Three pontiffs were also created, Quintus Caecilius Metellus, Quintus Fabius Maximus, and Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, in the room of Publius Scantinius deceased, and of Lucius Aemilius Paulus the consul, and of Quintus Aelius Paetus, who had fallen in the battle of Cannae.
22.

The fathers having repaired, as far as human counsels could effect it, the other losses from a continued series of unfortunate events, at length turned their attention on themselves, on the emptiness of the senate-house, and the paucity of those who assembled for public deliberation.

For the senate-roll had not been reviewed since the censorship of Lucius Aemilius and C.Flaminius, though unfortunate battles, during a period of five years, as well as the private casualties of each, had carried off so many senators.

Manius Pomponius, the praetor, as the dictator was now gone to the army after the loss of Casilinum, at the earnest request of all, brought in a bill upon the subject.

When Spurius Carvilius, after having lamented in a long speech not only the scantiness of the senate, but the fewness of citizens who were eligible into that body, with the design of making up the numbers of the senate and uniting more closely the Romans and the Latin confederacy, declared that he strongly advised that the freedom of the state should be conferred upon two senators from each of the Latin states, if the Roman fathers thought proper, who might be chosen into the senate to supply the places of the deceased senators.