Book CXVII
Caius Octavius came to Rome from Epirus, whither Cæsar had sent him to conduct the war in Macedonia; and, having received favourable omens, assumed the name of Cæsar. In the confusion and bustle of affairs, Lepidus procured the office of chief priest. But when Marcus Antonius, the consul, governed with violence, and forcibly caused a law to be passed respecting the change of provinces; and had also given very injurious treatment to Cæsar, when he requested that he would assist him in punishing the murderers of his uncle; Cæsar, to strengthen himself and the commonwealth against him, called out the veteran soldiers, who had been settled in the colonies. The fourth and Martian legions also deserted from Antony to Cæsar. Afterwards also very many revolted to Caasar, on account of the cruelty of Antony, who slaughtered every where in their own camps even those whom he suspected. Decimus Brutus, in order to stop Antonius on his way into Cisalpine Gaul, seized Mutina with his army. This book contains also the history of the attempts of both parties to possess themselves of the provinces, and of the preparations for war.
Book CXVIII
Marcus Brutus, in Greece, under the pretext of supporting the commonwealth, and the war against Antonius, managed to get the command of Vatinius’ army and province. [Y. R. 709. B. C. 43.] To Cæsar, who had first undertaken to defend the commonwealth by arms, was given the authority of proprætor, with consular ornaments by the senate, and it was added that he should be enrolled a senator. Marcus Antonius besieged Brutus at Mutina; and the ambassadors sent to him by the senate, with a treaty of peace, met with little success in effecting it. The people of Rome assumed the military habit. Marcus Brutus reduced under his power Caius Antonius, the prætor, together with the army which he commanded in Epirus.
Book CXIX
By the treachery of Publius Dolabella, Caius Trebonius was slain in Asia: for which crime the senate voted Dolabella to be a public enemy. When Pansa, one of the consuls, had fought unsuccessfully against Antony, Aulus Hirtius, the other consul, coming up with his army, equalized the fortune of either party, the forces of Antony being routed. Antonius, afterwards being conquered by Hirtius and Cæsar, fled into Gaul, and joined to himself Marcus Lepidus, together with the legions which were under him, and was declared a public enemy by the senate, together with all his associates. Aulus Hirtius, who, after his victory, was slain in the enemy’s camp, and Lucius Pansa, who died of a wound received in an unsuccessful battle, were buried in the Campus Martius. To Cæsar, the only surviving general of the three, the senate showed but little gratitude; for a triumph was voted to Decimus Brutus, who was relieved from the siege of Mutina by Cæsar. They did not mention with sufficient gratitude Cæsar and his soldiers, wherefore Caius Cæsar, having, by the intervention of Marcus Lepidus, renewed his friendly relation with Marcus Antonius, came with his army to Rome, and those who had been unjust to him, being struck with dread at his approach, he was elected consul in his nineteenth year.
Book CXX
Cæsar, the consul, introduced a law to hold an inquiry into the case of those by whose instigation his father had been murdered, and Marcus Brutus, Caius Cassius, and Decimus Brutus having been tried by this law, were condemned, though absent. When Asinius Pollio and Munatius Plancus, having also joined their forces to those of Antonius, had increased his strength, and when Decimus Brutus, to whom the senate had given orders to pursue Antony, being deserted by the legions under his command, had fled, he was killed by Capenus Sequanus, by order of Antonius, into whose hands he had fallen. Caius Cæsar became reconciled to Antonius and Lepidus, so that he and Lepidus and Antony formed a triumvirate for the administration of the republic for five years, and that they should proscribe each his particular enemies, in which proscription were included very many of the equestrian order, and one hundred and thirty senators; among whom were Lucius Paulus, the brother of Lepidus, Lucius Cæsar, Antony’s uncle, and Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose head and right hand were placed on the rostrum, when he was murdered in his sixty-third year by Popilius, a legionary soldier. This book also contains an account of the transactions of Brutus in Greece.
Book CXXI
Caius Cassius, having received orders from the senate to pursue Dolabella, who had been pronounced a public enemy, acting under the sanction of the state, reduced Syria under his authority by means of the three armies which were in that province, and besieging Dolabella, in Laodicea, put him to death. Caius Antonius, having been taken, was also slain by order of Marcus Brutus.
Book CXXII
Marcus Brutus fought unsuccessfully with the Thracians. Afterwards all the provinces beyond sea, together with the armies in them, having been brought into obedience to him and Cassius, they met at Smyrna, to hold a council relative to the war which they were about to engage in. [Y. R. 710. B. C. 42.] They agreed in pardoning Publicola, the brother of Marcus Messala, who had been conquered.
