22. During the time in which this intelligence was announced from Spain, the games called Taurilia[52] were celebrated, during two days, on a religious account. Then Marcus Fulvius exhibited games, which he had vowed in the Ætolian war, and which lasted ten days. Many artists, out of respect to him, came from Greece on the occasion; and now, for the first time, the Romans had an opportunity of seeing contests of wrestlers; they were also presented with a hunt of lions and panthers; the games were celebrated with almost the variety and abundance of the present age. The nine days’ solemnity succeeded, because showers of stones had fallen, for three days, in Picenum; and fires from heaven were said to have arisen in various places, and singed the clothes of many persons by slight flashes. By order of the pontiffs, a supplication, of one day’s continuance, was added because the temple of Ops, in the Capitol, was struck by lightning. The consuls sacrificed victims of the larger kinds, and purified the city. At the same time, an account was brought from Umbria, of a hermaphrodite, twelve years old, being found there. The consuls wishing to get rid of the prodigy, as it was a fearful omen, ordered that it should be removed instantly out of the Roman territory, and put to death. During this year, a body of Transalpine Gauls came into Venetia, without committing depredation or hostility, and pitched on a spot for building a town, not far from that where Aquileia now stands. Ambassadors were sent from Rome, over the Alps, on this business, and to them an answer was given that “they had not emigrated by the authority of their state, nor did their countrymen know what they were doing in Italy.” About this time Lucius Scipio celebrated games, which he said he had vowed during the war with Antiochus; they lasted ten days, and the money was contributed for the purpose by the kings and states of Asia. Valerius Antias asserts, that, after his condemnation, and the sale of his effects, he was sent as ambassador into Asia, to adjust disputes between the kings Antiochus and Eumenes; that there the money was contributed for him, and actors collected through Asia: and that after his embassy, the subject of those games (of which he had made no mention after the war, in which he asserted that they had been vowed) was at length introduced in the senate-house.