no harm.”  And since there was need of large funds for the war, they all contributed the twenty-fifth part of the property they owned and the senators also four asses[19] per tile of all the houses in the city that they themselves owned or dwelt in belonging to others.  The very wealthy besides donated no little more, while many cities and many individuals manufactured gratuitously weapons and other necessary accoutrements for a campaign.  The public treasury was at that time so empty that not even the festivals which were due to fall during that season were celebrated, except some small ones out of religious scruple. [-32-] These subscriptions were given readily by those who favored Caesar and hated Antony.  The majority, however, being oppressed by the campaigns and the taxes at once were irritated, particularly because it was doubtful which of the two would conquer but quite evident that they would be slaves of the conqueror.  Many of those, therefore, that wished Antony well, went straight to him, among them tribunes and a few praetors:  others remained in their places, one of whom was Calenus, but did all that they could for him, some things secretly and other things with an open defence of their conduct.  Hence they did not change their costume immediately, and persuaded the senate to send envoys again to Antony, among them Cicero:  in doing this they pretended that the latter might persuade him to make terms, but their real purpose was that he should be removed from their path.  He too reflected on this possibility and becoming alarmed would not venture to expose himself in the camp of Antony.  As a result none of the other envoys set out either.

[-33-] While this was being done portents of no small moment again occurred, significant for the City, and for the consul Vibius himself.  In the last assembly before they set out for the war a man with the so-called sacred disease[20] fell down while Vibius was speaking.  Also a bronze statue of him which stood at the porch of his house turned around of itself on the day and at the hour that he started on the campaign, and the sacrifices customary before war could not be interpreted by the seers by reason of the quantity of blood.  Likewise a man who was just then bringing him a palm slipped in the blood which had been shed, fell, and defiled the palm.  These were the portents in his case.  Now if they had befallen him when a private citizen, they would have pertained to him alone, but since he was consul they had a bearing on all alike.  They included the following incidents:  the figure of the Mother of the Gods on the Palatine formerly facing the east turned around of its own accord to the west; that of Minerva held in honor near Mutina, where the most fighting was going on, sent forth after this a quantity of blood and milk; furthermore the consuls took their departure just before the Feriae Latinae; and there is no case where this happened that the forces fared well.  So at this time, too, both the consuls and a vast multitude of the people perished, some immediately and some later, and also many of the knights and senators, including the most prominent.  For in the first place the battles, and in the second place the assassinations at home which occurred again as in the Sullan regime, destroyed all the flower of them except those actually concerned in the murders.