ed. After the king had departed from Achaea, Sulpicius, going to
Aegina with his fleet, formed a junction with Attalus. The Achaeans
fought successfully with the Aetolians and Eleans not far from
Messene. King Attalus and Publius Sulpicius wintered at Aegina. In the
close of this year Titus Quinctius Crispinus, the consul, after having
nominated Titus Manlius Torquatus dictator for the purpose of holding
the election and celebrating the games, died of his wound. Some say
that he died at Tarentum, others in Campania. The death of the two
consuls, who were slain without having fought any memorable battle, a
coincidence which had never occurred in any former war, had left the
commonwealth in a manner orphan. The dictator, Manlius, appointed as
his master of the horse Caius Servilius, then curule aedile. On the
first day of its meeting the senate ordered the dictator to celebrate
the great games which Marcus Aemilius, the city praetor, had
celebrated in the consulship of Caius Flaminius and Cneius Servilius,
and had vowed to be repeated after five years. The dictator then both
performed the games and vowed them for the following lustrum. But as
the two consular armies without commanders were so near the enemy,
disregarding every thing else, one especial care engrossed the fathers
and the people, that of creating the consuls as soon as possible; and
that they might create those in preference whose valour was least in
danger from Carthaginian treachery; since, through the whole period
of the war, the precipitate and hot tempers of their generals had been
detrimental, and this very year the consuls had fallen into a snare
for which they were not prepared, in consequence of their excessive
eagerness to engage the enemy, but the immortal gods, in pity to the
Roman name, had spared the unoffending armies, and doomed the consuls
to expiate their temerity with their own lives.

34. On the fathers' looking round to see whom they should appoint as
consuls, Caius Claudius Nero appeared pre-eminently. They then looked
out for a colleague for him, and although they considered him a man of
the highest talents, they also were of opinion that he was of a more
forward and vehement disposition than the circumstances of the war, or
the enemy, Hannibal, required, they resolved that it would be right to
qualify the impetuosity of his temper by uniting with him a cool and
prudent colleague. The person fixed upon was Marcus Livius, who, many
year