Florus: EPITOME DE T. LIVIO BELLORUM OMNIUM ANNORUM DCC LIBRI DUO

I. Ita Seditionum omnium causas tribunicia potestas excitavit, quae specie quidem plebis tuendae, cuius in auxilium comparata est, re autem dominationem sibi adquirens, studium populi ac favorem agrariis, frumentariis, iudiciariis legibus aucupabatur. Inerat omnibus species aequitatis. Quid tam iustum enim quam recipere plebem sua a patribus, ne populus gentium victor orbisque possessor extorris aris ac focis ageret?

I. Thus the tribunician power stirred up the causes of all seditions, which, with the appearance indeed of protecting the plebs, for whose aid it was procured, but in reality acquiring domination for itself, went to bird-lime the people’s zeal and favor by agrarian, frumentary, and judicial laws. There was in all an appearance of equity. For what is so just as that the plebs recover its own from the patricians, lest the people, conqueror of the nations and possessor of the world, should live as an exile, driven from altars and hearths?

Quid tam aecum quam inopem populum vivere ex aerario suo? Quid ad ius libertatis aequandae magis efficax quam ut senatu regentem provincias ordinis equestris auctoritas saltem iudiciorum regno niteretur? Sed haec ipsa in perniciem redibant, et misera res publica in exitium sui merces erat.

What is so equitable as that an indigent people live from its own treasury? What more efficacious toward the right of equalizing liberty than that, with the senate governing the provinces, the authority of the equestrian order should at least rest upon the realm of the courts? But these very things were turning back into destruction, and the wretched commonwealth was the price for its own ruin.

Nam et a senatu in equidem translata iudiciorum potestas vectigalia, id est imperii patrimonium, supprimebat, et emptio frumenti ipsos rei publicae nervos exhauriebat, aerarium; et reduci plebs in agros unde poterat sine possidentium eversione, qui ipsi para populi erant, et tum relictas sibi a maioribus sedes aetate quasi iure possidebant?

For both from the senate in indeed transferred judicial power was suppressing the vectigalia, that is, the patrimony of the empire, and the purchase of grain was exhausting the very sinews of the commonwealth, the aerarium; and could the plebs be brought back into the fields whence could it be done without the overthrow of the possessors, who themselves were a part of the people, and then were holding the seats left to them by their ancestors, by age as if by right?

II. Primam certaminum facem Ti. Gracchus accendit, genere, forma, eloquentia facile princeps. Sed hic, sive Mancinianae deditionis, quia sponsor foederis fuerat, contagium timens et inde popularis, sive aequo et bono ductus, quia depulsam agris suis plebem miseratus est, ne populus gentium victor orbisque possessor laribus ac focis suis exsultaret, quacumque mente rem ausus ingentem, postquam rogationis dies aderat, ingentis stipatus agmine rostra conscendit, nec deerat obvia manu tota inde nobilitas; et tribuni in partibus. Sed ubi intercedentem legibus suis C. Octavium videt Gracchus, contra fas collegii, ius potestatis iniecta manu depulit rostris, adeoque praesenti metu mortis exterruit, ut abdicare se magistratu cogeretur.

2. Tiberius Gracchus lit the first torch of the contests, by lineage, form, and eloquence easily a princeps. But he, whether fearing the contagion of the Mancinian surrender, because he had been a sponsor of the treaty, and thence a popularis, or led by equity and the good, because he pitied the plebeians driven from their fields, lest the people, conqueror of the nations and possessor of the world, should be an exile from their lares and hearths—of whatever mind, having dared a vast measure—when the day of the bill was at hand, mounted the Rostra, hemmed about by a huge throng; nor was the whole nobility lacking there with an opposing band; and the tribunes were in their parties. But when Gracchus sees Gaius Octavius interceding against his laws, contrary to the sacred law of the college, he struck down his right of authority, laying hands on him, and drove him from the Rostra, and so terrified him with the present fear of death that he was compelled to abdicate the magistracy.

Sic triumvir creatus dividendis agris cum ad perpetranda coepta die comitiorum prorogari sibi vellet imperium, obvia nobilitas manu eorum quos agris moverat. Caedes a foro coepit, inde cum in Capitolium profugisset plebemque ab defensionem salutis suae manu caput tangens hortaretur, praebuit speciem regnum sibi et diadema poscentis, atque ita duce Scipione Nasica, concitato in arma populo, quasi iure oppressus est.

Thus, having been created a triumvir for dividing lands, when, for carrying through his undertakings, on the day of the elections he wished his imperium to be prorogued to himself, the nobility met him
with a band of those whom he had displaced from their fields. The slaughter began from the Forum; then, when he had fled into the Capitol and was urging the plebs to the defense of his safety,
touching his head with his hand, he presented the appearance of someone demanding a kingship and a diadem for himself, and so, with Scipio Nasica as leader, the people having been stirred to arms,
he was suppressed as if by right.

III. Statim et mortis et legum fratris sui vindex non minore impetu incaluit C. Gracchus. Qui cum pari tumultu atque terrore plebem in avitos agros arcesseret, et recentem Attali hereditatem in alimenta populo polliceretur, iamque nimius et inpotens altero tribunatu secunda plebe volitaret, obrogare auso legibus suis Minucio tribuno, fretus comitum manu fatale familiae suae Capitolium invasit. Inde proximorum caede depulsus cum se in Aventinum recepisset, inde quoque obvia senatus manu ab Opimio consule oppressus est.

3. At once Gaius Gracchus, the avenger both of his brother’s death and of his laws, grew hot with no lesser impetus. When, with equal tumult and terror, he was summoning the plebs back into their ancestral fields, and was promising the recent inheritance of Attalus for the people’s aliment, and now, excessive and overbearing, in a second tribunate, with the plebs favorable, he was flitting about, when the tribune Minucius dared to obrogate his laws, relying on the band of his companions he seized the Capitol, fateful to his family. Driven thence by the slaughter of his nearest partisans, when he had withdrawn to the Aventine, from there too he was crushed by an opposing force of the senate, by the consul Opimius.

Insultatum quoque mortis reliquiis, et illud sacrosanctum caput tribuni plebis percussoribus auro repensatum.

Insult was also done to the relics of the dead, and that sacrosanct head of the tribune of the plebs
was weighed out in gold to the assassins.

IV. Nihilo minus Apuleius Saturnius Gracchanas adserere leges non destitit. Tantum animorum viro Marius dabat, qui nobilitati semper inimicus, consulatu suo praeterea confisus ... *** Occiso palam comitiis A. Ninnio competitore tribunatus subrogare conatus est in eius locum C. Gracchum, hominem sine tribu, sine notores, sine nomine; sed subdito titulo in familiam ipse se adoptabat. Cum tot tantisque ludibriis exsultaret inpune, rogandis Gracchorum legibus ita vehementer incubuit, ut senatum quoque cogeret in verba iurare, cum abnuentibus aqua et igni interdicturum minaretur.

4. Nonetheless Apuleius Saturnius did not cease to assert the Gracchan laws. So much spirit did Marius give to the man, who, always hostile to the nobility, and moreover confident in his own consulship ... *** With A. Ninnius, his competitor for the tribunate, openly slain at the elections, he tried to subrogate in his place C. Gracchus, a man without a tribe, without acquaintances, without a name; but with a forged title he was adopting himself into the family. While he exulted with so many and so great mockeries with impunity, he bent so vehemently to the proposing of the laws of the Gracchi that he even forced the senate to swear to the terms, when he threatened to interdict fire and water to those refusing.

Unus tamen exstitit, qui mallet exsilium. Igitur post Metelli fugam omni nobilitate perculsa, cum iam tertium annum dominaretur, eo vesaniae progressus est, ut consularia quoque comitia nova caede turbaret. Quippe ut satellitem furoris sui Claudium consulem faceret, C. Memmium competitorem interfici iussit, et in eo tumultu regem ex satellitibus suis se appellatum laetus accepit.

One, however, did appear who preferred exile. Therefore, after the flight of Metellus, with all the nobility stricken, when he was already holding dominion for the third year, he advanced to such a pitch of insanity that he even disrupted the consular elections with fresh slaughter. Indeed, in order to make Claudius, the satellite of his frenzy, consul, he ordered his rival Gaius Memmius to be killed, and in that tumult he gladly accepted being styled king by his own satellites.

Tum vero iam conspiratione senatus, ipso quoque iam Mario consule, quia tueri non poterat, adverso, directae in foro acies; pulsus inde Capitolium invasit. Sed cum abruptis fistulis obsideretur senatuique per legatos paenitentiae fidem faceret, ab arce degressus cum ducibus factionis receptus in curai est. Ibi eum facta inruptione populus fustibus saxisque coopertum in ipsa quoque morte laceravit.

Then indeed, with a conspiracy of the senate, and Marius himself too, now consul, being opposed, since he could not protect him, battle-lines were drawn up in the Forum; driven from there, he seized the Capitol. But when he was being besieged with the water-pipes cut, and gave the senate, through legates, a pledge of penitence, having come down from the citadel he, together with the leaders of his faction, was received into the Curia. There, an irruption having been made, the people, covering him with clubs and stones, tore him to pieces even in death.

V. Postremo Livius Drusus non tribunatus modo viribus, sed ipsius etiam senatus auctoritate totiusque Italiae consensu easdem leges adserere conatus, dum aliud captat ex alio, tantum conflavit incendium, ut nec prima illius flamma posset sustineri et subita morte correptus hereditarium in posteros suos bellum propagaret. Iudiciaria lege Gracchi diviserant populum Romanum et bicipitem ex una fecerant civitatem. Equites Romani tanta potestate subnixi, ut qui fata fortunasque principum haberent in manu, interceptis vectigalibus peculabantur suo iure rem publicam; senatus exsilio Metelli, damnatione Rutili debilitatus omne decus maiestatis amiserat.

5. Finally Livius Drusus, not only by the forces of the tribunate but even by the authority of the senate itself and by the consensus of all Italy, tried to assert those same laws; while grasping at one thing from another, he kindled so great a conflagration that not even its first blaze could be withstood, and, seized by sudden death, he propagated to his posterity an hereditary war. By Gracchus’s judicial law they had divided the Roman people and had made a two‑headed state out of one. The Roman equites, propped up by such power that they held the fates and fortunes of the leading men in their hand, with the revenues intercepted were peculating the commonwealth as by a right of their own; the senate, weakened by the exile of Metellus and the condemnation of Rutilius, had lost every adornment of its majesty.

In hoc statu rerum pares opibus, animis, dignitate (unde et nata Livio Druso aemulatio accesserat) equitem Servilius Caepio, senatum Livius Drusus adserere. Signa et aquilae et vexilla deerant: ceterum sic urbe in una quasi in binis castris dissidebatur. Prior Caepio in senatum impetu facto reos ambitus Scaurum et Philippum principes nobilitatis elegit.

In this state of affairs, equal in resources, spirits, and dignity (whence also aemulation, once born, had come upon Livius Drusus), Servilius Caepio undertook to champion the equestrian order, Livius Drusus the senate. The standards and the eagles and the banners were lacking: but thus in one city they were at odds as if in twin camps. Caepio first, with an assault made upon the senate, chose Scaurus and Philippus, leaders of the nobility, as defendants on the charge of ambitus.

His ut motibus resisteret Drusus, plebem ad se Gracchanis legibus, isdemque socios ad plebem spe civitatis erexit. Exstat vox ipsius, nihil se ad largitionem ulli reliquisse, nisi si quis aut caenum dividere vellet aut caelum. Aderat promulgandi dies, cum subito tanta vis hominum undique apparuit, ut hostium adventu obsessa civitas videretur.

That he might resist these disturbances, Drusus won the plebs to himself by Gracchan laws, and with those same measures raised the allies into the plebs by the hope of citizenship. There exists a saying of his: that he had left nothing to anyone for largess, unless someone should wish to divide either the mire or the heaven. The day for promulgation was at hand, when suddenly so great a mass of men appeared from every side that the city seemed besieged at the advent of enemies.

Ausus tamen obrogare legibus consulo Philippus, sed adprehensum faucibus viator non ante dimisit quam sanguinis in os et oculos redundaret. Sic per vim latae iussaeque leges, sed pretium rogationi statim socii flagitare, cum interim imparem Drusum aegrumque rerum temere moratum matura, ut in tali discrimine, mors abstulit. Nec ideo minus socii promissa Drusi a populo Romano reposcere armis desierunt.

Nevertheless the consul Philippus dared to obrogate the laws, but the viator, having seized him by the throat, did not release him before blood overflowed into his mouth and eyes. Thus the laws were carried and ordered by force; but the allies immediately began to demand the price of the rogation, while meanwhile a timely death, as in such a crisis, took away Drusus, unequal to the task and sick with his affairs, having lingered rashly. Nor for that reason did the allies cease to reclaim by arms from the Roman people the promises of Drusus.

VI. Bellum, quod adversus socios gestum est, sociale bellum vocetur licet, ut extenuemus invidiam; si verum tamen volumus, illud civile bellum fuit. Quippe cum populus Romanus Etruscos, Latinos Sabinosque sibi miscuerit et unum ex omnibus sanguinem ducat, corpus fecit ex membris et ex omnibus unus est; nec minore flagitio socii intra Italiam quam intra urbem cives rebellabant. Itaque cum ius civitatis, quam viribus auxerant, socii iustissime postularent, quam in spem eos cupidine dominationis Drusus erexerat, postquam ille domestico scelere oppressus est, eadem fax, quae illum cremavit, socios in arma et expugnationem urbis accendit.

6. The war which was waged against the allies may be called the Social War, so that we may attenuate the odium; if, however, we wish the truth, that was a civil war. For since the Roman people has mingled to itself the Etruscans, Latins, and Sabines, and draws one blood from all, it has made a body from limbs and out of all is one; nor with lesser disgrace were the allies rebelling within Italy than citizens within the city. And so, when the allies most justly were demanding the right of citizenship, which they had augmented by their forces, into which hope Drusus had raised them by a lust for domination, after he was crushed by domestic crime, the same torch which cremated him inflamed the allies to arms and to the storming of the city.

Qui hac clade tristius? quid calamitosius? cum omne Latium atque Picenum, Etruria omnis atque Campania, postremo Italia contra matrem suam ac parentem urbem consurgerent; cum omne robur fortissimorum fidelissimorumque sociorum sub suis quisque signis haberent municipalia illa prodigia, Poppaedius Marsos et Paelignos, Latinos Afranius, Vmbros Plotius, Egnatius Etruscos, Samnium Lucaniamque Telesinus; cum regum et gentium arbiter populos ipsum se regem non posset, ut victrix Asiae et Europae a Corfinio Roma peteretur.

What was sadder than this disaster? what more calamitous? when all Latium and Picenum, all Etruria and Campania, finally Italy rose up against her mother and parent city; when all the strength of the bravest and most faithful allies stood under their several standards—those municipal prodigies: Poppaedius over the Marsi and the Paeligni, Afranius the Latins, Plotius the Umbrians, Egnatius the Etruscans, Telesinus Samnium and Lucania; when the People, arbiter of kings and nations, could not be king to itself, so that Rome, victress of Asia and Europe, was attacked from Corfinium.

Primum fuit belli in Albano monte consilium, ut festo die Latinarum Iulius Caesar et Marcius Philippus consules inter sacra et aras inmolarentur. Postquam id nefas proditione discussum est, Asculo furor omnis erupit, in ipsa quidem ludorum frequentia trucidatis qui tunc aderat ab urbe legatis. Hoc fuit inpii belli sacramentum.

First there was a counsel of war on the Alban Mount, that on the feast day of the Latins Julius Caesar and Marcius Philippus, the consuls, should be immolated among the sacred rites and the altars. After that nefas was broken up by betrayal, at Asculum all frenzy burst forth, indeed in the very throng of the games, the envoys from the city who were then present having been butchered. This was the sacrament of the impious war.

Inde iam passim ab omni parte Italiae duce et auctore belli discursante Poppaedio diversa per populos et urbes signa cecinere. Nec Hannibalis nec Pyrrhi fuit tanta vastatio. Ecce Ocriculum, esse Grumentum, ecce Faesulae, ecce Carseoli, Aesernia, Nuceria, Picentia caedibus, ferro et igne vastantur.

Thence now
everywhere from every part of Italy, with Poppaedius, the leader and author of the war, running to and fro,
diverse signals resounded among peoples and cities. Not even Hannibal’s nor Pyrrhus’s
was there such devastation. Behold Ocriculum, behold Grumentum, behold Faesulae, behold
Carseoli, Aesernia, Nuceria, Picentia are being laid waste with slaughters, with iron and with fire.

Fusae Rutili copiae, fusae Caepionis. Nam ipse Iulius Caesar exercitu amisso cum in urbem cruentus referretur, miserabili funere mediam etiam urbem perviam fecit. Sed magna populi Romani fortuna, et semper in malis maior, totis denuo viribus consurrexit; adgressique singulos populos Cato discutit Etruscos, Gabinius Marsos, Carbo Lucanos, Sulla Samnites; Strabo vero Pompeius omnia flammis ferroque populatus non prius finem caedium fecit, quam Asculi eversione manibus tot exercituum, consulum direptarumque urbium diis litaretur utcumque.

Rutilius’s forces routed, Caepio’s routed. For Julius Caesar himself, his army lost, as he was borne back into the city bloodstained, made even the middle of the city passable with a pitiable funeral. But the great fortune of the Roman people, and always greater amid evils, rose up again with all its forces; and, assailing the several peoples, Cato scatters the Etruscans, Gabinius the Marsi, Carbo the Lucanians, Sulla the Samnites; but Pompeius Strabo, having laid everything waste with flames and iron, did not make an end of the slaughters before, by the overthrow of Asculum, he had in some wise propitiated the gods—the Manes of so many armies, consuls, and sacked cities.

VII. Utcumque, etsi cum sociis—nefas—cum liberis tamen et ingenuis dimicatum est, quis aequo animo ferat in principe gentium populo bella servorum? primum servile bellum inter urbis Herdonio duce Sabino in ipsa urbe temptatum est, cum occupata tribuniciis seditionibus civitate Capitolium obsessum est et a consule receptum; sed hic tumultus magis fuit quam bellum. Mox imperio per diversa terrarum occupato, qui crederet Siciliam multo cruentius servili quam Punico bello esse vastatam?

7. However, although it was fought with allies—an abomination—yet it was with the free and the freeborn: who could bear with equanimity, in the people that is the prince of nations, wars of slaves? The first servile war was attempted in the city itself, with Herdonius, a Sabine, as leader, when, the state being occupied by tribunician seditions, the Capitol was besieged and recovered by the consul; but this was more a tumult than a war. Soon, with dominion occupied across diverse parts of the earth, who would believe that Sicily was devastated much more bloodily by a servile than by a Punic war?

terram frugum ferax et quodam modo suburbana provincia latifundis civium Romanorum tenebatur. Hic ad cultum agri frequentia ergastula catenatique cultores materiam bello praebuere. Syrium quidam nomine Eunus—magnitudo cladium facit ut meminerimus—fanatico furore simulato dum Syriae deae comas iactat, ad libertatem et arma servom quasi numinum imperio concitavit; inde ut divinitus fieri probaret, in ore abdita nuce quam sulpure et igne stipaverat, leniter inspirant flammam inter verba fundebat.

the land, fertile in crops,
and in a certain way a suburban province, was held by the latifundia of Roman citizens.
Here, for the cultivation of the field, the numerous ergastula and shackled cultivators
supplied material for war. A certain Syrian by the name Eunus—the magnitude
of the slaughters makes us remember—having feigned a fanatic frenzy, while he tossed the locks of the Syrian
goddess, stirred the slaves to liberty and to arms as if by the command of the divinities;
then, to prove that it was happening divinely, with a nut hidden in his mouth which
he had packed with sulfur and fire, gently breathing, he poured forth flame amid his words.

