Civil Wars

In the meantime Pansa was dying of his wound, and he summoned Octavius to his side, and said: " I loved your father as I did myself, yet I could not avenge his death, nor could I fail to unite with the majority, whom you have also done well to obey, although you have an army. At first they feared you and Antony, and especially Antony, as he seemed to be the one most ambitious to fill the rôle of Cæsar, and they were delighted with your dissensions, thinking that you would mutually destroy each other. When they saw you the master of an army, they complimented you as a young man with specious and inexpensive honors. When they saw that you were more proud and self-restrained in respect of honors than they had supposed, and especially when you declined the magistracy that your army offered you, they were alarmed and they appointed you to the command with us in order that we might draw your two experienced legions away from you, hoping that when one of you was vanquished the other would be weakened and isolated, and so the whole of Cæsar's party would be effaced and that of Pompey be restored to power. This is their chief aim.

"Hirtius and I did what we were ordered to do, until we could humble Antony, who was much too arrogant; but we intended when he was vanquished to bring him into alliance with you and thus to pay the debt of gratitude we owed to Cæsar's friendship, the only payment that could be serviceable to Cæsar's party hereafter. It was not possible to communicate this to you before, but now that Antony is vanquished and Hirtius dead, and I am about to pay the debt of nature, the time for speaking has come, not that you may be grateful to me after my death, but that you, born to a happy destiny, as your deeds proclaim, may know what is for your own interest, and know that the course taken by Hirtius and myself was a matter of necessity. The army that you yourself gave to us should most properly be given back to you, and I do give it. If you can take and hold the new levies, I will give you those also. If they are too much in awe of the Senate (for their officers were sent to act as spies upon us), and if the task would be an invidious one, and would create trouble for you prematurely, the quæstor Torquatus will take command of them." After speaking thus he transferred the new levies to the quæstor and expired. The quæstor transferred them to Decimus as the Senate had ordered. Octavius sent the bodies of Hirtius and Pansa with honors to Rome, where they received a public funeral.[*](This is one of the rare cases in ancient history where it is possible to prove a negative. The letter of Decimus Brutus to Cicero from Pollentia, already referred to, disposes of all the time between the death of Hirtius and that of Pansa, so that no such interview as this could possibly have taken place. Hirtius was killed in the last engagement, the one in which Antony was put to flight. The next day Decimus had a meeting and conversation with Octavius at Mutina. Early on the following day he was summoned to Bononia to confer with Pansa, and while on the road thither received news of his death. Moreover, all that we know of the character of Pansa contradicts this tale of treachery. Pansa was a Cæsarian, but he was not false to the cause he publicly served. The simultaneous deaths of Hirtius and Pansa put so much power in the hands of Octavius that a story became current that he had killed the former with his own hand, and had bribed the physician of the latter to poison his wound. The physician was a Greek named Glyco. He was arrested and put in prison. There is a letter from Marcus Brutus to Cicero, complaining bitterly of the injustice done to Glyco, who, it appears, had married a sister of one of Brutus' Greek friends named Achilleus. "The accusation," says Brutus, "has not the least foundation. Who has suffered more than he from Pansa's death? Moreover, he is a man of sobriety and character, whom not even self-interest could impel to such a crime. I ask you, I ardently beseech you (for our Achilleus is deeply pained) to have him released from custody, and take care of him." (Ad Brutum, 6.) Combes-Dounous thinks that the story of the death-bed interview with Pansa may have been invented during the reign of Augustus, to avert the suspicion of foul play against Pansa.)

The following events took place in Syria and Macedonia about the same time. Gaius Cæsar, when he passed through Syria, left a legion there, as he was already contemplating an expedition against the Parthians. Cæcilius Bassus had charge of it, but the title of commander was held by Sextus Julius, a young man related to Cæsar himself, who was given over to dissipation and who led the legion around everywhere in an indecorous manner. Once when Bassus reproved him, he replied insultingly, and sometime later, when he called Bassus to him and the latter was slow in obeying, he ordered him to be dragged before him. A tumult and blows ensued. The soldiers would not tolerate the indignity and stabbed Julius. This act was followed by repentance and fear of Cæsar. Accordingly, they took an oath together that they would defend themselves to the death if they were not pardoned and restored to confidence, and they compelled Bassus to take the same oath. They also enlisted and drilled another legion as associates with themselves. This is one account of Bassus, but Libo[*](*li/bwni; as there is no historian known of the name of Libo, except one of much earlier date, most critics have concluded that this is a copyist's error for *libi/w| (Livy). Mendelssohn does not concur in this view, He does not believe that a single particle of Appian can have been derived from Livy.) says that he belonged to the army of Pompey and that after the latter's defeat he became a private citizen in Tyre, where he corrupted certain members of the legion, who slew Sextus and chose Bassus for their leader. However that may have been, Cæsar sent Statius Marcus against him with three legions. Bassus defeated him badly. Finally, Marcus appealed to Marcius Crispus, the governor of Bithynia, and the latter came to his aid with three legions.

While Bassus was besieged by the latter, Cassius suddenly came up with them and took possession, not only of the two legions of Bassus, but also of the six that were besieging him, whose leaders surrendered in a friendly way and obeyed him as proconsul; for the Senate had decreed, as I have already said, that all [beyond the Adriatic] should obey Cassius and Brutus. Just then Allienus, who had been sent to Egypt by Dolabella, brought from that quarter four legions of soldiers dispersed by the disasters of Pompey and of Crassus, or left with Cleopatra by Cæsar. Cassius surrounded him unawares in Palestine and compelled him to surrender, as he did not dare to fight with four legions against eight. Thus Cassius became the master, in a surprising way, of twelve legions, and laid siege to Dolabella, who was coming from Asia with two legions and had been received in Laodicea in a friendly manner. The Senate was delighted when it heard the news.

In Macedonia Gaius Antonius, the brother of Mark Antony, with one legion of foot soldiers, contended with Brutus, and, being inferior in strength to the latter, laid an ambuscade for him. Brutus avoided the trap, and, in his turn, laid an ambuscade, but he did no harm to those whom he caught in it, but ordered his own soldiers to salute their adversaries. Although the latter did not return the salutation or accept the courtesy he allowed them to pass out of the trap unharmed. Then he went around by other roads and confronted them again at a precipice, and again did them no harm but saluted them. Then, regarding him as a saviour of his fellow-citizens, and as one deserving the reputation he had gained for wisdom and mildness, they conceived an admiration for him, saluted him, and passed over to him. Gaius also surrendered himself and was treated with honor by Brutus until he was convicted of having tried several times to corrupt the army, when he was put to death.[*](Plutarch mentions the attempt to corrupt the soldiers, but says that Gaius was put to death by Brutus in retaliation for the killing of Cicero and Decimus Brutus by Antony (Life of Brutus, 28).) Thus, including his former forces, Brutus had possession of six legions, and since he approved the valor of the Macedonians he raised two legions among them, whom he drilled in the Italian discipline.