ad in a manner
held a levy throughout all Sicily, in order that as many as possible
might come to Rome to prefer complaints against him, that the same
person had filled the city with letters containing false
representations that there was still war in Sicily, in order to
detract from his merit." The consul, having acquired on that day the
reputation of having a well-regulated mind, dismissed the senate, and
it appeared that there would be almost a total suspension of every
kind of business till the other consul returned to the city. The want
of employment, as usual, produced expressions of discontent among the
people. They complained of the length of the war, that the lands
around the city were devastated wherever Hannibal had marched his
hostile troops; that Italy was exhausted by levies, and that almost
every year their armies were cut to pieces, that the consuls elected
were both of them fond of war, men over-enterprising and impetuous,
who would probably stir up war in a time of profound peace, and
therefore were the less likely to allow the state to breathe in time
of war.

27. A fire which broke out in several places at once in the
neighbourhood of the forum, on the night before the festival of
Minerva, interrupted these discourses. Seven shops, where five were
afterwards erected, and the banks, which are now called the new banks,
were all on fire at once. Afterwards the private dwellings caught, for
there were no public halls there then, the prisons called the Quarry,
the fish-market, and the royal palace. The temple of Vesta was with
difficulty saved, principally by the exertions of thirteen slaves, who
were redeemed at the public expense and manumitted. The fire continued
for a day and a night. It was evident to every body that it was caused
by human contrivance, because the flames burst forth in several places
at once, and those at a distance from each other. The consul,
therefore, on the recommendation of the senate, publicly notified,
that whoever should make known by whose act the conflagration was
kindled, should rewarded, if a free-man, with money, if a slave, with
liberty. Induced by this reward, a slave of the Campanian family, the
Calavii, named Mannus, gave information that "his masters, with five
noble Campanian youths, whose parents had been executed by Fulvius,
were the authors of the fire, and that they would commit various other
acts of the same kind if they were not seized." Upon this they were