[4] Initially a supporter of Mark Antony, Hirtius was successfully lobbied by Cicero, who was a personal friend,[5] and switched his allegiance to the senatorial party.
In concert with Pansa and Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus), Hirtius compelled Antony to retire but was slain in the fighting (April 21) at the Battle of Mutina.
He was formerly thought to be an author of De Bello Alexandrino, though a 2018 computer-assisted stylistic analysis disproves this.
This alleged homosexual liaison would have taken place in 46 BC, during the civil wars when Julius Caesar took Octavian to Spain and Aulus Hirtius was serving there.
Allegations of homosexual submissiveness was a common method of political attack in the Roman Republic and it is impossible to know how much of it was true.