Appian, Civil Wars

ToposText · Appian · 654 sections

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§ 2.11.82 The losses of Italians on each side — for there was no report of the losses of auxiliaries, either because of their multitude or because they were despised — were as follows: in Caesar's army. thirty centurions and 200 legionaries, or, as some authorities have it, 1200; on Pompey's side ten senators, among whom was Lucius Domitius, the same who had been sent to succeed Caesar himself in Gaul, and about forty distinguished knights. Some exaggerating writers put the loss in the remainder of his forces at 25,000, but Asinius Pollio, who was one of Caesar's officers in this battle, records the number of dead Pompeians found as 6000. Such was the result of the famous battle of Pharsalus. Caesar himself carries off the palm for first and second place by common consent, and with him the tenth legion. The third place is taken by the centurion Crastinus, whom Caesar asked at the beginning of the battle what result he anticipated, and who responded proudly, “We shall conquer, O Caesar, and you will thank me either living or dead.” The whole army testifies that he darted through the ranks like one possessed and did many brilliant deeds. When sought for he was found among the dead, and Caesar bestowed military honors on his body and buried it, and erected a special tomb for him near the common burial-place of the others.
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§ 2.12.83 From Larissa Pompey continued his flight to the sea where he embarked in a small boat, and meeting a ship by chance he sailed to Mitylene. There he joined his wife, Cornelia, and they embarked with four triremes which had come to him from Rhodes and Tyre. He decided not to sail for Corcyra and Africa, where he had other large military and naval forces as yet untouched, but intended to push on eastward to the king of the Parthians, expecting to receive every assistance from him. He concealed his intention until he arrived at Cilicia, where he revealed it hesitatingly to his friends; but they advised him to beware of the Parthian, against whom Crassus had lately led an expedition, and who was puffed up by his victory over the latter, and especially not to put in the power of these barbarians the beautiful Cornelia, who had formerly been the wife of Crassus. Then he made a second proposal respecting Egypt and Juba. The latter they despised as not sufficiently distinguished, but they all agreed about going to Egypt, which was near and was a great kingdom, still prosperous and abounding in ships, provisions, and money. Its sovereigns, although children, were allied to Pompey by their father's friendship. For these reasons he sailed to Egypt.
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§ 2.12.84 Cleopatra, who had previously reigned with her brother, had been lately expelled from Egypt and was collecting an army in Syria. Ptolemy, her brother, was at Mount Casius in Egypt, lying in wait for her invasion, and, as Providence would have it, the wind carried Pompey thither. Seeing a large army on the shore he stopped his ship, judging that the king was there, which was the fact. So he sent messengers to tell of his arrival and to speak of his father's friendship. The king was then about thirteen years of age and was under the tutelage of Achillas, who commanded his army, and the eunuch Pothinus, who had charge of his treasury. These took counsel together concerning Pompey. There was present also Theodotus, a rhetorician of Samos, the boy's tutor, who offered the infamous advice that they should lay a trap for Pompey and kill him in order to curry favor with Caesar. His opinion prevailed. So they sent a miserable skiff to bring him, pretending that the sea was shallow and not adapted to large ships. Some of the king's attendants came in the skiff, among them a Roman, named Sempronius, who was then serving in the king's army and had formerly served under Pompey himself. He gave his hand to Pompey in the king's name and directed him to take passage in the boat to the young man as to a friend. At the same time the whole army was marshalled along the shore as if to do honor to Pompey, and the king was plainly seen in the midst of them wearing a purple robe.
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§ 2.12.85 Pompey's suspicions were aroused by all that he observed — the marshalling of the army, the meanness of the skiff, and the fact that the king himself did not come to meet him nor send any of his high dignitaries. Nevertheless, he entered the skiff, repeating to himself these lines of Sophocles, “Whoever resorts to a tyrant becomes his slave, even if he were free when he went.” While rowing to the shore all were silent, and this made him still more suspicious. Finally, either recognizing Sempronius as a Roman soldier who had served under him or guessing that he was such because he alone remained standing (for, according to military discipline, a soldier does not sit in the presence of his commander), he turned to him and said, “Do I not know you, comrade? ” The other nodded and, as Pompey turned away, he immediately gave him the first stab and the others followed his example. Pompey's wife and friends who saw this at a distance cried out and, lifting their hands to heaven, invoked the gods, the avengers of violated faith. Then they sailed away in all haste as from an enemy's country.
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§ 2.12.86 The servants of Pothinus cut off Pompey's head and kept it for Caesar, in expectation of a large reward, but he visited condign punishment on them for their nefarious deed. The remainder of the body was buried by somebody on the shore, and a small monument was erected over it, on which somebody else wrote this inscription: “What a pitiful tomb is here for one who had temples in abundance.” In the course of time the monument was wholly covered with sand, and the bronze images that had been erected to Pompey by his partisans at a later period near Mount Casius had been degraded and removed to the secret recess of the temple, but in my time they were sought for and found by the Roman emperor Hadrian, while making a journey thither, who cleared away the rubbish from the monument and made it again conspicuous, and placed Pompey's images in their proper places. Such was the end of Pompey, who had carried on the greatest wars and had made the greatest additions to the empire of the Romans, and had acquired by that means the title of Great. He had never been defeated before, but had remained unvanquished and most fortunate from his youth till now. From his twenty-third to his fifty-eighth year he had not ceased to exercise royal power, but on account of his jealousy of Caesar he had seemed to rule in the interest of the people.
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§ 2.12.87 Lucius Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, and the other notables who had escaped from the battle of Pharsalus, more prudent than Pompey, proceeded to Corcyra and joined Cato, who had been left there with another army and 300 triremes. The leaders apportioned the fleet among themselves, and Cassius sailed to Pharnaces in Pontus to induce him to take up arms against Caesar. Scipio and Cato embarked for Africa, relying on Varus and his army and his ally, Juba, king of Numidia. The elder son of Pompey, together with Labienus and Scapula, each with his own part of the army, hastened to Spain and, having detached it from Caesar, collected a new army of Spaniards, Celtiberians, and slaves, and made formidable preparations for war. So great were the forces still remaining which Pompey had prepared, and which Pompey himself over-looked and ran away from in his insanity. Cato had been chosen commander of the forces in Africa, but he declined the appointment since there were consulars present who outranked him, he having held only the praetorship in Rome. So Lucius Scipio was made the commander and he collected and drilled a large army there. Thus two armies of considerable magnitude were brought together against Caesar, one in Africa and the other in Spain.
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§ 2.13.88 Caesar remained two days at Pharsalus after the victory, offering sacrifice and giving his army a respite from fighting. Then he set free his Thessalian allies and granted pardon to the suppliant Athenians, and said to them, “How often will the glory of your ancestors save you from self-destruction?” On the third day he marched eastward, having learned that Pompey had fled thither, and for want of triremes he essayed to cross the Hellespont in skiffs. Here Cassius came upon him in mid-stream, with a part of his fleet, as he was hastening to Pharnaces. Although he might have mastered these small boats with his numerous triremes he was panic-stricken by Caesar's astounding success, which was then heralded with consternation everywhere, and he thought that Caesar had sailed purposely against him. So he extended his hands in entreaty from his trireme toward the skiff, begged pardon, and surrendered his fleet. So great was the power of Caesar's prestige. I can see no other reason myself, nor can I think of any other instance where fortune was more propitious in a trying emergency than when Cassius, a most valiant man, with seventy triremes, fell in with Caesar when he was unprepared, but did not venture to come to blows with him. And yet he who thus disgracefully surrendered to Caesar, through fear alone, when the latter was crossing the straits, afterward murdered him in Rome when he was at the height of his power; by which fact it is evident that the panic which then seized Cassius was due to the fortune by which Caesar was uplifted.
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§ 2.13.89 Being thus unexpectedly saved, Caesar passed the Hellespont and granted pardon to the Ionians, the Aeolians, and the other peoples who inhabit the great peninsula called by the common name of Lower Asia, and who sent ambassadors to him to ask it. Learning that Pompey had gone to Egypt he sailed for Rhodes. He did not wait there for his army, which was coming forward by detachments, but embarked with those whom he had on board the triremes of Cassius and the Rhodians. Letting nobody know whither he intended to go he set sail toward evening, telling the other pilots to steer by the torch of his own ship by night and by his signal in the daytime. After they had proceeded a long way from the land he ordered his pilot to steer for Alexandria. After a three days' sail he arrived there. He was received by the king's guardians, the king himself being still at Mount Casius. At first, on account of the smallness of his forces, he pretended to take his ease, receiving visitors in a friendly way, traversing the city, admiring its beauty, and listening to the lectures of the philosophers while he stood among the crowd. Thus he gained the good-will and esteem of the Alexandrians as one who had no designs against them.
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§ 2.13.90 When his soldiers arrived by sea he punished Pothinus and Achillas with death for their crime against Pompey. ( Theodotus escaped and was afterward crucified by Cassius, who found him wandering in Asia.) The Alexandrians thereupon rose in tumult, and the king's army marched against Caesar and various battles took place around the palace and on the neighboring shores. In one of these Caesar escaped by leaping into the sea and swimming a long distance in deep water. The Alexandrians captured his cloak and hung it up as a trophy. He fought the last battle against the king on the banks of the Nile, in which he won a decisive victory. He consumed nine months in this strife, at the end of which he established Cleopatra on the throne of Egypt in place of her brother. He ascended the Nile with 400 ships, exploring the country in company with Cleopatra and enjoying himself with her in other ways. The details of these events are related more particularly in my Egyptian history. Caesar could not bear to look at the head of Pompey when it was brought to him, but ordered that it be buried, and set apart for it a small plot of ground near the city which was dedicated to Nemesis, but in my time, while the Roman emperor Trajan was exterminating the Jewish race in Egypt, it was devastated by them in the exigencies of the war.
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§ 2.13.91 After Caesar had performed these exploits in Alexandria he hastened by way of Syria against Pharnaces. The latter had Already accomplished many of his aims, had seized some of the Roman countries, had fought a battle with Caesar's lieutenant, Domitius, and won a very brilliant victory over him. Being much elated by this affair he had subjugated the city of Amisus in Pontus, which adhered to the Roman interest, sold their inhabitants into slavery, and made all their boys eunuchs. On the approach of Caesar he became alarmed and repented of his deeds, and when Caesar was within 200 stades he sent ambassadors to him to treat for peace. They bore a golden crown and foolishly offered him the daughter of Pharnaces in marriage. When Caesar learned what they were bringing he moved forward with his army, walking in advance and chatting with the ambassadors until he arrived at the camp of Pharnaces, when he merely said, “Why should I not take instant vengeance on this parricide?” Then he sprang upon his horse and at the first shout put Pharnaces to flight and killed a large number of the enemy, although he had with him only about 1000 of his own cavalry who had accompanied him in the advance. Here it is said that he exclaimed, “O fortunate Pompey, who wast considered and named the Great for warring against such men as these in the time of Mithridates, the father of this man.” Of this battle he wrote to Rome the words, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
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§ 2.13.92 After this, Pharnaces was glad to escape to the kingdom which Pompey had assigned to him on the Bosporus. As Caesar had no time to waste on small matters while such great wars were still unfinished elsewhere, he returned to the province of Asia and while passing through it transacted public business in the cities, which were oppressed by the farmers of the revenue, as I have shown in my Asiatic history. Learning that a sedition had broken out in Rome and that Antony, his master of horse, had occupied the forum with soldiers, he laid aside everything else and hastened to the city. When he arrived there the sedition had been quieted, but another one sprang up against himself in the army because the promises made to them after the battle of Pharsalus had not been kept, and because they had been held in service beyond the term fixed by law. They demanded that they should be dismissed to their homes. Caesar had made them certain indefinite promises at Pharsalus, and others equally indefinite after the war in Africa should be finished. Now he sent them a promise of 1000 drachmas more to each man. They answered him that they did not want any more promises but all cash down. Sallustius Crispus, who had been sent to them on this business, had a narrow escape. He would have been killed if he had not fled. When Caesar learned of this he stationed the legion, with which Antony had been guarding the city, around his own house and the city gates, as he apprehended attempts at plunder. Then, notwithstanding all his friends were alarmed and cautioned him against the fury of the soldiers, he went boldly among them while they were still riotous in the Campus Martius, without sending word beforehand, and showed himself on the platform.
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§ 2.13.93 The soldiers ran together tumultuously without arms, and, as was their custom, saluted their commander who had suddenly appeared among them. When he bade them tell what they wanted they were so surprised that they did not venture to speak openly of the donative in his presence, but they adopted the more moderate course of demanding their discharge from the service, hoping that, since he needed soldiers for the unfinished wars, he would speak about the donative himself. But, contrary to the expectation of all, he replied without hesitation, “I discharge you.” Then, to their still greater astonishment, and while the silence was most profound, he added, “And I will give you all that I have promised when I have my triumph with others.” At this expression, as unexpected as it was kind to them, shame immediately took possession of all, and reflection, together with jealousy at the thought of their abandoning their commander in the midst of such great wars and of others joining in the triumph instead of themselves, and of their losing the gains of the war in Africa, which were expected to be great, and becoming enemies of Caesar himself as well as of the opposite party. Moved by these fears they remained still more silent and embarrassed, hoping that Caesar would yield and change his mind on account of his immediate necessity. But he remained silent also, until his friends urged him to say something more to them and not leave his old comrades of so many campaigns with a short and austere word. Then he began to speak, addressing them first as “citizens,” not “fellow-soliders,” which implied that they were already discharged from the army and were private individuals.
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§ 2.13.94 They could endure it no longer, but cried out that they repented of what they had done, and besought him to keep them in his service. But Caesar turned away and was leaving the platform when they shouted with greater eagerness and urged him to stay and punish them for their misdeeds. He delayed a while longer, not going away and not turning back, but pretending to be undecided. At length he came back and said that he would not punish any of them, but that he was grieved that even the tenth legion, to which he had always given the first place of honor, should join in such a riot. “And this legion alone,” he continued, “I will discharge from the service. Nevertheless, when I return from Africa I will give them all that I have promised. And when the wars are ended I will give lands to all, not as Sulla did by taking it from the present holders and colonizing the takers among the losers, and making them everlasting enemies to each other, but I will give the public land, and my own, and will purchase what may be needful.” There was clapping of hands and joyful acclaim on all sides, but the tenth legion was plunged in grief because to them alone Caesar appeared inexorable. They begged him to choose a portion of their number by lot and put them to death. But Caesar, seeing that there was no need of stimulating them any further when they had repented so bitterly, became reconciled to all, and departed straightway for the war in Africa.
