Augustus, page 12
Antony was still away from Rome when the young Caesar arrived. An aggressive tribune who had already begun to attack the consul openly now brought the young leader into the Forum and summoned a public meeting. He and Caesar stood on the steps of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which looked out onto an open area often used for meetings and legislative assemblies. Veterans openly wearing their swords stood guard around their leader in a blatant display of illegal force. The tribune spoke first, once again lashing Antony and calling on the people to rally to Julius Caesar’s heir against the consul. The youth himself then delivered a speech that was promptly circulated. Cicero soon had a copy and was depressed by its contents. Praising Julius Caesar and his achievements, his heir turned to gesture at a statue of the dictator and pledged that he hoped ‘to win the honours of his father’. The attack on Antony for obstructing him in securing his inheritance and the consul’s general hostility may have been more to the orator’s taste, but struck the wrong note with many of the veterans. Loyal to Julius Caesar, they were angry that his murderers went unpunished. Those were the true villains, not Mark Antony.14
The consul was on his way back to Rome, escorted by his own guard of veterans. The first pair of legions brought across from Macedonia were marching north from Brundisium and could readily be summoned if necessary. Antony was not the main enemy as far as the veterans were concerned, and his forces were also far stronger than Caesar’s little band of partially equipped men. If it came to fighting, then they were bound to lose. Individual veterans began to abandon their young leader for the moment and slip away to their homes. There had been no surge of wider public support, and in particular no enthusiasm from important senators. Not one senator attended the meeting apart from the tribune himself. Cicero was not even in the City, and many others kept a similarly low profile in their country villas. Disappointed, Julius Caesar’s heir sloped off, taking his remaining followers to Etruria for a new recruiting drive in another area heavily settled by the dictator’s veterans. There were others recruiting in the same region, as former officers of the dictator began raising soldiers for Antony.
At this stage the young Caesar remained a minor player in the political contest. He had armed followers, unlike anyone in Italy apart from Antony, but these were too few in number to make him a real power. That he was noticed at all at such a young age was remarkable. That he made several false steps politically should only surprise us if we take for granted either the political genius of Augustus or the assumed strength – even existence – of a coherent Caesarean faction. As yet he was only a little more significant than the fake Marius executed earlier in the year – only his wealth and unambiguous link with the dictator made him different – and might be almost as easily eliminated. Antony planned to summon the Senate and have the boy declared a public enemy.15
Then something happened that changed everything, and suddenly made the young Caesar of immediate importance.
WARLORD
The first legion to arrive in Brundisium was the Legio Martia, named after the war god Mars, soon followed by the Fourth. As they camped outside the port city the young Caesar’s agents appeared, mingling with the many camp-followers and traders who inevitably tailed any Roman army, eager to relieve the legionaries of their pay. Promises were whispered and pamphlets handed round the tent-lines, offering the now-familiar 500-denarii bounty and this time a further 5,000 more on eventual discharge – almost twenty years’ pay for a single campaign. As usual the rewards for centurions and tribunes will have been considerably higher.16
These legions, along with the Second and Thirty-fifth, one of which was already disembarking and the other soon to cross from Macedonia, had all been formed by Julius Caesar in the aftermath of his victory in 48 BC. At least some of the ordinary soldiers may well have originally served against him in Pompey’s legions, although it is doubtful if they felt any particular emotional involvement with his cause. The officers were different. It was Julius Caesar’s practice throughout his campaigns to promote junior centurions from experienced legions to higher grades in newly raised units. All of the tribunes and centurions in each of these legions were Julius Caesar’s men, appointed by him and committed to him. Many of them were likely to have been highly experienced. As formations none of the legions had yet seen active service, but they were at close to full strength and well prepared by years of training.17
Mark Antony had no prior connection with these legions before he arrived to take command. He was a stranger to officers and men alike. Nor, contrary to the myth, could he boast of a great military record of past victories or indeed long experience of controlling soldiers in difficult situations. Until a few months before eagerly anticipating Parthian plunder, these legions now found themselves commanded by a man they did not know and on the brink of civil war. At the same time the young Caesar’s name was being spoken and he was very generous in his promises. Some of the officers may already have known him from the months in Apollonia and perhaps this encouraged them to think seriously about his offer.
