CHAPTER II

THE TRIUMVIRS

 

 

I. ANTONY IN THE EAST

 

THE true story of Antony and Cleopatra is largely lost. Something can be made of Antony down to 35, where Appian ceases; but of Cleopatra we know comparatively little until the last scenes in Alexandria, when Plutarch, heretofore hostile, begins to use the Memoirs of her physician Olympus. The surviving ac­counts of her in our late sources largely represent the victor’s version; they freely pervert motives and reasons, and have in­corporated much of the debris of an unscrupulous propaganda war; contemporary evidence from the East is very scarce, but what exists hints at something so different from the Cleopatra of Roman tradition that, in the present writer’s opinion, there is small chance of the usual portrait of her being true. But there is little to put in its place; the material does not exist. The excellence of Appian on the Civil Wars might lead one to regret the loss of his Aegyptiaca, which portrayed Cleopatra; but though Appian of Alexandria, who still referred to the Ptolemies as ‘my kings,’ might have given a more sympathetic account, he would no longer have had Pollio behind him, and the Aegyptiaca might well therefore have been no better historically than the Syriaca.

Philippi showed that the Caesarian party was dominant in the State and Antony was the most powerful man in that party. In the written compact drawn up after the battle the prestige of the victory gave him first place and first choice. What that choice was has already been seen; but though Italy was to be common ground and the settlement of the veterans a common task, Antony in taking the East made the mistake of allowing Rome to accustom itself to Octavian as ruler and the veterans to look to him as settler. Provided that he and Octavian did not come into conflict the East offered him certain advantages—science and administration, wealth and commerce (both some­what impaired), potential sea-power; but in fact, though not on paper, he surrendered the most effective sources of man-power to Octavian. And whatever compacts might be made, there were already observers who saw that two men attempting to share the supreme power must ultimately fight for it.

But years were to pass before Antony should seek the supreme power for himself, and then not of his own initiative. He was born to be second, not first; as he had been with Caesar, so he was to be with Cleopatra and Octavian. Though he remained a blunt jovial soldier, the darling of his troops, whom he understood and cared for, he had some statesmanlike qualities; in politics at Rome since Caesar’s murder he had shown rapidity of decision and resource, he could pick capable subordinates, and much of his ultimate organization of the East was to endure, though under another. But his nature was full of contradictions. Cruel enough when roused, he soon returned to his usual good­nature; sometimes great in adversity, in prosperity he preferred luxury and amusement; straightforward and often loyal himself, he trusted others and was easily flattered and deceived. His worst trouble was women; they existed, he believed, for his pleasure, and they had given him ample reason for his belief. He boasted his likeness to Hercules, but his strange disharmonic face, too long between eyes and mouth, reflected the discontinuity of his life; outbursts of energy alternated with periods of self-indulgence, and he could not follow an unswerving course or lay solid foundations for what he sought to build. For though he desired power, it was largely for the sake of pleasure; hence he himself might have been content with half the world, had he not been caught between two stronger natures.

He landed at Ephesus, where the people welcomed him as a new Dionysus; Roman governors had long been worshipped in Asia, and the Ephesians were only trying to please their new ruler and expressing the hope that he would be as beneficent as the god. The greeting did not affect Antony’s own position or make him divine, but it chimed with his mood; he wished to be accepted in Asia as a philhellene and man of culture, and he rewarded Ephesus and some other cities which had suffered at Cassius’ hands; Athens received Aegina and some small islands; Rhodes got Andros, Naxos, Tenos, and Myndus; Lycia was freed from taxation and invited to restore Xanthus; Laodicea and Tarsus were made free cities and Tarsus was presented with a gymnasium. He summoned delegates from the cities to Ephesus: they represented the Diet (koinon) of Asia, model for many other Diets, but whether Antony now founded it or whether it already existed is uncertain; certainly its function as a vehicle of the official religion dates from Augustus. But the delegates found him anything but beneficent; as he told them, he had to have money, and after praising the generosity of the Roman (i.e. Seleucid) system of taking a tenth of the harvest (which made the Government true partners with the peasantry, sharing losses) as against the Attalid system of a fixed payment, he ended with a brusque demand for the same sum as they had paid to Cassius, ten years’ taxes down. The orator Hybreas of Mylasa had the courage to voice the general despair, and Antony reduced the demand to nine years’ taxes, to be paid in two years; probably he never got so much, for Cassius had plundered well. After leaving Ephesus he made the usual governor’s tour of Asia Minor, holding courts in the chief cities; his judgments were equitable enough, though cities and dynasts were alike called upon for money; he was however slack with his followers, who plundered freely, and what money he did get he sometimes, in his easy fashion, gave away. But he had realized the weakness of the triumvirs at sea, and he used part of the money to build 200 ships.

