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46Thus Caesar was chosen consul, and Quintus Pedius was given him as his colleague in office — 2if it is right to call him that and not his subordinate. And Caesar was extremely proud of the fact that he was to be consul at an earlier age than had ever been the lot of any one else, and furthermore that on the first day of the elections, when he entered the Campus Martius, he saw six vultures, and later, while haranguing the soldiers, twelve others. 3For, comparing it with Romulus and the omen that had befallen him, he expected to obtain that king’s sovereignty also. He did not, however, boast of being consul for the second time, merely because of his having already been given the distinction of the consular honours. And his practice was afterwards observed in all similar cases down to our own day, 4the emperor Severus being the first to depart from it; for after honouring Plautianus with the consular honours and later making him a member of the senate and appointing him consul, he proclaimed that Plautianus was entering upon the consulship for the second time, and from that time forth the same thing has been done in other instances. 5Now Caesar arranged affairs in general in the city to suit his taste, and gave money to the soldiers, to some what had been voted from the funds prescribed, and to the rest individually from his private resources, as he claimed, but in reality from the public funds.
6In this way and for the reasons mentioned the soldiers received their money on that occasion. But some men have misunderstood the matter and have thought it was compulsory that the ten thousand sesterces be given always to absolutely all the citizen legions that enter Rome under arms. 7For this reason the followers of Severus who had entered the city to overthrow Julianus became most terrifying both to their leader himself and to us when they demanded this sum; and Severus won their favour with only a thousand sesterces apiece, the other leaders not even being aware of what it was the soldiers were demanding.
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