Dion Cassius (57. 15) says that Vibius Rufus, who was consul A.D. 22, in the time of Tiberius, married Cicero’s widow, and Middleton supposes that Terentia is meant, but this is very unlikely; Dion must mean Publilia.
[261] Tiro was a freedman of Cicero, and had been brought up in his house. He had a good capacity and his master was strongly attached to him. Cicero’s letters to him are in the sixteenth book of the Miscellaneous Collection. It is said that Tiro collected the letters of Cicero after Cicero’s death, by doing which he has rendered a great service to history, and little to his master.
[262] Tullia’s first husband was C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, who died probably early in B.C. 57. In B.C. 56 Tullia married Furius Crassipes, from whom she was divorced, but the circumstances are not known. Her third husband was P. Cornelius Dolabella, a patrician. It seems that she was separated from Dolabella before she died. Tullia did not die in Rome, but at her father’s house at Tusculum, in February, B.C. 45. Tullia left one son by Dolabella, who was named Lentulus. His father, Dolabella, is also named Lentulus, whence it is concluded that he had been adopted by a Lentulus. The Lentuli were Cornelii.
[263] Cæsar was murdered on the Ides of March, B.C. 44. The circumstances of Cæsar’s death, and the events which follow, are told in the Lives of Cæsar and Antonius. Cicero saw Cæsar fall (Ad Attic. xiv. 14), and he rejoiced.
[264] An “oblivion” or “non-remembrance” is a declaration of those who have the sovereign power in a state, that certain persons shall be excused for their political acts. It implies that those who grant the amnesty have the power, and that those to whom it is granted are in subjection to them, or have not the political power which the authors of the amnesty assume. After Thrasybulus at Athens had overthrown the Thirty Tyrants as they are called, an amnesty was declared, but the Thirty and some few others were excluded from it (Xenophon, Hellen. ii. 4, 38).
Cicero in his first Philippic (c. 1) alludes to his attempt to bring about a settlement. The senate met on the eighteenth of March in the temple of Tellus: “In quo templo quantum in me fuit jeci fundamenta pacis, Atheniensiumque renovavi vetus exemplum: Græcum etiam verbum usurpavi quo tum in sedandis discordiis erat usa civitas illa, atque omnem memoriam discordiarum oblivione sempiterna delendam censui.”
[265] P. Cornelius Dolabella, once the husband of Tullia, Cicero’s daughter. He was consul, after Cæsar’s death, with M. Antonius, and in the next year, B.C. 43, he was in Syria as governor. Cassius, who was also in Syria, attacked Dolabella and took Laodicea, where Dolabella was. To avoid falling into the hands of his enemy, Dolabella ordered a soldier to kill him.
[266] A. Hirtius, or as Plutarch writes the name Irtius, and C. Vibius Pansa were the consuls of B.C. 53. Cicero set out from Rome soon after Cæsar’s death with the intention of going to Greece (Ad Attic. xiv.). He went as far as Syracuse, whence he returned to Rome, which he reached on the last day of August (Ad Diversos, xii. 25; Ad Attic. xvi. 7; Philipp. i. 5; v. 7). Cicero in the passage last referred to speaks of the violent measures of Antonius; “huc etiam nisi venirem Kal. Sept. fabros se missurum et domum meam disturbaturum esse dixit.” On the second of September he delivered his first Philippic in the Senate. It is an evidence of Cicero’s great mental activity that he wrote his Topica, addressed to Trebatius, on shipboard after he had set sail from Velia with the intention of going to Greece. He says that he had no books with him (Topica, c. 1, &c.).
[267] C. Octavius, the grandson of Cæsar’s younger sister Julia, and the son of C. Octavius, prætor B.C. 61, by Atia, the daughter of M. Atius Balbus and Julia. C. Octavius, the young Cæsar, was born B.C. 63, in the consulship of Cicero. The dictator by his testament left him a large property and his name. Accordingly he is henceforth called C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus, but he is better known as the future Emperor Augustus. At the time of the Dictator’s assassination he was at Apollonia, a town on the coast of Illyricum. He came to Rome on the news of Cæsar’s death with his friend M. Vipsanius Agrippa. Cicero saw him at his Cuman villa on his way to Rome (Ad. Attic. xiv. 11, 12).
[268] Plutarch probably means Greek drachmæ, for he states the sum in his Life of Antonius, c. 15, in round numbers at 4000 talents. The Septies Millies which Cicero speaks of (Philipp. ii. 37) is a different sum of money.