Hoc miraculum primo duo milia ex obviis, mox iure belli refractis ergastulis sexaginta amplius milium fecit exercitum; regisque, ne quid malis deesset, decoratus insignibus castella, victos, oppida miserabili direptione vastavit. Quin illud quoque ultimum dedecus belli, capta sunt castra praetorum—nec nominare ipsos pudet—castra Manli, Lentuli, Pisonis, Hypsaei. Itaque qui per fugitivarios abstrahi debuisset, praetorios duces profugos proelio ipsi sequebantur.

This miracle at first made, from those it met, an army of 2,000, soon, the ergastula broken open by the right of war, of more than 60,000; and the “king,” so that nothing might be lacking to the evils, adorned with royal insignia, devastated castles, the conquered, and towns with miserable depredation. Nay, that ultimate disgrace of war too: the camps of the praetors were taken—nor are we ashamed to name them—the camps of Manlius, Lentulus, Piso, Hypsaeus. And so those who ought to have been dragged off by fugitive-hunters were themselves pursuing in battle the praetorian commanders as they fled.

Tandem Perperna imperatore supplicium de eis sumptum est. Hic enim victos et apud Hennam novissime obsessos cum fame quasi pestilentia consumpsisset? reliquias latronum compedibus, catenis crucibusque punivit; fuitque de servis ovatione contentus, ne dignitatem triumphi servili inscriptione violaret.

At length, with Perperna as general, punishment was exacted from them.
For he, after he had consumed with hunger, as if by a pestilence, those who were conquered and most recently besieged at Henna,
punished the remnants of the brigands with fetters, chains, and crosses; and he was content with an ovation for a victory over slaves,
lest he violate the dignity of a triumph with a servile inscription.

Vixdum respiraverat insula, cum statim Servilio praetore a Syro reditur ad Cilicem. Athenio pastor interfecto domino familiam ergastulo liberatam sub signi ordinat. Ipse veste purpurea argenteoque baculo et regium in morem fronte redimita non minorem quam ille fanaticus prior conflavit exercitum, acriusque multo, quasi et illum vindicaret, vicos oppida, castella diripiens, in servos infestius quam in dominos quasi in transfugas saeviebat.

Scarcely had the island caught its breath, when at once, with Servilius as praetor, a return was made from Syria to Cilicia. Athenio, a shepherd, his master having been slain, marshaled the household, freed from the ergastulum, under a standard. He himself, in a purple garment and with a silver staff, and with his brow encircled in royal fashion, fused together an army no smaller than that former fanatic; and far more fiercely—as if he were avenging him as well—plundering villages, towns, and forts, he raged more hostilely against slaves than against masters, as if against deserters.

Ab hoc quoque praetorii exercitus fusi, capta Servili castra, capta Luculli. Sed Titus Aquilius Perpernae usus exemplo, interclusum hostem commeatibus ad extrema delevit; comminutasque copias fame armis facile delevit; dedidissent se, nisi suppliciorum metu voluntariam mortem praetulissent. Ac ne de duce quidem supplicium exigi potuit, quamvis vivus in manus venerit; quippe dum circa adprehendendum eum multitudo contendit, inter rixantium manus praeda lacerata est.

By him too the praetorian armies were routed, the camp of Servilius taken, the camp of Lucullus taken. But Titus Aquilius, using Perperna’s example,
destroyed the enemy, cut off from supplies, to the last extremity;
and the shattered forces he easily destroyed by famine and by arms; they would have surrendered themselves, had they not,
for fear of punishments, preferred voluntary death. And not even from the leader
could punishment be exacted, although alive he came into their hands; for while
the crowd strove all around to apprehend him, amid the hands of those brawling
the prey was torn to pieces.

VIII. Enimvero et servilium armorum dedecus feras; nam etsi per fortunam in omnia obnoxii, tamen quasi secundum hominum genus sunt et in bona libertatis nostrae adoptantur: bellum Spartaco duce concitatum quo nomine appellem nescio, quippe cum servi militaverint, gladiatores imperaverint, illi infimae sortis homines, hi pessumae auxere ludibriis calamitatem. Spartacus, Crixus, Oenomaus effracto Lentuli ludo cum triginta aut amplius eiusdem fortunae viris europe Capua; servisque ad vexillum vocatis cum statim decem milia amplius coissent, homines non modo effugisse contenti, iam et vindicari volebat.

8. Indeed, do also endure the disgrace of servile arms; for although by fortune they are subject to everything, yet they are as it were a second kind of mankind and are adopted into the goods of our liberty: the war stirred up with Spartacus as leader—by what name I should call it I know not, since slaves soldiered, gladiators commanded—those men of the lowest lot, these of the worst, increased the calamity with mockeries. Spartacus, Crixus, Oenomaus, the school of Lentulus having been broken open, with thirty or more men of the same fortune broke out from Capua; and with the slaves called to the standard, when straightway more than ten thousand had come together, the men, not only content to have escaped, now also wished to be avenged.

Prima sedes velut ara Veneris mons Vesuvius placuit. Ibi cum obsiderentur a Clodio Glabro, per fauces cavi montis vitineis delapsi vinculis ad imas eius descendere radices et exitu inviso nihil tale opinantis ducis impetu castra rapuerunt; inde alia, castra Vareniana, castra deinceps Thorani; totamque pervagarunt Campaniam. Nec villarum atque vicorum vastatione contenti Nolam atque Nuceriam.

The first seat, as if an altar of Venus, Mount Vesuvius pleased. There, when they were being besieged by Clodius Glaber, having slipped down through the gorges of the hollow mountain by vine-ropes, they descended to its lowest roots, and, the exit being unobserved and the leader expecting nothing of the sort, they seized the camp by a sudden assault; thence others, the Varenian camp, then in succession the camp of Thoranus; and they ranged through all Campania. Nor, content with the devastation of villas and villages, did they set upon Nola and Nuceria.

Thurios atque Metapontum terribili strage populantur. Adfluentibus in diem copiis cum iam esset iustus exercitus, e viminibus pecudumque tegumentis inconditos sibi clipeos et ferro ergastulorum recocto gladios ac tela fecerunt. Ac ne quod decus iusto desset exercitui, domitis obviis etiam gregibus paratur equitatus, captaque de praetoribus insignia et fasces ad ducem detulere.

They ravage Thurii and Metapontum with terrible slaughter. As forces flowed in day by day, when by now there was a regular army, from osiers and the hides of livestock they made for themselves rough-and-ready shields, and from the iron of the slave-prisons, re-smelted, they made swords and missiles. And lest any honor be lacking to a regular army, by breaking even the herds they met (of horses), cavalry was prepared, and the insignia and the fasces seized from the praetors they carried to the leader.

Nec abnuit ille de stipendiario Thrace miles, de milite desertos, inde latro, deinde in honorem virium gladiator. Qui defunctorum quoque proelio ducum funera imperatoriis celebravit exsequiis, captivosque circa rogum iussit armis depugnare, quasi plane expiaturus omne praeteritum dedecus, si de gladiatore munerator tum fuisset. Inde iam consulares quoque adgressus in Appennino Lentuli exercitum cecidit, apud Mutinam Gai Crassi castra delevit.

Nor did he refuse—from a stipend-earning Thracian soldier, from a soldier a deserter, then a brigand, then, in honor of his strength, a gladiator. He even celebrated the funerals of leaders fallen in battle with imperatorial obsequies, and ordered the captives to fight it out with arms around the pyre, as if plainly about to expiate all past disgrace, if from gladiator he had then become a munerator. Thenceforth he even assailed men of consular rank: in the Apennine he cut down Lentulus’s army, near Mutina he destroyed the camp of Gaius Crassus.

Quibus elatus victoriis de invadenda urbe Romana—quod satis est turpitudini nostrae—deliberavit. Tandem enim totis imperii viribus contra myrmillonem consurgunt pudoremque Romanum Licinius Crassus adseruit; a quo pulsi fugatique—pudet dicere—hostes in extrema Italiae refugerunt. Ibi circa Bruttium angulum clusi, cum fugam in Siciliam pararent neque navigia suppeterent, ratesque ex trabibus et dolia conexa virgulis in rapidissimo freto frustra experirentur, tamen eruptione facta dignam viris obiere mortem et, quod sub gladiatore duce oportuit, sine missione pugnatum est.

Elated by these victories, he deliberated about invading the city of Rome—which is quite enough for our turpitude. At length, indeed, with all the forces of the empire they rise up against a myrmillo, and Licinius Crassus asserted Roman honor; from whom the enemies—driven back and routed—shame to say—took refuge at the extremities of Italy. There, shut in around the Bruttian corner, when they were preparing a flight to Sicily and ships were not forthcoming, and when they tried in vain in the very swift strait rafts from beams and casks bound together with withes, nevertheless, a breakout having been made, they met a death worthy of men and, as was fitting under a gladiator leader, it was fought without quarter.

Spartacus ipse in primo agmine fortissime dimicans quasi imperator occisus est.

Spartacus himself, fighting most bravely in the first rank, was slain like a commander.

IX. Hoc deerat unum populi Romani malis, ut iam ipse intra se parricidale bellum domi stringeret, et in urbe media ac foro quasi harena cives cum civibus suis gladiatorio more concurrerent. Aequiore animo utcumque ferrem, si plebei duces aut, si nobiles, mali saltem ducatum sceleri praebuissent. Tum vero—pro facinus—qui viri!

9. This one thing was lacking to the evils of the Roman people: that now the Roman people itself should draw a parricidal war within itself at home, and in the middle of the city and the forum, as if an arena, citizens should rush together with their fellow citizens in gladiatorial fashion. I would bear it with a more even mind, somehow, if the leaders were plebeian, or, if nobles, at least wicked men had provided leadership to the crime. Then indeed—oh, what a crime!—what men!

qui imperatores! decora et ornamenta saeculi sui, Marius et Sulla, pessimo facinori suam etiam dignitatem praebuerunt.

what generals! the honors and ornaments of their age, Marius and Sulla, even lent their own dignity to the worst crime.

Bellum civile Marianum sive Sullanum tribus, ut sic dixerim, sideribus agitatum est. Primum levi et modico tumultu maiore quam bello, intra ipsos dumtaxat armorum duces subsistente saevitia; mox atrocius et cruentius, per ipsius viscera senatus grassante victoria; ultimo non civicam modo, sed hostilem quoque rabiem supergressum est, cum armorum furor totius Italiae viribus niteretur, eo usque odiis saevientibus, donec deessent qui occiderentur.

The Marian or Sullan civil war was driven by three, so to speak, stars. At first with a light and moderate tumult rather than a war, the savagery remaining confined only within the leaders of the arms themselves; soon more atrociously and more bloodily, as victory rampaged through the very bowels of the senate; at last it overpassed not only civic but even hostile fury, when the fury of arms relied on the forces of all Italy, hatreds raging to that point, until there were no longer those who could be killed.

Initium et causa belli inexplebilis honorum Marii fames, dum decretam Sullae provinciam Sulpicia lege sollicitat. Sed inpatiens iniuriae statim Sulla legiones circumegit, dilatoque Mithridate Esquilina Collinaque porta geminum urbi agmen infudit. Inde cum consuli Sulpicius et Albinovanus obiecissent catervas, suas, et saxa undique a moenibus ac tela iacerentur, ipse quoque iaculatus incendio viam fecit arcemque Capitolii, quae Poenos quoque, Gallos etiam Senones evaserat, quasi captivam victor insedit.

Initium and cause of the war was Marius’s insatiable hunger for honors, while he was agitating, by the Sulpician law, for the province decreed to Sulla. But, impatient of injury, Sulla immediately wheeled his legions, and with Mithridates postponed he poured a twin column into the city through the Esquiline and Colline Gate. Then, when Sulpicius and Albinovanus had thrown their own bands against the consul, and stones and missiles were being hurled from the walls on every side, he too, by hurling fire, made a way and took possession of the citadel of the Capitol, which had escaped even the Carthaginians and the Gallic Senones, as though it were a captive, the victor sat upon it.

Tum ex consulto senatus adversariis hostibus iudicatis in praesentem tribunum alioque diversae factionis iure saevitum est; Marium servilis fuga exemit, immo fortuna alteri bello reservavit.

Then, by decree of the Senate, the adversaries having been judged enemies, savagery was exercised against the sitting tribune, and, by another law of the opposite faction; Marius a servile flight removed—nay rather, Fortune reserved him for another war.

Cornelio Cinna Gnaeo Octavio consulibus male obrutum resurrexit incendium, et quidem ab ipsorum discordia, cum de revocandis quos senatus hostes iudicaverat ad populum referretur; cincta quidem gladiis contione, sed vincentibus quibus pax et quies potior, profugus patria sua Cinna confugit ad partes. Redit ab Africa clade maior; si quidem carcer, catenae, fuga, exilium horrificaverant dignitatem. Itaque ad nomen tanti viri late concurritur, servitia—pro nefas—et ergastula armantur, et facile invenit exercitum miser imperator.

Under the consuls Cornelius Cinna and Gnaeus Octavius the conflagration, ill-buried, rose again, and indeed from their own discord, when it was being referred to the people about recalling those whom the senate had adjudged enemies; with the assembly indeed girded with swords, but those prevailing to whom peace and quiet were preferable, Cinna, a fugitive from his own fatherland, fled to the party. He returns from Africa greater by disaster; since indeed prison, chains, flight, exile had made his dignity more horrific. And so at the name of so great a man there is a wide concourse; the slaves—what a crime—and the ergastula are armed, and the wretched general easily finds an army.

Itaque vi patriam reposcens, unde vi fuerat expulsus, poterat videri iure agere, nisi causam suam saevitia corrumperet. Sed cum dis hominibusque infestus rediret, statim primo impetu cliens et alumna urbis Ostia nefanda strage diripitur. Mox in urbe quadruplici agmine intratur.

Thus, reclaiming his fatherland by force, whence he had been expelled by force, he could seem to act by right, unless he spoiled his cause by savagery. But as he returned hostile to gods and men, immediately at the first onrush the client and foster-child of the city, Ostia, is plundered with unspeakable slaughter. Soon the city is entered in a fourfold column.

Diverse copias Cinna, Marius Carbo, Sertorius. Hic postquam manus omnis Octavi depulsa Ianiculo est, statim ad principum caedem signo dato aliquando saevius quam aut in Punica aut in Cimbrica urbe saevitur. Octavi consilis caput pro rostris exponitur, Antoni consularis in Mari ipsius mensis.

Cinna, Marius, Carbo, Sertorius assembled diverse forces. After the whole band of Octavius was driven from the Janiculum, immediately, the signal having been given, there is a resort to the slaughter of the principals, sometimes more savagely than either in a Punic or in a Cimbrian city. The head of the consul Octavius is displayed before the rostra; that of Antonius, a consular, upon Marius’s very tables.

Caesares a Fimbria in penatibus domorum suarum trucidantur, Crassi partes et filius in mutuo alter alterius aspectus. Baebium atque Numitorium per medium forum unci traxere carnificum. Catulus se ignis haustu ludibrio hostium exemit.

The Caesars are slaughtered by Fimbria at the hearths of their own homes, the Crassi, father and son, each under the other’s gaze. Baebius and Numitorius were dragged through the middle of the Forum by the executioners’ hooks. Catulus, by a draught of fire, removed himself from the mockery of the enemies.

Merula flamen Dialis in Capitolio Iovis ipsius oculos venarum cruore respersit. Ancharius ipso vidente Mario confossus est, quia fatalem illam scilicet manum non porrexerat salutanti. Haec tot senatus funera intra Kalendas et idus Ianuarii mensis septima illa Marii purpura dedit.

Merula, the flamen Dialis, on the Capitol spattered the very eyes of Jupiter with the gore of his veins. Ancharius was run through before Marius’s own eyes, because he had not extended, to be sure, that fateful hand to his greeter. These so many funerals of the Senate, between the Kalends and the Ides of the month of January, that seventh purple of Marius gave.

Qui futurum fuit, si annum consulatus inplesset?

What would have come to pass, if he had completed the year of his consulship?

Scipione Norbanoque consulibus tertius ille turbo civilis insaniae toto furore detonuit; quippe cum hinc octo legiones, inde quingentae cohortes starent in armis, inde ab Asia cum victore exercitu Sulla properaret. Et sane cum tam ferox in Sullanos Marius fuisset, quanta saevitia opus erat, ut Sulla de Mario vindicaretur? Primum apud Capuam sub amne Volturno signa concurrunt, et statim Norbani fusus exercitus, statim omnes Scipionis copiae ostentata spe pacis oppressae.

In the consulship of Scipio and Norbanus, that third whirlwind of civil insanity thundered with full fury; since on this side eight legions, on that side five hundred cohorts stood in arms, and from Asia Sulla was hastening with a victorious army. And indeed, since Marius had been so ferocious against the Sullans, what savagery was needed, that Sulla might be avenged on Marius? First near Capua, by the River Volturnus the standards clash, and at once Norbanus’s army is routed, at once all Scipio’s forces, the hope of peace ostentatiously displayed, are overwhelmed.

Tum Marius iuvenis et Carbo consules quasi desperata victoria, ne inulti perirent, in antecessum sanguine senatus sibi parentabant, obsessaque curia sic de senatu quasi de carcere qui iugularentur educti. Quantum funerum in foro, in circo, in patentibus templis! nam Mucius Scaevola pontifex Vestalis amplexus aras tantum non eodem igne sepelitur.

Then Marius the young and Carbo, consuls, as if victory were despaired of, lest they should perish unavenged, were beforehand propitiating for themselves with the blood of the Senate; and the curia being besieged, thus men of the senate were led out, as if from a prison, to be slaughtered. How great a number of funerals in the forum, in the circus, in the open temples! for Mucius Scaevola, pontifex of Vesta, embracing the altars, was all but buried by the same fire.

Lamponius atque Telesinus, Samnitium duces, atrocius Pyrrho et Hannibale Campaniam Etruriamque populantur, et sub specie partium se vindicant. Apud Sacriportum Collinamque portam debellatae omnes hostium copiae; ibi Marius, hic Telesinus oppressi. Nec idem tamen caedium qui bello finis fuit.

Lamponius and
Telesinus, leaders of the Samnites, ravage Campania
and Etruria more atrociously than Pyrrhus and Hannibal, and under the guise of faction they vindicate themselves. At
Sacriportus and the Colline Gate all the enemy forces were brought to a finish; there
Marius, here Telesinus, were crushed. Nor, however, was the end of the slaughters the same as that of the war.

