Cæsar, the consul, introduced a law to hold an inquiry into the case of those by whose instigation his father had been murdered, and Marcus Brutus, Caius Cassius, and Decimus Brutus having been tried by this law, were condemned, though absent. When Asinius Pollio and Munatius Plancus, having also joined their forces to those of Antonius, had increased his strength, and when Decimus Brutus, to whom the senate had given orders to pursue Antony, being deserted by the legions under his command, had fled, he was killed by Capenus Sequanus, by order of Antonius, into whose hands he had fallen. Caius Cæsar became reconciled to Antonius and Lepidus, so that he and Lepidus and Antony formed a triumvirate for the administration of the republic for five years, and that they should proscribe each his particular enemies, in which proscription were included very many of the equestrian order, and one hundred and thirty senators; among whom were Lucius Paulus, the brother of Lepidus, Lucius Cæsar, Antony’s uncle, and Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose head and right hand were placed on the rostrum, when he was murdered in his sixty-third year by Popilius, a legionary soldier. This book also contains an account of the transactions of Brutus in Greece.
BOOK CXXI.
Caius Cassius, having received orders from the senate to pursue Dolabella, who had been pronounced a public enemy, acting under the sanction of the state, reduced Syria under his authority by means of the three armies which were in that province, and besieging Dolabella, in Laodicea, put him to death. Caius Antonius, having been taken, was also slain by order of Marcus Brutus.
BOOK CXXII.
Marcus Brutus fought unsuccessfully with the Thracians. Afterwards all the provinces beyond sea, together with the armies in them, having been brought into obedience to him and Cassius, they met at Smyrna, to hold a council relative to the war which they were about to engage in. [y. r. 710. b. c. 42.] They agreed in pardoning Publicola, the brother of Marcus Messala, who had been conquered.