The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC led to a conflict between the leaders of the plot murder him, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Gaius Cassius Longinus, and the Caesarians led by the Second Triumvirate which took charge of Rome. This led to the Liberator's Civil War (43–42 BC). Before this civil war Brutus and Cassius fled to the east. They had been assigned the Roman provinces of Macedonia (Greece) and Syria respectively by Caesar. However, the Caesarians had the two provinces reassigned to Gaius Antonius (the brother of Mark Antony) and Publius Cornelius Dolabella respectively. They were Caesarians. Brutus and Cassius were given Creta et Cyrenaica instead. They were unhappy with being given this small province and prepared to invade Macedonia and Syria. However, the senate then voted to restore the two provinces to them. Brutus was also assigned Illyria. He arrived in Macedonia when Gaius Antonius had just arrived there to take up his propraetorship which had been assigned to him prior to the change made by the senate. His predecessor, Quintus Hortenius, joined Brutus. Vatinius marched on Dyrrachium and seized it before Brutus got there. However, the soldiers of his three legions (minus the lost cohorts), who disliked him, defected to Brutus, who then went on to engage Gaius Antonius who was in Apollonia (near Fier, Albania). He won over the troops of Antonius (his seven cohorts and a legion under his lieutenant, Lucius Piso) as well.