Stricti enim et in pace gladii, animadversumque in eos, qui se sponte dediderant. Minus est, quod apud Sacriportum, apud Collinam septuaginta amplius milia Sulla concidit: bellum erat.

For even in peace the swords were drawn, and animadversion was taken upon those who had surrendered of their own accord. It is a lesser thing that at Sacriportus, at the Colline Gate, Sulla cut down more than seventy thousand: it was war.

Quattuor milia deditorum inermium civium in Villa Publica interfici iussit: isti tot in pace non plures sunt? Quis autem illos potest conputare, quos in urbe passim quisquis voluit occidit? Donec admonente Fufidio vivere aliquos debere, ut essent quibus imperarent, proposita est ingens illa tabula, et ex ipso equestris ordinis flore ac senatu duo milia electi, qui mori iuberentur: novi generis edictum.

Four thousand surrendered, unarmed citizens he ordered to be killed in the Villa Publica: are not so many in peace no fewer? But who can count those whom, in the city, whosoever wished slew indiscriminately? Until, with Fufidius admonishing that some ought to live, so that there might be those over whom they could command, that immense tablet was posted, and from the very flower of the equestrian order and the senate two thousand were chosen, who were to be ordered to die: an edict of a new kind.

Piget post haec referre ludibrio habita fata Carbonis, fata Sorani, Plaetorios atque Venuleios, Baebium sine ferro ritu ferarum inter manus lancinatum, Marium, ducis ipsius fratrem, apud Catuli sepulchrum oculis effossis, manibus cruribusque effractis servatum aliquandiu, ut per singula membra moreretur. Possis singulorum hominum singulorum ferre poenas: municipia Italiae splendidissima sub hasta venierunt, Spoletium, Interamnium, Praeneste, Florentia. Nam Sulmonem, vetus oppidum socium atque amicum—facinus indignum—non expugnat aut obsidet iure belli; sed quod modo morte damnati duci iubentur, sic damnatam civitatem iussit Sulla deleri.

It irks, after this, to recount the fates held up to mockery of Carbo, the fate of Soranus, the Plaetorii and the Venuleii, Baebius torn to pieces without iron, in the manner of wild beasts, between men’s hands, Marius, the general’s own brother, at the tomb of Catulus, with eyes gouged out and hands and legs broken, kept alive for some time, so that he might die by each limb in turn. One could set forth the penalties of each single man one by one: the most splendid municipalities of Italy were sold under the spear, Spoleto, Interamna, Praeneste, Florence. For Sulmo, an old town, an ally and friend—an unworthy deed—he does not take by storm or besiege by the law of war; but just as those condemned to death are ordered to be led away, so Sulla ordered the condemned community to be destroyed.

X. Bellum Sertorianum quid amplius quam Sullanae proscriptionis hereditas fuit? Hostile potius an civile dixerim nescio, quippe quod Lusitani Celtiberique Romano gesserint duce. Exsul et profugus feralis illius tabulae, vir summae quidem sed calamitosae virtutis malis suis maria terrasque permiscuit; et iam Africae, iam Balearibus insulis fortunam expertus usque in Oceanum Fortunatasque insulas penetravit consiliis, tandem Hispaniam armavit.

10. What more was the Sertorian War than the inheritance of Sulla’s proscription? I know not whether I should call it hostile rather or civil, since the Lusitanians and Celtiberians waged it with a Roman as leader. An exile and fugitive of that deadly tablet, a man of the highest indeed but calamitous virtue, by his own misfortunes he threw sea and land into confusion; and now in Africa, now in the Balearic Islands, having tested fortune, he penetrated by counsels as far as the Ocean and the Fortunate Islands, and at length he armed Spain.

Viro cum viris facile convenit. Nec alias magis apparavit Hispani militis vigor quam Romano duce. Quamquam ille non contentus Hispania ad Mithridatem quoque Ponticosque respexit regemque classe iuvit.

A man readily accorded with men. Nor at any other time did the vigor of the Spanish soldier prepare itself more than with a Roman leader. Although he, not content with Spain, also looked toward Mithridates and the Pontics, and aided the king with a fleet.

Et quid futurum fuit satis tanto hosti, cui uno imperatore resistere res Romana non potuit? additus Metello Gnaeus Pompeius. Hi copias adtrivere viri, prope tota Hispania persecuti.

And what would have been enough for so great an enemy, against whom the Roman state was not able to resist with one commander? Gnaeus Pompeius was added to Metellus. These men wore down his forces pursuing him through nearly all of Spain.

Diu et ancipiti semper acie pugnatum est; nec tamen prius bello quam suorum scelere et insidiis exstinctus est. Prima per legatos habita certamina, cum hinc Domitius et Thorius, inde Herculeius proluderent; mox hoc apud Segoviam, illis apud Anam flumen oppressis, ipsi duces comminus invicem experti apud Lauronem atque Sucronem aequavere clades. Tum illis ad populationes agrorum, his ad urbium excidia conversis, misera inter Romanos duces Hispania discordiae poenas dabat; donec oppresso domestica fraude Sertorio, victo deditoque Perperna, ipsae quoque in Romanam fidem venere urbes Osca, Termes, Clunia, Valentia, Auxuma et infame nihil non experta Calagurris.

For a long time and ever with a two-headed, uncertain battle-line was the fighting; nor, however, was he extinguished by war before by the crime and ambushes of his own. The first contests were held through legates, when on this side Domitius and
Thorius, on that side Herculeius, skirmished; soon, the former at Segovia, the latter at the river Anas being overwhelmed, the commanders themselves, having tested one another hand-to-hand near Lauron
and Sucron, made the disasters equal. Then, with those turned to the depredations of the fields, these to the destructions of cities, wretched Spain was paying the penalties of discord among Roman leaders;
until, Sertorius being crushed by domestic fraud, and Perperna conquered and surrendered, the cities themselves also came into Roman faith—Osca,
Termes, Clunia, Valentia, Auxuma, and Calagurris, infamous as having experienced nothing not tried.

Sic recepta in pacem Hispania. Victores duces externum id magis quam civile bellum videri voluerunt, ut triumpharent.

Thus Spain was received back into peace. The victorious commanders wished that it be seen as a foreign rather than a civil war, so that they might triumph.

XI. Marco Lepido Quinto Catulo consulibus civile bellum paene citius oppressum est quam inciperet: sed quantulacumque fax illius motus ab ipso Sullae rogo exarsit. Cupidus namque rerum novarum per insolentiam Lepidus acta tanti viri rescindere parabat; nec inmerito, si tamen posset sine magna clade rei publicae. Nam cum iure belli Sulla dictator proscripsisset inimicos, qui supererant revocante Lepido quid aliud quam ad bellum vocabantur?

11. In the consulship of Marcus Lepidus and Quintus Catulus, the civil war was almost suppressed sooner than it began; but the however-small torch of that movement flared up from Sulla’s very pyre. For Lepidus, desirous of novelties through insolence, was preparing to rescind the acts of so great a man; and not without merit, if only he could do it without great disaster to the republic. For since Sulla, as dictator, by the right of war had proscribed his enemies, those who survived—Lepidus recalling them—what else were they being summoned to than to war?

Cumque damnatorum civium bona addicente Sulla quamvis male capta iure tamen tenerentur, repetitio eorum procul dubio labefactabat compositae civitatis statum. Expediebat ergo quasi aegrae sauciaeque rei publicae requiescere quomodocumque, ne volnera curatione ipsa rescinderentur. Ergo cum turbidis concionibus velut classico civitatem terruisset, profectus in Etruriam arma inde et exercitum urbi admovebat.

And when
the goods of condemned citizens, with Sulla adjudging them, although badly seized, yet were held by law,
the recovery of them was, without doubt, undermining the condition of the settled commonwealth. It was expedient, therefore, that the republic, as if sick and wounded,
should rest in whatever way, lest the wounds be torn open by the treatment itself. Therefore, when by turbulent assemblies he had terrified the state as if by a war-trumpet,
setting out into Etruria, from there he was bringing up arms and an army against the city.

Sed iam Mulvium pontem collemque Ianiculum Lutatius Catulus Gnaeusque Pompeius, Sullanae dominationis duces atque signiferi, alio exercitu insederant. A quibus primo statim impetu retro pulsus hostisque a senatu iudicatus incruenta fuga Etruriam, inde Sardiniam recessit, ibique morbo et paenitentia interiit. Victores quoque, quod non temere alias in civilibus bellis, pace contenti fuerunt.

Soon, however, the Mulvian Bridge and the Janiculum Hill had been occupied by Lutatius Catulus and Gnaeus Pompeius, leaders and standard-bearers of Sullan domination, with another army. By whom, driven back at the very first onset and judged an enemy by the Senate, he withdrew in bloodless flight to Etruria, thence to Sardinia, and there perished of disease and repentance. The victors also—what does not readily otherwise happen in civil wars—were content with peace.

XII. Catilinam luxuria primum, tum hinc conflata egestas rei familiaris, simul occasio, quod in extremis finibus mundi arma Romana peregrinabantur, in nefaria consilia opprimendae patriae suae compulere. Senatum confodere, consules trucidare, distringere incendiis urbem, diripere aerarium, totam denique rem publicam funditus tollere et quidquid nec Hannibal videretur optasse, quibus—o nefas—sociis adgressus est! Ipse patricius; sed hoc minus est: Curii, Porcii, Sullae, Cethegi, Autronii, Varguntei atque Longini, quae familiae!

12. Catiline, first by luxury, then by the indigence of his family estate fused therefrom, together with the opportunity that, on the farthest borders of the world, Roman arms were peregrinating, was driven into nefarious counsels of crushing his fatherland. To stab the senate, to butcher the consuls, to harry the city with conflagrations, to plunder the treasury, in fine to tear up the whole commonwealth by the roots—and whatever even Hannibal would not seem to have wished—with what—o nefas—associates he set about it! He himself a patrician; but this is the lesser: the Curii, the Porcii, the Sullae, the Cethegi, the Autronii, the Vargunteii and the Longini—what families!

quae senatus insignia! Lentulus quoque tum cum maxime praetor. Hoc omnis inmanissimi facinoris satellites habuit.

What senatorial insignia! Lentulus too then was, at the very moment, praetor.
He had as satellites all the henchmen of the most monstrous crime.

Additus est pignus coniurationis sanguis humanus, quem circumlatum pateris bibere: summum nefas, nisi amplius esset, propter quod biberunt. Actum erat de pulcherrimo imperio, nisi illa coniuratio in Ciceronem et Antonium consules incidisset, quorum alter industria rem patefecit, alter manu oppressit. Tanti sceleris indicium per Fulviam emersit, vilissimum scortum, sed patriciis innocentium.

A pledge of the conspiracy was added, human blood, which, carried around in bowls, they drank: the supreme impiety—unless there was something greater, the very cause for which they drank. It would have been all over with the most fair empire, had not that conspiracy fallen upon Cicero and
Antonius as consuls, of whom the one by industry laid the matter open, the other by hand crushed it. The disclosure of so great a crime surfaced through Fulvia, a most worthless harlot, yet more innocent than the patricians.

Tum consul habito senatu in praesentem rem peroravit; sed non amplius profectum, quam ut hostis evaderet seque palam ac professo incendium suum restincturum ruina minaretur. Et ille quidem ad praeparatum a Manlio in Etruria exercitum proficiscitur signa inlaturus urbi. Lentulus destinatum familiae suae Sibyllinis versibus regnum sibi vaticinans, ad praestitutum a Catilina diem urbe tota viros, faces, tela disponit.

Then the consul, a senate having been held, perorated on the present matter; but nothing further was effected than that the enemy should escape, and that he, openly and as an avowed foe, should threaten that he would quench his own conflagration with ruin. And he indeed sets out to the army prepared by Manlius in Etruria, to bring the standards against the city. Lentulus, vaticinating for himself the kingship destined to his family by the Sibylline verses, for the day appointed by Catiline, throughout the whole city arrays men, torches, weapons.

Nec civili conspiratione contentus legatos Allobrogum, qui tum forte aderant, in arma sollicitat. Et isset ultra Alpes furor, nisi altera proditione Volturci praetoris litterae tenerentur. Statim Ciceronis imperio iniecta est barbaris manus; palam praetor in senatu convincitur.

Not content with a civil conspiracy,
he incites the legates of the Allobroges, who then by chance were present, to arms. And the fury would have gone beyond the Alps, had not by a second betrayal the letters of the praetor Volturcius been seized.
At once, by Cicero’s command, a hand was laid upon the barbarians;
openly the praetor is convicted in the senate.

De supplicio agentibus, Caesar parcendum dignitati, Cato animadvertendum pro scelere censebat. Quam sententiam secutis omnibus in carcere parricidae strangulantur. Quamvis parte coniurationis oppressa, tamen ab incepto Catilina non destitit; infestis ab Etruria signis patriam petens obvio Antonii exercitu opprimitur.

As they were dealing with the punishment,
Caesar judged that their dignity should be spared, Cato that punishment should be inflicted for the crime. With everyone following that opinion, the parricides are strangled in prison. Although part of the conspiracy was crushed, nevertheless Catiline did not
desist from his undertaking; with hostile standards from Etruria, seeking his fatherland, he is overpowered by the army of Antony that meets him.

Quam atrociter dimicatum sit, exitus docuit. Nemo hostium bello superfuit; quem quis in pugnando ceperat locum, eum amissa anima corpore tegebat. Catilina longe a suis inter hostium cadavera repertus est, pulcherrima morte, si pro patria sic concidisset.

How atrociously it was fought, the outcome taught. No one
of the enemies survived the war; the place which each had taken in the fighting, that, his soul lost,
he covered with his body. Catiline was found far from his own among the cadavers of the enemy,
by a most beautiful death, if he had thus fallen for his fatherland.

XIII. Iam paene toto orbe pacato maius erat imperium Romanum, quam ut ullis externis viribus opprimi posset. Itaque invidens Fortuna principi gentium populo ipsum illum in exitium sui armavit.

13. By now, with nearly the whole world pacified, the Roman Empire was too great to be crushed by any external forces. And so envious Fortune armed that very people, the chief of the nations, for its own destruction.

Ac Mariana quidem Cinnanaque rabies iam intra urbem se praecluserat, quasi experiretur. Sullana tempestas latius, intra Italiam tamen detonuerat. Caesaris furor atque Pompei urbem, Italiam, gentes, nationes, totum denique qua patebat imperium quodam quasi diluvio et inflammatione corripuit, adeo ut non recte tantum civile dicatur, ac ne sociale quidem, sed nec externum, sed potius commune quoddam ex omnibus et plus quam bellum.

And indeed the Marian and Cinnan madness had already shut itself up within the city, as if making a trial. The Sullan tempest had thundered more widely, yet within Italy. The fury of Caesar and of Pompey seized the city, Italy, peoples, nations, and finally, wherever the empire lay open, the whole of it, by a kind of, as it were, deluge and conflagration, to such a degree that it is not rightly called only civil, nor even social, nor yet foreign, but rather a certain common one from all, and more than a war.

Quippe si duces eius inspicias, totus senatus in partibus; si exercitus, hinc undecim legiones, inde decem et octo, flos omnis et robur Italici sanguinis; si auxilia sociorum, hinc Gallici Germanique dilectus, inde Deiotarus, Ariobarzanes, Tarcondimotus, Cotys et Rhascypolis, omne Thraciae, Cappadociae, Macedoniae Ciliciae, Graeciae totiusque robur orientis; si moram belli, quattuor anni, sed pro clade rerum breve tempus; si locum et spatium ubi commissum est, intra Italiam; inde se in Galliam Hispaniamque deflexit reversumque ab occasu totis viribus in Epiro Thessaliaque consedit; hinc in Aegypton subito transiluit, inde respexit Asiam, Africae incubuit, postremo in Hispaniam remigravit et ibi aliquando defecit. Sed non et odia partium finita cum bello. Non enim prius quieverunt, quam in ipsa urbe medio senatu eorum qui victi erant, odia victoris sese caede satiarent.

If you inspect its leaders, the whole senate was in the parties; if the army, on this side eleven legions, on that side eighteen, the whole flower and strength of Italian blood; if the auxiliaries of the allies, on this side Gallic and German levies, on that side Deiotarus, Ariobarzanes, Tarcondimotus, Cotys and Rhascypolis, all the strength of Thrace, Cappadocia, Macedonia, Cilicia, Greece, and of the whole East; if the duration of the war, four years—but, in proportion to the ruin of affairs, a brief time; if the place and the space where it was joined, within Italy; then it bent itself into Gaul and Spain, and, returning from the west, with all its forces it settled in Epirus and Thessaly; thence it suddenly leaped into Egypt, from there it looked back to Asia, it brooded over Africa, and at last it migrated back into Spain and there finally failed. But neither were the hatreds of the parties ended along with the war. For they did not rest before, in the city itself, with the senate—of those who had been vanquished—sitting in the midst, the hatreds of the victor were glutted with slaughter.

Causa tantae calamitatis eadem quae omnium, nimia. Si quidem Quinto Metello Lucio Afranio consulibus cum Romana maiestas toto urbe polleret recentesque victorias. Ponticos et Armenios triumphos, in Pompeianis theatris Roma cantaret, nimia Pompei potentia apud otiosos, ut solet, cives movit invidiam.

The cause of so great a calamity was the same as that of all—excess. Indeed, when Quintus Metellus and Lucius Afranius were consuls, while the Roman majesty prevailed throughout the whole city and Rome was singing in Pompey’s theaters of the recent victories, the Pontic and Armenian triumphs, Pompey’s excessive power stirred envy among the otiose citizens, as it is wont.

Metellus ob inminutum Cretae triumphum, Cato adversus potentes semper oblicus detractare Pompeium actisque eius obstrepere. Hinc dolor transvorsum egit et ad praesidia dignitati paranda impulit. Forte tunc Crassus genere, divitiis, dignitate florebat, ut vellet tamen auctioris opes; C. Caesar eloquentia et spiritu, ecce iam et consulatu adlevabatur; Pompeius tamen inter utrumque eminebat.

Metellus, on account of the diminished triumph over Crete; Cato, always oblique toward the powerful, used to disparage Pompey and to drown out his deeds. Hence resentment drove him crosswise and impelled him to prepare safeguards for his dignity. By chance at that time Crassus was flourishing in lineage, riches, and dignity, yet he was wanting the resources of greater authority; Gaius Caesar, by eloquence and spirit—behold, now also by the consulship—was being lifted up; Pompey, however, stood out above them both.

Sic igitur Caesare dignitatem comparare, Crasso augere, Pompeio retinere cupientibus, omnibusque pariter potentiae cupidis de invadenda re publica facile convenit. Ergo cum mutuis viribus in suum quisque decus niterentur, Gallicam Caesar invadit, Crassus Asiam, Pompeius Hispaniam; tres maximi exercitus, et in his orbis imperium societate trium principum occupatur. Decem annos traxit ista dominatio ex fide, quia mutuo metu tenebantur.

