and was enraged against him, came to Rome unexpectedly, and called a
meeting of the senate in the temple of Bellona; where, after making
a recital of the services which he had performed, he demanded to be
allowed to enter the city in triumph.

48. With a great part of the senate he prevailed, owing to private
interest and the importance of his services. The elder part refused
him a triumph, both "because the army, with which he had acted,
belonged to another; and because he had left his province through
an ambitious desire of snatching that opportunity of procuring a
triumph,--but that he had taken this course without any precedent."
The senators of consular rank particularly insisted, that "he ought
to have waited for the consul; for that he might, by pitching his camp
near the city, and thereby securing the colony without coming to an
engagement, have protracted the affair until his arrival; and that,
what the praetor had not done, the senate ought to do; they should
wait for the consul. After hearing the business discussed by the
consul and praetor in their presence, they would be able, more
correctly, to form judgment on the case." Great part were of opinion,
that the senate ought to consider nothing but the service performed,
and whether he had performed it while in office, and under his own
auspices. For, "when of two colonies, which had been opposed, as
barriers, to restrain the tumultuous inroads of the Gauls, one had
been already sacked and burned, the flames being ready to spread (as
if from an adjoining house) to the other colony, which lay so near,
what ought the praetor to have done? For if it was improper to enter
on any action without the consul, then the senate had acted wrong
in giving the army to the praetor; because, if they chose that the
business should be performed, not under the praetor's auspices, but
the consul's, they might have limited the decree in such a manner,
that not the praetor, but the consul, should manage it; or else the
consul had acted wrong, who, after ordering the army to remove from
Etruria into Gaul, did not meet it at Ariminum, in order to be present
at operations, which were not allowed to be performed without him. But
the exigencies of war do not wait for the delays and procrastinations
of commanders; and battles must be sometimes fought, not because
commanders choose it, but because the enemy compels it. The fight
itself, and the issue of the fight, is what ought to be re