Kitap 27
5
The consul communicated this intelligence to the senate, and they were so impressed by its importance that they thought the consul ought not to wait for the elections, but return at once to his province after naming a Dictator to preside over the elections. Matters were delayed somewhat by the debate which followed. The consul said that when he reached Sicily he would nominate M. Valerius Messalla, who was at that time commanding the fleet, as Dictator; the senators on the other hand asserted that no one who was outside Roman soil, i.e., who was beyond the frontiers of Italy, could be nominated Dictator: M. Lucretius, one of the tribunes of the plebs, took the sense of the House upon the question, and the senate made a decree, requiring the consul, previously to his departure from the City, to put the question to the people, whom they wished to have nominated Dictator, and then to nominate the man whom the people had chosen. If the consul declined to do this, then the praetor was to put the question, and if he refused, then the tribunes were to bring the matter before the people. As the consul refused to submit to the people what was within his own rights, and had inhibited the praetor from doing so either, it fell to the tribunes to put the question, and the plebs resolved that Q. Fulvius, who was then at Capua, should be nominated. But the day before the Assembly met, the consul left secretly in the night for Sicily, and the senate, thus left in the lurch, ordered a despatch to be sent to Marcellus, urging him to come to the aid of the Commonwealth which his colleague had deserted, and nominate the man whom the people had resolved to have as Dictator. Q. Fulvius was accordingly nominated Dictator by the consul M. Claudius, and under the same resolution of the plebs P. Licinius Crassus, the Pontifex Maximus, was named by Q. Fulvius as his Master of the Horse.