Thus therefore, with Caesar desiring to acquire dignity, Crassus to augment it, Pompey
to retain it, and all alike, desirous of power, it was easy to agree on invading the
commonwealth. Therefore, since with mutual forces each strove for his own honor, Caesar invades the Gallic land, Crassus Asia, Pompey
Spain; three very great armies, and in these the empire of the world is occupied by the partnership
of three princes. This dominion dragged on for ten years on trust,
because they were held by mutual fear.

Crassi morte apud Parthos et morte Iuliae Caesaris filiae, quae nupta Pompeio generi socerisque concordiam matrimonii foedere tenebat, statim aemulatio erupit. Iam Pompeio suspectae Caesaris opes et Caesari Pompeiana dignitas gravis. Nec ille ferebat parem, nec hic superiorem.

By the death of Crassus among the Parthians and by the death of Julia,
Caesar’s daughter, who, married to Pompey, held son-in-law and father-in-law in concord
by the covenant of matrimony, emulation burst forth at once. Already to Pompey
Caesar’s resources were suspect, and to Caesar the Pompeian dignity was grave. Nor would that man
bear an equal, nor this one a superior.

Pro nefas, Sic de principatu laborabant, tamquam duos tanti imperii Fortuna non caperet. Ergo Lentulo Marcelloque consulibus rupta primum coniurationis fides. De successione Caesaris senatus idemque Pompeius agitabat, nec ille abnuebat, si ratio sui proximis comitiis haberetur.

O outrage, thus they were striving about the principate,
as though Fortune could not hold two for so great an empire. Therefore, with Lentulus
and Marcellus as consuls, the good faith of the confederacy was first broken. Concerning the succession
of Caesar the senate and likewise Pompey were agitating, nor did he refuse, if consideration
of himself were had at the next elections.

Consulatus absenti, quem decem tribuni favente Pompeio nuper decreverant, tum dissimulante eodem negabatur: veniret et peteret more maiorum. Ille contra flagitare decreta, ac, nisi fides permaneret, non remittere exercitum. Ergo ut in hostem decernitur.

the consulship for one absent, which ten tribunes, with Pompey favoring, had lately decreed, was then, with that same man dissembling, denied: let him come and seek it in the custom of the ancestors.
He, on the contrary, kept demanding the decrees, and, unless good faith remained, would not release the army.
Therefore it is decreed as against an enemy.

Hic Caesar agitatus statuit praemia armorum armis defendere. Prima civilis belli harena Italia fuit, cuius arces levibus praesidis Pompeius insederat; sed omnia subito Caesaris impetu oppressa sunt. Prima Arimino signa cecinerunt.

Here, stirred, Caesar resolved to defend the rewards of his arms by arms. The first arena of the civil war was Italy, whose strongholds Pompey had occupied with light garrisons; but all were suddenly crushed by the onset of Caesar. The first signals sounded at Ariminum.

Tum pulsus Etruria Libo, Vmbria, Thermus. Domitius Corfinio. Et peractum erat bellum sine sanguine, si Pompeium Brundisi opprimere potuisset.

Then Libo was driven from Etruria, Thermus from Umbria. Domitius at Corfinium. And the war would have been completed without blood, if he had been able to overwhelm Pompey at Brundisium.

Et ceperat; sed ille per obsessi claustra portus nocturna fuga evasit. Turpe dictu! modo princeps patrum, pacis bellique moderator, per triumphatum a se mare lacera et paene inermi naves fugiebat.

And he had seized him; but that man escaped by a nocturnal flight through the barriers of the besieged harbor. Shameful to say! just now the princeps of the fathers, the moderator of peace and war, was fleeing over a sea he himself had triumphed, in ships torn and almost unarmed.

Nec Pompei ad Italia quam senatus ab urge fuga turpior: quam paene vacuam metu Caesar ingressus consulem ipse se fecit. Aerarium quoque sanctum, quia tardius aperiebant tribuni iussit effringi, censumque et patrimonium populi Romani ante rapuit quam imperium.

Nor was Pompey’s flight from Italy more disgraceful than the senate’s from the city: which,
almost emptied by fear, Caesar, upon entering, made himself consul. The sacred treasury
too, because the tribunes were opening it too slowly, he ordered to be broken open,
and he seized the census and the patrimony of the Roman people before the imperium.

Pulso fugatoque Pompeio maluit prius ordinare provincias quam ipsum sequi. Siciliam et Sardiniam, annonae pignora, per legatos habet. Nihil hostile erat in Gallia; pacem ipse fecerat.

With Pompey beaten and routed, he preferred first to organize the provinces rather than to follow him himself. Sicily and Sardinia, pledges of the grain-supply, he held through legates. Nothing hostile was in Gaul; he himself had made the peace.

Sed ad Hispanienses Pompei exercitus transeunti per eam duci portas claudere ausa Massilia est. Misera dum cupit pacem, belli metum in bellum incidit; sed quia tuta muris erat, vinci eam sibi iussit absenti. Graecula civitas non pro mollitia nominis et vallum rumpere et incendere machinam ausa, etiam congredi navibus; sed Brutus, cui mandatum erat bellum, victos terra marique perdomuit.

But to the Spanish armies of Pompey,
as the leader was crossing through it, Massilia dared to close its gates. Wretched, while it longs for peace, from fear of war it falls into war; but because it was safe behind walls,
he ordered that it be conquered for himself in his absence. The little Greek city, not in keeping with the softness of its name,
dared both to break a rampart and to burn a siege-machine, and even
to engage with ships; but Brutus, to whom the war had been entrusted, the conquered on land
and sea he thoroughly subdued.

Mox dedentibus esse omnia ablata praeter quam potiorem omnibus habebant libertatem.

Soon, for those surrendering, everything was taken away except their liberty, which they held preferable to all.

Anceps variumque sed incruentum in Hispaniam bellum cum legatis Gnaei pompei, Petreio et Afranio, quos Ilerdae castra habentes apud Sicorim amnem opsidere et ab oppido intercludere adgreditur. Interim abundatio verni fluminis commeatibus prohibet: sic fame castra temptata sunt, obsessorque ipse quasi obsidebatur. Sed ubi pax fluminis rediit et populationibus et pugnae campos aperuit, iterum ferox instat et cedentes ad Celtiberiam consecutus aggere et vallo et per haec siti ad deditionem compulit.

A two-sided and variable but bloodless war in Spain: he sets upon the legates of Gnaeus Pompeius, Petreius and Afranius, who, having their camp at Ilerda by the river Sicoris, he proceeds to besiege and to cut off from the town. Meanwhile the swelling abundance of the springtime river prevents the supply-convoys: thus the camp was tested by hunger, and the besieger himself was, as it were, being besieged. But when the peace of the river returned and opened the fields for depredations and for battle, again, fierce, he presses on, and, having overtaken those withdrawing toward Celtiberia, by earthwork and rampart—and by these means, by thirst—he forced them to surrender.

Sic citerior Hispania recepta est, nec ulterior moram fecit. Quid enim una post quinque legiones? Itaque ultro cedente Varrone Gades, fretum, Oceanus, omnia felicitatem Caesaris sequebantur.

Thus Nearer Spain was recovered, nor did Further [Spain] make delay. For what is one in comparison with five legions? And so, with Varro yielding of his own accord, Gades,
the strait, the Ocean, all things followed the felicity of Caesar.

Aliquid tamen adversus absentem ducem ausa Fortuna est circa Illyricum et Africam, quasi de industria prospera eius adversis radiarentur; quippe cum fauces Hadriani maris iussi occupare Dolabella et Antonius illa Illyrico, hic Curictico litore castra posuissent, iam maria late tenente Pompeio, repente legatus eius Octavius Libo ingentibus copiis classicorum utrumque circumvenit. Deditionem fames extorsit Antonio. Missae quoque a Basilo in auxilium eius rates, quales inopia navium fecerat, nova Pompeianorum arte Cilicium actis sub mari funibus captae quasi per indaginem.

Something, however, Fortune dared against the absent leader around
Illyricum and Africa, as if on purpose his prosperities were made to radiate by adversities; for when Dolabella and Antony, having been ordered to seize the straits of the Adriatic Sea,
the one had pitched camp on the Illyrian side, the other on the Curictan shore, with Pompey now holding the seas widely,
suddenly his legate Octavius Libo, with huge forces of the fleet, surrounded them both. Hunger wrung a surrender from Antony.
Rafts also sent by Basilus to his aid, such as he had made through lack of ships, by a new art of the Pompeians—Cilician ropes having been run under the sea—were caught as if by a game-drive with toils.

Duas tamen aestus explicuit. Vna, quae Opiterginos ferebat, in vadis haesit memorandumque posteris exemplum dedit. Quippe vix mille iuvenum manus circumfusi exercitus per totum diem tela sustinuit, et cum exitum virtus non haberet, tandem, ne in deditionem veniret, hortante tribuno Vulteio mutuis ictibus inter se concucurrit.

Nevertheless the tide freed two. One,
which was carrying the Opiterginians, stuck in the shallows and gave to posterity a memorable example.
For the band of scarcely a thousand youths sustained the missiles of the surrounding army through the whole day,
and when valor had no exit, at last, lest it should come into surrender,
with the tribune Vulteius exhorting, they rushed against one another with mutual blows,
and fell.

In Africa quoque per et virtus et calamitas Curionis fuit, qui ad recipiendam provinciam missus, pulso fugatoque Varo iam superbus, subitum Iubae regis adventum equitatumque Maurorum sustinere non potuit. Patebat victo fuga; sed pudor suasit, ut amissum sua temeritate exercitum morte sequeretur.

In Africa too there was both the virtue and the calamity of Curio, who, sent to recover the province, with Varus routed and put to flight and now over-proud, could not withstand the sudden advent of King Juba and the cavalry of the Mauri. Escape lay open to the vanquished; but shame persuaded him to follow in death the army lost by his own temerity.

Sed iam debitum par Fortuna flagitante sedem bello Pompeius Epiron elegerat; nec Caesar morabatur. Quippe ordinatis a tergo omnibus, quamvis hiemps media prohiberet tempestate, ad bellum navigavit; positisque ad Oricum castris, cum pars exercitus ob inopiam navium cum Antonio relicta Brundisii moram faceret, adeo impatiens erat, ut ad arcessendos eos ardente ventis mari, nocte concubia, speculatorio navigio solus ire temptaverit. Exstat ad trepidum tanto discrimine gubernatorem vox ipsius: "Quid times?

But now, with Fortune demanding the owed pair, Pompey had chosen Epirus as the seat for war; nor did Caesar delay. For, with everything arranged in his rear, although mid-winter forbade by stormy weather, he sailed to the war; and, with the camp pitched at Oricum, since part of the army, left at Brundisium with Antony because of a lack of ships, was causing delay, he was so impatient that, to fetch them, with the sea blazing with winds, in the dead of night, in a scouting vessel he attempted to go alone. There survives his own utterance to the helmsman trembling at so great a crisis: "Why do you fear?

Caesarem vehis". Contractis in unum undique omnibus copiis positisque comminus castris diversa erant ducum consilia. Caesar pro natura ferox conficiendae rei cupidus ostentare aciem provocarem, lacessere; nunc obsidione castrorum, quae sedecim milium vallo obduxerat—sed quid his obessent obsidio, qui patente mari omnibus copiis abundarent?—nunc expugnatione Dyrrachi inrita, quippe quam vel situs inexpugnabilem faceret; ad hoc adsiduis in eruptione hostium proeliis, quo tempore egregia virtus Scaevae centurionis emicuit, cuius in scuto centum atque viginti tela sederunt: iam vero urbium direptione sociarum, cum Oricum et Gomphos et alia castella Thessaliae vastaret. Pompeius adversus haec nectere moras, tergiversari, sic hostem interclusum undique inopia commeatuum terere, usque dum ardentissimi ducis consenesceret impetus.

“You are carrying Caesar.” With all the forces drawn together into one from every side and the camps pitched at close quarters, the plans of the leaders were divergent. Caesar, fierce by nature and eager to have the affair consummated, would display his battle line, challenge, provoke: now with a siege of the camp, which he had surrounded with a rampart of sixteen miles—but how could a siege hurt men who, with the sea lying open, abounded in all supplies?—now with an assault on Dyrrachium frustrated, since even the site made it impregnable; in addition, with continual battles during the enemy’s sorties, at which time the outstanding valor of the centurion Scaeva flashed forth—upon whose shield one hundred and twenty missiles lodged; and now indeed with the plundering of allied cities, as he was ravaging Oricum and Gomphi and other forts of Thessaly. Pompey, in opposition to these measures, contrived delays, prevaricated, and thus sought to wear down the enemy, hemmed in on every side by scarcity of provisions, until the impetus of the most ardent commander should grow old.

Nec diutius profuit ducis salutare consilium. Miles otium, socii moram, principes ambitum ducis increpabant. Sic praecipitantibus fatis proelio sumpta Thessalia est, et Philippicis campis urbis, imperii, generis humani facta commissa sunt.

Nor did the leader’s salutary counsel profit for long. The soldiers were railing at idleness, the allies at delay, the chiefs at the leader’s ambition. Thus, with the fates hurrying headlong, battle was joined in Thessaly, and on the Philippic fields the fortunes of the City, of the Empire, of the human race were committed.

Numquam ullo loco tantum virium populi Romani, tantum dignitatis Fortuna respexit; trecenta amplius milia hinc illic praeter auxilia, reges et senatum. Numquam inminentis ruinae manifestiora prodigia: fuga victimarum, examina in signis interdiu tenebrae. Dux ipse in nocturna imagine theatri sui audiens plausum in modum planctus circumsonantem et mare cum pullo pallio—nefas—apud principia conspectus est.

Never in any place did Fortune regard so much strength of the Roman people, so much dignity; more than three hundred thousand on this side and that, besides the auxiliaries, kings and the senate. Never clearer portents of impending ruin: the flight of the sacrificial victims, swarms on the standards, darkness in the daytime. The leader himself, in a nocturnal vision of his theater, hearing the applause resounding around in the manner of lamentation, and in the morning with a dark cloak—nefarious—was seen at the headquarters.

Numquam acrior neque alacrior exercitus Caesaris fuit; inde classica prius, inde tela. Adnotatum quoque committentis aciem Crastini pilum, qui mox adacto in os gladio—sic inter cadavera repertus—libidinem ac rabiem qua pugnaverat ipsa novitate volneris praeferebat.

Never was Caesar’s army keener nor more alacritous; thence the war-trumpets
first, thence the missiles. It was also noted, as he was committing the battle-line, the javelin of Crastinus, who soon, with the sword driven into his mouth—thus found among the cadavers—was displaying the lust and rabidity with which he had fought by the very novelty of the wound.

Sed nec minus admirabilior illius exitus belli. Quippe cum Pompeius adeo equitum copia abundaret, ut facile circumventurus sibi Caesarem videretur, circumventus ipse est. Nam cum diu aequo Marte contenderent, iussuque Pompei fusus a cornu erupisset equitatus, repente hinc signo dato Germanorum cohortes tantum in effusos equites fecere impetum, ut illi esse pedites, hi venire in equis viderentur.

But no less admirable was the outcome of that war. Indeed, since Pompey abounded to such a degree in a supply of cavalry that he seemed likely easily to surround Caesar, he himself was surrounded. For when for a long time they contended on equal terms, and at Pompey’s command the cavalry, poured out from the wing, had burst forth, suddenly, with a signal given from this side, the cohorts of the Germans made so great an assault upon the scattered horsemen that those seemed to be the foot-soldiers, these to be coming on horses.

Hanc stragem fugientis equitatus levis armaturae ruina comitata est; tunc terrore latius dato, turbantibus invicem copiis, reliqua strages quasi una manu facta est; nec ulla res magis exitio fuit quam ipsa exercitus magnitudo. Multus eo proelio Caesar mediusque inter imperatorem et militem. Voces quoque obequitantis acceptae, altera cruenta, sed docta et ad victoriam efficax "miles, faciem feri!", altera ad iactatione conposita "parce civibus!", cum ipse sequeretur felicem utcumque in malis Pompeium, si eadem ipsum quae exercitum eius fortuna traxisset.

This slaughter was accompanied by the ruin of the fleeing cavalry of the light-armed; then, with terror spread more widely, and the forces throwing one another into confusion, the remaining carnage was as if done by one hand; nor was any thing more to the destruction than the very magnitude of the army. Caesar was everywhere in that battle, and in the midst between the commander and the soldier. The cries too of him riding along were noted, the one bloody, but well-schooled and effective for victory: "Soldier, strike at the face!"; the other composed for ostentation: "Spare the citizens!", while he himself would have pursued Pompey—fortunate, however, amid misfortunes—if the same fortune had drawn him as drew his army.

Superstes dignitatis suae vixit, ut cum maiore dedecore per Thessalica Tempe equo fugeret, ut una navicula Lesbon applicaret, ut Syedris, in deserto Ciliciae scopulo, fugam in Parthos, Africam vel Aegypton agitaret, ut denique in Pelusio litore imperio vilissimi regis, consiliis, spadonum et, ne quid malis desit, Septimi desertoris sui gladio trucidatus sub oculis uxoris suae liberorumque moreretur.

He lived as a survivor of his own dignity, so that with greater disgrace he fled on horseback through the Thessalian Tempe, so that in a single little boat he made landfall at Lesbos, so that at Syedra, on a deserted crag of Cilicia, he tossed about the plan of flight to the Parthians, to Africa, or to Egypt, and finally, on the Pelusian shore, by the command of a most vile king, by the counsels of eunuchs, and—so that nothing be lacking to his misfortunes—by the sword of Septimius, his own deserter, butchered, he died beneath the eyes of his wife and children.

Quis non peractum esse cum Pompeio crederet bellum? Atquin acrius multo atque vehementius Thessalici incendii cineres recaluerunt. Et in Aegypto quidem adversus Caesarem sine partibus bellum.

Who would not have believed that the war had been brought to completion with Pompey? And yet much more sharply and more vehemently the cinders of the Thessalian conflagration grew hot again. And in Egypt indeed, a war against Caesar without partisans.

Quippe cum Ptolemaeus, rex Alexandriae, summum civilis belli scelus peregisset et foedus amicitiae cum Caesare medio Pompei capite sanxisset, ultionem clarissimi viri manibus quaerente Fortuna causa non defuit. Cleopatra regis soror, adfusa Caesaris gentibus partem regni reposcebat. Aderat puellae forma, et quae duplicaretur ex illo quod talis passa videbatur iniuriam, odium ipsius regis, qui Pompei caedem partium fato, non Caesari dederat, haud dubie idem in ipsum ausurus, si fuisset occasio.

Since Ptolemy, king of Alexandria, had accomplished the supreme crime of the civil war and had ratified a pact of friendship with Caesar with Pompey’s head set between as the pledge, Fortune, seeking with her own hands vengeance for that most illustrious man, did not lack a cause. Cleopatra, the king’s sister, having thrown herself in with Caesar’s forces, was demanding back a share of the kingdom. The girl’s beauty was present, and—since she seemed to have suffered such an injury—there was a hatred of the king himself, doubled on that account, he who had attributed Pompey’s slaughter to the destiny of the party, not to Caesar, and who would, without doubt, have dared the same against Caesar himself, had there been an occasion.

