[63] (1) Meanwhile Antony in his flight had crossed the Alps, and at first made overtures to Marcus Lepidus which were rejected. Now Lepidus had surreptitiously been made pontifex in Caesar’s place, and, though the province of Spain had been assigned to him, was still lingering in Gaul. Later, however, Antony showed himself several times to the soldiers of Lepidus, and being, when sober, better than most commanders, whereas none could be worse than Lepidus, he was admitted by the soldiers through a breach which they made in the fortifications in the rear of the camp. Antony still permitted Lepidus to hold the nominal command, while he himself held the real authority. (2) At the time when Antony entered the camp, Juventius Laterensis, who had strongly urged Lepidus not to ally himself with Antony now that he had been declared an enemy of the state, finding his advice of no avail ran himself through with his own sword, consistent unto death. Later Plancus and Pollio both handed over their armies to Antony. (3) Plancus, with his usual loose idea of loyalty, after a long debate with himself as to which party to follow, and much difficulty in sticking to his resolutions when formed, now pretended to co-operate with his colleague, Decimus Brutus, the consul designate, thus seeking to ingratiate himself with the senate in his dispatches, and again betrayed him. But Asinius Pollio, steadfast in his resolution, remained loyal to the Julian party and continued to be an adversary of the Pompeians.
[64] (1) Decimus Brutus, first abandoned by Plancus, and later actually the object of his plots, deserted little by little by his army, and now a fugitive, was slain by the emissaries of Antony in the house of a noble named Camelus with whom he had taken refuge. He thus met his just deserts and paid the penalty of his treason to Gaius Caesar by whom he had been treated so well. (2) He who had been the foremost of all Caesar’s friends became his assassin, and while he threw upon Caesar the odious responsibility for the fortune of which he himself had reaped the benefits, he thought it fair to retain what he had received at Caesar’s hands, and for Caesar, who had given it all, to perish.
(3) This is the period when Cicero in a series of speeches branded the memory of Antony for all time to come. Cicero assailed Antony with his brilliant and god-given tongue, whereas Cannutius the tribune tore him to pieces with the ravening of a mad dog. Each paid with his life for his defence of liberty. (4) The proscription was ushered in by the slaying of the tribune; it practically ended with the death of Cicero, as though Antony were now sated with blood. Lepidus was now declared by the senate an enemy of the state, as Antony had been before him.
[65] (1) Then began an interchange of letters between Lepidus, Caesar, and Antony, and terms of agreement were suggested. Antony reminded Caesar how hostile to him the Pompeian party was, to what a height they had now risen, and how zealously Cicero was extolling Brutus and Cassius. Antony threatened to join forces with Brutus and Cassius, who had now control of seventeen legions, if Caesar rejected this friendly gesture, and said that Caesar was under greater obligations to avenge a father than he to avenge a friend. (2) Then began their partnership in political power, and, on the urgent advice and entreaty of the armies, a marriage alliance was also made between Antony and Caesar, in which Antony’s stepdaughter was betrothed to Caesar. Caesar, with Quintus Pedius as colleague, entered on the consulship one day before the completion of his twentieth year on the twenty-second of September, seven hundred and nine years after the founding of the city and seventy-two, Marcus Vinicius, before the beginning of your consulship.
(3) This year saw Ventidius joining the robes of the consular office to those of praetor in the very city in which he had been led in triumph among the Picentine captives. He also lived to celebrate a triumph of his own.
