Book 11

arg. The following are contained in the forty-sixth book of Dio's Roman History: How Calenus replied to Cicero on behalf of Antony. How Antony was defeated by Caesar and the consuls near Mutina. How Caesar came to Rome and was appointed consul. How Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus formed their conspiracy. The length of time is one year, in which the magistrates here numbered held office: Gaius Vibius Pansa Caepronianus, son of Gaius; Aulus Hirtius, son of Aulus; consuls.

1.1. When Cicero had spoken to this effect, Quintus Fufius Calenus rose and said: “In the ordinary course I should have had no need either to plead anything in Antony’s defence or to assail Cicero. Indeed I do not think it right in deliberations such as the present to do either, but simply to declare what one believes; for the one is the business of a law-court, the other of a council.

1.2. But since this man has undertaken to abuse Antony out of the enmity that exists between them—a man whom, if he had done any wrong, he ought to have impeached—and has besides mentioned me with slander, as though he could not otherwise display his own cleverness unless he wantonly insulted somebody,

1.3. it is fitting that I too should both clear myself of some charges and bring countercharges in turn, so that neither this man’s own audacity, failing of a reply, nor my silence, taken as evidence of a guilty conscience, may profit him, nor that you, deceived by what he has said, may take worse counsel, exchanging his private anger against Antony for the common interest.

2.1. For he wishes to accomplish nothing else than that we, abandoning the duty of providing for the security of the commonwealth, should fall again into faction. This he does not now for the first time, but from the very beginning, ever since he entered public life, he has continued to throw everything into confusion, up

2.2. and down. Is he not the very man who set Caesar against Pompey, and prevented Pompey from being reconciled with Caesar? who persuaded you to pass those decrees against Antony by which he provoked Caesar, and persuaded Pompey to abandon Italy

2.3. and remove to Macedonia—which, I suppose, was the chief cause of all the evils that afterwards befell us? Is he not the man who slew Clodius through Milo and murdered Caesar through Brutus? who stirred up Catiline into war against us and destroyed Lentulus

3.1. without trial? Wherefore I should be greatly amazed at you, if, having then repented of those deeds and exacted punishment from him for them, you should now likewise

3.2. be persuaded by him in what he says and does. Or do you not see that even after Caesar’s death—at the time when our affairs were settled chiefly through Antony, as not even he himself can deny—this man went abroad, considering that a life of concord among us was alien and dangerous to himself; but when he perceived that matters were again disturbed, he bade a long farewell to his son and to Athens

3.3. and came back? And the very Antony whom hitherto he professed to love he now insults and reviles, while with Caesar, whose father he murdered, he joins forces; and should it so fall out, he will set upon Caesar too before long.

3.4. For he is by nature faithless and turbulent, and has no ballast in his soul, but is forever stirring and twisting everything about, undergoing more turns than the strait from which he fled and after which he was nicknamed the Deserter; and he demands that all of you reckon as friend or foe whomever he himself may bid.

4.1. For these reasons, then, be on your guard against the man. For he is a cheat and a wizard, and from the misfortunes of others he both grows rich and waxes great, dragging and rending, like the dogs, men who have done no wrong—while in the common concord he is at a loss and pines away. For neither the friendship nor the goodwill that we bear toward one another can nourish such an orator.

4.2. Whence else do you suppose he has grown rich, whence become great? Surely his father did not leave him either lineage or wealth—the fuller, who was forever contracting for grapes and olives, a man who got his living barely

4.3. from these and from his washing-tubs, and filled himself every day and night with the foulest things. Reared among such, he not unfittingly tramples and washes those better than himself, employing the abuse practised in the workshops and at the crossroads.

5.1. Then, being yourself such, and grown up naked among the naked, gathering up the sweepings and filth and refuse—you dared, most foul of men, first to slander the youthful prime of Antony, a man who had governors and teachers worthy of his birth; and next to accuse him because, when celebrating the Lupercalia, the ancestral festival,

5.2. he entered the Forum naked. But what, O man who through your father’s trade have always worn other men’s clothes and have been stripped of them by all who met you and recognized them—what should a man have done who was not only a priest but the leader of his fellow-priests? Not send the procession, not keep the festival, not sacrifice according to the customs of the fathers, not be stripped, not be anointed?

5.3. ‘But it is not for this,’ he says, ‘that I blame him, but because he was naked in the Forum and made such a speech.’ No doubt he has learned thoroughly, in the fuller’s shop, all that is fitting, so that he can detect some real fault and reprove him justly!

6.1. I shall say presently all that is fitting concerning these matters; but for the present I wish to ask him one thing. Were you not bred amid the misfortunes of others and trained

6.2. in the calamities of your neighbours, and for that reason know no liberal accomplishment, but have set up a kind of council-chamber and there, like the harlots, are forever waiting for someone to give you something; and, keeping many procurers of your gains, busy yourself with who has wronged whom, or seems to have wronged him, who hates whom, who

6.3. plots against whom? And with these you make common cause, and through these you are fed, selling them the hopes that come from fortune, contracting too for the verdicts of jurors, counting as friend only him who ever gives the most, and as enemies all who keep out of trouble or who employ some other advocate;

6.4. those already in your clutches you pretend not even to know, and treat as a nuisance, while those newly approaching you fawn upon and smile at, like the inn-keeping women.

7.1. And how much better it had been for you to have become a Bambalio—if there really is such a man as this Bambalio—than to have taken up such a life, in which there is every necessity either to sell the cause of justice or

7.2. to save wrongdoers! And yet you cannot even do these things well, though you wore away three years at Athens. Where? Whence? You who ever approach the courts trembling, as though about to fight in armour, and after uttering something low and lifeless, take yourself off, neither remembering what you came from home prepared to say, nor finding

7.3. anything to say on the spur of the moment. For in asserting and promising something by sheer audacity you surpass all men, but in the contests themselves, apart from reviling and abusing someone, you are most feeble and most cowardly. Or do you suppose anyone is ignorant that you delivered none of these wonderful speeches that you have published, but composed them all afterwards, like those who mould their generals and cavalry-commanders out of clay?

7.4. And if you doubt it, remember how you prosecuted Verres, though you had furnished him with something of your father’s trade, when you wet yourself. But I shrink from seeming, while saying precisely what befits you, myself to be making speeches that ill befit me.

8.1. I will let these things pass, then—and, by Zeus, also the affair of Gabinius, against whom you suborned the accusers and then so spoke in his defence that he was condemned—and the writings that you compose against your friends, in which you are so conscious of your own wrongdoing that you dare not even publish them. And yet it is most grievous and most pitiable not to be able to deny those things which it is most shameful of all

8.2. to confess. But I will pass these by and proceed to the rest. We indeed, though we have given two thousand jugera of the Leontine land to your teacher, as you say, learned nothing worthy of it; but as for your own lessons,

8.3. who would not marvel at them? And what are they? You envy ever the better man, you malign ever him who excels, you slander him who has been preferred, you bring false charges against him who has shown ability; you hate all good men alike, and pretend to love only those through whom you hope to do some mischief.

8.4. And for this reason you are forever inciting the younger against the older, and, after leading into danger those who trust you in anything whatever, you abandon them.

9.1. Here is the proof: you have never yet performed a single deed worthy of a man of mark, either in war or in peace. For what wars have we won under your generalship, what territory have we gained during your consulship? But, ever deceiving certain of the leading men and making them your own, in private through them you conduct affairs and manage everything as you wish,

9.2. while in public you cry aloud the contrary, bawling out those foul words: ‘I alone love you,’ and, should it so happen, ‘so-and-so too, but all the rest hate you,’ and ‘I alone am loyal to you, but all the rest plot against you,’ and the like—whereby you betray some, puffing them up and inflating them, and win over the rest by terrifying them.

9.3. And if any good thing is done by anyone at all, you lay claim to it and inscribe your own name upon it, prating, ‘For I spoke, I proposed, and through me these things were so done’; but if anything turns out as it should not, you exempt yourself and blame all the rest, saying, ‘Was I in command?