The consul arrived accompanied by his wife, Fulvia, and from the beginning Antony handled the situation badly, clearly expecting the soldiers to obey without question. The legionaries were unruly and jeered when he offered to pay them 100 denarii – five times less than the rival bid and equivalent to less than half a year’s pay. The consul lost his temper and tried to bully the soldiers into obedience, angrily bawling out, ‘You will learn to obey orders!’ He demanded the officers supply him with a list of names of troublemakers. Men were arrested and executed. Some of the victims were centurions. Whether there is any truth in Cicero’s claims of officers and men being brought to the house Antony occupied and slaughtered there, the blood spattering onto Fulvia, is deeply questionable, and does not really matter. When the Legio Martia and the Fourth marched out of Brundisium and began to head north up along the coast towards Cisalpine Gaul their mood was sullen.18
Legio Martia was in the lead and was the first to declare openly for Caesar. The Fourth, led in person by Antony’s quaestor, followed their example soon afterwards. Both legions refused to back down, although the rapid distribution of 500 denarii per man allowed the consul to keep control of the Second and Thirty-fifth, apart from a few individuals who deserted to join Caesar. Antony had at last realised that he could not simply bully legionaries into obedience or expect devotion from strangers, but only after losing a large section of his army.19
On 28 November he summoned a night-time meeting of the Senate (which in itself was illegal, since they were not supposed to debate after dark) and attacked the young Caesar. On the following day he paraded his veterans outside the City and demanded that the senators attend. All who did were cajoled into joining the soldiers as they took an oath of loyalty to him. Then Antony left for Cisalpine Gaul, on the way uniting with his two legions, along with another raised from the veterans of Julius Caesar’s Legio V Alaudae – the ‘Larks’, originally raised in Transalpine Gaul and later made citizens. This formation was probably drawn from among the 6,000 veterans he had raised earlier in the year, and Cicero referred to Antony’s bodyguard as the Alaudae as early as November. He also had substantial auxiliary forces, including Moorish cavalry. Roman legions – like units of armies in all periods – rarely managed to remain at their full theoretical strength for very long, and so altogether Antony’s troops mustered probably something like 15,000 men, all of them well trained and properly equipped. It was a small but formidable army.20
Caesar remained a private citizen, as yet too young to seek office or membership of the Senate, but now he too had a formally constituted army. Hurrying to meet the two legions where they had halted at Alba Fucens, he immediately distributed the promised 500 denarii. The Fourth and the Martia paraded and performed exercises culminating in a mock battle. Such drills were a standard part of Roman military training, and since these legions had spent the last years preparing for the Parthian War they no doubt put on a very good display. A century later the Jewish historian Josephus would with some exaggeration talk of the Roman army’s ‘drills as bloodless battles, and battles are bloody drills’. At full strength a legion consisted of ten cohorts, each of 480 men. All were heavy infantrymen, fighting in serried ranks, protected by a helmet (usually of bronze), mail armour and a long, semi-cylindrical body shield – in the past normally oval, although by this period the more familiar tile shape may have been becoming common. They carried the pilum, a heavy javelin with an effective range of ten to fifteen yards, thrown just before contact, but each legionary was primarily a swordsman. During Augustus’ lifetime the classic short cut-and-thrust pattern less than two feet in length became standard, but at this stage blades tended to be up to a foot longer. It was a heavy blade of high-quality manufacture, suited to cutting, but especially devastating when used to thrust, its triangular point well able to punch through the rings of an opponent’s mail cuirass.21
The legions from Macedonia were probably fairly close to their theoretical strength. They were also fully equipped, and had all the supporting paraphernalia of tents, slaves, baggage animals, pack saddles and transport wagons necessary to operate in the field. Well led by experienced officers and at the end of a long period of training, they were used to working together as a team and had a strong sense of their own identity. Legio Martia presumably had a number, but this had not survived, which in itself is an indication of their pride in their name. To support them, Caesar also had his reconstituted Seventh and Eighth legions. Most of these were veterans, although we should not ignore the possibility that they also included young men, possibly the sons of veterans, recruited from the main areas where former soldiers had been settled. Individually the men who had served under Julius Caesar’s command had far more experience of fighting and winning battles than the Macedonian legions. Yet for the moment all types of equipment remained in short supply and the reconstituted legions were still in the process of re-forming. It would take some time to make them collectively and individually fit to go on campaign. The legions from Macedonia were ready, and it was these that gave the nineteen-year-old Caesar immediate importance. They were under his command, even though he had no legal right to issue any orders or pay them at all.
