Civil Wars

"Some of them we have punished already; and by the aid of divine providence you shall see the rest punished presently. Although the chief part of this work has been finished by us or is well in hand, appertaining to Spain and Gaul as well as to Italy, one task still remains, and that is to march against Cæsar's assassins beyond the sea. On the eve of undertaking this foreign war for you, we do not consider it safe, either for you or for us, to leave other enemies behind to take advantage of our absence and watch for opportunities during the war. We think that there should be no delay in such an emergency, but that we ought rather to sweep them out of our pathway, once for all, seeing that [*](Y.R. 712) they began the war against us when they voted us and the armies under us public enemies.

"What vast numbers of citizens have they doomed to destruction with us, disregarding the vengeance of the gods and the reprobation of mankind! We shall not deal harshly with any multitude of men, nor shall we count as enemies all who have opposed us or plotted against us, or those distinguished for their riches merely, their estates, or their high position; nor shall we go to the same lengths as another man who held the supreme power before us, when he, too, was regulating the commonwealth in civil convulsions, and whom you named the Fortunate[*](Sulla; see i. 97 supra.) on account of his success; and yet necessarily three persons will have more enemies than one. We shall take vengeance only on the worst and most guilty. This we shall do for your interest no less than for our own, for while we keep up our conflicts you will all be involved necessarily in great dangers. It is incumbent on us also to do something to quiet the army, which has been insulted, irritated, and decreed a public enemy by our common foes. Although we might arrest on the spot whomsoever we please, we prefer to proscribe rather than seize them unawares; and this, too, on your account, so that it may not be in the power of enraged soldiers to exceed their orders, but that they may be restricted to a certain number designated by name, and spare the others according to order.

"In God's name then,[*](a)gaqh=| tu/xh| toi/nun: an exclamation of a religious sort equivalent to the Latin quod felix faustumque sit. It has no exact equivalent in English.) let no one harbor any one of those whose names are hereto appended, or conceal them, or send them away, or be corrupted by their money. Whoever shall be detected in saving, or aiding, or conniving with them we will put on the list of the proscribed without allowing any excuse or pardon. Those who kill the proscribed and bring us their heads shall receive the following rewards: to a free man 25,000 Attic drachmas per head; to a slave his freedom and 10,000 Attic drachmas and his master's right of citizenship. Informers shall receive the same rewards. In order that they may remain unknown [*](Y.R. 711) the names of those who receive the rewards shall not be inscribed in our registers." Such was the language of the proscription of the triumvirate as nearly as it can be rendered from Latin into Greek.[*](This is the only copy of this hideous instrument that has come down to us. The text corresponds with all that we glean from other authorities concerning it.)

Lepidus was the first to begin the work of proscription, and his brother Paulus was the first on the list of the proscribed. Antony came next, and the second name on the list was that of his uncle, Lucius Cæsar.[*](Both Dion and Appian say that Lucius Cæsar and Lucius Paulus were allowed to escape. See Sec. 37 infra.) These two men had been the first to vote Lepidus and Antony public enemies. The third and fourth victims were relatives of the consuls-elect for the coming year, namely, Plotius, the brother of Plancus, and Quintus, the father-in-law of Asinnius. These four were placed at the head of the list, not so much on account of their dignity as to produce terror and despair, so that none of the proscribed might hope to escape. Among the proscribed was Thoranius, who was said by some to have been a tutor of Octavius. When the lists were published, the gates and all the other exits from the city, the harbor, the marshes, the pools, and every other place that was suspected as adapted to flight or concealment, were occupied by soldiers; the centurions were charged to scour the surrounding country. All these things took place simultaneously.