[76] "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.1
1 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 Civil Wars. Appian. Horace White. London. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 1899.
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