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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARC ANTHONY
CHAPTER XIAntony's Struggle to Prevent Civil War,and his Difficulties with Caesar's heir, Octavian.44 BC
Brutus was the only one of the assassins who could, be said to deserve
sympathetic consideration, for Antony had now heard of the great mental
struggle through which this slow-brained and studious personage had passed, and
he could see that the unfortunate man had been actuated by motives as
altruistic as they were misguided. When Cassius was first organizing the
conspiracy, so Antony was told, it was agreed that Brutus ought to be persuaded
to join in the plot for the reason that his acquiescence would give almost a religious
sanction to the plan, and therefore the greatest pressure had been brought to
bear upon him. In revealing the plot to him, for instance, Cassius had said: “Rome
demands from you, Brutus, as an hereditary debt, the extirpation of tyranny”;
and thus by approaching him as the genuine descendant of the great Brutus, the
liberator of the nation from the rule of its early kings, the conspirators
aroused in his heart that bright flame of family pride, which had but flickered
within him so long as the stigma of being Caesar’s bastard was upon him.
But after he had entered into the plot, his conscience had given him no
peace; and his mind had been so tortured by its silent arguments that sleep had
left him, and at last his wife Porcia, Cato’s daughter, had become aware that
he was living in the anguish of a terrible secret, and in the end had persuaded
him to admit her into it. Thereupon she, too, had been rendered sleepless and
distracted, and on the fatal day she had nearly revealed the conspiracy by her
hysteria. At the moment of the assassination, in fact, she was in a dead faint.
Antony’s determination to punish the murderers, however, was not
influenced by these personal considerations, and he proceeded to bring about
their ruin. Caesar’s will was read in his, Antony's, house in the presence of
those of the Dictator’s friends and relatives who were available; and, as has
already been stated, it was found that he had left a great part of ins fortune
to Octavian, and smaller shares to his two other grand-nephews, and that
Octavian had been asked to adopt the name of Caesar. In the event of the two
above-mentioned grand-nephews dying before him, their portions were to go to
that same Decimus Brutus Albinus who had betrayed him, and to Antony—a mark of
esteem which the latter must have deeply appreciated and which is yet another
indication of his worth.
But the clause in the will which Antony s mind seized upon, and which
was obviously his trump-card in the line of action he had decided upon, was
that which bequeathed his beautiful gardens beyond the Tiber to the people of Rome
as a public park, and a personal gift of three hundred sesterces to every
individual in the city—a sum which must have represented several weeks wages to
the working man. The size of the gift, however, was not its outstanding
feature: the fact which was so valuable to Antony was that Caesar had thereby
shown his unfailing love for the People, and that the bequest would establish
him in their memory as a loving father, a friend of the poor and the humble.
On the following day, March 20th, the funeral took place—in spite of the
passionate protests of Brutus and Cassius, who saw clearly enough that the
public cremation of the Dictator would give occasion for a show of sympathy
very detrimental to their cause. Antony, however, had been stubbornly
determined to do Caesar this honor. He had arranged that the body should be
carried in state to the Campus Martius, where a pyre was constructed, close to
the tomb of the Dictator’s daughter, Julia, Pompey’s wife; but the earlier
ceremonies were to be performed in the Forum, and hither, seething with
excitement, the crowds flocked. All day long the musicians played their dirges
and solemnly beat their drums, while from time to time actors performed short
scenes from classical plays chosen by Antony because of their bitter
appropriateness to the occasion, one such being an excerpt from a tragedy by
Pacuvius, in which the words “I saved those who have killed me were repeated
with telling effect”.
At nightfall, Antony, magnificent
in his Consular robes, made his way to the Forum, determined to
arouse the people to a wholehearted support of the Caesarian party, yet
equally determined to prevent any riotous attacks upon the assassins, who had
confined themselves to their houses in anticipation of trouble. His purpose—and
in it he proved his statesmanship—was to maintain peace in this hour of
turmoil, yet to excite indignation against the crime, so that in due course the
conspirators might be brought to justice without a fight when Rome was once
more tranquil.
On his arrival upon the turbulent scene, in the gathering darkness, the
body of the Dictator was taken from its temporary mortuary, and, to the dissonant
accompaniment of cries and mournful chanting, was laid upon an ivory bed
covered with purple and cloth of gold, this being placed under a gilded
catafalque which represented in small size the temple of Venus, Caesar’s divine
ancestress. After the religious ceremonies had been performed, during which
Antony himself intoned the funeral chant, a herald, instructed by him, recited to
the crowd a list of the honors, both human and divine, which the Senate had
conferred upon the Dictator, and censoriously repeated the oath so vainly taken
by the senators to defend his person with their lives. Antony then mounted the
rostra and addressed the now silent multitude in a speech which, though short,
was “in every way beautiful and brilliant”, and which was afterwards described
by Cicero, who, however, was not present when it was delivered—as a panegyric
capable of arousing the most intense emotion. The text of the speech quoted by
Appian and Dion Cassius is probably a later elaboration of what he said; but it
seems that he referred tenderly to Caesar’s brilliance and goodness of heart,
and spoke of the great benefits he had conferred on the people of Rome both in
his lifetime and now by the terms of his will.
