Book 39
42
In Further Spain matters were quiet as the strength of the Lusitanians was broken in the last war. In Hither Spain A. Terentius besieged and took the town of Corbio belonging to the Suessetani and sold the prisoners. After this Hither Spain was also quiet through the winter. The late praetors returned to Rome, and the senate unanimously decreed a triumph to each of them. C. Calpurnius celebrated his triumph over the Lusitanians and the Celtiberi; 83 golden crowns and 12,000 pounds of silver were carried in the procession. A few days later L. Quinctius Crispinus triumphed over the same nations and a similar amount of gold and silver was carried in his procession. The censors M. Porcius and L. Valerius, amidst many forebodings, revised the roll of the senate. They removed seven names, including that of a man of consular rank, L. Quinctius Flamininus, distinguished for his high birth and the offices he had held. There is said to have been an old regulation that the censors should commit to writing their reasons for excluding any from the senate. There are extant some incriminating speeches which Cato delivered against those whom he removed from the roll of the senate or the register of the equites, but by far the most damaging is the one he made against L. Quinctius. If Cato had delivered this speech as accuser before the name was erased and not as censor after he had erased it, not even his brother T. Quinctius, had he been censor at the time, could have kept him on the roll.