Book CXXIII
Sextus, son of Pompey the Great, having assembled a considerable number of the proscribed Romans, and other fugitives, in Epirus, wandering about for a long time, subsisting chiefly by piracy; at length he seized first on Messana in Sicily, and afterwards on the whole province; and having killed Aulus Pompeius Bithynicus, the prætor, he defeated Quintus Salvidienus, a general of Cæsar’s, in a sea-fight. Cæsar and Antonius, with their armies, passed over into Greece, to make war against Brutus and Cassius. Quintus Cornificius conquered, in a battle in Africa, Titus Sestius, the leader of Cassius’ party.
Book CXXIV
Caius Cæsar and Antony fought an undecisive battle with Brutus and Cassius at Philippi; in which the right wing of each army was victorious; and on both sides the camps were taken: the death of Cassius turned the scale of fortune; for, being at the head of that wing which was beaten, he supposed his whole army routed, and killed himself. Afterwards, in another battle, Brutus, being overcome, put an end to his life, in his fortieth year, after entreating Strabo, the companion of his flight, to drive a sword through him. Many others slew themselves, among whom was Quintus Hortensius.
Book CXXV
Cæsar, [Y. R. 711. B. C. 41,] leaving Antonius to take care of the provinces beyond the sea, returned to Italy, and made a distribution of lands among the veterans. He represses, with great risk, a mutiny among his soldiers, who, being bribed by Fulvia, the wife of Marcus Antonius, conspired against their general. Lucius Antonius, the consul, influenced by Fulvia, made war upon Cæsar, having taken to his assistance those whose lands Cæsar had distributed among his veteran soldiers: and having overthrown Lepidus, who, with an army, had charge of the defence of the city, he entered it in a hostile manner.
Book CXXVI
Cæsar, now twenty-three years of age, [Y. R. 712. B. C. 40,] besieged Antonius in Perusia, and forced him, after several ineffectual attempts to escape, to surrender through famine, and pardoned him and all his soldiers. He razed Perusia to the ground and terminated the war without bloodshed, all the forces of the enemy having been brought under his own power.
Book CXXVII
The Parthians, who had joined the Pompeian party, under the command of Labienus, invaded Syria, and having beaten Decidius Saxa, a lieutenant-general under Antonius, seized that whole province. When Marcus Antonius was excited to dispute with Cæsar by his wife Fulvia, having dismissed her, lest she should mar the concord of the generals, and having concluded a treaty of peace with Cæsar, he married his sister Octavia. He himself informed against Quintus Salvidienus, who was forming a villanous combination against Cæsar, who, having been condemned, committed suicide. [Y. R. 713. B. C. 39.] Publius Ventidius, the lieutenant of Antony, drove the Parthians from Syria, having conquered them in battle, their general, Labienus, having been slain. When Sextus Pompey held Sicily, (being hostilely disposed, and near to Italy,) and obstructed the commerce in corn, at his own request Cæsar and Antony entered into a treaty of peace, so that he was made governor of Sicily. This book contains also the history of the commotions and war in Africa.
Book CXXVIII
[Y. R. 714. B. C. 38.] When Sextus Pompeius had again infested the sea with his piracies, nor kept the peace which he had solicited, Cæsar, being obliged to make war upon him, fought against him in two indecisive sea-engagements, [Y. R. 715. B. C. 37.] Publius Ventidius, the lieutenant of Marcus Antonius, overthrew the Parthians in battle, in Syria, and killed their king. [Y. R. 716. B. C. 36.] Antonius’s generals vanquished the Jews also. This book contains also the account of the preparations for war in Sicily.
Book CXXIX
Several battles were fought at sea, with Sextus Pompeius, with various success; of Cæsar’s two fleets, one under the command of Agrippa gained a victory; the other, led by Cæsar himself, was cut off; and his soldiers, being sent on shore, were exposed to great dangers. Pompeius, being afterwards defeated, fled into Sicily. Marcus Lepidus, who came from Africa, under the pretext of joining Cæsar in the war which he was about to wage against Sextus Pompeius, when he declared war against Cæsar himself, being deserted by his army, and deprived of the honour of the triumvirate, obtained his life. Cæsar conferred a naval crown upon Agrippa, an honour never before bestowed on any commander.
