Following Julius Caesar's victories in the east during the civil war, he set about establishing his administration in the eastern provinces.
[2] The following year, a Pompeian equite by the name of Quintus Caecilius Bassus, who had fought at the Battle of Pharsalus, spread a rumour that Caesar had been defeated and killed in Africa.
[4] Bassus meanwhile had managed to capture the city of Tyre, in modern-day Lebanon, and established it as his base of operations.
He assembled an army of slaves, vassals, regional kinglets, Parthians, and the Jewish opposition of Antipater of Idumea, including the Galatian Tetrarch, Deiotarus.
[11] Vetus's army besieged a city loyal to Bassus, and was initially successful, even being hailed as imperator by the troops.
In the later part of 45 BC, Caesar ordered a new campaign led by Lucius Statius Murcus and Quintus Marcius Crispus.
Despite the news, the siege continued until one of Caesar's key assassins, Gaius Cassius Longinus, arrived and killed the Senate's replacement for Vetus, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, at Laodicea.
[20][21] With the end of the siege, Murcus was given command of the fleet, while Crispus went to govern Bithynia before being stripped of the role by Cassius and probably retiring from public life.