[567] The work was in two books, and was written about the time of the battle of Munda, B.C. 45. (Suetonius, c. 56; Cicero, Ad Attic, xii. 40; Dion Cassius, 43. c. 13, and the notes of Reimarus about the "Anticato.")
[568] Cæsar made the kingdom of Juba a Roman province, of which he appointed C. Sallustius, the historian, proconsul. He laid heavy impositions on the towns of Thapsus and Hadrumetum. He imposed on the people of Leptis an annual tax of 3,000,000 pounds weight of oil (pondo olei), which Plutarch translates by the Greek word litræ. On his voyage to Rome he stayed at Carales (Cagliari) in Sardinia. He reached Rome at the end of July, B.C. 46. (African War, 97, &c.)
Dion Cassius (43. c. 15, &c.) gives us a speech of Cæsar before the Senate on his return to Rome.
[569] As Kaltwasser remarks, Plutarch has omitted the triumph over Gaul. (Dion Cassius, 43. c. 19; Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 101.) After the triumph Vercingetorix was put to death. Arsinœ, the sister of Kleopatra, appeared in the Egyptian triumph in chains.
[570] See the Life of Sulla, c. 16 notes; and Dion Cassius, 51. c. 15.
[571] Plutarch has the word τρίκλινος. The Latin form is triclinium, a couch which would accomodate three persons at table. The word is of Greek origin, and simply means a place which will allow three persons to recline upon it. As triclinia were placed in eating-rooms, such a room is sometimes called triclinium. It is sometimes incorrectly stated that triclinium means three couches, and that a dining-room had the name of triclinium because it contained three couches; which is absurd. Vitruvius describes œci(dining-rooms) square and large enough to contain four triclinia, and leave room also for the servants (vi. 10). It may be true that three couches was a common number in a room.
[572] There was no census this year, as Rualdus quoted by Kaltwasser shows. Augustus had a census made in his sixth consulship, B.C. 28; and there had then been none for twenty-four years. That of B.C. 42 was in the consulship of M. Æmilius Lepidus and Munatius Plancus. It has been remarked that Plutarch gives the exact numbers that are given in Suetonius (Cæsar, 41), when he is speaking of the number of poor citizens who received an allowance of corn from the state, which number Cæsar reduced from 320,000 to 150,000. This passage, compared with Dion Cassius (43. c. 21), seems to explain the origin of Plutarch's statement. Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 102) also supposed that it was a census. See Clinton, Fasti, Lustra Romana, B.C. 50. (See the Life of Caius Gracchus, c. 5, notes.)
[573] Cæsar was sole consul in the year B.C. 45. He was still dictator.
[574] Munda was in Bætica, west of Malaca (Malaga). The battle was fought on the day of the Liberalia, the feast of Liber or Bacchus, the 17th of March. Pompeius, B.C. 49, left Brundisium on the Ides of March, the 15th.
The Spanish campaign is contained in a book entitled "De Bello Hispaniensi," which is printed with the "Commentaries of Cæsar:" thirty thousand men fell on the side of Pompeius, and three thousand equites (c. 31). See also Dion Cassius, 43, c. 36; and Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 104.