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The republicans were strongly posted upon two hills, with intrenchments between: the camp of Cassius upon the left next the sea, that of Brutus inland on the right. The triumviral army lay upon the open plain before them, in a position rendered unhealthy by marshes; Antony, on the right, was opposed to Cassius; Octavian, on the left, fronted Brutus.
Except in his conduct of the war against the Parthians, Cassius had never played a worthy part. After the first battle of Philippi it would have still been politic in Brutus to abstain from battle. The triumviral armies were in great distress, and every day increased their losses.
For M. Valerius Messalla, a young man of twenty-eight, held the chief command after Brutus and Cassius; and Horace, who was but three-and-twenty, the son of a freedman, and a youth of feeble constitution, was appointed a legionary tribune. The forces opposed to them would have been at once overpowered had not Antony himself opportunely arrived with the second corps of the triumviral army.
This, however, he lost by the triumviral proscriptions, excepting a poor remnant of his estate near Pedum which, small as it was, seems to have sufficed for his moderate wants. At a later period Horace, writing to him in retirement, speaks as though he were possessed of considerable wealth "Di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi."
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