[4] So this tumult was quieted. The extreme fondness of the plebeians for Antony was turned into extreme hatred. The Senate was delighted, because it believed that Brutus and his associates could not rest secure otherwise.1 Antony also moved that Sextus Pompeius (the son of Pompey the Great, who was still much beloved by all) should be recalled from Spain, where he was still at war with Cæsar's lieutenants, and that he should be paid 50,000,000 of Attic drachmas2 out of the public treasury for his father's confiscated property and be appointed commander of the sea, as his father had been, with charge of all the Roman ships, wherever situated, which were needed for immediate service. The astonished Senate accepted each of these decrees with alacrity and applauded Antony the whole day; for nobody, in their estimation, was more devoted to the republic than the elder Pompey, and hence nobody was more regretted. Cassius and Brutus, who were of Pompey's faction, and the ones most honored by all at that time, thought that they would be entirely safe. They thought that what they had done would be confirmed, and the republic be at last restored, and their party successful. Wherefore Cicero praised Antony continually,3 and the Senate, perceiving that the plebeians were making plots against him on its account, allowed him a guard for his personal safety, chosen by himself from the veterans who were sojourning in the city.
1 As we have no dates in the text we are left in confusion as to the state of affairs in Rome at any particular time. The assassination took place on the 15th of March. Cassius and Marcus Brutus retired to Lanuvium as soon as it appeared that their lives were in danger in Rome. A letter written to them in the month of April by Decimus Brutus, who had not yet gone to Cisalpine Gaul, is preserved among the letters of Cicero. He says he has had an interview with Hirtius, who tells him that Antony did not consider Rome a safe place for any of them, because the soldiers and the plebeians were so incensed against them. "Do you ask me," he continues, "what I advise? Let us submit to fortune, withdraw from Italy, and retire to Rhodes, or some other part of the world. If better luck comes, we can return to Rome; if no change occurs, we can live in exile; if worst comes to worst, we can try our last resources." (Ad Fam. xi. I.)
2 In the 13th Philippic of Cicero (5) the amount voted to Sextus Pompey in compensation for his father's confiscated estates is put at seven hundred millions of sesterces or $28,700,000 of our money. This was exactly the amount that was in the temple of Ops (the produce of confiscated estates) at the time of Cæsar's death (2d Philippic, 37). Fifty millions of Attic drachmas would have been equal to about $ 10,000,000.
3 In the first Philippic Cicero acknowledges that he was deceived by Antony during the first few days after the assassination. Among other things Antony moved that the dictatorship be forever abolished. He produced a senatus consultum in writing for this purpose, which he wished to have passed; "and when it was read," says Cicero, "we adopted his motion with the greatest enthusiasm and by another senatus consultum returned our thanks to him in the amplest terms." (Phil. I. I.)
The Civil Wars. Appian. Horace White. London. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 1899.
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