Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome.

Episode 48, the second triumph for it.

On January 1st, 43 BC, the annual rollover of office holders took place in Rome.

Preators, eight aisles and quasters stepped down from their position, and new men took

their place.

In keeping with the long-established custom, the men on their way out stepped laterally

into pro-rogged offices in the provinces.

Preators became pro-praters, consuls became pro-consuls.

But what had in the past been a relatively boring reshuffling of the Imperial bureaucracy,

was now a flashpoint for confrontation.

Mark Antony, newly minted pro-console, had been slated to take over Macedonia, but in

the last days of his consulship, he decided that he didn't want Macedonia.

He wanted the rich and strategically important province of Cisalpine Gaul.

So he had the tribunes proposed and ratify a change in assignments, except that the term

of the current governor, Dec. Brutus, had not yet expired, and he refused to recognize

the new orders.

This being a new age of Roman politics, an age defined by force rather than persuasion,

Antony simply gathered an army and marched for the Po Valley to force Brutus out.

Obviously, there were special circumstances surrounding Antony's desire to take Cisalpine

Gaul and dislodge Brutus in the process, namely that the latter had been a central

figure in the liberator conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar, but it is nonetheless unsettling

how easy it had become for Legion to fight Legion.

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