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§ 2.14.95 He crossed from Rhegium to Messana and went to Lilybaeum. Here, learning that Cato was guarding the enemy's magazines with a fleet and a part of the land forces at Utica, and that he had with him 300 men who had for a long time constituted their council of war and were called the Senate, and that the commander, L. Scipio, and the flower of the army were at Adrumetum, he sailed against the latter. He arrived at a time when Scipio had gone away to meet Juba, and he drew up his forces for battle near Scipio's very camp in order to come to an engagement with the enemy at a time when their commander was absent. Labienus and Petreius, Scipio's lieutenants, attacked him, defeated him badly, and pursued him in a haughty and disdainful manner until Labienus' horse was wounded in the belly and threw him, and his attendants carried him off. Petreius, thinking that he had made a thorough test of the army and that he could conquer whenever he liked, drew off his forces, saying to those around him, “Let us not deprive our general, Scipio, of the victory.” In one part of the day's work did Caesar's luck show itself, in that the victorious enemy seems to have abandoned the field at the very moment of success. It is said that in the flight Caesar dashed up to his whole line and turned it around and seizing one of those who carried the principal standards (the eagles ) dragged him to the front. Finally, Petreius retired and Caesar was glad to do the same. Such was the result of Caesar's first battle in Africa.
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§ 2.14.96 Not long afterward it was reported that Scipio himself was advancing with eight legions of foot, 20,000 horse (of which most were Africans), and a large number of light-armed troops, and thirty elephants; together with King Juba, who had some 30,000 foot-soldiers in addition, raised for this war, and 20,000 Numidian cavalry, besides a large number of spearmen and sixty elephants. Caesar's army began to be alarmed and a tumult broke out among them on account of the disaster they had already experienced and of the reputation of the forces advancing against them, and especially of the numbers and bravery of the Numidian cavalry. War with elephants, to which they were unaccustomed, also frightened them. But Bocchus, another Mauritanian prince, seized Cirta, which was the capital of Juba's kingdom. When this news reached Juba he started for home at once with his army, leaving thirty of his elephants only with Scipio. Thereupon Caesar's men plucked up courage to such a degree that the fifth legion begged to be pitted against the elephants, and it overcame them valiantly. From that day to the present this legion has borne the figure of an elephant on its standards.
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§ 2.14.97 The battle was long, severe, and doubtful in all parts of the field until toward evening, when victory declared itself on the side of Caesar, who went straight on and captured Scipio's camp and did not desist, even in the night, from reaping the fruits of his victory until he had made a clean sweep. The enemy scattered in small bodies wherever they could. Scipio himself with Afranius, abandoning everything, fled by sea with twelve open ships. And thus was this army also, composed of nearly 80,000 men who had been under long training and were inspired with hope and courage by the previous battle, in the second engagement, completely annihilated. And now Caesar's fame began to be celebrated as of a man of invincible fortune, and those who were vanquished by him attributed nothing to his merit, but ascribed everything, including their own blunders, to Caesar's luck. And it seems that the result of this war also was due to the bad generalship of the commanders who, as in Thessaly, neglected their opportunity to wear out Caesar by delay until his supplies were exhausted, in this foreign land, and in like manner failed to reap the fruits of their first victory by pushing it sharply to the end.
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§ 2.14.98 As these facts became known at Utica some three days later, and as Caesar was marching right against that place, a general flight began. Cato did not detain anybody. He gave ships to all the nobility who asked for them, but himself adhered firmly to his post. When the inhabitants of Utica promised to intercede for him before doing so for themselves, he answered with a smile that he did not need any intercessors with Caesar, and that Caesar knew it very well. Then he placed his seal on all the public property and gave the accounts of each kind to the magistrates of Utica. Toward evening he bathed and dined. He ate in a sitting posture, as had been his custom since Pompey's death. He changed his habits in no respect. He partook of the dinner, neither more nor less than usual. He conversed with the others present concerning those who had sailed away and inquired whether the wind was favorable and whether they would make sufficient distance before Caesar should arrive the next morning. Nor did he change any of his habits when he retired to rest, except that he embraced his son rather more affectionately than usual. As he did not find his sword in its accustomed place by his couch, he exclaimed that he had been betrayed by his servants to the enemy. “What weapon shall I use if I am attacked in the night?” he said. When they besought him to do no violence to himself but to go to sleep without his sword, he replied still more plausibly, “Could I not strangle myself with my clothing if I wished to, or knock my brains out against the wall, or throw myself headlong to the ground, or destroy myself by holding my breath?” Much more he said to the same purport until he persuaded them to bring back his sword. When it had been put in its place he called for Plato's treatise on the soul and began to read.
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§ 2.14.99 When he had read the book through and when he thought that those who were stationed at the doors were asleep, he stabbed himself under the breast. His intestines protruded and the attendants heard a groan and rushed in. Physicians replaced his bowels, which were still uninjured, in his body, and after sewing up the wound put a bandage around it. When Cato came to himself he dissembled again. Although he blamed himself for the insufficiency of the wound, he expressed thanks to those who had saved him and said that he only needed sleep. The attendants then retired, taking the sword with them, and closed the door, thinking that he had become quiet. When Cato thought that they were asleep, he tore off the bandage with his hands without making any noise, opened the suture of the wound, enlarged it with his nails like a wild beast, plunged his fingers into his stomach, and tore out his entrails until he died, being then about fifty years of age. He was considered the most steadfast of all men in upholding any opinion that he had once espoused and in adhering to justice, rectitude, and morality, not as a matter of custom merely, but rather from high-souled considerations. He had married Marcia, the daughter of Philippus, when she was a virgin. He was extremely fond of her and had had children by her. Nevertheless, he gave her to Hortensius, one of his friends, — who desired to have children but was married to a barren wife, — until she bore a child to him also, when Cato took her back to his own house as though he had merely loaned her. Such a man was Cato. The Uticans gave him a magnificent funeral. Caesar said that Cato had envied him the opportunity for a deed of honor, 01 but when Cicero pronounced an encomium on him which he styled the Cato, Caesar wrote an answer to it which he called the Anti- Cato.
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§ 2.14.100 Juba and Petreius, in view of the circumstances, perceiving no chance of flight or safety, slew each other with swords at a banquet. Caesar made Juba's kingdom tributary to the Romans and appointed Sallustius Crispus its governor. He pardoned the Uticans and the son of Cato. He captured the daughter of Pompey together with her two children in Utica and sent them safe to young Pompey. Of the 300 he put to death all that he found. 02 Lucius Scipio, the general-in-chief, was overtaken by a storm, and met a hostile fleet and bore himself bravely until he was overpowered, when he stabbed himself and leaped into the sea. This was the end of Caesar's war in Africa.
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§ 2.15.101 When Caesar returned to Rome he had four triumphs together: one for his Gallic wars, in which he had added many great nations to the Roman sway and subdued others that had revolted; one for the Pontic war against Pharnaces; one for the war in Africa against the African allies of L. Scipio, in which the historian Juba (the son of King Juba ), then an infant, was led a captive. Between the Gallic and the Pontic triumphs he introduced a kind of Egyptian triumph, in which he led some captives taken in the naval engagement on the Nile. 03 Although he took care not to inscribe any Roman names in his triumph (as it would have been unseemly in his eyes and base and inauspicious in those of the Roman people to triumph over fellow-citizens), yet all these misfortunes were represented in the processions and the men also by various images and pictures, all except Pompey, the only one whom he did not venture to exhibit, since the latter was still greatly regretted by all. The people, although restrained by fear, groaned over their domestic ills, especially when they saw the picture of Lucius Scipio, the general-in-chief, wounded in the breast by his own hand, casting himself into the sea, and Petreius committing self-destruction at the banquet, and Cato torn open by himself like a wild beast. They applauded the death of Achillas and Pothinus, and laughed at the flight of Pharnaces.
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§ 2.15.102 It is said that money to the amount of 60,000 talents [of silver] was borne in the procession and 2822 crowns of gold weighing 20,014 pounds, from which wealth Caesar made apportionments immediately after the triumph, paying the army all that he had promised and more. Each soldier received 5000 Attic drachmas, each centurion double, and each tribune of infantry and praefect of cavalry fourfold that sum. To each plebeian citizen also was given an Attic mina. He gave also various spectacles with horses and music, a combat of foot-soldiers, 1000 on each side, and a cavalry fight of 200 on each side. There was also another combat of horse and foot together. There was a combat of elephants, twenty against twenty, and a naval engagement of 4000 oarsmen, where 1000 fighting men contended on each side. He erected a temple to Venus, his ancestress, as he had vowed to do when he was about to begin the battle of Pharsalus, and he laid out ground around the temple which he intended to be a forum for the Roman people, not for buying and selling, but a meeting-place for the transaction of public business, like the public squares of the Persians, where the people assemble to seek justice or to learn the laws. He placed a beautiful image of Cleopatra by the side of the goddess, which stands there to this day. He caused an enumeration of the people to be made, and it is said that it was found to be only one-half of the number existing before this war. 04 To such a degree had the rivalry of these two men reduced the city.
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§ 2.15.103 Caesar, now in his fourth consulship, marched against young Pompeius in Spain. This was all that was left of the civil war, but it was not to be despised, for such of the nobility as had escaped from Africa had assembled here. The army was composed of soldiers from Pharsalus and Africa itself, who had come hither with their leaders, and of Spaniards and Celtiberians, a strong and warlike race. There was a great number of emancipated slaves also in Pompeius' camp. All had been under discipline four years and were ready to fight with desperation. Pompeius was misled by this fact and did not postpone the battle, but engaged Caesar straightway on his arrival, although the older ones, who had learned by experience at Pharsalus and Africa, advised him to wear Caesar out by delay and reduce him to want, as he was in a hostile country. Caesar made the journey from Rome in twenty-seven days, coming with a heavily-laden army by a very long route. Fear fell upon his soldiers as never before, in consequence of the reports received of the numbers, the discipline, and the desperate valor of the enemy.
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§ 2.15.104 For this reason Caesar himself also was ready to move slowly until Pompeius approached him at a certain place where he was reconnoitering and accused him of cowardice. Caesar could not endure this reproach. He drew up his forces for battle near Corduba 05 and then, too, gave Venus for his watchword. Pompeius, on the other hand, gave Piety for his. When battle was joined fear seized upon Caesar's army and hesitation was joined to fear. Caesar, lifting his hands toward heaven, implored all the gods that his many glorious deeds be not stained by this single disaster. He ran up and encouraged his soldiers. He took his helmet off his head and shamed them to their faces and exhorted them. As they abated nothing of their fear he seized a shield from a soldier and said to the officers around him, “This shall be the end of my life and of your military service.” Then he sprang forward in advance of his line of battle toward the enemy so far that he was only ten feet distant from them. Some 200 missiles were aimed at him, some of which he dodged while others were caught on his shield. Then each of the tribunes ran toward him and took position by his side, and the whole army rushed forward and fought the entire day, advancing and retreating by turns until, toward evening, Caesar with difficulty won the victory. It was reported that he said that he had often fought for victory, but that this time he had fought even for existence.
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§ 2.15.105 After a great slaughter the Pompeians fled to Corduba, and Caesar, in order to prevent the fugitives from preparing for another battle, ordered a siege of that place. The soldiers, wearied with toil, piled the bodies and arms of the slain together, fastened them to the earth with spears, and encamped behind this kind of a wall. On the following day the city was taken. Scapula, one of the Pompeian leaders, erected a funeral pile on which he consumed himself. The heads of Varus, Labienus, and other distinguished men were brought to Caesar. 07 Pompeius himself fled from the scene of his defeat with 150 horsemen toward Carteia, where he had a fleet, and entered the dockyard secretly as a private individual borne in a litter. When he saw that the men here despaired of their safety he feared lest he should be delivered up, and took to flight again. While going on board a small boat his foot was caught by a rope, and a man who attempted to cut the rope with his sword cut the sole of his foot instead. So he sailed to a certain place for medical treatment. Being pursued thither he fled by a rough and thorny road that aggravated his wound, until fagged out he took a seat under a tree. Here his pursuers came upon him and he was cut down while defending himself bravely. His head was brought to Caesar who gave orders for its burial. Thus this war also, contrary to expectation, was brought to an end in one battle. A younger brother of this Pompeius, also named Pompeius but called by his first name, Sextus, collected those who escaped from this fight; but as yet he kept moving about in concealment and lived by robbery.
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§ 2.16.106 Having ended the civil wars Caesar hastened to Rome, honored and feared as no one had ever been before. All kinds of honors were devised for his gratification without stint, even such as were superhuman — sacrifices, games, statues in all the temples and public places, by every tribe, by all the provinces, and by the kings in alliance with Rome. His likeness was painted in various forms, in some cases crowned with oak as the savior of his country, by which crown the citizens were accustomed formerly to reward those to whom they owed their safety. He was proclaimed the Father of his Country and chosen dictator for life and consul for ten years, and his person was declared sacred and inviolable. It was decreed that he should transact business on a throne of ivory and gold; that he should perform his sacerdotal functions always in triumphal costume; that each year the city should celebrate the days on which he had won his victories; that every five years the priests and Vestal virgins should offer up public prayers for his safety; and that the magistrates immediately upon their inauguration should take an oath not to oppose any of Caesar's decrees. In honor of his gens the name of the month Quintilis was changed to July. Many temples were decreed to him as to a god, and one was dedicated in common to him and the goddess Clemency, who were represented as clasping hands.
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§ 2.16.107 Thus while they feared his power they besought his clemency. There were some who proposed to give him the title of king, but when he learned of their purpose he forbade it with threats, saying that it was an inauspicious name by reason of the curse of their ancestors. He dismissed the praetorian cohorts that had served as his bodyguard during the wars, and showed himself with the ordinary public attendance only. 08 To him in this state and while he was transacting business in front of the Rostra, the Senate, preceded by the consuls, each one in his robes of office, brought the decree awarding him the honors aforesaid. He extended his hand to them, but did not rise when they approached nor while they remained there, which afforded his slanderers a pretext for accusing him of wishing to be greeted as a king. He accepted all the honors conferred upon him except the ten-year consulship. As consuls for the ensuing year he designated himself and Antony, his master of horse, and he appointed Lepidus, who was then governor of Spain, but was administering it by his friends, master of horse in place of Antony. Caesar also recalled the exiles, except those who were banished for some very grave offence. He pardoned his enemies and forthwith advanced many of those who had fought against him to the yearly magistracies, or to the command of provinces and armies. Therefore the wearied people especially hoped that he would restore the republic to them as Sulla did after he had grasped the same power. But in this they were disappointed.
