l distance from the city of Ilipa. Thither Publius Cornelius
led back his victorious army, amply enriched with spoil; all which was
exposed to view under the walls of the town, and permission given
to the owners to claim their effects. The remainder was put into the
hands of the quaestor to be sold, and the money produced by the sale
was distributed among the soldiers.

2. At the time when these occurrences happened in Spain, Caius
Flaminius, the praetor, had not yet set out from Rome: therefore these
events, as well prosperous as adverse, were reported by himself and
his friends in the strongest representations; and he laboured to
persuade the senate, that, as a very formidable war had blazed out in
his province, and he was likely to receive from Sextus Digitius a very
small remnant of an army, and that, too, terrified and disheartened
they ought to decree one of the city legions to him, in order that,
when he should have united to it the soldiers levied by himself,
pursuant to the decree of the senate, he might select from the whole
number six thousand five hundred foot and three hundred horse. He
said, that "with such a legion as that, (for very little confidence
could be placed on the troops of Sextus Digitius,) he would conduct
the war." But the elder part of the senate insisted, that "decrees of
the senate were not to be passed in consequence of rumours fabricated
by private persons for the gratification of magistrates; and that no
intelligence should be deemed authentic except it were either written
by the praetors, from their provinces, or brought by their deputies.
If there was a tumultuous commotion in Spain, they advised a vote,
that tumultuary soldiers should be levied by the praetor in some other
country than Italy." The senate's intention was that such description
of men should be raised in Spain. Valerius Antias says, that Caius
Flaminius sailed to Sicily for the purpose of levying troops, and
that, on his voyage thence to Spain, being driven by a storm to
Africa, he enlisted there many stragglers who had belonged to the
army of Publius Africanus; and that, to the levies made in those two
provinces, he added a third in Spain.

3. In Italy the war, commenced by the Ligurians, grew daily more
formidable. They now invested Pisae, with an army of forty thousand
men; for multitudes flocked to them continually, led by the reports
of the war and the expectation of booty. The consul, Minucius, came
to Arretium,