Quam ubi Caesar restitui iussit in regnum, statim ab isdem percussoribus Pompei obsessus in regia quamvis exigua manu ingentis exercitus molem mira virtute sustinuit. Ac primum proximorum aedificiorum atque navalium incendio infestorum hostium tela summovit, mox in paeninsulam Pharon subitus evasit; inde depulsus in maria mira felicitate ad proximam classem enatavit, relicto quidem in fluctibus paludamento seu fato sue consilio, ut illud ingruentibus hostium teli saxisque peteretur. Tunc receptus a classicis, suis undique simul hostes adortus de inbelli ac perfida gente iusta generi manibus dedit.

When Caesar ordered that she be restored to the kingdom, immediately he, besieged in the palace by those same assassins of Pompey, with a band however small sustained by wondrous virtue the mass of a vast army. And first, by a conflagration of the nearest buildings and the naval dockyards, he drove off the missiles of the hostile enemies; soon he suddenly escaped onto the Pharos peninsula; thence driven into the seas, with marvelous felicity he swam to the nearest fleet, having left behind in the waves his paludament, whether by fate or by design, so that it might be targeted by the onrushing missiles and stones of the enemy. Then, received by the seamen, with his own attacking the foes on every side at once, he rendered with his own hands to his son-in-law the just dues upon an unwarlike and perfidious people.

Quippe et Theodotus magister auctorque totius belli, et ne virilia quidem portenta, Pothinus atque Ganymedes diversa per mare et terras fuga morte consumpti. Regis ipsius corpus obrutum limo repertum est in aureae loricae honore.

Indeed both Theodotus, the tutor and author of the whole war, and, no virile portents, Pothinus and Ganymedes, were consumed by death in divergent flight over sea and over land. The king’s own body, buried over with mud, was found in the honor of a golden cuirass.

In Asia quoque novus rerum motus a Ponto, plane quasi de industria captante Fortuna hunc Mithridatico regno exitum, ut a Pompeio pater, a Caesar filius vinceretur. Rex Pharnaces magis discordiae nostrae fiducia quam suae virtutis infesto in Cappadociam agmine ruebat. Sed hunc Caesar adgressus uno et, ut sic dixerim, non toto proelio obtrivit, more fulminis, quod uno eodemque momento venit, percussit, abscessit.

In Asia likewise a new movement of affairs from Pontus, plainly as if Fortune, deliberately contriving, were snatching at this outcome for the Mithridatic kingdom, that the father be conquered by Pompey, the son by Caesar. King Pharnaces, trusting more in our discord than in his own virtue, was rushing with a hostile agmen into Cappadocia. But Caesar, having attacked him, crushed him in a single and, so to speak, not even entire battle, in the manner of a thunderbolt, which in one and the same moment comes, strikes, passes away.

Nec vana de se praedicato est Caesaris, ante hoste victum esse quam visum.

Nor
was Caesar’s proclamation about himself vain, that the enemy had been conquered before he was seen.

Sic cum exteris; at in Africa cum civibus multo atrocius quam in Pharsalia. Hunc reliquias partium naufragatum quidam fugae, aestus expulerat; nec reliquias diceres, sed integrum bellum. Sparsae magis quam oppressae vires erant; auxerant sacramentum ipsa clades imperatoris, nec degenerabat ducum successio.

Thus with foreigners; but in Africa with fellow citizens much more atrociously than at Pharsalia. To this place a certain tide of flight had driven out the shipwrecked remnant of the party; you would not call them remnants, but an entire war. Their forces were scattered rather than crushed; the very disaster of the imperator had swelled the sacramentum, and the succession of leaders was not degenerating.

Quippe satis ample sonabant in Pompeiani nominis locum Cato et Scipio. Accessit copiis Mauretaniae rex Iuba, videlicet ut latius vinceret Caesar. Nihil ergo inter Pharsaliam et Thapson, nisi quod amplior eoque acrior Caesareanorum impetus fuit, indignantium post Pompeium crevisse bellum; denique, quod alias numquam, ante imperium ducis sua sponte signa cecinerunt.

For indeed quite amply
Cato and Scipio resounded in the place of the Pompeian name. King Juba of Mauretania joined with forces,
evidently so that Caesar might conquer more broadly. Therefore there was nothing
between Pharsalia and Thapsus, except that the impetus of the Caesareans was larger and thereby sharper,
as they were indignant that after Pompey the war had grown;
and finally—what at other times never—before the command of the leader the signals of their own accord
sounded.

Et primum strages a Iuba coepit, cuius elephanti bellorum rudes et nuper a silva consternati subito clangore lituorum in suos sese circumegere. Stati exercitus in fugam, nec duces fortius quam ut effugerent. Non inconspicua tamen mors omnium.

And first the carnage began on Juba’s side, whose elephants, raw to wars and, fresh from the forest, consternated, at the sudden clangor of the war-trumpets turned upon their own. The arrayed armies into flight, and the leaders no more bravely than to make their escape. Nevertheless the death of all was not inconspicuous.

Iam Scipio nave fugiebat; sed adsecutis hostibus gladium per viscera exegit et, ubi esset quodam requirente respondit hoc ipsum: "Bene se habet imperator". Iuba cum se recepisset in regiam, magnifice epulatus est postero die cum Petreio fugae comite superque mensas et pocula interficiendum se ei praebuit. Ille et regi suffecit et sibi, cum interi semesi in medio cibi et parentalia fercula regio simul Romanoque sanguine madebant. Cato non interfuit bello.

By now Scipio was fleeing by ship;
but when the enemies had overtaken him, he drove the sword through his entrails, and, when someone asked where he was, he answered this very thing: "The commander is doing well." Juba, when he had withdrawn into the royal palace, feasted magnificently the next day with Petreius, his companion in flight, and over the tables and cups offered himself to him to be killed. He both did for the king and for himself, while, in the middle of the meal, the half-eaten and
funereal dishes were being soaked with royal and Roman blood alike. Cato was not
present at the war.

Positis apud Bagradam castris Vticam velut altera Africae claustra servabat. Sed accepta partium clade nihil cunctatus, ut sapiente dignum erat, mortem sibi etiam laetus accivit. Nam postquam filium comitesque ab amplexu dimisit, in noctem lecto ad lucernam Platonis libro, qui inmortalitatem animae docet, paulum quieti dedit; tunc circa primam vigiliam stricto gladio revelatur manu pectus semel iterumque percussit.

With the camp set near the Bagrada, he was guarding Utica as though another barrier of Africa.
But, the defeat of his party once received, delaying in nothing, as was worthy of a sage, he even gladly summoned death to himself.
For after he dismissed his son and companions from his embrace, into the night, in bed by lamplight with Plato’s book, which teaches the immortality of the soul, he gave a little to rest;
then, about the first watch, with his sword drawn, he uncovered his chest with his hand and struck it once and again.

Ausi post hoc virum medici violare fomentis. Ille passus, dum abscederent, rescidit plagas secutaque vi sanguinis manus in ipso volnere reliquit.

After this the physicians dared to violate the man with fomentations. He having allowed it, while they were withdrawing, he reopened the wounds and, the force of the blood following, left his hands in the very wound.

Quasi numquam esset dimicatum, sic arma rursus et partes quantoque Africa supra Thessaliam fuit, tanto Africam superabat Hispania. Plurimum quantum favoris partibus dabat fraternitas ducum et pro uno duos stare Pompeios. Itaque nusquam atrocius nec tam ancipiti Martem concursum est.

As if there had never been fighting, so arms and factions again, and by as much as Africa was above Thessaly, by so much did Spain surpass Africa. Very much favor to the party was given by the fraternity of the leaders, and that in place of one there stood two Pompeys. And so nowhere was Mars contested more atrociously nor with so doubtful a hazard.

Primum in ipso ostio Oceani Varus Didiusque legati conflixere. Sed acrius fuit cum ipso mari quam inter se navibus bellum, siquidem, quasi furorem civicum castigaret. Oceanus utramque classem naufragio cecidit.

First, at the very mouth of the Ocean, the legates Varus and Didius clashed. But the war was fiercer with the sea itself than between themselves with their ships, since, as if to castigate civic fury, the Ocean felled both fleets by shipwreck.

Quinam ille horror, tempore fluctus procellae, viri, naves, armamenta confligeret! Adde situs ipsius formidinem, urgentia in unum hinc Hispaniae, inde Mauretaniae litora, mare et intestinum et externum imminentesque Herculis speculas, cum omnia undique simul proelio et tempestate saevirent. Mox circa obsidione urbium utrimque discursum est, quae miserae inter hoc atque illos duces societatis Romanae poenas dabant.

What a horror it was, when at the same time the waves in a tempest, men, ships, and the armaments clashed! Add the dread of the very situs: the littoral of Hispania on one side and of Mauretania on the other pressing into a single strait, the sea both internal and external, and the looming watchtowers of Hercules, while all things on every side at once raged with battle and with storm. Soon, on both sides, there was scurrying to and fro around the besieging of cities, which, poor wretches, between these and those leaders of the Roman alliance were paying the penalties.

Omnium postrema certaminum Munda. Hic non pro cetera felicitate, sed anceps et diu triste proelium, ut plane videretur nescio quid deliberare Fortuna. Sane et ipse ante aciem maestior non ex more Caesar, sive respectu fragilitatis humanae, sive nimiam prosperorum suspectam habens continuationem, vel eadem timens, postquam idem esse coeperat quod Pompeius; et in ipso proelio, quod nemo umquam meminerat, cum diu pari Marte acies nihil amplius quam occideret, in medio ardore pugnantium subito ingens inter utrosque silentium, quasi convenisset et hic omnium sensum esset; "Quo usque?" novissime illud inusitatum Caesaris oculis—nefas—post quattuordecim annos probata veteranorum manus gradum recto dedit, quos, etsi nondum fugerant, apparebat tamen pudore magis quam virtute resistere.

The last of all the contests was Munda. Here, not in proportion to the rest of his felicity, but a two-sided and for a long time gloomy battle, so that it clearly seemed as if Fortune were deliberating I know not what. Indeed even Caesar himself, before the battle line, was more mournful than his wont, whether out of regard for human fragility, or holding the excessive continuation of prosperities suspect, or fearing the same things, after he had begun to be the same as Pompey; and in the battle itself—a thing which no one had ever remembered—when for a long time with equal Mars the battle lines did nothing more than kill, in the very heat of the fighters suddenly there was a huge silence between both sides, as if it had been agreed and here was the feeling of all: “How far?” Lastly, that thing unusual to Caesar’s eyes—nefas—the proven band of veterans, after 14 years, gave a straight step back, whom, although they had not yet fled, it was apparent nevertheless to be resisting more from shame than from virtue.

Itaque ille ablegato equo similis furenti primam in aciem procurrit. Ibi prensare fugientis, confirmare signiferos, orare, hortari, increpare, per totum denique agmen oculis, manibus, clamore volitare. Dicitur in illa perturbatione et de extremis agitasse secum et ita manifesto voltu fuisse, quasi occupare mortem manu vellet; nisi quod cohortes hostium quinque per transversam aciem actae, quas Labienus periclitantibus castris praesidio miserat, speciem fugae praebuissent.

And so he,
with his horse sent away, like one raging, ran forward into the front line. There to grasp
the fleeing, to confirm the standard-bearers, to implore, to exhort, to increpate, to flit through the whole
column at last with eyes, hands, and outcry. He is said in that
perturbation both to have agitated within himself about ultimate things, and to have been with so manifest a countenance,
as if he wished to seize death with his hand; except that five cohorts of the enemy,
driven across the line athwart, which Labienus had sent as a guard to the camp in peril,
had presented the appearance of flight.

Hoc aut et ipse credidit aut dux callidus arripuit in occasionem, et quasi in fugientes invectus simul et suorum erexit animos et hostis perculit. Nam et hi, dum se putant vincere, fortius sequi, et Pompeiani, dum fugere credunt suos, fugere coeperunt. Quanta fuerit hostium caedes, ira rabiesque victoribus, sic aestimari potest, quod a proelio profugi cum se Mundam recepisset, et Caesar obsideri statim victos imperasset, congestis cadaveribus agger effectus est, quae pilis tragulisque confixa inter se tenebantur—foedum etiam in barbaros.

This either he himself believed, or a crafty leader seized upon as an occasion, and, as if charging upon fugitives, he at once both lifted up the spirits of his own men and smote the enemy with dismay. For these, while they think themselves to be winning, follow more boldly; and the Pompeians, while they believe their own to be fleeing, began to flee. How great the slaughter of the enemy was, and the anger and frenzy in the victors, may be estimated thus: when the runaways from the battle had withdrawn into Munda, and Caesar had immediately ordered the conquered to be besieged, a rampart was made from piled-up corpses, which, fastened to one another with pila and javelins, were held together—a thing foul even among barbarians.

Sed videlicet victoriam desperantibus Pompeis liberis, Gnaeum proelio profugum, cruore saucium, deserta et avia petentem Caesonius apud Lauronem oppidum consecutus, pugnantem—adeo nondum desperabat!—interficit; Sextum fortuna in Celtiberia interim abscondit aliisque post Caesarem bellis reservavit. Caesarem in patriam victor invehitur, primum de Gallia triumphum trahens: hic erat Rhenus et Rhodanus et ex auro captivus Oceanus. Altera laurus Aegyptia: tunc in ferculis Nilus, Arsinoe et ad simulacrum ignium ardens Pharos.

But plainly, with victory despaired of by Pompey’s sons, Gnaeus—fleeing from the battle, wounded with gore, seeking deserts and pathless places—was overtaken by Caesonius near the town of Lauron and, fighting—so much was he not yet despairing!—is slain; Fortune meanwhile hid Sextus in Celtiberia and reserved him for other wars after Caesar. Caesar is borne into his fatherland as victor, drawing his first triumph from Gaul: here were the Rhine and the Rhone and the Ocean captive in gold. A second laurel was Egyptian: then on the floats the Nile, Arsinoe, and the Pharos blazing with a simulacrum of fires.

Tertius de Pharnace currus et Ponto. Quartus Iubam et Mauros et bis subactam ostendebat Hispaniam. Pharsalia et Thapsos et Munda nusquam: et quanto maiora erant, de quibus non triumphabat!

The third chariot was for Pharnaces and Pontus. The fourth displayed Juba and the Mauri and Spain twice subdued. Pharsalia
and Thapsus and Munda nowhere: and how much greater were those, over which he did not triumph!

Hic aliquando finis armis fuit; reliqua pax incruenta pensatumque clementia bellum. Nemo caesus imperio praeter Afranium (satis ignoverat semel) et Faustum Sullam (docuerat generos timere Pompeius) filiamque Pompei cum parvulis ex Sulla (hic posteris cavebatur). Itaque non ingratis civibus omnes unum in principem congesti honores: circa templa imagines, in theatro distincta radiis corona, suggestus in curia, fastigium in domo, mensis in caelo, ad hoc pater ipse patriae perpetuusque dictator, novissime, dubium an ipso volente, oblata pro rostris ab Antonio consule regni insignia. Quae omnia velut infulae in destinatam morti victimam congerebantur.

Here at last there was an end to arms; the remainder was bloodless peace, and the war was balanced by clemency. No one was slain by command except Afranius (he had forgiven enough once) and Faustus Sulla (Pompey had taught that sons-in-law are to be feared), and Pompey’s daughter with her little ones by Sulla (here precaution was being taken against descendants). And so, with the citizens not ungrateful, all honors were heaped upon one princeps: around the temples, statues; in the theater, a crown marked with rays; a platform in the curia; a pediment on the house; a month in the sky; in addition, Father of the Fatherland and perpetual Dictator; lastly—doubtful whether with his own will—the insignia of kingship offered before the rostra by the consul Antony. All these things, like fillets, were being piled upon a victim destined for death.

Quippe clementiam principis vicit invidia, gravisque erat liberis ipsa beneficiorum potentia. Nec diutius lata dominatio est, set Brutus et Cassius aliique patres consensere in caedam principis. Quanta vis fati!

Indeed, the clemency of the princeps was overcome by envy, and to the free the very potency of benefactions was burdensome. Nor was the domination long borne, but Brutus and Cassius and other Fathers consented to the slaughter of the princeps. How great the force of fate!

Manaverat late coniuratio, libellus etiam Caesari datus eodem die, nec perlitare centum victimis potuerat. Venit in curiam tamen expeditionem Parthicam meditans. Ibi in curuli sedentem cum senatus invasit, tribusque et viginti volneribus ad terram datus est.

The conspiracy had spread widely, and even a little note was given to Caesar on the same day, nor had he been able to obtain favorable omens though sacrificing a hundred victims. He came into the Curia, however, pondering a Parthian expedition. There, as he sat on the curule chair, when the senate assailed him, he was brought to the ground by three and twenty wounds.

Sic ille, terrarum orbem civili sanguine inpleverat, tandem ipse sanguine suo curiam implevit.

Thus he, who had filled the orb of lands with civil
blood, at last filled the curia with his own blood.

XIV. Populum Romanus Caesare et Pompeio trucidatis redisse in statum pristinum liberatis videbatur. Et redierat, nisi aut Pompeius liberos aut Caesar heredem reliquisset, vel, quod utroque perniciosius fuit, si non collega quondam, mox aemulus Caesarianae potentiae, fax et turbo sequentis saeculi superfuisset Antonius. Quippe dum Sextus paterna repetit, trepidatum toto mari; dum Octavius mortem patris ulciscitur, iterum fuit movenda Thessalia; dum Antonius varius ingenio aut successorem Caesaris indignatur Octavium aut amore Cleopatrae desciscit in regem ***.

14. The Roman people, with Caesar and Pompey butchered, seemed, once freed, to have returned to their former condition. And they had returned, unless either Pompey had left children or Caesar an heir, or—what was more pernicious than either—if Antony had not survived, once a colleague, soon a rival of Caesarian power, the torch and whirlwind of the following age. For while Sextus reclaims his paternal rights, there was panic over the whole sea; while Octavius avenges the death of his father, Thessaly had to be stirred again; while Antony, changeable in disposition, either resents Octavius as Caesar’s successor or, by love of Cleopatra, defects to the king ***.

Nam aliter salvus esse non potuit, nisi confugisset ad servitutem. Gratulandum tamen ut in tanta perturbatione est, quod potissimum ad Octavium Caesarem Augustum summa rerum redit, qui sapientia sua atque sollertia perculsum undique ac perturbatum ordinavit imperii corpus, quod haud dubie numquam coire et consentire potuisset, nisi unius praesidis nutu quasi anima et mente regeretur. Marco Antonio Publio Dolabella consulibus, imperium Romanum iam ad Caesarem transferente Fortuna, varius et multiplex motus civitatis fuit.

