Appian of Alexandria Civil Wars 3.1.4

Horace White (Translator)

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Civil Wars. Appian of Alexandria. Horace White (Translator). New York. 1899.

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Current edition Perseus

The Roman History: The Civil Wars (English) (Appianus. The Roman History of Appian of Alexandria, Volume 2: The Civil Wars. White, Horace, translator. New York: The Macmillan Company. London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 1899.)

Editions (1)
Ἐμφυλίων Πρώτη Perseus (Appianus. Appiani Historia Romana, Volume 2. Mendelssohn, Ludwig, editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1881.) — 3.1.4 focus

Notes on the current edition

Civil Wars

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 Caesar’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.)