From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (26 page)

When the dictator was murdered the official heads of the State were the surviving consul, M. Antonius (Marc Antony), and the Magister Equitum, M. Aemilius Lepidus. Antony’s family had not distinguished itself in recent years: his father’s campaign against the pirates in 74 had been a fiasco. He himself had passed a dissipated youth: extravagant and boisterous, he was a popular and competent soldier, whom Caesar had employed and trusted in the civil war and had chosen as his consular colleague for 44. Cicero called him a gambler (
aleator
) and in the confusion that followed the murder he played his cards with considerable skill. The conspirators met with so cold a reception from the crowd that they hurriedly withdrew to the Capitol, where they were joined by Cicero; they soon had cause to regret that Cassius had failed to persuade Brutus that Antony should be killed together with Caesar. Antony, who had secured Caesar’s papers and treasures from his widow Calpurnia, obtained the co-operation of Lepidus, who as governor of Narbonese Gaul and Hither Spain had some troops outside Rome; these he brought in, and thus with men and money Antony could negotiate from strength. He won over P. Dolabella by acquiescing in his assumption of the vacant consulship, and at a meeting of the Senate on Cicero’s proposal a practical, though illogical, compromise was reached between the Caesarians and Republicans: Caesar’s murderers were to receive an amnesty, while Caesar’s will and acts were to be respected and his funeral was to be celebrated. Thus fresh fighting was averted and the wheels of constitutional government could start moving again. Brutus and Cassius dined on the Capitol with Antony and Lepidus.

Antony then published Caesar’s will, the contents of which were a bitter personal disappointment to him in that Caesar’s great-nephew Octavian had been preferred to him as the chief heir. But it also contained inflammatory material: Caesar had left his fine gardens beyond the Tiber to the Roman people and bequeathed 300 sesterces to every Roman citizen. This good news was followed by Caesar’s funeral, at which, against Cassius’ advice, Brutus allowed Antony to deliver the customary funeral oration (
laudatio funebris
); in this Antony succeeded in stirring up the fury of the people against the murderers of Caesar, whose blood-stained toga and corpse had already inflamed their emotions.
²
With the mob rioting, Brutus and Cassius were forced to flee from Rome less than a month after the murder. Antony, left in control, secured for Lepidus the office of Pontifex Maximus and authorized him to negotiate with Pompey’s son, Sextus, who had six legions in Spain; he also appeased the Senate by proposing the permanent abolition of the dictatorship. Two of the conspirators were allowed to go to their provinces, Decimus Brutus to Cisalpine Gaul and Trebonius to Asia. The Senate allotted Macedonia to Antony and Syria to Dolabella. Following this conciliatory policy further, Antony secured a dispensation from their duties as praetors for Brutus and Cassius, carried an agrarian bill to provide land in Italy for Caesar’s veterans, and scandalously attributed to Caesar’s ‘acts’ some forged measures to benefit himself. Thus two months after Caesar’s death Antony was in control, and Cicero could confide in his friend Atticus that Antony was so unprincipled that ‘at times one could wish Caesar back’. The Liberators had shown too many scruples and too little policy: their naïve assumption that the Republican government would automatically regain full vigour once the dictator was removed had proved vain. The consul Antony was not a new dictator, but he had skilfully gathered into his hands great power.

Julius Caesar’s great-nephew, C. Octavius, belonged to a municipal family of Velitrae, near Rome. Born in the year of Cicero’s consulship (63), he had lost his father while a child and had been brought up by his mother Atia, a niece of Julius. Though delicate in health he attracted the notice of the dictator who must have formed a high opinion of his promise since, unknown to the boy, he decided to adopt him as his heir. When Caesar was murdered, Octavius was at Apollonia in Illyricum, getting some military training in preparation for the Parthian war. As soon as the news reached him young Octavius boldly decided to cross to Italy. Any hopes that he may have formed of trying to avenge Caesar must have been immensely strengthened when on landing at Brundisium he heard that Caesar in his will had adopted him and made him heir to three-quarters of his estate. Using the name
C. Iulius Caesar Octavianus, he reached Rome by the end of April, where he was welcomed by Caesar’s friends and veterans. He naturally turned to Antony, Caesar’s former colleague and supporter, but Antony was embittered that this youth should have been preferred by Caesar; nor was Antony prepared to relinquish Caesar’s money which he had taken over and some of which he had already spent. Rebuffed by Antony, Octavian began to pay off Caesar’s legacies from his own resources. Antony then strengthened his position by getting a law passed which transferred Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul to himself for five years in place of Macedonia but which allowed him to retain command of the Macedonian legions. His quarrel with Octavian, however, was not yet allowed to grow too serious.

