THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARC ANTHONY

CHAPTER XIII

Antony's Alliance with Lepidus and then with Octavian;

and the Turning of the Tables upon Cicero.

43 BC

The news of the battle and of Antony’s precipitate retreat caused the most profound sensation in Rome. Cicero, of course, was overjoyed. He did not suppose for a moment that there was any chance of his enemy escaping: Octavian and Albinus would hunt him down, surely, without any great difficulty. The Republican Party was enthusiastic, and a crowd of its supporters congregated around Cicero’s house to give him an ovation. When he appeared before them, smiling, bowing, and waving his hand, they insisted upon carrying him through the Forum and up to the Capitol and back, cheering him and hailing him as their rightful leader. It was the greatest hour of his life, the crown of his career; and as he stood in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, returning thanks to the gods, the tears of pride flooding his eyes, and his vain old heart thrilling to the chant of triumph, he must have been completely unaware of the inherent dangers of his position. Had any soothsayer told him then that this high tide of his destiny was to be followed immediately by the ebb which was to carry him headlong to his pitiful doom, he would have laughed at him.

He was so transported by his own success and by the triumph of his party that he began on the instant to turn from his alliance with Octavian. The heir of Caesar had served his purpose, and it only remained now to take the young man by the shoulders and to propel him with benevolent but determined hands into that obscurity from which he had come. The triumph, in Cicero’s opinion, was the triumph of himself and of the cause of those republican conspirators who had destroyed Caesar. Antony, Caesar’s representative and political successor, was in flight; and Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son, must be sent about his business with no more than polite thanks for his aid. Rome, he felt, belonged now to himself, the wonderful Cicero, to Decimus Brutus Albinus, to Cassius, to Brutus, to the whole gallant band of Caesar’s assassins, and to the faithful Republican Party. The democrats were done for: there was no place for them nor for Caesarians of any kind, whether they were adherents of Antony or of Octavian.

At Cicero’s instigation, unprecedented thanksgiving-festivals were decreed, and the highest honors were voted to Albinus whose promotion to the position of Commander-in-Chief of all the Roman armies was at once proposed. But for Octavian no such rewards were forthcoming. “Practically every advantage”, says Dion Cassius, “which had been given to Octavian at Antony’s expense was now voted to others at Octavian’s expense; and they even undertook to overthrow him, setting his supporters at variance with one another and with him”.

But if Octavian’s democratic friends were thus slighted by the triumphant republicans, Antony’s were openly insulted, and went in danger of their lives. Julia, his now elderly mother, and Fulvia, his violent wife, were doubtless hooted and jeered at; and the five children of his household must have been in danger of rough handling. Four of these children, it will be recalled, were Clodius and Clodia, Fulvia’s little son and daughter by the late Clodius; Antonia, Antony’s daughter by the divorced Antonia; and Antyllus, Antony’s son by Fulvia. The fifth was a baby in arms, the little Julius Antonius, a second son presented by Fulvia to Antony. His prominent supporters, too, such as Calenus, were threatened with a terrible doom. Yet it is evident that a great part of the mob was still loyal to him; and, indeed, the Senate itself was not wholly with Cicero, nor in these first days of excitement could they make up their minds to pronounce the death-penalty upon Antony.

This hesitation induced the orator to deliver his Fourteenth Philippic, the last of the furious series. “You vote a Thanksgiving”, he protested to the senators, “and yet you do not name Antony an enemy. O, very pleasing indeed to the immortal gods will our Thanksgivings be with this omission, very pleasing to the spirits of our fallen soldiers! Antony, the foulest of bandits, is still in arms against us, and, although hastening to his destruction, still threatens all of us. Remember, I entreat you, what we have been fearing during these few days: which of you have been able to look at your children or your wives without weeping?—which of you have been able to bear the sight of your homes?—when all of us were dreading a miserable death at Antony’s hands, or meditating an ignominious flight. And shall we hesitate to condemn him now that he is in our power?”

He implored them to listen to his advice, reminding them of his right to speak as the hero of the hour. “Yesterday”, he said, “the Roman People carried me in triumph to the Capitol; and in my opinion it was a just, a genuine triumph, for if at a time of such general rejoicing they address their congratulations to one individual, surely that is a proof of his worth. It is indeed against my will that I remind you of this, but my indignation makes me boastful, which is very contrary to my usual habit”.

He then went on to say that lying rumors had been spread that he intended to make himself Dictator. “The idea of anyone being so wicked as to invent such a tale!” he cried. “Am I, who defeated and overthrew and crushed Catiline, a likely man myself to become a tyrant?” All he wanted, he declared, was to see the war continued to its end—the death of Antony. “Remember that, last December, I was the main cause of our recovering our freedom; that from January until this very hour I have never ceased to watch over the Republic; that it has been by my letters and my exhortations that all men in every part of the empire have been aroused to the protection of our country; and that I have always called Antony a public enemy, and have been opposed to any pretence of a peace which would be fatal to us”.

