Augustus, page 10
The will also named Caius Octavius as the heir to three-quarters of the dictator’s vast personal estate, with the fairly common proviso that as legatee he take Julius Caesar’s name. It had been drawn up on 15 September 45 BC on the dictator’s return from the Spanish campaign and there is no indication that Octavius or any of his immediate family knew of its contents. The young man was clearly favoured by his great-uncle, who no doubt saw more talent in him than either of his nephews. Yet it is vital to remember that Julius Caesar did not plan on dying so soon. Cicero later declared that the dictator would not have returned from his eastern wars, but there is no reason to believe that this view was widespread or likely. Nor was there any certainty that Octavius would outlive his great-uncle, for the youth had already suffered a serious bout of illness that delayed his arrival in Spain in 45 BC and did not seem to have a robust constitution. If the teenager survived the rigours of the campaign and the arrows of the Parthians, and continued to show promise, then perhaps Julius Caesar would have given him more open recognition. Once again we return to the impossibility of knowing the dictator’s long-term plans.8
Adoption was taken very seriously by the Romans, and an adopted son became to all intents and purposes the same as a true son, keeping in addition any useful prior connections from his real family. Such full adoption could only occur in the father’s lifetime and could not be posthumous. This has prompted a prolonged and highly technical scholarly debate on precisely what status Julius Caesar’s will gave to Octavius. To a great extent this misses the point. Octavius was the principal heir to his great-uncle’s property and was to take his name. Julius Caesar’s powers, offices and honours were each awarded to him personally and not possessions to bequeath. Yet he was a senator, who had revived the prestige of his family and taken it to unprecedented levels. A young man who received Julius Caesar’s wealth and name inevitably also took on the political expectations of continuing the family’s success. This need not be instant, but in due course and at a suitable age it would only be appropriate for him to enter public life and seek fresh distinction for the name of Caesar.
If Octavius accepted the legacy – and this was not compulsory, but a matter of choice, for we hear of individuals refusing to accept some bequests – then he inherited these political expectations as well as a name. The distinction between main heir and son was blurred even if it was clearly not full adoption. Some technical matters did make a real difference. A true or adopted son inherited rights over all of his father’s freedmen – and in Julius Caesar’s case these were both very numerous and often wealthy – who were obliged to support him as patron, voting for him and willingly placing their resources at his disposal. Without formal adoption Octavius might find it hard to enforce this legal right, although that did not mean that some or all of the dictator’s freedmen would not choose to see him as their patron.9
At Brundisium Octavius received a letter from Philippus and another from Atia, both of whom by this time knew of the terms of the will. They also saw that the popular anger against the conspirators persisted in spite of the amnesty and continued support of many senators. As yet there had been no bloodbath or vengeful attacks on Julius Caesar’s family. This did not mean that it would be safe for a young man to enter public life as the dictator’s heir. An eighteen-year-old was more than a decade too young to stand for office and enter the Senate, but the name Caesar would attract attention and probably hostility which he might struggle to cope with – or indeed merely survive. His stepfather was already thinking about his own son’s campaign for the consulship for 41 BC, when he would be up against Brutus and Cassius, and was not keen to rush Octavius into a career. Philippus advised him to decline the legacy and keep his own name. His mother wavered a little, but was similarly cautious. Our sources may exaggerate, for all are later and most derive from Augustus’ own memoirs. The figure of the youthful hero refusing to be held back by the advice of experienced elders had a long literary tradition, stretching from Achilles to Alexander the Great. Appian even has the youth quote to Atia Achilles’ words to his mother Thetis from the Iliad.10
That does not mean that caution was not advisable, and at the very least the letters will have urged Octavius to do nothing hastily. Whatever the details of their advice, the decision was his, and nothing that followed makes any sense unless his own ambition, confidence and self-esteem were the prime movers. Perhaps from the beginning he was convinced that he would win through against any rivals, no matter how much older and more experienced, even though no sensible observer could have predicted the events of the next few years and his part in them.11