For otherwise he could not have been safe, unless he had taken refuge in servitude. Yet, such as it is amid so great a perturbation, there is room for congratulation, that the supreme control of affairs returned most of all to
Octavian Caesar Augustus, who by his wisdom and adroitness set in order the body of the imperium, struck on all sides and disturbed, which without doubt could never have come together and agree, unless it were ruled by the nod of a single presider, as if by a soul and mind. In the consulship of Marcus Antonius and Publius Dolabella, with Fortune now transferring the Roman imperium to Caesar, the movement of the commonwealth was various and manifold.

Quodque in annua caeli conversione fieri solet, ut mota sidera tonent ac suos flexus tempestate significent, sic tum Romanae dominationis, id est humani generis, conversione penitus intremuit omnique genere discriminum, civilibus, externis, servilibus, terrestribus ac navalibus bellis omne imperii corpus agitatum est.

And just as in the annual conversion of the heavens it is wont to come to pass that the moved stars thunder and signify their own flexions by tempest, so then, at the conversion of Roman domination—that is, of the human race—it trembled to the depths, and by every kind of crisis, by civil, external, servile, terrestrial and naval wars, the whole body of the empire was agitated.

XV. Prima civilium motuum causa testamentum Caesaris fuit, cuius secundus heres Antonius, praelatum sibi Octavium furens, inexpiabile contra adoptionem acerrimi iuvenis susceperat bellum. Quippe cum intra octavum decium annum tenerum et obnoxium et opportunum iniuriae iuvenem videret, ipse plenae ex commilitio Caesaris dignitatis, lacerare furtis hereditatem, ipsum insectari probris, cunctis artibus cooptationem Iuliae gentis inhibere, denique ab opprimendum iuvenem palam arma moliri. Et iam parato exercitu in Cisalpina Gallia resistentem motibus suis Decimum Brutum obsidebat.

15. The first cause of the civil commotions was Caesar’s testament, of which Antony, the second heir, raging that Octavius had been preferred to himself, had undertaken an inexpiable war against the adoption of a very keen young man. For since he saw a youth within his eighteenth year, tender, susceptible, and apt for injury, he himself, possessed of full dignity from comradeship-in-arms with Caesar, began to lacerate the inheritance by thefts, to harry the man himself with insults, to inhibit by every art his cooptation into the Julian gens, and finally openly to set arms in motion to crush the youth. And now, with an army prepared, in Cisalpine Gaul he was besieging Decimus Brutus, who was resisting his commotions.

Octavius Caesar, et aetates et iniuria favorabilis, et nominis maiestate quod sibi induerat, revocatis ad arma veteranis, privatus—quis crederet?—consulem adgreditur, obsidione Mutinae liberat Brutum, Antonium exuit castris. Tunc quidem etiam manu pulcher apparuit. Nam cruentus et saucius aquilam a moriente signifero traditam suis umeris in castra referebat.

Octavius Caesar, favorable both in age and by the injury, and by the majesty of the name which he had put on himself, with the veterans recalled to arms, a private citizen—who would believe it?—attacks the consul, frees Brutus from the siege of Mutina, and drives Antony from his camps. Then indeed he appeared splendid even in hand-to-hand action. For, blood-stained and wounded, he was carrying back to camp upon his own shoulders the eagle, handed over by a dying standard-bearer.

XVI. Alterum bellum concitavit agrorum divisio, quod Caesar veteranis patris pretium militiae persolvebat. Semper alias Antonii pessumum ingenium Fulvia tum gladio cincta virilis audaciae uxor agitabat. Ergo depulsos agris colonos incitando iterum in arma ierat.

16. A second war was stirred up by the division of the fields, because Caesar was paying to his father’s veterans the price of their military service. At all other times Antony’s worst disposition Fulvia, his wife—a woman of virile audacity, then girt with a sword—was goading on. Therefore, by inciting the colonists driven from their fields, she had gone again into arms.

Hic vero iam non privatis, sed totius senatus suffragiis iudicatum hostem Caesar adgressus intra Perusiae morus redegit compulitque ad extrema deditionis turpi et nihil non experta fame.

Here indeed, now not by private judgments but by the suffrages of the whole Senate declared an enemy, Caesar, having attacked, drove him within the walls of Perusia and compelled him to the last extremities of surrender, by a shameful hunger that had left nothing untried.

Cum solus etiam gravis paci, gravis rei publicae esset Antonius, quasi ignis incendio Lepidus accessit. Quid contra duos consules, duos exercitus? Necesse fuit venire in cruentissimi foederis societatem.

Since, even alone, Antony was grievous to peace, grievous to the republic, Lepidus came on, as fire to a conflagration. What against two consuls, two armies? It was necessary to enter into the fellowship of the most blood-soaked pact.

Diversa omnium vota, ut ingenia. Lepidum divitiarum cupido, quarum spes ex perturbatione rei publicae, Antonium ultiones de his qui se hostem iudicasset, Caesarem inultus pater et manibus eius graves Cassius et Brutus agitabant. In hoc velut foedus pax inter tres duces conponitur.

Different were everyone’s desires, as their dispositions: Lepidus, a desire for riches, whose hope lay in the perturbation of the Republic; Antony, revenges upon those who had adjudged him an enemy; Caesar, his unavenged father, and Cassius and Brutus, grievous to his Manes, drove him. On this, as it were a compact, peace is composed among the three leaders.

Apud confluentes inter Perusiam et Bononiam iungunt manus, et exercitus consalutabat. Nullo bono more triumviratus invaditur, oppressaque armis re publica redit Sullana proscriptio, cuius atrocitas nihil in se minus habet quam numerum centum et quadraginta senatorum. Exitus foedi, truces, miserabiles toto terrarum orbe fugientium.

At the confluence between Perusia and Bononia they join hands, and the army
was hailing together. In no good custom is the triumvirate seized, and with the republic oppressed by arms the Sullan proscription returns, whose atrocity has nothing less in itself than the number of 140 senators. Ends foul, grim, pitiable, of those fleeing through the whole orb of lands.

Quis pro indignitate rei ingemescat, cum Antonius Lucium Caesarem avunculum suum, Lepidus Lucium Paulum fratrem suum proscripserint? Nam Romae capita caesorum proponere in rostris iam usitatum erat; verum sic quoque civitas lacrimas tenere non potuit, cum recisum Ciceronis caput illis suis rostris videretur, nec aliter ad videndum eum, quam solebat ad audiendum, concurreretur. Haec scelera in Antonii Lepidique tabulis: Caesar percussoribus patris contentus fuit, ideo ne in inulta fuisset, etiam iusta eius caedes haberetur.

Who would not groan at the indignity
of the matter, when Antony proscribed Lucius Caesar, his maternal uncle, and Lepidus
Lucius Paulus, his brother? For at Rome it was already customary to set forth the heads of the slain
on the Rostra; yet even so the commonwealth could not hold back its tears, when the severed head of Cicero
seemed to be on those very rostra of his, and there was a rushing together to see him no otherwise than they were wont
to hear him. These crimes were on the tablets of Antony and Lepidus:
Caesar was content with the assassins of his father, in order that he might not remain unavenged,
and that even his killing of them might be held just.

XVII. Brutus et Cassius sic C. Caesarem quasi Tarquinium regem depulisse regno videbantur, sed libertatem, quam maxime restitutam voluerunt, illo ipso parricidio perdiderunt. Igitur caede perfecta cum veteranos Caesaris, nec inmerito, timerent, statim a curia in Capitolium confugerat. Nec illis ad ultionem deerat animus, sed ducem nondum habebant.

17. Brutus and Cassius thus seemed to have driven Gaius Caesar from kingship, as if he were King Tarquin; but the liberty which they especially wished to have restored, by that very parricide they lost. Therefore, the slaughter having been completed, since they feared Caesar’s veterans, and not without reason, they had immediately fled from the Curia to the Capitol. Nor was their spirit for vengeance lacking, but they did not yet have a leader.

Igitur cum appareret, quae strages rei publicae immineret, displicuit ultio, cum caedes probaretur. Igitur Ciceronis consiliis abolitione decreta, ne tamen publici doloris oculis ferirent, in provincias ab illo ipso quem occiderant Caesare datas, Syriam et Macedoniam concesserant. Sic vindicta Caesaris dilata potius quam oppressa est.

Therefore, when it became apparent what a havoc of the commonwealth was threatening, vengeance was displeasing, although the slaughter was approved. Accordingly, by Cicero’s counsels an abolition (amnesty) was decreed; yet, so as not to offend the eyes of public grief, they withdrew into the provinces granted by that very Caesar whom they had slain, Syria and Macedonia. Thus the vengeance of Caesar was deferred rather than suppressed.

Igitur iam ordinata magis ut poterat quam ut debebat inter triumviros re publica, relicto ad urbis praesidium Lepido, Caesar cum Antonio in Cassium Brutumque succingitur. Illi comparatis ingentibus copiis eadem illam, quae fatalis Gnaeo Pompeio fuit, harenam insederant. Sed nec tum inminentia destinatae cladis signa latuerunt.

Therefore, now the republic arranged among the triumvirs more as it could than as it ought, Lepidus having been left for the city’s guard, Caesar together with Antony girds himself against Cassius and Brutus. They, vast forces having been assembled, had occupied that same arena which was fatal to Gnaeus Pompeius. But not even then did the signs of the imminent, destined disaster lie hidden.

Nam et signis insedit examen et adversae cadaverum pabulo volucres castra quasi iam sua circumvolabant, et in aciem prodeuntibus obvius Aethiops nimis aperte ferale signum fuit. Ipsique Bruto per noctem, cum inlato lumine ex more aliqua secum agitaret, atra quaedam imago se optulit, et, quae esset interrogata, "Tuus", inquit, "malus genius", ac sub oculis mirantis evanuit.

For even upon the standards a swarm settled, and ill-omened birds, with the fodder of corpses, were circling the camp as if already their own, and as they were going forth into the battle-line, an Ethiopian meeting them was too openly a fatal sign. And to Brutus himself by night, when, a light having been brought in, as was his custom he was turning some matters over with himself, a certain black image presented itself, and, when asked what it was, “Your,” it said, “evil genius,” and vanished under the eyes of the astonished man.

Pari in meliora praesagio in Caesaris castris omnia, aves victimaeque, promiserant. Sed nihil illo praesentius, quod Caesaris medicus somnio admonitus est, ut Caesar castris excederet, quibus capi inminebat; ut factum est. Acie namque commissa cum pari ardore aliquandiu dimicatum foret, et quamvis duces inde praesentes adessent, hinc alterum corporis aegritudo, illum metus et ignavia subduxissent, stabat tamen pro partibus invicta fortuna et ultoris et qui vindicabatur, ut exitus proelii docuit.

With an equal presage for better things, in Caesar’s camp all things, the birds and the sacrificial victims, had promised. But nothing was more immediate than this: that Caesar’s physician, warned by a dream, advised that Caesar withdraw from the camp, over which capture was impending; as in fact was done. For with the battle joined, since for some time it had been fought with equal ardor, and although the leaders had been present on that side, on this side one had been withdrawn by bodily illness, the other by fear and cowardice, nevertheless there stood on behalf of the parties the unconquered Fortune both of the avenger and of him who was being vindicated, as the outcome of the battle taught.

Primum adeo anceps fuit, ut—par ultrimque discrimen—captas sint hinc Caesaris castra, inde Cassi. Sed quanto efficacior est fortuna quam virtus! Et quam verum est, quod moriens efflavit, non in re, sed in verbo tantum esse virtutem!

At first it was so two‑edged,
that—with equal peril on both sides—here Caesar’s camp, there Cassius’s, were captured.
But how much more efficacious is fortune than virtue! And how true is what he breathed out as he was dying: that virtue exists not in reality, but only in the word!

Victoriam illi proelio error dedit. Cassius inclinato cornu suorum, cum captis Caesaris castris rapido impetu recipientes se equites videret, fugere arbitratus evadit in tumulum. Inde pulvere et strepitu, etiam nocte vicina eximentibus gestae rei sensum, cum speculator quoque in id missus tardius nuntiaret, transactum de partibus ratus uni ex proximis auferendum praebuit caput.

A mistake gave them the victory in that battle. Cassius, with his own wing having inclined, when he saw the cavalry, after Caesar’s camp had been captured, drawing themselves back at rapid impetus, thought they were fleeing and made his way onto a mound. From there, with the dust and the din, and night now near, stripping away perception of what had been done, and as even the scout (speculator) sent for that purpose reported too slowly, thinking the affair was finished as to their side, he offered his head to one of his nearest to be taken off.

Brutus cum in Cassio etiam suum animum perdidisset, ne quid ex constituti fide resignaret—ita enim non superesse bello convenerat—ipse quoque uni comitum suorum confodiendum praebuit latus. Qui sapientissimos ac fortissimos viros non miretur ad ultimum non sui manibus usos? Nisi hoc quoque ex persuasione sectae fuit, ne violarent manus, sed in amolitione fortissimarum piissimarumque animarum iudicio suo, scelere alieno uterentur.

Brutus, when in Cassius he had even lost his own spirit, so that he might not rescind anything from the faith of what had been constituted—for thus it had been agreed not to survive the war—he too offered his side to one of his companions to be stabbed. Who would not marvel that the wisest and bravest men at the last did not use their own hands? Unless this too was from the persuasion of their sect: not to violate their hands, but, in the amolition of the bravest and most dutiful souls by their own judgment, to employ another’s crime.

XVIII. Sublatis percussoribus Caesaris supererat Pompei domus. Alter iuvenum in Hispaniam occiderat, alter fuga evaserat contractisque infelicis belli reliquiis, cum insuper ergastula armasset, Siciliam Sardiniamque habebat; iam et classe medium mare insederat. O quam diversus a patre!

18. With the assassins of Caesar removed,
the house of Pompey remained. One of the youths had fallen in Spain, the other by flight
had escaped, and, the remnants of the ill-fated war having been gathered, when moreover he had armed
the slave-prisons, he held Sicily and Sardinia; and already with a fleet he had occupied the middle sea.
O how different from his father!

Ille Cilicas extinxerat, hic se piratica tuebatur. Puteolos, Formias, Volturnum, totam denique Campaniam, Pontias et Aenariam, ipsa Tiberini fluminis ora populatus est. Subinde congressus Caesaris naves et incendit et demersit; nec ipse tantum, sed Mensas et Menecrates, foeda servitia, quos classi praefecerat, praedabundi per litora cuncta volitabant.

That man had extinguished the Cilicians; this one was maintaining himself by piracy. Puteoli, Formiae, the Volturnus, and, finally, all Campania, Pontiae and Aenaria—he ravaged even the very shores of the Tiber river. Again and again, engaging Caesar’s ships, he both burned and sank them; nor he alone, but Mensas and Menecrates, foul slaves, whom he had put in command of the fleet, were flitting, plundering, along all the shores.

Ob haec tot prospera centum bubus auratis Peloro litavit spirantemque equum cum auro in fretum misit, dona Neptuno hoc putabant, ut se maris rector in suo mari regnare pateretur. Eo denique discriminum ventum est, ut foedus et pax cum hoste—si modo hostis Pompei filius—tamen feriretur. Quantum id, sed breve gaudium fuit, cum in Baiani litoris mole de reditu eius et bonorum restitutione convenit, cumque invitante ipso in navem discubitum est, et ille sortem suam increpitans "hae sunt" inquit "carinae meae"; haud incomiter, quod, cum in celeberrima parte urbis, Carinis pater eius habitasset, ipsius domus et penates in navi penderent.

On account of so many prosperities he sacrificed at Pelorus with a hundred gilded oxen, and he sent a living horse, with gold, into the strait; they considered this gifts to Neptune, so that the ruler of the sea would allow him to reign in his own sea. At last matters came to such a crisis that a treaty and peace with the enemy—if indeed the son of Pompey was an enemy—were nevertheless struck. How great that joy was, but brief, when on the mole of the Baian shore agreement was reached about his return and the restitution of his goods, and when, at his own invitation, they reclined to dine on the ship; and he, chiding his lot, said, “these are my keels,” not ungracefully, because, since in the most renowned part of the city, the Carinae, his father had lived, his own house and household gods were hanging on a ship.

Sed inportunitates Antonii, et Pompeianorum bonorum, quorum sector ille fuerat, praeda devorata, possessio manere non poterat: detrectare coepit foederis pactum.

But the importunities of Antony, and of the Pompeians’ goods—of which he had been the sector—once the plunder was devoured, the possession could not remain: he began to refuse the compact of the treaty.

Itaque et ille ad arma rursus, et in totis imperii viribus classis in iuvenem comparata est, cuius molitio ipsa magnifica. Quippe interciso Herculanae viae limite refossisque litoribus, Lucrinus lacus mutatus in portum eique interrupto medio additus est Avernus, ut in illa aquarum quiete classis exercita petitus in Siculo freto iuvenis oppressus est, magnique famam ducis ad inferos secum tulisset, si nihil temptasset ulterius; nisi quod magnae indolis signum est sperare semper. Perditis enim rebus profugit Asiamque velis petit, venturus ibi in manus hostium et catenas et, quod miserrimum est fortibus viris ad hostium arbitrium sub percussore moriturus.

And so he too returned to arms, and with the entire strength of the empire a fleet was prepared against the young man, whose very engineering was magnificent. For indeed, with the boundary of the Herculanean Way cut through and the shores re-dug, Lake Lucrinus was changed into a port, and to it, with the middle broken through, Avernus was added, so that, in that quiet of the waters, the fleet, having been trained, the young man, attacked in the Sicilian strait, was overwhelmed, and he would have carried with him to the infernal regions the fame of a great leader, if he had attempted nothing further; save that it is a sign of great inborn character always to hope. For, his fortunes lost, he fled and sought Asia under sail, destined there to come into the hands of his enemies and into chains, and—what is most miserable for brave men—about to die under an executioner at the discretion of his enemies.

Non alia post Xerxen miserabilior fuga. Quippe modo trecentarum quinquaginta navium dominus cum sex septemve fugiebat extincto praetoriae navis lumine, anulis in mare abiectis, pavens atque respectans, et tamen non timens nisi ne reperiretur.

No flight after Xerxes was more miserable. Indeed,
only just the lord of 350 ships, he was fleeing with six or seven,
the light of the praetorian (flag-)ship extinguished, his rings cast into the sea, trembling and
looking back, and yet fearing nothing except lest he be found.

XIX. Quamvis in Cassio et Bruto parte sustulisset, in Pompeio totum partium nomen abolevisset, nondum tamen ad pacis stabilitatem profecerat Caesar, cum scopulus et nodus et mora publicae securitatis superesset Antonius. Nec ille defuit vitiis quin periret, immo omnia expertus ambitu et luxuria primum hostem, deinde cives, tandem etiam terrore saeculum liberavit.

19. Although in Cassius and Brutus he had removed it in part, and in Pompey he had abolished the whole name of parties, yet Caesar had not advanced to the stability of peace, since Antony remained the rock and knot and delay of public security. Nor did he fail in vices to perish—nay rather, having tried everything, by ambition and luxury he became an enemy, first to a foe, then to fellow citizens, and at last even by his very terror he freed the age.

