During the interregnum of the latter the election was held with a violent contest between the patricians and the people, Caius Terentius Varro, whom, as a man of their own order, commended to their favour by inveighing against the patricians and by other popular arts; who had acquired celebrity by maligning others, by undermining the influence of Fabius, and bringing into contempt the dictatorial authority, the commons strove to raise to the consulship.

The patricians opposed him with all their might, lest men, by inveighing against them, should come to be placed on an equality with them.

Quintus Boebius Herennius, a plebeian tribune, and kinsman of Caius Terentius, by criminating not only the senate, but the augurs also, for having prevented the dictator from completing the election, by the odium cast upon them, conciliated favour to his own candidate.

He asserted, "that Hannibal had been brought into Italy by the nobility, who had for many years been desirous of a war.

That by the fraudulent machinations of the same persons the war had been protracted, whereas it might have been brought to a conclusion.