when the order of proscription was passed against him, too, a host of assassinations took place, he aided greatly those who were in like condition.  Anchoring near the coast of Italy he sent word to Rome and to the other cities offering among other things to those who saved anybody double the reward advertised for murdering the same and promising to the men themselves a reception and assistance and money and honors. [-13-] Therefore great numbers came to him.  I have not even now recorded the precise total of those who were proscribed or slaughtered or who escaped, because many names originally inscribed on the tablets were erased and many were later inscribed in their place, and of these not a few were saved while many outside of these succumbed.  It was not even allowed anybody to mourn for the victims, but several perished from this cause also.  And finally, when the calamities broke through all the pretence they could assume and no one even of the most stout-hearted could any longer wear an air of indifference to them, but in all their work and conversation their countenances were overcast and they were not intending to celebrate the usual festival at the beginning of the year, they were ordered by a public notice to appear in good spirits, on pain of death if they should refuse to obey.  So they were forced to rejoice over the common evils as over blessings.  Yet why need I have mentioned it, when they voted to those men (the triumvirs, I mean) civic crowns and other distinctions as to benefactors and saviors of the State?  They did not think of being held to blame because they were killing a few, but wished to receive additional praise for not putting more out of the way.  And to the populace they once openly stated that they had emulated neither the cruelty of Marius and Sulla so as to incur hatred, nor the mildness of Caesar so as to be despised and as a result become objects of a conspiracy.

[-14-] Such were the conditions of the murders; but many other unusual proceedings took place in regard to the property of persons left alive.  They actually announced, as if they were just and humane rulers, that they would give to the widows of the slain their dowries, to the male children a tenth, and to the female children a twentieth of the property of each one’s father.  This was not, however, granted save in a few cases:  of the rest all the possessions without exception were ruthlessly plundered.  In the first place they levied upon all the houses in the City and those in the rest of Italy a yearly rent, which was the entire amount from dwellings which people had let, and half from such as they occupied themselves, with reference to the value of the domicile.  Again, from those who had lands they took away half of the proceeds.  Besides, they had the soldiers get their support free from the cities in which they were wintering, and distributed them to various rural districts, pretending that they were sent to take charge of confiscated territory or that of persons