9.4. Was I on the embassy? Was I consul?’ And you revile all men everywhere always, accounting the power of seeming to speak frankly through audacity of more value than the saying of anything that is needful,

10.1. while you furnish no work worthy of an orator. For what of the common interests has been saved or set right through you? Whom have you impeached as truly wronging the city, whom have you proved to be truly plotting against us?

10.2. For, to pass over the rest, these very charges that you now bring against Antony are of such kind and so many that no man could undergo a punishment worthy of them. Why, then, seeing us wronged by him from the beginning, as you yourself say, did you never proceed

10.3. against him at once nor accuse him, but now tell us how many lawless acts he did as tribune, how many offences as master of the horse, how many wrongs as consul—when it was in your power then, on the spot, to have exacted from him for each of these the fitting penalty, so that you yourself might have appeared truly patriotic, and we might have made our vengeance harmless and safe at the very moment of the wrongs?

10.4. And in truth one of two things must be: either you believed at the time that these things were so and abandoned the struggles on our behalf, or, being unable to convict him of any of them, you now bring false charges in vain.

11.1. That this is so I will show you, Fathers, by going through each point. Antony said something in his tribuneship on behalf of Caesar; for Cicero too and certain others spoke on behalf of Pompey. Why then does he blame this man for choosing the friendship of the one, while he excuses himself and the others who took the opposite side? He prevented some decree from being passed then against Caesar;

11.2. for this man too prevented, so to speak, every measure that was resolved against Pompey. ‘But he stood,’ he says, ‘in the way of the common will of the senate.’ And first, how could one man have prevailed so far? Next, if for this reason the vote was carried against him, as he says, how was he not also punished? ‘He fled,’ he says,

11.3. ‘he fled, having departed to Caesar.’ Then you too, Cicero, did not go abroad just now, but fled, as before. But do not so rashly fasten your own reproaches upon all of us; for flight is what you have done, in dread of the law-court and in passing sentence of punishment

11.4. upon yourself in advance. Indeed your recall was actually decreed—how and through whom, I do not say—but it was decreed, and you did not set foot in Italy until that grant had been made you. But Antony went off to Caesar to inform him of what had been done, and came back without needing any decree,

11.5. and finally brought about peace and friendship with him for all who were then found in Italy; in which the rest too would have shared, had they not, persuaded by you, gone into exile.

12.1. Then, things being thus, do you dare to say that Antony led Caesar against his country, set the civil war in motion, and became the chief author of the evils that afterwards befell us? Not so, but it was you—you who gave Pompey both armies not his own and a command, but tried to deprive Caesar even of what had been granted him;

12.2. you who counselled Pompey and the consuls not to accept the terms offered by Caesar, but to abandon the city and all Italy; you who did not so much as see Caesar when he came to Rome, but ran off to Pompey and

12.3. to Macedonia. And yet you rendered him no aid either, but, having looked on at what was happening, then, when he met with disaster, you deserted him. So you did not even from the first help him as doing the more just thing, but, after stirring up the faction and throwing affairs into confusion, you then from a safe distance

12.4. lay in wait for them, and from the one who stumbled, as though he were doing some wrong, you straightway stood aloof on that account, while toward the victor, as though he were the more just, you inclined. And to such a degree, besides your other evils, are you ungrateful, that not only are you not content at having been saved by him, but you are even vexed that you were not also made master of the horse.

13.1. Then, conscious of these things in yourself, do you dare to say that Antony ought not to have been master of the horse for a year? Neither, then, ought Caesar to have been dictator for a year. But whether these things were done well or of necessity, both were alike decreed, and pleased both

13.2. us and the people. Blame these decrees, Cicero, if any illegality was committed—not, by Zeus, the men honoured by them, because they showed themselves worthy to obtain such honours. For if by the circumstances that then beset us we were compelled to do these things thus, even contrary to what was fitting, why do you now lay this against Antony, instead of having spoken against it then, if you could? Because you were afraid, by

13.3. Zeus! Then are you, who held your peace then, to obtain pardon for your cowardice, while he, because he was preferred before you, is to undergo punishment for his merit? And where did you learn these principles of justice, or where did you read these laws?

14.1. ‘But he did not use the mastership of the horse rightly.’ Why? ‘Because,’ he says, ‘he bought the property of Pompey.’ But how many others bought how much else, none of whom is charged with it? For surely it was for this reason that the property was confiscated and exposed for sale and proclaimed by the voice of the public crier,

14.2. that someone might buy it. ‘But the possessions of Pompey ought not to have been sold.’ Then we erred and did wrong in confiscating them; or, to acquit both you and us, surely Caesar offended, who ordered this to be done—and you brought no charge against him.

14.3. Nay, in this very matter he is convicted of utter folly. For he has accused Antony of two most contradictory things: one, that, after rendering Caesar the greatest services and receiving very much in return,

14.4. he was then violently required to pay the price of these possessions; the other, that, not having inherited from his father, and having squandered all that he acquired, like Charybdis (for he is forever dragging in something for us from Sicily, as though we had forgotten that he fled thither), he paid the price of all he had bought.

15.1. In these matters, then, this admirable man is convicted of saying things most contradictory to himself; and so, by Zeus, in those others, in that at one moment he says that Antony shared in all that Caesar did and on that account became the chief author of all the evils of the civil wars, and at another moment accuses him, reproaching him with cowardice, because he took part in nothing except

15.2. what was done in Thessaly. And he makes it a charge against him that he restored certain of the exiles, and blames him that he did not also grant return to his own uncle—as though anyone would believe that, if he had been able to bring back anyone at all, he would not have brought back him first, since he neither charged him with anything nor was charged by him,

15.3. as this man himself knows. Indeed, though he has falsely told many cruel tales against him, he did not dare to say any such thing. So it makes no difference to him to pour out whatever may come to his tongue, like so much wash-water.

16.1. But why should one go over these things at greater length? Yet since he goes about playing the tragedian, and just now said somewhere that Antony presented a most oppressive spectacle in his mastership of the horse, everywhere and on all occasions using the sword and the purple, the lictors and the soldiers—let him tell me plainly how and in what we have been wronged thereby. But he could say nothing; for if he could, he would have blurted out nothing

16.2. before this. For quite the contrary: those who then raised faction and wrought all the mischief were Trebellius and Dolabella, while Antony even so did no wrong and did everything on your behalf, so that the guarding of the city against those very men was entrusted to him by you—not over the opposition of this admirable orator (for he was present), but

16.3. with his consent. Or let him show what cry he uttered when he saw the licentious and foul fellow, as he reviles him, not only doing none of his duties but also receiving so great a power from you. But he could not show it. So much, then, for this great patriotic orator, who everywhere

16.4. and always keeps prating and saying, ‘I alone contend for liberty, I alone speak freely for democracy; neither the favour of friends nor the fear of enemies keeps me from looking to your interests; I, even if I must die in pleading on your behalf, will most gladly end my life’—none of the things he now bawls did he then

16.5. dare to say. And quite reasonably; for this reasoning occurred to him: that Antony held the lictors and the purple-bordered robe in accordance with the ancestral usages established concerning the masters of the horse, but used the sword and the soldiers of necessity against the men who were raising faction. For what of the most dreadful deeds would they not have done, had he not fenced himself with these, when even so some men despised him?

17.1. That these things, then, and all the rest were done rightly and most of all in accordance with Caesar’s purpose, the events show. For the faction went no further, and Antony, so far from being punished for them, was even afterwards appointed

17.2. consul. And consider how he conducted this office of his too; for you will find it, if you examine the truth, to have been of very great worth to the city. Which thing, I suppose, he himself knew, and could not bear the envy of it, but dared to slander him for those very things which he himself would have

17.3. prayed to have done. And for this reason he brought in his nakedness and his anointing and those old fables—not because there was now any need of them, but in order that by din from without he might cast a shadow over

17.4. Antony’s skill and success. He who—O Earth and ye gods (for I will cry louder than he and more justly call upon you)—seeing the city already in fact under tyranny, in that all the armies hearkened to Caesar, and all the people together with

17.5. the senate yielded to him, so far that, among other things, they voted him to be dictator for life and to use the array of kings—he both most wisely exposed this and most safely restrained it, so that Caesar, abashed and afraid, took neither the name of king nor the diadem, which even against our will he was himself about to give himself.

