dess, which they were carrying away;
so now also, that same money, by a different kind of calamity, cast a
spirit of madness upon all who were contaminated by this violation
of the temple, and turned them against each other with the fury of
enemies, general against general, and soldier against soldier.

9. Pleminius had the chief command; that part of the soldiers which he
had brought with him from Rhegium were under his own command, the rest
were under the command of the tribunes. One of Pleminius's men, while
running away with a silver cup which he had stolen from the house of
a townsman, the owners pursuing him, happened to meet Sergius and
Matienus, the military tribunes. The cup having been taken away from
him at the order of the tribunes, abuse and clamour ensued, and at
last a fight arose between the soldiers of Pleminius and those of the
tribunes; the numbers engaged and the tumult increasing at the same
time, as either party was joined by their friends who happened to come
up at the time. When the soldiers of Pleminius, who had been worsted,
had run to him in crowds, not without loud clamouring and indignant
feelings, showing their blood and wounds, and repeating the reproaches
which had been heaped upon him during the dispute, Pleminius, fired
with resentment, flung himself out of his house, ordered the tribunes
to be summoned and stripped, and the rods to be brought out.
During the time which was consumed in stripping them, for they made
resistance, and implored their men to aid them, on a sudden the
soldiers, flushed with their recent victory, ran together from every
quarter, as if there had been a shout to arms against enemies; and
when they saw the bodies of their tribunes now mangled with rods, then
indeed, suddenly inflamed with much, more ungovernable rage, without
respect, not only for the dignity of their commander, but of humanity,
they made an attack upon the lieutenant-general, having first
mutilated the lictors in a shocking manner; they then cruelly
lacerated the lieutenant-general himself, having cut him off from his
party and hemmed him in, and after mutilating his nose and ears
left him almost lifeless. Accounts of these occurrences arriving at
Messana, Scipio, a few days after, passing over to Locri in a ship
with six banks of oars, took cognizance of the cause of Pleminius and
the tribunes. Having acquitted Pleminius and left him in command of
the same place, and pronounced the tribunes guil