Augustus, page 16
On 23 October Brutus reluctantly gave battle. This time the armies deployed at right angles to the first battlefield, which meant that Brutus’ men no longer had the gentle slope in their favour. In spite of this the fighting was long and bitter, but steadily the triumvirs’ men drove their opponents back ‘like workmen pushing a heavy piece of machinery’, and eventually they collapsed into rout. Brutus managed to keep a few legions together and retire in order. Then, inspired like so many of his generation by the example of Cato and others, he readily took his own life.25
Caesar was sufficiently recovered to play an active part in this second battle, although the chief credit for the campaign went to Antony. It was claimed that aristocratic prisoners jeered at the young triumvir and then hailed Antony as imperator. Certainly far more of those pardoned chose to join him, showing once again the preference for an older, more established man of unquestionably aristocratic blood. Antony was also praised for treating Brutus’ corpse with respect, although Plutarch claims that Caesar was just as generous to the dead man’s remains. The head was sent to Rome – under whose orders is unclear – to be laid at the feet of Julius Caesar’s statue, but was lost when the ship carrying it foundered. The dictator’s heir was accused of viciousness in his treatment of prisoners, for instance making a father and son gamble to determine who should be beheaded first.26
Antony took the lion’s share of the prestige from defeating Brutus and Cassius, although in later years Caesar would declare simply: ‘Those who slew my father I drove into exile, punishing their deed by due process of law, and afterwards when they waged war upon the republic I twice defeated them in battle.’27
For the moment it was enough that the main conspirators were defeated and dead and that he had at least taken part. A warlord needed to be successful and the war had been won. He and Antony also had to live up to the promises made to their soldiers, very many of whom were now due for discharge, either from length of service or because they had enlisted for the duration of the war. They had been promised land in Italy, and it was decided that Caesar would return to oversee the process. Antony would remain in the eastern Mediterranean, ensuring that the provinces were loyal and squeezing them for the vast sums of money the triumvirate needed to pay their troops and fund the land distribution. The provincial kingdoms and cities had no choice but to meet his demands, just as they had so recently met those of the Liberators, and only a few years before those of Pompey and then Julius Caesar. Kings and other leaders knew that if they failed to obey, the Romans would readily find ambitious rivals eager to replace them. Cleopatra was merely one of large numbers of eastern grandees desperate to win Antony’s favour.28
Caesar fell seriously ill again before he could sail back to Italy. As before, we do not know the nature of the sickness, and whether it was something new or a resurgence of his previous ailment; for a while it was feared that he would die, and a false report spread that he had done so. As the months passed and his return was delayed, Rome grew ever more nervous. Rumours spread that he was plotting something terrible enough to make the proscriptions seem mild. During their absence, Caesar and Antony had become suspicious of Lepidus, suspecting that he had begun independent negotiations with Sextus Pompey. For the moment they divided Lepidus’ provinces between themselves, although it seems that they held out the prospect of giving him the two African provinces at some point in the future. Although he remained formally a triumvir, he was clearly no longer the equal of the other two.29
When Caesar finally returned to Rome in 41 BC, he set about the task of finding land with great urgency and determination. Even before they left for the Macedonian campaign the triumvirs had named eighteen Italian cities which were to suffer confiscations of land to provide plots for discharged soldiers. The wealthy and well connected – especially senators and the most prosperous equestrians – protested whenever their estates were involved in the process. It was always dangerous to alienate the influential and most were granted exemptions. This meant that the confiscations fell disproportionately heavily on those of middling income and property who were less able to protest, although many still came to Rome in the attempt. In several cases the territory around the named cities was insufficient, and land was taken from neighbouring communities even though these had not been named by the triumvirate.
