Augustus, page 11
Julius Caesar’s decisions were confirmed on 17 March. Some had not yet been formally announced, but were widely known and still to be recognised. Antony as consul was supposed to consult with a council of senior senators before each such decision was confirmed. This did not prove practical, and probably he did not see it as desirable. So many decisions were pending, and many more petitioners from all over the empire queued for attention. Julius Caesar had not yet cleared the backlog of decision-making from years of senatorial inertia and the more recent upheaval of civil war. On a practical basis there was no doubt much that Antony felt was urgent. It was also a situation giving him a splendid opportunity to dole out favours and win the gratitude of the recipients, hopefully adding them to his supporters. In the aftermath of the murder Antony had taken possession of the dictator’s papers. Now he announced a number of previously unknown decisions of Julius Caesar and insisted on their ratification. Some appeared to contradict things the dictator had actually done in his lifetime. Cicero claimed that Antony’s wife Fulvia – the widow of Clodius – took bribes from King Deiotarus of Galatia so that her husband would confirm his rule. Later the orator would fulminate against the inventions of Antony in these months, making it difficult to know precisely what he did. Yet even though Cicero exaggerated, he cannot have entirely made up such stories.25
Antony was raising the funds and favours needed for future success – and indeed for personal safety. In the longer term this depended most of all on the possession of a large and loyal army. Trebonius and Decimus Brutus were allocated the provinces of Syria and Cisalpine Gaul respectively. Brutus and Cassius were eventually given administration of the grain supply in Sicily and Asia – important for the state, but seen as demeaning for their rank and more significantly without military resources. Antony and Dolabella co-operated to give the latter Syria, replacing Trebonius at the end of the year and taking on responsibility for the planned Parthian War. Antony took Macedonia with its six legions, although he agreed to give one to his colleague. Then he decided that his brother Caius would govern Macedonia in his place, and that he would instead replace Decimus Brutus in Cisalpine Gaul, so conveniently placed to keep an eye on Italy, and combine this with ‘Long-Haired Gaul’ – the region recently conquered by Julius Caesar. The five legions and auxiliaries remaining in Macedonia would transfer with him, leaving his brother to raise fresh troops. Although the dictator had restricted the term of provincial governors to two years, Antony had the Popular Assembly vote him this enlarged province for five years, just as Pompey and Julius Caesar had received their extraordinary commands.26
In many ways the situation was similar to the build-up to 49 BC, with trust in very short supply and the main leaders giving themselves the capacity to fight just in case this proved necessary. Brutus and Cassius were unable to regain the initiative as they watched from a distance. The former was urban praetor and so had responsibility for holding the ludi Apollinares – the annual festival and games dedicated to the sun god Apollo. Brutus funded the events, and decided the programme and some of the performers, but felt that it was too dangerous for him to return to Rome so was not present. Mark Antony’s brother Caius presided at the games in his place, making it less clear to whom the crowd should feel grateful. The games went well, and some people were willing to cheer the name of Brutus, although others may have demonstrated against the conspirators. Shortly afterwards Brutus and Cassius would leave Italy and go to the eastern Mediterranean and in time they too would raise armies. Brutus may have done so only reluctantly, but still encouraged mutiny in the legions of the Roman people and illegally assumed command. Cicero had come to see Antony as the greatest threat to them and to the restoration of something close to a true res publica. He continually lamented the conspirators’ failure to kill him as well as the dictator. With hindsight, he felt that ‘for although the courage was that of men, believe me, the strategy was that of infants’.27
Cicero was yet to call the young Caesar by his new name, and some of what the eighteen-year-old was beginning to do and say worried him, but it was Antony who filled his thoughts. He knew Dolabella to be a rogue, for the man had briefly been married to Cicero’s beloved daughter Tullia and had failed to return the dowry after their divorce, but once he set out for his province he ceased to be the main problem. Antony was the threat as the man who more than anyone else prevented the revival of the res publica. Cicero longed for some means to break his power and allow the conspirators to return and thrive.28
6
PRAISE
‘At the age of nineteen on my own responsibility and at my own expense I raised an army, with which I successfully championed the liberty of the republic when it was oppressed by the tyranny of a faction.’ Deeds of the Divine Augustus, published soon after his death in AD 14.1
The young Caesar was back in Rome in May. In later years it was said that a halo surrounded the sun on the day he arrived, in another omen of future greatness. Antony’s brother Lucius was currently tribune and permitted the youth to speak at a public meeting. Cicero was unimpressed with reports of what he said, but continued to see him as of minor importance. The eighteen-year-old wanted formal recognition of his adoption and to gain his full inheritance. Probably he did not as yet attack the conspirators directly, and instead concentrated on asserting his ‘father’s’ reputation and honours. On at least one occasion – perhaps the games devoted to Ceres, the goddess of the harvest – he attempted to have the dictator’s chair of office and laurel wreath placed on display in accordance with a senatorial decree from Julius Caesar’s lifetime. The wreath was the very one offered to him and rejected at the Lupercalia, but Antony refused to permit this display.
