and that if he thought proper, atonements should be made for the purpose of expiating the violation of the temple, in the manner formerly prescribed by the pontiffs.”  At the same time, also, prodigies were announced as having happened in many places.  It was said, that in Lucania the sky had been seen in a blaze; that at Privernum, in clear weather, the sun had been of a red colour during a whole day; that at Lanuvium, in the temple of Juno Sospita, a very loud noise had been heard in the night.  Besides, monstrous births of animals were related to have occurred in many places:  in the country of the Sabines, an infant was born whose sex was doubtful; and another was found, sixteen years old, of doubtful sex.  At Frusino a lamb was born with a swine’s head; at Sinuessa, a pig with a human head; and in Lucania, in the land belonging to the state, a foal with five feet.  All these were considered as horrid and abominable, and as if nature were straying to strange productions.  Above all, the people were particularly shocked at the hermaphrodites, which were ordered to be immediately thrown into the sea, as had been lately done with a production of the same monstrous kind, in the consulate of Caius Claudius and Marcus Livius.  Notwithstanding they ordered the decemvirs to inspect the books in regard of that prodigy; and the decemvirs, from the books, directed the same religious ceremonies which had been performed on an occasion of the same kind.  They ordered, besides, a hymn to be sung through the city by thrice nine virgins, and an offering to be made to imperial Juno.  The consul, Caius Aurelius, took care that all these matters were performed according to the direction of the decemvirs.  The hymn was composed by Publius Licinius Tegula, as a similar one had been, in the memory of their fathers, by Livius.

13.  All religious scruples were fully removed by expiations; at Locri, too, the affair of the sacrilege had been thoroughly investigated by Quintus Minucius, and the money replaced in the treasury out of the effects of the guilty.  When the consuls wished to set out to their provinces, a number of private persons, to whom the third payment became due that year, of the money which they had lent to the public in the consulate of Marcus Valerius and Marcus Claudius, applied to the senate.  The consuls, however, declared that the treasury being scarcely sufficient for the exigencies of a new war, in which a great fleet and great armies must be employed, there were no means of paying them at present.  The senate could not stand against them when they complained, that “if the state intended to use, for the purpose of the Macedonian war, the money which had been lent for the Punic war, as one war constantly arose after another, what would be the issue, but that, in return for their generosity, their property would be confiscated as for some crime?” The demands of the private creditors being equitable, and the state being in no capacity of discharging the debt, they decreed