The soldiers had been promised farms. They had risked life and limb to fight their generals’ wars and were conscious that the triumvirate only ruled through their support. This produced a surly determination to get what they considered to be a good deal. Notably they also wanted their relatives as well as the fathers and sons of fallen comrades to be protected from land confiscation. At the same time farms were being taken from families who had held them for generations, and who had committed no crime or act against the triumvirate. With the land went livestock, tools, buildings and houses, and the workforce of slaves. Feared, but never popular, the triumvirate had to walk a tightrope, satisfying the veterans without alienating too much of the rest of the population. At the same time Sextus Pompeius was harrying the sea lanes to Italy, so that fewer grain shipments were getting through than in normal times. Food became short, and as usual those most at risk of famine were the least well-off, already inclined to favour any change on the basis that their lot could scarcely be worse.30
Caesar was the man on the spot, and therefore the focus of resentment from so many disparate groups. Then an attack came suddenly from an unexpected direction. Brutus had executed Antony’s brother Caius in reprisal for the killing of Decimus Brutus, but in 41 BC the remaining brother became consul. Lucius Antonius had all the self-confidence of a Roman noble and should not be seen as merely the tool of his older brother, but an ambitious man in his own right. As consul he took up the cause of the dispossessed farmers and discontented communities of Italy. As the months passed, his relationship with Caesar deteriorated. The truth of what happened next was difficult to establish even at the time, quickly becoming mired in propaganda. Fulvia joined Lucius at some point, doing her best to raise soldiers for him from Antony’s veterans. Few were enthusiastic since, in spite of their fondness for their old general, they were reluctant to side with dispossessed farmers against the authority that was industriously giving the confiscated land to them as well as Caesar’s discharged soldiers. Most of the troops to rally to the cause were raw recruits from the fertile regions of northern Italy and Campania most affected by the land redistribution.
Late in 41 BC Lucius marched on Rome with his newly raised legions. Lepidus was in the City, but his soldiers were heavily outnumbered and there was little enthusiasm for the triumvirate from the wider population. Rome fell quickly, Lepidus fleeing to join Caesar, but when the latter returned with a large and properly disciplined army, Lucius Antonius retreated even more quickly than he had arrived. He headed north, hoping to join up with several of Antony’s generals who were in Italy with around thirteen experienced legions. Caesar’s subordinate commanders blocked his path and he was cornered at Perusia (modern Perugia). The Caesareans surrounded the city with a ditch and wall strengthened with towers at close intervals and waited for hunger to bring the enemy to their knees. Over the winter months Lucius Antonius held out, waiting for Antony’s generals to march to his rescue. They came close, at one point camping no more than twenty miles away, but there was a lack of purpose about their movements springing from a divided command and the absence of any instructions from Antony himself. Probably they also realised that their soldiers did not sympathise with Lucius’ rebels. None chose to force the issue with Caesar’s commanders stationed to observe them, and these in turn were careful not to provoke a serious fight.31
Lead sling bullets have been found at Perusia with messages cast onto them revealing some of the propaganda and vulgar abuse hurled back and forth. Caesar’s men mocked Lucius Antonius’ baldness, or hoped that their missiles would strike Fulvia’s landica – an especially crude piece of slang for the clitoris. In spite of the fact that she was not in Perusia, Antony’s wife was clearly an object of hatred and mockery. The defenders replied with bullets which claimed to be aimed at Caesar’s arse and depicted him as a degraded homosexual who permitted himself to be sodomised by others. Alongside this barrage of abuse there were frequent raids on the besieger’s lines. On one occasion Caesar himself was surprised while conducting a sacrifice as army commander and only narrowly escaped being killed. More often the results were less spectacular, and at times a few men managed to break out and escape.32
His brother’s commanders unable or unwilling to help, Lucius Antonius’ food supplies eventually ran out and he surrendered in February 40 BC. Perusia was sacked and went up in flames, although there was doubt over whether the fire was started by the victors or some of the inhabitants. There were probably some executions of leading civilians and perhaps a few of Lucius Antonius’ senatorial supporters. Rumour and hostile propaganda soon turned this into another ghastly massacre, with 300 leading citizens being sacrificed to Julius Caesar’s spirit – an invention no doubt inspired by Achilles’ killing of Trojan prisoners at the funeral of his comrade Patroclus in the Iliad. Suetonius claims that pleas for mercy and excuses were met by the young triumvir with a laconic ‘He must die’ or ‘You must die’ – moriendum esse in Latin. Yet on the whole reprisals were limited. The rebel soldiers were spared, and many no doubt were recruited into Caesar’s legions. Lucius Antonius was not only left unharmed, but was sent to govern one of the Spanish provinces. Fulvia had already escaped to join her husband, and Antony’s mother had similarly fled abroad, going first to Sextus Pompeius, who then had her conveyed eastwards to her son.33
Antony had not intervened in the Perusine War, either to support his brother and wife or to restrain them. By the spring of 40 BC he was on his way back to Italy, accompanied by a strong force of warships. No one knew whether this new civil war was truly over, or just beginning.
