t troops should be employed,
and where they were severally to act. It was resolved that eighteen
legions should be engaged in the war; that the consuls should take two
each; that two should be employed in each of the provinces of Gaul,
Sicily, and Sardinia; that Quintus Fabius, the praetor, should have
the command of two in Apulia, and Tiberius Gracchus of two legions of
volunteer slaves in the neighbourhood of Luceria; that one each should
be left for Caius Terentius, the proconsul, for Picenum, and to Marcus
Valerius for the fleet off Brundusium, and two for the protection of
the city. To complete this number of legions six fresh ones were to be
enlisted, which the consuls were ordered to raise as soon as possible;
and also to prepare the fleet, so that, together with the ships which
were stationed off the coasts of Calabria, it might amount that year
to one hundred and fifty men of war. The levy completed, and the
hundred new ships launched, Quintus Fabius held the election for the
creation of censors, when Marcus Atilius Regulus and Publius Furius
Philus were chosen. A rumour prevailing that war had broken out in
Sicily, Titus Otacilius was ordered to proceed thither with his fleet;
but as there was a deficiency of sailors, the consuls, in conformity
with a decree of the senate, published an order that those persons who
themselves or whose fathers had been rated in the censorship of Lucius
Aemilius and Caius Flaminius, at from fifty to one hundred thousand
_asses_, or whose property had since reached that amount, should
furnish one sailor and six months' pay; from one to three hundred
thousand, three sailors with a year's pay; from three hundred thousand
to a million, five sailors; above one million, seven sailors; that
senators should furnish eight sailors with a year's pay. The sailors
furnished according to this proclamation being armed and equipped by
their masters, embarked with cooked provisions for thirty days. Then
first it happened that the Roman fleet was manned at the expense of
individuals.

12. These unusually great preparations alarmed the Campanians
particularly, lest the Romans should commence the year's campaign with
the siege of Capua. They therefore sent ambassadors to Hannibal, to
implore him to bring his army to Capua, and tell him that new armies
were levying at Rome for the purpose of besieging it; and that there
was not any city the defection of which had excited more hostile
feelings. As th