Cicero’s death and the formation of the triumvirate ushered in a period of unprecedented violence and instability. The new regime delivered a direct onslaught on the most vital interests of the boni. It happened on a scale and with a severity never seen before, involving proscription of individuals, confiscation of property for veteran settlements and crippling taxation to cover the cost of mass mobilisation and prolonged warfare; at Perusia it even led to armed resistance. As Osgood has reminded us, the trauma of this period stayed long after peace and prosperity had returned, shaping the relationship between the boni and the new Augustan government that would gradually take shape after Actium.1