Then, carried away by his own eloquence and by his very genuine sorrow,
he impulsively told his officers to bring him the bloodstained garments of the
murdered man which had been exhibited at the head of the bier; and with these
in his hands he turned again to his audience, dramatically showing them the
rents made by the daggers, and the stains of the blood, the tears running down
his face as he struggled to find words by which to vent the torrent of the
emotions pent up within him these five days.
It had been arranged that at the end of his oration the funeral procession
should set out for the Campus Martius to cremate the body, as the law decreed,
outside the city’s walls; but the crowd was so stirred by Antony’s words that,
as though the matter had been carried by vote, they determined with one consent
to take the proceedings out of the hands of the officials and to cremate the
corpse here in the heart of the metropolis. Some shouted out that it should be
carried up to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and there burnt in the
holy-of-holies, the most sacred spot in Rome, even though in so doing the whole
building would probably go up in flames; others declared that it ought to be
burnt upon the spot whereon the murder had been committed.
But at length somebody proposed that the cremation should be carried out
here in the Forum; and, instantly taking to the suggestion, the crowd seized
upon chairs, benches, and any available of woodwork, heaping them up into an
enormous pyre, onto which the bier was presently lifted. Lighted torches were
applied, and soon the body of the Dictator subsided into the flames, while the
sparks shot up into the night, and the smoke rolled like a cloud across the
face of the rising moon.
Many persons, moved by the general hysteria, tore off their outer
garments and flung them into the blaze; military officers unbuckled their
valuable breastplates and cast them upon the pyre; and here and there a weeping
woman was seen to throw her jewels into the flames. On all sides people were
sobbing passionately, beating their breasts, and wailing the funeral chants;
and at length the fierce cry was raised that the houses of the assassins should
be attacked and burnt, whereupon, in spite of Antony’s alarmed protests, a rash
was made for the pyre, and flaming pieces of wood were carried off by shouting
and gesticulating men, who hastened away in the direction of the houses of
Brutus, Cassius, and others. “It was you, Antony—you, I say” cried Cicero a few
months later, “who let loose those attacks! Abandoned men, slaves for the most
part, hurled firebrands into our houses, and we were obliged to repel their
onrush by our own unaided exertions; but it was you who set them on!”
Antony was in reality aghast at the emotional outburst his words had
caused, which endangered the peace of the city, and he checked the noting with
the utmost seventy, giving orders that those caught setting fire to any house
should be summarily executed. Brutus, Cassius, and the others no doubt owed
their lives to his prompt action; but there was one man at least who was not so
fortunate. He was a Tribune of the People, named Cinna; and the mob, confusing
him with Caesar’s brother-in-law, Cinna, the praetor, who had lately made some
disparaging remarks about Caesar’s moral life, pounced upon him and literally
tore him to pieces, finally dancing off with his head stuck upon a spear.
On the following day there was further rioting, and the conspirators
were again besieged in their homes, while the miserable Cicero, appalled to
find that his ambitions and rash inclinations had led him to identify himself
with the losing faction, sat behind the barred doors of his house, listening to
the tumult outside and cursing Antony and all his works. Brutus, of course, was
in despair. He had expected the majority of the senators and officials to
commend the murder; and though a great many of them had certainly done so, and
had made possible the technical amnesty which now existed, he had not reckoned
with the People. Antony’s speech at the funeral had been fatal to the murderers’
cause; and it seemed likely that the popular party would now oblige them to
leave Rome, even, indeed, if it did not exact from them the extreme penalty.
Only Antony stood between them and public vengeance; and the question which
fevered their minds was whether he, Antony, was strong enough to maintain
peace, or whether he would not be more likely to be carried along on the tide
of the mob’s excitement; more especially once it was obvious that his own
emotions would tend to lead him in that direction.
Dolabella had already fled from the city, having lost his influence with
the rabble by his having shown friendliness towards the conspirators; the
Senate was divided in its views, and was much too frightened to be of any
service to the cause of peace; and Cicero had proved himself to be far from the
bold leader of republican thought his writings and his private conversation had
led Brutus to expect him to be. The murderers, in fact, had supposed that they
would have a solid backing of better-class opinion; they had pictured
themselves grouped around the revered figure of Cicero, from whose inspired
lips the doctrines for which they stood would pour in acceptable language; and
they had supposed that Dolabella would swing the mob over to their side.
But Antony had wrecked their hopes. He had secured a public funeral for
Caesar against the opposition of all those who approved of the assassination;
he had used the occasion to play upon the emotions of the People; and he had
turned to overwhelming account the contents of the Dictator’s will. True, he
had managed to maintain order and to effect a sort of compromise during these
perilous days—Brutus admitted that they had to thank him for that; but the
stupefaction of the whole city had aided him, and now he seemed to be undoing
the good work, and allowing the popular hysteria to carry him off his feet.
During the next few days one conspirator after another slipped out of
Rome and went into hiding in the country. Albinus, by one of Caesar’s last
appointments, had been given the governorship in Cisalpine Gaul; and, since one
of Antony’s measures in the emergency had been the ratification of all the
Dictator’s decrees, Albinus hastened to his province to take possession of it
before his authority was repealed. Tullius Cimber, likewise, hurried off to Bithynia,
of which Caesar had made him governor. By the first week in April Cicero, too,
had given up all hope of leadership, and had fled in despair to his villa on
the Bay of Naples.
