Emperor: The Blood of Gods (Special Edition) (Emperor Series, Book 5) (51 page)

Cleopatra cocked her head slightly as she listened to him, all her attention focused on the big Roman welcoming her to his lands. She smiled a little wider at that, seeing honesty in his response.

‘I know Caesarion would like to hear about his father, Mark Antony, if you are willing to talk about him.’

She held out her hand and he took it formally, leading her away from the docks and breaking the trance that had settled on him since she set foot on land.

‘It would be my pleasure,’ he said. ‘It is a fine tale.’

No other writer can equal Mark Antony’s funeral oration as written by William Shakespeare, though the playwright didn’t use the detail of a wax effigy, a matter of historical record. It is true that the rioting crowds burned the senate house down for the second time, along with an impromptu cremation of Caesar’s body. Nicolaus of Damascus gave the number of assassins as eighty, whereas the first-century historian Suetonius mentions sixty. Plutarch mentions twenty-three wounds, which suggests a core group, with many more who did not actually strike. Of those core conspirators, the names of nineteen are known: Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Brutus, Publius Casca (who actually struck the first blow), Gaius Casca, Tillius Cimber, Gaius Trebonius (who distracted Mark Antony during the assassination), Lucius Minucius Basilus, Rubrius Ruga, Marcus Favonius, Marcus Spurius, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, Servius Sulpicius Galba, Quintus Ligarius, Lucius Pella, Sextius Naso, Pontius Aquila, Turullius, Hortensius, Bucolianus.

For those who are interested in details, Publius Casca had his estate and possessions sold in a proscription auction, which included a table bought by a wealthy Roman and then transported to a provincial town in the south: Pompeii. Preserved in the ash of the Vesuvius eruption, the lionhead legs of that table can be viewed there today, still marked with his name.

Though I have made him a little older to fit the chronology of previous books, Octavian was around nineteen when Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. He was in Greece/Albania when the news came and he returned to Brundisium by ship. On his return to Rome and learning of his adoption by Caesar, he changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, though he dropped the final part shortly afterwards and never used it.

Caesar’s will had been written at an earlier stage of his life, though it is not known exactly when. It is true that he gave 300 sesterces to each citizen – a total somewhere in the region of 150
million
silver coins in all, as well as a huge garden estate on the banks of the Tiber. Even then, Octavian received around three-quarters of the total after bequests and legacies. Although it was lodged at the temple of Vesta, as I have it, it was in fact read publicly by Caesar’s last father-in-law: Lucius Calpurnius.

The most important part of the will was that it named Octavian as Caesar’s son, so catapulting him instantly to a status and influence mere wealth could never have brought. With the adoption came the ‘clientela’ – tens of thousands of citizens, soldiers and noble families sworn to Caesar. There is no modern equivalent of this bond, which is closer to a feudal retainer or family tie than a business relationship. It can be fairly said that without that bequest, it is unlikely Octavian would have survived his baptism of fire in Roman politics.

Mark Antony had a number of children before Cleopatra, most of whom are lost to history. With Fulvia, he had two sons: Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Jullus Antonius. I changed the name of the second son to Paulus as Jullus was just too similar to Julius. Anytllus was a nickname. In later years, he was sent to Octavian with a vast sum offering peace, but Octavian kept the gold and sent him back to his father.

In a similar way to Jullus Antonius, I changed the name of Decimus Brutus to Decimus Junius, as I didn’t want another Brutus to cause confusion. That assassin of Caesar was in fact a distant relative of Marcus Brutus. It is true that he was given an area of northern Italy as a reward for his part in the assassination. It is also true that Mark Antony decided to take it from him with the Brundisium legions, and that Octavian was given the task of stopping him. What an irony it must have been for Octavian to be ordered north by his enemies to stop the one man who had supported Caesar!

Note on cowardice. It has become the fashion in recent years to consider Octavian as some sort of weakling. He was neither weak nor a coward. There are well-attested historical accounts of him walking into a hostile camp unarmed to address a mutinous legion – with the body of the last man to try it still on the ground before him. It is true that he was prone to a peculiar collapse at moments of stress. Some modern writers have suggested asthma or dropsy, though the Roman historian Suetonius described him as deeply asleep and senseless, which does not fit those ailments at all. Given that epilepsy ran in his family, the likelihood is that he suffered ‘grand mal’ fits, which left him helpless whenever they struck. His enemies certainly crowed about his absences, but he showed courage in every other aspect of his life. After a wasted day where he was absent and sick, he went on to lead from the front at the battle of Philippi. On other occasions, he stood his ground in riots, with missiles flying all around him. He once went first across over an unsteady gangway and was badly injured when it collapsed. In short, claims of his cowardice sit on weak foundations.

The death of consuls Hirtius and Pansa in the same campaign against Mark Antony was incredibly fortunate for Octavian. I have simplified the events, which actually took place in two major battles a week apart. Pansa fell in the first and Hirtius in the second, leaving Octavian in sole command. There is no evidence that Octavian colluded with Mark Antony, though I suggest that does not mean there was no collusion. It is one of those historical moments when the extraordinary outcome should be considered a little
too
fortunate, without someone having jogged fate’s elbow. Octavian was not present at the first battle and fought personally at the second, securing a Roman eagle on his own as he withdrew.

Having accepted Senate authority and the position of propraetor – equivalent to a governorship of a province – Octavian found himself in sole command of eight legions. There are one or two interesting rumours that spread after the battle. Pansa survived his wounds for a time before dying, which led to gossip that his own doctor had poisoned him on Octavian’s orders. It was even said that Octavian had struck Hirtius down himself, though this is almost certainly untrue.

