Licinius, the chief pontiff, occasioned some delay to this public vow, alleging, that "it ought not to be fulfilled from promiscuous funds.

For as the sum to be named should not be applied to the uses of the war, it should be immediately set apart, and not to be intermixed with other money; and that, unless this were done, the vow could not be properly performed." Although the objection and the author of it were influential, yet the consul was ordered to consult the college of pontiffs, whether a vow could be undertaken at an indeterminate expense?
The pontiffs determined, that it could; and that it would be even more in order to do it in that way.

The consul, therefore, repeating after the chief pontiff, made the vow in the same words in which those made for five years of safety used to be expressed; only that he engaged to perform the games, and make the offerings, at such expense as the senate should direct by their vote, at the time when the vow was performed.
Before this, the great games so often vowed, were constantly rated at a certain expense: these first at an unspecified amount.
[Footnote 1: 16l.2s.

1d.] 10.

While every one's attention was turned to the Macedonian war, and at a time when people apprehended nothing less, a sudden account was brought of an inroad of the Gauls.