[147] Id., ad. Brut. i. 10.
[148] A similar technical difficulty had occurred in B.C. 49 (both consuls being absent, and unwilling, of course, to name a dictator), and had been got over by the nomination of a dictator by the prætor under a special law. See p. 8; Cic., ad Fam. x. 26; ad M. Brut. i. 5.
[149] Plancus (Cic., ad Fam. x. 29) expresses surprise that Cæsar wished to give up the glory of defeating Antony for the sake of “a two months’ consulship.” But this only shows that Plancus did not understand Octavian’s object or policy.
[150] Suet., Aug. 26; Dio, 46, 43; Plut., Pomp. 58. Appian (b. c. 3, 82), without alluding to this scene, regards the application itself as the result of a secret intrigue with Cicero, and Cicero’s exclamation, if made, may have been intended as encouraging and not sarcastic.
[151] The number given by Appian (b. c. iii. 88). Octavian had five legions when he went to Gaul: two raised in Campania of veterans, one of tirones, the Martia and Quarta (App., b. c. iii. 47). The other three must have been made up from the armies of Pansa and Hirtius. None of the veteran legions in these two armies would consent to follow Decimus Brutus (Cic., ad Fam. xi. 19).
[152] Cic., ad Brut. 1, 18.
[153] Ib. and App., b. c. iii. 90.
[154] The panic had been increased by some damage done by his soldier on the march to properties of known anti-Cæsareans.
[155] Confiscation of property and the forbidding of “fire and water” followed as a matter of course. One of the assassins—P. Servilius Casca—was tribune, and as such could not legally be condemned, but he vacated his tribuneship by flying from Rome and was condemned with the rest.
[156] The Senate had nothing to do with this quæstio, which was established by a lex, but its attitude to Octavian amounted to a condonation if not an active approval.