which had passed; or if he wished to postpone the day, to receive hostages.  Thus, though an arduous war was on their shoulders, no attention to any one concern in any part of the world, however remote, escapes the Romans.  It was made a matter of superstitious fear also, that the temple of Concord, which Lucius Manlius, the praetor, had vowed in Gaul two years ago, on occasion of a mutiny, had not been contracted for to that day.  Accordingly, Cneius Pupius and Caeso Quinctius Flaminius, created duumviri by Marcus Aemilius, the city praetor, for that purpose, contract for the building a temple in the citadel.  By the same praetor a letter was sent to the consuls, agreeably to a decree of the senate, to the effect that, if they thought proper, one of them should come to Rome to elect consuls; and that he would proclaim the election for whatever day they might name.  To this it was replied by the consuls, that they could not leave the enemy without detriment to the public; that it would be better, therefore, that the election should be held by an interrex, than that one of the consuls should be called away from the war.  It appeared more proper to the fathers, that a dictator should be nominated by a consul, for the purpose of holding the election Lucius Veturius Philo was nominated, who chose Manius Pomponius Matho master of the horse.  These having been created with some defect, they were ordered to give up their appointment on the fourteenth day; and the state came to an interregnum.

34.  To the consuls the authority was continued for a year longer.  Caius Claudius Centho, son of Appius, and then Publius Cornelius Asina, were appointed interreges by the fathers.  During the interregnum of the latter the election was held with a violent contest between the patricians and the people, Caius Terentius Varro, whom, as a man of their own order, commended to their favour by inveighing against the patricians and by other popular arts; who had acquired celebrity by maligning others, by undermining the influence of Fabius, and bringing into contempt the dictatorial authority, the commons strove to raise to the consulship.  The patricians opposed him with all their might, lest men, by inveighing against them, should come to be placed on an equality with them.  Quintus Boebius Herennius, a plebeian tribune, and kinsman of Caius Terentius, by criminating not only the senate, but the augurs also, for having prevented the dictator from completing the election, by the odium cast upon them, conciliated favour to his own candidate.  He asserted, “that Hannibal had been brought into Italy by the nobility, who had for many years been desirous of a war.  That by the fraudulent machinations of the same persons the war had been protracted, whereas it might have been brought to a conclusion.  That it had appeared that the war could be maintained with an army consisting of four legions in all, from Marcus Minucius’s having fought with success in the absence of Fabius.