with four thousand foot and three hundred horse of the allies and Latin confederates; and those praetors were ordered to repair to their provinces at the earliest possible time.  This war in Spain broke out in the fifth year after the former had been ended, together with the Punic war.  The Spaniards now, for the first time, had taken arms in their own name, unconnected with any Carthaginian army or general.  Before the consuls stirred from the city, however, they were ordered, as usual, to expiate the reported prodigies.  Publius Villius, a Roman knight, on the road to Sabinia, had been killed by lightning, together with his horse.  The temple of Feronia, in the Capenatian district, had been struck by lightning.  At the temple of Moneta, the shafts of two spears had taken fire and burned.  A wolf, coming in through the Esquiline gate, and running through the most frequented part of the city, down into the forum, passed thence through the Tuscan and Maelian streets; and scarcely receiving a stroke, made its escape out of the Capenian gate.  These prodigies were expiated with victims of the larger kinds.

27.  About the same time Cneius Cornelius Lentulus, who had held the government of Hither Spain before Sempronius Tuditanus, entered the city in ovation, pursuant to a decree of the senate, and carried in the procession one thousand five hundred and fifteen pounds’ weight of gold, twenty thousand of silver; and in coin, thirty-four thousand five hundred and fifty denarii.[1] Lucius Stretinius, from the Farther Spain, without making any pretensions to a triumph, carried into the treasury fifty thousand pounds’ weight of silver; and out of the spoils taken, built two arches in the cattle-market, at the fronts of the temple of Fortune and Mother Matuta, and one in the great Circus; and on these arches placed gilded statues.  These were the principal occurrences during the winter.  At this time Quinctius was in winter quarters at Elatia.  Among many requests, made to him by the allies, was that of the Boeotians, namely, that their countrymen, who had served in the army with Philip, might be restored to them.  With this Quinctius readily complied; not because he thought them very deserving, but that, as king Antiochus was already suspected, he judged it advisable to conciliate every state in favour of the Roman interest.  It quickly appeared how very little gratitude existed among the Boeotians; for they not only sent persons to give thanks to Philip for the restoration of their fellows, as if that favour had been conferred on them by him, and not by Quinctius and the Romans; but, at the next election, raised to the office of Boeotarch a man named Brachyllas, for no other reason than because he had been commander of the Boeotians serving in the army of Philip; passing by Zeuxippus, Pisistratus, and the others, who had promoted the alliance with Rome.  These men were both offended at the present and alarmed about the future consequences:  for if such things were done when a Roman army lay almost at their gates, what would become of them when the Romans should have gone away to Italy, and Philip, from a situation so near, should support his own associates, and vent his resentment on those who had been of the opposite party?