Book 26
2
.At the beginning of the year a despatch from L. Marcius was laid before the senate. The senators fully appreciated the successful way in which he had conducted his operations, but a good many of them were indignant at the honorific title he had assumed. The superscription of the letter was "The propraetor to the senate," though the imperium had not been conferred upon him by an order of the people nor with the sanction of the senate. An evil precedent had been set, they said, when a commander was chosen by his army, and the solemn procedure at elections, after the auspices were duly taken, was transferred to camps and provinces far away from the magistrates and the laws, and left to the caprice of the soldiers. Some thought the senate ought to take the matter up, but it was thought better to adjourn the consideration of it until the horsemen who had brought the despatch had left the City. With regard to the food and clothing of the army, they ordered a reply to be sent to the effect that both these matters would be attended to by the senate. They refused, however, to allow the despatch to be addressed "To the propraetor L. Marcius," lest it should appear that the question which was to be discussed had been prejudged. After the messengers had been dismissed the consuls gave this question priority over everything else, and it was unanimously agreed that the tribunes should consult the plebs as soon as possible as to whom they wished to have sent to Spain with the imperium as commander-in-chief to take over the army which Cn. Scipio had commanded. The tribunes undertook to do so, and due notice of the question was given to the Assembly. But the citizens were preoccupied with a controversy of a very different nature. C. Sempronius Blaesus had fixed a day for bringing Cn. Fulvius to trial for losing his army in Apulia, and made a very bitter attack upon him beforehand in the Assembly. "Many commanders," he said, "have through rashness and inexperience led their armies into most dangerous positions, but Cn. Fulvius is the only one who has demoralised his army by every form of vice before betraying them. They may with perfect truth be said to have been destroyed before they saw the enemy; they owed their defeat to their own commander, not to Hannibal.