He was similarly unhelpful when it came to Caesar’s other requests, particularly regarding the dictator’s estate, and little or none of the hard coin was handed over. The consul gave every impression of seeing the new Caesar as a nuisance. Others simply saw him as vulnerable. There was probably also genuine confusion over precisely what had been Julius Caesar’s personal property and what were state-owned assets that he had controlled. A number of court cases were brought, challenging ownership of individual properties, sometimes on the basis of illegal seizure during the Civil War, and on the whole the cases went against his heir.2
The youth borrowed money. Much was supplied by Matius and another banker named Rabirius Postumus, often associated with Julius Caesar. Oppius and Balbus may also have contributed, and some of his own and the dictator’s property was sold or mortgaged to raise hard cash. Philippus and Atia also assisted, while the dictator’s nephews who had received the remaining quarter of his estate more or less willingly handed this over to the principal heir. It is unclear how soon the money gathered as Julius Caesar’s war chest for the Parthian expedition arrived. With it came a year’s taxation from the province of Asia, but the young Caesar claimed to have handed over this and all other state funds to the treasury, and only kept the dictator’s private property.3
For the next months much of the youth’s time was devoted to preparing for the games vowed to commemorate both Julius Caesar’s victory at Pharsalus in the Civil War and his divine ancestor Venus Genetrix. This was another honour voted by the Senate during the dictator’s rule. In this case no one tried to block it or prevent his heir from celebrating them. Caesar decided to combine them with funeral games, allowing him to stage gladiatorial fights as well as beast hunts, feasting and theatrical performances. Much of this would occur in the Forum itself, with temporary stands built onto some of the main public buildings. The celebrations were staged in lavish scale from 20 to 28 July and more borrowed money was used to begin paying the dictator’s bequest to every Roman citizen.4
During the games a comet appeared in the skies. Such ‘long-haired’ stars were seen as dreadful omens of impending disaster. Caesar or one of his supporters came up with a better interpretation, claiming that the bright light was Julius Caesar ascending to heaven to join the gods, and a star was attached to the head of a statue of the dictator placed in the Temple of Venus at the heart of his Forum complex. The story caught on, especially with those still devoted to his memory. In many ways it built on the semi-divine honours awarded by the Senate during his lifetime, and the altar to him set up and later knocked down on the consuls’ orders. This time there was no official attempt to suppress the honour.5
Staging public entertainments and celebrating ancestors were well-established and effective ways of winning popularity, although in this case the scale of the games and the claims of divinity far outstripped the honours given to any individual in the past. Becoming tribune of the plebs was another well-trodden path to popularity, and when an election was held early in July to fill the vacancy left by the murdered Cinna, there was serious talk of the young Caesar standing as candidate. Given that Julius Caesar had made him a patrician even before naming him his heir, this was illegal. The precise details of the incident are now impossible to reconstruct – some historians would prefer to see him as attempting and failing to get a friend elected to the post rather than seeking it himself – but the episode suggests a serious misjudgement in contrast to the skilful handling of the appearance of the comet. While it may be repetitive to refer to the eighteen-year-old, we do need to keep reminding ourselves of just how young and inexperienced Caesar was. The immense self-confidence that led him to enter public life in this way readily spilled over into recklessness. Privately he was convinced the comet was actually a sign of his own impending rise. The very public sale of assets and borrowing of funds also helped to win as much gratitude to the young Caesar for staging the games as they brought honour to the dead dictator.6
Relations with Antony continued to be bad, and the consul was growing more powerful – by the late summer he had recruited a strong bodyguard from the settled veterans. Many were former centurions, who in battle were expected to lead from the front and so were usually formidable fighters. Experienced leaders would also prove extremely useful if Antony decided to raise new legions, for they would be capable of organising, training and commanding new recruits. Even more important was their political significance. Some centurions were equestrians, but the vast majority belonged to the centuries of the highest class in the Comitia centuriata, making their votes as significant as their muscle. Probably in the hope of winning favour with this group, as well as manipulating the courts, Antony introduced a law making some or all of this class eligible to serve on juries, forming a third panel alongside the ones drawn from senators and equestrians.7
In contrast to the consul, Caesar held no office or powers, and as yet his open supporters were able to fund him but had no direct political power. Matius claimed to Cicero that he was only helping the boy out of his friendship with Julius Caesar. Money and a name were his only real assets and from early on he had used both to win favour with the dictator’s former officers and soldiers. Quickly he began to offer a bounty of 500 denarii – more than two years’ pay for an ordinary soldier – to those willing to serve him, and promises of much more in the future. No doubt the rewards offered to centurions or tribunes were substantially higher. He may also have spoken of revenge against the conspirators, although as yet he did not repeat this in public meetings. Men started to take his money and pledge support, but for the moment their numbers were far fewer than Antony’s entourage. Loyalty to Julius Caesar’s memory remained fervent in all of these veterans, whomever they followed, and for a while some of the former tribunes and centurions persuaded the consul to behave in a friendlier manner towards the dictator’s heir. The young Caesar stood outside the partitions of the saepta encouraging the centuries to approve the law giving Antony control of Cisalpine Gaul in place of Decimus Brutus. Yet later the relationship turned sour once again, as Antony claimed that one of the veterans in his bodyguard had been bribed by Caesar to murder him. Quite a few Roman politicians – most notably Pompey – had a neurotic fear of assassination, and there may well have been no substance behind the accusation. Pragmatically, it is hard to see what the young Caesar would have gained from disposing of the consul. If he did plot the murder, then that would be another sign of his still-naive thinking at this stage.8