[66] (1) Then the vengeful resentment of Antony and Lepidus — for each of them had been declared public enemies, as has already been stated, and both preferred to hear accounts of what they had suffered, rather than of what they had deserved, at the hands of the senate — renewed the horror of the Sullan proscription. Caesar protested, but without avail, being but one against two. (2) The climax of the shame of this time was that Caesar should be forced to proscribe any one, or that any one should proscribe the name of Cicero. By the crime of Antony, when Cicero was beheaded the voice of the people was severed, nor did anyone raise a hand in defence of the man who for so many years had protected the interests both of the state and of the private citizen. (3) But you accomplished nothing, Mark Antony — for the indignation that surges in my breast compels me to exceed the bounds I have set for my narrative — you accomplished nothing, I say, by offering a reward for the sealing of those divine lips and the severing of that illustrious head, and by encompassing with a death-fee the murder of so great a consul and of the man who once had saved the state. (4) You took from Marcus Cicero a few anxious days, a few senile years, a life which would have been more wretched under your domination than was his death in your triumvirate; but you did not rob him of his fame, the glory of his deeds and words, nay you but enhanced them. (5) He lives and will continue to live in the memory of the ages, and so long as this universe shall endure — this universe which, whether created by chance, or by divine providence, or by whatever cause, he, almost alone of all the Romans, saw with the eye of his mind, grasped with his intellect, illumined with his eloquence — so long shall it be accompanied throughout the ages by the fame of Cicero. All posterity will admire the speeches that he wrote against you, while your deed to him will call forth their execrations, and the race of man shall sooner pass from the world than the name of Cicero be forgotten.
[67] (1) No one has even been able to deplore the fortunes of this whole period with such tears as the theme deserves, much less can one now describe it in words. One thing, however, demands comment, that (2) toward the proscribed their wives showed the greatest loyalty, their freedmen not a little, their slaves some, their sons none. So hard is it for men to brook delays in the realization of their ambitions, whatever they might be. (3) That no sacred tie might escape inviolate, and, as it were, as an inducement and invitation to such atrocities, Antony had Lucius Caesar, his uncle, placed upon the list, and Lepidus his own brother Paulus. Plancus also had sufficient influence to cause his brother Plancus Plotius to be enrolled among the proscribed. (4) And so the troops who followed the triumphal car of Lepidus and Plancus kept repeating among the soldiers’ jests, but amid the execrations of the citizens, the following line:
Brothers-german our two consuls triumph over, not the Gauls.
68 (1) Let me now relate a matter which I omitted in its proper place, for the person involved does not permit the deed to rest in obscurity. This person is Marcus Caelius, a man closely resembling Curio in eloquence and in spirit, though more than his peer in either, and quite as clever in his worthlessness. Being quite as bankrupt in property as in character and unable to save himself by paying even a reasonable proportion of his debts, (2) he came forward in his praetorship, at the time when Caesar was fighting for the control of affairs on the field of Pharsalus, as the author of a law for the cancellation of debts, nor could he be deterred from his course by the authority of either the senate or the consul. Calling to his aid Milo Annius, who was hostile to the Caesarian party because he had failed to secure from them his recall, he stirred up a sedition in the city, and openly raised armed bands in the country. He was first banished from the state and was later overcome at Thurii by the army of the consul, on the order of the senate. (3) A like fortune attended a similar attempt by Milo. While besieging Compsa, a city of the Hirpini, he was struck by a stone, and thus the restless man, too reckless to be called brave, paid the penalty he owed to Publius Clodius and to his country, against which he was bearing arms.
(4) While engaged in supplying omissions I should note the intemperate and untimely display of independence shown towards Caesar by Marullus Epidius and Flavus Caesetius, tribunes of the people, who in charging him with the desire for the kingship, came near feeling the effects of his absolute power. Though Caesar was constantly provoked by them, (5) the
only outcome of his wrath was that he was satisfied to brand them through the employment of his power as censor, and refrained from punishing them as dictator by banishing them from the state; and he expressed his great regret that he had no alternative but to depart from his customary clemency or suffer loss of dignity. But I must now return to the regular order of my narrative.
[69] (1) Meanwhile in Asia, Dolabella, who succeeded Gaius Trebonius as governor, had surprised the latter at Smyrna and had put him to death, a man who had showed the basest ingratitude in return for Caesar’s kindness, and had shared in the murder of him to whom he owed his advancement to the consulshi Dolabella had already occupied Asia and had passed over into Syria when Gaius Cassius, taking over their strong legions from Statius Murcus and Crispus Marcius, both praetorians who had been saluted as imperator by their troops, shut him up in Laodicea and by taking that city had caused his death; for Dolabella had promptly offered his neck to the sword of his own slave. Cassius also gained control of ten legions in that part of the empire. Marcus Brutus had raised his strength to seven legions by wresting their troops, by voluntary transfer of allegiance, (3) from Gaius Antonius, the brother of Marcus Antonius, in Macedonia, and from Vatinius in the vicinity of Dyrrachium. Brutus had been obliged to offer battle to Antony, but Vatinius he had overwhelmed by the weight of his own reputation, since Brutus was preferable to any general, while no man could rank lower than Vatinius, (4) whose deformity of body was rivalled to such an extent by the baseness of his character, that his spirit seemed to be housed in an abode that was thoroughly worthy of it.
