The Horse Changer (10 page)

Caesar’s grandnephew had been in western Macedonia with the army when he learned of Caesar’s assassination. At the news, Octavian’s two closest friends, Marcus Agrippa and Cilnius Maecenas, advised him to return to Italy at once. His mother and stepfather sent a letter by courier to counsel delay; the city, they wrote, was unsafe. Octavian hesitated only until he learned of the riots at Caesar’s funeral. At that point he took courage and crossed the Adriatic and came to Brindisi, at the boot heel of Italy.

In Brindisi, still three hundred miles by road to Rome, there was more news. Caesar’s will had been read. Legacies and gifts aside, Caesar had named Octavian his sole heir. Caesar had also adopted Octavian as his son. Having no other heirs with whom to share Caesar’s fortune, Octavian quite suddenly became the richest boy in the world. Of course the law in those days was anything but clear on testamentary adoptions, but Caesar’s will provided Octavian enough justification to call himself by his adoptive father’s name, Gaius Julius Caesar.

Feted in Caesarean-friendly Brindisi as Caesar’s avenger, our new Caesar rode north along the Appian Way with veterans of the legions joining him as he went. Perhaps because of his popularity with the plebs, very few of the great families offered the lad hospitality. It is said that Marcus Tullius Cicero received him at his villa in the south, albeit without offering him either a bed or a meal. Octavian pretended not to notice the slight and laid out his plans to Cicero in clear and simple terms.

Cicero pretended to approve of Octavian’s ambitions and sent him on to Rome with much encouragement. Of course Cicero expected Antony to dismember the young fool in short order, and Cicero was almost never wrong in his assessment of things political. But, like everyone else, he was wrong about our boy Octavian, badly wrong.

In Cicero’s defence, no thinking person could imagine Octavian was up to the challenges of political and military leadership. Only passion could stir men to support such an unlikely hero, but it was not a time for clear thinking. The plebs wanted revenge for Caesar’s murder and backed the only man who promised it.

Octavian’s veteran legionaries settled on the Camp of Mars one morning in early May. They made no show of force against the city; they did not have armour, just swords and knives for personal protection. Armoured or not, their presence won Octavian a meeting with Rome’s consuls, Mark Antony and Cornelius Dolabella. Octavian had declared in advance of the meeting he desired two things: the assassins of his father brought to justice and the inheritance Caesar’s will had promised. Having nothing to give the lad, Antony and Dolabella might have hesitated granting a meeting, but Antony insisted on bravado. ‘Best to put the lad in his place,’ he declared. ‘If he returns to his army empty-handed, the men will lose their enthusiasm for him. No soldier adores a man who proves too tender for the fight.’ It was sound advice then and seems so even now. Certainly delay in granting a meeting or a pointed refusal to talk with him could only stir up trouble with the veterans.

There was no plan to assassinate him. For one thing, he wasn’t worth the trouble. The subject did come up for discussion but only as one discusses killing a pestering fly. Whether Octavian feared the event or only thought to be prudent I cannot say, but he demanded hostages from Antony and Dolabella and offered his sister and mother and several of his family in exchange. All parties agreed to an honour guard of friends to stand in attendance; these men were to keep their daggers politely concealed. For his escort Octavian brought Marcus Agrippa and a handful of young thugs loyal to Agrippa. Cilnius Maecenas also stood with Octavian, though I seriously doubt he bothered to conceal any kind of weapon. Maecenas had a fine talent for political intrigue even in those early days, but no one ever accused him of military accomplishment. In a fight, Maecenas was always the fellow hiding behind the largest column, right next to Octavian.

I stood with a dozen other men at Dolabella’s back. Antony surrounded himself with family and a few of his favourite pleb drinking companions, all good men in a brawl. In addition to the principal parties and their escorts, several senators were present to witness the event. We met at Caesar’s former house, the Regia. The atrium was barely large enough to accommodate our number; in all there were some fifty men standing about. But a public building would not do; it was essential to avoid any appearance of conducting a formal meeting. This was a matter to be settled among family and friends. Hinting otherwise only served Octavian’s cause, but of course everyone knew Octavian had forced the meeting and the entire city awaited the outcome. What they expected the lad to accomplish I could not imagine.

As I had neither met nor seen Octavian prior to this occasion, I was anxious to have a look at the young man. I can tell you I was disappointed. I could not help thinking that Octavian looked nothing at all like me. From my own youthful perspective that was the critical issue of this gathering. Nor could I understand Caesar having confused me with this boy. Let me be honest here. I spent years wondering what Caesar had seen in my features that allowed him to mistake me for Octavian. I was a head taller. I was thicker and more athletic as well. I looked to all the world like a young man. He, with longer hair, some makeup and a stola, could have passed for a pretty young matron trembling at the prospect of her wedding night.

I expect now the cut of our silhouettes was not that much different, and of course in a room full of older men a very young officer probably caught Caesar’s eye, because he desperately wanted to see Octavian when he looked in my direction. There was also a fact I could not know in those days. Caesar had not been well acquainted with Octavian at that point. He spent a great deal of time with Octavian in the summer after the Spanish campaign; prior to it he had been engaged in a thousand-and-one intrigues. In such a life one has precious little time for a sister’s grandson.

None of this, of course, was of the slightest importance to what followed, but fifty years on I still recall my acute agitation over Caesar confusing the two of us. So we all live, I suspect: obsessed with the silliest issues, missing entirely the surge and flow of that great river we call Time.

Antony and Dolabella received Octavian as one receives a child. No handshake was offered, nor did Octavian seem to expect it. Antony was a tall, powerfully built man but he was already going to fat. He often used his physical size and imposing baritone voice to intimidate men and thought to make the most of his mass with the waif-like Octavian. Dolabella, the more calculating of the two men, hung back throughout much of the exchange. He offered support when Antony appeared to falter. He answered in sensible tones whenever Octavian began gaining ground with his arguments.

