45.  In this year colonies of Roman citizens were settled at Puteoli, Vulturnum, and Liternum; three hundred men in each place.  Colonies of Roman citizens were likewise established at Salernum and Buxentum.  The lands allotted to them had formerly belonged to the Campanians.  Tiberius Sempronius Longus, who was then consul, Marcus Servilius, and Quintus Minucius Thermus, were the triumviri who settled the colony.  Other commissioners also, Decius Junius Brutus, Marcus Baebius Tamphilus, and Marcus Helvius, led a colony of Roman citizens to Sipontum, into a district which had belonged to the Arpinians.  To Tempsa, likewise, and to Croto, colonies of Roman citizens were led out.  The lands of Tempsa had been taken from the Bruttians, who had formerly expelled the Greeks from them.  Croto was possessed by Greeks.  In ordering these establishments, there were named, for Croto,—­Cneius Octavius, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, and Caius Pletorius; for Tempsa,—­Lucius Cornelius Merula, and Caius Salonius.  Several prodigies were observed at Rome that year, and others reported, from other places.  In the forum, comitium, and Capitol, drops of blood were seen, and several showers of earth fell, and the head of Vulcan was surrounded with a blaze of fire.  It was reported that a stream of milk ran in the river at Interamna; that, in some reputable families at Ariminum, children were born without eyes and nose; and one, in the territory of Picenum, that had neither hands nor feet.  These prodigies were expiated according to an order of the pontiffs; and the nine days’ festival was celebrated, because the Hadrians had sent intelligence that a shower of stones had fallen in their fields.

46.  In Gaul, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, proconsul, in a pitched battle near Mediolanum, completely overthrew the Insubrian Gauls, and the Boians; who, under the command of Dorulacus, had crossed the Po, to rouse the Insubrians to arms.  Ten thousand of the enemy were slain.  About this time his colleague, Marcus Porcius Cato, triumphed over Spain.  He carried in the procession twenty-five thousand pounds’ weight of unwrought silver, one hundred and three thousand silver denarii,[1] five hundred and forty of Oscan silver,[2] and one thousand four hundred pounds’ weight of gold.  Out of the booty, he distributed to each of his soldiers two hundred and seventy asses;[3] and three times that amount to each horseman.  Tiberius Sempronius, consul, proceeding to his province, led his legions, first, into the territory of the Boians.  At this time Boiorix their chieftain, with his two brothers, after having drawn out the whole nation into the field to renew the war, pitched his camp in the open country, that it might be evident that he was prepared to fight in case the enemy should pass the frontiers.  When the consul understood what a numerous force and what a degree of resolution the enemy had, he sent an express to his colleague, requesting him, “if he thought proper, to hasten