Current edition
Perseus
History of Rome
(English)
(Foster, Benjamin Oliver; Moore, Frank Gardener; Sage, Evan T.; Schlesinger, Alfred C.,
translators.
Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1919-1959.
(Loeb Classical Library))
Notes on the current edition
Ab Urbe Condita With An English Translation, books 1-10, 21-45, with periochae 11-20
1.
The text and the meaning are alike uncertain. By
hi consules one would infer that A. Postumius and Q. Fulvius were meant, but just below A. Postumius is named as the commander of troops at Pisa which belonged to the army of Q. Fulvius. Possibly
hi consoles venirent should have been singular, referring to Fulvius, and the meaning is that Postumius preceded Fulvius to the province and assumed command temporarily of both consular armies. It is also possible that the name A. Postumius in this sentence is an error, or that another man of the name is meant, whom Livy fails to distinguish from the consul. If it is the consul, he took emergency action, notified the proper commander (Fulvius) of the troops concerned, and then proposed the exile of Nobilior.
2.
The brother of either Q. Fulvius Flaccus —the consul of
180 B.C. or the consul of
179 B.C., who was at this time still in Spain or on the way back
8
—should have had the
cognomen Flaccus, unless he had been adopted by some Fulvius Nobilior, and of such an adoption there is no record. There is moreover no Q. Fulvius Nobilior known to have lived at this time. One naturally assumes from Livy's language here that Q.
Fulvii refers to the consul of
180 B.C., but no brother Marcus is mentioned elsewhere. The consul of
179 B.C. had a brother Marcus (xxx. 4 above), but it is not likely that after serving in some unspecified capacity under his brother in Spain in
181 B.C. he should have served as military tribune under his cousin in
180 B.C. in Italy. The consul of
179 B.C., during his censorship in
174 B.C., expelled from the senate his own brother, and Valerius Maximus (II. vii. 5, repeated by Frontinus,
Strat. IV. i. 31) asserts that the degradation was due to the discharge of a legion of which he was military tribune. The brother is called simply Fulvius, with no
praenomen. Livy (XLI. xxvii. 2) and Velleius (I. x. 6) likewise refer to the expulsion, the former calling the brother L. Fulvius and the latter Cn. Fulvius; neither gives any explanation of the censor's action. The evidence therefore is so contradictory as to produce hopeless confusion. All one can say is that at this time Livy apparently thought that the tribune was the brother of the consul under whom he served. In this connection, I believe that it has not been pointed out that the other censor of
174 B.C. was the other consul of
180 B.C., who, in sect. 10 below, procured the banishment of Nobilior. Perhaps he was actually more responsible than his colleague for the degradation. The
cognomen Nobilior remains unexplained on any hypothesis.
3.
The six tribunes in each legion rotated in the command of the entire legion.
