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So they came to Rome with all their troops, first Caesar and then the others, each one separately, and immediately they enacted through the tribunes the laws they had agreed upon.

For example, Antony had found an enemy in his uncle, Lucius Caesar, and Lepidus in his brother, Lucius Paullus. But though the lives of these men were spared, yet many of the rest were slaughtered even in the houses of their friends and relatives, at whose hands they most confidently expected to be saved and honoured.

These acts were committed chiefly by Lepidus and Antony; for they had been honoured by the former Caesar for many years, and as they had been holding offices and governorships for a long time they had many enemies.

But Caesar seems to have taken part in the business merely because of his sharing the authority, since he himself had no need at all to kill a large number; for he was not naturally cruel and had been brought up in his father’s ways. Moreover, as he was still a young man and had just entered politics, he was under no necessity in any case of hating many persons violently, and, besides, he wished to be loved.

Then she rushed in and informed him of her deed, of which he was still ignorant, brought in the chest itself and produced from it her husband. Caesar, astonished, released all of them—for death was the penalty also for such as concealed anyone—and enrolled Philopoemen among the knights.

So Caesar saved the lives of as many as he could; and Lepidus allowed his brother Paulus to escape to Miletus and was not inexorable toward the others. But Antony killed savagely and mercilessly, not only those whose names had been posted, but likewise those who had attempted to assist any of them.

but the majority directed their flight toward Sextus. For Sextus had formerly been chosen to command the fleet and for a time had dominated the sea, so that he had surrounded himself with a force of his own, even though he had subsequently been deprived of his office by Caesar. He had occupied Sicily, and then, when the order of proscription was passed against him, too, and all the other murders were taking place, he proved of the greatest assistance to those who were in like condition.

And to the populace they once openly stated that they had emulated neither the cruelty of Marius and Sulla, that they should be hated, nor, on the other hand, the mildness of Caesar, that they should be despised and consequently plotted against.

As regards the consulship, when Caesar resigned the office,—thus giving up willingly the position he had so eagerly desired that he had even made war to gain it,—and when his colleague died, they appointed Publius Ventidius, although he was praetor at the time, and another man; and to the praetorship vacated by Ventidius they promoted one of the aediles.

They did not, to be sure, lay claim to titles which were offensive and had therefore been done away with, but they managed matters according to their own wish and desire, so that Caesar’s sovereignty by comparison appeared all gold. ¶ That year, besides doing these things, they voted a temple to Serapis and Isis.

For they had reached such a degree of greed and shamelessness that one man actually asked Caesar himself for the property of Atia, his mother, who had died at that time and had been honoured with a public funeral.

While these three men were behaving in this wise, they were also magnifying the former Caesar to the utmost degree. For as they were eager for sole rulership and were striving for it, they vindictively pursued the rest of the assassins,

They also laid the foundation of a shrine to him, as hero, in the Forum, on the spot where his body had been burned, and caused an image of him, together with a second image, that of Venus, to be carried in the procession at the Circensian games. And whenever news came of a victory anywhere, they assigned the honour of a thanksgiving to the victor by himself and to Caesar, though dead, by himself.

And they compelled everybody to celebrate his birthday by wearing laurel and by merry-making, passing a law that those who neglected these observances should be accursed in the sight of Jupiter and of Caesar himself, and, in the case of senators or senators’ sons, that they should forfeit a million sesterces.

These were the honours which they granted to Caesar; they also allowed the Vestal Virgins to employ one lictor each, because one of them, not being recognised, had been insulted while returning home from dinner toward evening. And they assigned the offices in the city for several years ahead, thus at the same time honouring their friends and strengthening their cause for a longer time by controlling the succession of those officials.