PART THREE
IMPERATOR CAESAR, DIVI FILIUS 38–27 BC
Imperator was the title given to a victorious general, but had never before been used as a permanent name. He became formally ‘the son of a god’ after the official deification of Julius Caesar in 42 BC, but did not always use the title until later.
9
SONS OF GODS
‘Ah, shall I ever, long years hence, look again on my country’s bounds, on my humble cottage with its turf-clad roof – shall I, long years hence, look amazed on a few ears of corn, once my kingdom? Is an impious soldier to hold these well-tilled fallows? A barbarian these crops? See where strife has brought our unhappy citizens!’ Virgil, early thirties BC.1
‘. . . the great line of centuries begins anew. Now divine Justice returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high. Only do you, pure Lucina, smile on the birth of a child, under whom the iron brood shall at last cease and a golden race spring up throughout the world! . . . And in your consulship, Pollio, yes, yours, shall this glorious age begin . . .’ Virgil predicting the start of a new golden age in 40 BC.2
At some point in 41 BC, as relations with Fulvia and Lucius Antonius degenerated, Caesar was inspired to pen a short poem about his mother-in-law and Mark Antony’s wife. ‘Antony screws Glaphyra, so Fulvia as revenge wants to nail me! What, should I screw Fulvia? What then if Manius pleads with me to bugger him, should I? I don’t think so, if I’ve an ounce of sense. “Either shag or fight,” she says. Well, my prick is dearer to me than my very life. Let battle commence!’3
The poet Martial quoted these lines over a century later – and so preserved them for posterity – claiming cheekily that if Rome’s first emperor could write filthy poetry then so could he. The Latin is especially crude, more than matching anything his soldiers cast into their lead missiles at Perusia. Glaphyra was the well-born mistress of the client ruler of Cappadocia, and became Antony’s lover in the hope of convincing him to let her son succeed to the throne as the triumvir reorganised the eastern provinces. (At the time he gave power to someone else, but a few years later the lad was installed as king, so ultimately her efforts were not in vain.) Gossip of their affair had obviously reached Rome months before Antony met Cleopatra and provided a new and plentiful theme. Manius was an important agent of Antony’s in Italy, and was later blamed for inflaming the situation and playing a major part in causing the Perusine War.4
Even by the standards of Roman political invective these half-dozen lines were crude stuff, the work of a very young man revelling in vulgarity and brimming with bullish self-confidence. In just a few years Caesar had become one of the two most powerful men in the world – within sight of claiming his ‘father’s’ honours and status as supreme in the state. So rapid a rise speaks of immense and highly focused ambition, and of great political skill, but also of luck. Like almost any successful statesman, Caesar was an opportunist. If Julius Caesar had not been murdered his career would have been very different and considerably slower, although perhaps in the end as distinguished. He had the chance to grow in power and gain legitimacy thanks to a Senate led by Cicero, turning himself into an attractive ally for Antony and Lepidus when the leaders of the Senate chose to ‘discard’ him. There had been failures, such as the first march into Rome, and his ignominious role in the First Battle of Philippi. There had also been a lot of risks. He might have lost the battles, or fallen in action. He had survived two bouts of very serious illness, and faced mobs of angry citizens and mutinous veterans – the latter on one occasion murdering a centurion sent to calm them down and dumping his body in the path of Caesar’s entourage to make sure that he saw it. In each case the young Caesar survived, and got what he wanted in the end. The omens reported in ancient sources were often later inventions, but it would have been surprising if the triumvir had not become convinced of his own luck and destiny to win.5
