because he had equipped them at his own cost for her defence:  second, that both his soldiers and those that had abandoned Antony should have the privilege of not fighting in any other war and that land should be given them at once.  To Antony they sent an embassy which should order him to give up the legions, leave Gaul, and withdraw into Macedonia—­and to his followers they issued a proclamation to return home before a given day or to know that they would occupy the position of enemies.  Moreover they removed the senators who had received from him governorships over the provinces and resolved that others should be sent in their place.  These measures were ratified at that time.  Not long after, before learning his decision, they voted that a state of rebellion existed, changed their senatorial garb, gave charge of the war against him to the consuls and Caesar (a kind of pretorian office), and ordered Lepidus and Lucius Munatius Plancus, who was governing a portion of Transalpine Gaul, to render assistance.

[-30-] In this way did they themselves furnish an excuse for hostility to Antony, who was without this anxious to make war.  He was pleased to receive news of the decrees and forthwith violently reproached the envoys with not treating him rightly or fairly as compared with the youth (meaning Caesar).  He also sent others in his turn, so as to put the blame of the war upon the senators, and make some counter-propositions which saved his face but were impossible of performance by Caesar and those who sided with him.  He intended not to fulfill one of their demands, well aware that they too would not take up with anything that he submitted.  He promised, however, that he would do all that they had determined, that he himself might have a refuge in saying that he would have done it, while at the same time his opponent’s party would be before him in becoming responsible for the war, by refusing the terms he laid before them.  In fine, he said that he would abandon Gaul and disband his legions, if they would grant these soldiers the same rewards as they had voted to Caesar’s and would elect Cassius and Marcus Brutus consuls.  He brought in the names of these men in his request with the purpose that they should not harbor any ill-will toward him for his operations against their fellow-conspirator Decimus.

[-31-] Antony made these offers knowing well that neither of them would be acted upon.  Caesar would never have endured that the murderers of his father should become consuls or that Antony’s soldiers by receiving the same as his own should feel still more kindly toward his rival.  Nor, as a matter of fact, were his offers ratified, but they again declared war on Antony and gave notice to his associates to leave him, appointing a different day.  All, even such as were not to take the field, arrayed themselves in military cloaks, and they committed to the consuls the care of the city, attaching to the decree the customary clause “to the end that it suffer