by direction of the senate, proposed to the people,
and the people ordered, that the laws relative to money lent between
Roman citizens and subjects of any of the allied states, or Latin
confederacy, should be the same as those between Roman citizens. Such
were the transactions in Italy, civil and military. In Spain the war
was far from being so formidable as the exaggerations of report had
represented it. In Hither Spain, Caius Flaminius took the town of
Ilucia, in the country of the Oretanians, and then marched his army
into winter quarters. Several engagements took place during the
winter, but none deserving of particular mention, directed against
incursions of robbers rather than of the enemy; and yet with various
success, and not without the loss of some men. More important services
were performed by Marcus Fulvius. He fought a pitched battle near the
town of Toletum, against the Vaccaeans, Vectonians, and Celtiberians;
routed and dispersed their combined forces, and took prisoner their
king, Hilermus.

8. While this passed in Spain, the day of election was drawing
near. Lucius Cornelius, therefore, the consul, left Marcus Claudius,
lieutenant-general, in command of the army and came to Rome. After
representing in the senate the services which he had performed, and
the present state of the province, he expostulated with the conscript
fathers on their not having ordered a thanksgiving to the immortal
gods when so great a war was so happily terminated by one successful
battle; and then demanded, that they would at the same time decree a
supplication and a triumph. But, before the question was put, Quintus
Metellus, who had been consul and dictator, said, that, "letters had
been brought at the same time from the consul, Lucius Cornelius,
to the senate, and from Marcus Marcellus, to a great part of the
senators; which letters contradicted each other, and for that reason
the consideration of the business had been adjourned, in order that it
might be debated when the writers of those letters should he present.
He had expected, therefore, that the consul, who knew that the
lieutenant-general had written something to his disadvantage, would,
when he himself was obliged to come, have brought him with him
to Rome; especially, as the command of the army would, with more
propriety, have been committed to Tiberius Sempronius, who already
possessed authority, than to the lieutenant-general. As the case
stood at present, it app