Domitius did not openly attempt any radical measures, since he had had the experience of many calamities.  Sosius, however, had never experienced such evils, and so on the very first day of the month he spoke at length in praise of Antony and inveighed forcibly against Caesar.  Indeed, he would have immediately introduced measures against the latter, had not Nonius Balbus, a tribune, prevented it.  Caesar had suspected what he was going to do and wished neither to permit it to come to pass nor by offering opposition to appear to be commencing war; hence he did not enter the senate at this time nor even live in the city at all, but invented some excuse which took him out of town.  He was not only influenced by the above considerations but desired to deliberate at leisure according to the reports brought to him and decide by mature reflection upon the proper course.  Later he returned and convened the senate; he was surrounded by a guard of soldiers and friends who had daggers concealed, and sitting between the consuls upon his chair of state he spoke at length, and calmly, from where he sat regarding his own position, and brought many accusations against Sosius and Antony.  When neither of the consuls themselves nor any one else ventured to utter a word, he bade them come together again on a specified day, giving them to understand that he would prove by certain documents that Antony was in the wrong.  The consuls did not dare to reply to him and could not endure to be silent, and therefore secretly left the city before the time came for them to appear again; after that they took their way to Antony, followed by not a few of the senators who were left.  Caesar on learning this declared, to prevent its appearing that he had been abandoned by them as a result of some injustice, that he had sent them out voluntarily and that he granted the rest who so wished permission to depart unarmed to Antony.

[-3-] This action of theirs just mentioned was counterbalanced by the arrival of others who had fled from Antony to Caesar—­among them Titius and Plancus, though they were honored by Antony among the foremost and knew all his secrets.  Their desertion was due to some friction between themselves and the Roman leader, or perhaps they were disgusted in the matter of Cleopatra:  at any rate they left soon after the consuls had taken the final step and Caesar in the latter’s absence had convened the senate and read and spoken all that he wished, upon hearing of which Antony assembled a kind of senate from the ranks of his followers, and after considerable talk on both sides of the question took up the war and renounced his connection with Octavia.  Caesar was very glad to receive the pair and learned from them about Antony’s condition, what he was doing, what he had in mind, what was written in his will, and the name of the man that had it; for they had taken part in sealing it.  He became still more violently enraged from this cause and did not shrink