17.6. For another man would have said that he did this at Caesar’s bidding, and would have alleged necessity and won pardon for it—and why not, when we had then voted such things and the soldiers had such power?

17.7. But Antony, being sprung from the very mind of Caesar and understanding accurately all that he was preparing, most prudently both turned him away from these designs and hastened him from them.

17.8. The proof is that he did nothing at all thereafter as one wielding sovereignty, and besides associated with all of us in common and unguardedly; whereby chiefly he came to suffer what he suffered.

18.1. These things, then, Cicero—or Cicerculus, or Ceciliacus, or Ciceriscus, or Graeculus, or whatever name you delight to be called by—these things were done by the uneducated man,

18.2. the naked man, the perfumed man; none of which you did, you the clever, the wise, who use far more oil than wine, who trail your garment down to the ankles—not, by Zeus, as the dancers do, who teach you the varieties of their fancies by their postures, but that you may hide the ugliness of your

18.3. legs. For surely it is not out of temperance that you do this—you who have said all those things about Antony’s manner of living. For who does not see those fine mantles of yours? Who does not smell your grey hair so carefully combed? Who does not know that you cast out your former wife, who had borne you two children, and brought in another, a maiden, though you were exceedingly old, that out of her substance you might pay off your debts?

18.4. And not even her did you keep, that you might have Caerellia at your disposal, whom you debauched, though she is as much older than yourself as the girl you married is younger—to whom too you write such letters as a wanton, foul-tongued man would write, dallying with a woman of seventy.

18.5. And these things, Fathers, I have been led to say only that he may not depart having the worse of it even in these matters. Yet he dared to bring up against Antony a certain banquet—he himself, as he says, drinking water, that he might sit up at night composing his speeches against us, while he reared his son in such drunkenness that he was sober neither by night nor by day.

18.6. And besides he undertook to slander Antony’s mouth—he who throughout his life has practised such licentiousness and uncleanness that he abstains not even from his nearest kin, but plays the pander to his wife and debauches his daughter.

19.1. These things, then, I will let pass, and return to the point from which I digressed. For that Antony whom this man has run down, seeing Caesar exalting himself above our commonwealth, made him do none of the things he had in mind, by the very means by which he seemed to be doing him a favour.

19.2. For nothing so turns men back from things which, desiring them wrongly, they are bent on accomplishing, as that those who fear them should seem of their own will

19.3. to be enduring them. For this, from the consciousness of their wrongdoing, they do not trust, but, thinking themselves detected, they are both ashamed and afraid, taking what is said otherwise, as flattery, for a reproach, and suspecting what will result therefrom, as a plot, with

19.4. shame. All this, I suppose, Antony knew accurately, and so first chose the Lupercalia and that procession, that Caesar, in the relaxation of his mind and amid the playfulness of the proceedings, might be safely brought to his senses; and next the Forum and the Rostra, that from the very places he might be put to shame;

19.5. and he framed the instructions as coming from the people, that, hearing them, Caesar might reckon not what Antony then said, but what the Roman people would have charged anyone to say. For whence would he have believed that the people had sent such instructions to anyone, knowing neither that it had voted any such thing nor perceiving

19.6. that it was crying out for it? But it was needful that he should hear these things in the Roman Forum, where many times for liberty we have taken counsel, and beside the Rostra, from which a thousand times over for democracy we have administered the state, and at the festival of the Lupercalia, that he might be reminded of Romulus, and from the consul, that he might call to mind the deeds of the ancient consuls,

19.7. and that he should hear these things in the name of the people, that he might bethink himself of this: that it was not over Africans nor Gauls nor Egyptians, but over the very Romans, that he was attempting to play the tyrant. These words turned him about, these abased him; and perhaps, had any other man offered him the diadem, he would have taken it, but then, because of these things, was both checked and shuddered and was sore afraid.

19.8. These, then, are Antony’s deeds for you—not of one who merely broke his own leg that he might escape, nor who burned his hand to frighten Porsenna, but who stayed the tyranny of Caesar by wisdom and skill, beyond the spear of Decius and beyond the sword of Brutus.

20.1. But you, Cicero, what in your consulship did you do that was, I will not say wise or good, but not deserving of the greatest punishment? Did you not throw into confusion and faction our city when it was at peace and concord, filling the Forum and the Capitol with others and with slaves summoned to your aid?

20.2. Did you not basely destroy Catiline, who merely sought office over-eagerly but did nothing else dreadful? Did you not pitiably make away with Lentulus and those with him, who had neither done any wrong nor been tried nor convicted—and that though you are forever and everywhere prating much about the laws and much about the courts? If one should take these things away

20.3. from your speeches, the rest is nothing. For you blamed Pompey because he conducted the trial of Milo contrary to custom; but you, observing neither small nor great part of the regulations laid down for such matters, without word or trial cast into prison Lentulus, a worthy old man, who held many great pledges of friendship toward his country inherited from his ancestors, and who neither by his age nor by his character

20.4. could engage in revolution. For what evil was upon him, which he would have remedied by a change of affairs? What good did he lack, for which, raising some revolt, he would have risked danger? What arms had he gathered, what allies had he procured, that a man who had been consul, who was praetor, should so pitiably and impiously, without a word said or heard, be flung into the prison and there perish like the vilest of criminals?

20.5. For this is what this fine Tullius chiefly desired—that in the spot bearing his own name he might slay the descendant of that Lentulus who was once the foremost of the senate.

21.1. And yet what would he have done, had he laid hold of armed power, who wrought such and so many things from speeches alone? For these are your brilliant deeds, these your great strategies; for which you were so far from being condemned by others that you even passed sentence upon yourself, so that before

21.2. you were even tried you fled. And yet what other greater proof of your bloodguiltiness could there be than that you were even in danger of perishing at the hands of those very men on whose behalf you pretended to have done these things, and feared those very persons whom you said you had benefited thereby, and did not endure either to hear anything from them or to say anything to them—you the clever, the surpassing, the helper of others too—but procured your safety by flight,

21.3. as though from a battle? And you are so shameless that you even undertook to write up these deeds, such as they are—you who ought to have prayed that no other man either should compose them, that at least you might gain this, that your acts should perish along with you and no memory of them be handed down to posterity. And, that you may even laugh,

21.4. hear his wisdom. For having proposed to write up all that has been done by the city (for he pretends to be sophist and poet and philosopher and orator and historian), he then began, not from its very founding, as do the others who do this, but from his own consulship, in order that, proceeding backwards, he might make that the beginning of his account and the kingship of Romulus its end.

22.1. Tell us, then, you who write such things and do such things, what kind of things a good man ought both to proclaim in speech and to perform in deed; for you are better at exhorting others to anything whatever than at doing the fitting thing yourself, and at censuring others than at

22.2. setting yourself right. And yet how much better had it been for you, instead of the cowardice with which you reproach Antony, to put off your own softness of soul and body; instead of the faithlessness which you charge upon him, yourself to do nothing faithless and not to play the deserter; instead of the ingratitude of which you

22.3. accuse him, yourself not to wrong your benefactors? For this too is one of the evils inborn in him, that he hates above all men those who have done him any good, and ever pays court to certain others, but plots against these. To pass over the rest: having been pitied by Caesar and saved by him and enrolled among the patricians, he slew him—not with his own hand (how could he, being so cowardly and womanish?), but having persuaded and prepared

22.4. those who did the deed. And that I speak the truth, those very men made plain; for when they rushed into the Forum with drawn swords, they called upon him by name, crying out repeatedly, ‘O Cicero,’

22.5. as you all, I suppose, heard. Him, then, his benefactor, he murdered; and from Antony himself, when he was in danger of perishing at Brundisium at the hands of the soldiers, having obtained both the priesthood and his safety, he renders him such returns, abusing him for things which neither he himself nor any other ever blamed, and

22.6. running down deeds for which he praises others. This very Caesar, for instance, who had neither the age to hold office or to do any public business, nor had been put forward by us, he sees procuring power for himself and waging war, though we had neither voted it nor enjoined it upon him—and not only does he not

22.7. blame him at all, but even extols him. So he measures neither what is just by the laws, nor what is expedient by what is profitable to the commonwealth, but conducts everything simply according to his own will, and the very things for which he glorifies others he charges against others, lying about you and slandering

23.1. you besides. For you will find that all that was done by Antony after Caesar’s death was commanded by you. And to speak about the administration of the moneys and the examination of the papers I consider superfluous.

