FLAMININUS. 385
conferring favors ; looking on the former as objects for his virtue, and on the latter as competitors in glory. Eome had then many sharp contests going on, and her youth betaking themselves early to the wars, learned betimes the art of commanding ; and Flamininus, having passed through the rudiments of soldiery, received his first charge in the war against Hannibal, as tribune under Marcellus, then consul. Marcellus, indeed, falling into an ambuscade, was cut off. But Titus, receiving the appoint- ment of governor, as well of Tarentum, then retaken, as of the country about it, grew no less famous for his ad- ministration of justice, than for his military skill. This obtained him the office of leader and founder of two col- onies which were sent into the cities of Narnia and Cossa;* which filled him with loftier hopes, and made him aspire to step over those previous honors which it was usual first to pass through, the offices of tribune of the people, prae- tor and sedile, and to level his aim immediately at the consulship. Having these colonies, and all their interest ready at his service, he offered himself as candidate ; but the tribunes of the people, Fulvius and Manius,f and their party, strongly opposed him ; alleging how unbecoming a thing it was, that a man of such raw years, one who was yet, as it were, untrained, uninitiated in the first sacred rites and mysteries of government, should, in contempt of the laws, intrude and force himself mto the sove- reignty. However, the senate remitted it to the people's choice and suffrage ; who elected him (though not then arrived at his thirtieth year) consul with Sextus -lElius. The
- Commissions of Three, were mission might consist of two, five,
appointed for various purposes in or even twenty members, but we all periods of the Roman Republic ; most frequently read of triumviri and one of the commonest occasions colonic deducendcE agroque divi- was this of establishing a colony, dundo. and dividing land. Such a com- f Manius Curius is meant. VOL. U. 25