Narrative in Eighth Book of the " Gallic War" 47 



promptly despatched this legion to Italy and gave orders for the 

 fifteenth, which was quartered in Cisalpine Gaul, to be delivered 

 over to the proper officers. He also sent the thirteenth legion 

 down from Transalpine Gaul to occupy the posts from which the 

 detachments of the fifteenth were to be withdrawn. The first and 

 fifteenth legions came to Rome not later than the middle of Au- 

 gust, possibly in the latter half of July. Excuses were found for 

 not sending them on to Syria at once. By the close of August 

 the retreat of the Parthians was probably known in Rome. The 

 two legions were then, or later, sent into winter quarters at Capua. 

 In the meantime, Antonius had arrived in Rome, near the middle 

 of June. The declaration that he, who had as yet held no higher 

 office than the quaestorship, presumed to pit himself against 

 Domitius, a consular, and a Domitius, too, as a candidate for the 

 vacant seat of Hortensius in the augural college, together with 

 the evident fact that Antonius must be regarded as Caesar's can- 

 didate, induced a more bitter contest even than Caesar and An- 

 tonius had looked forward to, a contest in which party lines were 

 closely drawn. Antonius's interests were cared for by Curio in 

 particular, who seems to have been plentifully supplied by Caesar 

 with the sinews of political war.^^^ When Antonius's ambition to* 

 succeed Hortensius first became known, the edict for the sacer- 

 dotal election had not been issued, and Antonius found reason to 

 believe that the election would occur in the second half of August. 

 A courier was sent to Caesar to inform him of the strong oppo- 

 sition to Antonius's candidacy, in order that Caesar might, if he 

 saw fit, hurry to Italy and send the provincial voters to Rome 

 in the greatest numbers possible. This courier left Rome July 

 I or earlier. Caesar left Nemetocenna not far from July 26. On 

 or about August i, before arriving in Italy, he met another courier 

 with the news of Antonius's election as tribune and augur, of the 

 failure of Servius Galba to obtain a consulship, and of the in- 

 creased confidence which his political and personal foes were 

 deriving from the fact that two consuls of their own way of think- 

 ing would take office January i following. 



Note 133; Plut., Ant. 5. 



339 



