which was given, together with the purple-bordered robe, and the curule chair, to the office of flamen. The praetor wished the question to rest not on the precedents contained in the annals, which were obsolete from their antiquity, but on the usual practice in all the cases of most recent date; urging, that no flamen of Jupiter, in the memory of their fathers or their grandfathers, had taken up that privilege. The tribunes giving it as their opinion, that justice required, that as the obliteration of the privilege was occasioned by the negligence of the flamens, the consequences ought to fall upon the flamens themselves, and not upon the office, led the flamen into the senate, with the general approbation of the fathers, and without any opposition, even from the praetor himself; while all were of opinion that the flamen had obtained his object more from the purity of his life, than any right appertaining to the priesthood. The consuls, before they departed to their provinces, raised two legions for the city, and as many soldiers as were necessary to make up the numbers of the other armies. The consul Fulvius appointed his brother, Caius Fulvius Flaccus, lieutenant-general, to march the old city army into Etruria, and to bring to Rome the legions which were in Etruria. And the consul Fabius ordered his son, Quintus Fabius Maximus, to lead the remains of the army of Fulvius, which had been collected, amounting to three thousand three hundred and thirty-six, into Sicily to Marcus Valerius, the proconsul, and to receive from him two legions and thirty quinqueremes. The withdrawing of these legions from the island did not at all diminish the force employed for the protection of that province, either in effect or appearance; for though, in addition to two veteran legions which were most effectively reinforced, he had a great number of Numidian deserters, both horse and foot, he raised also a body of Sicilian troops, consisting of men who had served in the armies of Epicydes and the Carthaginians, and were experienced in war. Having added these foreign auxiliaries to each of the Roman legions, he preserved the appearance of two armies. With one he ordered Lucius Cinctius to protect that portion of the island which had formed the kingdom of Hiero, with the other he himself guarded the rest of the island, which was formerly divided by the boundary of the Roman and Carthaginian dominions. He divided also the fleet of seventy ships, in order that it might protect the sea-coast, through the entire extent of its shores. He himself went through the island with the cavalry of Mutines to inspect the lands, observe those which were cultivated and those which were not, and, accordingly, either praise or reprove the owners. By this diligence so large a quantity of corn was produced, that he both sent some to Rome, and collected at Catana corn which might serve as a supply for the army, which was about to pass the summer at Tarentum.