23.2. Why? Because the one would be the concern of the heir of his estate to inquire into, and the other, if it had any truth of villainy, ought then to have been prevented on the spot. For none of these things, Cicero, was done in a corner, but all were recorded on tablets,

23.3. as you yourself say. And if he so openly and shamelessly wrought all the other mischief that you allege, and seized all Crete, as though it had been set free, after Brutus’ governorship, by Caesar’s papers—the island which he was afterwards entrusted with by us—how would you have kept silent, how would any of the rest

23.4. have endured it? But these things, as I said, I will pass over; for most of them have not been mentioned by name, nor is Antony present, who could instruct you accurately in each of the things he has done. But concerning Macedonia and Gaul and the other provinces and the armies, your decrees, Fathers, are extant, by which you assigned to the others each their charge and entrusted Gaul with the soldiers to him. And this Cicero too knows; for he was present, and

23.5. voted all these things along with you. And yet how much better it had been for him to oppose at the time, if any of them was not being done as it ought, and to instruct you in these things which he now puts forward, than at the time to keep silent and look on while you erred, but now in word to accuse Antony, while in deed accusing the senate.

24.1. For not even this could any man of sense say, that Antony forced you to vote these things. For neither had he himself any force of soldiers wherewith to compel you to do anything against your judgement, and the thing was done on behalf of the city.

24.2. For since the armies had been sent forward and were assembled, and there was fear lest, learning of Caesar’s murder, they should rise in faction and, setting up some worthless man at their head, make war again, it seemed good to you—and you did rightly and well—to set Antony over them: the consul, the one who had brought about the concord, the one who had wholly cut the dictatorship

24.3. out of the constitution. And for this reason too you gave him Gaul in exchange for Macedonia, that, being here in Italy, he might do no mischief and might at once carry out what you enjoined.

25.1. These things, then, I have said to you, that you may know you took good counsel; but as against Cicero that one argument of mine would have sufficed, that he was present at all these proceedings when they were done, and voted them along with us, when Antony had no soldier and was utterly unable to make any threatening display against us, for which we might have overlooked any of our interests.

25.2. But even if you held your peace then, at least now tell us: what ought we to have done, things being thus? To leave the armies without a commander? And how would he not have filled both Macedonia and Italy with countless

25.3. evils? But to assign them to some other? And whom more necessary and more suitable than Antony could we have found—the consul, the one administering all the affairs of the city, the one who had made so great a guarding of our concord, the one who had given countless proofs of his goodwill toward the commonwealth?

25.4. Some one of the murderers? For whom it was not even otherwise safe to tarry in the city. Some one of those who held the opposite views? Whom all suspected. Who was there preeminent in dignity, who

25.5. surpassing in experience, beside this man? But you are vexed that we did not prefer you. And what office did you hold? And what would you not have done, having taken arms and soldiers, you who threw so many and so great matters into confusion in your consulship out of those practised

26.1. antitheses of yours, of which alone you were master? But I return to the point, that you were present at these proceedings when they were voted, and opposed nothing, but even assented to them all as being, clearly, both excellent and necessary. For surely you were not lacking in frankness; at any rate you barked much and to no purpose.

26.2. Nor indeed did you fear anyone; for how should you, who do not fear the armed man, have dreaded the naked? How he who has so many soldiers, you who do not fear him who is alone? And yet you even pride yourself on this, that you wholly despise death, as you say.

26.3. These things, then, being so, which of the two seems to you to do wrong—Antony, who administers the forces given him by us, or Caesar, who has surrounded himself with so great a power of his own? Antony, who has gone off to the office entrusted to him by us, or Brutus, who prevents him from setting foot in his province?

26.4. Antony, who wishes to compel our allies to obey our decrees, or those men who have not received the governor sent by us, but have attached themselves to the one we voted against?

26.5. Antony, who keeps our soldiers together, or the soldiers who have deserted their commander? Antony, who has led none of these soldiers given him by us into the city, or Caesar, who by money persuaded those long ago discharged from service

26.6. to come hither? For my part, I think there is no longer need of any argument to prove that he seems rightly to administer all that was enjoined upon him by us, while these others ought to undergo punishment for what they on their own

26.7. responsibility dared. For it was for this reason that you took the protection of the soldiers, that you might deliberate safely concerning present affairs—not for the sake of Antony, who has done nothing in his private capacity nor in any matter terrified you, but on account of that man who has gathered a force against him and has often had many soldiers even in the city itself.

27.1. These things, then, I have said on Cicero’s account, since he began with unjust words against us; for I am neither otherwise quarrelsome, as he is, nor does it concern me to busy myself with the misfortunes of others, which he is forever doing and glorying in. But what I counsel you—doing favour neither to Antony nor slandering Caesar or Brutus, but, as is fitting, deliberating for the common interest—I will now declare.

27.2. For I say that we ought not yet to make an enemy of any of these who hold arms, nor to examine precisely what and how anything has been done by them. For neither is the present occasion suitable for this, and, since they are all alike our own fellow-citizens, whether any of them stumbles, he will perish to our loss, or

27.3. whether he succeeds, he will grow strong against us. For these reasons, then, I think we ought to handle them in a civic and friendly spirit, and to send to all alike, bidding them lay down their arms and put both themselves and their armies in our power—but to make war as yet upon none of them; rather, from what shall be reported, to praise those willing to obey us, but upon the disobedient

27.4. to make war. For this is both just and expedient for us—neither to be hurried nor to do anything rashly, but to wait, and, giving some respite to those men themselves and to the soldiers to repent, then thus, if there be need of war, to assign it to the consuls.

28.1. And to you too, Cicero, I counsel: do not bluster like a woman, nor imitate Bambalio, nor make war, nor for your private enmity against Antony bring the whole city publicly

28.2. again into danger. For you will do well if you are even reconciled with the man with whom you have often done many friendly acts; but if you are implacable toward him, at least spare us, and, having been the proposer of our friendship with one another, do not now

28.3. dissolve it, but, remembering that day and the words you spoke in the precinct of Earth, grant something also to this Concord beside whom we are now deliberating, that you may not slander those words too, as having been spoken then not from an upright purpose

28.4. but from some other motive; for this is both expedient for the city and will bring you the greatest glory. For do not think that to bluster is either glorious or safe, nor, even if you say that you despise death, believe that you will be praised

28.5. for this. For such men all both suspect and hate, as ones who would venture some evil out of desperation; but those whom they see making most account of their own safety they both praise and extol, as men who would willingly do nothing

28.6. worthy of death. And you too, then, if you truly wish your country to be saved, both say and do such things whereby you yourself shall be saved, not, by Zeus, such as will destroy us along with you.”

29.1. When Calenus had spoken to this effect, Cicero could not bear it. For he himself always used unmixed and excessive frankness alike toward all, but did not deign to receive the like in return from others. So then too, abandoning the consideration of the public business, he fell to reviling him, so that that day was, for this reason not least,

29.2. wasted in vain. On the next day, then, and the third, after much had been said by many on both sides, the partisans of Caesar prevailed, and they voted to him both a statue and the right to sit in the senate among the ex-quaestors, and to seek the other offices ten years earlier than was customary,

29.3. and to receive from the city the money he had expended on the soldiers—because, forsooth, he had on his own account equipped them on its behalf; and to the soldiers too, both those and those who had deserted Antony, they voted that they should serve in no other war and should at once be given land.

