Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 40
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

26. At Rome the letter of Baebius caused great consternation, the [2??] greater because a few days later, when Marcellus reached Rome after turning his army over to Fabius, he took away the hope that the army which was in Gaul could be marched against the Ligurians, because the war was on with the Histrians, who were interfering with the establishment of the colony at Aquileia: [3] Fabius, he said, had already set out for Histria and could not return now that the war had begun. [4] There was only one hope of assistance, and that requiring more time than the critical situation permitted —the possibility that the consuls should make haste to go to their province. Each of the Fathers on his own account cried out that they should do so. [5] The consuls refused to go unless the levy were complete, saying that it was due not to their sloth but to the violence of the epidemic that the levy was slow in being finished. [6] Nevertheless they could not resist the general sentiment of the senate, and therefore set out in uniform¹ and proclaimed to the soldiers whom they now had levied the day on which they were to muster at Pisa. Authority was granted them to enlist at once and take with them emergency troops wherever they went. [7] Orders were also issued to the praetors Quintus Petilius and Quintus Fabius² that Petilius should enroll two emergency³ legions of Roman citizens [p. 83]and should administer the oath to all under the age of⁴ fifty years, and to Fabius to call upon the allies of the Latin confederacy for fifteen thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry. [8] They elected as duumviri navales Gaius Matienus and Gaius Lucretius and ships were equipped for them, and Matienus, whose district was along the Gallic gulf, was directed to conduct his fleet at the earliest possible moment to the coast of the Ligurians, to see if he could assist Lucius Aemilius and his army in any way.