He next turned to the praising of the victors, speaking first of Albinus, to whose succor the others had gone, then of the dead Hirtius, next of the wounded Pansa, and finally of Octavian, but using no superlatives in reference to the last-named such as he had lavished upon him in his precious speeches. And in conclusion he asked that a magnificent monument should be erected to the Martian Legion which had deserted Antony, and that the services of the Fourth Legion should also be recognized although its casualties had been slight.

Not long after the delivery of this speech, however, came the disconcerting news that Pansa was dead, that Albinus, unaccountably delayed, had marched away in pursuit of Antony only after the latter had had at least two days start, and that Octavian had remained at Bologna, having been unwilling, or having failed to persuade his men, to take to the highroad. It looked as though Antony had made good his escape, and Cicero was deeply mortified to find that his paeans of triumph had been sung too soon.

Antony, indeed, had got clean away. Marching with his brother Lucius at the head of what remained of the Larks or Fifth Legion, the Second and Thirty-Fifth Legions, the Gallic and other cavalry, and the veterans of Caesar, he had taken the road north-westwards to Parma, which he reached on April 23rd. The town shut its gates to him, and as a punishment he pillaged it, some of the inhabitants being killed in the confusion. He then moved on to Placentia (Piacenza), and thence through Comeliomagus (Cicognola) to Dertona (Tortona) which he reached on the 28th. The road he had taken was the main inland route to Gaul, and had led him in a wide arc into the mountainous and desolate country behind Genoa. Now he had to march southwards and westwards and to cross the Maritime Alps, so that he might reach the coast and proceed along what is today the Italian Riviera; and it was here that the most perilous part of the journey began.

No army would have followed him into those rocky passes amidst the barren hills had the troops not loved and trusted him. He explained his plans to them: after crossing the mountains they would make their way beside the sea, through Nicaea (Nice), Antipolis (Antibes), and the other towns of the modern French Riviera, to Forum Julii (Fréjus, near St. Raphael), near which city Lepidus was stationed with seven of Caesar’s old legions. Lepidus had been Antony’s friend in the past, and even if he were now to wish to declare for the other side, it was probable that his legions would join up with Antony whom they had learnt to love in the wars in Gaul, and who had such a large force of Caesar’s ex-soldiers with him. Possibly the troops under Plancus, another of Caesar’s old generals, and brother of one of Antony’s officers, who were now m the neighborhood of Lugdunum (Lyons), would also join with them; and thus with an invincible army they would march back to Italy and carry all before them. Everything depended on the attitude of Lepidus and his men; but this risk Antony’s battered and weary troops were wining to take, and with dogged courage they began, on April 3oth, their ascent into the mountains.

“Antony in this march was overtaken by distresses of every kind”, writes Plutarch, “and the worst of all was hunger. But it was his character in calamities to be better then than at anytime; and in misfortune he was most nearly a virtuous man. It is common enough for people when they fall into great disasters to discern what is right and what they ought to do; but there are few who in such extremities have the strength to obey their judgment, and a good many are so weak as to give way to their habits all the more, and are incapable of using their brains. Antony, on this occasion, was a most wonderful example to his soldiers. He, who had just quitted so much luxury and sumptuous living, made no difficulty now of drinking foul water and feeding on wild fruits and roots. Nay, it is related that they ate the very bark of trees, and, in passing over the Alps, lived upon creatures which no one before had ever been willing to touch”.

He refused to shave or to have his hair trimmed so long as his men were in danger; and thus dirty and unkempt he trudged along all day, keeping step to the marching-songs of his dust-covered Larks, and eating with them as they sat under the stars around their camp-fires at night. It was urgently necessary that they should force their pace, in order to keep well ahead of the pursuing army; and there must have been many lamed stragglers, or men wounded in the recent fighting, who were left by the roadside, being unable to keep up with the hurrying host. On the other hand, however, some new recruits, or useful camp-followers were collected on the way by the commandeering of gangs of slaves who chanced to be working in the territory through which they passed; and, indeed, as Albinus reported to Rome, “Antony snapped up every kind of human being he came across”.

At last the weary and hungry troops came streaming down the mountain slopes to Vada Sabbatia (Vado Sabazia) on the sea-coast; and here, to Antony’s joy, he was met by a large force of Caesar’s ex-soldiers of the old Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Legions, who had been re-enlisted by one of his officers, Ventidius Bassus, too late, however, to help him at Modena. Upon hearing of his retreat these men had bravely marched by the lower route to join him, thus displaying a devotion to him and to his cause, even in defeat, which speaks highly for his personal character.

Being thus reinforced, Antony sent his brother Lucius ahead with the cavalry to Fréjus, which he reached on May 8th; and he himself meanwhile marched along the rocky coast with the infantry, arriving at Fréjus on May 15th, a little over three weeks after the departure from Modena. Here, to his dismay, he was told that Lepidus, on whose friendship he was relying, and who was encamped about a day’s march inland, was showing every sign of regarding him as an enemy. As a matter of fact, Albinus had written to Cicero immediately on discovering that Antony had marched away, saying: “I beg you to send a dispatch to Lepidus in order to prevent such a weathercock as he is from having a chance to ally himself with Antony and renew the war”. Cicero had done so, and had demanded this general’s loyalty in such stern terms that Lepidus had decided to support the republican party, more particularly since Antony appeared to be on the run. Plancus, also, was said to be definitely hostile, and, though Antony did not know it, had just written to Cicero, saying that he and Lepidus had agreed to work together to crush the fugitive.

