Such ,was the issue of the dishonesty of the State contractors, and their daring attempt to screen themselves. The next thing was the election of the chief pontiff. The new pontiff, M. Cornelius Cethegus, conducted the election, which was very keenly contested. There were three candidates: Q. Fulvius Flaccus, the consul, who had previously been twice consul as well as censor; T. Manlius Torquatus, who could also point to two consulships and the censorship; and P. Licinius Crassus, who was about to stand for the curale redileship. This young man defeated his old and distinguished competitors; before him there had been no one for a hundred and twenty years, with the sole exception of P. Cornelius Calussa, who had been elected chief pontiff without having first sat in a curule chair. The consuls found the levying of troops a difficult task, for there were not sufficient men of the required age to answer both purposes, that of raising th new City legions and also bringing the existing armies up to their full strength. The senate, however, would not allow them to give up the attempt, and ordered two commissions, each consisting of three members, to be appointed, one to work within a radius of fifty miles from the City, the other outside that radius. They were to inspect all the villages, market towns, and boroughs, and ascertain the total number of free-born men in each, and were to make soldiers of all \vho appeared strong enough to bear arms, even though they were below the military age. The tribunes of the plebs might, if they thought good, make a proposal to the people that those who had taken the military oath when under seventeen years of age should have their pay reckoned to them on the same scale as if they had been enlisted at seventeen, or older. The commissions so appointed recruited all the free-born men in the country districts. The Survivors of Cannae.-About this time a despatch was read in the senate from M. Marcellus in Sicily, in which he put forward the request made to him by the soldiers who were serving with P. Lentulus. These were the remains of the army of Cannae, they had been sent away to Sicily, as has been stated above, and were not to be brought back to Italy before the Punic war had come to an end.