and sent into
exile. The plebeian games were repeated during two days, and a feast
in honour of Jupiter was celebrated on occasion of the games.

3. Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, for the third time, and Appius Claudius
entered upon the office of consuls. The praetors determined their
provinces by lot. Publius Cornelius Sulla received both the city and
the foreign jurisdiction, formerly allotted to two persons, Cneius
Fulvius Flaccus, Apulia, Caius Claudius Nero, Suessula, and Marcus
Junius Silanus, Tuscany. To the consuls the conduct of the war with
Hannibal was decreed with two legions each, one taking the troops of
Quintus Fabius, the consul of the former year, the other those of
Fulvius Centumalus. Of the praetors, Fulvius Flaccus was to have the
legions which were in Luceria under Aemilius the praetor, Nero
Claudius those in Picenum under Caius Terentius, each raising recruits
for himself to fill up the number of his troops. To Marcus Junius the
city legions of the former year were assigned, to be employed against
the Tuscans. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Publius Sempronius
Tuditanus were continued in command in their provinces of Lucania and
Gaul with the armies they had, as was also Publius Lentulus in that
part of Sicily which formed the ancient Roman province. Marcus
Marcellus had Syracuse, and that which was the kingdom of Hiero. Titus
Otacilius was continued in the command of the fleet, Marcus Valerius
in that of Greece, Quintus Mucius Scaevola in that of Sardinia. The
Cornelii, Publius and Cneius, were continued in the command of Spain.
In addition to the armies already existing, two legions for the
service of the city were levied by the consuls, and a total of
twenty-three legions was made up this year. The levy of the consuls
was impeded by the conduct of Marcus Posthumius Pyrgensis, almost
accompanied with a serious disturbance. Posthumius was a farmer of the
revenue, who, for knavery and rapacity, practised through a course of
many years, had no equal except Titus Pomponius Veientanus, who had
been taken prisoner the former year by the Carthaginians under the
conduct of Hanno, while carelessly ravaging the lands in Lucania. As
the state had taken upon itself the risk of any loss which might arise
from storms to the commodities conveyed to the armies, not only had
these two men fabricated false accounts of shipwrecks, but even those
which had really occurred were occasioned by their own knavery, and
not b