e was cut off
first by the lieutenants of Caesar and later by Caesar himself, and was
besieged. The investing of the place proved a long operation: the
situation is naturally a strong one and had been amply stocked with
provisions; and horsemen sent out by him before he was entirely hemmed
in harassed his antagonists greatly while many others, moreover, from
various sections vigorously defended him. Many attempts were made upon
the besieged individually and there was sharp fighting close to the
walls, until the followers of Lucius in spite of being generally
successful were nevertheless overcome by hunger. The leader and some
others obtained pardon, but most of the senators and knights were put
to death. And the story goes that they did not merely suffer death in a
simple form, but were led to the altar consecrated to the former Caesar
and there sacrificed,--three hundred[41] knights and many senators, among
them Tiberius Cannutius who formerly during his tribuneship had assembled
the populace for Caesar Octavianus. Of the people of Perusia and the rest
there captured the majority lost their lives, and the city itself, except
the temple of Vulcan and statue of Juno, was entirely destroyed by fire.
This piece of sculpture was preserved by some chance and was brought to
Rome in accordance with a vision that Caesar saw in a dream: there it
accorded those who desired to undertake the task permission to settle the
city again and place the deity on her original site,--only they did not
acquire more than seven and one-half stadia of the territory.

[B.C. 40 (_a. u._ 714)]

[-15-] When that city had been captured during the consulship of Gnaeus
Calvinus and Asinius Pollio,--the former holding office the second
time,--other posts in Italy partly perforce and partly voluntarily
capitulated to Caesar. For this reason Fulvia with her children made her
escape to her husband, and many of the other foremost men made their
way some to him and some to Sextus in Sicily. Julia, the mother of the
Antonii, went there at first and was received by Sextus with extreme
kindness; later she was sent by him to her son Marcus, carrying
propositions of friendship and with envoys whom she was to conduct to his
presence. In this company which at that time turned its steps away from
Italy to Antony was also Tiberius Claudius Nero. He was holding a kind of
fort in Campania, and when Caesar's party got the upper hand set out with
his wife Livia Drusilla