In the course of the summer Brutus and Cassius, who had been given responsibility for the Asian and Sicilian corn supply, decided to leave Italy, though they were not yet necessarily thinking of war; instead of going to Crete and Cyrene which had been assigned to them as provinces, they went off to Macedonia and Syria. By September Cicero had ventured to return to Rome and began to attack Antony in the first of a series of speeches, the Philippics. While Antony went to Cisalpine Gaul, which Decimus Brutus, the original governor for 44, refused to evacuate, Octavian was busy appealing to Caesar’s veterans and by his own efforts without any legal authority raised a considerable force and even won over two of Antony’s legions that were back from Macedonia: the magic of Caesar’s name was Octavian’s talisman. While Antony was besieging D. Brutus in Mutina, Cicero and the Senate were turning to Octavian. With great energy Cicero came forward as the champion of the Republic; gradually in his Philippics he persuaded the Senate and people that Antony was aiming at a dictatorship, that Octavian could be used as long as they needed his help (‘laudandum adolescentem, ornandum, tollendum’), and that the young man should be made a senator and propraetor in order to co-operate, if need be, with Hirtius and Pansa, the consuls of 43, against Antony. At last Cicero’s appeals that Decimus Brutus should be supported were successful, and the two consuls, together with Octavian were sent against Antony. Two battles were fought at Forum Gallorum between Mutina (Modena) and Bononia (Bologna): Antony was defeated and fled with difficulty to Transalpine Gaul, D. Brutus was relieved at Mutina, but the two consuls died, Hirtius in battle and Pansa of wounds. Octavian was thus left in sole command of the consular armies.

Thinking that Antony could be easily handled and that Octavian could be dispensed with, the Senate foolishly slighted the ‘boy’. Antony was declared a public enemy, Brutus and Cassius were granted their commands in Macedonia and Syria and received
maius imperium
in the East, Sextus Pompeius was put in command of a fleet, and Decimus Brutus was given a triumph and the command of the consular armies. Octavian reacted sharply: he refused to
co-operate with Decimus, one of Caesar’s murderers, and, since he controlled eight legions, he demanded the consulship. Refusing to be fobbed off with the offer of a praetorship he marched on Rome, where he was elected consul suffectus together with an obscure relative Q. Pedius. Thus once again the Senate had to yield to a revolutionary leader with an army behind him. Having thus underestimated Octavian, it suffered a further blow in its policy towards Antony if it hoped that Lepidus could be used against him. With his seven legions in Narbonese Gaul, Lepidus decided, or was persuaded by his troops, to support Antony. Though Lepidus was declared a public enemy, two other former officers of Caesar soon followed his example and joined Antony: they were C. Asinius Pollio from Further Spain and L. Munatius Plancus from northern Gaul. When Antony re-entered Cisalpine Gaul, Decimus Brutus was deserted by his troops and forced to flee, but was overtaken on his way to Greece and was killed. The Republican cause in the west had collapsed. In Rome a
lex curiata
had been passed which formally confirmed Octavian’s adoption by Julius Caesar and made legitimate his use of the name Caesar:
³
this was the name that he had been employing (he is called Octavian by modern writers to avoid confusion). Pedius then carried a measure which revoked the amnesty granted in 44 to Caesar’s murderers and outlawed them: since Brutus and Cassius now commanded considerable forces in the East, this would lead to further civil war. Pedius also persuaded the Senate to revoke the decrees of outlawry against Antony and Lepidus, whom Octavian now decided to meet. Cicero’s policy had tragically failed, and the Republic was again at the mercy of the men who commanded the loyalty of the legions.

