for consuls;” when Torquatus replied, “neither shall I as consul be able to put up with your conduct, nor will you be satisfied with my government.  Go back and vote again, and consider that you have a Punic war in Italy, and that the leader of your enemies is Hannibal.”  Upon this the century, moved by the authority of the man and the shouts of admirers around, besought the consul to summon the elder Veturian century; for they were desirous of conferring with persons older than themselves, and to name the consuls in accordance with their advice.  The elder Veturian century having been summoned, time was allowed them to confer with the others by themselves in the ovile.  The elders said that there were three persons whom they ought to deliberate about electing, two of them having already served all the offices of honour, namely, Quintus Fabius and Marcus Marcellus; and if they wished so particularly to elect some fresh person as consul to act against the Carthaginians, that Marcus Valerius Laevinus had carried on operations against king Philip by sea and land with signal success.  Thus, three persons having been proposed to them to deliberate about, the seniors were dismissed, and the juniors proceeded to vote.  They named as consuls, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, then glorious with the conquest of Sicily, and Marcus Valerius, both in their absence.  All the centuries followed the recommendation of that which voted first.  Let men now ridicule the admirers of antiquity.  Even if there existed a republic of wise men, which the learned rather imagine than know of; for my own part I cannot persuade myself that there could possibly be a nobility of sounder judgment, and more moderate in their desire of power, or a people better moralled.  Indeed that a century of juniors should have been willing to consult their elders, as to the persons to whom they should intrust a command by their vote, is rendered scarcely probable by the contempt and levity with which the parental authority is treated by children in the present age.

23.  The assembly for the election of praetors was then held, at which Publius Manlius Vulso, Lucius Manlius Acidinus, Caius Laetorius, and Lucius Cincius Alimentus were elected.  It happened that just as the elections were concluded, news was brought that Titus Otacilius, whom it seemed the people would have made consul in his absence, with Titus Manlius, had not the course of the elections been interrupted, had died in Sicily.  The games in honour of Apollo had been performed the preceding year, and on the motion of Calpurnius, the praetor, that they should be performed this year also, the senate decreed that they should be vowed every year for the time to come.  The same year several prodigies were seen and reported.  At the temple of Concord, a statue of Victory, which stood on the roof, having been struck by lightning and thrown down, stuck among the figures of Victory, which were among the ornaments under the eaves, and