At the same time Antony began to hear something of the movements of Albinus. Octavian had undoubtedly caused this general the greatest concern by refusing to join with him in the pursuit, and, actually, Albinus had written bitterly to Cicero, saying: “If Octavian had been willing to listen to me and to cross the mountains with me I would have been able to corner Antony, and make an end of him; but Octavian is no more willing to take orders from others than his army is willing to take orders from him.” Albinus had finally abandoned the attempt to catch up with the retreating enemy, and had headed inland for the Alpes Graie (the Little St. Bernard) or the Cottiae (Mont Cenis), with the idea of joining hands with Plancus who was moving along the valley of the Isere towards him.

Matters looked very bad, and Antony decided that the best thing to do would be to march his men close up to the army of Lepidus and to encourage them to renew old friendships with the soldiers of Caesar now serving therein, particularly with those of the Tenth Legion who had known Antony well in the Gallic wars and remembered him as their beloved Caesar’s closest and most trusted friend. After a rest of a day or two at Fréjus, therefore, he made the journey inland, and pitched his camp on the near side of a little brook called the Argenteus, on the far side of which the army of Lepidus was entrenched; but whereas Lepidus took the precaution of keeping his troops behind their earthworks as though expecting a siege, Antony boldly displayed his desire for friendly overtures by telling his men not to dig themselves in, but to try to fraternize with the soldiers on the other bank of the stream.

The orders of Lepidus, however, were strict; and for more than a week Antony’s efforts were frustrated. At length in despair he went down to the edge of the little river, and began to harangue the soldiers on the other side, who crowded together to listen to him. He had not yet shaved or cut his hair; and these men stared in amazement at the well-remembered, mighty figure of their old commander, who looked like a tragic Hercules as he stood before them, with his unkempt beard, his untidy locks, his travel-stained clothes, and his battered armor over which he had flung a dark cloak as a kind of symbol of mourning. Antony, as has already been said, was something of an actor; but the role he was now playing was so true a representation of his terrible plight that his sincerity was not in question. No sooner, however, had the matter been reported to Lepidus than he gave orders for the bugles to be blown so that Antony’s voice might not be heard; and presently, with a gesture of despair, the unfortunate speaker was obliged to abandon his efforts and return to his tent.

That night, however, two soldiers, presumably of the Tenth Legion, disguised themselves as women, and, coming across the stream, managed to obtain an interview with Antony, who told them an indignant story of how he had attempted to carry on Caesar’s work, how he had wanted to bring the assassins to justice, how Octavian had allied himself with the murderers of the great Dictator, and how, after the defeat at Modena, Antony had felt that his only refuge was with the troops of Lepidus, Caesar’s and his own old comrades. The two men then revealed to him the fact that the Tenth Legion at any rate, and probably the rest of the army, were ready to kill Lepidus and put themselves under Antony’s command, but that their desires were held in check by those of their officers whose sympathies were on the other side. They advised him to attack the camp next day, and promised that they would do all they could to stir up a mutiny.

To Antony, their message was like the voice of the immortal gods: it was like a repeal of his death-sentence; and with joy in his heart he sent them back to their fellows, telling them to do no injury to Lepidus, and promising that on the morrow he would ford the stream, and, even though it should cost him his life, demand an interview with their general.

He was as good as his word. Next morning, at the head of his men, he waded across the water, not knowing in the least whether an arrow or a javelin would end there and then his troubles; but before he had splashed his way half across the brook he saw the soldiers on the other side gathering to welcome him, holding out their hands to him, and breaking down the palisades which had been set up to defend the bank against attack. A few moments later he was in their midst, and he and his men were being hailed as long-lost friends.

Lepidus was in bed at the time, but without waiting to put on his general’s apparel, he hastened to the spot and threw his arms around the huge and bearded Antony. It would seem that he had been wavering for several days, but now the unanimity of his troops, and the realization that he would probably be murdered if he did not recognize the claims of Antony, had decided him. Antony saw at once that the camp and the whole army was his, yet he treated Lepidus with the utmost civility, calling him “Father” when he addressed him—for he was an elderly man—and insisting that he should retain the chief command of the united forces.

The jollification which followed was marred by one tragic incident. A certain officer, named Laterensis, had done his best during these last few days to keep Lepidus and his army faithful to the republican cause; and now when he saw Antony acclaimed he drew his sword and killed himself in their presence.

