Ab urbe condita

To which the Roman replied: “Roman soldiers will march not whither the enemy summons them, but whither their commander leads them.” Publilius meantime had taken up a suitable position between Palaeopolis and Neapolis in order to prevent them from rendering each other the mutual assistance they had hitherto given. The time for the elections was close at hand, and it would have been most inexpedient for the public interest to recall Publilius, as he was ready to attack the place and in daily expectation of effecting its capture.

An arrangement was accordingly made with the tribunes of the plebs to propose to the people that at the expiration

of his term of office Publilius should continue to act as proconsul till the war with the Greeks was brought to a close.

The same step was taken with regard to Cornelius, who had already entered Samnium, and written instructions were sent to him to nominate a Dictator to hold the elections. He nominated M. Claudius Marcellus, and Sp. Postumius was named by him Master of the Horse.

The elections, however, were not held by that Dictator, doubts having been raised as to whether the proper formalities had been observed in his nomination. The augurs, when consulted, declared that they had not been duly observed. The tribunes characterised their action as dishonest and iniquitous.

“How,” they asked, “could they know that there was any irregularity? The consul rose at midnight to nominate the Dictator; he had made no communication to any one either officially or privately about the matter;

there was no one living who could say that he had seen or heard anything which would vitiate the auspices; the augurs sitting quietly in Rome could not possibly divine what difficulty the consul may have met with in the camp. Who was there who could not see that the irregularity which the augurs had discovered lay in the fact that the Dictator was a plebeian?”

These and other objections were raised by the tribunes. Matters, however, reverted to an interregnum, and owing to the repeated adjournment of the elections on one pretext after another, there were no fewer than fourteen interegna. At last L. Aemilius, the fourteenth interrex, declared C. Poetilius and L. Papirius Mugilanus duly elected. In other lists I find Cursor.

The[*](Death of Alexander of Epirus.) foundation of Alexandria in Egypt is stated to have taken place this year (327 B.C..>, and also the assassination of Alexander of Epirus at the hands of a Lucanian refugee, an event which fulfilled the oracular prediction of the Dodonean Jupiter.

When he was invited by the Tarentines into Italy, he received a warning to beware of the water of Acheron and the city of Pandosia; for it was there that the limits of his destiny were fixed.

This made him cross over into Italy all the sooner, that he might be as far as possible from the city of Pandosia in Epirus and the river Acheron, which flows from Molossis into the Infernal Marshes and finally empties itself into the Thesprotian Gulf.

But, as often happens, in trying to avoid his fate he rushed upon it. He won many victories over the nationalities of Southern Italy, inflicting numerous defeats upon the legions of Bruttium and Lucania, capturing the city of Heraclea, a colony of settlers from Tarentum, taking Potentia from the Lucanians, Sipontum from the Apulians, Consentia and Terina from the Bruttii and other cities belonging to the Messapians and Lucanians.

He sent three hundred noble families to Epirus to be detained there as hostages. The circumstances under which he met his death were these. He had taken up a permanent position on three hills not far from the city of Pandosia which is close to the frontiers of the Lucanians and Bruttii.