Their censorship was also very active and strict in the superintendence of the morals of the people. Many knights were deprived of their horses. 28. At the close of the year, there was a thanksgiving, for one day, on account of the advantages obtained in Spain under the conduct and auspices of Appius Claudius, the proconsul; and they sacrificed twenty victims, of the larger kinds. There was also a supplication, for another day, at the temples of Ceres, Liber, and Liberia, because a violent earthquake with the destruction of many houses was announced from the Sabines. When Appius Claudius came home from Spain, the senate voted that he should enter the city in ovation. The election of consuls now came on: when they were held, after a violent struggle in consequence of the great number of candidates, Lucius Postumius Albinus and Marcus Popilius Lænas were elected consuls. Then Numerius Fabius Buteo, Marcus Matienus, Caius Cicereius, Marcus Furius Crassipes, a second time, Marcus Atilius Serranus, a second time, and Caius Cluvius Saxula, a second time, were chosen prætors. After the elections were finished, Appius Claudius Centho, entering the city in ovation over the Celtiberians, conveyed to the treasury ten thousand pounds’ weight of silver, and five thousand of gold. Cneius Cornelius was inaugurated flamen of Jupiter. In the same year a tablet was hung up in the temple of mother Matuta, with this inscription:—UNDER THE COMMAND AND AUSPICES OF TIBERIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS, CONSUL, A LEGION AND ARMY OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE SUBDUED SARDINIA; IN WHICH PROVINCE ABOVE EIGHTY THOUSAND OF THE ENEMY WERE KILLED OR TAKEN. HAVING EXECUTED THE BUSINESS OF THE PUBLIC WITH THE HAPPIEST SUCCESS; HAVING RECOVERED THE REVENUES, AND RESTORED THEM _to the commonwealth_,—HE BROUGHT HOME THE ARMY SAFE, UNINJURED, AND ENRICHED WITH SPOIL, AND, A SECOND TIME, ENTERED THE CITY OF ROME IN TRIUMPH. IN COMMEMORATION OF WHICH EVENT HE PRESENTED THIS TABLET AS AN OFFERING TO JUPITER. A map of the island of Sardinia was engraved on the tablet, and pictures of the battles fought there were delineated on it. Several small exhibitions of gladiators were given to the public this year; the only one particularly remarkable, was that of Titus Flamininus, which he gave on occasion of his father’s death, and it was accompanied with a donation of meat, a feast, and stage-plays, and lasted four days. Yet, in the whole of this great exhibition, only seventy-four men fought in three days. _The close of this year was rendered memorable by the proposal of a new and important rule, which occupied the state, since it was debated with great emotion. Hitherto, as the law stood, women were as equally capable of receiving inheritances as men. From which it happened that the wealth of the most illustrious houses was frequently transferred into other families, to the great detriment, as it was generally supposed, of the state; to which it was no small advantage that there should be a sufficiency of