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§ 2.16.108 Some person among those who wished to spread the report of his desire to be king placed a crown of laurel on his statue, bound with a white fillet. The tribunes, Marullus and Caesetius, sought out this person and put him in prison, pretending to gratify Caesar in this way, as he had threatened any who should talk about making him king. Caesar was well satisfied with their action. Some others who met him at the city gates as he was returning from some place greeted him as king, and when the people groaned, he said with happy readiness to those who had thus saluted him, “I am no king, I am Caesar,” as though they had mistaken his name. The attendants of Marullus found out which man began the shouting and ordered the officers to bring him to trial before his tribunal. Caesar was at last vexed and accused the faction of Marullus before the Senate of conspiring to make him odious by artfully accusing him of aiming at royalty. He added that they were deserving of death, but that it would be sufficient if they were deprived of their office and expelled from the Senate. Thus he confirmed the suspicion that he desired the title, and that he was privy to the attempts to confer it upon him, and that his tyranny was already complete; for the cause of their punishment was their zeal against the title of king, and, moreover, the office of tribune was sacred and inviolable according to law and the ancient oath. By not waiting for the expiration of their office he sharpened the public indignation.
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§ 2.16.109 When Caesar perceived this he repented, and, reflecting that this was the first severe and arbitrary act that he had done without military authority and in time of peace, it is said that he ordered his friends to protect him, since he had given his enemies the handle they were seeking against him. But when they asked him if he would bring together again his Spanish cohorts as a body-guard, he said, “There is nothing more unlucky than perpetual watching; that is the part of one who is always afraid.” Nor were the attempts to claim royal honors for him brought to an end even thus, for, while he was in the forum looking at the games of the Lupercal, seated on his golden chair before the Rostra, Antony, his colleague in the consulship, who was running naked and anointed, as was the priests' custom at that festival, sprang upon the Rostra and put a diadem on his head. At this sight some few clapped their hands, but the greater number groaned, and Caesar threw off the diadem. Antony again put it on him and again Caesar threw it off. While they were thus contending the people remained silent, being in suspense to see how it would end. When they saw that Caesar prevailed they shouted for joy, and at the same time applauded him because he did not accept it.
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§ 2.16.110 And now Caesar, either renouncing his hope, or tired out, and wishing to avoid the plot and accusation, or giving up the city to certain of his enemies, or to cure his bodily ailment of epilepsy and convulsions, which came upon him suddenly and especially when he was inactive, conceived the idea of a long campaign against the Getae and the Parthians. The Getae, a hardy, warlike, and neigh-boring nation, were to be attacked first. The Parthians were to be punished for their perfidy toward Crassus. He sent across the Adriatic in advance sixteen legions of foot and 10,000 horse. And now another rumor gained currency that the Sibylline books had predicted that the Parthians would never submit to the Romans until the latter should be commanded by a king. For this reason some people ventured to say that Caesar ought to be called dictator and emperor of the Romans, as he was in fact, or whatever other name they might prefer to that of king, and that he ought to be distinctly named king of the nations that were subject to the Romans. Caesar declined this also, and was wholly engaged in hastening his departure from the city in which he was exposed to such envy.
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§ 2.16.111 Four days before his intended departure he was slain by his enemies in the senate-house, either from jealousy of his fortune and power, now grown to enormous proportions, or, as they themselves alleged, from a desire to restore the republic of their fathers; for they well knew that if he should conquer those nations he would be a king without a doubt. But I think that they took, as a pretext for their own design, this plan for an additional title, which really made no difference to them except in name, for in fact a dictator is exactly the same as a king. Chief among the conspirators were two men, Marcus Brutus, surnamed Caepio (son of the Brutus who was put to death during the Sullan revolution), who had sided with Caesar after the disaster of Pharsalus, and Gaius Cassius, the one who had surrendered his triremes to Caesar in the Hellespont, both having been of Pompey's party. Among the conspirators also was Decimus Brutus Albinus, one of Caesar's dearest friends. All of them had been held in honor and trust by Caesar at all times. He had employed them in the largest affairs. When he went to the war in Africa he gave them the command of armies, putting Decimus Brutus in charge of Transalpine, and Marcus Brutus of Cisalpine, Gaul.
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§ 2.16.112 Brutus and Cassius, who had been designated as praetors at the same time, had a controversy with each other as to which of them should be the city praetor, this being the place of highest honor, either because they were really ambitious of the distinction or as a pretence so that they might not seem to have a common understanding with each other. Caesar, who was chosen umpire between them, is reported to have said to his friends that justice seemed to be on the side of Cassius, but that he must nevertheless favor Brutus. He exhibited the same affection and preference for this man in all things. It was even thought that Brutus was his son, as Caesar was the lover of his mother, Servilia ( Cato's sister) at the time of his birth, for which reason, when he won the victory at Pharsalus, it is said that he gave an immediate order to his officers to save Brutus by all means. Whether Brutus was ungrateful, or ignorant of his mother's fault, or disbelieved it, or was ashamed of it; whether he was such an ardent lover of liberty that he preferred his country to everything, or whether it was because he was a descendant of that Brutus of the olden time who expelled the kings, he was aroused and shamed to this deed principally by people who secretly affixed to the statues of the elder Brutus and also to the tribunal of Brutus himself such writings as these, “ Brutus, are you corrupted by bribes?” “ Brutus, are you dead?” or “would that you were still alive!” or, “your posterity is unworthy of you,” or, “you are not the descendant of that Brutus.” These and many like incentives fired the young man to a deed like that of his own ancestor.
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§ 2.16.113 While the talk about the kingship was going on, and just before there was to be a meeting of the Senate, Cassius met Brutus, and, seizing him by the hand, said, “What shall we do in the senate-house if Caesar's flatterers propose a decree making him king?” Brutus replied that he would not be there. Then Cassius asked him further, “What if we are summoned there as praetors, what shall we do then, my good Brutus? ” “I will defend my country to the death,” he replied. Cassius embraced him, saying, “Which of the nobility will you allow to share your thought? Do you think that artisans and shopkeepers have written those clandestine messages on your tribunal, or rather the noblest Romans, those who ask from the other praetors games, horse-races, and combats of wild beasts, but from you liberty, as a boon worthy of your ancestry?” Thus did they disclose to each other what they had been privately thinking about for a long time. Each of them tested those of their own friends, and of Caesar's also, whom they considered the most courageous of either faction. Of their own friends they inveigled two brothers, Caesilius and Bucolianus, and besides these Rubrius Ruga, Quintus Ligarius, Marcus Spurius, Servilius Casca, Servius Galba, Sextius Naso, and Pontius Aquila. These were of their own faction. Of Caesar's friends they secured Decimus Brutus, whom I have already mentioned, also Gaius Casca, Trebonius, Tillius Cimber, and Minucius Basillus.
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§ 2.16.114 When they thought that they had a sufficient number, and that it would not be wise to divulge the plot to any more, they pledged each other without oaths or sacrifices, yet no one changed his mind or betrayed the secret. They sought a time and place. Time was pressing because Caesar was to depart on his campaign four days hence and would thereupon have a body-guard of soldiers. They chose the Senate as the place, believing that, even though the senators did not know of it beforehand, they would join heartily when they saw the deed. It was said that this happened in the case of Romulus when he changed from a king to a tyrant. They thought that this deed, like that one of old, taking place in open Senate, would seem to be performed not by private plotters, but in behalf of the country, and that, being in the public interest, there would be no danger from Caesar's army. At the same time they thought the honor would be theirs because the public would not be ignorant that they took the lead. For these reasons they unanimously chose the Senate as the place, but they were not agreed as to the mode. Some thought that Antony ought to be killed also because he was consul with Caesar, and was his most powerful friend, and the one of most repute with the army; but Brutus said that they would win the glory of tyrannicide from the death of Caesar alone, because that would be the killing of a king. If they should kill his friends also, the deed would be imputed to private enmity and to the Pompeian faction.
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§ 2.16.115 The day before the meeting of the Senate Caesar went to sup with Lepidus, his master of horse, taking Decimus Brutus Albinus with him to the drinking-bout. While they were in their cups the conversation turned on the question, “What is the best kind of death for a man?” Various opinions were given, but Caesar alone expressed the preference for a sudden death. In this way he foretold his own end, and conversed about what was to happen on the morrow. After the banquet a certain bodily faintness came over him in the night, and his wife, Calpurnia, had a dream, in which she saw him streaming with blood, for which reason she tried to prevent him from going out in the morning. When he offered sacrifice there were many unfavorable signs. He was about to send Antony to dismiss the Senate when Decimus, who was with him, persuaded him, in order not to incur the charge of disregard for the Senate, to go there and dismiss it himself. Accordingly he was borne thither in a litter. Games were going on in Pompey's theatre, and the Senate was about to assemble in one of the adjoining buildings, as was the custom when the games were taking place. Brutus and Cassius were early at the portico in front of the theatre, very calmly engaging in public business as praetors with those seeking their services. When they heard of the bad omens at Caesar's house and that the Senate was to be dismissed, they were greatly disconcerted. While they were in this state of mind a certain person took Casca by the hand and said, “You kept the secret from me, although I am your friend, but Brutus has told me all.” Casca was suddenly conscience-stricken and shuddered, but his friend, smiling, continued, “Where shall you get the money to stand for the aedileship?” Then Casca recovered himself. While Brutus and Cassius were conferring and talking together, Popillius Laena, one of the senators, drew them aside and said that he joined them in his prayers for what they had in mind, and he urged them to make haste. They were confounded, but remained silent from terror.
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§ 2.16.116 While Caesar was being borne to the Senate one of his intimates, who had learned of the conspiracy, ran to his house to tell what he knew. When he arrived there and found only Calpurnia he merely said that he wanted to speak to Caesar about urgent business, and then waited for him to come back from the Senate, because he did not know all the particulars of the affair. Meantime Artemidorus, whose hospitality Caesar had enjoyed at Cnidus, ran to the Senate and found him already murdered. A tablet informing him of the conspiracy was put into Caesar's hand by another person while he was sacrificing in front of the curia, but he went in immediately and it was found in his hand after his death. Directly after he stepped out of the litter Popillius Laena, who a little before had joined his prayers with the party of Cassius, accosted Caesar and engaged him aside in earnest conversation. The sight of this proceeding and especially the length of the conversation struck terror into the hearts of the conspirators, and they made signs to each other that they would kill themselves rather than be captured. As the conversation was prolonged they saw that Laena did not seem to be revealing anything to Caesar, but rather to be urging some petition. They recovered themselves and when they saw him return thanks to Caesar after the conversation they took new courage. It was the custom of the magistrates, when about to enter the Senate, to take the auspices at the entrance. Here again Caesar's first victim was without a heart, or, as some say, the beginning of the entrails was wanting. A soothsayer said that this was a sign of death. Caesar, laughing, said that the same thing had happened to him when he was beginning his campaign against Pompeius in Spain. The soothsayer replied that he had been in very great danger then and that now the omen was still more entitled to credence. So Caesar ordered him to sacrifice again. None of the victims were more propitious; but being ashamed to keep the Senate waiting, and being urged by his enemies in the guise of friends, he went in disregarding the omens. For it was fated that Caesar should meet his doom.
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§ 2.16.117 The conspirators had left Trebonius, one of their number, to engage Antony in conversation at the door. The others, with concealed daggers, stood around Caesar like friends as he sat in his chair. Then one of them, Tillius Cimber, came up in front of him and petitioned him for the recall of his brother, who had been banished. When Caesar answered that the matter must be deferred, Cimber seized hold of his purple robe as though still urging his petition, and pulled it away so as to expose his neck, exclaiming, “Friends, what are you waiting for?” Then first Casca, who was standing over Caesar's head, drove his dagger at his throat, but missed his aim and wounded him in the breast. Caesar snatched his toga from Cimber, seized Casca's hand, sprang from his chair, turned around, and hurled Casca with great violence. While he was in this position another one stabbed him with a dagger in the side, which was exposed by his turning around, Cassius wounded him in the face, Brutus smote him in the thigh, and Bucolianus between the shoulder-blades. With rage and outcries Caesar turned now upon one and now upon another like a wild animal, but after receiving the wound from Brutus he despaired and, veiling himself with his robe, he fell in a decent position at the foot of Pompey's statue. They continued their attack after he had fallen until he had received twenty-three wounds. Several of them while thrusting with their swords wounded each other.
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§ 2.17.118 When the murderers had perpetrated their crime, in a sacred place, on one whose person was sacred and inviolable, there was an immediate flight from the curia and throughout the whole city. Some senators were wounded in the tumult and others killed. Many other citizens and strangers were murdered also, not designedly, but as such things happen in public commotions, by the mistakes of those into whose hands they fell. Gladiators, who had been armed early in the morning for that day's spectacles, ran out of the theatre into the balcony of the Senate. The theatre itself was emptied in haste and panic-terror, and the markets were plundered. All citizens closed their front doors and put themselves in a posture of defence on their roofs. Antony fortified his house, apprehending that the conspiracy was against him as well as Caesar. Lepidus, the master of horse, being in the forum at the time, learned what had been done and ran to the island in the river where he had a legion of soldiers, which he transferred to the plain in order to be in greater readiness to execute Antony's orders; for he yielded to Antony as a closer friend of Caesar and also as consul. While pondering over the matter they were strongly moved to avenge the death of Caesar, but they feared lest the Senate should espouse the side of the murderers and so they concluded to await events. There had been no military guard around Caesar, for he did not like guards except the usual attendants of the magistracy. Many civilian officers and a large crowd of citizens and strangers, of slaves and freedmen, had accompanied him from his house to the Senate, but had fled en masse, all except three slaves, who placed the body in a litter and, with uneven step (being an uneven number), bore him homeward who, a little before, had been master of the earth and sea.
