin violarentur.
The aediles and the capital triumvirs were severely blamed by the senate because they did not prevent it; but when they attempted to remove that multitude from the Forum and to scatter the apparatus of the sacred rites, they were not far from being violently assaulted.
§25.1.11ubi potentius iam esse id malum apparuit, quam ut minores per magistratus sedaretur, M. Aemilio praetori urbano negotium ab senatu datum et, ut eis religionibus populum liberaret.
When it became apparent that this evil was now too powerful to be quieted by the lesser magistrates, the business was given by the senate to Marcus Aemilius, the urban praetor, that he should free the people from those superstitions.
§25.1.12is et in contione senatus consultum recitavit et edixit, ut, quicunque libros vaticinios precationesve aut artem sacrificandi conscriptam haberet, eos libros omnis litterasque ad se ante kal. Apriles deferret, neu quis in publico sacrove loco novo aut externo ritu sacrificaret.
He both read the decree of the senate in an assembly and ordered that whoever had books of prophecy or prayers, or a written art of sacrificing, should bring all those books and writings to him before the Kalends of April, and that no one should sacrifice in a public or sacred place with a new or foreign rite.