who still opposed them.  For this last class they had termed likewise enemies because they had not changed their attitude before the appointed day.  So that the whole country outside the towns was also pillaged.  The autocrats allowed the soldiers to do this to the end that, having their pay before the work, they might devote all their energy to their commanders’ interests, and promised to give them cities and lands:  And with this in view they further assigned to them persons to divide the land and settle them.  The mass of the soldiers was made loyal by this course:  of the more prominent they tempted some with the goods of those that had been despatched by lowering the price on certain articles and granting others to them free, and others they honored with the offices and priesthoods of the victims.  The commanders, to make sure that they themselves should get the finest both of lands and buildings and give their followers what they pleased, gave notice that no one else should frequent the auction room unless he wanted to buy something:  whoever did so should die.  And they handled bona fide purchasers in such a way that the latter discovered nothing and paid the very highest price for what they wanted, and consequently had no desire to buy again.

[-15-] This was the course followed in regard to possessions.  As to the offices and priesthoods of such as had been put to death they distributed them not in the fashion prescribed by law but however it suited them.  Caesar resigned the office of consul, giving up willingly that which he had so desired as to make war for it, and his colleague gave up his place, whereupon they appointed Publius Ventidius, though praetor, and one other; and to the former’s praetorship they promoted one of the aediles.  Afterward they removed all the praetors (who held office five days longer than Ventidius) and sent them to be governors of the provinces, while they installed others in their places.  Some laws were abolished and others introduced instead.

And, in brief, they ordered everything else just as seemed good to them.  They did not, to be sure, lay claim to titles which were offensive and had been therefore done away with, but they managed matters according to their own wish and desire, so that Caesar’s sovereignty by comparison appeared all gold.

[B.C. 42 (a. u. 712)]

In addition to transacting that year the business mentioned, they voted a temple to Serapis and Isis. [-16-] When Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Plancus became consuls tablets were again exposed, not bringing death to any one any longer, but defrauding the living of their property.  They were collecting funds because they were in need of more money, due to the fact that they owed large sums to large numbers of soldiers, were expending considerable on works undertaken by the latter, and thought they should lay out far more still on wars in prospect.  The fact that those taxes which had been formerly abrogated were now again