From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (27 page)

Octavian, whose health had been bad during the campaign of Philippi, had to try to get land in Italy for some 100,000 veterans. If he gained their gratitude, he also incurred the hatred of the farmers whom he ejected from their holdings: not many, as the poet Virgil, were lucky enough to find compensation through a patron’s help. A protest raised in Rome was backed by Antony’s wife Fulvia and his brother L. Antonius (consul in 42), who managed by skilful propaganda to raise eight legions and occupy Rome. But they were soon forced out by Octavian, aided by his friends Salvidienus and Agrippa; they were driven into the hill-town of Perusia (Perugia), where after a grim siege starvation forced them to surrender at the end of the winter of 41/40. Octavian showed no mercy to the unfortunate city, though he was careful to spare L. Antonius whom he then made governor of Spain. All this will have strained his relations with M. Antony, who probably heard nothing
of the episode until it was over. He then sent Salvidienus to occupy Gaul where Antony’s legate had died, and Lepidus was given Africa.
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In 40 Antony decided to return to the west, but he was refused admittance at Brundisium, as he thought by Octavian’s orders. He thereupon began to overrun S. Italy until Octavian’s forces arrived. Another civil war, which the soldiers of neither commander wanted, was imminent, but through the good offices of Maecenas and Asinius Pollio the leaders were reconciled. By an agreement, known as the Treaty of Brundisium (October 40), Antony retained the East, Octavian added Transalpine and Narbanese Gaul to his previous command, and Lepidus was confirmed in Africa. Antony also warned Octavian that Salvidienus was plotting against him; Salvidienus was called to Rome and killed. In order to secure their future the triumvirs nominated consuls for some years ahead. Further they followed the example of the First Triumvirate by arranging a marriage alliance: Antony, whose wife Fulvia had died, married Octavian’s sister, Octavia. War had been averted and Italy breathed again. This relief and hope is probably reflected in Virgil’s fourth Eclogue, which foretold the birth of a child who would usher in a Golden Age: the poet may have been thinking of a son that might be born to Antony and Octavia.
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The situation was soon complicated by the claims of another competitor for power, Sextus Pompeius, who had succeeded in occupying Sicily and Sardinia and had hoped for due recognition under the Treaty of Brundisium.
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Disappointed in this, he increasingly interfered with the overseas corn-supply of Rome until the triumvirs decided to meet him near the promontory of Misenum (39) where they agreed that he should be given a proconsular command for five years in Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and Achaea, and that thereafter he should hold the consulship: the exiles that had joined him (Republicans, men expropriated from their farms by Octavian and others) were to be restored. Though the treaty was deposited with the Vestal Virgins in Rome for safe-keeping, there was little prospect that it would long be honoured. A break came when Octavian accepted Sardinia, which Sextus’ governor Menas treacherously offered to hand over to him, together with three legions. Octavian also divorced his wife Scribonia, a relative of Sextus, on the day on which she bore him a daughter, Julia. He had fallen in love with Livia, the wife of Ti. Claudius Nero who at the time of the Perusine war had fled with her and their child Tiberius (the future emperor) to join Sextus in Sicily. The elder Tiberius now complacently divorced the nineteen-year-old Livia whom Octavian then married and lived happily with for fifty years.

Faced with war against Sextus, Octavian asked for some help from Antony who had spent the winter of 39/8 in Greece where he was planning a campaign against the Parthians who had invaded Syria. But when Antony crossed to Brundisium to meet him, Octavian did not come in time and
Antony did not wait. Octavian then advanced by sea against Sextus, but lost half his fleet in an engagement off the toe of Italy: Sextus proclaimed himself ‘son of Neptune’. Octavian clearly needed a larger fleet and a better admiral. He turned to his friend Agrippa, who had just returned from a campaign in Gaul where he had secured the Rhine frontier and settled the Ubii on the site of Cologne. Agrippa undertook extensive constructions near Naples: joining lakes Avernus and Lucrinus to the sea, he built and trained a fleet in safety in this new Portus Julius.
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Before it was ready for action Antony arrived in Italy again, at Tarentum, where he hoped to exchange some of his ships for some of Octavian’s soldiers, but Octavian decided to rely on Agrippa’s efforts and only the tactful intervention of Octavia averted an open rupture and the outbreak of war. At a conference at Tarentum (37) the armament exchange was arranged, and the triumvirate, which had technically lapsed at the end of 38, was renewed until the end of 33 by an agreement that perhaps was later confirmed by a legislative act.
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By 36 Octavian was ready to strike a decisive blow against Sextus by a converging attack on Sicily. While Statilius Taurus advanced from Tarentum with 120 ships which Antony had handed over, Lepidus was to land with large forces from Africa, and Octavian and Agrippa sailed southwards from Portus Julius. But although Lepidus managed to overrun western Sicily with twelve legions, the plan was disrupted because the other two squadrons encountered a tremendous storm and were driven back. When they attacked again a month later. Octavian was caught off his guard while landing troops in eastern Sicily and suffered another defeat at sea. Agrippa, however, who had got ashore in the north-east, managed to join up with the men that Octavian had landed. Sextus, seeing the island gradually slipping from his grasp, staked all on a naval engagement at Naulochus, near the Straits, where each side mustered some 300 ships. Thanks in part to the invention by Agrippa of the
harpax
(a grapnel shot from a catapult), only seventeen of Sextus’ ships escaped.
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Sextus himself fled to the East where he was soon put to death on Antony’s order. He was not a great figure or an inspiring leader who might have given real life to a Republican rally. In fact the son of Pompey the Great, who had cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, was an adventurer who developed into something of a pirate-king: ‘impetu strenuus … fide patri dissimillimus’ (Velleius). In Sicily events then took an unexpected turn: Lepidus, who after receiving the submission of some Pompeian troops commanded twenty-two legions, claimed the island and ordered Octavian to leave. But the weary troops did not want further fighting and began to desert to Octavian, who finally spared Lepidus’ life and allowed him to remain Pontifex Maximus, but deprived him of his triumviral powers: Lepidus’ public career was ended. Octavian now commanded some forty legions: he disbanded 20,000 veterans, settled Sicily and returned to Rome.