29.4. And to Antony they sent an embassy bidding him give up both his armies and Gaul and withdraw into Macedonia. And to those serving with him they proclaimed that they should return home within a stated day, or know that they would be reckoned as enemies. And besides they resolved that the senators who had received governorships of provinces from him should be removed and others sent

29.5. in their stead. At that time these things were ratified; but not long afterward, before they even learned his decision, they voted that there was a state of tumult and put off the senatorial dress, and assigned the war against him to the consuls and to Caesar, giving him a praetor’s command,

29.6. and bade Lepidus and Lucius Munatius Plancus, governing part of Transalpine Gaul, to come to their aid.

30.1. Thus to Antony, who was otherwise eager for war, they themselves furnished the pretext for enmity. For gladly laying hold of what had been voted, he at once reproached the envoys that they had treated neither rightly nor fairly with the lad—meaning Caesar—

30.2. and, sending back others in turn, that he might shift onto them the blame for the war, he made certain counterproposals, which brought him a fair appearance but were impossible to be carried out both by Caesar and by the others

30.3. who were leagued with him. For he meant to do none of the things enjoined upon him, but, well knowing that they too would do none of his proposals, he pretended that he would do all that they had decreed, in order that he himself might have a refuge as though he had done them, and that the cause of the war might prove beforehand to lie with his opponents,

30.4. who would refuse what he proposed. For he said he would quit Gaul and disband his armies, if to these men they should grant the same things they had voted to Caesar’s men, and should choose Cassius and Marcus Brutus consuls. For this too he demanded, making a pretence of these men, that they might have no anger against the measures taken concerning Decimus, their fellow-conspirator.

31.1. Antony put forward these proposals, well knowing that neither of them would come to pass; for Caesar would never have endured either that his father’s murderers should be consuls, or that Antony’s soldiers, receiving the same as his own,

31.2. should become more attached to him. So none of these things was ratified, but they proclaimed war anew against Antony, and to those with him proclaimed again to desert him, appointing another day. And the military cloaks were donned by all, even those who were not going on campaign, and they entrusted to the consuls the guarding of the city, adding that customary clause to the decree, that no harm should come to it

31.3. from it. And since they needed much money for the war, all contributed the twenty-fifth part of their substance, and the senators four obols for each tile of the houses in the city, whether they owned them themselves or, belonging to others, dwelt in them.

31.4. And apart from this the very rich contributed not a little else, and arms and the other things necessary for the campaign were supplied gratis by many cities and many private men; for so great a want of money did the treasury then suffer that not even the public festivals which ought to have taken place at that season were celebrated, save a few

32.1. for religion’s sake. These things all who favoured Caesar and hated Antony did with zeal; but the greater number, being burdened at once by the campaigns and the levies, were vexed, and most of all because it was unclear which of the two would prevail, but clear that to the

32.2. victor they would be in bondage. Many, then, who favoured Antony’s cause—some openly going off to him, among them tribunes and certain praetors—while others, remaining in their place, of whom Calenus too was one, did on his behalf all they could, partly working in secret, partly even openly

32.3. pleading his cause. Accordingly they did not even at once change their dress, but persuaded the senate again to send envoys to Antony, Cicero among others, ostensibly to persuade him to come to terms, but in fact that he

32.4. might be made away with. Perceiving this, then, Cicero was afraid and did not dare to deliver himself into Antony’s arms. And thereupon none of the other envoys set out either.

33.1. While these things were being done, no small portents again befell both the city and the consul Vibius himself. For at the last assembly, after which he set out for the war, a man afflicted with what is called the sacred disease fell down while he was

33.2. addressing the people; and a bronze statue of him standing in the porch of his house fell over of its own accord on the very day and hour at which he marched out. And the seers could not make out the pre-battle sacrifices because of the abundance of the blood; and someone, while in this state bringing him a palm, slipped in the blood that had been poured out and, falling, defiled the palm. To him, then,

33.3. these things happened. But had they befallen him as a private man, they would have touched him alone; since, however, he was consul, they bore alike upon all—even as did the image of the Mother of the Gods that stood on the Palatine (for, having before looked toward the risings of the sun, it turned of its own accord toward the west),

33.4. and that of Athena honoured near Mutina, beside which they fought most fiercely (for it sent forth much blood and after that milk also); and besides, that the consuls made their departure before the Latin festival; for there is no instance when, this having been done, men have fared well.

33.5. Indeed at that time both the consuls and a very great multitude of the common throng—some at the moment, some afterwards—and many of the knights and senators, even the very foremost,

33.6. perished. For partly the battles, and partly the murders at home, occurring again in the Sullan fashion, destroyed all that was the flower of them, save those who did the deeds.

34.1. And the authors of these evils were the senators themselves to themselves. For though they ought to have set up some one man of the better mind and to have stood by him throughout, this they did not do, but, taking up certain men and exalting them against the others, they then attempted to pull these down again in turn, and thereby

34.2. got no friend, but all for enemies. For men do not dispose themselves in the same way toward those who have grieved them and toward those who have done them good, but they remember their anger even against their will, while their gratitude they forget even willingly—partly disdaining to seem to have been benefited by anyone, as though they would thereby appear weaker than they, partly being indignant if they shall be thought to have been ill-treated with impunity by anyone, as though they would incur a charge of unmanliness.

34.3. And so those men, admitting no single leader, but attaching themselves now to one and now to another in turn, and voting and acting now for them and now against them, suffered much through

34.4. them and much at their hands. For the underlying purpose of the war was one for all of them—that the democracy should be overthrown and a sovereignty established; and, fighting, the one party for whom they should be slaves, the other which of them should be master, both alike were destroying the commonwealth, but toward fortune

34.5. each party gained a different repute. For those who fared well were accounted both prudent and patriotic, while those who stumbled were named both enemies of their country and accursed. To this pass, then, were the affairs of the Romans at that time brought; and I will tell also in detail

35.1. what happened. For instruction, too, I think there is most of all in this, when one, setting deeds beside motives, both tests the nature of the motives by the deeds and confirms the deeds by the agreement of the motives.

35.2. Antony was besieging Decimus, who was in Mutina—to speak the exact truth, because he had not surrendered Gaul to him, but, as he himself pretended, because Decimus had been one of Caesar’s murderers. For since the true cause of the war brought him no credit, and at the same time he saw the people’s feeling looking toward Caesar with a view to the avenging of his father, he put forward this pretext for the war.

35.3. For that he was merely alleging it in order to hold Gaul, he himself made clear by demanding that Cassius and Marcus Brutus be appointed consuls; for with a view to his own interests he laid claim to each man from the most opposite direction.

35.4. Caesar had marched against him even before the war was voted to him, yet had done nothing worthy of mention. But on learning what had been decreed, he accepted the honours and rejoiced—especially because, as he sacrificed when he took up the array and authority of a general, double livers were found in all the victims, twelve in number;

35.5. but at the fact that to Antony envoys and proposals were sent, instead of war being at once proclaimed against him without a herald,

35.6. he was distressed, and most of all because he perceived that the consuls, who had privately sent some message to Antony about concord, and the letters sent by him to certain of the senators and intercepted, which they had given to these men while concealing themselves, were waging the war neither with zeal nor at once, but on the pretext of

35.7. the winter. Not having, however, any way to expose these things (for he neither wished to alienate them nor again was able to persuade them to anything or even to force them), he himself too kept quiet, wintering at the Forum of Cornelius, until he became afraid for Decimus.

36.1. For Decimus before this had vigorously defended himself against Antony, and once, suspecting that certain men had been sent into the town by him to corrupt the soldiers, called together all who were present, and, after a few brief words, made proclamation, pointing out a certain spot, that those under arms should go off to this side of it and the private men to the other; and so, when Antony’s men were at a loss which way to turn and were left isolated, he detected and seized them.

