and C. Flaminius, though unfortunate
battles, during a period of five years, as well as the private
casualties of each, had carried off so many senators. Manius
Pomponius, the praetor, as the dictator was now gone to the army after
the loss of Casilinum, at the earnest request of all, brought in a
bill upon the subject. When Spurius Carvilius, after having lamented
in a long speech not only the scantiness of the senate, but the
fewness of citizens who were eligible into that body, with the design
of making up the numbers of the senate and uniting more closely the
Romans and the Latin confederacy, declared that he strongly advised
that the freedom of the state should be conferred upon two senators
from each of the Latin states, if the Roman fathers thought proper,
who might be chosen into the senate to supply the places of the
deceased senators. This proposition the fathers listened to with no
more equanimity than formerly to the request when made by the Latins
themselves. A loud and violent expression of disapprobation ran
through the whole senate-house. In particular, Manlius reminded them
that there was still existing a man of that stock, from which that
consul was descended who formerly threatened in the Capitol that he
would with his own hand put to death any Latin senator he saw in that
house. Upon which Quintus Fabius Maximus said, "that never was any
subject introduced into the senate at a juncture more unseasonable
than the present, when a question had been touched upon which would
still further irritate the minds of the allies, who were already
hesitating and wavering in their allegiance. That that rash suggestion
of one individual ought to be annihilated by the silence of the whole
body; and that if there ever was a declaration in that house which
ought to be buried in profound and inviolable silence, surely that
above all others was one which deserved to be covered and consigned to
darkness and oblivion, and looked upon as if it had never been made."
This put a stop to the mention of the subject. They determined that a
dictator should be created for the purpose of reviewing the senate,
and that he should be one who had been a censor, and was the oldest
living of those who had held that office. They likewise gave orders
that Caius Terentius, the consul, should be called home to nominate a
dictator; who, leaving his troops in Apulia, returned to Rome with
great expedition; and, according to custom, on the follo