Caesar’s army matched Mark Antony’s forces in both numbers and quality. The two consuls for 43 BC were in the process of raising an army of four new legions. Recruits – it is hard to know whether they were volunteers or conscripts – were plentiful, but few if any had prior military experience. With so many of Julius Caesar’s former officers already lured away, the tribunes and centurions appointed to oversee the formation and training of these units are unlikely to have been the most experienced or capable. Recalled veterans might shape up into newly effective legions in a matter of months or even weeks. It would take far longer for wholly new units to have any chance of matching them. The legions from Macedonia had a lead of some four years when it came to training and experience. No one had any doubt that the four consular legions would be utterly outclassed if they came up against Antony’s men. If the latter was to be opposed on the battlefield, then other troops were needed and the only ones in Italy had declared for Caesar.
The consuls themselves, Aulus Hirtius and Caius Vibius Pansa, had both been chosen by the dictator and had served him loyally for some time. Neither came from a distinguished family, and both were probably older than was normal for consuls. In public, Cicero praised them effusively. Privately he found them lacking in energy and commitment, while his brother Quintus who had served beside them during Julius Caesar’s Gallic campaigns dismissed them as worthless and corrupt. With Antony gone, the orator was once again in Rome, pressing the Senate to act against him. On 20 December he delivered his Third Philippic at a meeting of the Senate summoned by the tribunes – both consuls and many of the other magistrates having left for their provinces. Back in November the young Caesar’s – or rather, as Cicero insisted, ‘Octavius’s’ – speech had dismayed him. As so often in his letters he quoted a Greek tag – ‘I’d rather not be saved, than saved by one like this!’ Now Antony seemed not simply the far greater, but the only evil. Decimus Brutus had written stating his refusal to let the consul take over Cisalpine Gaul from him. In the circumstances a lesser evil was acceptable, and he finally brought himself to speak of Caesar and not Octavius or Octavianus. The Republic should accept the aid of a nineteen-year-old with an illegal army.22
Cicero’s rhetoric as usual soared to the occasion:
Caius Caesar, a young man, or rather almost a boy, but one of incredible, and, as it were, divine intelligence and courage, at the very time when Antony’s frenzy was at its greatest heat, and when his cruel and deadly return from Brundisium was dreaded, while we were not asking for or thinking of assistance, nor even hoping for it, for it seemed impossible, collected a very stout army of the invincible class of veterans, and lavished his patrimony . . . in the salvation of the Res Publica . . . Had he not been born into the Res Publica, we should, by the crime of Antony, now possess no Res Publica . . .23
The young man’s soldiers also received their share of praise:
we cannot be silent regarding the Legio Martia. For what single person has ever been braver, who more friendly to the Res Publica than the whole of the Legio Martia. Having decided, as it did, that Mark Antony was an enemy of the Roman people, it refused to be an ally of his madness; it abandoned a consul . . . whom it saw to be aiming at . . . the slaughter of citizens and the destruction of the Res Publica . . .24
The mutiny – for the refusal to obey the orders of a consul of Rome could legally be nothing else – of two legions and their defection to swell the ranks of an illegal private army, and obey the orders of a man lacking any proper authority to give them, was condoned. Antony was not a consul at all, but a public enemy – a new Catiline or worse yet a Spartacus – and thus everything could be justified. This was Cicero’s case, even though as yet it was hard to see what Antony had actually done to deserve condemnation. Caesar had broken far more laws.25
Opinion began to shift in Cicero’s favour, but far less quickly than he wanted. Caesar and his army were a reality that could not be opposed. The four new legions raised by the consuls were just as unprepared to face these as they were Antony’s forces. Caesar could not be suppressed, and so for the moment must be accepted, even condoned – Sulla’s use of the private army of the twenty-three-year-old Pompey offered a precedent.
