es the senate,
sometimes Quinctius. Villius, therefore, unable to effect any part
of his business, went back to Quinctius, who despatched orders to the
Thessalian praetor, to lead his troops home, while himself returned
with his ships to Corinth.

40. The affairs of Greece, blended with those of Rome, have carried me
away, as it were, out of my course: not that they were in themselves
deserving of a recital, but because they constituted the causes of
the war with Antiochus. After the consular election, for thence I
digressed, the consuls, Lucius Quinctius and Cneius Domitius, repaired
to their provinces; Quinctius to Liguria, Domitius against the Boians.
The Boians kept themselves quiet; nay, the senators, with their
children, and the commanding officers of the cavalry, with their
troops, amounting in all to one thousand five hundred, surrendered to
the consul. The other consul laid waste the country of the Ligurians
to a wide extent, and took some forts: in which expeditions he not
only acquired booty of all sorts, together with many prisoners, but he
also recovered several of his countrymen, and of the allies, who had
been in the hands of the enemy. In this year a colony was settled
at Vibo, in pursuance of a decree of the senate and an order of
the people; three thousand seven hundred footmen, and three hundred
horsemen, went out thither, conducted by the commissioners Quintus
Naevius, Marcus Minucius, and Marcus Furius Crassipes. Fifteen acres
of ground were assigned to each footman, double that quantity to a
horseman. This land had been last in possession of the Bruttians, who
had taken it from the Greeks. About this time two dreadful causes
of alarm happened at Rome, one of which continued long, but was less
active than the other. An earthquake lasted through thirty-eight days;
during all which time there was a total cessation of business, amidst
anxiety and fears. On account of this event, a supplication was
performed of three days' continuance. The other was not a mere fright,
but attended with the actual loss of many lives. In consequence of a
fire breaking out in the cattle-market, the conflagration, among
the houses near to the Tiber, continued through all that day and the
following night, and all the shops, with wares of very great value,
were reduced to ashes.

41. The year was now almost at an end, while the rumours of impending
hostility, and, consequently, the anxiety of the senate, daily
increased. T