Latin Texts & Translations

ch. 228.22The new consuls were P. Plautius Proculus and P. Cornelius Scapula. The year was not remarkable for anything at home or abroad beyond the fact that a colony was sent to Fregellae which was in the territory of Sidicum and had after- wards belonged to the Volscians.

There was also a distribution of meat made to the people by M. Flavius on the occasion of his mother's funeral. There were many who looked upon this as the payment of a bribe to the people under the pretext of honouring his mother's memory. He had been prosecuted by the aediles on the charge of seducing a married woman, and had been acquitted, and this was considered in the light of a dole given in return for the favour shown him at the trial. It proved also to be the means of his gaining office, for at the next election he was made a tribune of the plebs in his absence and over the heads of competitors who had per- sonally canvassed.

^[Note] Palaeopolis was a city not far from the present site of Neapolis The two cities formed one com- munity. The original inhabitants came from Cumae; Cumae traced its origin to Chalcis in Euboea. The fleet in which they had sailed from home gave them the mastery of the coastal district which they now occupy, and after landing in the islands of Aenaria and Pithecusae they ventured to transfer their settle- ments to the mainland.

This community, relying on their own strength and on the lax observance of treaty obligations which the Samnites were showing towards the Romans, or possibly trusting to the effect of the pestilence which they had heard was now attacking the City, committed many acts of aggression against the Romans who were living in Campania and the Falernian country. In consequence of this, the consuls, L. Cornelius Lentulus and Q. Publilius Philo, sent the fetials to Palaeopolis to demand redress. On hearing that the Greeks, a people valiant in words rather than in deeds, had sent a defiant reply, the people, with the sanction of the senate, ordered war to be made on Palaeopolis. The consuls arranged their respective commands; the Greeks were left for Publilius to deal with; Cornelius, with a second army, was to check any movement on the part of the Samnites. As, however, he received intelligence that they intended to advance into Campania in anticipation of a rising there, he thought it best to form a standing camp there.