number of the most respectable members of the state; and all present urgently repeating their request, they mutually pledged their right hands, and their honour, to dismiss in reality and forget all animosity. Then the whole assembly expressing the highest applause of their behaviour, they were escorted to the Capitol. Both the attention paid to such a matter by the persons of the first consequence, and the compliance of the censors, were most warmly approved and commended by the senate. The censors then demanded that a sum of money should be assigned to them, which they might expend in public works; and the customs of one year were accordingly decreed to them. 47. In the same year the proprætors in Spain, Lucius Postumius and Tiberius Sempronius, settled between them, that Albinus should march through Lusitania, against the Vaccæans, and thence return into Celtiberia, and Gracchus penetrate into the remotest parts of that province, if the commotions there were more dangerous. First, having made an unexpected assault on the city of Munda, by night, he took it by storm; then, after having received hostages and placed a garrison, he proceeded to attack their forts and ravage the country with fire, until he arrived at another very strong city, (the Celtiberians call it Certima,) there, when he was already advancing his works, deputies came out from the town, whose speech partook of all the simplicity of the earliest times, not dissembling their wishes to continue the war, if they had strength to support it.—For they requested permission to go into the camp of the Celtiberians, and procure assistance from them; and said, that “if they did not obtain it they would then deliberate apart from them.” By the permission of Gracchus they went; and in a few days after brought with them ten other ambassadors. It was mid-day. The first thing that they asked of the prætor was, that he would order some drink to be given them. After drinking off the first caps, they asked a second time, causing thereby loud laughter from those present, at minds so unpolished, and ignorant of all civilization. The eldest of them then says, “We have been sent by our nation to ask, on what do you rely that you attack us?” To this question Gracchus answered, that “he came relying on an excellent army; which if they chose to see, in order to carry back more certain information to their friends, he would give them an opportunity;” and he orders the military tribunes to draw up, in array, all the forces both horse and foot, and make them go through their exercise in arms. After this sight, the ambassadors, being dismissed, deterred their people from attempting to succour the besieged city. When the townsmen had from the towers raised fires, (which was the signal agreed upon,) to no purpose, and had been disappointed in their only hope of relief, they capitulated. A contribution of two million four hundred thousand sesterces[61] was imposed on them; and they were