Shortly after this, a certain Herophilus, who had been banished from Rome
by the Dictator, came back to the capital, and, wishing to gain the favor of
the rabble, set up a sacred column on the spot where the body had been
cremated, and, by arousing the religious frenzy of those who here made their
devotions to Cesar’s divinity, attempted to incite the crowd to further acts of
violence against the conspirators, as a result of which Cassius, Brutus, and others
were again besieged in their houses, these becoming so many forts each defended
by its household against the angry mob. A critical state of affairs developed;
but Antony acted with prompt and justifiable severity. He caused Herophilus to
be arrested and executed, and thereby saved the city once more from anarchy.
He then authorized Brutus and Cassius to leave Rome, and before the
middle of April these two had fled to Lanuvium, a day’s journey to the south.
Trebonius followed shortly afterwards, going as governor to the province of
Asia Minor, that post having been given him by the man he had helped to
assassinate. At the same time the leading members of the Caesarian party also
left the metropolis; and sometime in April Queen Cleopatra packed up and set
sail for Egypt, taking with her the Dictator’s little son, Caesarion. She must
have been a broken-hearted woman; for, whether her expectations were based on
fact or not, she had believed that her marriage to Caesar had been imminent and
she had never for a moment doubted that she would presently be seated at his
side on the throne of an Egypto-Roman kingdom whose bounds would be the ends of
the earth. Now, by the daggers of men she had often entertained at her house,
her position had been changed in an instant from that of prospective
omnipotence to the mere sovereignty of a restless little country across the
seas—a sovereignty which a new and unfriendly Roman government might soon send
its legions to take from her.
To Antony she must have poured out her troubles, but he could do nothing
to help her : she would have to return to Alexandria and bide her time until
the Roman situation had clarified; but there can be little doubt that her
thoughts, fired by Caesar’s vision of worldwide dominion, must have burnt with
the desire to ally herself to whatever new master of Rome the Fates might throw
up out of the existing chaos. In her own way she had loved Caesar, but she had
loved his dreams still more; and the overthrow of all those splendid hopes
which had completely possessed her mind for these last months must have left
her more desolate than any words have the power to describe.
Though history is silent upon the subject, it is not credible that she
could have gone back to her own country without first having attempted to
enlist the good offices of Antony; and it may be supposed that he had promised
to do his best to help her to maintain her position at least as sovereign of an
independent kingdom. In him she may have already seen the future autocrat of
the world; but his authority was by no means unshakably established, nor was he
following, even with unsteady tread, in Caesar’s clear footsteps. He had been
opposed to the Dictator’s ideas of monarchy, and he had not yet so much as
dreamt of aiming, himself, at that royal crown which Caesar’s hands had so
nearly grasped. All his energies were directed at present to the sole purpose
of maintaining peace under democratic rule in his distracted country, and the
highest flights of his imagination carried him no further than the vision of
himself as virtual Dictator for the next few years, governing the empire as the
successor and representative of the murdered Caesar. Someday, Cleopatra may
have told herself, she would whisper into the ear of a new ruler of Rome the
suggestion of a world-throne to be shared with her and perhaps to be handed on
to Caesarion; but whether or not that man would be Antony she could not yet
determine.
It is possible that before she left she gave him money with which to
maintain his cause, for he was undoubtedly collecting funds at this time by
every means, straight or crooked, and Cicero, a few months later, demanded to
know how it came about that Antony, who was heavily in debt on the Ides of March,
should have been free of his burdens in April. “There was nothing in the whole world”, said
Cicero, “which anyone wanted to buy that Antony was not ready to sell”; and
though this, of course, was an exaggeration, there can be little doubt that the
urgent need of money required as urgent a search for it.
King Deiotarus of Galatia and Armenia, a man who had sided with Pompey
against Caesar, and had been deprived by the latter of part of his dominions,
offered a large sum of money for the restoration of these realms; and Antony
very conveniently found amongst Caesar’s papers a memorandum which justified
him in acceding to this monarch’s wishes. Many people declared, of course, that
it was a forgery; but the fact that Cicero had recently pleaded for Deiotarus
in the presence of Caesar, in an eloquent speech—Pro Rege Deiotaro—which
is still extant, suggests that the Dictator may well have made a note to this
effect.
Antony then produced another document, purporting to be a memorandum of
the Dictator’s, which was his authority for giving the rights of citizenship to
the Sicilians of course at a price; but here again one may suppose that such an
action had been contemplated by Caesar, very possibly at the instance of
Cicero, who always had the interests of the Sicilians at heart, and it is
well-known that the Dictator had aroused the anger of the conservatives in the
past by his wide gifts of Roman citizenship outside Italy. Yet one cannot but
suspect that Antony did juggle somewhat with the Dictator’s papers; and the
Senate certainly made the proposal that the documents should be placed in the
charge of a special commission. Antony, however, was not deterred by the common
belief that he was resorting to forgery; and a little later he obtained a sum
of money from the Cretans in return for granting them, again on the authority
of Caesar, future exemption from taxation. His justification is that he needed
funds for the upholding of his authority, and for winning the support, for
instance, of Caesar’s veterans; and it is certain that, while helping himself
liberally enough in the usual Roman way, he spent the bulk of the money in what
he conceived to be the public interest.
