That they therefore had gotten an interregnum; but one consulate was surely in the hands of the Roman people.

Thus the people would have that at their own unbiassed disposal, and that they would confer it on that man who would rather conquer in reality than lengthen the term of his command." 35.

When the people had been inflamed by these harangues, though there were three patrician candidates for the consulship, Publius Cornelius Merenda, Lucius Manlius Vulso, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, two of plebeian families, who had been ennobled, Caius Atilius Serranus and Quintus Aelius Paetus, one of whom was pontiff, the other an augur, Terentius alone was created consul, that the comitia for choosing his colleague might be in his own management.

Then the nobles, finding that the competitors whom they had set up were not strong enough, though he strenuously refused for a long time, prevail upon Aemilius Paulus, who was strongly opposed to the people, to become a candidate.
He had been consul before with Marcus Livius, and from the condemnation of his colleague, and almost of himself, had come off scathed.

On the next day of the election, all who had opposed Varro withdrawing, he is given to the consul rather as a match to oppose him than as a colleague.