Marcellus, the consul of the year 701, let slip no occasion of annoying Cæsar: for instance, he had caused a man from Como, to whom Cæsar, by virtue of the full powers given him, had granted the citizenship, to be flogged like a common criminal, merely to insult and mock at Cæsar. In the following year, C. Marcellus, a cousin of the former, was consul with L. Æmilius Paullus, C. Scribonius Curio, being also tribune at the same time. Of him we have still some letters among those of Cicero: he was a young man of great talent, but of the most consummate profligacy. At first, owing to his family connexions, he belonged to Pompey’s party; and he was then considered as even a decided and very bitter enemy of Cæsar. But Cæsar knew that Curio was over head and ears in debt,—as much as two million dollars, we are told, which may give us some measure of the magnitude of the Roman fortunes, as well as of the vice and prodigality of the times,—and he is said to have gained him over by paying his debts. He likewise bought over the consul Æmilius Paullus with an immense sum: from this we may see what a mockery of a government the system of provincial administration was. The accounts were only given in after the triumph had been celebrated: this had been the case since the earliest times, and it still remained so, even now that the _imperia_ were held for such long periods. What the proconsul had gotten for himself, was not thought worth looking into: he had merely to show that he owed nothing to the army, and to account for what the senate had placed at his disposal from the _ærarium_. Æmilius Paullus built with those millions the Basilica Æmilia in the Forum, an edifice to which those noble pillars undoubtedly belonged, which, as Nibby supposes, stood in the Church of St. Paul until the calamitous fire in the year 1823.[10] Curio was uncommonly clever and adroit, and he put on an air of perfect impartiality: at first, he even sided against Cæsar; then, against both Cæsar and Pompey; at last, he flung off the mask, and declared for Cæsar.