35.  The third day afterwards the election of praetors was held.  The praetors created were, Lucius Porcius Licinus, Caius Mamilius, Aulus Hostilius Cato, and Caius Hostilius Cato.  The election completed, and the games celebrated, the dictator and master of the horse abdicated their offices.  Caius Terentius Varro was sent as propraetor into Etruria, in order that Caius Hostilius might quit that province and go to Tarentum to that army which Titus Quinctius, the consul, had commanded, and that Lucius Manlius might go as ambassador across the sea, and observe what was going on there; and at the same time, as the games at Olympia, which were attended by the greatest concourse of persons of any solemnity in Greece, were about to take place that summer, that if he could without danger from the enemy, he might go to that assembly, in order that any Sicilians who might be there, having been driven away by the war, or any Tarentine citizens banished by Hannibal, might return to their homes, and be informed that the Roman people would restore to them every thing which they had possessed before the war.  As a year of the most dangerous character seemed to threaten them, and there were no consuls to direct the government, all men fixed their attention on the consuls elect, wishing them to draw lots for their provinces, as soon as possible, and determine beforehand what province and what enemy each should have.  The senate also took measures, at the instance of Quintus Fabius Maximus, to effect a reconciliation between them.  For the enmity between them was notorious; and in the case of Livius his misfortunes rendered it more inveterate and acrimonious, as he considered that in that situation he had been treated with contempt.  He was, therefore, the more inexorable, and said, “that there was no need of a reconciliation, for that they would use greater diligence and activity in every thing they did for fear lest they should give their colleague, who was an enemy, an opportunity of advancing himself at their expense.”  However, the authority of the senate prevailed; and, laying aside their private differences, they conducted the affairs of the state in friendship and unanimity.  Their provinces were not districts bordering upon each other, as in former years, but quite separate, in the remotest confines of Italy.  To one was decreed Bruttium and Lucania, to act against Hannibal; to the other Gaul, to act against Hasdrubal, who, it was reported, was now approaching the Alps; and that he to whose lot Gaul fell should choose whichever he pleased of the two armies, one of which was in Gaul, the other in Etruria, and receive the city legions in addition; and that he to whose lot Bruttium fell, should, after enlisting fresh legions for the city, take the army of whichever of the consuls of the former year he pleased.  That Quintus Fulvius, proconsul, should take the army which was left by the consul, and that his command should last for a year.  To Caius Hostilius, to whom they had given the province of Tarentum in exchange for Etruria, they gave Capua instead of Tarentum, with one legion which Fulvius had commanded the preceding year.