Towards the end of April the sessions of the Senate closed for the May
vacation, and Antony decided to make a tour of the country south of Rome in
order to feel for himself the pulse of the nation, and also to do a little
recruiting in a quiet way. Brutus and Cassius had been attempting to undermine
the Caesarian cause in that part of Italy, and had been trying to gain the
support of those old soldiers settled upon the land, whom Antony now wished to
enlist; and Cicero, too, down in the neighborhood of Naples, had lately been
venting his disappointment by vilifying both the dead Dictator and Antony. The
orator, at this time a sour, grey-haired man of sixty-three, was so embittered
by his misfortunes that, while in public he maintained for his own safety a neutrality
which included a treacherous show of friendship to Antony, in private he
allowed himself to become extremely violent in his attacks upon the Caesarians.
He now spoke of the murder of the Dictator as “the magnificent banquet
of the Ides of March”, and regretted that he had not been invited to take part in
it; he spoke of Brutus and Cassius as heroes, and of Antony as a drunkard and a
reckless gambler; and, to quote a well-known editor of his private
correspondence, “he expressed a satisfaction at the assassination, which, after
Caesar’s great generosity to him and his profuse, if not servile, acknowledgment
of it, is nothing less than ferocious, so that no portion of the whole
collection of his letters exhibits his character in so unpleasant a light”. He
fretted at the inability of the conspirators to take any action, and to Atticus
he wrote, in April, “I fear that the Ides of March have given us nothing beyond
the pleasure and the satisfaction of our hatred”. That hatred was intense, and
gradually it focused itself wholly upon Antony, the one man who stood like a
hulking gladiator in the path of the assassins’ advance.
Antony was able to leave Rome with some easiness of mind because his
wife, Fulvia, and his two younger brothers, Lucius and Caius, were there to carry
on his work and to keep him in close touch with events. Caius was now Praetor
and Lucius a Tribune of the People, both having been given these appointments
by Caesar: they were men of no great distinction, but they were useful agents
of their brother. Fulvia, too, was in these days an important factor in
political life, and many of Antony's measures—for instance, the rehabilitation
of King Deiotarus—were thought to have been initiated by her.
Antony’s mother, Julia, was still alive, and, being a member of the
family of the Caesars, was probably a strong supporter of a policy of revenge
against the assassins, although her brother, Lucius Caesar, was in favor of the
Act of Oblivion. Antony’s uncle, Caius Antonius, was also back in Rome now,
after nearly fifteen years of exile on the island of Cephalonia, having been
pardoned, it would seem, by Caesar; but he could have had little liking for
Antony, who had disgraced and divorced his daughter Antonia, it will be
recalled, because of her misbehavior with Dolabella. Indeed, Antony must have
deeply offended the returned exile; for, a few weeks earlier, in a full meeting
of the Senate, at which Caius Antonius was present, Antony had lost his temper
with Dolabella, and had publicly branded the fat young man and the unhappy
Antonia as adulterer and adulteress. Antony was very liable, always, to lose
his temper and to say more than he intended; and, anyhow, he was very sore
about this intrigue, for it was a reflection upon his own success as a lover, a
matter upon which he prided himself.
His tour of the south was very successful in its purpose, namely that of
arousing and recruiting, Caesar’s ex-soldiers, and counteracting the propaganda
of the conspirators; but, during the trip, he seems to have combined business
with pleasure in a rather unnecessarily reckless way. In spite of the gravity
of the situation he gave very gay parties in the cities he visited, and often
drank too much. At a charming villa near Casinum (S. Germano) on the inland
road to Naples, which had been confiscated from the author, Marcus Varro, on
the dubious authority of Caesar’s papers, he entertained a party of guests, who
all misbehaved themselves so thoroughly that scandal said the floors were awash
with wine, and the place full of the laughter of actresses and prostitutes. At
the break-up of this riotous house-party he was carried to the neighboring town
of Aquinum dead-drunk; and the inhabitants who had come out to give him an
official welcome heard only his snores issuing from behind the closed curtains
of his litter. Reaction from the strain of the terrible days through which he
had passed, and freedom from the controlling hand of Fulvia, had evidently been
too much for him.
While he was on his way back to Rome, bringing with him a whole army of
Caesar’s veterans, news was suddenly brought to him that Dolabella had come out
of hiding, and, declaring that he was joint-Consul with Antony, had ordered the
destruction of the sacred column set up by the late Herophilus on the spot
where the Dictator had been murdered, was inciting the crowd against the
Caesarians, and was being hailed with acclamation by the senators who favored
the conspirators. Antony’s brother Lucius had come to verbal blows with the
young man; and the city, it was said, was once more in an uproar, the
conservative element rallying round Dolabella, as though he were the hoped-for
savior of their cause. Upon hearing these tidings Antony was so stunned that he
was afterwards said by eye-witnesses to have fainted dead away, though it is
more probable that he merely rested his befuddled head against the nearest
support, and shut his eyes in an effort to gather his wits.
Thereafter, he hastened to Rome, arriving towards the end of May, and thoroughly
scaring his opponents by marching the ex-soldiers through the streets with
drawn swords, their shields and baggage bumping along behind them upon carts.
