ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that Plancus stands alone; his success and prominence are without parallel. From the autumn of 43 Plancus was an adherent of Antony and by 36 his chief subordinate. Three of Antony's highest-ranking affiliates in these years were nobiles of much greater dignitas than the novus et municipalis Plancus. Antony is said to have encountered friends there and learned from them the full extent of the troubles Fulvia and Lucius had caused. Plutarch says this was Antony's first knowledge of the Italian war, but more likely it was his initial detailed report. Plancus and the other Antonian officers in the area–Pollio, Ventidius, and Fufius Calenus–likely realized he was undermining Antony by taking the credit for getting his veterans their promised land, but they logically declined to wage war against a triumvir without specific instructions from their superior. Plancus' governorship of Syria is of uncertain duration, but it lasted at least until Antony's return from the second Parthian campaign.
