1Spring was now approaching; 1and so Hannibal moved out of his winter quarters, having earlier tried in vain to cross the Apennines because of the unbearable cold, and having stayed on amid great danger and fear. 2The Gauls, whom the hope of plunder and pillaging had stirred up, once they saw that instead of seizing and driving off spoil from another's land themselves, their own lands were the seat of the war and were burdened by the winter quarters of both sides' armies, turned their hatred back from the Romans upon Hannibal; 3and though he was often targeted by plots of their chieftains, he had been saved by their treachery towards one another, as they betrayed the conspiracy with the same fickleness with which they had conspired, and by changing now his clothing, now his head-coverings, he had also protected himself from plots through the confusion this caused.
4But this fear too was a reason for his moving out of winter quarters earlier. 4At about the same time Gnaeus Servilius entered office as consul at Rome on the Ides of March. 5There, when he had laid the state of the republic before the senate, the resentment against Gaius Flaminius was renewed: they had elected two consuls, they said, but had only one; 5for what lawful authority, what auspices did that man have? 6Magistrates carried these with them from home, from the public and private household gods, after the Latin Festival had been celebrated, the sacrifice on the mountain completed, and vows duly pronounced on the Capitol; 7the auspices did not accompany a private citizen, nor could one who had set out without auspices take them fresh and untainted on foreign soil.
8Fear was increased by prodigies reported from several places at once: that in Sicily the javelins of a number of soldiers, and in Sardinia the staff which a horseman going round the sentries on the wall held in his hand, had caught fire; and that the shores had blazed with frequent fires; and that two shields had sweated blood; and that some soldiers had been struck by lightning; and that the sun's disc had been seen to shrink; and that at Praeneste burning stones had fallen from the sky; and that at Arpi shields had been seen in the sky and the sun fighting with the moon; and that at Capena two moons had risen in the daytime; and that at Caere the waters had flowed mixed with blood, and the very spring of Hercules had run spattered with bloody spots; and that at Antium bloody ears of grain had fallen into the basket for the reapers; and that at Falerii the sky had been seen to split open as if with a great chasm, and where it had opened a vast light had shone forth; and that the oracle-lots had shrunk and one had fallen out of its own accord, inscribed thus: 'Mavors shakes his spear'; and that at the same time at Rome the statue of Mars on the Appian Way and the images of wolves had sweated; and that at Capua there had been the appearance of the sky on fire and of wool falling amid the rain.
13After that, credence was given even to prodigies more trivial in the telling: that some people's goats had become woolly, and that a hen had turned itself into a male and a cock into a female. 14When these had been set out just as they had been reported, and the witnesses brought into the senate house, the consul consulted the fathers on matters of religion. 15It was decreed that these prodigies should be expiated partly with full-grown victims, partly with sucklings, and that a supplication should be held for three days at all the couches of the gods; 16as for the rest, that when the decemvirs had inspected the books, things should be done as they declared from the oracles to be pleasing to the gods.
17On the advice of the decemvirs it was decreed that first a golden thunderbolt fifty pounds in weight should be made for Jupiter, and that gifts of silver should be given to Juno and Minerva, and that sacrifice should be made with full-grown victims to Queen Juno on the Aventine and to Juno the Saviour at Lanuvium, and that the matrons, having collected money, as much as it suited each to contribute, should bring a gift to Queen Juno on the Aventine, and that a lectisternium should be held, and that the freedwomen too should contribute money according to their means, from which a gift might be given to Feronia.
19When these things had been done, the decemvirs sacrificed with full-grown victims in the forum at Ardea. 19Finally, now in the month of December, a sacrifice was offered at the temple of Saturn at Rome and a lectisternium ordered — the senators spread that couch — and a public banquet, and through the city the cry of the Saturnalia was raised for a day and a night, and the people were ordered to keep that day as a holiday and observe it for ever.