[135] Between the sections 27 and 28 the excerptor has perhaps omitted a portion of his original material. Much of what is told by Nicolaus in section 27 is given in far greater detail than is the case with the other historians. The events related in this chapter, especially the interchange of messengers between Antony and Lepidus and Brutus and Cassius, have been thought to have had a very close connection with the circumstances which occasioned the writing of Cic., Fam., 11, 1, a letter from D. Brutus to M. Brutus and Cassius. O. E. Schmidt, Neue Jahrb. für Philol. und Paed., 129, wishes therefore to date the letter in the morning of March 17; P. Gröbe, Drumann-Gröbe Geschichte Roms, 1^2, p. 411 ff., would place the letter still earlier, on March 16. E. T. Merrill, Class. Philol. 10, p. 241 ff., has now shown that D. Brutus’ allusions to the disposition of Antony and Hirtius toward him may well have been relevant to a later period, and hence he would set the date of the letter as late as April 10, thus approximating Schmidt’s original view, which gave April 5 as the probable time of writing (Die Correspondenz Ciceros in den Jahren 44 und 43, Marburg 1883). It follows therefore that chapter 27 of Nicolaus should not be employed as a criterion on the date of Cic., Fam., 11, 1. 28. [136] Lacuna, which is apparently quite long, for the affairs mentioned in the following belong to June and July, whereas the story of Octavian told before chapter 19 was only of his return to Rome in April. [137] The aedile Critonius is probably referred to (compare App. 3, 28). The proper name may have been lost in the lacuna immediately above. [138] Compare Appian 3, 28; Dio 45, 6; Suetonius, Caes., 88; Plutarch, Ant., 16; Pliny, N. H., 2, 23. Since both Appian and Nicolaus refer to two controversies between Octavian and Antony, of which the second was at the time of the festival of Venus Genetrix in July, the question has arisen as to what the earlier occasion could have been. The ‘ludi Cereales’ are precluded, for Octavian was in Campania during the period in which they were held, April 12-19 (Cic., Att., 14, 12, 2). The ‘ludi Florales’ were given April 28-May 3, and since Cicero on May 22 referred to the episode of the throne (Att. 15, 3, 2) these must have been the games at which Octavian experienced his difficulty for the first time, unless it can be shown that the ‘ludi Cereales’ were postponed for a month, in which event they would have also been completed just prior to Cicero’s letter of May 22.