should be conferred upon two senators from each of the Latin states, if the Roman fathers thought proper, who might be chosen into the senate to supply the places of the deceased senators.  This proposition the fathers listened to with no more equanimity than formerly to the request when made by the Latins themselves.  A loud and violent expression of disapprobation ran through the whole senate-house.  In particular, Manlius reminded them that there was still existing a man of that stock, from which that consul was descended who formerly threatened in the Capitol that he would with his own hand put to death any Latin senator he saw in that house.  Upon which Quintus Fabius Maximus said, “that never was any subject introduced into the senate at a juncture more unseasonable than the present, when a question had been touched upon which would still further irritate the minds of the allies, who were already hesitating and wavering in their allegiance.  That that rash suggestion of one individual ought to be annihilated by the silence of the whole body; and that if there ever was a declaration in that house which ought to be buried in profound and inviolable silence, surely that above all others was one which deserved to be covered and consigned to darkness and oblivion, and looked upon as if it had never been made.”  This put a stop to the mention of the subject.  They determined that a dictator should be created for the purpose of reviewing the senate, and that he should be one who had been a censor, and was the oldest living of those who had held that office.  They likewise gave orders that Caius Terentius, the consul, should be called home to nominate a dictator; who, leaving his troops in Apulia, returned to Rome with great expedition; and, according to custom, on the following night nominated Marcus Fabius Buteo dictator, for six months, without a master of the horse, in pursuance of the decree of the senate.

23.  He having mounted the rostrum attended by the lictors, declared, that he neither approved of there being two dictators at one time, which had never been done before, nor of his being appointed dictator without a master of the horse; nor of the censorian authority being committed to one person, and to the same person a second time; nor that command should be given to a dictator for six months, unless he was created for active operations.  That he would himself restrain within proper bounds those irregularities which chance, the exigencies of the times, and necessity had occasioned.  For he would not remove any of those whom the censors Flaminius and Aemilius had elected into the senate; but would merely order that their names should be transcribed and read over, that one man might not exercise the power of deciding and determining on the character and morals of a senator; and would so elect in place of deceased members, that one rank should appear to be preferred to another, and not man to man.  The old senate-roll having been read,