[-20-] When this had been accomplished, Lepidus remained there, as I have said, to take up the administration of the City and of the rest of Italy, and Caesar and Antony started on their campaign.  Brutus and Cassius had at first, after the compact made by them with Antony and the rest, gone into the Forum and discharged the activities of praetorship with the same diligence as before.

[B.C. 44 (a. u. 710)]

But when some began to be displeased at the killing of Caesar, they withdrew, pretending to be in haste to reach the governorships abroad to which they had been appointed.  Cassius, who was praetor urbanus,[29] had not yet finished his duties in connection with the Ludi Apollinares.  However, though absent he accomplished that task most brilliantly through the medium of his fellow-praetor Antony, and did not himself sail away from Italy at once, but lingered with Brutus in Campania, to watch the course of events.  And in their capacity as praetors they sent a certain number of letters to Rome to the people, until such time as Caesar Octavianus began to aspire to public position and to win the affections of the populace.  Then, in despair of the republic and fear of him, they set sail.  The Athenians gave them a splendid reception; for though they were indeed honored by nearly everybody else for what they had done, the inhabitants of this city voted them bronze images beside that of Harmodius and that of Aristogeiton, as having emulated them. [-21-] Meanwhile, learning that Caesar was making progress they neglected the Cretans and Bithynians, to whom they were directing their course, for among them they saw no aid forthcoming worthy the name:  but they turned to Syria and to Macedonia, which did not, to be sure, appertain to them in the least, because they were teeming with money and troops for the occasion.  Cassius proceeded to the Syrian country, because its inhabitants were acquainted with him and friendly as a result of his campaign with Crassus, while Brutus united Greece and Macedonia.  The inhabitants would have followed him anywhere because of the glory of his deeds and in the hope of similar achievements, and they were further influenced by the fact that he had acquired numerous soldiers, some survivors of the battle of Pharsalus, who were still at this time wandering about in that region, and others who either by reason of disease or because of want of discipline had been left behind from the contingent that took the field with Dolabella.  Money came to him, too, from Trebonius in Asia.  So without the least effort, perhaps because it contained no force worth mentioning, he by this means gained the country of Greece.  He reached Macedonia at the time that Gaius Antonius had just arrived and Quintus Hortensius, who had governed it previously, was about to lay down his office.  However, he experienced no trouble.  The departing official embraced his cause at once, and Antonius was weak, being hindered by Caesar’s supremacy in Rome from performing any of the duties belonging to his office.  The neighboring territory of Illyricum was governed by Vatinius, who came thence to Dyrrachium and occupied it in advance.  He was a political adversary of Brutus, but could not injure him at all, for his soldiers, who disliked him and furthermore despised him by reason of a disease, went over to the other side.