By courage, skill and appreciation of political realities Octavian had used all the forces available to him to win power: as Caesar’s heir he had appealed to the plebs and veterans, raised a private army and built up a faction of friends, men of ambition and ability, including three Roman knights, Q. Salvidienus Rufus, M. Vipsanius Agrippa and C. Maecenas. Thus he secured official recognition, which he was soon strong enough to flout. Consul before he was twenty, he must next face the rival army commanders.

Octavian met Antony and Lepidus on a small island in a river near Bononia: all three brought their legions with them. There they were reconciled and decided to have themselves appointed Triumviri Reipublicae Constituendae for five years with authority to make laws and to nominate magistrates and governors. Unlike the first triumvirate, which was merely a private agreement between Pompey, Caesar and Crassus to work together for their mutual benefit, the second triumvirate (which came into being on 27 November 43 by means of a bill carried through the Tribal Assembly by a tribune named
P. Titius) was a formal magistracy legally appointed which could dominate the Senate and state. In place of the dictator Caesar, there were now three dictators, although the title was carefully avoided. They then divided the western provinces: Antony retained Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul, a strong position from which he could keep watch on Italy: Lepidus took the rest of Gaul and all Spain; Octavian had Africa, Sicily and Sardinia. In 42 Lepidus was to be consul, while Antony and Octavian attacked the republican armies in the East. To advertise their rule and the effective death of the Republic, they all three had coins issued bearing their portraits.

The triumvirs needed political security and money; they therefore forgot the example of Caesar and remembered Marius and Sulla. They carried out a ruthless proscription, in which they signed the death-warrant of some 300 senators and 2000 knights. Since they had forty-five legions behind them and their victims included so many knights, whose share in politics will often have been negligible, their dominant motive will have been the need to confiscate estates with which to pay their troops. All three must share the responsibility: Octavian cannot be excused as the junior partner. With the money they raised by these grim means and by imposing some special taxes, they satisfied their men, for whom they also got land from eighteen flourishing Italian municipalities (e.g. Capua, Venusia, Beneventum). Some of the proscribed managed to escape and to join Sextus Pompeius, who though deprived of his command as Praefectus Classis et Orae Maritimae by Octavian, still had over a hundred ships and was beginning a campaign to occupy Sicily. Many stirring tales were told of the heroism and treachery shown by individuals during the reign of terror.
⁴
The most famous victim, on whose death Antony insisted, was Cicero. Antony’s agents overtook him at Formiae: he ordered his slaves to leave him and save themselves, and met his death with courage. Antony had his head and hands hung up on the Rostra in the Forum at Rome: such was the barbaric revenge that he took on the man who had dared to challenge him in the name of the Republic and had denounced his policy with such vigour in the Philippics.

Thus perished one of Rome’s greatest sons.
⁵
Charged by some with irresolution or even cowardice, he showed neither failing in the first act of his public life when he stood up to the dictator Sulla in defence of Roscius, or in his final stand against Antony. His career had reached its zenith when he had thwarted Catiline during his consulship in 63. But he had no army to help him enforce his will, and as a
novus homo
he lacked the full backing of a faction; he therefore was unable to achieve his ideal of a
concordia ordinum
between senators and knights, which later he developed into a
consensus omnium bonorum
to include
tota Italia
. Conscious that the State needed a
rector
, he soon realized that Pompey could not fill that role, and amid the increasing pressure that the military
principes
were exerting upon the free state, Cicero withdrew from public life to
ponder and write upon philosophic and political themes.
⁶
In his
De Republica
, published in 51, he saw the ideal statesman and constitution in the past, in the days of Scipio Aemilianus and a balanced constitution guided by a group of enlightened nobles. Then he turned to the
Laws
, and any hopes he may have had in Caesar soon gave way to disillusion. After the dictator’s death he finished his
De officiis
in which he depicted the duties that a citizen owed to his country. But he did more than write: he took action. Though the chances of success may have been faint, he boldly struck one more blow in defence of that free state, where men would rule by persuasion and reason, and refused to admit that the choice lay only between tyranny and anarchy. His attempt to play off Octavian against Antony failed and the consequences of this policy were fatal to the Republic, but responsibility for that certainly does not rest on Cicero’s shoulders alone. He may have come forward to fight for an ideal and to try to save a Commonwealth that was past saving, but he was willing to sacrifice his life in the attempt rather than to continue to live under a tyranny. Further, besides wrestling with these practical problems, he wrote works that have had a profound influence on the course of European civilization. In Cicero’s
humanitas
Rome produced one of its most precious gems.