Subsequent events moved along an almost inevitable course. Lepidus at once wrote an apologetic letter to the Senate saying naively that pity for Antony had been too much for himself and his soldiers; and when this horrifying message was received in Rome in the early days of June, Cicero voiced the consternation of his party by demanding that he should be declared a public enemy. Lepidus, however, had many friends in high places: his wife was the daughter of Servilia, and was thus sister of Brutus and of Tertia, the wife of Cassius; and he had a brother, moreover, in the Senate who was a faithful supporter of the republicans. Thus it was not until the end of June that Lepidus was condemned—his brother being one of those who voted for this measure and not until the middle of July that he and his army received the notification of the fact.

Meanwhile Decimus Brutus Albinus had joined hands with Plancus at Grenoble, and they were thus in command of an army as big as that of Antony and Lepidus. From Rome the worried Cicero sent express messengers to Brutus in Macedonia and to Cassius in Syria, ordering them to march home to Italy as quickly as possible; and Sextus Pompeius, the son of Pompey the Great, was given command of the Roman fleets. Sextus was then a man of thirty-two years of age, who had maintained an independent fighting-force in Spain during the long period of exile which had followed the death of his father, but had been pardoned by Antony after Caesar’s murder, and had more recently been invited back to Rome by Cicero.

Octavian was still remaining inactive in Cisalpine Gaul, having made no move since the battle of Modena; but Cicero now cunningly proposed that he should be given the nominal command of the republican armies, so that the various legions which had sentimental associations with the late Caesar should feel that they still had Caesar’s heir at their head in spite of the fact that they were no longer serving the cause of the democratic party. The power of Octavian’s name as the Dictator’s heir was immensely valuable to the republicans in their struggle with Antony; and Cicero, in the altered circumstances, was not prepared yet to relinquish the use of it, much as he wished now to be rid of the tiresome young man himself.

Cicero, though painfully anxious, had no reason to despair. Apart from Octavian’ Albinus had ten legions; Plancus, now linked with Albinus, had five legions; Asinius Pollio, governor of Spain, who seemed to be loyal to the republicans, had three legions; Brutus in Macedonia had raised some seven legions; Cassius in Syria had at least ten legions; and there were other legions in North Africa and elsewhere who were apparently on their side. Nearly forty legions, in fact, were at the disposal of the republicans, against the fourteen under the command of Antony and Lepidus, and the two which were with Dolabella in Syria.

But Brutus did not obey the orders to come to Rome. He was not a man of war, and, anyhow, he had no wish to have any dealings with Octavian: he was willing to join forces with Albinus, his fellow conspirator, but not with Caesar’s heir. He preferred to await the coming of Cassius. Cassius, however, had his own troubles to delay his return. Dolabella had been trying to wrest the province of Syria from him, and, with his two legions and many local levies, was at Laodicea on the Syrian coast, not far south of Antioch. However, at about this time, Cassius overwhelmed him, and Dolabella brought his stormy life to a close by killing himself, after which Cassius began his slow march towards Italy.

Octavian’s attitude towards the republicans, however, gradually changed during this period of his idleness in Cisalpine Gaul. He realized that he was tolerated by his soldiers solely because he was the Dictator’s heir, and he saw that the republicans were only using him to retain the loyalty of Caesar’s old legions. More and more he disliked the thought of being allied with the Dictator’s assassins; more and more he mistrusted Cicero. A story was current in Rome that he, Octavian, had treacherously killed Hirtius at Modena, stabbing him from behind in the thick of the fight, and that he had poisoned Pansa. Tales of this kind must have seemed to him to have been invented by Cicero’s party to discredit him.

He began to wonder whether he were not on the wrong side, whether, in fact, he would not be in a more dignified position if he were to make his peace with Antony, who was, in any case, still so formidable. Some of the troops who had fought under him at Modena came from the town of Nursia (Norcia), between Rome and Cisalpine Gaul; and the townspeople had there erected a monument to their fallen comrades, bearing an inscription which said that they had died in the cause of liberty. Octavian now asked himself whether the cause of liberty had indeed been promoted by this battle; and, deciding, in his new temper, that it had not, he sent orders to these Nursians to obliterate the inscription. Then, when Lepidus privately wrote to him suggesting an alliance, he made up his mind to drop Cicero and the republicans at the first opportunity. The decision was rank treachery, but to us it is understandable and can be excused to some extent on the grounds that he was still a boy, and that an eleventh-hour recantation was better than the pursuing of a course forced upon him at a time of great danger to himself.

The two Consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, being dead Octavian now conceived the idea of having himself made Consul for the remainder of the current year, there being more than one precedent for the attaining of that position before the prescribed age; and a deputation of his officers thereupon went to Rome to demand the Consulship for him. Cicero had expected to be asked to accept a second Consulship, but this was not to the taste of Octavian, who proposed therefore that the other Consul should be his cousin, Quintus Pedius, one of Caesar’s grandnephews who had been remembered in his will, but who, being a timid man and desirous of keeping out of trouble’s way, had handed over his share to Octavian, saying that he had enough money of his own. Pedius was popular with the mob, because in 48 BC, he had brought about the death of Milo, the man who had killed Clodius, the People’s idol. Milo had gone into exile after the murder of Clodius, but had afterwards returned to Italy at the head of a band of outlaws; and Pedius had been instrumental in destroying him, thereby winning the approval of the rabble.

