a legatio because he was still in office as censor (a magistracy of 18 months). Pompeius eventually put him in charge of Greece, where he died the same year, around the time Caesar was returning to Rome from Spain. According to Paulus Orosius, Histories against Pagans VI (15.11): Appius Claudius censorinus, who by Pompeius' order was looking after Greece, wanted to test the trustworthiness of the Pythian Oracle, done away with by this time. Indeed the Seer whom he forced to descend into the cave is reported to have given him this reply when consulted about the war: This war does not concern you, O Roman. You shall hold the hollows of Euboia. Now they call the Euboic Gulf “the hollows”. Thus Appius, uncertain about this inscrutable fate, passed away. Orosius cuts his account short to attack the most pagan Pythian Oracle. There is a much longer, and rather more exciting and lurid account of Appius' revival of the long silent oracle in Lucan's Pharsalia. There we learn that Appius, as so many before him, misunderstood the prophecy and hurried off to Euboea, expecting to seize control of Chalcis as a private domain. Instead he died there and a noted tomb was built for him near the shore of the straits of Evripos. Marriages and children His wives and marriage details remain unknown, and he may not have married until after returning from the eastern wars. It has been proposed by Groebe and Münzer that his wife may have been a Servilia. No sons survived to adulthood, but he had at least two daughters Claudiae neither of whom are mentioned directly by name, but only in the context of their relationships by marriage: the younger to Pompey the younger (born c.79 BC), while the elder was the first wife of Marcus Junius Brutus (born 85). The terminus ante quem for both marriages is spring 51 BC (calendar Iunius). Most likely Claudia maior married Brutus c.59 (when he turned 26) while her minor sister's match with Magnus' son was probably arranged around the time of the Luca and Ravenna conferences (spring 56 BC), with the marriage taking place in Pompeius' second consulate after Appius returned from Sardinia. It was an interesting choice of in-laws (adfines) since Brutus refused to speak to Pompeius Magnus until the Civil War, detesting him as a tyrant and the murderer of his father. As he had