(5) By the Pedian law, proposed by Pedius, Caesar’s colleague in the consulship, a decree of banishment was passed upon all the assassins of Caesar. At this time Capito, my uncle, a man of senatorial rank, assisted Agrippa in securing the condemnation of Gaius Cassius. (6) While all this was taking place in Italy, Cassius in a vigorous and successful campaign had taken Rhodes, an undertaking of great difficulty. Brutus had meanwhile conquered the Lycians. The armies of both then crossed into Macedonia, where Cassius, contrary to his nature, uniformly outdid even Brutus in clemency. One will hardly find men who were ever attended by a more favourable fortune than Brutus and Cassius, or who were more quickly deserted by her, as though she were weary.
[70] (1) Then Caesar and Antonius transported their armies to Macedonia, and met Brutus and Cassius in battle near the city of Philippi. The wing under the command of Brutus, after defeating the enemy, captured Caesar’s camp; for Caesar was performing his duties as commander although he was in the poorest of health, and had been urged not to remain in camp by Artorius his physician, who had been frightened by a warning which had appeared to him in his sleep. On the other hand, the wing commanded by Cassius had been routed and roughly handled, and had retreated with much loss to higher ground. (2) Then Cassius, judging his colleague’s success by his own fortune, sent a veteran with instructions to report to him what was the large force of men which was now bearing down in his direction. As the orderly was slow in reporting, and the force approaching at a run was now close, while their identity and their standards could not be recognized for the dust, imagining that the troops rushing on him were those of the enemy, he covered his head with his military cloak and undismayed presented his neck to the sword of his freedman. (3) The head of Cassius had scarcely fallen when the orderly arrived with the report that Brutus was victorious. But when he saw his commander lying prostrate, he uttered the words, “I shall follow him whose death my tardiness has caused,” and fell upon his sword.
(4) A few days later Brutus met the enemy, and was beaten in battle. In retreat he withdrew at nightfall to a hill, and there prevailed upon Strato of Aegaeae, one of his household, to lend him his hand in his resolve to die. (5) Raising his left arm above his head, and with his right holding the point of Strato’s sword he brought it close to the left nipple, at the place where the heart beats, and throwing himself upon the sword he died at once, transfixed by the stroke.
[71] (1) Messalla, a young man of brilliant parts, was next in authority to Brutus and Cassius in their camp. Although there were those who urged him to take command, he preferred to owe his safety to the kindness of Caesar than to try once again the doubtful hope of arms. Caesar, on his side, found no greater pleasure in his victories than in granting life to Corvinus, nor was there ever a better example of loyal gratitude than that shown by Corvinus to Caesar. No other war cost the blood of so many illustrious men. In that battle the son of Cato fell; (2) the same fortune carried off Lucullus and Hortensius, the sons of eminent citizens. Varro, when about to die, in mockery of Antony, with the utmost freedom of speech prophesied for Antony the death he deserved, a prophecy which came true. Drusus Livius, the father of Julia Augusta, and Quintilius Varus, without making any appeal for mercy, ended their lives. Livius died by his own hand in his tent; Varus first covered himself with the insignia of his offices and then forced his freedman to commit the deed.
[72] (1) This was the end reserved by fortune for the party of Marcus Brutus. He was in his thirty-seventh year, and had kept his soul free from corruption until this day, which, through the rashness of a single act, bereft him, together with his life, of all his virtuous qualities. (2) Cassius was as much the better general as Brutus was the better man. Of the two, one would rather have Brutus as a friend, but would stand more in fear of Cassius as an enemy. The one had more vigour, the other more virtue. As it was better for the state to have Caesar rather than Antony as emperor, so, had Brutus and Cassius been the conquerors, it would have been better for is to be ruled by Brutus rather than by Cassius.