The republicans, however, could not tolerate the idea of Caesar’s two grandnephews being Consuls, and Octavian therefore marched his troops to Rome to make his demands in person. Cicero, of course, was distracted; and when the young man entered the city, and, after a dramatic and public reunion with his mother, Atia, and his half-sister, Octavia, held a reception of his supporters, the orator refused at first to pay his respects to him. At last, however, he called upon him, whereat Octavian made the cold remark that Cicero was the very last of his supposed friends to do so. On August 19th the boy was elected Consul with his cousin Quintus Pedius as his colleague; and thereupon the heart-broken Cicero retired to his country house at Frascati. The bright-hued bubble of his dream of personal power and glory had burst.

At about the same time the legions which Cicero had summoned home from North Africa arrived at the capital, having disembarked at Ostia, the port of Rome; and these men, being old soldiers of Caesar, joined with Octavian’s own forces in demanding that he should take a strong attitude against the republicans and the conspirators, and in begging him to ally himself with Antony. Thereupon he felt the time had come for him to declare himself as a democrat and as the Dictator’s avenger; and he immediately forced through the Senate a bill repealing the Act of Oblivion, and imposing the punishment of exile and confiscation of their property upon the assassins—Brutus, Cassius, Albinus, and all the others. It was a complete democratic and Caesarian coup, and the party of the republicans collapsed.

Pollio, on hearing of the edict, at once placed his three legions from Spain at the disposal of Antony and Lepidus. Plancus followed suit, and handed over three of his five legions. The ten legions of Albinus deserted him, four of them going to Antony and six to Octavian. Thus Antony and Lepidus suddenly found themselves in command of twenty-four legions and at least ten thousand auxiliary cavalry.

Albinus, exiled, and deserted by all but ten men, fled into the mountains disguised as a Gaul, cursing Octavian who had so suddenly betrayed him; but it was not long before a brigand chieftain captured him and his party, and sent a message to Antony to know what he should do with his important prisoner. Antony had for long determined to hound every one of the assassins to death, and for Albinus in particular he had no mercy in his heart—the man who had so infamously coaxed Caesar to come to the Senate to be killed, and who afterwards had caused Antony such miseries by resisting his claims to the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul. He therefore sent back word that the prisoner should be killed; but when Albinus was informed of his fate and was told to prepare to die the wretched man lost his nerve and burst into loud lamentations, whereat one of his faithful officers, Helvius Blasio by name, set him an example in fortitude by quietly committing suicide before his eyes. An hour or so later a messenger was on his way to Antony carrying Albinus’s head wrapped up in a parcel.

At the end of September Antony and Lepidus began their march back towards Italy with seventeen legions, the others having been left to garrison Spain and Gaul; and they sent messengers on ahead to Octavian to tell him that they were prepared to make an alliance with him, apparently on condition that he showed his good faith by causing the Senate to annul the decrees by which they had been made public enemies. This was done, Octavian’s soldiers, in fact, demanding it out of their love for Antony; and a meeting was arranged which was to take place on a tiny island at the confluence of the rivers Rhenus (Reno) and Lavinius (Lavino), not far from Bologna.

Octavian, who arrived first at the rendez-vous, took every precaution against treachery. He built two bridges, the one linking the island with the eastern bank of the river where his troops were encamped, and the other joining it to the western bank, where Antony's men were to be quartered; while on the island itself he erected a tent in which the terms of the alliance could be discussed. Messengers passing to and fro between him and Antony effected an arrangement as to procedure: Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus would leave their troops at a little distance and would each advance to the water’s edge with a bodyguard of three hundred cavalry, after which Octavian from the one side would cross the bridge onto the island unattended, and from the opposite side Antony and Lepidus, separately and alone, would cross to the meeting-place by the other bridge. All three were to be unarmed.

On the appointed day, which was at the end of October, the three generals made their appearance as arranged, and, leaving their escorts of cavalry, walked towards the bridges; but here they hesitated, Antony fearing an ambush, and Octavian fearing Antony. Lepidus, however, overcame the difficulty by boldly crossing the bridge and making a rapid inspection of the island and of the large tent which occupied most of its small area. Having satisfied himself that nobody was there in hiding he beckoned to Antony and Octavian to join him, and this they did, walking warily towards one another, and at last embracing in the manner which etiquette required. This embrace gave each of them an opportunity to feel for a hidden weapon upon the person of the other, and the action was at once so apparent that they abandoned all concealment of it and openly felt each other all over with their hands. Then the three of them entered the tent.

They were a remarkable trio. The mighty Antony, now clean-shaven once more, was a man of forty, as muscular and as bull-necked as any gladiator, yet having that easy grace of carnage and that lordly air of assurance which made him always so conspicuous. Octavian, who had recently attained his twentieth birthday, and had grown a little beard, was still a pale, unhealthy, untidy youth, worried-looking and older than his years, yet decidedly handsome and having the appearance of an aristocrat. Lepidus must have been over sixty years of age, but still had a thick crop of grey hair: he was a quiet, polite, gentlemanly personage of ancient patrician family, rather lazy, and having little strength of character visible in his kindly face, but a good deal of tact observable in his manner.

