LIVES OF CÆSAR'S PRINCIPAL ADHERENTS. 67 IX. to 710, to 44. who had once himself proposed the very same deed, CHAP. would feel no regret when it was carried into execu- — From tion. But it is not unlikely that some among the U.C. 695 conspirators were actuated by the same motives A.C. 59 which had led Antonius to contemplate the murder of Cæsar; and that it was the creditor rather than the tyrant whom they wished to destroy. Be this as it may, the friends of Cæsar seized largely upon the spoils of the defenders of the Commonwealth; and although in many instances the property thus gained was speedily dissipated, yet the scandal and the suffering occasioned by these proceedings was great and deplorable. the lives of nius. We shall take this opportunity of noticing some Sketch of of those persons who had been Cæsar's principal Caesar's principal supporters in the civil war, and who were now raised adherents. by his victory to the highest situations in the Com- M. Antomonwealth. Of all these, M. Antonius was the most distinguished. He has been, necessarily, often mentioned already in the course of this history; and we have seen that his flight from Rome during his tribuneship, furnished Cæsar with a pretence for commencing his rebellion in the year 704; that he was afterwards intrusted with the government of Italy during Cæsar's absence in Spain in the same year; that he held a high command in Cæsar's army in the subsequent campaign in Greece; and that, after the battle of Pharsalia, he carried the greatest part of the victorious legions back to Italy, and enjoyed the government of that country for the second time till the return of Cæsar from Egypt in IX. From U.C. 695 to 710, A.C. 59 to 44. P. Dolabella. 68 ANTONIUS, DOLABELLA, AND ÆMILIUS LEPIDUS. CHAP. the autumn of 706. He was then named master of the horse to Cæsar in his second dictatorship; but he did not follow him into Africa, and employed himself, during his stay at Rome, in wasting, amidst the grossest excesses, the property which he had purchased at Cæsar's auctions. Next to Antonius we may rank P. Cornelius Dolabella, Cicero's son-inlaw, whose early profligacies and extravagances had led him to join Cæsar at the beginning of his rebellion as the natural patron of men of broken fortunes; who had since fought under him at Pharsalia 128, had distinguished himself by his revolutionary proceedings when tribune, during Cæsar's absence in Egypt, and had afterwards gone with him into Africa, and had served under him through the whole of that campaign. On his return to Italy, after Cæsar's final victory, he appears to have lived in a style of great magnificence, and the excellence of his entertainments is recorded by Cicero 129, who at this time often visited him, and through him, and one or two other friends, maintained a friendly intercourse with M. Æmilius the prevailing party. M. Æmilius Lepidus is entitled to our notice, more from the elevated situation to which circumstances afterwards raised him, than from any merit or abilities of his own. Having been prætor at the beginning of the rebellion, he had remained at Rome when the consuls and the great majority of the senate left it to follow Lepidus. 128 Cicero, Philippic. II. 30. 131 IX. to 710, to 44. Pompey 130; and when Cæsar returned from Spain, CHAP. towards the end of the year 704, Lepidus presided From at the comitia, which conferred on him the office of U.C. 695 dictator. For thus giving the sanction of a lawful A.C. 59 magistrate to Cæsar's proceedings, he was rewarded with the government of the province of Hither Spain which he retained for two years; and having made himself useful in quieting the disturbances occasioned by the unpopularity of Q. Cassius, he received the honours of a triumph on his return to Rome, and was named Cæsar's colleague in the consulship for the year 707. This dignity he was now enjoying; and when Cæsar again set out for Spain, at the close of the year, being then invested with the dictatorship, Lepidus was appointed his master of the horse, and was intrusted with the care of the capital during his absence. The principal partisans of Cæsar are enumerated by Cicero in one of his letters 132, where we find the names of Pansa, Hirtius, Balbus, Oppius, Matius, and Postumius. C. Vibius Pansa had been tribune in the year 702, C. Vibius and being already devoted to the interests of Cæsar, he interposed his negative upon some of the earliest resolutions passed by the senate 33, with a view to the appointment of a new proconsul in the province of Gaul. We know not how actively he was engaged in the civil war; but it appears that he pre 130 Cicero, ad Atticum, IX. epist. IX. Dion Cassius, XLI. 170. 131 Dion Cassius, XLIII. 214. Auctor de Bello Alexand. 59. 132 Ad Familiares, VI. epist. XII. 133 Cicero, ad Familiares, VIII. epist. VIII. Pansa. IX. From U.C. 695 to 710, A.C. 59 to 44. CHAP. served, through the whole of it, an unblemished character 134, and so distinguished himself by various acts of kindness and protection towards distressed individuals of the vanquished party, that when he was appointed to succeed M. Brutus in the government of Cisalpine Gaul, in the year 708, he received from the people, on leaving Rome, the liveliest A. Hirtius. tokens of their good-will and gratitude. A. Hirtius was also a friend of Cæsar before the civil war broke out, and was with him in Gaul in the year 703 135, from whence he was despatched to Rome, to make arrangements with some of Cæsar's partisans in the capital, and returned to Cæsar immediately after, so that he was probably with him when he first began his rebellion. We hear of him again as residing in Italy in the year 707 136, when he, like Dolabella, was famous for the sumptuousness of his table, and flattered Cicero's vanity by coming frequently to receive instructions from him in the art of oratory. He is known as the author of the eighth book of the "Commentaries of Cæsar's Wars in Gaul 137;" and was by some said to have written also those narratives of the campaigns in Egypt, Africa, and Spain, to which we have so often referred in our account of those events. He also took upon himself to write an invective against Cato in answer to 134 Cicero, ad Familiares, XV. epist. XVII. XIX. Ad Atticum, XII. epist. XXVII. 135 Cicero, ad Atticum, VII. epist. IV. 136 Cicero, ad Atticum, XII. epist. II. Ad Familiares, VII. epist. XXXIII.; IX. epist. XVI. XVIII. XX. 137 Suetonius, in Cæsare, 56. IX. spirit U.C. 695 to 710, Both A.C. 59 to 44. Balbus. Cicero's panegyric on him 138; and he is said to have CHAP. displayed some talent in the work, but to have From incurred much greater ridicule, for the evident of flattery to Cæsar by which it was dictated. Hirtius and Pansa appeared inclined, after Cæsar's death, to acknowledge the authority of the old constitution; they were both consuls together in the year 710, and both perished in the actions fought at Mutina, when commanding the armies of the Commonwealth against the rebellious attempts of M. Antonius. The names of Balbus and Oppius are generally coupled together in Cicero's letters, as if either personal or political friendship had established the closest union between them. L. Cornelius Balbus L. Cornelius was a native of Spain, and by birth a citizen of Gades. He distinguished himself in the service of the Roman government in the war so long carried on against Sertorius, and was rewarded by Pompey with the rights of a Roman citizen 139. From this period he removed to Rome, where he lived in a style of affluence, and, as it appears, was exposed to some odium on account of his wealth and luxury 140 He soon became acquainted with Cæsar, to whom, perhaps, his money enabled him to be useful; and his intimacy with him was already firmly established, when Cæsar, after his prætorship, obtained the province of the Farther Spain; for we find that Cæsar conferred many kindnesses for his sake on his native 138 Cicero, ad Atticum, XII. epist. XL. XLI. XLIV. XLV. 139 Cicero, pro Balbo, 2, 3. |