they should give their colleague, who was an enemy,
an opportunity of advancing himself at their expense." However, the
authority of the senate prevailed; and, laying aside their private
differences, they conducted the affairs of the state in friendship
and unanimity. Their provinces were not districts bordering upon
each other, as in former years, but quite separate, in the remotest
confines of Italy. To one was decreed Bruttium and Lucania, to act
against Hannibal; to the other Gaul, to act against Hasdrubal, who, it
was reported, was now approaching the Alps; and that he to whose lot
Gaul fell should choose whichever he pleased of the two armies, one of
which was in Gaul, the other in Etruria, and receive the city legions
in addition; and that he to whose lot Bruttium fell, should, after
enlisting fresh legions for the city, take the army of whichever
of the consuls of the former year he pleased. That Quintus Fulvius,
proconsul, should take the army which was left by the consul, and that
his command should last for a year. To Caius Hostilius, to whom they
had given the province of Tarentum in exchange for Etruria, they gave
Capua instead of Tarentum, with one legion which Fulvius had commanded
the preceding year.

36. The anxiety respecting the approach of Hasdrubal to Italy
increased daily. At first, ambassadors from the Massilians had brought
word that he had passed over into Gaul and that the expectations
of the Gauls were raised by his coming, as he was reported to
have brought a large quantity of gold for the purpose of hiring
auxiliaries. Afterwards, Sextus Antistius and Marcus Raecius, who were
sent from Rome, together with these persons, as ambassadors, to look
into the affair, had brought word back that they had sent persons
with Massilian guides, who, through the medium of Gallic chieftains
connected with them by hospitality, might bring back all ascertained
particulars; that they found that Hasdrubal, who had already collected
an immense army, would cross the Alps the ensuing spring; and that the
only cause which delayed him there was, that the passage of the
Alps was closed by winter. Publius Aelius Paetus was created and
inaugurated in the office of augur in the room of Marcus Marcellus and
Cneius Cornelius Dolabella was inaugurated king of the sacred rites in
the room of Marcus Marcius, who had died two years before. This same
year, for the first time since Hannibal came into Italy, the lustrum
was clo