For two, or perhaps three, days this interesting trinity sat for hours in the tent, approached only at command by their servants, reviewing the whole situation, and adjusting their viewpoints one to the other. Antony’s position was unquestionably the strongest: he had ruled Rome single-handed both during Caesar’s absence and after his death, and he was accustomed to command. He was greatly beloved by the army; and although his drinking-bouts and his lapses into periods of idle and dissolute living had caused him to be regarded with apprehension by the more solid elements of Roman society, his ability to play the man in times of difficulty had raised his reputation to great heights. In general he was the most popular figure of the age, and the fall of Cicero and the Republican Party had removed all his enemies from his immediate path.

This being so he dominated the conference and was in a position to oblige Octavian to accept only that share of the power now in their hands which he himself did not want. It was agreed that the three of them should form a Triumvirate which was to last five years, each having the title of Triumvir, and that the government of Rome and Italy should be conducted by them in concert, but that the rest of the empire should be parceled out between them into three spheres of influence. Brutus, Cassius, and the other conspirators were in control of Greece and the eastern dominions; but the rest of the world outside Italy was theirs to divide. Antony demanded and received as his share (Cisalpine Gaul and all that part of Gaul Proper which Caesar had conquered. Lepidus was given control of Gallia Narbonensis (Southern France) and Spain. Octavian took Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and North Africa, the least important of the three divisions.

It was agreed that while Lepidus should remain as their acting partner in Rome with three legions to support him, Antony and Octavian should each command an army of twenty legions—forty in all—and should set themselves to the immediate task of overthrowing the conspirators and reconquering Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and the other parts of the eastern empire. Octavian undertook to resign the Consulship which he had held for the last two months or so, and that office was to be given to the heroic Ventidius Bassus in reward for the service he had rendered to Antony in bringing three legions to his aid. The Consulships for the following year, 42 BC, were to be held by Lepidus and Plancus. It was finally agreed that Octavian should cement his alliance with Antony and the Democratic Party by marrying Clodia, Antony’s step-daughter, the daughter of his wife Fulvia by her earlier marriage with Clodius, that violent demagogue who had met his death in 52 BC.

The girl was probably no more than about twelve years of age or so, and it may be said in anticipation that the marriage was never consummated; but its political significance lay in the fact that Clodia’s father was remembered as the hero of the popular party, the beloved leader of the People. She was the darling of the mob; and, in marrying her Octavian linked himself not only with Antony’s household, but with the masses. In fact, I think the union must have been suggested by Octavian rather than by Antony, for the former profited by it, politically, more than the latter.

Then came the question of the punishment of the chief men in the republican party, the leaders in the movement which had caused the death sentence to be passed first upon Antony and then upon Lepidus. Antony, of course, was not going to show any mercy to Cicero, the man who had frenziedly demanded his death in those terrible Philippics which had poured such filthy and such lying abuse upon him; and now he insisted that the old orator should be put to death. The quarrel between the two men had passed beyond the limits of any possible accommodation: Cicero had done his passionate best to kill Antony, and now Antony would kill Cicero. It was a case of tit for tat.

Lepidus, on his part, was determined to revenge himself upon his brother who, as a senator, had voted for the death sentence against him proposed by Cicero; and he now demanded that this brother of his should die. Octavian, meanwhile, wished to be revenged upon Lucius Caesar, Antony’s mother’s brother, who in some way now forgotten had worked against the interests of the young man, and had thrown in his lot with Cicero.

It was arranged, therefore, that these three men, and about a dozen others, should be immediately executed without trial. A terrible list of some three hundred republicans was then drawn up, at least a hundred of whom were senators; and it was agreed that these unfortunates should be put to death as soon as the absolute authority of the Triumvirate had been established. The mob in Rome which had always hated the capitalists and the aristocrats, and had lately begun to idolize the memory of Caesar as the friend of the People, was thirsting for vengeance; and this wholesale slaughter of the republicans was expected to delight them. The precedent set by Sulla was closely followed, and just as he had proscribed all the important men in the democratic camp, and had practically wiped that party out, so now, with equal savagery, it was to be the turn of the democrats to make a clean sweep of the republicans.

An ugly feature of this shocking proscription was the fact that since the property of the condemned was to be confiscated, and since the Triumvirate was in urgent need of funds with which to pay the promised rewards to the legions, many of the victims were selected because of their wealth. The Triumvirs not only desired vengeance for Caesar’s death and for their own past misfortunes, they not only wished to establish the democrats and the Caesarians as the sole rulers of the empire: they also wanted money; and the urgent need for it, rather than the particular guilt of the persons chosen for the extreme penalty, compelled them to write name after name into that awful list.

