ain articles
and granting others to them free, and others they honored with the
offices and priesthoods of the victims. The commanders, to make sure that
they themselves should get the finest both of lands and buildings and
give their followers what they pleased, gave notice that no one else
should frequent the auction room unless he wanted to buy something:
whoever did so should die. And they handled bona fide purchasers in such
a way that the latter discovered nothing and paid the very highest price
for what they wanted, and consequently had no desire to buy again.

[-15-] This was the course followed in regard to possessions. As to the
offices and priesthoods of such as had been put to death they distributed
them not in the fashion prescribed by law but however it suited them.
Caesar resigned the office of consul, giving up willingly that which he
had so desired as to make war for it, and his colleague gave up his
place, whereupon they appointed Publius Ventidius, though praetor, and one
other; and to the former's praetorship they promoted one of the aediles.
Afterward they removed all the praetors (who held office five days longer
than Ventidius) and sent them to be governors of the provinces, while
they installed others in their places. Some laws were abolished and
others introduced instead.

And, in brief, they ordered everything else
just as seemed good to them. They did not, to be sure, lay claim to
titles which were offensive and had been therefore done away with, but
they managed matters according to their own wish and desire, so that
Caesar's sovereignty by comparison appeared all gold.

[B.C. 42 (_a. u_. 712)]

In addition to transacting that year the business mentioned, they voted a
temple to Serapis and Isis. [-16-] When Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Plancus
became consuls tablets were again exposed, not bringing death to any
one any longer, but defrauding the living of their property. They were
collecting funds because they were in need of more money, due to the fact
that they owed large sums to large numbers of soldiers, were expending
considerable on works undertaken by the latter, and thought they should
lay out far more still on wars in prospect. The fact that those taxes
which had been formerly abrogated were now again put in force or
established on a new basis, and the institution of joint contributions,
many of which kept being levied on the land and on the servants,
displeased people moderately, i