Philo, Marcus Marcius Ralla, and Lucius Scipio, brother of the general, were sent to Rome.  At the time in which these events took place, the supplies sent from Sicily and Sardinia produced such cheapness of provisions, that the merchant gave up the corn to the mariners for their freight.  At Rome alarm was excited at the first intelligence of the renewal of hostilities by the Carthaginians; and Tiberius Claudius was directed to conduct the fleet with speed into Sicily, and cross over from that place into Africa.  The other consul, Marcus Servilius, was directed to stay at the city until the state of affairs in Africa was ascertained.  Tiberius Claudius, the consul, proceeded slowly with every thing connected with the equipment and sailing of the fleet, because the senate had decided that it should be left to Scipio, rather than to the consul, to determine the conditions on which the peace should be granted.  The accounts also of prodigies which arrived just at the time of the news of the revival of the war, had occasioned great alarm.  At Cumae the orb of the sun seemed diminished, and a shower of stones fell; and in the territory of Veliternum the earth sank in great chasms, and trees were swallowed up in the cavities.  At Aricia the forum and the shops around it, at Frusino a wall in several places, and a gate, were struck by lightning; and in the Palatium a shower of stones fell.  The latter prodigy, according to the custom handed down by tradition, was expiated by a nine days’ sacred rite; the rest with victims of the larger sort.  Amid these events an unusually great rising of the waters was converted into a prodigy; for the Tiber overflowed its banks to such a degree, that as the circus was under water, the Apollinarian games were got up near the temple of Venus Erycina, without the Colline gate.  However, the weather suddenly clearing up on the very day of the celebration, the procession, which had begun to move at the Colline gate, was recalled and transferred to the circus, on its being known that the water had retired thence.  The joy of the people and the attraction of the games were increased by the restoration of this solemn spectacle to its proper scene.

39.  The consul Claudius, having set out at length from the city, was placed in the most imminent danger by a violent tempest, which overtook him between the ports of Cosa and Laurentum.  Having reached Populonii, where he waited till the remainder of the tempest had spent itself, he crossed over to the island Ilva.  From Ilva he went to Corsica, and from Corsica to Sardinia.  Here, while sailing round the Montes Insani, a tempest much more violent in itself, and in a more dangerous situation, dispersed his fleet.  Many of his ships were shattered and stripped of their rigging, and some were wrecked.  His fleet thus weatherbeaten and shattered arrived at Carales, where the winter came on while the ships were drawn on shore and refitted.  The year having elapsed, and no one proposing to continue him in command, Tiberius