Kitap 37
57
The censorship this year was an object of ambition with many men of distinction, and as though it were not important enough in itself to excite keen competition, it provoked a still more exciting contest of a different character. The rival candidates were T. Quinctius Flamininus, P. Cornelius Scipio, L. Valerius Flaccus, M. Porcius Cato, M. Claudius Marcellus and Manius Acilius Glabrio, the conqueror of Antiochus and the Aetolians at Thermopylae. The last-named was the popular candidate owing to the fact that he had had numerous opportunities of distributing largesse and so had placed a considerable number of men under obligations to him. Many of the nobility were extremely angry at such preference being shown for a "new man" and two of the tribunes of the plebs, P. Sempronius Gracchus and C. Sempronius Rutilus, fixed a day for his impeachment on the charge of neglecting to carry in his triumphal procession or deposit in the treasury a large part of the royal treasure and the plunder gathered in the camp of Antiochus. The evidence given by the staff officers and military tribunes was conflicting. A conspicuous witness who came forward was M. Cato; the authority which he had acquired by the uniform tenor of his life was somewhat impaired by his being a rival candidate for the censorship He gave evidence to the effect that the gold and silver plate which he had noticed amongst the royal booty when the camp was taken, he had not seen in the triumphal procession. At last Glabrio, mainly with the object of creating odium against him, gave out that he was abandoning his candidature since a competitor who was as much a "new man" as himself, and therefore the object of silent indignation amongst the nobility, was defaming him by perjured evidence.
