After the dictator had arrived at Rome, he sent Cneius Sempronius Blaesus, who had acted under him as lieutenant general at Capua, into the province of Etruria, to take the command of the army there, in the room of the praetor, Caius Calpurnius, whom he had summoned by letter to take the command of Capua and his own army.

He fixed the first date he could for the election: which, however, could not be brought to a conclusion, in consequence of a dispute which arose between the tribunes and the dictator.

The junior century of the Galerian tribe, to whose lot it fell to give the votes first, had named Quintus Fulvius and Quintus Fabius as consuls; and the other centuries, on being called upon to vote according to their course, would have inclined the same way, had not the plebeian tribunes, Caius and Lucius Arennius interposed.

They said, "that it was hardly constitutional that a chief magistrate should be continued in office but that it was a precedent still more shocking, that the very person who held the election should be appointed.

Then therefore, if the dictator should allow his own name to appear they would interpose against the election; but if the names of any other persons besides himself were put up, they should not impede it." The dictator defended the election by the authority of the fathers, the order of the commons, and precedents.