Tum Sentius, forte et solus et absente Caesare consul, cum alia prisca severitate, summaque constantia, vetere consulum more ac severitate, gessisset, protraxisset publicanorum fraudes, punisset avaritiam, regessisset in aerarium pecunias publicas, tum in comitiis habendis praecipuum egit consulem: nam et quaesturam petentes, quos indignos iudicavit, profiteri vetuit, et, cum id facturos se perseverarent, consularem, si in campum descendissent, vindictam minatus est, et Egnatium florentem favore publico sperantemque ut praeturam aedilitati, ita consulatum praeturae se iuncturum, profiteri vetuit, et cum id non obtinuisset, iuravit, etiam si factus esset consul suffragiis populi, tamen se eum non renuntiaturum.
On this occasion Sentius, chancing thus to be sole consul with Caesar absent, adopting the rigorous regime of the older consuls, pursued a general policy of old-fashioned severity and great firmness, bringing to light the fraudulent tricks of the tax-collectors, punishing their avarice, and getting the public monevs into the treasury. But it was particularly in holding the elections that he played the consul. For in the case of candidates for the quaestorship whom he thought unworthy, he forbade them to offer their names, and when they insisted upon doing so, he threatened them with the exercise of his consular authority if they came down to the Campus Martius.b Egnatius, who was now at the height of popular favour, and was expecting to have his consulship follow his praetorship as his praetorship had followed his aedileship, he forbade to become a candidate, and failing in this, he swore that, even if Egnatius were elected consul by the votes of the people, he would refuse to report his election.
final_alignments\Velleius_Paterculus_Compendium.json