t was past and
their suspicion of the future they cared nothing about the preservation
of an associate in comparison with vengeance on an adversary, and so gave
them up without much protest. [-6-] Thus they offered one another staunch
friends for bitter enemies and implacable foes for close comrades; and
sometimes they exchanged even numbers, at others several for one or fewer
for more, altogether carrying on the transactions as if at a market, and
overbidding one another as at an auction room. If some one was found just
equivalent to another and the two were ranked alike, the exchange was a
simple one; but all whose value was raised by some excellence or esteem
or relationship could be despatched only in return for several. As there
had been civil wars, lasting a long time and embracing many events, not
a few men during the turmoil had come into collision with their nearest
relatives. Indeed, Lucius Caesar, Antony's uncle, had become his enemy,
and Lepidus's brother, Lucius Paulus, hostile to him. The lives of these
were saved, but many of the rest were slaughtered even in the houses of
their very friends and relatives, from whom they especially expected
protection and honor. And in order that no person should feel less
inclined to kill any one out of fear of being deprived of the rewards
(remembering that in the time of Sulla Marcus Cato, who was quaestor, had
demanded of some of the murderers all they had received for their
work), they proclaimed that the name of no proscribed person should be
registered in the public records. On this account they slew ordinary
citizens more readily and made away with the prosperous, even though they
had no dislike for a single one of them. For since they stood in need
of vast sums of money and had no other source from which to satisfy the
desire of their soldiers, they affected a kind of common enmity against
the rich. Among the other transgressions they committed in the line of
this policy was to declare a mere child of age, so that they might kill
him as already exercising the privileges of a man.

[-7-] Most of this was done by Lepidus and Antony. They had been honored
by the former Caesar for a very long time and as they had been in office
and holding governorships most of the period they had many enemies. It
appeared as if Caesar had a part in the business merely because of his
sharing the authority, for he himself was not at all anxious to kill any
large number. He was not natu