Octavian was granted an
ovatio
and other honours, not the least important of which was the
sacrosanctitas
of a tribune,
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a reminder of civilian life to the man who two years before had adopted the title ‘Imperator Caesar’. The inscription on a golden statue set up in the Forum proclaimed that order had been restored by land and sea.
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This was Italy’s greatest need, and it was as a champion in the cause of security and prosperity for Italy and the West that Octavian appealed to his countrymen. He had a sincere respect for Italian tradition and thought, which grew deeper with the years and was sharpened by contrast with Antony’s increasing leaning towards eastern traditions. He was fortunate therefore in being able to identify his own cause with that of his country, since he was in fact a revolutionary leader whose faction had steadily grown in Rome and Italy and was now beginning to appeal not only to ambitious new men but also to more aristocrats of the ancient families. But his very success was ominous: in eliminating his two colleagues and all rivals from the West, where he now controlled Sicily, Africa, Corsica, Sardinia, Gaul and Spain, he was splitting the Roman world into two. Further, as the First Triumvirate had been weakened by the deaths of Julia and Crassus, so now Antony’s treatment of Octavia and the elimination of Lepidus thrust the surviving triumvirs farther apart.

In order to safeguard the north-eastern frontier of Italy and to bind the people of Italy still closer to himself by a military success to match Antony’s eastern campaigns, Octavian under-took operations in Illyricum.
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In 35 he advanced against the Iapudes who had been raiding Aquileia and Tergeste (Trieste), and reached Siscia on the Savus (Save); in 34–3 he reduced the Dalmatian coast and the interior up to the Dinaric Alps. In these campaigns he did not spare himself, and followed up victory with colonial settlement or resettlement at Pola and Emona. The Adriatic was cleared of piracy, the northeast frontier secured, and when he returned to Rome Octavian and his friends, as Agrippa, Maecenas and Statilius Taurus, began to adorn the city with new buildings, to provide good water and cheap food, and not least to remind men of Rome’s earlier beliefs and traditions, by expelling astrologers and magicians, banning eastern rites, and repairing old shrines and temples. Octavian was looking beyond his imminent quarrel with Antony.

After Philippi Antony had, in agreement with Octavian (p. 137), gone to the eastern provinces to raise money (41). The unfortunate cities of Asia Minor, who were still groaning from the extortions of Brutus and Cassius, now had to raise more funds for the man whom Ephesus worshipped as a new Dionysus. Antony made a half-hearted re-adjustment of some of the clientkingdoms, and when he reached Tarsus he summoned Cleopatra to meet
him: the excuse was that she had given help to Cassius, the reason probably was Antony’s need for the treasures of the Ptolemies. Antony must have seen her as a girl of fourteen when he had visited Alexandria, and again in Rome when she was living there as Caesar’s mistress. After Caesar’s death she had gone back to Alexandria, where she killed her young brother and consort, Ptolemy XIV. After her meeting with Antony on the Cydnus, which has been immortalized by Shakespeare, she became his mistress but probably did not yet really win his heart: his support would strengthen her rule in Egypt, not least when she persuaded him to kill her sister Arsinoe. She then returned to Egypt where Antony later joined her for the winter (41/40), but in the spring he had to leave, and he did not see her again for four years, nor the twins that she bore him.

