They showed their feelings clearly while Brutus' games were in progress, lavish as these were. Although a certain number, who had been hired for the purpose, shouted that Brutus and Cassius should be recalled, and the rest of the spectators were thus wrought up to a feeling of pity for them, crowds ran in and stopped the games until they checked the demand for their recall.When Brutus and Cassius learned that Octavian had frustrated what they had hoped to obtain from the games, they decided to go to Syria and Macedonia, which had been theirs before these provinces were voted to Dolabella and Antony, and to seize them by force.
When their intentions became known, Dolabella hastened to Syria, taking the province of Asia in his way in order to collect money there. Antony, thinking that he should soon need troops for his own purposes, conceived the idea of transferring to himself the army in Macedonia, which was composed of the very best material and was of large size (it consisted of six legions, besides a great number of archers and light-armed troops, much cavalry, and a corresponding amount of apparatus of all kinds), although it properly belonged to Dolabella, who had been entrusted with Syria and the war against the Parthians, because Caesar was about to use these forces against the Parthians.
Antony wanted it especially because it was close at hand, and, by crossing the Adriatic, could be thrown at once into Italy.Suddenly a rumour burst forth upon them that the Getae had made an incursion into Macedonia and were ravaging it. Antony asked the Senate to give him an army in order to punish them, saying that this army had been prepared by Caesar to be used against the Getae, and that everything was now quiet on the Parthian frontier. The Senate distrusted the rumour, and sent messengers to make inquiry. Antony, in order to dissipate their fear and suspicion, proposed a decree that it should not be lawful for anybody, for any cause whatever, to vote for a dictatorship, or to accept it if offered.
