Appian of Alexandria Civil Wars 2.13.92

[92] After this, Pharnaces was glad to escape to the kingdom which Pompey had assigned to him on the Bosporus. As Caesar had no time to waste on small matters while such great wars were still unfinished elsewhere, he returned to the province of Asia and while passing through it transacted public business in the cities, which were oppressed by the farmers of the revenue, as I have shown in my Asiatic history. ¹ Learning that a sedition had broken out in Rome and that Antony, his master of horse, had occupied the forum with soldiers, he laid aside everything else and hastened to the city. When he arrived there the sedition had been quieted, but another one sprang up against himself in the army because the promises made to them after the battle of Pharsalus had not been kept, and because they had been held in service beyond the term fixed by law. They demanded that they should be dismissed to their homes. Caesar had made them certain indefinite promises at Pharsalus, and others equally indefinite after the war in Africa should be finished. Now he sent them a promise of 1000 drachmas more to each man. They answered him that they did not want any more promises but all cash down. Sallustius Crispus, ² who had been sent to them on this business, had a narrow escape. He would have been killed if he had not fled. When Caesar learned of this he stationed the legion, with which Antony had been guarding the city, around his own house and the city gates, as he apprehended attempts at plunder. Then, notwithstanding all his friends were alarmed and cautioned him against the fury of the soldiers, he went boldly among them while they were still riotous in the Campus Martius, without sending word beforehand, and showed himself on the platform.