But the whole face of the situation was changed by the news which awaited him:
Octavian, Caesar’s grand-nephew and heir, had come to Rome, had claimed his
heritage, and had taken the name of Caesar.
Octavian had been at Apollonia when he received the news of the Dictator’s
death, and a few days later he had crossed the Adriatic back to Italy, where,
on disembarking, he heard for the first time of the contents of the Dictator’s
will. He then made his way quietly to Naples, which he reached on April 18th,
and thence went straight to his home, the house of his stepfather, Philippus,
not far away. Philippus was a cautious man, and strongly advised Octavian not
to claim so dangerous an inheritance, especially since he was only eighteen
years of age. At present, he said, it was doubtful which side would finally gain
the upper hand; and in the event of the conspirators obtaining control,
Octavian’s life would not be worth very much if he were known to be putting
himself forward as Caesar’s successor.
Philippus suggested a visit to Cicero, who lived quite close, and who,
superficially, was neutral; and Octavian therefore went over to see the
two-faced old orator, and made himself as agreeable as he could, not knowing
that Cicero was at this very time privately expressing his savage approval of
the Dictator’s murder. Octavian wanted to adopt the name “Caesar” at once, in
accordance with his great-uncle’s wishes; but Cicero advised him not to do
this, and so did Philippus. The boy then startled them by announcing that he
was presently going on to the capital to see his mother, Atia, who was still at
her town-house in Rome; and not long afterwards he made the journey there with
so little ostentation that Antony, who, of course, was informed of his
movements, did not think the youth was worth worrying about. It was only when
he got back to Rome that he was told how the daring youngster had proclaimed himself
Caesar’s successor.
Octavian certainly did not lack courage, and in spite of his being a poor specimen of manhood, unhealthy, spotty, and
somewhat effeminate in manner, he was unusually active
both in mind and body, being a
keen football-player, so long as he did not have to play in the sun, which hurt his eyes and made him sneeze and keeping himself fit by long evening walks and
runs. He belonged very decidedly to Rome’s fashionable young intellectuals, spoke
Greek fluently, tried his hand at writing plays and poems, and, like the
members of the modernist movement today, cultivated an easy vernacular style
free from the sort of grandiloquence that Antony loved. He dressed
untidily, allowed his fair, yellowish hair to fall into its natural waves
without care, and was erratic about his meals, having a poor appetite and little sense of time. He had
superb confidence in himself, was callous and inclined to be cruel, and, at
this period of his life, was devoid of sex morality, being unpleasantly
familiar both with men and women.
Antony had only met him occasionally, and had never regarded him as a
serious factor in the situation; but now the stories he heard about him were
not a little alarming. Caius Antonius, the Praetor, reported that the young man
had come to him at a public meeting, and, having asked to address the people,
had promised the crowd that he himself would be responsible for the payment of
the three-hundred sesterces to every townsman. Lucius Antonius, the Tribune,
reported, likewise, that Octavian had addressed the Comities making the same
promise, and uttering a bold and sincere panegyric upon the dead Dictator which
had been much resented by Dolabella. Just before Antony’s return, moreover, Octavian
had almost caused a riot at a public function by asking to have Caesar’s golden
throne brought out, this being refused by some of the republican Tribunes
amidst the loud applause of the senators.
The situation was almost ludicrously triangular. Antony, upholding the
democratic cause in the name of the murdered Dictator, was aiming at the future
discomfiture of the assassins and their conservative sympathizers so soon as
the immediate danger to the nation’s peace was averted; and he was bent on
retaining the supreme power in his own hands as the late Caesar’s friend,
Consular colleague, and trustee. He was in possession of the dead man’s papers,
personal valuables, and so much of his fortune, outside the share bequeathed to
Octavian and his cousins, as could be realized; and Calpurnia, the widow, and most
of Caesar’s relatives, regarded him as the guardian of their rights.
Dolabella, Antony’s personal enemy, represented the other faction,
and had now been confirmed by them in his office as joint-Consul, and was doing
his best to have the conspirators restored to public favor. And now into these
troubled waters this boy, Octavian, had come fishing, and would soon be asking
Antony to hand over Caesar’s remaining money so that the bequests might be
paid. Octavian, it was true, was rich enough to pay the legacies out of his own
fortune, for his grandfather had been a millionaire money-lender; but it was
not to be expected that he would thus impoverish himself.
Antony’s policy was clear: much as it went against the grain, he would
have to patch up his quarrel with Dolabella, and attempt to regain that
position of impartiality which he had held in the first days after the
assassination. The audacious Octavian would have to be squeezed out: there was
no room for him in Rome.
A few days later Antony received from the young Caesar a request for an
interview, and, in a very bad temper, told him to come to his house—that same
house which had once belonged to Pompey. There he purposely kept him waiting in
the anteroom for a long time, and at last, ordering him to be ushered in, asked
him how he was and what brought him to Rome; but before Octavian had fully
stated his purpose, which was to see to the carrying out of the terms of Caesar’s
will, Antony cut him short with an uncomfortable laugh, and asked him somewhat
blusteringly how at his age he dared to take up the responsibilities of this
heritage, when, as he could see for himself, grown men who were tried in battle
and were used to politics needed all their courage and their experience to cope
with the dangerous situation. He advised the young man to settle his business
and get out of Rome as quickly as possible—before Dolabella, or somebody,
murdered him, I dare say he said; and, giving him a patronizing pat on the
shoulder, he hurriedly dismissed him before anything could be discussed.
