[177] The first meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, when the queen was rowed up the Cydnus in her barge, dressed as Venus with attendant cupids, seems to have been in the autumn of B.C. 42 (Plut., Anton. 25-6.). He had seen her once before in B.C. 56 when he accompanied Gabinius to restore her father. But she must have been a mere child then.
[178] These legions had behaved badly at Placentia, demanding a sum of money from the inhabitants. Calenus and Ventidius may have justified their action on this score (Dio, 48, 10).
[179] From caliga, “a soldier’s boot.”
[180] Dio, 48, 12.
[181] Appian, b. c. 4, 30; Dio, 48, 31. Livy, however (Ep. 121), says M. Lepido fuso, as though he had resisted and had been beaten.
[182] Livy, Ep. 126; Velleius, ii. 74; App., b. c. v. 48-49; Dio, 48, 14; Seneca, de Clem. 1, 11, 1. The uncertainty of historical testimony is illustrated by the fact that both Dio and Appian name C. Canutius (Tr. Pl. B.C. 44) among the victims at Perusia, while Velleius (ii. 64) says that he was the first to suffer under the proscription in B.C. 43.
[183] C. I. L., i. 697.
[184] This was to safeguard Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus. There is some doubt, however, as to his having been an assassin. Cocceius denied it (App., b. c. v. 62). Suetonius (Nero 3) does the same. But Cicero (2 Phil. §§ 27, 30) says that he was; and Appian himself does the same (b. c. v. 59). Dio thrice speaks of him as a σφαγεύς (48, 7, 29, 54). At any rate he was condemned by the lex Pedia, as though he had been an assassin. He may have been one of those who joined the assassins on the Capitol after the murder.
[185] Appian, b. c. v. 65. It has been doubted whether this or the meeting of B.C. 37 was the one to which Horace accompanied his patron Mæcenas. In favour of this one is the mention of Cocceius Nerva by Horace (Sat. 1 v. 28, 50), against it is the way in which he is mentioned with Mæcenas as aversos soliti componere amicos, as if he had been so engaged before. But though in the second meeting he is not mentioned by Appian, he may have been there. Something has been made of the mention of the croaking frogs (l. 14), as this meeting could hardly have been earlier than July, when the Italian frogs are said to be silent. For the Ovations see C. I. L., i. p. 461.
[186] This was one of the chief grievances. Hor., Ep. ix. 9, minatus urbi vincla, que detraxerat servis amicus perfidis.