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Of these, Lucius Lucretius and Caius Æmilius got the Volsinians as their province; the Salpinians fell to the lot of Agrippa Furius and Servius Sulpicius. The first engagement was with the Volsinians. The war, important from the number of the enemy, was without difficulty brought to a close. At the first onset, their army was put to flight.

I. When Caesar was setting out for Italy, he sent Servius Galba with the twelfth legion and part of the cavalry against the Nantuates, the Veragri, and Seduni, who extend from the territories of the Allobroges, and the lake of Geneva, and the river Rhone to the top of the Alps. He permitted him, if he thought it necessary, to station the legion in these places, for the purpose of wintering.

Servius Galba, who was favorable to Caesar, had stood for the consulship for 49, and had received a majority of votes. The election was set aside. Two patricians, Lentulus and Caius Marcellus, were declared chosen, and their avowed purpose was to strip the conqueror of Gaul of his honors and rewards.

They assembled immediately, some having been already prepared for this, others through fear, lest it should prove dangerous to them not to have come, astounded at such a strange and unheard-of event, and considering that the reign of Servius was now at an end.

When Servius, aroused by the alarming announcement, came in during this harangue, immediately from the porch of the senate-house, he says with a loud voice, "What means this, Tarquin? by what audacity hast thou dared to summon the fathers, while I am still alive? or to sit on my throne?"

The probability is that Caesar, who appreciated alike the value of a convenient formal designation and the antipathies of the multitude which fasten more on the names than on the essence of things, was resolved to avoid the name of king as tainted with an ancient curse and as more familiar to the Romans of his time when applied to the despots of the east than to their own Numa and Servius, and to appropriate the substance of the regal office under the title of Imperator.

It were no very easy task to recount the number of tenements and temples which were lost; but the following, most venerable for antiquity and sanctity, were consumed: that dedicated by Servius Tullius to the Moon; the temple and great altar consecrated by Evander the Arcadian to Hercules while present; the chapel vowed by Romulus to Jupiter Stator; the palace of Numa with the temple of Vesta, and in it the tutelar gods of Rome.

These numbers must rather stand on a parallel with the 84,700 burgesses of the Servian census; and in general the whole earlier census-lists, carried back to the four lustres of Servius Tullius and furnished with copious numbers, must belong to the class of those apparently documentary traditions which delight in, and betray themselves by the very fact of, such numerical details.

We are likewise informed that L. Paulus, the father of Africanus, defended the character of an eminent citizen in a public speech; and that Cato, who died in the 83d year of his age, was then living, and actually pleaded, that very year, against the defendant Servius Galba, in the open Forum, with great energy and spirit: he has left a copy of this Oration behind him.

Though many complaints had been made on both sides before this, this was the determining cause why war was declared against the Tiburtian people, restitution having been demanded through heralds. It is sufficiently ascertained that Titus Quinctius Pennus was dictator that year, and that Servius Cornelius Maluginensis was his master of the horse.