Antony was a different matter. He was consul – his claim to office at least as legitimate as that of Hirtius and Pansa, or indeed Decimus Brutus – and a Popular Assembly had passed a law giving him control of Cisalpine Gaul, the voters encouraged by the presence of Caesar. The legality of that vote was questionable, with claims of intimidation, and, ironically enough, for once there really had been a thunderstorm during the meeting rather than merely a conveniently imagined bad omen. Whether or not they liked or approved of the consul, there was as yet little appetite to fight a civil war over the issue. Antony had allies in the Senate, and his mother and wife did their best to drum up support. The conspirators themselves had all gone abroad, leaving behind only sympathisers, and there were few strongly committed to helping Decimus Brutus. For the moment the Senate refused to declare Antony a public enemy, and instead sent an embassy of three senior senators as ambassadors to him. One of them was Philippus, and there is no indication that he did not genuinely hope for compromise.26
Even so the talks came to nothing. Antony continued to attack Caesar, insulting his real family as a reminder that he was not truly the son of Julius Caesar. The ‘so-called’ Caesar was a provincial nobody descended from foreign slaves, a mere child who had prostituted himself to the ageing dictator in order to win favour. The remarks dripped with aristocratic hauteur, but were otherwise fairly conventional pieces of Roman political invective, taken with a pinch of salt even at the time.27
However, some of the comments stuck, and remained well known long after the context had been forgotten. The young upstart was merely ‘a boy who owes everything to a name’ – to which we might add ‘and his possession of an army’. Cicero wanted to use both, for in his mind Antony now seemed worse than Julius Caesar had ever been. Some of this was sheer personal dislike, and more a lack of respect. Not only had tyranny continued after the tyrant was killed, but the new tyrant had done far less than Julius Caesar to win his prominence. Far more important were the frustrations and disappointments of Cicero’s long career, and a sense that for one last time he could serve – perhaps even save – the Rome and the res publica that he loved so much. From the beginning the young Caesar showed him deference and respect. It need not have been insincere. Cicero was a distinguished elder statesman, well worth courting by an ambitious newcomer. Nor in return need his affection for the youth have been wholly feigned. Political friendships, much like the marriages that often confirmed them, were for immediate advantage and everyone knew that they might prove temporary. For the moment each of them was useful to the other and neither could know what the future held in store. Cicero was willing to use the boy and his army, just as in 49 BC Cato and his allies were willing to use Pompey against Julius Caesar. Mutual benefit did not require absolute trust – and in the end Caesar was only nineteen and politically inexperienced. Surely he could not be truly dangerous in the long run?28
Italy
When Hirtius and Pansa assumed the consulship on 1 January, Cicero renewed his onslaught against Antony. The senatus consultum ultimum was passed, but specific mention of Antony avoided. His uncle, Lucius Julius Caesar, managed to block a vote declaring him a public enemy, and other wording was watered down. A state of emergency or tumultus was announced, but this was not yet formally a war. That did not hinder preparations. Decimus Brutus was confirmed as governor of Cisalpine Gaul. Far more dramatically, Caesar was given propraetorian imperium so that at last he could legitimately command the army he had possessed for some time. He was also admitted to the Senate and graded as a quaestor, allowing him to seek the other magistracies ten years earlier than was normal – it would still be more than a decade before he would be eligible for the consulship. Like their leader, his soldiers were commended, and the state agreed to pay the discharge bonus promised to them when the young man had bid for their services.29