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§ 2.17.119 The murderers wished to make a speech in the Senate, but as nobody remained there they wrapped their togas around their left arms to serve as shields, and, with swords still reeking with blood, ran, crying out that they had slain a king and tyrant. One of them bore a cap on the end of a spear as a symbol of freedom and exhorted the people to restore the government of their fathers and recall the memory of the elder Brutus and of those who took the oath together against the ancient kings. With them ran some with drawn swords who had not participated in the deed, but wanted to share the glory, among whom were Lentulus Spinther, Favonius, Aquinus, Dolabella, Murcus, and Patiscus. These did not share the glory, but they suffered punishment with the guilty. As the people did not flock to them they were disconcerted and alarmed. Although the Senate had at first fled through ignorance and alarm, they had confidence in it nevertheless as being their own relatives and friends, and oppressed equally with themselves by the tyranny. They had apprehensions of the plebeians and of Caesar's soldiers, many of whom were then present in the city, some lately dismissed from the service and to whom lands had been allotted; others who had been already settled, but had come in to serve as an escort for Caesar on his departure from the city. The assassins had fears of Lepidus, too, and of the army under him in the city, and also of Antony in his character as consul, lest he should consult the people alone, instead of the Senate, and bring some fearful punishment upon them.
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§ 2.17.120 In this frame of mind they hastened up to the Capitol with their gladiators. There they took counsel and decided to bribe the populace, hoping that if some would begin to praise the deed others would join in from love of liberty and longing for the republic. They thought that the Roman people were still exactly the same as they had heard that they were at the time when the elder Brutus expelled the kings. They did not perceive that they were counting on two incompatible things, namely, that people could be lovers of liberty and bribe-takers at the same time. The latter class were much easier to find of the two, because the government had been corrupt for a long time. The plebeians were now much mixed with foreign blood, freedmen had equal rights of citizenship with them, and slaves were dressed in the same fashion as their masters. Except in the case of the senatorial rank the same costume was common to slaves and to free citizens. Moreover the distribution of corn to the poor, which took place in Rome only, drew thither the lazy, the beggars, the vagrants of all Italy. The multitude of discharged soldiers no longer returned one by one to their native places as formerly, fearing that some of them might be accused of having engaged in iniquitous wars, but were sent in groups to unjust allotments of lands and houses belonging to others. These were now encamped in temples and sacred enclosures under one standard, and one person appointed to lead them to their colony, and as they had already sold their own be longings preparatory to their departure they were in readiness to be bought for any purpose.
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§ 2.17.121 From so many men of this kind a considerable crowd was drawn speedily and without difficulty to the party of Cassius in the forum. These, although bought, did not dare to praise the murder, because they feared Caesar's reputation and doubted what course the rest of the people might take. So they shouted for peace as being for the public advantage, and with one accord recommended this policy to the magistrates, intending by this device to secure the safety of the murderers; for there could be no peace without amnesty to them. While they were thus engaged the praetor Cinna, a relative of Caesar by marriage, made his appearance, advanced unexpectedly into the middle of the forum, laid aside his praetorian robe, as if disdaining the gift of a tyrant, and called Caesar a tyrant and his murderers tyrannicides. He extolled their deed as exactly like that of their ancestors, and ordered that the men themselves should be called from the Capitol as benefactors and rewarded with public honors. So spake Cinna, but when the hirelings saw that the unbought portion of the crowd did not agree with them they did not call for the men in the Capitol, nor did they do anything else but continually demand peace.
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§ 2.17.122 But after Dolabella, a young man of noble family who had been chosen by Caesar as consul for the remainder of his own year when he was about to leave the city, and who had put on the consular garb and taken the other insignia of the office, came forward next and railed against the man who had advanced him to this dignity and pretended to have been privy to the conspiracy against him, and that his hand alone was unwillingly absent — some say that he even proposed a decree that this day should be consecrated as the birthday of the republic — then the hirelings took new courage, seeing that they had both a praetor and a consul on their side, and demanded that Cassius and his friends be summoned from the Capitol. They were delighted with Dolabella and thought that now they had a young optimate, who was also consul, to oppose against Antony. Only Cassius and Marcus Brutus came down, the latter with his hand still bleeding from the wound he had received when he and Cassius were dealing blows at Caesar. When they reached the forum neither of them said anything which betokened humility. On the contrary they praised each other as for something confessedly admirable. They considered the city fortunate and bore special testimony to the merits of Decimus Brutus because he had furnished them gladiators at a critical moment. They exhorted the people to be like their ancestors, who had expelled the kings, although the latter were exercising the government not by violence like Caesar, but had been chosen according to law. They advised the recall of Sextus Pompey (the son of Pompey the Great, the defender of the republic against Caesar ), who was still warring against Caesar's lieutenants in Spain. They also recommended that the tribunes, Caesetius and Marullus, who had been deposed by Caesar, should be recalled from exile.
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§ 2.17.123 After they had thus spoken Cassius and Brutus returned directly to the Capitol, because they had not yet entire confidence in the present posture of affairs. Having first enabled their friends and relatives to come to them in the temple, they chose from among them messengers to treat on their behalf with Lepidus and Antony for conciliation and the preservation of liberty, and for warding off the evils that would befall the country if they should not come to an agreement. This the messengers asked, not extolling the deed that had been done, however, for they did not dare to do this in the presence of Caesar's friends. They asked that it be tolerated now that it was done, out of pity for the perpetrators (who had been actuated, not by hatred toward Caesar, but by love of country), and out of compassion for the city exhausted by long-continued civil strife, and which a new sedition might deprive of the good men still remaining. “If enmity were entertained against certain persons,” they said, “it would be an act of impiety to gratify it in a time of public danger. It would be far preferable to sink private animosity in the public weal, or, if anybody were irreconcilable, at least to postpone his private grievances for the present.”
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§ 2.17.124 Antony and Lepidus wished to avenge Caesar, as I have already said, either on the score of friendship, or of the oaths they had sworn, or because they were aiming at the supreme power themselves and thought that their course would be easier if so many men of such rank were put out of the way at once. But they feared the friends and relatives of these men and the leaning of the rest of the Senate toward them, and especially they feared Decimus Brutus, who had been chosen by Caesar governor of Cisalpine Gaul, which had a large army. So they decided to watch a future opportunity and to try if possible to draw over to themselves the army of Decimus, which was already disheartened by its protracted labors. Having come to this decision, Antony replied to the messengers, “We shall do nothing from private enmity, yet in consequence of the crime and of the oaths we have all sworn to Caesar, that we would either protect his person or avenge his death, a solemn regard for our oath requires us to drive out the guilty and to live with a smaller number of innocent men rather than that all should be liable to the divine curse. Yet for our own part, although this seems to us the proper course, we will consider the matter with you in the Senate and we will agree to whatever may be decided in common to be propitious for the city.”
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§ 2.17.125 Thus did Antony make a safe answer. The messengers returned their thanks and went away full of hope, for they had entire confidence that the Senate would cooperate with them. Antony ordered the magistrates to have the city watched by night, stationing guards at intervals as in the daytime, and he had fires lighted throughout the city. By this means the friends of the murderers were enabled to traverse the city the whole night, going to the houses of the senators and beseeching them in behalf of these men and of the republic. On the other hand, the leaders of the colonized soldiers ran about uttering threats lest they should fail to hold the lands set apart, either already assigned or proclaimed to them. And now the more honest citizens began to recover courage when they learned how small was the number of the conspirators, and when they remembered Caesar's merits they became much divided in opinion. That same night Caesar's money and his official papers were transferred to Antony's house, either because Calpurnia thought that they would be safer there or because Antony ordered it.
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§ 2.18.126 While these things were taking place Antony, by means of a notice sent around by night, called the Senate to meet before daybreak at the temple of Tellus, which was very near his own house, because he did not dare to go to the senate-house situated just below the Capitol, where the gladiators were aiding the conspirators, nor did he wish to disturb the city by bringing in the army. Lepidus, however, did that. As daylight was approaching the senators assembled at the temple of Tellus, including the praetor Cinna, clothed again in the robe of office which he had cast off the previous day as the gift of a tyrant. Some of the unbribed people and some of Caesar's veterans, when they saw him, were indignant that he, although a relative of Caesar, should have been the first to slander him in a public speech, threw stones at him, pursued him, and when he had taken refuge in a house brought fagots and were about to set it on fire when Lepidus came up with his soldiers and stopped them. This was the first decided expression of opinion in favor of Caesar. The hirelings, and the murderers themselves, were alarmed by it.
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§ 2.18.127 In the Senate only a small number were free from sympathy with the act of violence and indignant at the murder. Most of them sought to aid the murderers in various ways. They proposed first to invite them to be present under a pledge of safety and sit in council with them, thus changing them from criminals to judges. Antony did not oppose this because he knew they would not come; and they did not come. Then, in order to test the feeling of the Senate, some of them extolled the deed openly and without disguise, called the men tyrannicides, and proposed that they should be rewarded. Others were opposed to giving rewards, saying that the men did not want them and had not done the deed for the sake of reward, but thought that they should merely be thanked as public benefactors. Still others were opposed to thanking them and thought that it would be sufficient to grant them impunity. Such were the devices to which they resorted, and were trying to discover which of these courses the Senate would be inclined to accept first, hoping that after a little that body would be more easily led on by them to the other measures. The honester portion revolted at the murder as impious, but out of respect for the great families of the murderers would not oppose the granting of impunity, yet they were indignant at the proposal to honor them as public benefactors. Others argued that if impunity were granted it would not be fitting to refuse the most ample means of safety. When one speaker said that honoring them would be dishonoring Caesar, it was answered that it was not permissible to prefer the interests of the dead to those of the living. Another having said plainly that one of two things must be decided beforehand — either that Caesar was a tyrant or that his murderers were to be pardoned as an act of clemency — the others [ Caesar's enemies] seized upon this simple proposition and asked that an opportunity be given them of expressing themselves by vote concerning the character of Caesar, under the solemn pledge that, if they voluntarily should give their unbiased judgment, the penalty of the oath should not befall them for having previously voted Caesar's decrees under compulsion — never willingly and never until they were in fear for their own lives, after the killing of Pompey and of numberless others besides Pompey.
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§ 2.18.128 When Antony, who had been looking on and waiting, saw that sufficient material for discussion had been introduced which was not open to dispute, he resolved to balk their scheme by exciting fear and anxiety for themselves. Seeing a great number of these senators themselves who had been designated by Caesar for city magistracies, priestly offices, and the command of provinces and armies (for, as he was going on a long expedition, he had appointed them for five years), Antony proclaimed silence as consul and said: “Those who are asking for a vote on the character of Caesar ought to consider in the first place that all the things done and decreed under his government and while he was the chosen ruler of the state remain in full force. If it is decided that he usurped the government by violence, his body should be cast out unburied and all his acts annulled. These acts, to speak briefly, embrace the whole earth and sea, and most of them will stand whether we like them or not, as I shall presently show. Those things which alone belong to us to decide, because they concern us alone, I will propose to you first, so that you may gain a conception of the more difficult questions from a consideration of the easier ones. Almost all of us have held office under Caesar; or do so still, having been chosen thereto by him; or will do so soon, having been designated in advance by him; for, as you know, he had disposed of the city offices, the yearly magistracies, and the command of provinces and armies for five years. If you are willing to resign these offices (for this is entirely in your power), I will put that question to you first and then I will take up the remaining ones.”
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§ 2.18.129 Having lighted this kind of a firebrand among them, not in reference to Caesar, but to themselves, Antony relapsed into silence. They rose immediately en masse, and with loud clamor protested against new elections or submitting their claims to the people. They preferred to keep a firm hold on what they possessed. Some were opposed to new elections because they were not of lawful age, or for some other unavowed reason, and among these was the consul Dolabella himself, who could not legally stand for an election to that office as he was only twenty-five years old. Although he had pretended yesterday that he had a share in the conspiracy, a sudden change came over him, and now he reviled the majority for seeking to confer honor on murderers and dishonoring their own magistrates under the pretext of securing the safety of the former. Some encouraged Dolabella himself and the other magistrates to believe that they would obtain for them the same positions from the people's gratitude without any change of officers, but simply by the more legal method of election in place of monarchical appointment, and that it would be an additional honor to them to hold the same places under the monarchy and the republic. While these speakers were still talking some of the praetors, in order to ensnare the opposing faction, laid aside their robes of office as if they were about to exchange them for a more legal title to their places, in common with the others; but the others did not fall into the trap. They knew that these men could not control the future election.
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§ 2.18.130 While affairs were proceeding thus, Antony and Lepidus went out of the Senate, having been called for by a crowd that had been assembling for some time. When they were perceived in an elevated place, and the shouters had been with difficulty silenced, one of their number, either of his own volition or because he was prompted, called out, “Have a care lest you suffer a like fate.” Antony loosened his tunic and showed him a coat-of-mail inside, thus exciting the beholders, as though it were impossible even for consuls to be safe without arms. Some cried out that the deed must be avenged, but a greater number demanded peace. To those who called for peace Antony said, “That is what we are striving for, that it may come and be permanent, but it is hard to get security for it when so many oaths and solemnities were of no avail in the case of Caesar.” Then, turning to those who demanded vengeance, he praised them as more observant of the obligations of oaths and religion, and added, “I myself would join you and would be the first to call for vengeance if I were not the consul, who must care for what is called expedient rather than for what is just. So these people who are inside tell us. So Caesar himself perhaps thought when, for the good of the country, he spared those citizens whom he captured in war, and was slain by them.”
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§ 2.18.131 When Antony had in this way worked upon both parties by turns, those who wanted to have vengeance on the murderers asked Lepidus to execute it. As Lepidus was about to speak those who were standing at a distance asked him to go down to the forum where all could hear him equally well. So he went directly there, thinking that the crowd was now changing its mind, and when he had taken his place on the Rostra he groaned and wept in plain sight for some time. Then recovering himself, he said, “Yesterday I stood with Caesar here, where now I am com- pelled to ask what you wish me to do about his murder.” Many cried out “Avenge Caesar.” The hirelings shouted on the other side, “ Peace for the republic.” To the latter he replied, “Agreed, but what kind of a peace do you mean? By what sort of oaths shall it be confirmed? We all swore the national oaths to Caesar and we have trampled on them — we who are considered the most distinguished of the oath-takers.” Then, turning to those who called for vengeance, he said, “ Caesar, that truly sacred and revered man, has gone from us, but we hesitate to deprive the republic of those who still remain. Our conscript fathers,” he added, “are considering these matters, and this is the opinion of most of them.” They shouted again, “Avenge him yourself.” “I would like to,” he replied, “and it is right that I should do it even alone, but it is not fitting that you and I should wish to do it alone, or alone set ourselves up against them.”