Book CXXX
Marcus Antonius, having spent much time in luxurious indulgence with Cleopatra, having arrived late in Media, with eighteen legions and sixteen thousand horse, made war upon the Parthians. When, having lost two of his legions, nothing prospered with him, he retreated to Armenia; being pursued by the Parthians, he fled three hundred miles in twenty-one days, great trepidation and danger encompassing his whole army. He lost about eight thousand men by tempests; he was himself the cause, as well of the losses by the tempests, as of the unfortunate Parthian war; for he would not winter in Armenia, being in haste to revisit Cleopatra.
Book CXXXI
Sextus Pompeius, [Y. R. 717. B. C. 35,] notwithstanding his engagements to Marcus Antonius, endeavoured to raise a war against him in Asia, and was slain by one of Antonius’s generals. [Y. R. 718. B. C. 34.] Cæsar repressed a mutiny of the veterans, which threatened much mischief; he subdued the Japidæ, the Dalmatians, and Pannonians. [Y. R. 179. B. C. 33.] Antonius, having, by promises of safety and protection, induced Artavardes, king of Armenia, to come to him, commanded him to be thrown into chains, and gave the kingdom of Armenia to his own son, whom he had by Cleopatra, whom he now treated as his wife, having been long enamoured of her.
Book CXXXII
Cæsar conquered the Dalmatians in Illyria. [Y. R. 720. B. C. 32.] He passed over to Epirus at the head of an army [Y. R. 721. B. C. 31] against Antonius, who, fascinated by the love of Cleopatra, by whom he had two sons, Alexander and Philadelphus, would neither come to Rome, nor, the time of his triumvirate being expired, would resign that office; but meditated war, which he should wage against Rome and Italy, and for that purpose was preparing great forces both by sea and land, having also divorced Octavia, Cæsar’s sister. Sea-fights, and battles on land between the cavalry, in which Cæsar was victorious, are recorded.
Book CXXXIII
After his fleet had been vanquished by Cæsar at Actium, Antonius escaped to Alexandria, where, being besieged by Cæsar, in desperation, induced principally by a false rumour of the death of Cleopatra, he committed suicide. Cæsar having reduced Alexandria, [Y. R. 722. B. C. 30,] Cleopatra, to avoid falling into his hands, having put herself to death, on his return to Rome triumphs three times: first, over Illyria; secondly, on account of the victory at Actium; and, thirdly, over Cleopatra: the civil wars being thus terminated, after they had lasted one-and-twenty years, [Y. R. 723. B. C. 29.] Marcus Lepidus, the son of Lepidus, who was of the triumvirate, forming a conspiracy against Cæsar, was taken and killed.
Book CXXXIV
Cæsar, having settled the affairs of the state, [Y. R. 724. B. C. 28,] and reduced all the provinces to exact order, received the surname of Augustus; and the month Sextilis was named, in honour of him, August. [Y. R. 725. B. C. 27.] Cæsar having called a meeting of the states at Narbo, a census was made of the three Gauls, which were conquered by his father. The war against the Bastarnians, Mœsians, and other nations, under the conduct of Marcus Crassus, is described in this book.
Book CXXXV
The war carried on by Marcus Crassus against the Thracians, and by Cæsar against the Spaniards, is recorded in this book. [Y. R. 729. B. C. 23.] The Salassians, a people of the Alps, were subdued.
Book CXXXVI
Rhætia was subdued by Tiberius Nero and Drusus, the step-sons of Cæsar. Agrippa, Cæsar’s son-in-law, died. The census was held by Drusus.
Book CXXXVII
The states of Germany, situated on either side of the Rhine, are attacked by Drusus. The insurrections, excited by the taxes levied in Gaul, were suppressed, [Y. R. 740. B. C. 12.] An altar was dedicated to Cæsar at the confluence of the Arar and the Rhone, by Caius Julius Vercundaris Dubius, an Æduan, appointed priest for that purpose.
Book CXXXVIII
That the Thracians were subdued by Lucius Piso; [Y. R. 741. B. C. 11;] also the Cheruscans, Tenetherans, Cattians, and other nations beyond the Rhine, by Drusus, is recorded in this book. Octavia, Augustus’s sister, died, having before lost her son, Marcellus; a theatre and portico, dedicated in his name, form his monument.
Book CXXXIX
[Y. R. 742. B. C. 10.] The war against the nations beyond the Rhine, conducted by Drusus, is recorded in this book: the chief actors in it were Senectius and Anectius, military tribunes, belonging to the Nervians. Nero, the brother of Drusus, subdued the Dalmatians and Pannonians. Peace was concluded with Parthia, the standards which were taken from Crassus, and afterwards from Antonius, being restored by their king.