To Octavian’s credit, which I give grudgingly, he appeared hardly to notice Antony’s bluster; he certainly showed no respect for it. There was a child-like peevishness in his tone at the start of the meeting, which no one could admire. In fact, at his worst moments during the meeting, Octavian seemed like a screeching, spoiled brat. Nor did it help that his toga made him look utterly ridiculous, especially as neither Antony nor Dolabella bothered with anything more than belted tunics. The day was quite hot, the very worst occasion for a man to bother with a toga.

Octavian’s first order of business was to demand to know why Caesar’s murderers had walked freely about in the city after their crime. Dolabella took this question. He explained that the assassins had surrounded themselves with their clients. ‘You had the entire city under your authority,’ Octavian responded. ‘They had murdered a consul of Rome. You did nothing. Were the two of you in on it?’

‘I’ll not have talk like that!’ Antony bellowed. He seemed to cool down once his two brothers made a show of taking his arms. ‘You were not here, lad,’ he added in a quieter tone. ‘You cannot possibly understand the desperate nature of the situation. True, they had murdered one consul, but most thought they intended to kill the other as well.’

‘And after him,’ Dolabella added, ‘any of the senate who had ever voted with Caesar’s faction.’

‘And what are your plans for them now that you have let these murderers escape?’

‘If you want to know the truth,’ Antony answered, ‘I encouraged the senate to provide them with immunity from prosecution.’

This excited more youthful outrage, though I was fairly certain from watching Cilnius Maecenas it was not fresh news. It occurred to me, actually, that Octavian was following some kind of script, as an actor does. I shrugged off the notion, for it seemed utterly ridiculous, but in fact much of his later life followed a script written by another; in those early days Maecenas and much later his wife. He only acted his role. My assessment from this remove? Maecenas did indeed write this bit of theatre and Octavian recited his lines. The strategy, apparently, was to push Antony to folly. As a hothead, Antony needed only a bit of encouragement.

This theory credits a great deal to children, I know. But as those same children never seemed to take the advice of more experienced men in the years that followed, I think it is exactly what happened. Octavian pretended emotional outrage. Antony and Dolabella, eager to acquit themselves in the court of public opinion, sought to justify their behaviour.

The chief advantage of granting immunity to Caesar’s assassins, according to Dolabella, was the agreement which had allowed Caesar a state funeral. His corpse would otherwise have been tossed into the Tiber, befitting a traitor’s death. As Dolabella explained the matter, he sounded quite reasonable. The next point he made was equally praiseworthy: Antony’s truce with the assassins had saved all the reforms that Caesar’s government had accomplished, especially the acts granting land to retiring legionaries. It was at this moment that Maecenas struck.

‘Your deal with the assassins protected Antony’s status. It also got you promoted to consul without the bother of an election.’

‘The government needed to continue with as little change as possible,’ Dolabella answered. His face remained impassive, but there was tension in my patron’s voice. I could see Maecenas’s shot had struck its mark.

Octavian rose to Dolabella’s comment like an actor responding to his cue. ‘In other words, you were only interested in profiting from my father’s murder.’

‘If you want justice, go find the assassins yourself!’ Antony roared. ‘As for us, we have dealt with the matter as men do. We have averted war. We have saved the Republic!’ Antony’s fury could hardly obscure the fact that Octavian was right. When one came right down to it, neither Antony nor Dolabella cared a whit about honouring the corpse of Caesar; they certainly cared nothing about land reform for the plebs. For that matter neither man had acted as if he wanted to avert a war or save Rome. The deal with Caesar’s assassins was all about Antony and Dolabella protecting their own interests.

‘Rest assured, Antony,’ Octavian answered, ‘I intend to hunt down the assassins. Every last one of them. If that means war, so be it. But that brings me to my second concern. In order to pursue these criminals I am going to need my inheritance. From what I am told, the two of you arranged with Lepidus to take possession of my father’s treasury. I assume you are holding it for me?’

‘We have taken possession of nothing,’ Dolabella answered. He kept his tone civil, for he was in fact a very skilled liar.

Antony spoiled the effect by trying to explain what they had actually done. It came about as close to a confession as I ever heard. ‘After Caesar’s murder,’ he said, ‘Dolabella, Lepidus, and I came here to Caesar’s house. We intended to secure Caesar’s fortune from looters, but as it happened all we found were Caesar’s papers. What Caesar had not spent in the form of payroll for his legions he wasted on spectacles for the mob. There was no gold. No money at all.’

‘What he possessed in abundance was debt,’ Dolabella added.

The voice of Antony’s brother, Lucius, broke from the crowd of Antony’s clients. ‘If I may be so bold as to offer you a bit of advice, Octavian… ’

‘My name is Caesar!’ the boy screeched.

Antony’s crowd rumbled derisively at Octavian’s peevishness on this point. Within the year we would all embrace the name of Caesar and think nothing of it. A man is what he calls himself after all, but at that moment Caesar was more title than name. No one in Rome was quite ready to call this little sissy Julius Caesar. He might stamp his feet and screech as long as he liked: there was only one man deserving that name.

‘My advice, lad,’ Lucius Antony continued, once the jeering had died down, ‘is the same that your mother and stepfather gave you some weeks ago. Repudiate Caesar’s will. If you accept it, you will bankrupt yourself trying to pay off his debts.’

Octavian turned to the senators present, his witnesses, speaking quite calmly now. ‘If Antony and Dolabella and Lepidus insist on stealing my father’s money…’

‘How dare you call me a thief, you little twit!’ Antony’s voice boomed with rage. He stepped forward with his great fists doubled. And he meant it.