throughout the
year; but in the rest, during only nine, six, four, or three months, and
in his second no more than a few hours. For having sat for a short time
in the morning, upon the calends of January [1st January], in his curule
chair [143], before the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, he abdicated the
office, and substituted another in his room. Nor did he enter upon them
all at Rome, but upon the fourth in Asia, the fifth in the Isle of Samos,
and the eighth and ninth at Tarragona. [144]

XXVII. During ten years he acted as one of the triumvirate for settling
the commonwealth, in which office he for some time opposed his colleagues
in their design of a proscription; but after it was begun, he prosecuted
it with more determined rigour than either of them. For whilst they were
often prevailed upon, by the interest and intercession of friends, to
shew mercy, he alone strongly insisted that no one should be spared, and
even proscribed Caius Toranius [145], his guardian; who had (90) been
formerly the colleague of his father Octavius in the aedileship. Junius
Saturnius adds this farther account of him: that when, after the
proscription was over, Marcus Lepidus made an apology in the senate for
their past proceedings, and gave them hopes of a more mild administration
for the future, because they had now sufficiently crushed their enemies;
he, on the other hand, declared that the only limit he had fixed to the
proscription was, that he should be free to act as he pleased.
Afterwards, however, repenting of his severity, he advanced T. Vinius
Philopoemen to the equestrian rank, for having concealed his patron at
the time he was proscribed. In this same office he incurred great odium
upon many accounts. For as he was one day making an harangue, observing
among the soldiers Pinarius, a Roman knight, admit some private citizens,
and engaged in taking notes, he ordered him to be stabbed before his
eyes, as a busy-body and a spy upon him. He so terrified with his
menaces Tedius Afer, the consul elect [146], for having reflected upon
some action of his, that he threw himself from a great height, and died
on the spot. And when Quintus Gallius, the praetor, came to compliment
him with a double tablet under his cloak, suspecting that it was a sword
he had concealed, and yet not venturing to make a search, lest it should
be found to be something else, he caused him to be dragged from his
tribunal by centurions and soldiers, and