Ab urbe condita

The electors must bear in mind that two consuls were being elected on that day to act against four nations. The choice of the Roman people would, he felt certain, fall on the one man who was unquestionably the foremost of all their generals. Had he not felt sure of this he was prepared to nominate him at once as Dictator.

After this speech no one felt the slightest doubt that Q. Fabius would be unanimously elected. The “prerogative” centuries and all those of the first class were voting for him and Volumnius, when he again addressed the electors very much

in the terms he had employed two years before, and as on the former occasion when he yielded to the universal wish, so now he again requested that P. Decius might be his colleague.

He would be a support for his old age to lean upon, they had been together as censors, and twice as consuls, and he had learnt by experience that nothing went further to protect the State than harmony between colleagues. He felt that he could hardly at his time of life get accustomed to a new comrade in office, he could so much more easily share all his counsels with one whose character and disposition he knew.

Volumnius confirmed what Fabius had said. He bestowed a well-deserved encomium on Decius, and pointed out what an advantage in military operations is gained by harmony between the consuls,

and what mischief is wrought when they are at variance. He mentioned as an instance the recent misunderstanding between him and