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§ 2.18.132 While Lepidus was employing such devices the hirelings, who knew that he was ambitious, praised him and offered him Caesar's place as pontifex maximus. He was delighted. “Mention this to me later,” he said, “if you consider me worthy of it,” whereupon the mercenaries, encouraged by their offer of the priesthood, insisted still more strongly on peace. “Although it is contrary to religion and law,” he said, “I will do what you wish.” So saying he returned to the Senate, where Dolabella had consumed all the intervening time in unseemly talk about his own office. Antony, who was waiting to see what the people would do, looked at Dolabella with derision, for the two were at variance with each other. After enjoying the spectacle sufficiently and perceiving that the people would not do anything rashly, he decided, under compulsion, to extend protection to the murderers (concealing the necessity, however, and pretending to act in this way as a matter of the greatest favor), and at the same time to have Caesar's acts ratified and his plans carried into effect by common agreement. Accordingly he commanded silence again and spoke as follows: —
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§ 2.18.133 “Fellow-citizens, while you have been considering the case of the offenders I have not joined in the debate. When you called for a vote on Caesar instead of on them, I had brought forward, until this moment, only one of Caesar's acts. This one threw you into these many present controversies, and not without reason, for if we resign our offices we shall confess that we (so many and of such high rank as we are) came by them undeservedly. Consider the matters that cannot be easily controlled by us. Reckon them up by cities and provinces, by kings and princes. Almost all of these, from the rising to the setting sun, Caesar either subdued for us by force and arms, or organized by his laws, or confirmed in their allegiance by his favors and kindness. Which of these powers do you think will consent to be deprived of what they have received, unless you mean to fill the world with new wars — you who propose to spare these wretches for the sake of your exhausted country? But, omitting the more distant dangers and apprehensions, we have others not only near at hand, but even of our own household throughout Italy itself, — men who are here after receiving the rewards of victory, many of them with arms in their hands and in the same organization in which they fought, men assigned to colonies by Caesar (many thousands of whom are still in the city), — what think you they will do if they are deprived of what they have received, or expect to receive, in town and country? The past night showed you a sample. They were coursing the streets with threats against you who were supplicating in behalf of the murderers.
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§ 2.18.134 ”Think you that Caesar's fellow-soldiers will allow his body to be dragged through the streets, dishonored, and cast away unburied — for our laws prescribe such treatment for tyrants? Will they consider the rewards they have received for their victories in Gaul and Britain secure, when he who gave them is treated with contumely? What will the Roman people themselves do? What the Italians? What ill-will of gods and men will attend you if you put ignominy upon one who advanced your dominion to shores of the ocean hitherto unknown? Will not such fickleness on our part be held in greater reprobation and condemnation if we vote to confer honor on those who have slain a consul in the senate-house, an inviolable man in a sacred place, in full senate, under the eyes of the gods, and if we dishonor one whom even our enemies honor for his bravery? I warn you to abstain from these proceedings as being sacrilegious in themselves and not in our power. I move that all the acts and intentions of Caesar be ratified and that the authors of the crime be by no means applauded (for that would be neither pious, nor just, nor consistent with the ratification of Caesar's acts). Let them be spared, if you please, as an act of clemency only, for the sake of their families and friends, if the latter will accept it in this sense in behalf of the murderers and acknowledge it in the light of a favor."
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§ 2.18.135 When Antony had said these things with intense feeling and impetuosity, all the others remaining silent and agreeing, the following decree was passed: “There shall be no prosecution for the murder of Caesar, but all of his acts and decrees are confirmed, because this policy is deemed advantageous to the commonwealth.” The friends of the murderers insisted that those last words should be added for their security, implying that Caesar's acts were confirmed as a measure of utility and not of justice; and in this matter Antony yielded to them. When this decree had been voted the leaders of the colonists who were present asked for another act special to themselves, in addition to the general one, in order to confirm their colonies. Antony did not oppose this, but rather intimidated the Senate to pass it. So this was adopted, and another like it concerning the colonists who had been already sent out. The Senate was thereupon dismissed, and a number of senators collected around Lucius Piso, whom Caesar had made the custodian of his will and urged him not to make the will public, and not to give the body a public funeral, lest some new disturbance should arise therefrom. As he would not yield they threatened him with a public prosecution for defrauding the people of such an amount of wealth which ought to go into the public treasury; thus giving new signs that they were suspicious of a tyranny.
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§ 2.19.136 Then Piso called out with a loud voice and demanded that the consuls should reconvene the senators, who were still present, which was done, and then he said: “These men who talk of having killed a tyrant are already so many tyrants over us in place of one. They forbid the burying of a Pontifex Maximus and they threaten me when I produce his will. Moreover, they intend to confiscate his property as that of a tyrant. They have ratified Caesar's acts as regards themselves, but they annul those which relate to him. It is no longer Brutus or Cassius who do this, but those who instigated them to the murder. Of his burial you are the masters. Of his will I am, and never will I betray what has been intrusted to me unless somebody kills me also.” This speech excited clamor and indignation on all sides, and especially among those who hoped that they should obtain something from the will. It was decreed that the will should be read in public and that Caesar should have a public funeral. Thereupon the Senate adjourned.
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§ 2.19.137 When Brutus and Cassius learned what had been done they sent messengers to the plebeians, whom they invited to come up to them at the Capitol. Presently a large number came together and Brutus addressed them as follows: “Here, citizens, we meet you, we who yesterday met together with you in the forum. We have come hither, not as taking refuge in a sanctuary (for we have done nothing wrong), nor in a citadel (for as regards our own affairs we intrust ourselves to you), but the sudden and unexpected attack made upon Cinna compelled us to do so. I know that our enemies accuse us of perjury and say that we render a lasting peace difficult. What we have to reply to these accusations we will say in your presence, citizens, with whose help we shall do what remains to be done for the restoration of democratic government. After Gaius Caesar advanced from Gaul with hostile arms against his country, and Pompey, the most popular man among you, suffered as he did, and after him a great number of other good citizens, who had been driven into Africa and Spain, had perished, Caesar was naturally apprehensive, although his power was firmly intrenched, and we granted him amnesty at his request and confirmed it by oath. If he had required us to swear not only to condone the past, but to be willing slaves for the future, what would our present accusers have done? For my part I think that, being Romans, they would have chosen to die many times rather than take an oath of voluntary servitude.
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§ 2.19.138 ”If Caesar did no more against your liberty then are we perjured. But if he restored to you neither the magistracies of the city nor those of the provinces, neither the command of armies, the priestly offices, the leadership of colonies, nor any other posts of honor; if he neither consulted the Senate about anything nor asked the authority of the people, but if Caesar's command was all in all; if he was not even ever satiated with our misfortunes as Sulla was (for Sulla, when he had destroyed his enemies restored to you the government of the commonwealth, but Caesar, as he was going away for another long military expedition, anticipated by his appointments your elections for five years), what sort of freedom was this in which not a ray of hope could be any longer discerned? What shall I say of the defenders of the people, Caesetius and Marullus? Were not the incumbents of a sacred and inviolable office ignominiously banished? Although the law and the oath prescribed by our ancestors forbid calling the tribunes to account during their term of office, Caesar banished them even without a trial. Have we then, or has he, done violence to inviolable persons — unless you say that Caesar was sacred and inviolable, upon whom we conferred that distinction not of our own free will, but by compulsion, and not until he had invaded his country with arms and killed a great number of our noblest and best citizens? Did not our fathers in a democracy and without compulsion take an oath that the office of tribune should be sacred and inviolable, and declare with maledictions that it should remain so forever? What has become of the public tribute? What of the public accounts? Who opened the public treasury without our consent? Who removed part of the consecrated money? Who threatened with death another tribune who opposed him?
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§ 2.19.139 "'But what kind of an oath after this will be a guarantee of peace?' they ask. If there is no tyrant there will be no need of oaths. Our fathers never needed any. If anybody else seeks to establish tyranny, no faith, no oath, will ever bind Romans to the tyrant. This we said before, while we were still in danger; this we will continue to say forever for our country's sake. We, who held places of honor securely at the hands of Caesar, had a higher regard for our country than for our offices. They slander us about the colonies and so excite you against us. If there are any present who have been settled in colonies, or are about to be settled, you will gratify me by making yourselves known."
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§ 2.19.140 A large number did so, whereupon Brutus continued, “Bravo, my men, you have done well to come here with the others. You ought, since you receive due honors and bounties from your country, to give her equal honor in return as she sends you forth. The Roman people gave you to Caesar to fight against the Gauls and Britons, and your valiant deeds call for recognition and recompense. But Caesar, taking advantage of your military oath, led you against your country much against your will. He led you against our best citizens in Africa, in like manner against your will. If this were all that you had done you would perhaps be ashamed to ask reward for such exploits, but since neither envy, nor time, nor the forgetfulness of men can extinguish the glory of your deeds in Gaul and Britain, you shall have the rewards due to them, such as the people gave to those who served in the army of old, yet not by taking land from your unoffending fellow-citizens, nor by dividing other people's property with new-comers, nor by considering it proper to requite your services by means of acts of injustice. When our ancestors overcame their enemies they did not take from them all their land. They shared it with them and colonized a portion of it with Roman soldiers, who were to serve as guards over the vanquished. If the conquered territory was not sufficient for the colonies, they added some of the public domain or bought other land with the public money. In this way the people colonized you without harm to anybody. But Sulla and Caesar, who invaded their country like a foreign land and needed guards and garrisons against their own country, did not dismiss you to your homes, nor buy land for you, nor divide among you the property of citizens which they confiscated, nor did they make compensation for the relief of those who were despoiled, although those who despoiled them had plenty of money from the treasury and plenty from confiscated estates. They took, by the law of war, — nay, by the practice of robbery, — from Italians who had committed no offence, who had done no wrong, their land and houses, tombs and temples, which we do not take away even from foreign enemies, except a mere tenth of their produce by way of tax.
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§ 2.19.141 ”They divided among you the property of your own people, the very ones who sent you with Caesar to the Gallic war, and who offered up their prayers at your festival of victory. They colonized you in that way collectively, under your standards and in your military organization, so that you could neither enjoy peace nor be free from fear of those whom you displaced. The man who is driven out and deprived of his goods will always be watching his opportunity to ensnare you. This was the very thing that the tyrants sought to accomplish, — not to provide you with land, which they could have obtained for you elsewhere; but that you, because always beset by lurking enemies, might be the firm bulwark of a government that was committing wrongs in common with you. A common interest between tyrants and their satellites grows out of common crimes and common fears. And this, ye gods, they call colonization, in which are common the lamentations of a kindred people and the expulsion of innocent men from their homes. They purposely made you enemies to your countrymen for their own advantage. We, the defenders of the republic, to whom our opponents say they grant safety out of pity, confirm this very same land to you and will confirm it forever; and to this promise we call to witness the god of this temple. You have and shall keep what you have received. None of us will take it from you, neither Brutus, nor Cassius, nor any of us who have incurred danger for your freedom. The one thing wanting in this business we will supply — a reconciliation with your fellow-countrymen most agreeable to them now, as they hear that we shall at once pay them out of the public money the price of this land of which they have been deprived; so that not only shall your colony be secure, but it shall not even be exposed to hatred."
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§ 2.19.142 While Brutus was still speaking in this sort, and after the assembly was dissolved, his discourse was approved by all as being entirely just. He and his associates were admired as men of intrepidity, and as peculiarly the friends of the people. The latter were favorably inclined toward them, and promised to cooperate with them on the following day. At daybreak the consuls called the people to an assembly and communicated to them the decisions of the Senate, and Cicero pronounced a long encomium on the decree of amnesty. The people were delighted with it and invited Cassius and his friends to come down from the Capitol. The latter asked that hostages be sent to them in the meantime, and, accordingly, the sons of Antony and Lepidus were sent. When Brutus and his associates made their appearance they were received with shouts of applause, and when the consuls desired to say something the people would not allow them to do so, but demanded that they should first shake hands with these men and make peace with them, which was done. The minds of the consuls were much disturbed by fear and envy lest the conspirators should get the upper hand of them in other political matters.
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§ 2.20.143 Caesar's will was now produced and the people ordered that it be read at once. In it Octavius, the grandson of his sister, was adopted by Caesar. His gardens were given to the people as a place of recreation, and to every Roman still living in the city he gave seventy-five Attic drachmas. The people were again stirred to anger when they saw the will of this lover of his country, whom they had before heard accused of tyranny. Most of all did it seem pitiful to them that Decimus Brutus, one of the murderers, should have been named by him for adoption in the second degree; for it was customary for the Romans to name alternate heirs in case of the failure of the first. Whereupon there was still greater disturbance among the people, who considered it shocking and sacrilegious that Decimus should have conspired against Caesar when he had been adopted as his son. When Piso brought Caesar's body into the forum a countless multitude ran together with arms to guard it, and with acclamations and magnificent display placed it on the Rostra. Wailing and lamentation were renewed for a long time, the armed men clashed their shields, and gradually they began to repent themselves of the amnesty. Antony, seeing how things were going, did not abandon his purpose, but, having been chosen to deliver the funeral oration, as a consul for a consul, a friend for a friend, a relative for a relative (for he was related to Caesar on his mother's side), resumed his artful design and spoke as follows: —
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§ 2.20.144 “It is not fitting, citizens, that the funeral oration of so great a man should be pronounced by me alone, but rather by his whole country. The decrees which all of us, in equal admiration of his merit, voted to him while he was alive — the Senate and the people acting together — I will read, so that I may voice your sentiments rather than my own.” Then he began to read with a severe and gloomy countenance, pronouncing each sentence distinctly and dwelling especially on those decrees which declared Caesar to be superhuman, sacred, and inviolable, and which named him the father of his country, or the benefactor, or the chieftain without a peer. With each decree Antony turned his face and his hand toward Caesar's corpse, illustrating his discourse by his action, and at each appellation he added some brief remark full of grief and indignation; as, for example, where the decree spoke of Caesar as the father of his country he added that this was a testimonial of his clemency; and again, where he was made sacred and inviolable and everybody else was to be held unharmed who should find refuge with him, — “Nobody,” said Antony, “who found refuge with him was harmed, but he, whom you declared sacred and inviolable, was killed, although he did not extort these honors from you as a tyrant, and did not even ask for them. Most servile are we if we give such honors to the unworthy who do not ask for them. But you, faithful citizens, vindicate us from this charge of servility by paying such honors as you now pay to the dead.”
