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First of all the city was purified, and victims of the greater kind were sacrificed to those gods to whom they were directed to be offered; and a gift of forty pounds' weight of gold was carried to the temple of Juno at Lanuvium; and the matrons dedicated a brazen statue to Juno on the Aventine; and a lectisternium was ordered at Caere, where the tablets for divination had diminished; and a supplication to Fortune at Algidum; at Rome also a lectisternium was ordered to Youth, and a supplication at the temple of Hercules, first by individuals named and afterwards by the whole people at all the shrines; five greater victims were offered to Genius; and Caius Atilius Serranus the praetor was ordered to make certain vows if the republic should remain in the same state for ten years.

But it was thought proper to wait the return of the ambassadors sent to Antiochus, and the senate ordered the consul Cneius Domitius not to leave the city until they arrived. The praetors, Fulvius and Scribonius, whose province was the administration of justice at Rome, were charged to provide a hundred quinqueremes, besides the fleet which Atilius was to command.

Only in the time of Caesar Augustus, after he had conquered Antonius, it was closed; and before that, during the consulship of Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius, for a short time, and then was almost immediately reopened, as a new war broke out.

At the same time they made more serious preparations. Of the two consular armies, each of which numbered about 25,000 infantry and 1100 cavalry, one was stationed in Sardinia under Gaius Atilius Regulus, the other at Ariminum under Lucius Aemilius Papus. Both received orders to repair as speedily as possible to Etruria, which was most immediately threatened.

When they had arrived at the camp, the old and new troops being united, they formed two distinct camps, so that the new and smaller one might be the nearer to Hannibal, and the old one might contain the greater part, and all the choicest of the troops. They then sent to Rome Marcus Atilius, the consul of the former year, who alleged his age in excuse.

Those to whom Rome owed most for services of this sort, were Horatius Cocles, Mutius Scævola, the two Decii, Atilius Regulus, and divers others, whose rare excellence and generous example wrought for their city almost the same results as might have been effected by ordinances and laws.

This fraudulent practice had been pointed out to Marcus Atilius, the praetor in a former year, who had communicated it to the senate; no decree, however, had been passed censuring it, because the fathers were unwilling that any offence should be given to the order of revenue farmers while affairs were in such a state.

The persons elected were, Lucius Manlius Vulso, Caius Sempronius Tuditanus, Marcus Sergius Silus, Marcus Helvius, Marcus Minucius Rufus, and Lucius Atilius. Of these Sempronius and Helvius were, at the time, plebeian aediles. The curule aediles were Quintus Minucius Thermus and Tiberius Sempronius Longus. The Roman games were four times repeated during this year.

Along the walls, as a strange decoration, hung a long dark tissue, crisp as parchment. It was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was marching to the conquest of Carthage.

Without opposition on the part of the patricians, the prerogative tribe elect Publius Licinius Calvus military tribune without his suing for it, a man of tried moderation in his former tribunate, but now of extreme old age; and it was observed that all were re-elected in regular succession out of the college of the same year, Lucius Titinius, Publius Mænius, Publius Mælius, Cneius Genucius, Lucius Atilius: before these were proclaimed, the tribes being summoned in the ordinary course, Publius Licinius Calvus, by permission of the interrex, spoke as follows: "Romans, I perceive that from the recollection of our administration you are seeking an omen of concord, a thing most important at the present time, for the ensuing year.