The conference seems to have ended about November 1st or 2nd, but for a few days longer messengers passed between the three Triumvirs, and visits were exchanged, while final plans were made. At last, orders were sent to Pedius, the Consul in Rome, to carry out the immediate execution of the first small batch of the condemned; and these instructions were received by him shortly before the middle of the month, giving him a shock which threw him into a state of extreme nervous agitation. With dismay in his heart he issued the necessary commands, and within a few hours the heads of four of the victims were brought to him. That night, while search was being made for the others, the wildest panic broke out in the city, and Pedius, breathless with anxiety, was obliged to go about the streets, attempting to calm the people, to check the bloodthirsty ferment of the mob, and to prevent a wholesale flight of republican senators and officials. Next morning, on his own authority he issued a statement saying that these few men were alone to be proscribed, and that nobody else need have any fear. Throughout the day he was besieged by persons asking for further information or for protection, and so great was the general excitement that he himself was keyed up to a pitch which his constitution could not endure. He had not closed his eyes all night, and the horror of the duty imposed upon him of searching for and carrying out the execution of Cicero and other men so recently great, drove him almost frantic. Before the day was out his overtaxed heart stopped, and he fell dead.

Cicero and his brother Quintus were at Frascati when runners brought the news that both of them were condemned; and therewith in bewildered anguish they fled towards the sea, hoping to find a boat to carry them to Brutus in Greece, and when the soldiers arrived at the house their prey had disappeared. Meanwhile another band of soldiers was chasing the proscribed Lucius Caesar through the streets of Rome. He took refuge at last in the house of his sister Julia, Antony’s mother; and when the search-party demanded admittance, she barred their way, crying out: “You shall not kill him until you have first killed me, the mother of your general!” Lucius, it will be recalled, had been proscribed by Octavian; and it may be that Antony had sent secret word that he was to be allowed to escape: at any rate the soldiers retired, and Julia kept her brother safe in the house, and ultimately he was pardoned by Antony, much to Octavian’s annoyance.

On November 24th Octavian entered Rome, bringing with him one legion; on the 25th Antony marched into the city with a similar force; and on the 26th Lepidus arrived, also with one legion. On the 27th a law was passed confirming the establishment of the Triumvirate for a period of five years, namely until the close of the year 38 BC; and therewith the proscriptions were published, a reward being offered for the head of each man named in the list, and the penalty of death being decreed against those who should aid in the escape of any of them.

Then followed scenes the like of which Rome had not beheld since the time of Sulla—scenes as terrible as those enacted in the French Revolution. Some of the victims fled in disguise, and not a few of them made their escape. Some hid themselves in the hypocausts under the rooms of their houses, the low tunnels, that is to say, through which the hot air from the furnaces was radiated in winter beneath the floors; and some crept into the drains and public sewers. Some defended themselves in their homes, and died fighting; others were killed by their slaves, though there are one or two cases on record in which a slave dressed himself in his master’s clothes and perished in his stead; while yet others, frantic to be done with the horror of their suspense, killed themselves or hastened to meet their executioners.

A certain elderly man of wealth flung all his valuables into the street, so that the townspeople rather than the Triumvirs might possess themselves of his treasure; and then set his house on fire, and threw himself into the flames. In a few cases wives betrayed the husbands whom they disliked; but in general it is said, the women were more faithful to their men than the sons were to their fathers, there being a remarkable number of instances in which the younger generation turned upon the elder, a fact which perhaps indicates that the youth of Rome was violently Caesarian.

Daily the soldiers passed through the streets to the Forum carrying sacks of heads which were to be exhibited upon the rostra; but whereas in the days of Sulla it was the upper classes who gloated over the spectacle of the slaughter of the leaders of the People, now it was the mob and the popular party who cheered the arrival of every new consignment of these severed heads of the aristocrats and the republicans, regarding them with almost religious frenzy as a bloody sacrifice to the spirit of the divine Caesar, the People’s lost leader. Democracy had triumphed, and Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian were hailed as their deliverers from the rule of the conservatives who had murdered their hero and had trampled upon their liberties. The money confiscated from the wealthy victims was to be distributed amongst the common soldiers—this the rabble knew, and they hoped that some of it would also come their way. A democratic redistribution of the riches of the capitalists was taking place; and the crowds hooted and groaned their delight as each new head of a rich man was added to the ghastly array.

Antony and Lepidus, it is said, were easily persuaded to pardon some of the proscribed, or to wink at their escape; and the youngest of the Triumvirs was occasionally induced by his half-sister Octavia to spare those who had aroused her pity. But, in general, Octavian was far more ruthless than his two colleagues; and his pitilessness is sometimes described as having been very close to madness, an attitude, however, which may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that he was painfully aware of being suspected by the masses because of his former alliance with Cicero’s party. He wished to prove himself the most ruthless avenger of the dead Dictator, the true inheritor of Caesar’s leadership of the People; and, being so young, he was more fully carried away by the popular clamor than were either of his more experienced colleagues.

