[269] Cæsar’s mother had taken for her second husband L. Marcius Philippus. She just lived to see her youthful son consul in B.C. 43.
Octavia, the younger sister of Cæsar, was now the wife of C. Marcellus, who had been consul B.C. 50. After the death of Marcellus, she married M. Antonius (B.C. 40), being then with child by her deceased husband. The Roman law did not allow a woman to marry till ten months after her husband’s death; the object of the rule was to prevent the paternity of a child from being doubtful. Plutarch correctly states the time at ten months (Life of Antonius, c. 31). If Octavia was then with child, as Dion Cassius says (48. c. 3), the reason for the rule did not exist. In later times, at least, the rule was dispensed with when the reason for it ceased, as when a pregnant widow was delivered of a child before the end of the ten months. Ten months was the assumed time of complete gestation (Savigny, System, &c. ii. 181).
[270] Young Cæsar had raised troops in Campania, and chiefly at Capua among the veteran soldiers of the dictator, who had been settled on lands there (Dion Cassius, 45. c. 12; Cicero, Ad Atticum, xvi. 8). He gave the men five hundred denarii apiece, about eighteen pounds sterling, by way of bounty, and led them to Rome. These men were old soldiers, well trained to their work. The youth who did this was nineteen years of age, a boy, as Cicero calls him; but a boy who outwitted him and everybody else, and maintained for more than half a century the power which he now seized.
[271] Dreams were viewed in a sort as manifestations of the will of the gods. This dream happened, as Dion Cassius tells (45. c. 2), to Catulus; and he makes Cicero dream another dream. Cicero dreamed that Octavius was let down from heaven by a chain of gold, and was presented with a whip by Jupiter. Suetonius (Octav. Cæsar, c. 94) agrees with Dion Cassius. The whip was significant. Jupiter meant that somebody required whipping, and he put the whip in the hands of a youth who knew how to use it.
[272] The young man cajoled the old one and made a tool of him. Like all vain men, Cicero was ready to be used by those who knew how to handle him. There is a letter from Brutus to Cicero (Ad Brutum, 16), and one of Brutus to Atticus (Ad Brutum, 17), to the purport here stated by Plutarch. But these letters may be spurious.
[273] He was at Athens in B.C. 44, when Cicero addressed to him his Officia. He had been a year there (De Offic. i. 1) at the time when the first chapter was written. The poet Horatius was there at the same time. When M. Brutus came to Athens in the autumn of B.C. 44, Cicero joined Brutus, who gave him a command in his cavalry (Plutarch, Brutus, c. 24, 26).
[274] The consuls were sent to relieve Mutina (Modena), in which Decimus Brutus, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, was besieged by Antonius. Cicero had recommended the Senate to give Cæsar the authority of a commander. Cæsar received a command with the insignia of a prætor. There were two battles at Mutina, in April, B.C. 43, in which the two consuls fell.
[275] It is stated by various authorities that Cicero was cajoled with the hopes of the consulship (Dion Cassius, 46. c. 42; Appian, Civil Wars, iii. 82). The testimony of the tenth letter to Brutus (Cicero Ad Brutum, 10) is not decisive against other evidence. Cæsar came to Rome in August, B.C. 43, with his army, and through the alarm which he created, was elected consul with Q. Pedius (Dion Cassius, 16. c. 43, &c.; Appian, Civil Wars, iii. 94).
[276] After he was elected consul, Cæsar left the city for North Italy, and was joined by Antonius and Lepidus (Appian, Civil War, iii. 96, &c.). M. Æmilius Lepidus, son of M. Lepidus, consul B.C. 78, was consul in B.C. 46, with C. Julius Cæsar. He was elected Pontifex Maximus after Cæsar’s death: he had been declared an enemy of the State by the Senate, but Cæsar had compelled the Senate to annul their declaration against Antonius and Lepidus, as a preparatory step to the union with them which he meditated. Lepidus is painted to the life by Shakespeare (Julius Cæsar, iv. 2):
“Ant. This is a slight unmeritable man,