While in exile in Athens, Brutus was a regular patron of debates and philosophical discussions, like many other Romans in Greece before him. The small training scene is fictional, though he was fit at the time of Philippi and must have trained regularly. The detail of the second man moving faster is a little-known truth from studies of gunfighters in the American west that I could not resist including. The man who draws first sparks an unconscious response from a trained opponent, who tends to draw more smoothly and with greater speed. It is counter-intuitive, but as Japanese kendo fighters will affirm, the instinctive reaction after thousands of hours of training is often faster than a blow resulting from a controlled decision.

On coins: Both Brutus and Cassius had coins minted after the assassination of Caesar. The most famous is the one with the head of Brutus on one side and the words ‘Eid Mar’ on the reverse, with two daggers around the skullcap of a newly freed man. Others linked Brutus with the words ‘liberty’ and ‘victory’ – an early example of propaganda in an age before mass communication.

Note on fleet construction: Agrippa’s secret fleet was based near modern-day Naples at the lake of Avernus. The lake has the benefit of being only a mile from the sea and at roughly the same level. Roman surveyors will have confirmed this for him, but it was still a relatively minor project compared to, say, bringing an aqueduct for a hundred miles, or laying road for thousands. Bearing in mind that 25,000 men working with spades on the Panama canal could shift a million cubic yards a day, the Avernus canal could have been dug in just three or four days with a thousand men. Add in complications such as canal gates to hold back the lake, and a figure of start-to-finish in a month is reasonable.

Agrippa’s catapult grapnel, named the harpax or ‘robber’, is part of the historical record, though not well known. The description of bronze bearings comes from a similar project at a lake by Genzano, near Rome, where Roman ships were rescued from the bottom in the nineteen thirties. In Genzano, the Romans built a tunnel from the lake to the sea. I didn’t know the ancient Romans had ball bearings before that trip and it is well worth a visit.

With those sorts of innovations, and despite being badly outnumbered, Agrippa was able to destroy the Roman fleet under Sextus Pompey. It is one of those key moments in history where a single man influenced the entire future of a nation and yet it is almost unknown today.

It is occasionally necessary, for reasons of plot, to alter the main line of history. I have followed the true history for most of this book, but the events concerning Sextus Pompey took place
after
Philippi and not before as I have them here. Octavian agreed to meet him at sea for a failed peace accord, where Sextus’ admiral Menas offered to cut the ship adrift and effectively hand Rome to Sextus. Sextus had given his oath of truce. He was furious with Menas, not for offering, but for not just doing it and thereby allowing Sextus to preserve his oath.

The second wife of Brutus was an interesting character. Her actual name was Porcia Catonis, which I changed to Portia because it didn’t sound like the slender beauty she actually was. According to the histories, she came upon her husband when he was considering the assassination of Julius Caesar. Porcia was very young and famously beautiful. He said he couldn’t trust a woman with such a secret, so to prove her loyalty, she wounded her thigh with a knife, then bore the pain and fever for a full day before showing him what she had done. He trusted her after that, though when he went to Athens, he left her in Rome, rather than bring her with him, as I have it here. Instead of showing a relationship through letters, I preferred to put her in the scenes in Greece. Though the exact manner is disputed, she committed suicide after the death of Brutus at Philippi.

On poets: It is an odd coincidence that the two best-known poets of the Roman world, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) and Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil), should have known each other. History sometimes throws up clusters of great names in the same generation, just as Michelangelo and Da Vinci knew and loathed each other in a later century.

Octavian’s noble friend Maecenas was in the habit of collecting poets among his wide group of friends. He knew Virgil well when they were in their twenties. Horace actually met Brutus first when he was in Athens and was present at the battle of Philippi, though Horace was forced to flee in the general chaos.

Philippi was indeed created by King Philip of Macedon as a walled city to stand against marauding Thracian tribes. It is in ruins today and was rebuilt at least twice even in the time of Augustus. At the time of the battles there, it was a walled stronghold built on a wide hill and overlooking a marsh that Cassius did think was impassable, especially once his men had built wooden palisades along the base.

When Octavian collapsed, he remained lucid enough to give orders that he be carried to Philippi on a litter. He was in the twin camp when the unplanned attack started. Brutus’ legions rushed forward without warning after days of being stung by skirmishes and raids against their lines. I have compressed the timeline here, as the battles took place after many days where little happened.

While Mark Antony led his legions in an attack across marshes, taking Cassius’ camp, Brutus’ legions captured his own camp – but Octavian had vanished. We cannot be certain where he went, but he is said to have hidden in a marsh and there was only one around Philippi. Agrippa and Maecenas were almost certainly with him.

The first day of battle was utterly chaotic, with vast numbers of men passing each other in poor light and not knowing whether they were surrounded by friends or enemies. It is true that Cassius thought he was taken and asked his servant Pindarus to kill him. By the time Titinius returned with news that the approaching horsemen were on their side, Cassius was dead and Brutus was in sole command of the legions against Mark Antony and Caesar.

Octavian had recovered enough to take part on 23 October 42 BC, when Brutus led out his forces alone for the second battle of Philippi. The Caesarian forces fought bravely, perhaps with the motivation to repay their rout in the first clash. Octavian and Mark Antony worked well together. They broke Brutus’ legions and Mark Antony led the pursuit as Brutus retreated into the wooded hills above Philippi with four battered legions.