the son of Gala, a youth of extraordinary spirit, were at Carthage,
and that other troops were hiring throughout all Africa, to be passed
over into Spain to Hasdrubal; in order that he might, as soon as
possible, pass over into Italy, with as large a force as could be
collected, and form a junction with Hannibal." That the Carthaginians
considered their success dependent on this measure. That a very large
fleet was also in preparation for the recovery of Sicily, which they
believed would sail thither in a short time. The recital of these
facts had such an effect upon the senate, that they resolved that the
consul ought not to wait for the election, but that a dictator should
be appointed to hold it, and that the consul should immediately return
to his province. A difference of opinion delayed this, for the consul
declared that he should nominate as dictator Marcus Valerius Messala,
who then commanded the fleet in Sicily; but the fathers denied that a
person could be appointed dictator who was not in the Roman territory,
and this was limited by Italy. Marcus Lucretius, a plebeian tribune,
having taken the sense of the senate upon the question, it was
decreed, "that the consul before he quitted the city, should put
the question to the people, as to whom they wished to be appointed
dictator, and that he should nominate whomsoever they directed. If the
consul were unwilling that the praetor should put the question, and
if even he were unwilling to do it, that then the tribunes should make
the proposition to the commons." The consul refusing to submit to the
people what lay in his own power, and forbidding the praetor to do so,
the plebeian tribunes put the question, and the commons ordered that
Quintus Fulvius, who was then at Capua, should be nominated dictator.
But on the night preceding the day on which the assembly of the people
was to be held for that purpose, the consul went off privately into
Sicily; and the fathers, thus deserted, decreed that a letter should
be sent to Marcus Claudius, in order that he might come to the support