were fully sensible, that the resources of his kingdom were the
sure and faithful support of their own state." Presents were then,
by order of the senate, sent to the ambassadors, of five thousand
_asses_[1] to each. While the consuls were engaged in the levy,
and preparing what was necessary for the war, the people, prone to
religious observances, especially at the beginning of new wars, after
supplications had been already performed, and prayers offered up at
all the shrines, lest any thing should be omitted that had ever been
practised, ordered, that the consul who was to have the province of
Macedonia should vow games and a present to Jove. Licinius, the chief
pontiff, occasioned some delay to this public vow, alleging, that "it
ought not to be fulfilled from promiscuous funds. For as the sum to
be named should not be applied to the uses of the war, it should be
immediately set apart, and not to be intermixed with other money; and
that, unless this were done, the vow could not be properly performed."
Although the objection and the author of it were influential, yet the
consul was ordered to consult the college of pontiffs, whether a
vow could be undertaken at an indeterminate expense? The pontiffs
determined, that it could; and that it would be even more in order to
do it in that way. The consul, therefore, repeating after the chief
pontiff, made the vow in the same words in which those made for five
years of safety used to be expressed; only that he engaged to perform
the games, and make the offerings, at such expense as the senate
should direct by their vote, at the time when the vow was performed.
Before this, the great games so often vowed, were constantly rated at
a certain expense: these first at an unspecified amount.

[Footnote 1: 16l. 2s. 1d.]

10. While every one's attention was turned to the Macedonian war, and
at a time when people apprehended nothing less, a sudden account was
brought of an inroad of the Gauls. The Insubrians, Caenomanians,
and Boians, having been joined by the Salyans, Ilvatians, and other
Ligurian states, and putting themselves under the command of Hamilcar,
a Carthaginian, who, having been in the army of Hasdrubal, had
remained in those parts, had fallen upon Placentia; and, after
plundering the city, and, in their rage, burning a great part of it,
leaving scarcely two thousand men among the flames and ruins, passed
the Po, and advanced to plunder Cremona. The news of the calamity