Antony in fact found that he had two wars to cope with: the Parthians were invading Syria, and the Parthini (an Illyrian tribe, not to be confused with the Parthians) were invading Macedonia: he also had to negotiate terms with Octavian at Brundisium (p. 138). Making Athens his headquarters, where he lived with his new wife Octavia, he conducted his wars at first by deputy. By 39 C. Asinius Pollio had reduced the Parthini, but the Parthian menace was more serious. The Parthians possibly thought that Antony intended to carry out Julius Caesar’s plan for an attack on their country. At any rate Parthian forces entered Syria, led by Pacorus, son of the king Orodes, and by Q. Labienus, son of Caesar’s former general, who had been sent by Cassius to the Parthian court.
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While Labienus swept into Asia Minor, Pacorus won most of Syria and was welcomed by Mattathias (Antigonus) at Jerusalem, where Hyrcanus was overthrown; Herod, Hyrcanus’ vizier, managed to escape to Rome where the Senate proclaimed him king of Judaea. In 39 Antony sent out Ventidius with eleven legions who drove Labienus from Asia Minor and thrust the Parthians back over the Euphrates. When Pacorus attacked again in the next year he was defeated and killed by Ventidius at Mt. Gindarus (not far from Antioch): he had relied too much on cataphracts and too little on horse-archers. Later in the year Antony himself went east and took Samosata, though he was back in Greece for the winter. In 37 he sent C. Sosius with two legions to instal Herod as King of Judaea; after Jerusalem had been captured, Herod the Great started his reign.
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Antony had so far shown considerable forbearance towards Octavian, who had snubbed him twice at Brundisium (in 40 and 38) and again at Tarentum; nor had Antony received the troops which Octavian had promised in exchange for ships. Although relations had been patched up at Tarentum and the Triumvirate renewed (37), later in the year Antony sent Octavia back to Italy as she was expecting a child; he was joined in Antioch by Cleopatra. Whether he married her now or later in accordance with Macedonian or Egyptian law, is uncertain, but no such ceremony would have been valid
under Roman law: to the Romans Antony’s legal wife was still Octavia, who nobly continued to safeguard his interest in the west.
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At any rate Antony formally acknowledged the children that Cleopatra had borne him and renamed them Alexander Helios (the Sun) and Cleopatra Selene (the Moon);
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he also gave her control of Coele-Syria, Cyprus and part of Cilicia. As a precautionary measure before his Parthian campaign, he reorganized other client-kingdoms, setting up Amyntas in Galatia, an Archelaus in Cappadocia, and Polemo in an extended Pontus: all these men, together with Herod, served him well. In the spring of 36 he sent Cleopatra, who was expecting another child (Ptolemy Philadelphus), back to Egypt, and then launched his attack on Parthia.

With some 60,000 legionaries and other troops Antony advanced northwards through Armenia to the Median capital Phraaspa (near Tabriz), which he failed to capture because his artillery train had already been defeated. After an engagement with the Parthian forces, he was compelled to withdraw. For nearly a month he fought his way back to Armenia, amid great hardship and suffering, harassed continually by the enemy. Although he lost some 22,000 legionaries, the remainder owed their survival not least to Antony’s courage, perseverance and leadership in the time of disaster. Both Cleopatra and Octavia had prepared supplies of food and clothing for his starving army: he accepted Cleopatra’s gift, but not Octavia’s. After reorganizing his forces, in 34 he invaded Armenia and captured the king Artavasdes, whom he blamed for the loss of his artillery two years before. Although Armenia became a Roman province for two years Carrhae had not been avenged, nor Julius Caesar’s Parthian hopes realized: Parthia now held still more Roman ‘eagles’.

Antony, who was now more dependent on Cleopatra’s financial support, became increasingly dependent on her also as a woman: he was now in love with an exceptionally able, ruthless and ambitious woman, who probably drove him further than his instinct dictated. Whether or not Cleopatra had a great vision of world-rule and believed, as a nameless Greek oracle foretold, that she would overthrow Rome and then raise it up again in a partnership of East and West and inaugurate a golden age of peace and brotherhood, can hardly be determined.
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Whether she hoped to use Antony and Roman troops to challenge Rome, she could at any rate count on his loyalty, if not on his infatuation, in her more immediate aim which must have been to extend her kingdom and revive the empire of the Ptolemies. Antony, foreseeing the possibility of a clash with Octavian, would be ready to create a source of power, which might even serve as a potential refuge if he failed to achieve overwhelming victory; but his problem would be to persuade troops, who might be ready to be led against Octavian, to fight for Cleopatra or an Antony who was king of Egypt.

On his return to Alexandria (autumn 34) Antony celebrated a ‘triumph’
for his Armenian victory and staged a pageant in the Gymnasium. This episode is known as the Donations of Alexandria. Antony and Cleopatra, the latter robed as the goddess Isis, sat on high golden thrones, together with their children. To the assembled people Antony proclaimed that Caesarion (Ptolemy Caesar) was the legitimate son of Julius Caesar (thus by implication the adopted son, Octavian, was a usurper).
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This boy, now proclaimed King of Kings, and his mother Cleopatra, Queen of Kings, were hailed as joint monarchs of Egypt and Cyprus.
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Under them Antony’s children were to govern parts of the empire: Alexander Helios received Armenia, Parthia and Media, Ptolemy Philadelphus Syria and Cilicia, and Cleopatra Selene Cyrenaica and Libya. Although Antony avoided taking any royal title for himself, and announced these arrangements by virtue of his triumviral authority, this partition of Rome’s eastern provinces under the new Queen of Kings must have aroused considerable mistrust in Rome.