36.2. Afterwards he was completely walled in. Caesar, then, fearing lest he be taken by force or, through want of provisions, capitulate, compelled Hirtius to join the campaign; for Vibius was still in Rome making the levies and abolishing the laws of

36.3. the Antonii. Setting out, then, they took over Bononia, which had been abandoned by its garrison, without a fight, and routed the horsemen who afterwards met them; but because of the river by Mutina and the guard upon it they were

36.4. unable to advance farther. Wishing nevertheless to make plain their presence to Decimus, lest some misfortune befall first, at the first they signalled with beacon-fires from the highest trees; but when he did not understand, they wrote something on a thin sheet of lead, rolled it up like a bit of paper, and gave it to a diver

36.5. to carry across under water by night. And thus Decimus, learning at once both of their presence and of the promise of aid, sent back word to them in the same fashion, and from then on they continually made everything plain to one another.

37.1. Antony, then, seeing that Decimus would not give way, left his brother Lucius to deal with him, while he himself advanced against Caesar and Hirtius. And as they encamped opposite one another for many days, certain brief and evenly-matched

37.2. cavalry skirmishes took place, until the Celtic horsemen, whom Caesar had won over along with the elephants, again inclined to Antony, and, coming out of the camp with the others, dashed forward as though to engage by themselves with those who should ride against them, but turned back after a little, and, falling unexpectedly upon their pursuers who were not expecting it,

37.3. slew many of them. And after this certain men of both sides, while foraging, came to blows, and thereupon, as the rest came to the aid of either party, a sharp battle arose between them and Antony prevailed. Elated, then, by these things, and perceiving that Vibius was drawing near, he assaulted the rampart of his opponents, in the hope that, by taking it first, he might more easily fight the rest

37.4. afterwards. And since they, on account of their reverses and their hope from Vibius, kept on the defensive and did not lead out against him, he left a part of his army there too, bidding them engage them, that he himself might seem to be most fully present, and at the same time keep watch lest any fall upon them from the rear.

37.5. Having arranged these things, he set out by night unobserved against Vibius, who was approaching from Bononia, and, ambushing him, wounded him and slew most of his soldiers and shut up the rest within their entrenchments. And he would have destroyed them,

37.6. had he beleaguered them ever so little. But as it was, since at the first assault he accomplished nothing, he feared lest he linger and in the meantime be outdone by Caesar and the others,

37.7. and turned again against them. And Hirtius, meeting him—worn out as Antony was both by the double march and by the battle, and besides unexpectant that any man would engage him after a victory—greatly prevailed; for when they learned what was happening, Caesar remained on guard over the camp, while Hirtius set out against

38.1. Antony. On his being defeated, not only Hirtius but Vibius too—though he had fared ill—and Caesar, though he had not even fought, were saluted as imperators both by the soldiers

38.2. and by the senate. And to those who had fought with them and died, public burial was voted, and that to their children and fathers all the rewards which those very men, had they lived, would have received, should be paid.

38.3. When this had happened, Pontius Aquila too, who was one of the murderers and a lieutenant of Decimus, conquered in battle Titus Munatius Plancus, who was warring against him; and Decimus, when a certain senator deserted to Antony,

38.4. not only felt no anger toward him, but even sent back all the baggage and the rest that had been left in Mutina. And thereupon Antony’s soldiers began to change their feelings, and certain of the peoples who shared his views, who before were in faction,

38.5. Caesar and Hirtius were elated at these things, and, approaching the rampart of Antony, challenged him to battle; he meanwhile for a while was dismayed and kept quiet, but then, when a force sent by Lepidus came to him,

38.6. took heart. For Lepidus himself did not make clear to which party he sent the army; for he both cherished Antony as a kinsman, and had been summoned against him by the senate, and for these reasons, and at the same time preparing for himself a retreat toward both parties, gave no clear instructions to Marcus Silanus the commander;

38.7. but Silanus, knowing his mind precisely, came to Antony of his own accord, unbidden. This man, then, having aided him, Antony took heart and made a sudden sally, and, much slaughter occurring on both sides, was routed and fled.

39.1. Up to this point, then, Caesar grew in favour both with the people and with the senate, and thereupon expected to be honoured in other ways and at once appointed consul; for it chanced that Hirtius perished in the capture of Antony’s camp, and Vibius from his wounds not long afterward, whence he incurred the charge of their death with a view to the succession of the office.

39.2. The senate, before this, while it was still unclear which of the two would prevail, abolished beforehand all that in former times had been granted to certain men in their dominations beyond the ancestral usages—decreeing these things, I suppose, against both, as though to forestall the victor through them, but meaning to lay the blame upon the other,

39.3. the one who should be defeated. For on the one hand they forbade anyone to hold office for more than a year, and on the other they prohibited the choosing of any single commissioner of corn or overseer of supplies. And when they learned what had been done, they rejoiced at Antony’s defeat, and changed their robes and held a religious festival for sixty days, and reckoned all who had been numbered with him in the rank of enemies and took away their property, as well as that of Antony himself;

40.1. but Caesar they not only no longer deemed worthy of anything great, but even attempted to put down, giving to Decimus all that he hoped to receive. For not only sacrifices of oxen but even triumphal honours did they vote to Decimus, and they assigned to him the remainder of the war and the armies, among them those of Vibius;

40.2. and to the soldiers who had been besieged with him they resolved to give both praises and all the other things that had previously been promised to Caesar’s men, though they had contributed nothing to the victory but had seen it from the walls. And Aquila, who had died in the battle, they honoured with a statue; and the money which he had spent from his own house on the equipment of Decimus’ soldiers they paid back to his

40.3. heirs. In a word, so to speak, all that had been done for Caesar against Antony was now voted to others against that very man. And in order that, even if he should most wish and be able to do any harm, he might not, they arrayed all his enemies against him; for to Sextus Pompey they entrusted the fleet, to Marcus Brutus Macedonia, and to Cassius both Syria and the war against Dolabella.

40.4. And they would certainly have taken away besides the forces he had, had they not feared to vote it openly because they knew the soldiers to be well-disposed toward him. They attempted, however, even so, to set the soldiers at variance both with one another and with him.

40.5. For they were neither willing to praise and honour them all, lest they raise their spirit too high, nor to dishonour and slight them all, lest they alienate them further and thereby compel them to make common cause.

40.6. So they took a middle course, and praised some of them but not others, and to some they gave the right to wear a crown of olive at the festivals but not to others, and besides voted money to some—two thousand five hundred drachmas—but to others not even a copper, hoping thereby to set them at strife with one another and so to weaken them.

41.1. And those who were to announce these things to them they sent not to Caesar but to the soldiers. Greatly enraged at this too, then, Caesar in word permitted the envoys to meet the army without him, having instructed them beforehand that no answer be given them and that he himself be at once sent for; but coming to the camp and hearing together with the soldiers the instructions, he won them over far more by these very things

41.2. to himself. For those who had been preferred took not so much pleasure in their advantage as they suspected what was happening, Caesar prompting them as much as possible; and those who had been dishonoured felt no anger toward them, but, slandering the intention of the decrees, extended their own dishonour to all

41.3. and shared their anger with them. Learning this, then, the men in the city, and being afraid, did not even so appoint him consul—which he most longed for—but adorned him with the consular honours, so that he might already give his opinion among the ex-consuls. And when he made no account of this, they voted that he be elected praetor among the first and after that consul too.

41.4. And so they thought they had cleverly handled Caesar, as though he were truly some lad and child, as they kept noising abroad; but he, vexed both at the other things and at this very thing, that he was called a child, no longer made delay, but turned

41.5. to arms and to their strength. And he secretly held parley with Antony, and gathered together those who had escaped from the battle—whom he himself had defeated and the senate had voted enemies—and made before them many accusations both against the senate and against the people.

42.1. Hearing these things, those in the city for a while held him in slight regard; but when they perceived that Antony and Lepidus had come to an agreement, they began again to court him, being ignorant of the parleys he had held with Antony, and assigned to him the war

42.2. against them. Caesar, then, undertook this too, if only he might thereby be appointed consul; for he was very busy, both through others and through Cicero, that he might be elected, so that Cicero even promised to make him his colleague in the consulship.

