Roman History, 44.51

Cassius Dio  translated by Earnest Cary

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51After this, when the consuls forbade any one except the soldiers to carry arms, they refrained from bloodshed, but set up an altar on the site of the pyre (for the freedmen of Caesar had previously taken up his bones and deposited them in the family tomb), and undertook to sacrifice upon it and to offer victims to Caesar, as to a god. 2But the consuls overthrew this altar and punished some who showed displeasure at the act, at the same time publishing a law that no one should ever again be dictator and invoking curses and proclaiming death as the penalty upon any man who should propose or support such a measure, besides openly setting a price upon the heads of any such. 3This provision they made for the future, assuming that the shamefulness of men’s deeds consists in the titles they bear, whereas these deeds really arise from their possession of armed forces and from the character of the individual incumbent of the office, and disgrace the titles of authority under which they chance to occur; 4but for the time being they sent out immediately to the colonies such as held allotments of land already assigned by Caesar, out of fear that they might begin an uprising, while of the assassins they sent out those who had obtained governorships to the provinces, and the rest to various places on one pretext or another; and these men were honoured by many as their benefactors.

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