Y.R. B. C. 710 neither glory, nor any kind of honor, nor confirmation of 44 his acts would have been possible; who could make no valid will, have no son, nor any burial of his body, even as a private citizen. The laws provide that the bodies of tyrants shall be cast out unburied, their memory stigmatized, and their property confiscated. 19. "Apprehending all of these consequences, I entered the lists for Cæsar, for his immortal honor, and his public funeral, not without danger, not without incurring hatred to myself, contending against hot-headed, blood-thirsty men, who, as you know, had already conspired to kill me; and against the Senate, which was displeased with your father on account of his usurped authority. But I willingly chose to incur these dangers and to suffer anything rather than allow Cæsar to remain unburied and dishonoredthe most valiant man of his time, the most fortunate in every respect, and the one to whom the highest honors were due from me. It is by reason of the dangers I incurred that you enjoy your present distinction as the successor of Cæsar, his family, his name, his dignity, his wealth. It was more becoming in you to testify your gratitude to me for these things than to reproach me for concessions made to soothe the Senate, or in compensation for what I demanded of it, or in pursuance of other needs or reasons you a younger man addressing an older one. But enough of that. You hint that I am ambitious of the leadership. I am not ambitious of it, although I do not consider myself unworthy of it. You think that I am distressed because I was not mentioned in Cæsar's will, though you agree with me that the family of the Heraclidæ is enough to content one. 20. "As to your pecuniary needs and your wishing to borrow from the public funds, I should think you must be joking, unless we might believe that you are still ignorant of the fact that the public treasury was left empty by your father. After he assumed the government the public revenues were brought to him instead of to the treasury, and they will presently be found among Cæsar's assets when we vote an investigation into these matters. This will not be unjust to Cæsar now that he is dead, nor would he say that it was unjust if he were living and were asked for the ac Y.R. 710 Counts. B. C. And as there will be many private persons to dis- 44 pute with you concerning single pieces of property, you may assume that this portion will not be uncontested. The money transferred to my house was not so large a sum as you conjecture, nor is any part of it in my custody now. The men in power and authority, except Dolabella and my brothers, divided up the whole of it straightway as the property of a tyrant, but were brought around by me to support the decrees in favor of Cæsar,1 and you, if you are wise, when you get possession of the remainder, will distribute it among those who are disaffected toward you rather than among the people. The former, if they are in harmony with you,2 will send the people, who are to be colonized, away to their settlements. The people, however, as you ought to have learned from the Greek studies you have been lately pursuing, are as unstable as the waves of the sea, now advancing, now retreating. In like manner, among us also, the people are forever exalting their favorites, and casting them down again." CHAPTER III Disagreement between Antony and Octavius - Litigation over Cæsar's Estate - Growing Popularity of Octavius — Dolabella proceeds to Syria Antony schemes to get Command of the Army in Macedonia - Dolabella puts Trebonius to Death 21. Feeling outraged by the many insulting things said by Antony, Octavius went away, invoking his father re 1 The truth was that Antony paid his own debts with Caesar's money. So Cicero tells us in the second Philippic. "Where," he asks, " are the seven hundred million sesterces that were registered at the temple of Ops? His money was indeed a cause for mourning, yet if it was not to be returned to the rightful owners it might relieve us from taxes. you owed four million sesterces on the Ides of March. How did it happen that you were free from debt on the Kalends of April?" (Phil. ii. 37.) But 2 ἂν συμφρονῶσι: to which Schweighäuser adds σοι. All the codices except one read σwopovŵol, i.e., "if they are wise." The Teubner edition adheres to the latter reading; the Didot to the former. I have preferred the former because it gives point to Antony's advice. It fur Y.R. B. C.. 710 peatedly by name, and offered for sale all the property 44 which had come to him by the inheritance, at the same time exhorting the people to stand by him. While this hasty action made manifest Antony's enmity toward him, and the Senate voted an immediate investigation of the public accounts, most of them grew apprehensive of the young Cæsar1 on account of the favor in which his father was held by the soldiers and the plebeians, and on account of his own present popularity based on the expected distribution of the money, and by reason of the wealth which had fallen to him in such vast measure that in the opinion of many he would not restrict himself to the rank of a private citizen. But they were most apprehensive of Antony, lest he should bring the young Cæsar, distinguished and rich as he was, under his own control, and grasp the sovereignty held by the elder Cæsar. Others were delighted with the present state of affairs, believing that the two men would come in conflict with each other; and that the investigation concerning the public money would presently put an end to the wealth of Octavius, and that the treasury would be filled thereby because much of the public property would be found in Cæsar's estate. 