If Octavius hesitated to accept the legacy and the name then he did so only briefly. At eighteen he ceased to be Caius Octavius and instead became Caius Julius Caesar. Convention expected that a man would retain a trace of his own name and add Octavianus to this formula. He never did this, although at times his enemies called him Octavianus to stress that his real family was obscure. As stated in the Introduction, we will ignore the modern convention to call him Octavian and instead call him Caesar, for that is the name he used and how he is referred to in our sources. The power of this name had a lot to do with the course of events.12
ROME
The young Caesar and his party set out from Brundisium for Rome – a journey that under normal circumstances took nine days or more. His friends already addressed him by his new name and it may have been as early as this that he sent a messenger to the province of Asia to secure some of the war chest Julius Caesar had prepared for the Parthian expedition. The group reached Rome in the early part of April, no doubt having forced the pace. Cicero was away from the City and on 10 April wrote to ask about the ‘arrival of Octavius, whether there was a rush to meet him, or any suspicion of revolution’, but clearly did not expect that anything too significant would have happened. In the event his visit proved brief and had little impact. Antony made the young Caesar wait for some time before granting him a brief and chilly meeting in the gardens of his house on the Palatine – formerly the home of Pompey. The consul was genuinely very busy dealing with a stream of petitioners, and there was no reason for him to consider the teenager politically useful or even relevant. The boy’s expectation of taking over all of Julius Caesar’s estate was deeply inconvenient for Antony when there was so much to do and all available funds were vital for building up his own position. On 12 April Cicero casually dismissed the requested report about Caesar as unimportant.13
Leaving Rome, the eighteen-year-old now travelled through Campania, heading for Naples. On the way he took time to speak to some of the many veterans from the dictator’s legions settled in the area. On 18 April he met Lucius Cornelius Balbus, a Spaniard from Gades (modern Cadiz) who had become a Roman citizen through his services to Pompey, before joining Julius Caesar’s staff. He had served him in Spain and Gaul, but increasingly took on a role as a political agent in Rome itself, easing many behind-the-scenes deals and acting as adviser. It was an important connection to renew and recognition by such an influential and rich political operator would be a considerable asset. Later in the same day, Balbus told Cicero that the youth was determined to accept his inheritance.14
A few days later Cicero met the young Caesar, who was staying at his stepfather’s villa at Puteoli in the Bay of Naples, adjacent to the orator’s own country house. He wrote to his friend Atticus: ‘Octavius is with us and behaving with respect and warm friendship. His companions call him Caesar, but Philippus does not and so neither do I.’
This was a minor point in a letter concerned far more with threats to the conspirators and scorn for Antony’s decisions as consul. As yet Cicero simply did not see the eighteen-year-old as very important. Unlike her husband, Atia was calling her son Caesar. Philippus had never been one to take sides openly, but was certainly not actively hostile to his stepson’s ambitions and may quietly have begun to help him. The same was perhaps true of Octavia’s husband Marcellus, although he remained on good terms with the conspirators for the moment. Years of civil war had added to natural wastage – as had multiple consulships by Pompey and then Julius Caesar – so that there were only seventeen former consuls alive and several of these lacked the energy or desire for active politics. There were very few senior statesmen to guide the Republic and to control the networks of patronage that held the Roman world together. Julius Caesar’s death made matters worse, for he had stood at the centre of an unprecedentedly vast web of patronage and no one could readily fill this void. His supporters were each tied to him individually and were not in any way a coherent party.15
