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[64] Thus quickly did the Senate seize the opportunity to put the affairs of Cassius and his party in a brilliant aspect. When Octavius learned what had been done he was troubled. He had considered the amnesty in the light of an act of humanity and of pity for the relatives and compeers of these men, and that the very small commands had been given them for their safety merely;1 finally, the confirming of the Gallic province to Decimus seemed to him to have been done by reason of the Senate's difference with Antony respecting the supreme power, on which ground also they were inciting him against Antony. But the voting of Dolabella an enemy because he had put one of the murderers to death, the changing of the commands of Brutus and Cassius to the largest provinces, the granting of great armies and large sums of money to them and putting them in command of all the governors beyond the Adriatic sea --all pointed plainly to the building up of the party of Pompey and the pulling down of that of Cæsar. He bethought himself of their artifice in treating him as a young man, in providing him a statue and a front seat, and giving him the title of proprætor, when in fact they were taking from him what army he did have, for a proprietor has no authority when consuls are serving with him. Then the rewards voted only to those of his soldiers who had deserted from Antony to him were an indignity to those who had enlisted under him. Finally the war would be nothing but a disgrace to him, for the Senate would simply make use of him against Antony till the latter was crushed.

1 Cyrenaica and Crete; see Sec. 8. In the eleventh Philippic (12) Cicero praises Brutus for anticipating the desires of the Senate and not going to his own province of Crete, but flying to Macedonia, although it had been assigned to another. It had been assigned to Gaius Antonius.

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