(3) Gnaeus Domitius, father of Lucius Domitius our late contemporary, a man of eminent and noble simplicity, and grandfather of Gnaeus Domitius, a young man of distinction in our own day, seized a number of ships, and relying on himself to lead his party, accompanied by a large number of companions who followed his lead, entrusted himself to the fortunes of flight. (4) Statius Murcus, who had had charge of the fleet and the patrolling of the seas, sought Sextus Pompey, son of Pompeius Magnus, with that portion of the army and of the fleet which had been entrusted to him. Pompey had returned from Spain and seized Sicily. (5) The proscribed whom fortune had spared, at least from immediate peril, now flocked to him from the camp of Brutus, from Italy, and from other parts of the world. For men who had now no legal status any leader would do, since fortune gave them no choice, but held out a place of refuge, and as they fled from the storm of death any shelter served as a harbour.
[73] (1) Sextus was a young man without education, barbarous in his speech, vigorous in initiative, energetic and prompt in action as he was swift in expedients, in loyalty a marked contrast to his father, the freedman of his own freedmen and slave of his own slaves, envying those in high places only to obey those in the lowest. (2) The senate, which still consisted almost entirely of Pompeians, in the period which followed the flight of Antony from Mutina, and at the very time at which it had assigned to Brutus and Cassius the provinces across the sea, had recalled Sextus for Spain — where Pollio Asinius the praetorian had distinguished himself in his campaigns against him — restored him to his father’s property, and had entrusted to him the guarding of the coast. (3) Seizing Sicily, as we have said, and admitting into his army slaves and runaways, he had raised his legions to their full complement. He supported himself and his army on plunder, and through the agency of Menas and Menecrates, his father’s freedmen, who were in charge of his fleet, he infested the seas by predatory and piratical expeditions; nor was he ashamed thus to infest with piracy and its atrocities the sea which had been freed from it by his father’s arms and leadership.
[74] (1) After the defeat of the party of Brutus and Cassius, Antony remained behind with the intention of visiting the provinces beyond the sea. Caesar returned to Italy, which he found in a much more troubled condition than he had expected. (2) Lucius Antonius, the consul, who shared the faults of his brother but possessed none of the virtues which he occasi
onally showed, by making charges against Caesar before the veterans at one moment, and at the next inciting to arms those who had lost their farms when the division of lands was ordered and colonists assigned, had collected a large army. In another quarter Fulvia, the wife of Antony, who had nothing of the woman in her except her sex, was creating general confusion by armed violence. (3) She had taken Praeneste as her base of operations; Antonius, beaten on all sides by the forces of Caesar, had taken refuge in Perusia; Plancus, who abetted the faction of Antony, offered the hope of assistance, rather than gave actual hel Thanks to his own valour and his usual good fortune, Caesar succeeded in storming Perusia. He released Antonius unharmed; and the cruel treatment of the people of Perusia was due rather to the fury of the soldiery than to the wish of their commander. The city was burned. The fire was begun by Macedonicus, a leading man of the place who, after setting fire to his house and contents, ran himself through with his sword and threw himself into the flames.
[75] (1) At the same period war broke out in Campania at the instigation of the ex-praetor and pontiff, Tiberius Claudius Nero, father of Tiberius Caesar, and a man of noble character and high intellectual training, who now came forward as the protector of those who had lost their lands. This war also was quickly extinguished and its embers scattered by the arrival of Caesar.
(2) Who can adequately express his astonishment at the changes of fortune, and the mysterious vicissitudes in human affairs? Who can refrain from hoping for a lot different from that which he now has, or from dreading the one that is the opposite of what he expects? (3) Take for example Livia. She, the daughter of the brave and noble Drusus Claudianus, most eminent of Roman women in birth, in sincerity, and in beauty, she, whom we later saw as the wife of Augustus, and as his priestess and daughter after his deification, was then a fugitive before the arms and forces of the very Caesar who was soon to be her husband, carrying in her bosom her infant of two years, the present emperor Tiberius Caesar, destined to be the defender of the Roman empire and the son of this same Caesar. Pursuing by-paths that she might avoid the swords of the soldiers, and accompanied by but one attendant, so as the more readily to escape detection in her flight, she finally reached the sea, and with her husband Nero made her escape by ship to Sicily.
Complete Works of Velleius Paterculus Page 24