The interview brought into Antony’s puzzled mind the consciousness that
Caesar had known what he was about when he had made Octavian his heir. This was
no ordinary youth: he had rattier a sinister character and an opinion of
himself which was disconcerting. The impression he left on the elder man was
unpleasant, and Antony seems to have had the feeling that his own game of
bluff, his attempt to scare his youthful visitor, had been a mistake. He ought
to have overlooked his age, and to have bargained with him as with a man of
affairs.
The next few days showed him clearly his error. It was reported to him
that Octavian was openly accusing him of having betrayed the memory of Caesar
by taking no steps against his murderers and by allowing the amnesty—Cicero’s
famous Act of Oblivion—to remain in force. The young man had gathered a group
of supporters around him, and was making violent speeches to the mob, urging
them to take vengeance on the conspirators and to brush Antony aside as one who
was too lukewarm to be their leader. He was declaring that he alone had the
right to act in Caesar’s name, and he was telling the delighted crowds that he
was prepared to sell everything he had to pay them the Dictator’s bequest,
which was being withheld from them only by Antony’s mishandling of Caesar’s fortune.
Caesar had been the People’s friend, but Antony was their enemy: he was a
traitor, willing to hobnob with the assassins so that by a compromise he might
keep the power in his own hands.
Antony was startled, and he at once counter-attacked by taking steps to
prevent the ratification of Octavian’s adoption into the family of the Caesars
when the measure should come before the Senate. At the same time he sent for
Dolabella, and suggested that in the face of the common enemy they should
compose their differences and work together. After all, I suppose he argued,
Dolabella had once been Caesar’s devoted friend, and it was only because the
Dictator, in the last months of his life, had slighted him that this quarrel
had arisen which had led Dolabella now to throw in his lot with the
conspirators. But had not Caesar also quarreled with Antony himself? They both
knew what sort of man Caesar had been, and how he: had dropped his friends
mercilessly when they stood in the way of his schemes; yet who could fail to
admire him, and, now that he was dead, what use was there in taking vengeance upon
his memory? Dolabella and Antony, as the two Consuls, ought to work together
for peace, and for the maintenance of that amnesty which alone at present could
secure it; and they should both do their utmost to suppress this youth who was
trying to throw the whole nation into confusion.
Dolabella was a man without scruples, and he seized the opportunity of
striking a bargain with Antony. His terms were quite concrete: he said that at
the end of his Consulship he wanted to be made governor of Syria the province
promised to Cassius—for a period of five years, so that, if circumstances
should permit, he might lead an expedition against Parthia and thereby gain
wealth and renown; and meanwhile he wanted a sum of money down. Antony agreed
to the terms, and thereupon Dolabella returned to his Caesarian allegiance,
never again giving Antony any cause for anxiety about him.
The next thing to do was to reorganize the Democratic Party, and to
draft as many loyal partisans as possible into the Senate. At the same time the
sympathies of the left wing were enlisted again by the framing of a new land
law through the agency of Lucius Antonius: its details are not known, but in
general it was a socialistic measure, something in the nature of the law put
forward by the Gracchi, and it involved the setting up of a commission with
power to buy land and to distribute it, together with some of the public
domains, amongst the needy.
Octavian retaliated by making overtures to the conservatives or republicans;
and the conspirators, seeing their opportunity, thereupon approached the young
man and urged him to join forces with them against their common enemy, Antony.
They tried to persuade him that although they had assassinated the Dictator,
and although he, as Caesar’s heir, had cause to regard them as family enemies,
nevertheless he and they had more in common than had he and the democrats. They
asked him to try to forget the murder and to unite with them against Antony’s
party; and Octavian, in view of the dangers of his position, readily agreed to make this unholy alliance. It was a
bewildering and ludicrous volte-face, and oblige him to show open friendship
to those very men upon whom he had so recently demanded vengeance. But he was
not embarrassed, at this period of his life, by any high principles, and
his quarrel with Antony guided his actions with a far more compelling hand than
that of his duty to the Dictator’s memory.
Cicero and the conspirators—Brutus, Cassius, and all the others who had
not left Italy—were now convinced that Antony intended to repeal the Act of
Oblivion and set the law in motion against them as soon as circumstances should
permit; and they were eager, therefore, to discredit him. Indeed, they heartily
wished that they had killed him when they had killed Caesar. It was owing to him
that their cause was in such bad shape, and they were constantly blaming one
another for having spared his life on the Ides of March. One hopeful sign,
however, had revealed itself, namely that Albinus, who had hurried from Rome to
take up the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, had reported that the legions there
had accepted him in spite of his being one of the murderers of Caesar. Another
point in their favor was that Caesar’s Parthian expeditionary force which had
seen a good deal of Octavian when he was with them at Apollonia, where they
still were stationed, had tentatively offered us loyalty to him in his trouble
with Antony, and might now follow his lead in making friends with the
republican party.
