Kitap 31
49
Provisions were remarkably cheap that year. A great quantity of corn had been brought from Africa and the curule aediles, M. Claudius Marcellus and Sex. Aelius Paetus, distributed it to the people at two ases the modius. They also celebrated the Roman Games on a splendid scale and repeated them a second day. Five bronze statues from the proceeds of fines were placed by them in the treasury. The Plebeian Games were celebrated three times by the aediles, L. Terentius Massiliota and Cn. Baebius Tamphilus, the latter being praetor-designate. Funeral Games were also exhibited in the Forum for four days on the occasion of the death of M. Valerius Laevinus by his sons, Publius and Marcus; they also gave a gladiatorial spectacle in which five-and-twenty pairs fought together. One of the Keepers of the Sacred Books, M. Aurelius Cotta, died and Manlius Acilius Glabrio was appointed to succeed him. It so happened that the curule aediles who were elected were both unable to take up their duties at once; Gaius Cornelius Cethegus was elected while absent in Spain where he held command; C. Valerius Flaccus was in Rome when he was elected, but as he was a Flamen of Jupiter he could not take the oaths, and it was not permitted to hold any magistracy for more than five days without doing so. Flaccus asked that this condition might be waived in his case and the senate decreed that if an aedile should provide some one, with the approval of the consuls, to take the oaths for him, the consuls might if they thought good arrange with the tribunes for the matter to be referred to the plebs. L. Valerius Flaccus, praetor-designate, was brought forward to take the oaths for his brother. The tribunes brought the matter before the plebs, and the plebs decided that it should be just as though the aedile himself had taken them. In the case of the other aedile, the tribunes requested the plebs to appoint two men to command the armies in Spain, and the plebs resolved that the curule aedile C. Cornelius should come home to take up his duties and that L. Manlius Acidinus should retire from his province after having held it for many years. They then made an order that Cn. Cornelius Lentulus and T, Stertinius should have the full powers of proconsuls in Spain.
