[-1-] After forming these compacts and taking mutual oaths they hastened to Rome under the assumption that they were all going to rule on equal terms, but each one had the intention of getting the entire power himself. Yet they had learned in advance very clearly before this, but most plainly at this time, what would be the future. In the case of Lepidus a serpent coiled about a centurion's sword and a wolf that entered his camp and his tent while he was eating dinner and knocked down the table indicated at once power and disappointment as a result of power: in that of Antony milk flowing about the ramparts and a kind of chant echoing about at night signified gladness of heart and destruction succeeding it. These portents befell them before they entered Italy. In Caesar's case at the very time after the covenant had been made an eagle settled upon his tent and killed two crows that attacked it and tried to pluck out its feathers,--a sign which granted him victory over his two rivals. [-2-] So they came to Rome, first Caesar, then the others, each one separately, with all their soldiers, and immediately through the tribunes enacted such laws as pleased them. The orders they gave and force that they used thus acquired the name of law and furthermore brought them supplications; for they required to be besought earnestly when they were to pass any measures. Consequently sacrifices were voted for them as if for good fortune and the people changed their attire as if they had secured prosperity, although they were considerably terrified by the transactions and still more by omens. For the standards of the army guarding the city were covered with spiders, and weapons were seen reaching up from earth to heaven while a great din resounded from them, and in the shrines of Aesculapius bees gathered in numbers on the roof and crowds of vultures settled on the temple of the Genius Populi and on that of Concord. [-3-] And while these conditions still remained practically unchanged, those murders by proscription which Sulla had once caused were put into effect and the whole city was filled with corpses. Many were killed in their houses, many in the streets, and scattered about in the fora and near the temples: the heads of such were once more attached to the rostra and their trunks flung out to be devoured by the dogs and birds or cast into the river. Everything that had been done before in the days of Sulla found a counterpart at this time, except that only two white tablets were posted, one for the senators and one for the rest. The reason for this I have not been able to learn from any one else nor to find out myself. The cause which one might have imagined, that fewer were put to death, is least of all true: for many more names were listed, because there were more leaders concerned. In this respect, then, the case differed from the murders that had earlier taken place: but that the names of those prominent were not posted with the rabble, but separately,