rt or letter; and granting that all were
true, affirmed that he feared more from success than failure; then
Marcus Metilius, a Plebeian tribune, declares that such conduct surely
could not be endured. That the dictator, not only when present was an
obstacle to the right management of the affair, but also being absent
from the camp, opposed it still when achieved; that he studiously
dallied in his conduct of the war, that he might continue the longer
in office, and that he might have the sole command both at Rome and in
the army. Since one of the consuls had fallen in battle, and the other
was removed to a distance from Italy, under pretext of pursuing a
Carthaginian fleet; and the two praetors were occupied in Sicily and
Sardinia, neither of which provinces required a praetor at this time.
That Marcus Minucius, the master of the horse, was almost put under a
guard, lest he should see the enemy, and carry on any warlike
operation. That therefore, by Hercules, not only Samnium, which had
now been yielded to the Carthaginians, as if it had been land beyond
the Iberus, but the Campanian, Calenian, and Falernian territories had
been devastated, while the dictator was sitting down at Casilinum,
protecting his own farm with the legions of the Roman people: that the
army, eager for battle, as well as the master of the horse, were kept
back almost imprisoned within the rampart: that their arms were taken
out of their hands, as from captured enemies: at length, as soon as
ever the dictator had gone away, having marched out beyond their
rampart, that they had routed the enemy and put him to flight. On
account of which circumstances, had the Roman commons retained their
ancient spirit, that he would have boldly proposed to them to annul
the authority of Quintus Fabius; but now he would bring forward a
moderate proposition, to make the authority of the master of the horse
and the dictator equal; and that even then Quintus Fabius should not
be sent to the army, till he had substituted a consul in the room of
Caius Flaminius. The dictator kept away from the popular assemblies,
in which he did not command a favourable hearing, and even in the
senate he was not heard with favourable ears, when his eloquence was
employed in praising the enemy, and attributing the disasters of the
last two years to the temerity and unskilfulness of the generals; and
when he declared that the master of the horse ought to be called to
account for having foug