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30In this way they themselves provided Antony with his excuse for hostility, although he was eager to make war in any case. He was glad to seize upon the pretext of the decrees, and straightway reproached the envoys with not treating him rightly or fairly as compared with the lad (meaning Caesar). 2And in order to place the blame for the war upon the senators, he sent an embassy in his turn, and made some counter-propositions which saved his face but were impossible of performance either by Caesar or by his supporters. 3For while he had no intention of carrying out any of the senate’s commands and was well aware that the senators, too, would not do anything that he proposed, he pretended to promise that he would carry out all their decrees, in order not only that he himself might take refuge in asserting that he would have done so, but also that his opponents’ action, in refusing his proposals, might appear to have given the first occasion for war. 4For he said he would abandon Gaul and disband his legions, if they would grant these soldiers the same rewards as they had voted to Caesar’s and would elect Cassius and Marcus Brutus consuls. His purpose in making this last demand was to win over these two men, so that they should not harbour any resentment against him for his operations against their fellow-conspirator Decimus.
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