of armies and provinces, were continued in command.  It fell to the lot of Quintus Caecilius to carry on the war against Hannibal in Bruttium, together with the consul.  The games of Scipio were then celebrated in the presence of a great number of persons, and with the approbation of the spectators.  The deputies, Marcus Pomponius Matho and Quintus Catius, sent to Delphi to convey a present out of the spoils taken from Hasdrubal, carried with them a golden crown of two hundred pounds’ weight, and representations of the spoils made out of a thousand pounds’ weight of silver.  Scipio, though he could not obtain leave to levy troops, a point which he did not urge with great eagerness, obtained leave to take with him such as volunteered their services; and also, as he declared that the fleet would not be the occasion of expense to the state, to receive what was furnished by the allies for building fresh ships.  First, the states of Etruria engaged to assist the consuls to the utmost of their respective abilities.  The people of Caere furnished corn, and provisions of every description, for the crews; the people of Populoni furnished iron; of Tarquinii, cloth for sails; those of Volaterrae, planks for ships, and corn; those of Arretium, thirty thousand shields, as many helmets; and of javelins, Gallic darts, and long spears, they undertook to make up to the amount of fifty thousand, an equal number of each description, together with as many axes, mattocks, bills, buckets, and mills, as should be sufficient for fifty men of war, with a hundred and twenty thousand pecks of wheat; and to contribute to the support of the decurios and rowers on the voyage.  The people of Perusia, Clusium, and Rusella furnished firs for building ships, and a great quantity of corn.  Scipio had firs out of the public woods.  The states of Umbria, and, besides them, the people of Nursia, Reate, and Amiternum, and all those of the Sabine territory, promised soldiers.  Many of the Marsians, Pelignians, and Marrucinians volunteered to serve in the fleet.  The Cameritans, as they were joined with the Romans in league on equal terms, sent an armed cohort of six hundred men.  Having laid the keels of thirty ships, twenty of which were quinqueremes, and ten quadriremes, he prosecuted the work with such diligence, that, on the forty-fifth day after the materials were taken from the woods, the ships, being fully equipped and armed, were launched.

46.  He set out into Sicily with thirty ships of war, with about seven thousand volunteers on board.  Publius Licinius came into Bruttium to the two consular armies, of which he selected for himself that which Lucius Veturius, the consul, had commanded.  He allowed Metellus to continue in the command of those legions which were before under him, concluding that he could act more easily with the troops accustomed to his command.  The praetors also went to their different provinces.  As there was a scarcity of money to carry on the war, the quaestors were ordered