Mark Antony was consul, although he was only forty and thus technically too young for the post. Julius Caesar had named Publius Cornelius Dolabella as suffect, or replacement consul, to take his own place when he left for the Parthian War. Dolabella was only thirty or so, making it an even more flagrant example of the dictator’s flouting of tradition. In spite of this no one quibbled when he appeared in his regalia and accompanied by lictors after the Ides. Both men had supported Julius Caesar, but then so had several of the conspirators. Both also had a reputation for reckless and extravagant behaviour. More significantly, they were known to loathe each other – in spite of Julius Caesar’s wishes Antony had tried to block Dolabella’s election, even resorting to manipulating the state religion and claiming that he had observed thunder during the process, rendering any vote invalid. In the past, rivalry and open hostility between magistrates helped to prevent anyone from gaining too much power in the Republic.16
Mark Antony has gone down in history as a bluff, simple soldier and loyal lieutenant of Julius Caesar, making it hard to pierce the caricature and understand the real man. He certainly presented himself as a very martial figure, boasting of his descent from the swaggering demigod Hercules just as Julius Caesar claimed descent from the goddess Venus. Antony often sported the thick beard of the hero – in contrast to the straggly growths of the ‘unconventional’ young aristocrats, many of whom had supported Catiline – girded his tunic up high to show off his muscular thighs, and wore a sword even inside the City where such things were not seen as appropriate. Coins show a bull-neck and heavy features, confirming descriptions of a burly individual doing his best to exude aggressive masculinity. His oratory was vigorous in the florid Asiatic style disliked by Cicero.17
The Antonii were a well-established family of plebeian nobles. Antony’s grandfather was one of the most famous orators of his day, with a distinguished career that took him to the consulship and later the censorship. Eminence came at a price in that violent era, and he was murdered on Marius’ orders during the Civil War. His son was less highly thought of, being considered at best a well-meaning fool and at worst an inveterate wastrel. The family name, and perhaps the sense that he was harmless, prompted the Senate to give Antony’s father a special command against the pirates in 73 BC, although with nothing like the resources allocated to Pompey six years later. The result was a predictable failure, and Antonius died before he returned home. His widow subsequently married Lentulus, one of the Catilinarians executed in 63 BC, so Antony had lost both father and stepfather by his early twenties. There was little to inspire him with belief in the Republic.18
An aristocrat to his core, Antony knew in his soul that he deserved honours and glory and felt no need to respect conventions of behaviour. His father had left huge debts, and some family property was so heavily mortgaged that Antony refused these parts of his inheritance. Seeing no need to restrain his own extravagance, he spent his youth in happy pursuit of wine and women, not curbing his flamboyant instincts because of something as mundane as lack of money. Antony’s own debts were soon colossal but, as we have seen, such a lifestyle was not uncommon in this era. Entering public life unusually late, he saw some military service in Syria, Judaea and Egypt, before going to join Julius Caesar in Gaul. He missed most of the main campaigns there, but did serve in the latter part of the great rebellion culminating in the bitter siege of Alesia in the summer of 52 BC. Following Julius Caesar in the Civil War, Antony fought in the Italian campaign, and the second phase of the Macedonian campaign, commanding the left wing at Pharsalus. He saw no other fighting in the Civil War.19
Antony’s military record was not actually especially impressive. Personally brave, he had little experience of independent command on any large scale, and all in all he had spent less time than was typical with the legions. Yet he presented himself as a great soldier and commander – Hercules led armies as well as performing his more famous feats of strength – and this image has persisted until this day. Julius Caesar preferred to use him in more political roles, leaving him to administer Italy in 49 BC and again after Pharsalus. The outcome was not entirely happy. Antony was well connected, and from a better family than many of Julius Caesar’s other supporters, but he lacked subtlety. He processed around Italy in a caravan that very visibly included his mother and his mime actress mistress, as well as all sorts of other people felt to be unsuitable for a Roman magistrate’s entourage. Antony liked the company of actors and actresses, who no doubt possessed all the passion and open enthusiasms of their more recent counterparts, and yet remained his clear social inferiors, whatever he might choose to pretend. A senator was not supposed to spend time with such people – many of them, including his mistress, former slaves – but once again Antony did not care about convention. On one occasion he took up his official chair in the Forum to receive petitions, but was blatantly suffering from a colossal hangover. Part-way through the business, nausea overtook him and he vomited – into his lap by one account, although another says that a friend conveniently held out his own cloak for him. There were rumours that he even experimented with a chariot pulled by lions in place of horses.20
