born with the head of an elephant. These prodigies were then expiated
with victims of the larger kind, and a supplication at every shrine
and an offering up of prayers, was proclaimed for one day. It was also
decreed, that Caius Hostilius, the praetor, should vow and perform
the games in honour of Apollo as they had of late years been vowed and
performed. During the same time, Quintus Fulvius, the consul, held an
election for the creation of censors. Marcus Cornelius Cethegus, and
Publius Sempronius Tuditanus, both of whom had not yet been consuls,
were created censors. The question was put to the people on the
authority of the fathers, and the people ordered that these censors
should let to farm the Campanian lands. The choosing of the senate
was delayed by a dispute which arose between the censors about the
selection of a chief of the senate. The choice belonged to Sempronius;
but Cornelius contended that the custom handed down by their fathers
must be followed, which was, that they should choose him as chief of
the senate who was first censor of those who were then alive; this was
Titus Manlius Torquatus. Sempronius rejoined, that to whom the gods
had given the lot of choosing, to him the same gods had given the
right of exercising his discretion freely. That he would act in this
affair according to his own free will, and would choose Quintus Fabius
Maximus, whom he would prove to be the first man in the Roman state,
even in the judgment of Hannibal. After a long verbal dispute, his
colleague giving up the point, Quintus Fabius Maximus, the consul, was
chosen, by Sempronius, chief of the senate. Another senate was then
chosen, and eight names were passed over; among which was that
of Lucius Caecilius Metellus, disrespected as the adviser of the
abandonment of Italy, after the defeat at Cannae. In censuring those
of the equestrian order, the same ground was acted upon, but there
were very few to whom that disgrace belonged. All of the equestrian
order belonging to the legions who had fought at Cannae, and were then