On 1 August Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, Calpurnius Piso, dared to criticise Antony in the Senate. The tone he took was admonishing rather than vitriolic, and more importantly was widely spoken of beforehand. Cicero was on his way to Greece under the pretext of wanting to help in his son’s education, but in reality from despair and fear about the political situation degenerating into violence. All of the conspirators and other key players like Lepidus had left Italy. Dolabella was soon to follow and no one remained with the imperium to contest Antony’s dominance in Italy itself. Many sensed a gradual slide into civil war and, just as in the years leading to 49 BC, there was no great enthusiasm for this. Piso argued for a confirmation of the amnesty, so that the conspirators would be able to return, and neither they nor former Caesareans like Antony need suffer diminution of their prestige. There was no violent response from the consul, and Cicero was sufficiently inspired by this prospect of renewed compromise that he returned to Rome. A month later, on 2 September, he delivered a speech that came to be known as the First Philippic, after the series of orations delivered in the fourth century BC by the renowned orator Demosthenes to warn the Athenians of the threat of King Philip of Macedon. Although critical of Antony’s recent actions, it urged him to return to the spirit of reconciliation he had shown in the days following the Ides of March.9
As consul Antony had the power to act, whereas even the most senior senators could merely exhort and advise. He also had the force of recalled veterans to back him, who may by this time have numbered as many as 6,000. The first of the Macedonian legions was disembarking at the port of Brundisium and the others were following close behind, so he would soon have a properly formed army at his disposal. He responded angrily to criticism, but made no attempt to use the force available, although Cicero privately wrote that he was sure the consul plotted a massacre. Once again the orator stayed away from Rome and public meetings for a while and began to write his Second Philippic – a vitriolic pamphlet never delivered as a speech – which tore Antony’s character to shreds as well as damning his recent acts. For a while there was a lull, but preparations for war continued. At the start of October Antony headed south to Brundisium to review his newly arrived army.10
By September, when he would celebrate his nineteenth birthday, Caesar was in Campania on a fresh recruiting drive in the veteran settlements of the dictator. In the weeks that followed he was able to raise the number of his followers to 3,000 men, but equipment was in short supply. There was considerable loyalty to their old corps, and by the end of the year these men would be divided into new versions of Julius Caesar’s Seventh and Eighth legions. Much like Catiline’s army, the structure of these units may well have been laid down even at this early stage, in the hope that more recruits would in time be found to fill the gaps. It also gave the opportunity to name as many as 120 centurions and a dozen tribunes, confirming former ranks or making promotions to higher grades and thus greater status and pay. These men rallied as much to the bounty as to the name Caesar at this stage, for the teenager remained an unknown quantity. Julius Caesar had led them to victory and rewarded them lavishly, gradually bonding them to him over the years. The full force of this link could not be instantly or simply assumed by his heir, but they were willing to give the boy and his money a chance. Realising the power of hard coin and promise of future reward, the young Caesar sent agents down to Brundisium to work on Antony’s legions.11
In the meantime, at the head of his band of veterans – the existence of which was clearly illegal – the nineteen-year-old returned to Rome early in November, leading his armed followers into the City to compound the illegality. He had planned this move for some weeks, bombarding Cicero – and no doubt other prominent senators – with requests for their approval and ideally open support when he arrived in the City. Caesar flattered the old statesman, urging him to ‘save the res publica a second time’, just as he had in 63 BC. Cicero admitted that he was ‘ashamed to say no, and yet afraid to say yes. However he has been and continues to act with vigour. He will come to Rome with a strong band of followers, but he is just a boy. He thinks he can summon a meeting of the Senate at once. Who will come? If anyone turns up, who will upset Antony in these uncertain times?’ However, he conceded that ‘the country towns are enthusiastic towards him’.12
Caesar assured Cicero that he wished to work legitimately via the Senate, ignoring for the moment his unauthorised armed followers. However, always uncomfortable with the boy’s name and his claim to prominence, Cicero was beginning to worry about the young Caesar’s intentions, and especially his insistence on confirming all of the dictator’s legislation and honours. Even so, he still felt that the youth could be dismissed as having ‘plenty of confidence, but too little auctoritas’. The orator’s correspondent, the wily equestrian Atticus, who avoided a career in public life but maintained very good relations with almost everyone of consequence at Rome, was a little more cautious, noting that ‘while the boy is currently strong and holds Antony in check, still we must withhold judgement for the long run’. Caesar’s name and money robbed Antony of a substantial number of likely supporters, especially among the veterans.13