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§ 2.20.145 Antony resumed his reading and recited the oaths by which all were pledged to guard Caesar and Caesar's body with all their strength, and all were devoted to perdition who should not avenge him against any conspiracy. Here, lifting up his voice and extending his hand toward the Capitol, he exclaimed, “ Jupiter, guardian of this city, and ye other gods, I stand ready to avenge him as I have sworn and vowed, but since those who are of equal rank with me have considered the decree of amnesty beneficial, I pray that it may prove so.” A commotion arose among the senators in consequence of this exclamation, which seemed to have special reference to them. So Antony quieted them again and recanted, saying, “It seems to me, fellow-citizens, that this deed is not the work of human beings, but of some evil spirit. It becomes us to consider the present rather than the past, since the greatest danger approaches, if it is not already here, lest we be drawn into our former civil commotions and lose whatever remains of noble birth in the city. Let us then conduct this sacred one to the abode of the blest, chanting our accustomed hymn of lamentation for him.”
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§ 2.20.146 Having spoken thus,, he gathered up his garments like one inspired, girded himself so that he might have the free use of his hands, took his position in front of the bier as in a play, bending down to it and rising again, and sang first as to a celestial deity. In order to testify to Caesar's godlike origin, he raised his hands to heaven and with rapid speech recited his wars, his battles, his victories, the nations he had brought under his country's sway, and the spoils he had sent home, extolling each exploit as miraculous, and all the time exclaiming, “Thou alone hast come forth unvanquished from all the battles thou hast fought. Thou alone hast avenged thy country of the out-rage put upon it 300 years ago, bringing to their knees those savage tribes, the only ones that ever broke into and burned the city of Rome.” Many other things Antony said in a kind of divine frenzy, and then lowered his voice from its high pitch to a sorrowful tone, and mourned and wept as for a friend who had suffered unjustly, and prayed that his own life might be given in exchange for Caesar's. Carried away by extreme passion he uncovered the body of Caesar, lifted his robe on the point of a spear and shook it aloft, pierced with dagger-thrusts and red with the dictator's blood. Whereupon the people, like a chorus, mourned with him in the most lugubrious manner, and from sorrow became again filled with anger. After the discourse other lamentations were chanted with funeral music according to the national custom, by the people in chorus, to the dead; and his deeds and his sad fate were again recited. Somewhere from the midst of these lamentations Caesar himself was supposed to speak, recounting the benefits he had conferred on his enemies by name, and speaking of the murderers themselves, exclaiming, as it were, “Oh that I should have spared these men to slay me!” The people could endure it no longer. It seemed to them monstrous that all the murderers who, with the single exception of Decimus Brutus, had been made prisoners while belonging to the faction of Pompey, and who, instead of being punished, had been advanced by Caesar to the magistracies of Rome and to the command of provinces and armies, should have conspired against him; and that Decimus should have been deemed by him worthy of adoption as his son.
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§ 2.20.147 While they were in this temper and were already near to violence, somebody raised above the bier an image of Caesar himself made of wax. The body itself, as it lay on its back on the couch, could not be seen. The image was turned round and round by a mechanical device, showing the twenty-three wounds in all parts of the body and on the face, which gave him a shocking appearance. The people could no longer bear the pitiful sight presented to them. They groaned, and, girding themselves, they burned the senate-chamber where Caesar was slain, and ran hither and thither searching for the murderers, who had fled some time previously. They were so mad with rage and grief that like wild beasts they tore in pieces the tribune Cinna on account of his similarity of name to the praetor Cinna who had made a speech against Caesar, not waiting to hear any explanation about the similarity of name, so that no part of him was ever found for burial. They carried fire to the houses of the other murderers, but the domestics valiantly fought them off and the neighbors besought them to desist. So the people abstained from the use of fire, but they threatened to come back with arms on the following day.
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§ 2.20.148 The murderers fled from the city secretly. The people returned to Caesar's bier and bore it as a consecrated thing to the Capitol in order to bury it in the temple and place it among the gods. Being prevented from doing so by the priests, they placed it again in the forum where in the olden time stood the palace of the kings of Rome. There they collected together sticks of wood and benches, of which there were many in the forum, and anything else they could find of that sort, for a funeral pile, throwing on it the adornments of the procession, some of which were very costly. Some of them cast their own crowns upon it and many military gifts. Then they set fire to it, and the entire people remained by the funeral pile throughout the night. There an altar was first erected, but now there stands the temple of Caesar himself, as he was deemed worthy of divine honors; for Octavius, his son by adoption, who took the name of Caesar, and, following in the footsteps of the latter in political matters, greatly strengthened the government founded by Caesar, and which remains to this day, decreed divine honors to his father. From this example the Romans now pay like honors to each emperor at his death if he has not reigned in a tyrannical manner or made himself odious, although at first they could not bear to call them kings while living.
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§ 2.21.149 So died Gaius Caesar on the so-called Ides of March, which correspond nearly with the middle of the Greek month Anthesterion, which day the soothsayer predicted that he should not survive. Caesar jokingly said to him early in the morning, “Well, the Ides have come,” and the latter, nothing daunted, answered, “But they are not past.” Despising such prophecies, uttered with so much confidence by the soothsayer, and other prodigies that I have previously mentioned, Caesar went on his way and was killed, being fifty-six years of age. He was a man most fortunate in all things, superhuman, of grand designs, and fit to be compared with Alexander. Both were men of the greatest ambition, both were most skilled in the art of war, most rapid in executing their decisions, most reckless of danger, least sparing of themselves, and relying as much on audacity and luck as on military skill. Alexander made a long journey through the desert in the hot season to visit the oracle of Ammon and crossed the Gulf of Pamphylia against a head sea successfully. A god restrained the waves for him until he had passed over, and sent him rain on his journey by land. In India he ventured upon an unknown sea. Once he was the first to ascend the scaling ladders and leaped over the wall among his enemies alone, and in this condition received thirteen wounds. Yet he was never defeated, and he finished almost every war in one or two battles. He conquered many barbarians in Europe and made himself master of Greece, a people hard to control, fond of freedom, who boasted that they had never obeyed anybody before him, except Philip for a little while under the guise of his leadership in war. He overran almost the whole of Asia. To sum up Alexander's fortune and power in a word, he acquired as much of the earth as he saw, and died while he was devising means to capture the rest.
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§ 2.21.150 The Adriatic Sea yielded to Caesar, becoming navigable and quiet in mid-winter. He also crossed the western ocean to Britain, which had never been attempted before, and he ordered his pilots to break their ships in pieces by running them on the rocks of the British coast. He was exposed to the violence of another tempest when alone in a small boat by night, and he ordered the pilot to spread his sails and to keep in mind Caesar's fortune rather than the waves of the sea. He often dashed against the enemy single-handed when all others were afraid. He fought thirty pitched battles in Gaul alone, where he conquered forty nations so formidable to the Romans previously that in the law which exempted priests and old men from military enrolment an exception was made of a Gallic war, in case of which priests and old men were required to serve in the army. Once in the course of the Alexandrian war, when he was left alone on a bridge in extreme peril, he threw off his purple garment, leaped into the sea, and, being sought by the enemy, swam under water a long distance, coming to the surface only at intervals to take breath, until he came near a friendly ship, when he made himself known by raising his hands, and was saved. In these civil wars, in which he engaged either through apprehension, as he says, or ambition, he was brought in conflict with the first generals of the age and with many large armies, not now of barbarians, but of Romans in the highest state of efficiency and good fortune, and, like Alexander, he overcame them all by one or two engagements with each. His forces were not, like Alexander's, always victorious, for they were defeated by the Gauls most disastrously under the command of his lieutenants, Cotta and Titurius; and in Spain Petreius and Afranius shut them up like an army besieged. At Dyrrachium and in Africa they were put to flight, and in Spain they were terrified by young Pompey. But Caesar himself was always undaunted and was victorious at the end of every war. He grasped, partly by force, partly by good-will, the Roman power which ruled the earth and sea from the setting sun to the river Euphrates, and held it much more firmly and strongly than Sulla had done, and he showed himself to be a king in spite of opposition, even though he did not accept the title. And, like Alexander, he expired while planning new wars.
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§ 2.21.151 Their armies were equally zealous and devoted to both, and in battles they fought with the greatest ferocity, but were often disobedient and mutinous on account of the severity of their tasks. Yet they mourned and longed for their commanders when they were dead, and paid them divine honors. Both were well-formed and handsome in person, and both were descended from Jupiter, Alexander through Aeacus and Hercules, Caesar through Anchises and Venus. Both were as prompt to fight their adversaries as they were ready to make peace and grant pardon to the vanquished, and after pardon to confer benefits; for they desired only to conquer. Thus far let the parallel hold good, although they did not both start toward empire from the same footing; Alexander from the monarchy founded by Philip, Caesar from a private station, well born and illustrious indeed, but very short of money.
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§ 2.21.152 Both of them despised the prodigies relating to themselves, but they did not deal harshly with the sooth-sayers who predicted their death; for more than once the very same prodigies confronted both, pointing to the same end. Twice in the case of each the victims were without a liver, and the first time it indicated a doubtful danger. It happened to Alexander when he was among the Oxydracae and while he was leading his Macedonians in scaling the enemy's wall. The ladder broke, leaving him alone on the top. Taking counsel of his courage, he leaped inside the town against his enemies, and was struck severely in the breast and on the neck by a very heavy club, so that he fell down, and was rescued with difficulty by the Macedonians, who broke down the gates in their alarm for him. It happened to Caesar in Spain while his army was in great fear of young Pompey, and hesitated to join battle. Caesar dashed in advance of all into the space between the armies, and received 200 darts on his shield until his army, moved by shame and fear for his safety, rushed forward and rescued him. Thus in the case of each the first victims without livers presaged danger of death; the second presaged death itself. As Peithagoras, the soothsayer, was inspecting the entrails, he told Apollodorus, who was in fear of Alexander and Hephestion, not to be afraid of them, because they would both be out of the way very soon. Hephestion died immediately, and Apollodorus, being apprehensive lest some conspiracy might exist against Alexander, communicated the prophecy to him. Alexander smiled, and asked Peithagoras himself what the prodigy meant. When the latter replied that it meant fatality, he smiled again. Nevertheless, he commended Apollodorus for his good-will and the soothsayer for his freedom of speech.
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§ 2.21.153 As Caesar was entering the Senate for the last time, as I have shortly before related, the same omens were observed, but he said, jestingly, that the same thing had happened to him in Spain. When the soothsayer replied that he was in danger then too, and that the omen was now more deadly, he yielded somewhat to the warning and sacrificed again, and continued to do so until he became vexed with the priests for delaying him, and went in and was killed. The same kind of thing happened to Alexander. As he was returning from India to Babylon with his army, and was nearing the latter place, the Chaldeans urged him to postpone his entrance for the present. He replied with the iambic verse, “He who guesses right is the best prophet.” Again, the Chaldeans urged him not to march his army into the city while looking toward the setting sun, but to go around and enter facing the east. It is said that he yielded to this suggestion and started to go around, but being bothered by a lake and marshy ground, he disregarded this second prophecy also, and entered the city looking toward the west. Not long after entering he went down the Euphrates in a boat to the river Pallacotta, which takes its water from the Euphrates and carries it away in marshes and ponds and thus hinders the irrigation and navigation of the Assyrian country. While he was considering how he should dyke this stream and while he was sailing out to it for this purpose, it is said that he jeered at the Chaldeans because he had gone into Babylon and sailed out of it safely. But scarcely had he returned back to it when he died. Caesar jeered at the prophecies in like manner, for the soothsayer predicted the day of his death, saying that he should not survive the Ides of March, and when the day came Caesar mocked him saying, “The Ides have come”; and the same day he died. Thus both alike made light of the prophecies concerning themselves, and were not angry at the soothsayers who uttered them, yet they became the inevitable victims of the prophecies.
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§ 2.21.154 Both were students of the science and arts of their own country, of Greece, and of foreign nations. As to those of India, Alexander interrogated the Brahmins who seem to be the astronomers and learned men of that country, like the Magi among the Persians. Caesar likewise interrogated the Egyptians while he was there restoring Cleopatra to the throne, by which means he made many improvements among the peaceful arts for the Romans. He changed the calendar, which was still in disorder by reason of the intercalary months till then in use, for the Romans reckoned the year by the moon. Caesar changed it to the sun's course, as the Egyptians reckoned it. It happened in his case that not one of the conspirators against him escaped, but all were brought to condign punishment by his adopted son, just as the murderers of Philip were by Alexander. How they were punished the succeeding books will show.
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§ 3.1.1 BOOK III Thus was Gaius Caesar, who had been foremost in extending the Roman sway, slain by his enemies and buried by the people. All of his murderers were brought to punishment. How the most distinguished of them were punished this book and the next one will show, and the other civil wars waged by the Romans will likewise be included in them.
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§ 3.1.2 The Senate blamed Antony for his funeral oration over Caesar, by which, chiefly, the people were incited to disregard the decree of amnesty lately passed, and to scour the city in order to fire the houses of the murderers. But he changed it from bad to good feeling toward himself by one capital stroke of policy. There was a certain pseudo- Marius in Rome named Amatius. He pretended to be a grandson of Marius, and for this reason was popular with the masses. Being, according to this pretence, a relative of Caesar, he was pained beyond measure by the latter's death, and erected an altar on the site of his funeral pyre. He collected a band of reckless men and made himself a perpetual terror to the murderers. Some of these had fled from the city, and those who had accepted the command of provinces from Caesar himself had gone away to take charge of the same, Decimus Brutus to Cisalpine Gaul, Trebonius to Asia adjoining Ionia, and Tillius Cimber to Bithynia. Cassius and Marcus Brutus, who were the special favorites of the Senate, had been chosen by Caesar as governors for the following year, the former of Syria, and the latter of Macedonia. Being still city praetors, they remained there necessarily, and in their official capacity they conciliated the colonists by various decrees, and among others by one enabling them to sell their allotments, the law hitherto forbidding the alienation of the land till the end of twenty years.
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§ 3.1.3 It was said that Amatius was only waiting an opportunity to entrap Brutus and Cassius. On the rumor of this plot, Antony, using his consular authority, arrested Amatius and boldly put him to death without a trial. The senators were astonished at this deed as an act of violence and contrary to law, but they enjoyed it exceedingly because they thought that the situation of Brutus and Cassius would never be safe without such boldness. The followers of Amatius, and the plebeians generally, missing Amatius and feeling indignation at the deed, and especially because it had been done by Antony, whom the people had honored, determined that they would not be scorned in that way. With shouts they took possession of the forum, exclaiming against Antony and called on the magistrates, in place of Amatius, to dedicate the altar and to offer the first sacrifices on it to Caesar. Having been driven out of the forum by soldiers sent by Antony, they became still more indignant, and vociferated more loudly, and some of them showed places where Caesar's statues had been torn from their pedestals. One man told them that he could show a shop where the statues had been broken up. The others followed, and having witnessed the fact, they set fire to the place. Finally, Antony sent more soldiers and some of those who resisted were killed, others were captured, and of these the slaves were crucified and the freemen thrown over the Tarpeian rock.