Perhaps more serious than such tactless flaunting of power won through civil war was the unrest leading to violence in Rome itself and in the countryside, as a number of ambitious men – including Dolabella – championed the cause of debtors. When Julius Caesar eventually returned to Rome he made no public use of Antony for some time – and kept a close eye on Dolabella, taking him with him on campaign. The dictator summoned Mark Antony to Spain at the end of the Munda campaign, and there were signs of a return to favour. Antony rode with him in his carriage, while the young Octavius and Decimus Brutus followed behind in a second one. By 44 BC, the choice of Antony as consular colleague and Dolabella as his replacement were clear signs of renewed favour and confidence.21
As consuls, the two had immediate power for the remainder of the year. They had supported Julius Caesar and done well as a result, but both of them were aristocrats from well-established families with ambitions of their own. It is wrong to see them as simply Julius Caesar’s men, rather than as individuals seeking personal distinction who found it convenient to back him. It was said that Trebonius had sounded out Antony in the early days of the conspiracy. The ‘Liberators’ killed the dictator to restore a Republic in which aristocratic competition for office and influence would once again flourish. The consuls were naturally part of this, and their behaviour revealed irrevocable changes in the way these contests were waged.22
The truce with the conspirators was always uneasy. Neither Antony nor Dolabella had anything to gain by siding strongly with them or improving the positions of Brutus, Cassius and the others. Regardless of what they thought about the dictator and the assassination, the leading conspirators were all now rivals for office and prestige. All sides looked to the future, for although an amnesty and acknowledgement of Julius Caesar’s acts were necessary for the moment, this situation was unlikely to last. In time the conspirators and the dictator’s acts were quite likely to come under attack in the Senate, Assemblies or courts. The Civil War began in 49 BC over threats of prosecution for actions a decade earlier. The Roman system meant that no decision was set in stone, and things could be made illegal retrospectively, making permanent security almost impossible. Legal attacks could easily end a career and violence was a real threat.
Chaos and immediate breakdown into conflict suited no one. Neither the consuls nor the conspirators had troops at their immediate command. Lepidus, the dictator’s deputy or Master of Horse (magister equitum), had a legion on the edge of the City and brought some of his soldiers into the Forum in the days following the Ides, but he had neither the strength nor will to extend this to more permanent dominance – especially since his imperium had technically expired with the dictator’s death. Antony arranged for Lepidus to replace Julius Caesar as pontifex maximus, before the former Master of Horse proceeded to Transalpine Gaul and command of a large army, giving him protection from any enemies for the moment.23
Almost as soon as Julius Caesar’s funeral was over, an altar was erected on the site of his pyre by a group of enthusiasts. Their leader was called Amatius and claimed to be Marius’ grandson and hence the dictator’s relative by blood if not in law. Julius Caesar had not recognised him, and the man had no more success approaching members of his extended family, including the young Octavius. Neither Antony nor Dolabella were any more sympathetic, ordering the dispersal of Amatius’ followers and the removal of the altar. Later in April, when Antony left Rome to rally support among Julius Caesar’s veterans, there was a more direct confrontation. Dolabella had Amatius and many of his followers executed, earning Cicero’s enthusiastic praise. Yet it was a sign that substantial parts of the population mourned the dictator and resented the lack of action taken against his murderers. Antony was willing to exploit this to unnerve the conspirators and to recruit veterans, especially former centurions, but did not wish the frustration to explode in ways outside his control. For the moment he had a strong position, helped by the fact that his two brothers were praetor and tribune in 44 BC, but this would not last. Antony, like everyone else, was preparing for the future and needed to protect himself and remain powerful in the longer run.24
