Murcus, L. Sta'tius
was Caesar's legatus in B. C. 48, and one of three commissioners appointed by him to treat with the Pompeians at Oricum (
Caes. Civ. 3.15). Murcus was one of the praetors in B. C. 45-44, and went into Syria after his year of office expired, with the title of proconsul, and as successor to Sextus Caesar, slain by his own soldiers in Apameia, at the instigation of Caecilius Bassus [CAESAR, No. 24; BASSUS].
With the aid of Marcius Crispus, proconsul of Bithynia [CRISPUS], Murcus besieged Bassus in Apameia, and compelled him to surrender.
But on the arrival of C. Cassius Longinus [LONGINUS, No. 11], Murcus and Crispus both surrendered their legions to him. Henceforward Murcus was an active supporter of the senatorian or Pompeian party. Cassius appointed him prefect of the fleet.
He defeated Dolabella [DOLABELLA] and the Rhodians off the coast of Cilicia, and blockaded Laodiceia. Murcus was next stationed off the coast of Peloponnesus, and subsequently in the Ionian sea, where he seized and occupied a small island opposite the harbour of Brundisium, and prevented M. Antony for some time from transporting his forces to Illyricum and the main-land of Greece.
After the ruin of the republican party at Philippi, in B. C. 42, Murcus carried his fleet over to Sextus Pompey in Sicily.
But his past services to the Pompeians were ill-requited by their present leader; for at the instigation of his freedmen Menas and Menodorus, to whom Murcus had borne himself loftily, Sextus caused him to be assassinated, and promulgated a report that he had been murdered by his own slaves. (
Cic. Phil. 11.12,
ad Att. 12.2,
ad Fam. 12.11; Pseudo-Brut.
ad Cic. 2.5; Vell. 2.69, 72, 77;
J. AJ 14.11. ยงยง 1, 3, 4,
B. J. 1.10.4; Appian,
App. BC 2.119,
3.77,
78,
4.58,
59,74, 82, 86, 100, 108, 115-117, 5.2, 15, 50, 70;
D. C. 47.27,
28,
30,
35,
36,
47,
48.19.)
[
W.B.D]