Parthi clade Crassiana altius animos erexerat civilesque populi Romani discordias laeti acceperant. Itaque ut prima adfulsit occasio, non dubitaverunt et erumpere, ultro quidem invitante Labieno, qui missus a Cassio Brutoque—qui furor scelerum!—sollicitaverat hostes in auxilium. Et illi Pacoro, duce, regio iuvene, dispulerant Antoniana praesidia; Saxa legatus ne veniret in potestatem a gladio impetravit.

The Parthians, by the Crassian disaster, had raised their spirits higher, and they gladly received the civil discords of the Roman people. And so, as soon as the first occasion shone forth, they did not hesitate also to burst out, with Labienus even inviting them besides, who, sent by Cassius and Brutus—what madness of crimes!—had solicited the enemies for assistance. And they, with Pacorus as leader, a royal youth, had scattered the Antonian garrisons; the legate Saxa obtained from the sword that he should not come into their power.

Denique, ablata Syria, emanabat latius malus hostibus sub auxilii specie sib vincentibus, nisi Ventidius, et hic legatos Antonii, incredibili felicitate et Labieni copias ipsumque Pacorum et omnem Parthicum equitatum toto inter Oronten et Euphraten sinu late cecidisset. Viginti amplius milium fuit. Nec sine consilio ducis, qui simulato metu adeo passus est hostem castris succedere, donec absumpto iactus spatio adimeret usum sagittarum.

Finally, with Syria carried off, the evil would have emanated more widely, the enemy, under the guise of aid, winning for themselves—had not Ventidius, he too a legate of Antony, with incredible felicity struck down far and wide, in the whole sweep between the Orontes and the Euphrates, the forces of Labienus, Pacorus himself, and all the Parthian cavalry. The tally was more than 20,000. Nor was it without the general’s counsel: for, fear simulated, he so allowed the enemy to come up to the camp, until, the range of their cast exhausted, he took away the use of their arrows.

Rex fortissime dimicans cecidit. Mox circumlato eius per urbes, quae desciverant, capite Syria sine bello recepta. Sic Crassianam cladem Pacori caede pensavimus.

The king, fighting most bravely, fell. Soon, with his head carried around through the cities which had seceded, Syria was recovered without war. Thus we balanced the Crassian disaster by the slaughter of Pacorus.

XX. Expertis invicem Parthis atque Romanis, cum Crassus et Pacorus utrimque virum mutuarum documenta fecissent, pari rursus reverentia integrata amicitia, et quidem ab ipso foedus Antonio cum rege percussum. Sed—immensa vanitas hominis—domus titulorum cupidine Araxen et Euphraten sub imaginibus suis legi concupiscit, neque causa neque consilio ac ne imaginaria quidem belli indictione, quasi hoc quoque ex arte ducis esset obrepere, relicta repente Syria in Parthos impetum fecit. Gens praeter armorum fiduciam callida simulat trepidationem et in campos fugam.

20. With the Parthians and the Romans having in turn experienced one another, since Crassus and Pacorus on either side had furnished proofs of each other’s manhood, with friendship restored again in equal reverence, and indeed a treaty struck by Antony himself with the king. But—the immense vanity of the man—the house, in lust for titles, covets to have the Araxes and the Euphrates read beneath his own images, with neither cause nor counsel and not even a merely imaginary declaration of war, as if this too were from a leader’s art, to creep upon them, with Syria suddenly left behind he made an attack upon the Parthians. The nation, clever besides its confidence in arms, feigns trepidation and flight into the plains.

Et hic statim quasi victor sequebatur, cum subito nec magna hostium manus ex improviso et iam in fessos via sub vespere velut nimbus erupit et missis undique sagittis duas legiones operuerunt. Nihil acciderat in comparationem cladis, quae in posterum diem inminebat, nisi intervenisset deum miseratio. Vnus ex clade Crassiana Parthico habitu castris adequitat et salute Latine data, cum fidem ipso sermone fecisset, quid inmineret edocuit: iam adfuturum cum omnibus copiis regem; irent retro peteremque montis; sic quoque hostem fortasse non defore.

And he at once was following as though victor, when suddenly not even a large band of the enemy, unexpectedly, burst forth like a nimbus upon men already wearied by the road toward evening, and, arrows sent from every side, they covered two legions. Nothing had happened in comparison with the calamity that was threatening for the next day, had not the pity of the gods intervened. One man from the Crassian disaster, in Parthian attire, rides up to the camp, and, a salute given in Latin, since he had made good faith by the very speech, he explained what was impending: that the king would presently be at hand with all his forces; that they should go back and seek the hills; even so perhaps the enemy would not be absent.

Atque ita secuta est minor vis hostium quam inminebat; adfuit tamen. Deletae reliquiae copiae forent, nisi urgentibus telis in modum grandinis quidam forte quasi docti procubuissent in genua milites, et elatis supra capita secutis caesorum speciem praebuissent. Tunc Parthus arcus inhibuit.

And thus there followed a lesser force of the enemy than had been imminent; nevertheless, it arrived. The remnant of the forces would have been destroyed, unless, with the missiles pressing in like hail, certain soldiers, by chance as if trained, had gone down upon their knees, and, with shields raised above their heads, had presented the appearance of the slain. Then the Parthian checked his bows.

Dein rursus cum se Romani extulissent, adeo res miraculo fuit, ut unus ex barbaris miserit vocem: "Ite et bene valete, Romani! Merito vos victores fama gentium loquitur, qui Parthorum tela fugistis." Non minor ex via postea quam ab hostibus accepta clades. Infesta primum siti regio, tum quibusdam salmacidae [fluvius] infestiores, novissime quae iam ab invalidis et audite hauriebantur noxiae etiam dulces fuere.

Then again,
when the Romans had lifted themselves up, the matter was so a marvel that one of the barbarians
sent forth a cry: "Go and fare well, Romans! Deservedly the fame of the nations calls you victors,
you who have fled the missiles of the Parthians." No smaller a disaster was afterwards received from the march
than from the enemies. First the region was hostile with thirst, then certain waters more pestilent than the Salmacidae [river],
lastly those which were now being drawn by the invalids and by the daring proved noxious, even though sweet.

Mox et ardores per Armeniam et nives per Cappadociam et utriusque caeli subita mutatio pro pestilentia fuit. Sic vix tertia parte de sedecim legionibus reliqua, cum argentum eius passim dolabris concideretur, et subinde inter moras mortem ab gladiatore suo flagitasset egregius imperator, tamen perfugit in Syriam, ubi incredibili quadam mentis vecordia ferocior aliquando factus est, quasi vicisset, qui evaserat.

Soon also
the heats through Armenia and the snows through Cappadocia, and the sudden change of either sky, were as a pestilence. Thus, scarcely a third part of the sixteen legions
remaining, while his silver was being cut up everywhere with mattocks, and repeatedly,
amid delays, the distinguished emperor had demanded death at his gladiator’s hand,
nevertheless he fled into Syria, where, with a certain incredible derangement of mind,
he at times became more ferocious, as though he had conquered, he who had merely escaped.

XXI. Furor Antonii quatenus per ambitum non poterat interire, luxu libidine extinctus est. Quippe cum Parthos exorsus arma in otio ageret, captus amore Cleopatrae quasi bene gestis rebus in regio se sinu reficiebat. Hunc mulier Aegyptia ab ebrio imperatore pretium libidinum Romanum imperium petit; et promisit Antonius, quasi facilior esset Partho Romanus.

21. The fury of Antony, inasmuch as it could not perish through ambition, was extinguished by luxury and libido. Indeed, though having set arms in motion against the Parthians he was living in leisure, captured by love of Cleopatra, as if things had been well managed he was refreshing himself in a royal bosom. This man the Egyptian woman, from a drunken emperor, sought the Roman imperium as the price of her lusts; and Antony promised it, as though the Roman were easier than the Parthian.

Igitur dominationem parare nec tacite; sed patriae, nominis, togae, fascium oblitus totus in monstrum illud ut mente, ita habitu quoque cultuque desciverat. Aureum in manu baculum, ad latus acinaces, purpurea vestis ingentibus obstricta gemmis: diadema deerat, ut regina ex et ipse frueretur. Ad primam novorum motuum famam Caesar a Brundisio traiecerat, ut venienti bello occurreret, positisque castris in Epiro omne litus Actiacum, Leucadem insulam montemque Leucatem et Ambracii sinus cornua infesta classe succinxerat.

Therefore he prepared domination, and not silently; but forgetful of his fatherland, of the name, of the toga, of the fasces, wholly into that monster, as in mind, so also in attire and in dress he had defected. A golden staff in his hand, a scimitar at his side, a purple garment bound with huge gems: the diadem was lacking, so that he too, as the queen, might enjoy it. At the first rumor of new movements Caesar had crossed over from Brundisium, to meet the coming war, and, with camp pitched in Epirus, he had girdled all the Actian shore, the island of Leucas and Mount Leucas, and the horns of the Ambracian gulf with a hostile fleet.

Nobis quadrigentae amplius naves, ducentae non minus hostium; sed numerum magnitudo pensabat. Quippe a sensis novenos remorum ordines, ad hoc turribus atque tabulatis adlevatae castellorum vel urbium specie, non sine gemitu maris et labore ventorum ferebatur; quae quidem ipsa moles exitio fuit. Caesaris naves a bini remigum in senos nec amplius ordines creverant; itaque habites in omnia quae usus posceret, ad impetus et recursus flexusque capiendos, illas gravis et ad omnia praepeditas singulas plures adortae missilibus, simul rostris, ad hoc ignibus iactis ad arbitrium dissipavere.

For us there were more than four hundred ships, for the enemy not less than two hundred; but magnitude counterbalanced number. For with from six to nine ranks of oars, and in addition raised with towers and decking, with the appearance of fortresses or even of cities, they were borne not without the groaning of the sea and the toil of the winds; and indeed that very mass was their ruin. Caesar’s ships had increased from two to six, and no more, rowers to an oar; and so, nimble for everything that use required, for taking on attacks and retreats and flexions, those heavy ships and hampered for all things, several assailing each single one, they scattered at will with missiles, and at the same time with rams, and moreover with fires cast.

Nec ulla re magis hostilium copiarum apparuit magnitudo quam post victoriam. Quippe inmensae classis naufragium bello factum toto mari ferebatur, Arabumque et Sabaeorum et mille aliarum Asiae gentium spolia purpura auroque inlita adsidue mote ventis maria revomebant. Prima dux fugae regina cum aurea puppe veloque purpureo in altum dedit.

Nor in any thing more of the enemy
forces did their greatness appear than after the victory. For the shipwreck of the immense fleet
wrought by war was being borne over the whole sea, and the seas, of the Arabs and Sabaeans and
of a thousand other nations of Asia, the spoils smeared with purple and gold, continually moved
by the winds, were belching back. The queen, leader of the flight, with a golden stern and a
purple sail, was the first to put out to the deep.

Mox secutus Antonius, sed instare vestigiis Caesar. Itaque nec praeparata in Oceanum fuga nec munita praesidiis utraque Aegypti cornua, Paraetonium atque Pelusium, profuere: prope manu tenebantur. Prior ferrum occupavit Antonius, regina ad pedes Caesaris provoluta temptavit oculos ducis.

Soon Antony followed, but Caesar pressed upon his footprints. And so neither a flight prepared into the Ocean nor both horns of Egypt, Paraetonium and Pelusium, fortified with garrisons, were of profit: they were held almost in hand. Antony was the first to seize the steel, the queen, prostrate at Caesar’s feet, tried the eyes of the leader.

Frustra quidem; nam pulchritudo infra pudicitiam principis fuit. Nec illa de vita, quae offerebatur, sed de parte regi laborabat. Quod ubi desperavit a principe servarique se triumpho vidit, incautiorem nancta custodiam in mausoleum se (sepulchra regum sic vocant) recipit.

In vain indeed; for her beauty was beneath the princeps’s pudicity. Nor was she striving about the life that was being offered, but about a portion to rule. When she despaired of this from the princeps and saw that she would be kept for a triumph, having found the guard more incautious, she withdrew herself into the mausoleum (thus they call the tombs of kings).

Ibi maximos, ut solebat, induta cultus in referto odoribus solio iuxta suum se conlocavit Antonium, admotisque ad venas serpentibus sic morte quasi somno soluta est.

There, clad in her greatest finery, as she was wont, in a couch packed with perfumes she placed herself beside her own Antony, and, the serpents applied to her veins, thus was released by death as if by sleep.

Hic finis armorum civilium: reliqua adversus exteras gentes, quae districto circa mala sua imperio diversis orbis oris emicabant. Nova quippe pax, necdum adsuetae frenis servitutis tumidae gentium inflataeque cervices ab imposito nuper iugo resiliebat. Ab septentrionem conversa ferme plaga ferocius agebat, Norici, Illyrici, Pannonii, Dalmatae, Moesi, Thraces et Daci, Sarmatae atque Germani.

Here is the end of civil arms: the remaining [wars were] against foreign gentes, which, the empire drawn tight around its own ills, were flashing forth on the diverse shores of the world. For the peace was new, and the swollen necks of the nations, not yet accustomed to the reins of servitude, were springing back from the yoke newly imposed. The quarter almost wholly turned toward the north was acting more ferociously—the Noricans, Illyrians, Pannonians, Dalmatians, Moesians, Thracians and Dacians, Sarmatians and Germans.

XXII. Noricis animos dabant Alpes, quasi in rupes et nives bellum posset ascendere; sed omnes illius cardinis populos, Breunos, Vcennos atque Vindelicos, per privignum suum Claudium Drusum perpacavit. Quae fuerit Alpinarum gentium feritas, facile est vel per mulieres ostendere, quae deficientibus telis infantes suos adflictos humi in ora militum adversa miserunt.

22. The Alps were giving spirit to the Norici, as if war could ascend into rocks and snows; but all the peoples of that quarter—Breuni, Vcennos, and Vindelici—he thoroughly pacified through his stepson Claudius Drusus. How great the ferocity of the Alpine nations was, it is easy even to show through the women, who, when their missiles failed, hurled their own infants, dashed on the ground, into the opposing faces of the soldiers.

XXIII. Illyrici quoque sub Alpibus agunt imasque valles earum et quaedam quasi claustra custodiunt abrupit torrentibus inplicata. In hos expeditionem ipse sumpsit fierique pontes imperavit.

23. The Illyrians too operate beneath the Alps and guard their deepest valleys and certain, as it were, barriers, abrupt and entangled with torrents. Against them he himself undertook an expedition and ordered bridges to be made.

Hic et aquis et hoste turbantibus, cunctanti ad ascensum militi scutum de manu rapuit et viam primus ingressus est. Tum agmine secuto cum sublatus multitudine pons succidisset, saucius manibus et cruribus, speciosior sanguine et ipso periculo augustior terga hostium praecidit.

Here, with the waters and the enemy causing turmoil, from a soldier delaying at the ascent he snatched the shield from his hand and was the first to enter the way. Then, the column following, when the bridge, lifted by the multitude, had collapsed, wounded in his hands and legs, more splendid with blood and more august from the danger itself, he cut off the enemy’s rear.

XXIV. Pannonii duobus acribus fluviis, Dravo Savoque vallantur. Populati proximos intra ripas se recipiebant. In hos domandos Vinium misit.

24. The Pannonians are walled in by two fierce rivers, the Drave and the Save. Having ravaged those nearest, they withdrew within the banks. Against these to be subdued he sent Vinius.

Caesi sunt in utrisque fluminibus. Arma victorum non ex more belli cremata, sed rupta sunt et in profluentem data, ut Caesari nomen eis qui resistebant sic nuntiaretur.

They were cut down in both rivers. The arms of the vanquished were not burned according to the custom of war, but were broken and given into the outflowing stream, so that the name of Caesar might thus be announced to those who were resisting.

XXV. Dalmatae plerumque sub silius agebant; unde in latrocinia promptissimi. Hos iam pridem Marcius consul incerta urbe Delminio quasi detruncaverat, postea Asinius Pollio gregibus, armis, agris multaverat—hic secundus orator—sed Augustus perdomandos Vibio mandat, qui efferum genus fodere terras coegit aurumque venis repurgare; quod alioquin gens omnium cupidissima eo studio, ea diligentia anquirit, ut illud in usus suos eruere videatur.

25. The Dalmatians for the most part lived under the forests; whence they were most prompt for brigandage. These men the consul Marcius long since had, at the unsecured city Delminium, as it were, lopped; afterwards Asinius Pollio had mulcted them in flocks, arms, and fields—this, the second orator—but Augustus entrusts their thorough subjugation to Vibius, who compelled the savage race to dig the earth and to purge gold from the veins; which otherwise the nation, most covetous of all, acquires with such zeal, with such diligence, that it seems to excavate it for its own uses.

XXVI. Moeni quam feri, quam truces fuerint, quam ipsorum etiam barbari barbarorum horribile dictu est. Vnus ducum ante aciem postulato silentio: "Qui vos estis?", inquit, responsum invicem: "Romani gentium domini". Et ille "ita" inquit "fiet, si nos viceritis". Accepit omen Marcus Crassus. Illi statim ante aciem inmolato equo concepere votum, ut caesorum extis ducum et litarent et vescerentur.

26. How wild the Moeni were, how savage, how—even barbarians of the barbarians themselves—horrible to say. One of the leaders, before the battle-line, with silence having been asked for: "Who are you?" he says; the response in turn: "Romans, lords of the nations." And he says, "so it shall be, if you conquer us." Marcus Crassus accepted the omen. They immediately, before the battle-line, a horse having been immolated, conceived a vow, that from the entrails of the slain leaders they would both obtain favorable auspices and feed.

Deos audisse crediderim: nec tubas sustinere potuerunt. Non minimum terroris incussit barbaris Comicius centurio satis barbarae, efficacis tamen apud tales homines stoliditatis, qui foculum gerens super cassidem, agitatum motu corporis, flamman velut ardenti capite funditabat.

I would believe the gods heard: nor could they withstand the trumpets. Not a little terror was struck into the barbarians by Comicius, a centurion, by a contrivance of stolidity sufficiently barbarous, yet effective among such men, who, carrying a little brazier over his helmet, the thing being agitated by the movement of his body, kept pouring forth flame, as though with a burning head.

XXVII. Thraces antea saepe, tum maxime Rhoemetalce rege desciverant. Ille barbaros et signis militaribus et disciplina, armis etiam Romanis adsueverat; sed a Pisone perdomiti in ipsa captivitate rabiem ostendere. Quippe cum catenas morsibus temptaret, feritatem suam ipsi puniebat.

27. The Thracians had often before, then most especially
under King Rhoemetalces, defected. He had accustomed the barbarians both to military standards and to
discipline, and even to Roman arms; but, thoroughly subdued by Piso, they showed rabidity even in
their very captivity. Indeed, as he tried the chains with his teeth,
he was himself punishing his own ferity.

XXVIII. Daci montibus inhaerent. Inde Cotisonis regis imperio, quotiens concretus gelu Danuvius iunxerat ripas, decurrere solebant et vicina populari. Visum est Caesari Augusto gentem aditu difficilem summovere.