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§ 3.1.4 So this tumult was quieted. The extreme fondness of the plebeians for Antony was turned into extreme hatred. The Senate was delighted, because it believed that Brutus and his associates could not rest secure otherwise. Antony also moved that Sextus Pompeius (the son of Pompey the Great, who was still much beloved by all) should be recalled from Spain, where he was still at war with Caesar's lieutenants, and that he should be paid 50,000,000 of Attic drachmas out of the public treasury for his father's confiscated property and be appointed commander of the sea, as his father had been, with charge of all the Roman ships, wherever situated, which were needed for immediate service. The astonished Senate accepted each of these decrees with alacrity and applauded Antony the whole day; for nobody, in their estimation, was more devoted to the republic than the elder Pompey, and hence nobody was more regretted. Cassius and Brutus, who were of Pompey's faction, and the ones most honored by all at that time, thought that they would be entirely safe. They thought that what they had done would be confirmed, and the republic be at last restored, and their party successful. Wherefore Cicero praised Antony continually, and the Senate, perceiving that the plebeians were making plots against him on its account, allowed him a guard for his personal safety, chosen by himself from the veterans who were sojourning in the city.
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§ 3.1.5 Antony, either because he had done everything for this very purpose, or seizing the happy chance as very useful to him, enlisted his guard and kept adding to it till it amounted to 6000 men. They were not common soldiers. He thought that he should easily get the latter for his service otherwise. These were composed wholly of centurions, as being fit for command, and of long experience in war, and his own acquaintances through service under Caesar. He appointed tribunes over them, chosen from their own number and adorned with military decoration, and these he held in honor and made sharers of his public councils. The Senate began to be suspicious of the number of his guards, and of his care in choosing them, and advised him to reduce them to a moderate number so as to avoid invidious remarks. He promised to do so as soon as the disorder among the plebeians should be quieted. It had been decreed that all the things done by Caesar, and all that he intended to do, should be ratified. The memoranda of Caesar's intentions were in Antony's possession, and Caesar's secretary, Faberius, was obedient to him in every way since Caesar himself, on the point of his departure, had placed all petitions of this kind in Antony's discretion. Antony made many additions in order to secure the favor of many persons. He made gifts to cities, to princes, and to his own guards, and although all were advised that these were Caesar's memoranda, yet the recipients knew that the favor was due to Antony. In the same way he enrolled many new names in the list of senators and did many other things to please the Senate, in order that it might not bear him ill-will in reference to his guards.
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§ 3.1.6 While Antony was busy with these matters, Brutus and Cassius, seeing nobody among either the plebeians or the veterans inclined to be at peace with them, and considering that any other person might lay plots against them like that of Amatius, became distrustful of the fickleness of Antony, who now had an army under his command. Seeing that the republic was not confirmed by deeds, they suspected Antony for that reason also. They reposed most confidence in Decimus Brutus, who had three legions near by. They sent secretly to Trebonius in Asia and to Tillius in Bithynia, asking them to collect money quietly and to prepare an army. They were anxious to enter upon the government of the provinces assigned to them by Caesar, but as the time for doing so had not yet come, they thought that it would be indecorous for them to leave their service as city praetors unfinished, and that they should incur the suspicion of an undue longing for power over the provinces. They preferred, nevertheless, to spend the remainder of their year as private citizens somewhere, as a matter of necessity, rather than serve as praetors in the city where they were not safe, and were not held in honor corresponding to the benefits they had conferred upon their country. Being in this state of mind, and the Senate holding the same opinion as themselves, the latter gave them charge of the supply of corn for the city from all parts of the world until the time should arrive for them to take command of their provinces. This was done in order that Brutus and Cassius might not at any time seem to have fled. So great was the anxiety and regard for them that the Senate cared for the other murderers chiefly on their account.
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§ 3.1.7 After Brutus and Cassius had left the city, Antony, being in possession of something like monarchical power, cast about for the government of a province and an army for himself. He desired that of Syria most of all, but he was not ignorant of the fact that he was under suspicion and that he would be more so if he should ask for it; for the Senate had secretly encouraged Dolabella, the other consul, to oppose Antony, as the former had always been at variance with the latter. Antony, knowing that this young Dolabella was himself ambitious, persuaded him to solicit the province of Syria and the army enlisted against the Parthians, in place of Cassius, and to ask it, not from the Senate, which had not the power to grant it, but from the people by a law. Dolabella was delighted, and immediately brought forward the law. The Senate accused him of nullifying the decrees of Caesar. He replied that Caesar had not assigned the war against the Parthians to anybody, and that Cassius, who had been assigned to the command of Syria, had himself been the first to alter the decrees of Caesar by authorizing colonists to sell their allotments before the expiration of the legal period of twenty years. He said also that it would be an indignity to himself if he, being Dolabella, were not chosen for Syria instead of Cassius. The Senate then persuaded one of the tribunes, named Asprenas, to falsify the signs in the sky during the comitia, expecting that Antony, who was both consul and augur, and was supposed to be still at variance with Dolabella, would cooperate with him. But when the voting came on, and Asprenas said that the signs in the sky were unfavorable, as it was not his business to attend to this, Antony, angry at his lying, ordered that the tribes should go on with the voting on the subject of Dolabella.
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§ 3.1.8 Thus Dolabella became governor of Syria and general of the war against the Parthians and of the forces enlisted for that purpose by Caesar, together with those that had gone in advance to Macedonia. Then it became known for the first time that Antony was cooperating with Dolabella. After this business had been transacted by the people, Antony solicited the province of Macedonia from the Senate, well knowing that after Syria had been given to Dolabella, they would be ashamed to deny Macedonia to himself, especially as it was a province without an army. They gave it to him unwillingly, at the same time wondering why Antony should let Dolabella have the army, but glad nevertheless that the latter had it rather than the former. They themselves took the opportunity to ask of Antony other provinces for Brutus and Cassius. They assigned to them Cyrenaica and Crete; or, as some say, both of these to Cassius and Bithynia to Brutus. Such was the state of affairs at Rome.
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§ 3.2.9 Octavius, the son of the daughter of Caesar's sister, had been appointed master of Caesar's horse for one year, for Caesar at times made this a yearly office, passing it around among his friends. Being still a young man, he had been sent by Caesar to Apollonia on the Adriatic to be educated and trained in the art of war, so that he might accompany Caesar on his expeditions. Troops of horse from Macedonia were sent to him by turns for the purpose of drill, and certain army officers visited him frequently as a relative of Caesar. As he received all with kindness, an acquaintance and good feeling grew up by means of them between himself and the army. At the end of a six months' sojourn in Apollonia, it was announced to him one evening that Caesar had been killed in the senate-house by those who were dearest to him, and were then the most powerful ones under him. As the rest of the story was untold he was overcome by fear, not knowing whether the deed had been committed by the Senate as a whole or was confined to the immediate actors; nor whether they had already been punished by the people, or would be, or whether the people were pleased with what had been done.
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§ 3.2.10 Thereupon his Roman friends advised him to take refuge with the army in Macedonia to insure his personal safety, and that when he should learn that the murder was only a private transaction he should take courage and avenge Caesar of his enemies; and there were high officers who promised to protect him if he would come. But his mother and his stepfather, Philippus, wrote to him from Rome not to be too confident and not to attempt anything rash, but to bear in mind what Caesar, after conquering every enemy, had suffered at the hands of his closest friends; that it would be safer under present circumstances to choose a private life and hasten to them at Rome, but with caution. Octavius yielded to them because he did not know what had happened after Caesar's death. He took leave of the army officers and crossed the Adriatic, not to Brundusium (for as he had made no test of the army at that place he avoided all risk), but to another town not far from it and out of the direct route, named Lupiae. There he took lodgings and remained for a while.
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§ 3.2.11 When more accurate information about the murder and the public grief had reached him, together with copies of Caesar's will and the decrees of the Senate, his relatives still cautioned him to beware of the enemies of Caesar, as he was the latter's adopted son and heir. They even advised him to renounce the adoption, together with the inheritance. But he thought that to do so, and not to avenge Caesar, would be disgraceful. So he went to Brundusium, first sending in advance to see that none of the murderers had laid any trap for him. When the army there advanced to meet him, and received him as Caesar's son, he took courage, offered sacrifice, and immediately assumed the name of Caesar; for it is customary among the Romans for the adopted son to take the name of the adoptive father. He not only assumed it, but he changed his own name and his patronymic completely, calling himself Caesar the son of Caesar, instead of Octavius the son of Octavius, and he continued to do so ever after. Directly multitudes of men from all sides flocked to him as Caesar's son, some from friendship to Caesar, others his freedmen and slaves, and with them other soldiers, who were either engaged in conveying supplies and money to the army in Macedonia, or bringing other money and tribute from other countries to Brundusium.
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§ 3.2.12 Encouraged by the numbers who were joining him, and by the glory of Caesar, and by the good-will of all toward himself, he journeyed to Rome with a notable crowd which, like a torrent, grew larger and larger each day. Although he was safe from any open attacks by reason of the multitude surrounding him, he was all the more on his guard against secret ones, because almost all of those accompanying him were new acquaintances. Some of the towns were not altogether favorable to him, but Caesar's veterans, who had been distributed in colonies, flocked from their settlements to greet the young man. They bewailed Caesar, and cursed Antony for not proceeding against the monstrous crime, and said that they would avenge it if anybody would lead them. Octavius praised them, but postponed the matter for the present and sent them away. When he had arrived at Tarracina, about 400 stades from Rome, he received news that Cassius and Brutus had been deprived of Syria and Macedonia by the consuls, and had received the smaller provinces of Cyrenaica and Crete by way of compensation; that certain exiles had returned; that Sextus Pompey had been recalled; that some new members had been added to the Senate in accordance with Caesar's memoranda, and that many other things were happening.
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§ 3.2.13 When he arrived at the city his mother and Philippus and the others who were interested in him were anxious about the estrangement of the Senate from Caesar, and the decree that his murderers should not be punished, and the contempt shown him by Antony, who was then all-powerful, and had neither gone to meet Caesar's son when he was coming nor sent anybody to him. Octavius quieted their fears, saying that he would call on Antony, as the younger man on the older and the private citizen on the consul, and that he would show proper respect for the Senate. As for the decree, he said that it had been passed because nobody had prosecuted the murderers; whenever anybody should have courage to prosecute, the people and the Senate would lend their aid to him as one enforcing the law, the gods would do so for the justice of his cause, and perhaps Antony himself would help. If he ( Octavius ) should reject the inheritance and the adoption, he would be false to Caesar and would wrong the people who had a share in the will. As he was finishing his remarks he burst out that he ought not only to incur danger, but even to die, after he had been preferred before all others in this way by Caesar, if he would show himself worthy of one who had himself braved every danger. Then turning to his mother, he repeated the words of Achilles to Thetis, which were then fresh in his mind: “Then quickly let me die since fate denied That I should aid my friend against the foes That slew him.” After saying this he added that these words of Achilles, and especially the deed that followed, had of all things given him immortal renown; and he invoked Caesar not as a friend, but a father; not as a fellow-soldier, but a commander-in-chief; not as one who had fallen by the law of war, but as the victim of sacrilegious murder in the senate-house.
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§ 3.2.14 Thereupon his mother's anxiety was changed to joy, and she embraced him as the only one worthy of Caesar. She checked his speaking and urged him to prosecute his designs with the favor of fortune. She advised him, however, to use art and patience rather than open boldness. Octavius approved of this policy and promised to adopt it in action, and forthwith sent around to his friends the same evening, asking them to come to the forum early in the morning and bring a crowd with them. There presenting himself to Gaius Antonius, the brother of Antony, who was the city praetor, he said that he accepted the adoption of Caesar; for it is a Roman custom that adoptions are confirmed by witnesses before the praetors. When the public scribes had taken down his declaration, Octavius went from the forum straightway to Antony. The latter was in the gardens that Caesar had given to him, that had formerly been Pompey's. As Octavius was kept waiting at the vestibule for some time, he interpreted the fact as a sign of Antony's displeasure. When he was admitted there were greetings and mutual questionings proper to the occasion. When the time came to speak of the business in hand, Octavius said: —
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§ 3.2.15 “Father Antony (for the benefits that Caesar conferred upon you and your gratitude toward him warrant me in giving you that title), for some of the things that you have done since his death I praise you and owe you thanks; for others I blame you. I shall speak freely of what my sorrow prompts me to speak. When Caesar was killed you were not present, as the murderers detained you at the door; otherwise you would have saved him or incurred the danger of sharing the same fate with him. If the latter would have befallen you, then it is well that you were not present. When certain senators proposed rewards to the murderers as tyrannicides you strongly opposed them. For this I give you hearty thanks, although you knew that they intended to kill you also; not, as I think, because you were likely to avenge Caesar, but, as they themselves say, lest you should be his successor in the tyranny. At the same time they made it clear that they were not tyrant-killers, but murderers, by taking refuge in the Capitol, either as guilty suppliants in a temple or as enemies in a fortress. How then could they have obtained amnesty and impunity for their crime unless some portion of the Senate and people had been corrupted by them? Yet you, as consul, ought to have seen what would be for the interest of the majority, and if you had wished to avenge such a monstrous crime, or to reclaim the erring, your office would have enabled you to do either. But you sent hostages from your own family to the murderers at the Capitol for their security. Let us suppose that those who had been corrupted forced you to do this also, yet when Caesar's will had been read, and you had delivered your righteous funeral oration, and the people, in lively remembrance of Caesar, had carried firebrands to the houses of the murderers, but spared them for the sake of their neighbors, agreeing to come back armed the next day, why did you not cooperate with them and lead them with fire or arms? Or why did you not bring them to trial, if trial was necessary for men seen in the act of murder — you, Caesar's friend; you, the consul; you, Antony?
