This man, ever since the time of his first battle which had failed, had in constant harangues made Claudius obnoxious and odious to the people; and now his object was to deprive him of his command.  The connexions of Marcellus, however, then obtained leave that Marcellus, leaving a lieutenant-general at Venusia, should return to Rome to clear himself of the charges which his enemies were urging, and that the question of depriving him of his command should not be agitated during his absence.  It happened that nearly at the same time, Marcellus, and Quintius Fulvius the consul, came to Rome, the former to exonerate himself from ignominy, the latter on account of the elections.

21.  The question touching Marcellus’s command was debated in the Flaminian circus, in the presence of an immense concourse of plebeians and persons of every rank.  The plebeian tribune accused, not only Marcellus, but the nobility generally.  “It was owing,” he said, “to their dishonesty and dilatory conduct, that Hannibal occupied Italy, as though it were his province, for now ten years; that he had passed more of his life there than at Carthage.  That the Roman people were enjoying the fruits of the prolonged command of Marcellus; that his army, after having been twice defeated, was now spending the summer at Venusia lodged in houses.”  Marcellus so completely destroyed the effect of this harangue of the tribune, by the recital of the services he had rendered, that not only the bill for depriving him of his command was thrown out, but the following day he was created consul by the votes of all the centuries with wonderful unanimity.  Titus Quinctius Crispinus, who was then praetor, was joined with him as his colleague.  The next day Publius Licinius Crassus Dives, then chief pontiff, Publius Licinius Varus, Sextus Julius Caesar, and Quintus Claudius Flamen were created praetors.  At the very time of the election, the public were thrown into a state of anxiety relative to the defection of Etruria.  Caius Calpurnius, who held that province as propraetor, had written word that the Arretians had originated such a scheme.  Accordingly Marcellus, consul elect, was immediately sent thither to look into the affair, and if it should appear to him of sufficient consequence, to send for his army and transfer the war from Apulia to Etruria.  The Tuscans, checked by the alarm thus occasioned, desisted.  To the ambassadors of Tarentum, who solicited a treaty of peace securing to them their liberty and the enjoyment of their own laws, the senate answered, that they might return when the consul Fabius came to Rome.  The Roman and plebeian games were this year repeated each for one day.  The curule aediles were, Lucius Cornelius Caudinus and Servius Sulpicius Galba; the plebeian aediles, Caius Servilius and Quintus Caecilius Metellus.  It was asserted that Servilius was not qualified to be plebeian tribune or aedile, because it was satisfactorily established that his father, who, for ten years, was supposed to have been killed by the Boii in the neighbourhood of Mutina, when acting as triumvir for the distribution of lands, was alive and in the hands of the enemy.