Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
XV. For this reason Brutus and his party left the city, and the friends
of Cæsar joined Antonius; and Cæsar's wife Calpurnia trusting to him had
the chief part of the treasures transferred to Antonius from her house,
to the amount in all of four thousand talents. He received also the
writings of Cæsar, in which there were entries made of what he had
determined and decreed; and Antonius inserting entries in them, named
many to offices just as he pleased, and many he named senators, and he
restored some who were in exile and released others who were in prison,
as if Cæsar had determined all this. Wherefore the Romans by way of
mockery named all these persons Charonitæ,[351] because when they were
put to the proof they had to take refuge in the memoranda of the
deceased. And Antonius managed everything else as if he had full power,
being consul himself, and having his brothers also in office, Gaius as
prætor and Lucius as tribune.
XVI. While affairs were in this state, young Cæsar[352] arrived at Rome,
being the son of the niece of the deceased, as it has been told, and
left the heir of his substance; and he was staying in Apollonia at the
time of Cæsar's assassination. He went forthwith to pay his respects to
Antonius, as being his father's friend, and reminded him of the money
deposited with him; for he had to pay to every Roman seventy-five
drachmæ, which Cæsar had given by his will. Antonius, at first despising
his youth, said that he was not in his senses, and that being destitute
of all sound reason and friends he was taking up the succession of
Cæsar, which was a burden too great for him to bear; but as Cæsar did
not yield to these arguments and demanded the money, Antonius went on
saying and doing many things to insult him. For he opposed him in
seeking a tribuneship, and when he was preparing to set up a golden
chair of his father, as it had been voted by the Senate, he threatened
to carry him off to prison, if he did not stop his attempts to win the
popular favour. But when the youth, by giving himself up to Cicero and
the rest who hated Antonius, by means of them made the Senate his
friends, and he himself got the favour of the people and mustered the
soldiers from the colonies,[353] Antonius being alarmed came to a
conference with him in the Capitol, and they were reconciled. Antonius
in his sleep that night had a strange dream; he thought that his right
hand was struck by lightning; and a few days after a report reached him
that Cæsar was plotting against him. Cæsar indeed made an explanation,
but he did not convince Antonius; and their enmity was again in full
activity, and both of them roaming about Italy endeavoured to stir up by
large pay the soldiers who were planted in the colonies, and to
anticipate one another in gaining over those who were still under arms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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