tions on which the peace should be
granted. The accounts also of prodigies which arrived just at the time
of the news of the revival of the war, had occasioned great alarm.
At Cumae the orb of the sun seemed diminished, and a shower of stones
fell; and in the territory of Veliternum the earth sank in great
chasms, and trees were swallowed up in the cavities. At Aricia the
forum and the shops around it, at Frusino a wall in several places,
and a gate, were struck by lightning; and in the Palatium a shower of
stones fell. The latter prodigy, according to the custom handed down
by tradition, was expiated by a nine days' sacred rite; the rest
with victims of the larger sort. Amid these events an unusually great
rising of the waters was converted into a prodigy; for the Tiber
overflowed its banks to such a degree, that as the circus was under
water, the Apollinarian games were got up near the temple of Venus
Erycina, without the Colline gate. However, the weather suddenly
clearing up on the very day of the celebration, the procession, which
had begun to move at the Colline gate, was recalled and transferred to
the circus, on its being known that the water had retired thence. The
joy of the people and the attraction of the games were increased by
the restoration of this solemn spectacle to its proper scene.

39. The consul Claudius, having set out at length from the city,
was placed in the most imminent danger by a violent tempest, which
overtook him between the ports of Cosa and Laurentum. Having reached
Populonii, where he waited till the remainder of the tempest had
spent itself, he crossed over to the island Ilva. From Ilva he went to
Corsica, and from Corsica to Sardinia. Here, while sailing round the
Montes Insani, a tempest much more violent in itself, and in a more
dangerous situation, dispersed his fleet. Many of his ships were
shattered and stripped of their rigging, and some were wrecked. His
fleet thus weatherbeaten and shattered arrived at Carales, where the
winter came on while the ships were drawn on shore and refitted. The
year having elapsed, and no one proposing to continue him in command,
Tiberius Claudius brought back his fleet to Rome in a private
capacity. Marcus Servilius set out for his province, having nominated
Caius Servilius Geminus as dictator, that he might not be recalled to
the city to hold the elections. The dictator appointed Publius Aelius
Paetus master of the horse. It frequently happened,