eved
by it; because when the protection by sea was removed corn could not
be brought in.

21. At the close of the same summer, Marcus Marcellus arriving at the
city from his province of Sicily, an audience of the senate was given
him by Caius Calpurnius, the praetor, in the temple of Bellona. Here,
after discoursing on the services he had performed, and complaining in
gentle terms, not on his own account more than that of his soldiers,
that after having completely reduced the province, he had not been
allowed to bring home his army, he requested that he might be allowed
to enter the city in triumph; this he did not obtain. A long debate
took place on the question, whether it was less consistent to deny a
triumph on his return to him, in whose name, when absent, a
supplication had been decreed and honours paid to the immortal gods,
for successes obtained under his conduct; or, when they had ordered
him to deliver over his army to a successor, which would not have been
decreed unless there were still war in the province, to allow him to
triumph, as if the war had been terminated, when the army, the
evidence of the triumph being deserved or undeserved, were absent. As
a middle course between the two opinions, it was resolved that he
should enter the city in ovation. The plebeian tribunes, by direction
of the senate, proposed to the people, that Marcus Marcellus should be
invested with command during the day on which he should enter the city
in ovation. The day before he entered the city he triumphed on the
Alban mount; after which he entered the city in ovation, having a
great quantity of spoils carried before him, together with a model of
the capture of Syracuse. The catapultas and ballistas, and every other
instrument of war were carried; likewise the rich ornaments laid up by
its kings during a long continuance of peace; a quantity of wrought
silver and brass, and other articles, with precious garments, and a
number of celebrated statues, with which Syracuse had been adorned in
such a manner as to rank among the chief Grecian cities in that
respect. Eight elephants were also led as an emblem of victory over
the Carthaginians. Sosis, the Syracusan, and Mericus, the Spaniard,
who preceded him with golden crowns, formed not the least interesting
part of the spectacle; under the guidance of one of whom the Romans
had entered Syracuse by night, while the other had betrayed to them
the island and the garrison in it. To both