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3These men, then, fared in the manner described. The mass of Antony’s soldiers was incorporated in Caesar’s legions, and he later sent back to Italy the citizens of both forces who were over the military age, without giving them anything, and scattered the rest. 2For they had caused him to fear them in Sicily after his victory there, and he was afraid they might create a disturbance again; hence he made haste, before they gave the least sign of an uprising, to discharge some entirely from the service and to scatter the majority of the others. 3As he was still at this time suspicious of the freedmen, he remitted to them the fourth payment which they still owed of the money levied upon them. So they no longer bore him any grudge because of what had been taken from them, but rejoiced as if they had actually received the amount they had been relieved from contributing. 4The men still left in the rank and file also made no trouble, partly because they were held in check by their commanders, but chiefly because of their hopes of gaining the wealth of Egypt. The men, however, who had helped Caesar to gain his victory and had been dismissed from the service were irritated at having obtained no reward, and not much later they began to mutiny. 5But Caesar was suspicious of them and, since he feared that Maecenas, to whom on this occasion also Rome and the rest of Italy had been entrusted, would be despised by them inasmuch as he was only a knight, he sent Agrippa to Italy, ostensibly on some other mission. He also gave to Agrippa and to Maecenas so great authority in all matters that they might even read beforehand the letters which he wrote to the senate and to others and then change whatever they wished in them. 6To this end they also received from him a ring, so that they might be able to seal the letters again. For he had caused to be made in duplicate the seal which he used most at that time, the design being a sphinx, the same on each copy; since it was not till later that he had his own likeness engraved upon his seal and sealed everything with that. 7It was this latter that the emperors who succeeded him employed, except Galba, who adopted a seal which his ancestors had used, its device being a dog looking out of a ship’s prow. It was the custom of Caesar in writing to these two ministers and to his other intimate friends, whenever there was need of giving them secret information, to substitute in each case for the appropriate letter in a word the letter next in order after it.
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