Before the Perusine War began, he divorced Claudia. Some claimed the failure to consummate the marriage was a deliberate act, in expectation that the union – and the political alliance it represented – was to be short-lived. Probably this was simply because the girl was so very young, since even the existence of children rarely hindered the ending of a politically inconvenient marriage. Caesar and his commanders defeated Lucius Antonius, helped by the ineffective support offered by Antony’s generals. Yet again Caesar had won, and emerged stronger after an apparent setback. Then luck played into his hand once more. In the redistribution of provinces after Philippi, Cisalpine Gaul became part of Italy, and the remaining Gallic provinces were allotted to Antony, who controlled them through his subordinate Quintus Fufius Calenus. In the summer of 40 BC, Calenus fell ill and died, leaving his young son in charge. Caesar – probably marginally, if at all, older – hurried to the province and dragooned the younger Calenus into giving him command of his army. At a stroke eleven legions changed hands.6
While he was away, Antony returned to Italy. He had a large fleet of warships, having been joined by Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, former admiral of Brutus and Cassius. Until recently Ahenobarbus had raided the Italian coast, and when the combined fleet reached Brundisium the garrison recognised his warships and closed the harbour. Antony saw this as deliberate hostility on Caesar’s part and besieged the city. Most probably it was a mistake, although in the heated atmosphere created by the Perusine War no doubt the partisans on both sides were nervous. Caesar returned from Gaul and certainly prepared for war, mustering his legions and once again trying to drum up volunteers from the recently settled veterans. Grateful for their land, the response was good, until the word spread that they were to fight Antony and plenty of their former comrades. Some turned back and went home at the news, and those that remained followed reluctantly.7
Modern scholars usually see Antony as being in the stronger position. Sextus Pompeius had already approached him and offered alliance against Caesar. Antony’s mother Julia fled to Sicily and Sextus’ care in the aftermath of the Perusine War. Perhaps she was genuinely afraid, but in truth it is doubtful that she was in any real danger and more probably this was a public gesture of hostility to Caesar. He certainly chose to interpret it this way. Sextus welcomed the fugitive and had her escorted eastwards to meet her son. Antony was grateful, but for the moment was unwilling to commit himself firmly to war with his fellow triumvir. There were sound reasons for such caution. He had spent the winter of 41–40 BC in pleasant leisure at Cleopatra’s capital of Alexandria – and by the time he left she was pregnant and would in due course give birth to twins, a boy and a girl. During these months the Parthians invaded Syria, supporting a Roman force led by Titus Labienus, a diehard Republican who had missed the Philippi campaign. His father was Julius Caesar’s best legate in Gaul, but chose to fight for Pompey in the Civil War and killed himself after the defeat at Munda in 45 BC. Exhausted by years of supplying both sides in Roman civil wars, the eastern provinces were poorly garrisoned and in no state to resist the attack. Meeting only feeble resistance, the Parthians took Syria, and then sent smaller forces to overrun Judaea and much of Asia Minor.8
When Antony arrived off Brundisium he had a fleet, but only a small land army. Some of his commanders still had legions in the field in Italy and the west, but with the loss of Calenus’ legions these were heavily outnumbered by Caesar’s armies. Given the state of the eastern provinces, it would be difficult and politically damaging to draw troops from there and at best this would take months. An alliance with Sextus Pompeius offered the prospect of gaining many more well-crewed warships, but few soldiers. For the moment, the military advantage was clearly with Caesar whatever the longer-term balance of power. That did not mean that the outcome of the war was certain, or that destroying the other was really to either man’s advantage at present.
