A Second-Century Rivalry

Despite having been elected consul a few days earlier on February 18, 188 b.c.e., Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was very displeased. The day after his selection along with co-consul Gaius Flaminius, six praetors were chosen, and now the Senate would decide to which region of the expanding empire each would be sent. War was brewing with the Ligurians in the northern part of the Italian Peninsula, and the Senate decreed that the two consuls should proceed in that direction to keep the peace. Lepidus objected, arguing to the Senate that “it was improper that both consuls should be shut up in the valleys of the Ligurians while Marcus Fulvius [Nobilior] and Gnaeus Manlius for two years now [as consuls], the one in Europe, the other in Asia, were lording it as if they were the successors to Philip [of Macedon] and Antiochus [the Great].” Lepidus had a particular grudge against Fulvius, who had managed to thwart his efforts to become consul two years earlier. The sole activities of the former consuls, Lepidus claimed, were threatening tribes against whom no war had been declared and enriching themselves by “selling peace for a price.” Either send the newly elected consuls to Europe and Asia to replace Fulvius and Manlius, he pleaded to the Senate, or bring those soldiers home. Unfortunately for Lepidus, the Senate chose the latter course. With their term starting on the New Year on March 1, 187 b.c.e., Aemilius Lepidus and his co-consul Flaminius were ordered north to battle the Ligurians.