While Publius Cornelius Nasica, [y. r. 614. b. c. 138,] (who was nicknamed Scrapio by the plebeian tribune Curiatius, a man of humour,) and Decius Junius Brutus, the consuls, were holding the levies, an act of public justice was done, in the sight of the whole body of the young men then assembled, which afforded a very useful example: Caius Matienus was accused, before the tribunes, of deserting from the army in Spain; being found guilty, he was scourged under the gallows, and sold as a slave, for a sestertius.111 The tribunes of the people claimed the privilege of exempting from service any ten soldiers whom they thought proper; on this being refused by the consuls, they commit the latter to prison. Junius Brutus, the consul in Spain, allots lands, and a town called Valentia, to the soldiers who had served under Viriathus. Marcus Popilius, having made peace with the Numantines, which the senate refused to ratify, was routed, and his whole army put to flight. [y. r. 615. b. c. 137.] While Caius Hostilius Mancinus, the consul, was sacrificing, the holy chickens escape from their coop, and fly away; afterwards, as he was getting on board his ship, to sail for Spain, a voice is heard crying out, “Go not, Mancinus, go not.” The event afterwards proves these omens to have been inauspicious: for, being vanquished by the Numantines, and driven out of his camp, when he had no prospect of preserving his army, he made a disgraceful peace, which the senate likewise refused to ratify. Upon this occasion thirty thousand Romans were beaten by only four thousand Numantines. Decius Junius Brutus subdues all Lusitania, as far as the western sea; and when his soldiers refused to pass the river Oblivio, he seizes the standard and carries it over; whereupon they follow him. The son of Alexander, king of Syria, was traitorously murdered by his guardian Pg 2183Diodotus, surnamed Tryphon: his physicians were bribed to give out that he had a stone in his bladder; and in pretending to cut him for it, they killed him.