28. The Dacians cling to the mountains. Thence, under the command of King Cotiso, whenever the Danube, congealed with frost, had joined its banks, they were wont to run down and ravage the neighboring parts. It seemed good to Caesar Augustus to remove a people difficult of access.

Misso igitur Lentulo ultra ulteriorem perpulit ripam; citra praesidia constituta. Sic tum Dacia non victa, sed summota atque dilata est.

Therefore, with Lentulus sent beyond the farther bank, he drove them; on this side garrisons were constituted. Thus then Dacia was not conquered, but removed and deferred.

XXIX. Sarmatae patentibus campis inequitant. Et hos per eundem Lentulum prohibere Danuvio satis fuit. Nihil praeter nives pruinasque et silvas habent.

29. The Sarmatians ride over open plains. And to restrain these by the Danube through that same Lentulus was sufficient. They have nothing except snows, hoarfrosts, and forests.

Tanta barbaria est, ut nec intellegant pacem.

So great is the barbarity, that they do not even understand peace.

XXX. Germaniam quoque utinam vincere tanti non putasset! Magis turpiter amissa est quam gloriose adquisita. Sed quatenus sciebat patrem suum C. Caesarem bis transvectum ponte Rhenum quaesisse bellum, in illius honorem concupierant facere provinciam; et factum erat, si barbari tam vitia nostra quam imperia ferre potuisset.

30. If only he had not thought it worth so much
to conquer Germany as well! It was more shamefully lost than gloriously acquired. But
since he knew that his father Gaius Caesar, twice carried across the Rhine by a bridge,
had sought war, in that man’s honor they had desired to make it a province; and
it would have been done, if the barbarian had been able to bear our vices as well as our commands.

Missus in eam provinciam Drusus primos domuit Vsipetes, inde Tencteros percucurrit et Catthos. Nam Marcomannorum spoliis et insignibus quendam editum tumulum in tropaei modum excoluit. Inde validissimas nationes Cheruscos Suebosque et Sicambros pariter adgressus est, qui viginti centurionibus in crucem actis hoc velut sacramento sumpserant bellum, adeo certa victoriae spe, ut praedam in antecessum pactione diviserint.

Sent into that province, Drusus first subdued the Vsipetes, then
he swept through the Tencteri and the Chatti. For with the spoils and
insignia of the Marcomanni he adorned a certain raised mound in the manner of a trophy. Then
he attacked alike the very powerful nations, the Cherusci and the Suebi and the Sicambri,
who, with twenty centurions crucified, had taken up this war as if by a sacrament,
with so certain a hope of victory that they divided the booty in advance
by agreement.

Cherusci equos, Suebi aurum et argentum, Sicambri captivos elegarant; sed omnia retrorsum. Victor namque Drusus equos, pecora, torques eorum ipsoque praedam divisit et vendidit. Praeterea in tutelam provinciae praesidia atque custodias obique disposuit per Mosam flumen, per Albin, per Visurgim.

The Cherusci had chosen horses, the Suebi gold and silver, the Sicambri captives; but everything turned out the reverse. For Drusus, as victor, divided and sold their horses, herds, torques, and even the plunder itself. Furthermore, for the tutelage of the province he stationed garrisons and guards everywhere along the river Mosa, along the Albis, along the Visurgis.

In Rheni quidem ripa quinquaginta amplius castella dixerit. Bonam et Gesoriacum pontibus iunxit classibusque firmavit. Invisum atque inaccessum in id tempus Hercynium saltum patefecit.

On the bank of the Rhine, indeed, one could say he established more than fifty forts. He linked Bonna and Gesoriacum by bridges and strengthened them with fleets. The Hercynian forest, hateful and inaccessible until that time, he laid open.

Ea denique in Germania pax erat, ut mutati homines, alia terra, caelum ipsum mitius molliusque solito videretur. Denique non per adulationem, sed ex meritis, defuncto ibi fortissimo iuvene, ipse, quod numquam alias, senatus cognomen ex provincia dedit.

At length in Germany there was such peace that men seemed changed,
the land different, and the sky itself milder and softer than usual. At length not
through adulation, but from merits, after the most valiant young man had died there, to him himself—what at no other time—the senate gave a cognomen from the province.

Sed difficilius est provincias optinere quam facere; viribus parantur, iure retinerentur. Igitur breve id gaudium. Quippe Germani victi magis quam domini erant, moresque nostros magis quam arma sub imperatore Druso suspiciebant; postquam ille defunctus est, Vari Quintili libidinem ac superbiam haud secus quam saevitiam odisse coeperunt.

But it is more difficult to hold provinces than to make them; by forces they are procured, by law they would be retained. Therefore that joy was brief. For the Germans were conquered rather than masters, and under the commander Drusus they suspected our customs more than our arms; after he died, they began to hate the libido and arrogance of Quintilius Varus no less than his savagery.

Ausus ille agere conventum, et incautus edixerat, quasi violentiam barbarum lictoris virgis et praeconis voce posset inhibere. At illi, qui iam pridem robigine obsitos enses inertesque maererent equos, ut primum togas et saeviora armis iura viderunt, duce Armenio arma corripuit; cum interim tanta erat Varo pacis fiducia, ut ne prodita quidem per Segesten unum principum coniuratione commoveretur. Itaque improvidum et nihil tale metuentem ex improviso adorti, cum ille—o securitas!—ad tribunal citaret, undique invadunt; castra rapiuntur, tres legiones opprimuntur.

He dared to hold a convent, and incautiously had issued an edict, as if
he could inhibit the violence of the barbarian by the lictor’s rods and the herald’s voice. But they, who for a long time had mourned
swords overgrown with rust and inert horses, as soon as they saw togas and laws more savage than arms, with Arminius as leader
they seized arms; meanwhile so great was Varus’s confidence in peace that not even when the conspiracy had been betrayed through Segestes,
one of the chieftains, was he moved. Therefore
the improvident man, fearing nothing of the sort, having been assailed unexpectedly, while he—O
security!—was citing to the tribunal, they invade from all sides; the camp is seized,
three legions are overwhelmed.

Varus perditas res eodem quo Cannensem diem Paulus et fato est animo secutus. Nihil illa caede per paludes perque silvas cruentius, nihil insultatione barbarum intolerantius, praecipue tamen in causarum patronos. Aliis oculos, aliis manus amputabant, unius os sutum, recisa prius lingua, quam in manu tenens barbarus "tandem" ait, "vipera, sibilare desisti." Ipsius quoque consulis corpus, quod militum pietas humi abdiderat, effossum.

Varus, with affairs lost, followed with the same spirit—and the same fate—as Paulus on the day of Cannae. Nothing was more bloody than that slaughter through marshes and through forests, nothing more intolerable than the insultation of the barbarians, especially, however, against the advocates of causes. To some they cut out the eyes, to others they amputated the hands; one man’s mouth was sewn up, his tongue first cut off—holding it in his hand, a barbarian said, “At last, viper, you have ceased to hiss.” The body of the consul himself, which the soldiers’ piety had hidden in the earth, was dug up.

Signa et aquilas duas adhuc barbari possident, tertiam signifer, prius quam in manus hostium veniret, evulsit mersamque intra baltei sui latebras gerens in cruenta palude sic latuit. Hac clade factum, ut imperium, quod in litore Oceani non steterat, in ripa Rheni fluminis staret.

The barbarians still possess the standards and two eagles; the third the standard-bearer, before it should come into the hands of the enemy, tore out, and, bearing it submerged within the recesses of his belt, thus lay hidden in the bloody marsh. By this calamity it came about that the Empire, which had not stood on the shore of the Ocean, stood on the bank of the river Rhine.

XXXI. Haec ad septentrionem: sub meridiano tumultuatum magis quam bellatum est. Musulamios atque Gaetulos, unde illi Gaetulici nomen latius quam ipsa victoria. Marmaridas atque Garamantas Quirinio subigendos dedit.

31. These things on the north: in the south there was tumult rather than warfare. The Musulamii and the Gaetuli—whence for him the name “Gaetulicus” spread more widely than the victory itself. The Marmaridae and the Garamantes he assigned to Quirinius to be subdued.

Potuit et ille redire Marmaricus, sed modestior in aestimanda victoria fuit.

He too could have returned as Marmaricus, but he was more modest in appraising the victory.

XXXII. Ad orientem plus negotii cum Armeniis. Huc alterum ex Caesaribus, nepotibus suis, misit. Ambo fato breves, sed alter inglorius.

32. Toward the Orient, more business with the Armenians. Hither he sent the other of the Caesars, his grandsons. Both were short-lived by fate, but the latter inglorious.

Massiliae quippe morbo Lucius solvitur, in Syria Gaius ex volnere occubuit, cum Armeniam ad Parthos se subtrahentem recepit. Armenios victo rege Tigrane in hoc unum servitutis genus Pompeius adsueverat, ut rectores a nobis acciperent. Intermissum ergo ius per hunc recuperatum non incruento, nec multo tamen certamine.

At Massilia, indeed, Lucius was released by disease; in Syria Gaius fell from a wound, when he recovered Armenia, which was slipping away to the Parthians. Pompey had accustomed the Armenians—King Tigranes having been conquered—to this one kind of servitude: that they should receive governors from us. Therefore the right that had been intermitted was recovered through him, not bloodless, yet not with much struggle.

Quippe Donnes, quem rex Arsaces Parthis praefecerat, simulata proditione adortus virum intentum libello, quem ut thensaurorum rationes continentem ipse porrexerat, stricto repente ferro subiit. Et tunc quidem Caesar recreatus est ex volnere in tempus et **** Ceterum barbarus undique infesto exercitu oppressus gladio et pyra, in quam se percussus inmisit, superstiti etiam nunc Caesari satisfecit.

Indeed, Donnes, whom King Arsaces had set over the Parthians, with a feigned treachery attacked the man as he was intent upon a booklet, which he himself had handed over as containing the accounts of the treasuries, and suddenly, with sword drawn, came upon him. And then indeed Caesar was revived from the wound for a time and **** However, the barbarian, hemmed in on all sides by a hostile army, by the sword and by the pyre into which, wounded, he cast himself, made satisfaction to Caesar, who even now survived.

XXXIII. Sub occasus pacata erat fere omnis Hispania, nisi quam Pyrenaei desinentis scopulis inhaerentem citerior adluebat Oceanus. Hic duae validissime gentes, Cantabri et Astures, inmunes imperii agitabant. Cantabrorum et prior acrior et magis pertinax in rebellando animus fuit, qui non contenti libertatem suam defendere proximis etiam imperitare temptabant Vaccaeosque et Turmogidos et Autrigonas crebris incursionibus fatigabant.

33. Toward the sunset almost all Hispania had been pacified, except that part of the Hither province, clinging to the crags where the Pyrenees end, which the Ocean washed. Here two very powerful peoples, the Cantabrians and the Asturians, were living immune from empire. The Cantabrians had the earlier, and a fiercer and more stubborn, spirit in rebelling; not content to defend their own liberty, they even tried to exercise imperium over their neighbors and were harassing the Vaccaei and the Turmogidi and the Autrigones with frequent incursions.

In hos igitur, quia vehementius agere nuntiabantur, non est expeditio mandata, sed sumpta. Ipse venit Segisamam, castra posuit; inde tripertito exercitu totam Cantabriam amplexus efferam gentem ritum ferarum quasi quadam cogebat indagine. Nec ab Oceano quies, cum infesta classe ipsa quoque terga hostium caederentur.

Therefore against these, because
they were reported to be acting more vehemently, an expedition was not mandated but undertaken. He himself came to Segisama, pitched camp; from there, with a tripartite army, encompassing all
Cantabria, he was corralling the wild nation in the manner of beasts, as if by a certain drive-net.
Nor was there rest from the Ocean, since by a hostile fleet the very backs
of the enemy too were being struck.

Primum adversus Cantabros sub moenibus Bergidae proeliatum. Hinc statim fuga in eminentissimum Vindium montem, quo maria prius Oceani quam arma Romana ascensura esse crediderant. Tertio Aracillum oppidum magna vi repugnat; captum tamen postremo fuit Medulli montis obsidio, quem perpetua quindecim milium fossa comprehensum undique simul adeunte Romano postquam extrema barbari vident, certatim igne, ferro inter epulas venenoque, quod ibi ex arboribus taxeis exprimitur, praecepere mortem, seque pars maior a captivitate, quae morte gravior ad id tempus indomitis videbatur, vindicaverunt.

The first battle against the Cantabri was fought beneath the walls of Bergida. Thence straightway they fled to the most eminent Mount Vindium, which they had believed the seas of the Ocean would sooner ascend than Roman arms. Thirdly, the town Aracillum resisted with great force; yet at last it was taken. Then came the siege of Mount Medullus, which, enclosed by a continuous 15‑mile fosse, with the Roman advancing upon it from all sides at once—after the barbarians saw their extremity—they hastened to forestall death, vying with one another by fire, by steel, amid banqueting, and by poison which there is extracted from yew-trees; and the greater part vindicated themselves from captivity, which up to that time seemed to the untamed more grievous than death.

Haec per Antistium Furniumque legatos et Agrippam hibernans in Tarraconis maritimis Caesar accepit. Mox ipse praesens hoc deduxit montibus, hoc obsidibus adstrinxit, hoc sub corona iure belli venundedit. Digna res lauro, digna curru senatui visa est; sed iam tantum erat Caesar, ut triumphos augeri contemneret.

These things Caesar, while wintering in the maritime parts of Tarraco, received through
Antistius and Furnius, legates, and through Agrippa. Soon he himself in person led this down from the mountains, this
he bound by hostages, this he sold under the crown by the right of war. The affair seemed
to the senate worthy of the laurel, worthy of the chariot; but Caesar was already so great that
he disdained to have his triumphs augmented.

Astures per id tempus ingenti agmine a montibus niveis descenderant. Nec temere sumptus, ut barbaris, impes; sed positis castris apud Asturam flumen trifariam diviso agmine tria simul Romanorum adgredi parant castra. Fuissetque anceps et cruentum et utinam mutua cladem certamen cum tam fortibus tam subito, tam cum consilio venientibus, nisi Brigaecini prodidissent, a quibus praemonitus Carisius cum exercitum advenit.

The Asturians at that time, in a huge column, from
the snowy mountains had descended. Nor, as with barbarians, was the impetus rashly undertaken;
but, with camps pitched by the river Astura, the column divided threefold, they prepare to attack simultaneously three
camps of the Romans. And it would have been an indecisive and bloody contest and—alas!—a mutual calamity,
with men so strong, so sudden, and coming with such counsel, unless the Brigaecini had betrayed them; forewarned by whom
Carisius arrived with the army.

Pro ut victoria fuit oppressisse consilia, sic tamen quoque non incruento certamine. Reliquias fusi exercitus validissima civitas Lancia excepti, ubi cum locis adeo certatum est, ut cum in captam urbem faces poscerentur, aegre dux impetraverit veniam, ut victoriae Romanae stans potius esset quem incensa monumentum.

In proportion as the victory was to have oppressed their counsels, so nevertheless the contest was not bloodless. The most strong city Lancia received the remnants of the routed army, where it was contended with the very localities to such a degree that, when torches were being demanded for the captured city, the leader with difficulty procured leave that, standing rather than burned, it should be a monument of Roman victory.

Hinc finis Augusto bellicorum certaminum fuit, inde rebellandi finis Hispaniae. Certa mox fides et aeterna pax, cum ipsorum ingenio in pacis artes promptiore, tum consilio Caesaris, qui fiduciam montium timens in quo se recipiebant, castra sua, quia in plano erat, habitare et incolere iussit: ibi gentis esse consilium, illud observari caput. Favebat consilio natura regionis: circa enim omnis aurifera et chrysocollae miniique et aliorum colorum ferax.

Hence for Augustus there was an end of warlike contests, thence an end of Spain’s rebelling. Soon there was sure loyalty and eternal peace, both because their own disposition was more prompt in the arts of peace, and by the counsel of Caesar, who, fearing the confidence placed in the mountains into which they withdrew, ordered them to dwell and inhabit his camp, because it was on the plain: that there should be the council of the nation there, that that be observed as the head. The nature of the region favored the plan: for all around it is gold-bearing and productive of chrysocolla and minium and of other colors.

Itaque exerceri solum iussit. Sic Astures nitentes in profundo opes suas atque divitias, dum aliis quaerunt, nosse coeperunt.

Therefore he ordered the soil to be worked. Thus
the Asturians, toiling in the deep for their own resources and riches, while they were
seeking for others, began to know them.

XXXIV. Omnibus ad occasum et meridiem pacatis gentibus ad septentrionem quoque, dumtaxat intra Rhenum atque Danuvium, item ad orientem intra Cyrum et Euphraten, illi quoque reliqui, qui inmunes imperii erant, sentiebant tamen magnitudinem et victorem gentium populum Romanum reverebantur. Nam et Scythae misere legatos et Sarmatae amicitiam petentes. Seres etiam habitantesque sub ipso sole Indi, cum gemmis et margaritis elephantos quoque inter munera trahentes, nihil magis quam longinquitatem viae inputabant—quadriennium inpleverant; et tamen ipse hominum color ab alio venire caelo fatebatur.

34. With all the peoples toward the Occident and the meridian pacified, to the north as well—at least within the Rhine and the Danube—and likewise to the Orient within the Cyrus and the Euphrates, those also remaining who were immune from the Empire nevertheless felt the greatness and revered the Roman people, the victor of nations. For even the Scythians sent envoys, and the Sarmatians, seeking amity. The Seres too, and the Indians dwelling beneath the sun itself, with gems and margarites, bringing even elephants among their gifts, imputed their delay to nothing so much as the long distance of the road—they had completed four years; and yet the very color of the men avowed that they came from another sky.

Parthi quoque, quasi victoriae paeniteret, rapta clade Crassiana signa ultro rettulere. Sic ubique certa atque continua totius generis humanis aut pax fuit aut pactio, aususque tandem Caesar Augustus septingentesimo ab urbe condita anno Ianum geminum cludere, bis ante se clusum sub Numa rege et victa primum Carthagine.

The Parthians also, as if it repented them of their victory, of their own accord returned the standards snatched in the disaster of Crassus. Thus everywhere there was for the whole human race either a sure and continuous peace or compact, and at last Caesar Augustus dared, in the seven-hundredth year from the city’s founding, to close the twin Janus, closed twice before his time: under King Numa, and when Carthage was first conquered.

Hinc conversus ad pacem pronum in omnia mala et in luxuriam fluens saeculum gravibus severisque legibus multis coercuit, ob haec tot facta ingentia dictator perpetuus et pater patriae. Tractatum etiam in senatu an, quia condidisset imperium, Romulus vocarentur; sed sanctius et reverentius visum est nomen Augusti, ut scilicet iam tum, dum colit terras, ipso nomine et titulo consecraretur.

Hence, having turned to peace, he restrained with many grave and severe laws an age prone to every evil and flowing into luxury, and on account of these so many great deeds he was perpetual dictator and father of the fatherland. It was even debated in the senate whether, since he had founded the empire, he should be called Romulus; but the name Augustus seemed more sacred and more reverent, so that, even then, while he inhabits the earth, by the very name and title he might be consecrated.