length
in praise of Antony and inveighed forcibly against Caesar. Indeed, he
would have immediately introduced measures against the latter, had not
Nonius Balbus, a tribune, prevented it. Caesar had suspected what he
was going to do and wished neither to permit it to come to pass nor by
offering opposition to appear to be commencing war; hence he did not
enter the senate at this time nor even live in the city at all, but
invented some excuse which took him out of town. He was not only
influenced by the above considerations but desired to deliberate at
leisure according to the reports brought to him and decide by mature
reflection upon the proper course. Later he returned and convened the
senate; he was surrounded by a guard of soldiers and friends who had
daggers concealed, and sitting between the consuls upon his chair of
state he spoke at length, and calmly, from where he sat regarding his own
position, and brought many accusations against Sosius and Antony. When
neither of the consuls themselves nor any one else ventured to utter a
word, he bade them come together again on a specified day, giving them to
understand that he would prove by certain documents that Antony was in
the wrong. The consuls did not dare to reply to him and could not endure
to be silent, and therefore secretly left the city before the time came
for them to appear again; after that they took their way to Antony,
followed by not a few of the senators who were left. Caesar on learning
this declared, to prevent its appearing that he had been abandoned by
them as a result of some injustice, that he had sent them out voluntarily
and that he granted the rest who so wished permission to depart unarmed
to Antony.

[-3-] This action of theirs just mentioned was counterbalanced by the
arrival of others who had fled from Antony to Caesar--among them Titius
and Plancus, though they were honored by Antony among the foremost and
knew all his secrets. Their desertion was due to some friction between
themselves and the Roman leader, or perhaps they were disgusted in the
matter of Cleopatra: at any rate they left soon after the consuls had
taken the final step and Caesar in the latter's absence had convened the
senate and read and spoken all that he wished, upon hearing of which
Antony assembled a kind of senate from the ranks of his followers, and
after considerable talk on both sides of the question took up the war and
renounced his connection with Octavia. Ca