22. In the meantime many persons brought lawsuits against Octavius for the recovery of landed property, some making one claim and some another, differing in other respects, but for the most part having this in common, that it had been confiscated from persons who had been banished or put to death by the proscription. These suits were brought before Antonius himself or the other consul, Dolabella. If any were brought before other magistrates, Octavius was worsted through Antony's influence, although he showed by the public records that the purchases had nishes a reason why Octavius should use his money in one way rather than in the other. It would enable him to get rid of his expensive allies. 1 οἱ πολλοὶ ἔδεισαν περὶ τῷ νέῳ Καίσαρι. The word περί implies that they feared for him, i.e., lest some harm should befall him, but as Schweighäuser points out, this idea is not consistent with what follows. A few lines below we read that they were most apprehensive of Antony, ¿ì de 'AvTwví. Accordingly he (S.) thinks we are justified in reading í in both places, although all the codices read repí. VOL. II-Q Y.R. 710 been made by his father,' and that the last decree of the Senate had confirmed all of Cæsar's acts. Great wrongs were done him in these judgments, and the losses in consequence thereof were going on without end, until Pedius and Pinarius, who had a certain portion of the inheritance under Caesar's will, complained to Antony, both for themselves and for Octavius, that they were suffering injustice in violation of the Senate's decree. They thought that he ought to annul only the things done in derogation of Cæsar, and to ratify all that had been done by him. Antony acknowledged that his course was perhaps somewhat contrary to the agreements voted. The decrees also, he said, had been recorded in a sense different from the understanding at the time. While hastily passing a mere decree of amnesty, it had been registered that whatever had been previously determined on should stand unrepealed, not for its own sake, not because it was satisfactory in all respects, but rather to promote good order and to quiet the people, who had been thrown into tumult by these events. It would be more just, he added, to observe the spirit than the letter of the decree, and not to make an unseemly opposition to so many men who had lost their own and their ancestors' property in the civil convulsions, and to do this in favor of a young man who had received an amount of other people's wealth disproportionate to a private station and beyond his hopes, and who was not making good use of his fortune, but employing it in the rashest adventures. He would take care of them (Pedius and Pinarius) after their portion should have been separated from that of Octavius. This was the answer made by Antony to Pedius and Pinarius. So they took their portion immediately, in order not to lose their own share by the lawsuits, and they did this not so much on their own account as on that of Octavius, for they were going to bestow the whole of it upon him soon afterward. 23. The games were now approaching, which Gaius 1 τά τε ὠνήματα τῷ πατρὶ ἐκ τοῦ δημοσίου γενόμενα ἐπιδεικνύς. Schweighäuser, being of the opinion that the words ék Toû dŋuoσíov meant "at the public expense," conceived that the word oux had been accidentally omitted, i.e., Octavius showed that the purchases had been made by his father not with public money. Mendelssohn, with better reason, thinks B.C. 44 Y.R. 1 B. C. 710 Antonius, the brother of Antony, was about to give in 44 behalf of Brutus, the prætor, as he attended also to the other duties of the prætorship which devolved on him in the latter's absence. Lavish expense was incurred in the preparations for them, in the hope that the people, gratified by the spectacle, would recall Brutus and Cassius. Octavius, on the other hand, intrigued against this scheme, distributing the money derived from the sale of his property among the head men of the tribes by turns, to be divided by them among the first comers. He went around to the places where his property was on sale and ordered the auctioneers to announce the lowest possible price for everything, both on account of the uncertainty and danger of the lawsuits still pending, and on account of his own zeal for the people, all of which brought him both popularity and sympathy as one undeserving of such treatment. When, in addition to what he had received as Cæsar's heir, he offered for sale his own property derived from his father Octavius, and whatever he had from other sources, and all that belonged to his mother and to Philippus, and the shares of Pedius and Pinarius which he begged from them, in order to make the distribution to the people (because in consequence of the litigation Cæsar's property was not sufficient even for this purpose), then the people considered it no longer the gift of the elder Cæsar, but of the younger one, and they commiserated him deeply and praised him2 both for what he endured and for what he aspired to be. It was evident that they would not long tolerate the wrong that Antony was doing him. 24. They showed their feelings' clearly while Brutus' games were in progress, lavish as these were. Although a certain number, who had been hired for the purpose, shouted that Brutus and Cassius should be recalled, and the rest of that they mean "by the public scribe." He thinks also that rà výμaτa may possibly signify title deeds, emptionis instrumenta. 1 διὰ τὴν Καίσαρος σπουδήν : this may possibly mean " on account of his own haste," i.e., his own need of money. ... 2 ὁ δῆμος . . . ἠλέει καὶ ἐπῄνουν. Combes-Dounous calls attention to this sentence as a case where a noun in the singular number governs a verb in the singular and another in the plural in the same sentence, as though we should say in English "the people pities and praise him." |