The death-sentence had been carried out against the Republicans in Italy by the proscription; in the East where Brutus and Cassius had built up powerful armies it had to be executed by force of arms. Brutus had consolidated his strength in Macedonia, at first perhaps hoping for a compromise settlement with Antony. For a victory over a Thracian tribe, the Bessi, he was hailed by his troops as Imperator. He became increasingly independent and the chief Republican rallying-point: he issued coins which referred to the Ides of March and showed the daggers of the Liberators, together with the portrait of Brutus, now the living symbol of Republican Libertas. Then late in 43, instead of thinking of advancing to Italy to join Decimus Brutus, he moved against the advice of Cicero into Asia to meet Cassius and to raise money: he forced the Lycian cities to contribute and stormed Xanthus which refused. Meantime in Syria Cassius had defeated Dolabella (Antony’s consular colleague of 44) who had been declared an outlaw for killing C. Trebonius, the governor of Asia. With twelve legions, and 700 talents which he had extorted from the Jews, Cassius then joined Brutus in overrunning Asia Minor, robbing Rhodes, Tarsus and other cities. After meeting at Sardes, the two commanders, with nineteen legions and a powerful fleet, reached the Hellespont by September 42.

In the west the triumvirs commanded forty-three legions. Octavian’s prestige had now risen even higher: he had become the son of a god (
divi
fi
lius
), since on 1 January 42 the Senate recognized Julius Caesar as a god. He and Antony took twenty-eight legions against Brutus and Cassius, leaving Lepidus to keep order in Italy. They found their opponents entrenched in a strong
position at Philippi on the Via Egnatia. A possible shortage of supplies compelled the Caesarians to force an action. In the first engagement Cassius, who was routed and wrongly thought that Brutus was faring ill, committed suicide. In a second battle about three weeks later Brutus was defeated; he too took his own life. Some of his supporters, as Valerius Messala and the poet Horace, surrendered to the triumvirs; others fled to join Sextus Pompeius or elsewhere; the Republican cause was irretrievably lost; and Julius Caesar’s murder was avenged. If Brutus’ rigidly doctrinaire outlook and slight air of superiority did not endear him to all his contemporaries, and if his notorious attempt to exact interest at 48 per cent from the unfortunate Salaminians of Cyprus does not easily square with his theoretical pursuit of virtue, at least his single-minded devotion to an ideal and the earnestness with which he followed it, afford some justification for the claim that he was ‘the noblest Roman of them all’.
^6a

A fresh division of the western provinces followed: to avoid future misunderstandings this was recorded in a signed compact. Antony took all Gaul except Cisalpine which received no governor and became part of Italy. Lepidus, who was suspected of intriguing with Sextus Pompeius, was ignored. Octavian received Spain, Sardinia and Africa, though he was perhaps to hand over Africa to Lepidus if the latter proved satisfactory. The triumvirs disbanded all but eleven of their legions. For the veterans land must be found: this difficult task was entrusted to Octavian, together with that of dealing with Sextus Pompeius. Antony was to go to the East to raise the necessary funds and re-establish order there. Thus the stage was set for the subsequent division of the Roman world into a western half under Octavian and an eastern under Antony: only after Octavian’s victory at Actium was it re-united in peace.