Livy
Liber XLI
a.u.c. 576I. . . .1 a patre in pace habitam armasse eoque iuventuti praedandi cupidae pergratus esse dicebatur. Consilium de Histrico bello cum haberet consul, alii gerendum extemplo, antequam contrahere copias hostes possent, alii consulendum prius senatum censebant. Vicit sententia quae diem non proferebat. 2Profectus ab Aquileia consul castra ad lacum Timavi posuit; imminet mari is lacus. Eodem decem navibus C. Furius duumvir navalis venit. 3Adversus Illyriorum classem creati duumviri navales erant, qui tuendae2 viginti navibus maris superi
Book XLI
Book XLI
I. . . . Aepulo1 was said to have armed a people b.c. 178 which had been kept in peace by his father and thus to have won great favour with the youth, who were desirous of plundering. When a council regarding a war with the Histrians2 was held by the consul,3 some argued that it should be begun at once, before the enemy should be able to draw his forces together, others that the senate should first be consulted.4 That opinion prevailed which proposed no delay. The consul, setting out from Aquileia, encamped near the lake of Timavus; this lake lies close to the sea. Gaius Furius,5 the duumvir navalis, came to the same place with a fleet of ten ships. To oppose the fleet of the Illyrians duumviri navales had been elected, who, with twenty ships to protect the coast of the upper6
- 1The loss of the first two quaternions of V, the only manuscript containing these books (the second, which contained the text from i. 1 to edic. in ix. 10 was lost between 1531 and 1669, see the Preface), has deprived us of the beginning of Book XLI. Comparison with the Periocha shows that a relatively large number of topics was treated in the lost chapters. The details which I add in the translation have been derived from Florus I. xxvi. (II. x.); I have added only enough to give the sentence a possible grammatical construction.
- 2For earlier dealings with the Histrians, cf. XXXIX. lv. 4; XL. xxvi. 3.
- 3A. Manlius Volso (XL. lix. 4); his appointment to Gaul has not been mentioned, but was probably reported in a lost chapter.
- 4There is no record of a declaration of war against the Histrians, except as one may be implied in XL. xxvi. 3. Florus (l.c.) says that they had earlier assisted the Aetolians. Technically Manlius should have consulted the senate before proceeding against them, since their territory lay outside his province: cf. vii. 7 below.
- 5His choice in this capacity has not been mentioned before.
- 6The Adriatic.