Meanwhile, Cicero and his brother Quintus, as has been said, had fled from Frascati. Their plan was to make their way south-wards to the island of Astura (Torre d'Astura) at the mouth of the river of the same name, where Cicero had a villa. The distance was no more than thirty miles, and the slaves were sufficiently attached to the family to be trusted to carry the two fugitives thither in their litters; but as they approached their destination the brothers began to realize a fact which had been overlooked in the hurry of their departure, namely that a great deal of money would be required to bribe those persons whose help they might need. It was therefore suggested that Quintus should go back to get the money, it being the custom of the time for every man of means to keep a chest or jar of gold coins concealed in some part of his house in case of emergencies; and this task Quintus bravely undertook, the two brothers bidding goodbye to one another with many tears, for they must have known that there was very little hope. Quintus, in fact, sealed his fate by his courageous action; for his slaves betrayed him, and he and his son were both killed.

Cicero reached Astura without mishap, and, too frightened to wait for Quintus, immediately boarded one of his own ships and sailed with a favorable wind as far as Circaeum (Circello), about half way between Rome and Naples. He was, however, completely unnerved by his terrible situation, and could make up his mind neither to proceed nor to wait for his brother, nor yet to put an end to himself. All his life he had found it hard to come to a decision in crises, and now his hesitation and perplexity were more pronounced than they had ever been before. According to the code he had always preached, his means of escape was suicide; and at last in a burst of courage he ordered his men to put him ashore and to carry him back to Rome. He would make his way secretly, he said, into Octavian’s house, and there kill himself before the altar of the household gods of the Caesars, thereby, as the popular belief declared, bringing a curse upon the persons of the family of the young scoundrel who had delivered him over to Antony’s vengeance.

But after he had gone a short distance along the road to the capital, fear seized him and he went back to the ship, whereon he was taken to Caieta (Gaeta), near Formiae (Mola), where he had another house, “an agreeable retreat”, says Plutarch, “where, in the heat of summer, the Etesian winds are so pleasant”. Here, once more, he insisted upon landing, crying in the last sorry exercise of his imperishable vanity, “Let me die in the country I have so often saved”. There was a little temple of Apollo in the grounds of this villa, overlooking the sea; and as his ship approached the shore a number of black crows arose from the trees around it and with a great cawing and flapping of wings alighted on the rigging. This was taken to be a sign that a further voyage by this particular vessel was likely to end in disaster, Cicero, being thus confirmed in his determination to land; and, going ashore, he entered the house, and flung himself down upon a bed, soon falling asleep from sheer exhaustion.

As he slept, the crows cawed dismally around the open windows, and one of them even entered the room, upon seeing which the faithful slaves determined to take him from so ill-omened a place. Arousing him, therefore, they persuaded the bewildered and frightened man to get into his litter so that they might carry him to another vessel moored some distance along the coast; but while they were making their way under the trees by a path which led through the grounds, the local soldiery, informed of his arrival, hastened to the house, and, receiving no answer to their summons, broke the door open and entered.

There was a young manumitted slave, a studious youth, named Philologus, who lived on the estate and in whose education Cicero had taken a personal interest. The officer in command of the soldiers asked him where his master was, and the terrified Philologus gave the required information, whereupon the soldiers ran off in pursuit of their victim. Cicero heard their shouts in the distance; and suddenly, in the realization that the end was nigh, his fear left him, and his composure came back. He told the slaves to put down the litter and when they had done so he sat quietly in it, his elbows on his drawn-up knees, his left hand stroking his unshaven chin, and his tired eyes fixed thoughtfully upon his approaching executioners. It is evident that he was utterly weary, and yearned with all his heart to be dead.

The officer, sword in hand, ran at him; and Cicero with perfect dignity bent his head and extended his neck to receive the blow, “Of all his misfortunes”, wrote Livy, “death was the only one that he bore like a man”. His slaves turned away covering their faces, as the sword fell.

Orders had been given that the orator’s right hand, with which he had written the Philippics, should be struck from the body as well as the head; and when these were brought to the Triumvirs in Rome Antony uttered an uncomfortable laugh, and, to put the best face upon a shameful business, cried “Now there can be an end of our proscriptions!”—at the same time telling his men to place the head and the hand upon the rostra with the rest of the collection, that all men might know the penalty of double-dealing and lies. But when they brought Philologus forward to receive his reward, Antony angrily ordered him to be handed over to Pomponia, Cicero’s sister-in-law, the wife of Quintus, and this frenzied woman is reported to have put him to death with fiendish tortures. Fulvia, however, was more savage than her husband, and it is said that she took hold of Cicero’s severed head, spat at it, and thrust one of her hairpins through the tongue which had maligned Antony.

Some years later, when Octavian had become the Emperor Augustus, he happened to come upon a youthful member of his family who was reading one of Cicero’s works, and who immediately hid the book, thinking that the Emperor would be displeased. But Augustus demanded it of him, and having turned the pages over thoughtfully, reading a paragraph here and there, handed it back, saying “My child, this was a great orator; a great orator, and one who loved his country well”

CHAPTER XIV

The War against Brutus and Cassius and the Destruction of the Republican Party. 42 BC