DIO’S

ROMAN HISTORY

47

The following is contained in the Forty-seventh of Dio’s Rome: 

How Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus came to Rome and instituted a reign of slaughter (chapters 1-19).

About Brutus and Cassius and what they did before the battle of Philippi (chapters 20-36).

How Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Caesar and perished (chapters 37-49).

Duration of time, the remainder of the consulship of Gaius Vibius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, together with one additional year, in which there were the following magistrates here enumerated: 

M. Aemilius M.F.  Lepidus cos. (II), L. Munatius L.F.  Plancus. (B.C. 42 = a. u. 712.)

(BOOK 47, BOISSEVAIN.)

[B.C. 43 (a. u. 711)]

[-1-] After forming these compacts and taking mutual oaths they hastened to Rome under the assumption that they were all going to rule on equal terms, but each one had the intention of getting the entire power himself.  Yet they had learned in advance very clearly before this, but most plainly at this time, what would be the future.  In the case of Lepidus a serpent coiled about a centurion’s sword and a wolf that entered his camp and his tent while he was eating dinner and knocked down the table indicated at once power and disappointment as a result of power:  in that of Antony milk flowing about the ramparts and a kind of chant echoing about at night signified gladness of heart and destruction succeeding it.  These portents befell them before they entered Italy.  In Caesar’s case at the very time after the covenant had been made an eagle settled upon his tent and killed two crows that attacked it and tried to pluck out its feathers,—­a sign which granted him victory over his two rivals.

[-2-] So they came to Rome, first Caesar, then the others, each one separately, with all their soldiers, and immediately through the tribunes enacted such laws as pleased them.  The orders they gave and force that they used thus acquired the name of law and furthermore brought them supplications; for they required to be besought earnestly when they were to pass any measures.  Consequently sacrifices were voted for them as if for good fortune and the people changed their attire as if they had secured prosperity, although they were considerably terrified by the transactions and still more by omens.  For the standards of the army guarding the city were covered with spiders, and weapons were seen reaching up from earth to heaven while a great din resounded from them, and in the shrines of Aesculapius bees gathered in numbers on the roof and crowds of vultures settled on the temple of the Genius Populi and on that of Concord. [-3-] And while these conditions still remained practically unchanged, those murders by proscription which Sulla had once caused were put into effect and the whole city was filled with corpses.  Many were killed