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§ 3.2.16 ”The pseudo- Marius was put to death by your order in the plenitude of your authority, but you connived at the escape of the murderers, some of whom have passed on to the provinces which they nefariously hold as gifts at the hands of him whom they slew. These things were no sooner done than you and Dolabella, the consuls, proceeded, very properly, to strip them and possess yourselves of Syria and Macedonia. I should have owed you thanks for this also, had you not immediately voted them Cyrenaica ana Crete; had you not preferred these fugitives for governorships, where they can always defend themselves against me, and had you not tolerated Decimus Brutus in the command of Hither Gaul, although he, like the rest, was one of my father's slayers. It may be said that these were decrees of the Senate. But you put the vote and you presided over the Senate — you who ought most of all to have opposed them on your own account. To grant amnesty to the murderers was merely to insure their personal safety as a matter of favor, but to vote them provinces and rewards forthwith was to insult Caesar and annul your own opinion. Grief has compelled me to speak these words, against the rules of decorum perhaps, considering my youth and the respect I owe you. They have been spoken, however, to the firmest friend of Caesar, to one who was invested by him with the greatest honor and power, and who would have been adopted by him no doubt if he had known that you would accept kinship with the family of Aeneas in exchange for that of Hercules; for this created doubt in his mind when he was thinking strongly of designating you as his successor.
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§ 3.2.17 “For the future, Antony, I conjure you by the gods who preside over friendship, and by Caesar himself, to change somewhat the measures that have been adopted, for you can change them if you wish to; if not, that you will hereafter aid and cooperate with me in punishing the murderers, with the help of the people and of those who are still my father's faithful friends. If you still have regard for the conspirators and the Senate, do not be hard on us. So much for that. You know about my private affairs and the expense I must incur for the legacy which my father directed to be given to the people, and the haste involved in it lest I may seem churlish by reason of delay, and lest those who have been assigned to colonies be compelled to remain in the city and waste their time on my account. Of Caesar's movables, that were brought immediately after the murder from his house to yours as a safer place, I beg you to take keepsakes and anything else by way of ornament and whatever you like to retain from us. But in order that I may pay the legacy to the people, please give me the gold coin that Caesar had collected for his intended wars. That will suffice for the distribution to 300,000 men now. For the rest of my expenses I may perhaps borrow from you, if I may be so bold, or from the public treasury on your security, if you will give it, and I will offer my own property for sale at once.”
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§ 3.2.18 While Octavius was speaking in this fashion Antony was astonished at his freedom of speech and his boldness, which seemed much beyond the bounds of propriety and of his years. He was offended by the words because they were wanting in the respect due to him, and still more by the demand for money, and, accordingly, he replied in the severe terms following: “Young man, if Caesar left you the government, together with the inheritance and his name, it is proper for you to ask and for me to give the reasons for my public acts. But if the Roman people never surrendered the government to anybody to dispose of in succession, not even when they had kings, whom they expelled and swore never to have any more (this was the very charge that the murderers brought against your father, saying that they killed him because he was no longer leading but reigning), then there is no need of my answering you as to my public acts. For the same reason I release you from any indebtedness to me in the way of gratitude for those acts. They were performed not as a favor to you, but to the people, except in one particular, which was of the greatest importance to Caesar and to yourself. For if, to secure my own safety and to shield myself from enmity, I had allowed honors to be voted to the murderers as tyrannicides, Caesar would have been declared a tyrant, to whom neither glory, nor any kind of honor, nor confirmation of his acts would have been possible; who could make no valid will, have no son, nor any burial of his body, even as a private citizen. The laws provide that the bodies of tyrants shall be cast out unburied, their memory stigmatized, and their property confiscated.
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§ 3.2.19 ”Apprehending all of these consequences, I entered the lists for Caesar, for his immortal honor, and his public funeral, not without danger, not without incurring hatred to myself, contending against hot-headed, blood-thirsty men, who, as you know, had already conspired to kill me; and against the Senate, which was displeased with your father on account of his usurped authority. But I willingly chose to incur these dangers and to suffer anything rather than allow Caesar to remain unburied and dishonored — the most valiant man of his time, the most fortunate in every respect, and the one to whom the highest honors were due from me. It is by reason of the dangers I incurred that you enjoy your present distinction as the successor of Caesar, his family, his name, his dignity, his wealth. It was more becoming in you to testify your gratitude to me for these things than to reproach me for concessions made to soothe the Senate, or in compensation for what I demanded of it, or in pursuance of other needs or reasons — you a younger man addressing an older one. But enough of that. You hint that I am ambitious of the leadership. I am not ambitious of it, although I do not consider myself unworthy of it. You think that I am distressed because I was not mentioned in Caesar's will, though you agree with me that the family of the Heraclidae is enough to content one.
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§ 3.2.20 “As to your pecuniary needs and your wishing to borrow from the public funds, I should think you must be joking, unless we might believe that you are still ignorant of the fact that the public treasury was left empty by your father. After he assumed the government the public revenues were brought to him instead of to the treasury, and they will presently be found among Caesar's assets when we vote an investigation into these matters. This will not be unjust to Caesar now that he is dead, nor would he say that it was unjust if he were living and were asked for the accounts. And as there will be many private persons to dispute with you concerning single pieces of property, you may assume that this portion will not be uncontested. The money transferred to my house was not so large a sum as you conjecture, nor is any part of it in my custody now. The men in power and authority, except Dolabella and my brothers, divided up the whole of it straightway as the property of a tyrant, but were brought around by me to support the decrees in favor of Caesar, and you, if you are wise, when you get possession of the remainder, will distribute it among those who are disaffected toward you rather than among the people. The former, if they are in harmony with you, will send the people, who are to be colonized, away to their settlements. The people, however, as you ought to have learned from the Greek studies you have been lately pursuing, are as unstable as the waves of the sea, now advancing, now retreating. In like manner, among us also, the people are forever exalting their favorites, and casting them down again.”
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§ 3.3.21 Feeling outraged by the many insulting things said by Antony, Octavius went away, invoking his father repeatedly by name, and offered for sale all the property which had come to him by the inheritance, at the same time exhorting the people to stand by him. While this hasty action made manifest Antony's enmity toward him, and the Senate voted an immediate investigation of the public accounts, most of them grew apprehensive of the young Caesar' on account of the favor in which his father was held by the soldiers and the plebeians, and on account of his own present popularity based on the expected distribution of the money, and by reason of the wealth which had fallen to him in such vast measure that in the opinion of many he would not restrict himself to the rank of a private citizen. But they were most apprehensive of Antony, lest he should bring the young Caesar, distinguished and rich as he was, under his own control, and grasp the sovereignty held by the elder Caesar. Others were delighted with the present state of affairs, believing that the two men would come in conflict with each other; and that the investigation concerning the public money would presently put an end to the wealth of Octavius, and that the treasury would be filled thereby because much of the public property would be found in Caesar's estate.
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§ 3.3.22 In the meantime many persons brought lawsuits against Octavius for the recovery of landed property, some making one claim and some another, differing in other respects, but for the most part having this in common, that it had been confiscated from persons who had been banished or put to death by the proscription. These suits were brought before Antonius himself or the other consul, Dolabella. If any were brought before other magistrates, Octavius was worsted through Antony's influence, although he showed by the public records that the purchases had been made by his father, and that the last decree of the Senate had confirmed all of Caesar's acts. Great wrongs were done him in these judgments, and the losses in consequence thereof were going on without end, until Pedius and Pinarius, who had a certain portion of the inheritance under Caesar's will, complained to Antony, both for themselves and for Octavius, that they were suffering injustice in violation of the Senate's decree. They thought that he ought to annul only the things done in derogation of Caesar, and to ratify all that had been done by him. Antony acknowledged that his course was perhaps somewhat contrary to the agreements voted. The decrees also, he said, had been recorded in a sense different from the understanding at the time. While hastily passing a mere decree of amnesty, it had been registered that whatever had been previously determined on should stand unrepealed, not for its own sake, not because it was satisfactory in all respects, but rather to promote good order and to quiet the people, who had been thrown into tumult by these events. It would be more just, he added, to observe the spirit than the letter of the decree, and not to make an unseemly opposition to so many men who had lost their own and their ancestors' property in the civil convulsions, and to do this in favor of a young man who had received an amount of other people's wealth disproportionate to a private station and beyond his hopes, and who was not making good use of his fortune, but employing it in the rashest adventures. He would take care of them ( Pedius and Pinarius ) after their portion should have been separated from that of Octavius. This was the answer made by Antony to Pedius and Pinarius. So they took their portion immediately, in order not to lose their own share by the lawsuits, and they did this not so much on their own account as on that of Octavius, for they were going to bestow the whole of it upon him soon afterward.
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§ 3.3.23 The games were now approaching, which Gaius Antonius, the brother of Antony, was about to give in behalf of Brutus, the praetor, as he attended also to the other duties of the praetorship which devolved on him in the latter's absence. Lavish expense was incurred in the preparations for them, in the hope that the people, gratified by the spectacle, would recall Brutus and Cassius. Octavius, on the other hand, intrigued against this scheme, distributing the money derived from the sale of his property among the head men of the tribes by turns, to be divided by them among the first comers. He went around to the places where his property was on sale and ordered the auctioneers to announce the lowest possible price for everything, both on account of the uncertainty and danger of the lawsuits still pending, and on account of his own zeal for the people, all of which brought him both popularity and sympathy as one undeserving of such treatment. When, in addition to what he had received as Caesar's heir, he offered for sale his own property derived from his father Octavius, and whatever he had from other sources, and all that belonged to his mother and to Philippus, and the shares of Pedius and Pinarius which he begged from them, in order to make the distribution to the people (because in consequence of the litigation Caesar's property was not sufficient even for this purpose), then the people considered it no longer the gift of the elder Caesar, but of the younger one, and they commiserated him deeply and praised him both for what he endured and for what he aspired to be. It was evident that they would not long tolerate the wrong that Antony was doing him.
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§ 3.3.24 They showed their feelings clearly while Brutus' games were in progress, lavish as these were. Although a certain number, who had been hired for the purpose, shouted that Brutus and Cassius should be recalled, and the rest of the spectators were thus wrought up to a feeling of pity for them, crowds ran in and stopped the games until the demand for their recall ceased. When Brutus and Cassius learned that Octavius had frustrated what they had hoped to obtain from the games, they decided to go to Syria and Macedonia, which had been theirs before these provinces were voted to Dolabella and Antony, and to seize them by force. When their intentions became known, Dolabella hastened to Syria, taking the province of Asia in his way in order to collect money there. Antony, thinking that he should soon need troops for his own purposes, conceived the idea of transferring to himself the army in Macedonia, which was composed of the very best material and was of large size (it consisted of six legions, besides a great number of archers and light-armed troops, much cavalry, and a corresponding amount of apparatus of all kinds), although it properly belonged to Dolabella, who had been intrusted with Syria and the war against the Parthians, because Caesar was about to use these forces against the Parthians. Antony wanted it especially because it was close at hand, and, by crossing the Adriatic, could be thrown at once into Italy.
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§ 3.3.25 Presently a rumor was noised about that the Getae, learning of Caesar's death, had made an incursion into Macedonia and were ravaging it. Antony asked the Senate to give him an army in order to punish them, saying that this army had been prepared by Caesar to be used against the Getae before marching against the Parthians, and that everything was now quiet on the Parthian frontier. The Senate distrusted the rumor, and sent messengers to make inquiry. Antony, in order to dissipate their fear and suspicion, proposed a decree that it should not be lawful for anybody, for any cause whatever, to vote for a dictatorship, or to accept it if offered. If anybody should disregard any of these provisions, he might be killed with impunity by anybody who should meet him. Having deceived the Senate chiefly by this means, and having agreed with the friends of Dolabella to give him one legion, he was chosen absolute commander of the forces in Macedonia. Having obtained what he desired, he sent his brother Gaius with haste to communicate the decree of the Senate to the army. Those who had been sent to inquire into the rumor came back and reported that they had seen no Getae in Macedonia, but they added, either truthfully, or because they were instructed to do so by Antony, that it was feared that they would make an incursion into Macedonia if the army were withdrawn.
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§ 3.3.26 While these things were taking place at Rome, Cassius and Brutus were collecting troops and money, and Trebonius, who was governor of the province of Asia, was fortifying his towns for them. When Dolabella arrived, Trebonius would not admit him to Pergamus or Smyrna, but allowed him, as consul, to occupy a market-place outside the walls. When the latter attacked the walls with fury, but accomplished nothing, Trebonius said that he would be admitted to Ephesus. Dolabella started for Ephesus forthwith, and Trebonius sent a force to follow him at a certain distance. While these were observing Dolabella's march, they were overtaken by night, and, having no farther suspicions, returned to Smyrna, leaving a few of their number to follow him. Dolabella laid an ambush for this small number, captured and killed them, and went back the same night to Smyrna. Finding it unguarded, he took it by escalade. Trebonius, who was captured in bed, told his captors to lead the way to Dolabella, saying that he was willing to follow them. One of the centurions answered him facetiously, “Go where you please, but you must leave your head behind, for we are ordered to bring your head, not yourself.” With these words the centurion immediately cut off his head, and early in the morning Dolabella ordered it to be displayed on the praetor's chair where Trebonius was accustomed to transact public business. Since Trebonius had participated in the murder of Caesar by detaining Antony in conversation at the door of the senate-house while the others killed him, the soldiers and camp-followers fell upon the rest of his body with fury and treated it with every kind of indignity. They rolled his head from one to another in sport along the city pavements like a ball till it was completely crushed. This was the first of the murderers who was visited with such punishment.
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§ 3.4.27 Antony conceived the idea of bringing his army from Macedonia to Italy; and being in want of any other pretext for this step he asked the Senate to let him exchange the province of Macedonia for that of Cisalpine Gaul, which was under the command of Decimus Brutus Albinus. He remembered that Caesar had marched from the latter province when he overthrew Pompey and he thought that he should appear to be transferring his army to Gaul and not to Italy. The Senate, which looked upon Cisalpine Gaul as its own fortress, was angry, and now for the first time perceived the stratagem and repented having given him Macedonia. The principal members sent word privately to Decimus to keep a strong hold on his province, and to raise additional troops and money lest he should be overpowered by Antony, so much did they fear and hate the latter. Antony then bethought him to ask the people, instead of the Senate, for this province by a law, in the same manner that Caesar had obtained it at a former time and Dolabella had recently obtained Syria. In order to intimidate the Senate he ordered his brother, Gaius, to bring his army across the Adriatic to Brundusium; and the latter proceeded to do as he was directed.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Horace White (1834-1916). Composed ca. 165 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.