But in spite of these reassuring signs they were depressed and anxious,
and Cicero himself, who was always either in the heights or the depths, was at
present in the abyss of despair. He did not realize, however, that Dolabella
had wholly deserted them, and when it became known that the province of Syria
had fallen to him, Cicero offered to go there with him as his chief-of-staff.
The suggestion fell through, however, and the orator then began to consider the
expediency of a private journey into Greece, his object being to retire from
Italy until the troubles had blown over. His nerves had gone to pieces, and he
longed for the quiet of some Greek retreat, where, amongst the philosophers, he
might finish the charming book he was writing on the subject of Old Age.
Moreover, he was at this time weighed down with debt, for he always kept up a
style of living far beyond his means; and he longed to escape the increasing
attentions of his creditors. After much hesitation he sailed for Greece early
in August, telling his friends that he was going to see the Olympic Games.
Meanwhile in Rome Octavian’s mother, Atia, spread a curious story in
support of her son’s position as Caesar’s sole representative. She said that
before he was born, she fell asleep one day in the temple of Apollo, and dreamt
that that deity in the form of a fascinating serpent had caused her to be
unfaithful to her nuptial vow and had afterwards carried her procreative organs
up to heaven to be blessed. That same day, moreover, her husband had the startling
dream that the sun had risen from out of her midst, as though she were a range
of mountains lying along the eastern horizon. This tale was passed around the
city to the accompaniment of appreciative nods and exclamations, and it greatly
increased the young man’s prestige. He was given an ovation by the crowd at the
public games in July; and when it so chanced that a comet was seen in the evening
sky, and the quick-thinking Octavian had declared that it was assuredly the
soul of Caesar flying to heaven, the enthusiasm was intense. Octavian then
caused a statue of Caesar to be placed in the Temple of Venus, with a golden
star above its head—much to the annoyance of Antony, who felt that by such
actions the objectionable youngster was stealing his thunder.
To add to his troubles Antony was now having difficulty in dealing with
Brutus and Cassius whose continued presence in Italy was a very disturbing influence
upon the public mind. He proposed therefore that they should be sent abroad to
supervise the purchase of foreign corn, a mission which it was the custom to
place in the hands of men of standing. Brutus and Cassius, however, did not
care to be thus disposed of: they had many friends in the Senate, and they were
ever hoping that the republican party would become strong enough to effect
their entire rehabilitation.
At length Antony sent them peremptory orders to undertake this mission,
and in a letter to him dated August 4th they replied in a tone which revealed
their sullen and unbending attitude. “We have read your letter”, they wrote, “which
is insulting, intimidating, and in every way an improper one for you to have
written to us ... Our personal sentiments are these. We are anxious to see you
held in dignity and honor if it be in a free Republic. We do not invite your
antagonism, but, nevertheless, we value our liberty of action more than your
friendship. You should therefore consider again and again what you are doing,
and what your power is able to accomplish; and be sure you bear in mind not how
long Caesar lived, but how short a time he was able to behave like a king”.
This last remark was intended as a warning to Antony not to attempt to
play the autocrat; and the letter in general had the effect of making him
reconsider the matter of the corn-buying mission, for he was not yet ready to
come to blows with the conspirators: the danger from Octavian was too much of a
menace to his own position to permit him to think of himself as all-powerful.
Octavian was his most serious enemy; and his quarrel with this youth seemed
likely to wreck all his plans. His friends were constantly telling him to
beware of his young rival; but the more they did so the angrier he became.
At length Caesar’s old soldiers made up their minds to oblige him and
Octavian to compose their differences and work together for the good of the
State; and they therefore marched in a body to Octavian’s house. The young man
thought that his last hour was come when he saw this army approaching, and,
having shouted orders for the gates and doors to be bolted, he fled to the
roof. But when, to his great relief, he heard the soldiers cheering him, he
crept downstairs again and presently received the leaders of the demonstration,
who told him in no ambiguous terms that he and Antony had got to shake hands.
The soldiers, it seems, then marched to Antony’s house, who doubtless
fled, likewise, to the roof or the cellar, so uncertain was the temper of the
populace, and so prepared had he to be at all times to save his skin. It was a
nerve-racking life. When he understood their purpose, however, he sullenly
consented to meet Octavian; and amidst the cheers of the veterans he and his
embarrassingly young rival exchanged visits and agreed to work in harmony.
At about the same time Antony came to an agreement with Dolabella—in
their capacity as fellow-Consuls—in regard to the distribution of provincial
governorships at the end of the present year, 44 BC, or earlier, if necessary. Dolabella, as has already been said,
was to have Syria for five years, and was to be permitted to set out for that
province in the early autumn. Antony chose for himself Caesar s old province of
Cisalpine Gaul—northern Italy, that is to say—it being so close to Rome; and it
was arranged that Albinus, who was already there, should be transferred to Macedonia,
while the troops then in the latter country should be transferred to Cisalpine
Gaul to serve under Antony who proposed to hold that governorship, likewise,
for a period of five years. Brutus was to be got rid of by being given the
governorship of the island of Crete; and Cassius was to be sent off as
governor, it would seem, of Cyrene.
