47. Not long after, as the time of the consular elections drew nigh, the consul, Caius Lælius, came home to Rome from Gaul. He not only enrolled the colonists, according to a decree of the senate, passed in his absence, as a supplement to Cremona and Placentia, but proposed,—and, on his recommendation, the senate voted,—that two new colonies should be established in the lands which had belonged to the Boians. At the same time arrived a letter from the prætor, Lucius Æmilius, containing intelligence of the sea-fight that took place at Myonesus, and of Lucius Scipio the consul having transported his army into Asia. A supplication for one day was decreed, on account of the naval victory, and another, for the second day, in order that, as the Roman army had then for the first time pitched a camp in Asia, this circumstance might turn out prosperous and happy. The consul was ordered to sacrifice twenty of the greater victims on occasion of each supplication. The election of consuls was then held with a warm contest. Marcus Æmilius Lepidus sought the office under general censure, for having, in order to sue for the office, left his province of Sicily without having asked the senate for permission to do so. Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, Cneius Manlius Vulso, and Marcus Valerius Messala, were his competitors for the office. Fulvius alone was elected consul, since the rest could not make up the number of centuries; and the next day, rejecting Lepidus, (for Messala had declined,) he declared Cneius Manlius his colleague. Then were chosen prætors, two of the name of Quintus Fabius, Labeo and Pictor, (the latter of whom had in that year been inaugurated flamen quirinalis,) Marcus Sempronius Tuditanus, Spurius Posthumius Albinus, Lucius Plautius Hypsæus, and Lucius Bæbius Dives.
48. Valerius Antias says, that at the time when Marcus Fulvius Nobilior and Cneius Manlius Vulso were consuls, a rumour prevailed strongly at Rome, and was received as almost certain, that the consul, Lucius Scipio, and with him Publius Africanus, had been invited by the king to a conference, under pretence of restoring young Scipio, and were both seized, and that when the leaders were thus made prisoners, the enemy’s army was immediately led up to the Roman camp, that this was stormed, and the forces entirely cut off; that in consequence of this, the Ætolians had taken courage and refused to obey orders; and that several of their principal men had gone into Macedonia, Dardania, and Thrace, to hire auxiliaries; that Aulus Tarentius Varro, and Marcus Claudius Lepidus, had been sent by Aulus Cornelius, proprætor, from Ætolia, to carry this intelligence to Rome. To this story Valerius annexed that the Ætolian ambassadors were asked in the senate this question among others, from whom they had heard that the Roman generals were made prisoners by king Antiochus in Asia, and the army cut off; and that the Ætolians answered, that they had been informed of it by their own ambassadors, who were with the consul. As I have no other authority for this report, it has neither been confirmed in my opinion, nor has it been overlooked as groundless.