42.3. But when even so he was not chosen, he made ready as though to make war, as had been decreed, but, having in the meantime prepared his own soldiers, ostensibly on their own initiative, suddenly to swear that they would make war against none of the armies that had been Caesar’s (which, I suppose, bore upon Lepidus and Antony,

42.4. for the greatest part of those serving with them came from these), he held back, and on this account sent to the senate four hundred from among the soldiers themselves as envoys.

43.1. This, then, was the pretext of their embassy; but the whole of it was that they demanded the money voted to them and bade that Caesar be appointed

43.2. consul. When, then, the senate put off their answer as needing deliberation, they asked immunity for one of those who had taken Antony’s side, in accordance, as was likely, with Caesar’s instruction—not because they wished to obtain it, but that they might make trial of the senate, whether it would grant them at least this, or that they might take occasion for anger from seeming to be aggrieved on its account

43.3. as well. Failing of it, at any rate (for no one opposed it, but, as many asked the same thing at once on behalf of others, their request, becoming, as it were, one of many, was somehow decently put aside),

43.4. the rest were openly angry, and one of them went out of the senate-house, and, laying hold of his sword (for they had entered unarmed), grasped it and said, ‘If you do not give the consulship to Caesar, this shall give it.’ And Cicero, taking him up, said, ‘If you ask in this fashion,

43.5. he shall have it.’ To him too this prepared his destruction. But Caesar did not blame what had been done by the soldier; rather, because they had been compelled to lay aside their arms on entering the senate, and because one of them had been asked whether they had been sent by the armies or by Caesar,

43.6. he made it a charge, and in haste sent for Antony and Lepidus (for he too had been added on account of his friendship with Antony), and himself, ostensibly forced by the soldiers, set out for Rome with all of them.

44.1. And, suspecting that some of the horsemen and others were present to spy upon them, they slew them, and laid waste the lands of those who differed from them in opinion, and on this pretext wrought much other

44.2. mischief besides. Learning, then, of their advance, the senators sent them the money before they drew near, in the hope that, taking it, they would withdraw; and when even so they pressed on,

44.3. they appointed Caesar consul. Yet they gained nothing even from this; for what they did not willingly but under compulsion, for that the soldiers felt no gratitude toward them, but, the more, as having terrified them, grew bold.

44.4. Learning this, then, the senate changed its mind, and forbade them to draw near the city, but to keep more than seven hundred and fifty stades from it, and themselves changed their dress again and entrusted to the praetors the guarding

44.5. of the city, as was customary. And they put everything else under guard, and seized in advance the Janiculum with the soldiers there and with others who had come from Africa.

45.1. So long as Caesar was still on the road, these things were thus done, and all who were then in Rome with one accord laid hold of them—even as the multitude are wont, before they come into the sight and the trial of dangers, to be bold.

45.2. But when he reached the suburbs, they were afraid, and first some of the senators, then many of the people too, went over to him. And thereupon the praetors came down from the Janiculum and delivered up to him both the soldiers and

45.3. themselves. So Caesar took possession of the city thus without a fight, and was appointed consul also by the people, two men being chosen in place of consuls to conduct the elections, since it was impossible for an interrex to be appointed so quickly for them according to ancestral custom, as many of the men holding the patrician

45.4. offices were abroad. For they submitted to this—that two men be voted through the city praetor—rather than that the consuls be elected through him, because they were to do nothing more than hold the elections, and in this respect would seem to have had no office stronger than his own.

45.5. And these things, I suppose, were done under arms; but Caesar, that he might not seem to have forced them at all, did not go to the assembly, as though there were those who feared his presence and not his power.

46.1. Thus, then, he was chosen consul, and there was given him as colleague—if one must call him that, and not rather his lieutenant—

46.2. Quintus Pedius. And over this he prided himself greatly, that at that age, a thing which had never happened to any man, he was to be consul, and that on the first day of the elections, on entering the Campus Martius, he saw six vultures, and afterwards, while addressing the soldiers,

46.3. saw twelve others; for, referring this to Romulus and to the omen that had occurred to him, he expected that he too would take the sole rule. He did not, however, pride himself as holding a second consulship because he had been adorned with the consular honours. And this was observed thereafter in all

46.4. like cases down to our own time; for the emperor Severus was the first who, after honouring Plautianus with consular honours, and afterwards bringing him into the senate and appointing him consul, proclaimed him as one about to be consul for the second time, and from

46.5. him the same thing was done in the case of others. Caesar, then, both settled the other affairs in the city according to his own pleasure, and gave money to the soldiers—to some what and from whatever source had been voted, to the rest as to each—in word from his own means, but in deed from the public funds.

46.6. At that time, then, and from such a cause, the soldiers received the silver; but certain men, mishearing this, came to think that to all the civic armies generally, as many as came to Rome under arms, the two thousand five hundred

46.7. drachmas must of necessity be given. And for this reason those too who came with Severus into the city for the deposition of Julianus became most formidable both to him and to us, demanding it; and Severus appeased them with two hundred and fifty drachmas, though the rest did not even know what it was they were demanding.

47.1. Caesar, then, gave the soldiers the money and felt toward them gratitude both great and most genuine; for without their protection he did not dare even to frequent the senate-house. But toward the senate he felt gratitude indeed, yet feigned and pretended; for what he had obtained by forcing them, this he set down, as though he had received it from them willingly, in the category of a benefaction.

47.2. And they too, then, on these grounds, as having given it of their own accord, prided themselves, and besides, to him whom they had before been unwilling even to choose consul, they gave precedence after his office over all who from time to time held the consulship, as often as he should be in a camp;

47.3. and to him whom they had threatened to bring to trial because he had raised forces on his own account when no one had voted it, they enjoined besides to enroll others; and him whom by the dishonour and overthrow of Decimus they had bidden to make war against Antony, to him they assigned besides the armies of Decimus.

47.4. And finally he took over the guarding of the city, so as to be able to do everything he wished even by the laws, and was adopted into the family of Caesar according to custom, and

47.5. on that account also changed his surname. For he had called himself Caesar even before, as some think, from the time when that name was left him along with the inheritance; he had not, however, the full appellation nor for all purposes, until then, when he confirmed it from the ancestral usages, and thus from that time was styled Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus;

47.6. for it is the custom, when one is adopted, that he take his other appellation from the one who adopts him, but retain one of his former names somewhat altered

47.7. in form. This, then, is so; but I shall call him not Octavianus but Caesar, since this appellation has prevailed for all who take the sovereignty of the Romans.

47.8. He acquired indeed another also, that of Augustus, and on that account the later emperors too assume it; but that will be spoken of when it comes into my narrative, while till then the appellation of Caesar will sufficiently fulfil the indication of Octavianus.

48.1. This Caesar, then, as soon as he had won over the soldiers and enslaved the senate, turned to the avenging of his father, and, fearing lest he in some way throw the populace into confusion on this account, did not reveal his own purpose until he had made the distribution of the legacies left to them.

48.2. But when these too had been seized by the moneys—though they belonged to the public and had been collected on the pretext of the war—then he proceeded against the murderers. And, that he might seem to do it not by violence but in some judicial form, he introduced a certain law concerning their trial and

48.3. set up courts even for them in their absence. For most of them were abroad, and some held governorships of provinces; and those present did not appear out of fear, and besides slipped away and withdrew. So by default not only those who had actually laid hands on Caesar and their fellow-conspirators were convicted, but also many others, not because they had plotted against Caesar but

48.4. merely because they were not in the city at the time. This was contrived chiefly against Sextus Pompey; for he, though he had least shared in the attack, was nevertheless condemned as an enemy of his. And they themselves were debarred from fire and water, and their properties were confiscated; and the provinces, not only those which some of them governed but all the rest besides, were entrusted to the friends of Caesar.

49.1. Among these accused was Publius Servilius Casca, the tribune; and since, having beforehand suspected Caesar, he slipped away before Caesar even entered the city, he was both deprived of his office as having gone abroad contrary to ancestral custom, the populace being assembled by Publius Titius his colleague,

49.2. and thus was convicted. And since Titius died not long afterward, that which had been observed from of old was confirmed; for no one up to that time who had deposed a colleague survived out the year, but, on the one hand, Brutus died after the deposition of Collatinus, and, on the other, Gracchus was slain after the overthrow of Octavius, and Cinna, who had removed Marullus and Flavius, was destroyed not long after.