Now it so happened that Cicero’s voyage to Greece had been, delayed by
storms, and at length, after a bad tossing at sea, his ship had been driven
back to the Italian coast, where several days were passed in port waiting for
better conditions and a favorable wind. Here, however, he received news from
his friends that the Senate had been convened for September 1st, and that there
was hope then of gathering so strong a body of senators of republican views
that Antony’s plans might be brought to nothing. A copy of the letter of Brutus
and Cassius to Antony was also shown to him, and he was told that Antony had
seemed to take it so to heart that he was likely to abandon his pugnacious
attitude and to aim at some sort of compromise. Moreover, Cicero was informed
that his departure for Greece had been regarded as a sign of cowardice, and
that he was thought to have but repeated his unfortunate flight of fourteen
years earlier when his behavior in regard to the Catilinarian conspirators had
made him dangerously unpopular. Even his friend Atticus wrote to him in bitter
sarcasm, saying, “Very well, then, go, and desert your country: it is quite
right in the man who said he was not afraid to die for the fatherland!”
After renewed hesitation and indecision, therefore, he made up his mind
to abandon his journey, and to return to Rome for the purpose of encouraging
his party at this moment when Antony seemed to be amenable, and also in order
to attempt to detach Octavian from his new alliance. It was a bold step; but he
had been stung by the imputation of cowardice, and for once in his vacillating
career—and this, indeed, was one of the great moments of his life—he rose to the
occasion with a courage which goes far to outweigh his former weakness in
history’s estimation of his character.
“I see”, he had already written to Atticus, “that I shall run some
risks, but I cannot help thinking that it may lie in my power to do some good
for the State”. When he was warned that Antony might force him into subserviency,
he replied, “I know a better way than that”—meaning suicide; and when it was
pointed out that he might be driven into exile he answered, significantly, “I
look to another haven which lies handier to my time of life: all I wish is that
I may reach it leaving Brutus in prosperity and the Republic re-established”.
It is hardly to be supposed, of course, that he seriously contemplated suicide
that sequel of political defeat which Roman thought had made customary, for
there was considerable reason for hope that his party would come successfully
through this period of its difficulties; yet the risk of disaster in some form
was present, and his fine words had a closer relation to actuality than was
usual with him.
He arrived back in Rome on the last day of August and Antony was
irritated to find that he received a great welcome from the conservative party,
and that Octavian, too, paid his respects to him. The Senate, however, was to
meet next morning, September 1st, and Antony determined to snub the interfering
old orator on that occasion by putting forward various measures adverse to the
conspirators interests which the senators, he believed, would be obliged to
pass. One of these—a measure likely to delight the crowd was the proposal that
public prayers and supplications should be made to the spirit of Caesar as to
the immortal gods, for the Senate had already, before the assassination,
acknowledged his divinity, and the senators could hardly go back now on their
former admission, much as many of them might wish to do so. It gave Antony the
greatest pleasure to contemplate the discomfiture of Cicero, who would of
course be present in the Senate on the morrow, and would have either to
acquiesce in this measure or to oppose it publicly, in which latter case the
mob would be at his throat. It was a clever trap laid for him, and Antony
looked forward with enjoyment to the hour when it would be sprung.
But Cicero was not so easily caught. On his arrival at his house his
friends warned him of Antony’s plans, and a hasty conference of the
conservative party led to the decision that Cicero and the majority of his
colleagues should refrain from attending the sitting of the Senate. Next day,
therefore, most of the senatorial chairs were unoccupied, and a note was
received from Cicero saying that owing to the fatigues of his journey he was
confined to his bed.
Antony was furious, and his anger was increased when the rumor reached
him that Cicero had refused to come because he feared that violence would be
done to him by the Consul’s soldiers. In a passion of rage and disappointment
he addressed the nearly empty House, saying that this rumor was a dastardly
slander and belief in it an insult. The conservative senators, he declared, had
placed an unbearable slight upon him and the Senate by absenting themselves at
this opening meeting of the new session; and he would not tolerate it. He would
use all his Consular powers to oblige Cicero to come; and therewith he gave
orders that locksmiths and masons should be sent at once to the orator’s home
to break open its doors, while soldiers should bring him by force, or, failing
to find him, should burn his house to the ground.
The senators were shocked and frightened, and begged him to calm
himself; and at length Antony cooled down sufficiently to countermand these
wild orders, and to accept sureties for the orator’s good behavior. But he
declared that he would never forgive him; and, indeed, all men realized that
day that the quarrel between the Caesarian democrats and the anti-Caesarian
republicans had entered upon its crisis.
The issue was clear: on the one side was Antony the representative and
would-be preserver of the dead Dictator’s absolutism, the defender of that
paradox—a democratic autocracy, and with him the unwilling Octavian, forced now
to play second-fiddle; on the other side were the conservatives and the
conspirators, led by Cicero, representing the old republican ideals and bent
upon the recognition of Caesar as a tyrant justly slain. Antony stood for the
rescinding of the Act of Oblivion so soon as public calm could be established;
Cicero stood for the maintenance of that amnesty. Antony had the People solidly
behind him so long as their sympathies were not divided by any disagreement
between him and Octavian in the matter of leadership; Cicero was sure of the
support of the conservative upper classes.
It was to be a fight now to a finish between the republicans and the
democrats. Antony’s blood was up, and he guessed that Cicero, usually so
cautious, was in a similar state of ebullience; but in Octavian lay the danger.
How long would that pale-faced and sinister young man consent to occupy a back
seat?
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