[132] Pedius was son of Cæsar’s second sister, Julia minor, and therefore first cousin (once removed) to Octavius.
[133] He had divorced Tullia, the orator’s daughter, before he left Italy.
[134] [Velleius Paterculus[d] thus contrasts Brutus and Cassius:
“Such was the end assigned by fortune to the party of Marcus Brutus, who was then in his thirty-seventh year, and whose mind had been incorrupt till the day which obscured all his virtues by the rashness of one act. Cassius was as much the better commander, as Brutus was the better man. Of the two, you would rather have Brutus for a friend; as an enemy, you would stand more in dread of Cassius. In the one there was greater ability, in the other greater virtue. Had they been successful, it would have been as much for the interest of the state to have had Brutus for its ruler rather than Cassius, as it was to have Cæsar rather than Antony.”]
[135] [Says Florus[e]: “The madness of Antony, which could not be allayed by ambition, was at last exterminated by luxury and licentiousness. The Egyptian woman demanded of the drunken general, as the price of her favours, nothing less than the Roman Empire. This Antony promised her; as though the Romans had been easier to conquer than the Parthians.”]
Roman Surgical Instruments
(In the British Museum)