49.3. These things, then, have been so observed; and of the slayers of Caesar many brought accusation, some to win the favour of his son, and many being moreover induced by the rewards; for they received money from the property of the convicted man, and his rank and his office, if he chanced to have any, and besides that neither he nor his sons nor his grandsons

49.4. should any longer serve in the army. Of those who judged them, the greater part, out of favour and fear of Caesar, condemned them, showing somehow that they did so justly; but there are some who gave their vote, some out of regard for the law written concerning their punishment, and some out of regard for the arms of Caesar.

49.5. And a certain Silicius Corona, a senator, openly acquitted Marcus Brutus. And at the time he gloried greatly in this and received praises in secret from the rest, and afforded Caesar, by not at once putting him to death, a reputation for clemency; but afterwards he was put to death by proscription.

50.1. Having done these things, then, Caesar marched, ostensibly, against Lepidus and Antony. For Antony, when he had then fled from the battle, and neither Caesar, because the war had been entrusted to Decimus, nor Decimus, because he did not wish Caesar’s rival to be made away with, pursued him,

50.2. gathered together as many as he could of those who had survived the battle, and came to Lepidus, who had prepared, indeed, as though he too would march into Italy according to the decree, but had been bidden again

50.3. to remain where he was. For the senators, when they learned that Silanus had taken Antony’s side, were afraid both of Lepidus and of Lucius Plancus, lest they too join with him, and, sending to them,

50.4. said they had no further need of them. And, that they might not suspect anything and thereupon do some mischief, they bade them resettle the men who had once been driven out of Vienna in Narbonensis by the Allobroges and had established themselves between the Rhone and the Arar, where they join one another.

50.5. And so those men, complying, founded what was then called Lugudunum but is now called Lugdunum—not that they could not have come into Italy under arms, had they wished (for the decrees were already carried with very little weight against those who held the forces),

50.6. but because, watching the outcome of the war against Antony, they wished both to seem to have obeyed the senate and at the same time to strengthen their own position.

51.1. Indeed Lepidus blamed Silanus for his alliance with Antony, and to Antony himself, when he came, did not at once come to conference, but even wrote to the senate accusing him besides, so as thereby to receive both praises and the command of the war against him.

51.2. For the rest of the time, then, on this account he neither received Antony nor thrust him away, but looked on while he was near and held intercourse with those serving under him, yet did not come to conference with him; but when he learned of his agreement with Caesar, then he too came to terms with both

51.3. of them. Learning what was happening, Marcus Juventius, his lieutenant, at first tried to dissuade him; but when he did not persuade him, he made away with himself in the sight of the

51.4. soldiers. And to him the senate voted praises for this and a statue and public burial; but from Lepidus they took away the image set up on the Rostra and declared him an enemy, and they set a day also for those with him, threatening them with war unless within that day they should desert

51.5. him. Furthermore they changed their dress again (for at Caesar’s consulship they had resumed the city garb), and summoned Marcus Brutus and Cassius and Sextus against them; and since these seemed likely to delay, they entrusted the war to Caesar, in ignorance of their conspiracy

52.1. together. And he in word undertook it—although he made the soldiers cry out as has been said—but did no deed connected with it, not because he had held communication with Antony and through him with

52.2. Lepidus (for he cared little for this), but because he saw them to be strong and perceived that they were of one mind through their kinship, and was neither able to force them, and hoped to make use of Cassius and Brutus, who were now grown very powerful, through them, and after that

52.3. to master those very men too by means of one another. For these reasons, then, even against his will he kept the compacts with them, and brought about for them too a reconciliation both with the senate and with the people—not himself proposing it, that he might not be suspected of any of the things that had happened, but he marched out as though to make war upon them, while Quintus advised that immunity and return be granted them, as though of his own

52.4. judgement. They did not, however, receive it before the senate had been informed, as though it knew nothing of what was happening, and Caesar, ostensibly against his will, had been compelled by the soldiers to assent.

53.1. While these things were being done, Decimus at first set out as though to make war upon them, and won over Lucius Plancus, since the latter had already been appointed beforehand his colleague in the consulship for the coming year;

53.2. but learning both of his own condemnation and of their reconciliation, he wished indeed to march against Caesar, but, being abandoned by Plancus, who favoured the cause of Lepidus and Antony, he resolved to quit Gaul and to hasten on foot through Illyria into Macedonia to Brutus, and sent forward certain soldiers while he was settling matters at hand.

53.3. But when these chose Caesar’s side instead, and Lepidus and Antony, pursuing the rest, won them over through others, Decimus, left isolated, was seized by a certain enemy, and, when about to be slain, behaved piteously and wailed, until a certain Helvius Blasio, who was kindly disposed toward him from their fellow-service, willingly slew himself before his eyes.

54.1. And so he died; but Antony and Lepidus left lieutenants in Gaul, and themselves set out into Italy against Caesar, bringing with them the greatest and the

54.2. strongest part of the army. For they did not yet wholly trust him, nor did they wish to owe him any benefit, holding that it was through themselves and their own strength, and not through him, that they had obtained both their immunity and their return; and besides they hoped to accomplish all they wished, both with Caesar and with the others in the city, by the abundance of their

54.3. armies. With such a purpose, then, they went as though through a friendly country; but it was ravaged by the multitude and the audacity of their men no less than in any war. And Caesar met them with many soldiers near Bononia, very well prepared to defend himself against them should he suffer any violence.

54.4. He had no need, however, then of arms against them; for, though they hated one another bitterly, yet, because their forces were somehow evenly matched, and because they wished first to take vengeance on their other enemies through one another, they made a pretended agreement.

55.1. They came to the conference not alone, but having an equal number of soldiers, on a little island in the river that flows past Bononia, so that no one else might join either party;

55.2. and thus, having withdrawn far from those who were present with them, they searched one another, lest any have a dagger under his arm, and, after discussing certain matters quietly, in the whole they conspired together for sovereignty and against their enemies. But that they might not seem to be openly aiming at oligarchy, and so that some envy and thereby opposition might arise against them from the

55.3. others, they agreed as follows: that in common the three should be chosen as a kind of overseers and correctors for the management and settlement of affairs—and that not forever, forsooth, but for five years—so that they should administer everything else, even if they communicated nothing concerning it either to the people or to the senate, and should give the offices and the other honours

55.4. to whomever they wished; but in particular, that they might not be thought to be appropriating the whole sovereignty, that to Caesar should be given the rule of both Libyas and of Sardinia and Sicily, to Lepidus all Spain and Narbonese Gaul, and to Antony the rest of Gaul, both that within the Alps and that beyond them,

55.5. to govern. And the former was called Togata, as I have said, both because it seemed more peaceful than the others and because they already used the Roman city dress, while the latter was called Comata, because the Gauls there, for the most part letting their hair grow long, were on this account distinguished from the

56.1. others. These things, then, they thus divided among themselves, that they might both take the strongest portions for themselves and afford the others an appearance of not grasping at everything; and they agreed besides to make slaughter of their enemies, and that Lepidus, appointed consul in place of Decimus, should keep Rome and the rest of Italy under guard, while they should march against Brutus and

56.2. Cassius. And these things they confirmed with oaths. And after this, in order that the soldiers, forsooth, might be both hearers and witnesses of what had been agreed among them, they called them together and harangued them with as much as it was both seemly and

56.3. safe for them to say. And meanwhile the soldiers of Antony brought forward as a match for Caesar, though he was betrothed to another, the daughter of Fulvia his wife, whom she had by Clodius—Antony, clearly, having contrived this.

56.4. And he did not refuse; for he thought he would in no way be hindered by the marriage-tie from what he was minded to do against Antony; for, among other things, he knew that his father Caesar had, none the less for his kinship with Pompey, done against him all that he wished.