[77] Suet., Aug. 25.
[78] The last being the adjectival form of his original name, in accordance with the usual custom in cases of adoption.
[79] Cicero, ad Att. xiv. 5, 10, 11, 12.
[80] Cicero, ad Att. xiv. 20, 21. Dio (45, 6) says that the introducing tribune was Tib. Canutius. But it seems probable that this refers to a second speech.
[81] Cic., ad Att. xv. 2. There is a singularly manly and frank letter from Matius to Cicero (ad Fam. xi. 28), defending his attachment to Cæsar and his services to Octavian.
[82] Appian, b. c. 3, 20, τῶν προσόδων ἐξ οὗ παρῆλθεν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐς αὐτὸν ἀντὶ τοῦ ταμιείου συμφερομένων. The sole management of the Treasury had been committed to Cæsar in B.C. 45 (Dio, 43, 44, τἁ δημόσια χρήματα μόνον διοικεῖν). He had taken it out of the hands of the quæstors and appointed two præfecti to manage it: but it does not seem that they had anything to do with the money in the temple of Ops, as to which there was some doubt as to its being “public money” in the ordinary sense.
[83] Cicero, 1 Phil. § 17; 2 Phil. § 93.
[84] Cicero, in 2 Phil. § 93, seems to assume that Antony had taken the money all at once. But from Cicero’s own letters it would seem that the process of despoiling the temple of Ops was a gradual one, and that the use made of the money by Antony was more or less a matter of conjecture. On the 27th of April he writes: “You mention plundering going on at the temple of Ops. I, too, was a witness to that at the time” (ad Att. xiv. 14). On the 7th of May he says that Dolabella had a great share of it (ad Att. xiv. 18). In November he says that his nephew Quintus knew all about it, and meant to reveal it to the public (ad Att. xvi. 14). Appian (b. c. iii. 20) makes Antony say to Octavian: “The money transferred to my house was not so large a sum as you conjecture, nor is any part of it in my custody now. The men in power—except Dolabella and my brothers—divided up the whole of it as the property of a tyrant.”
[85] Cic., ad Att. xvi. 8.
[86] Dio, 45, 6; this seems a different case from that mentioned by App., b. c. iii. 47, and referred to by Cicero, ad Att. xvi. 15, as happening later in this same year.