In Bithynia he met Herod. Hyrcanus, the High Priest governing Judaea, had sent to Ephesus to ask for the return of Cassius’ Jewish prisoners, which was granted. Emboldened by this, Hyrcanus—or rather the Jews, for he was a cipher—sent again to Antony in Bithynia to accuse Herod, the son of Hyrcanus’ dead Idumaean vizier Antipater, of aiming at sole power, and Herod came to defend himself. He made on Antony an impression of strength and usefulness which was never to fade, and the complaints against him were dismissed.

As regards the client-kings, Antony’s policy was to make no change till he learnt better how things stood; in a peaceful age this would have been sensible, but after the recent troubles drastic reorganization was needed, and his policy gives an unfortunate impression of laziness. These subject-allies were important to Rome, for in return for the title of king and a free hand in internal matters they guarded the frontier or bridled the local hill-tribes, sparing Roman officials and Roman lives. Their armies were at Rome’s disposal, they often paid tribute, and Rome could remove them at pleasure; but it was fixed Roman custom that, if one were removed, the crown was given to another member of the royal house. When one died, his successor had to be approved by Rome. The two important client-states in Asia Minor at this time were Galatia and Cappadocia. Galatia, besides the country properly so called, included inner Paphlagonia and the eastern part of what had once been the kingdom of Pontus, the country about Pharnaceia and Trapezus; while the kings of Cappadocia also ruled Armenia Minor, which made them responsible for the safety of the frontier along the Upper Euphrates. The king of Galatia, the old Deiotarus, had sent his troops to Cassius under his secretary Amyntas; but Amyntas had gone over to Antony at Philippi in time, and Deiotarus kept his kingdom. But on his death in 40 Antony divided it; Deiotarus’ grandson Castor succeeded to Galatia proper, while another grandson, Deiotarus Philadelphus, received Paphlagonia; Galatian Pontus Antony gave to Darius, a grandson of Mithridates Eupator. In Cappadocia Ariarathes X had succeeded in 42, but the line of priest-kings in Comana had long been pretenders to the crown. Comana was at present occupied by a young man, Archelaus (Sisines), grandson of the Archelaus who for a moment had been king of Egypt, together with his mother Glaphyra, whom Greek cities called queen. Whether Antony had an intrigue with Glaphyra or not (the evidence is poor), it did not affect his policy, for he confirmed Ariarathes on the throne; Appian’s story that he encouraged Archelaus without removing Ariarathes, i.e. staged a civil war in Cappadocia with Parthia threatening, is impossible.

But there was a client-queen of Rome who stood on a different footing from these petty rulers, Cleopatra VII of Egypt. Antony summoned her to Cilicia to answer the charge that she had aided Cassius; and in the late summer of 41 he was at Tarsus, awaiting her coming.

 

II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

 

Cleopatra was now 29, the age, says Plutarch, at which the Graeco-Macedonian woman was at her best, both in mind and body. By descent half Macedonian and (apparently) half Greek, with a slight tinge of the Iranian, she was by instinct, training, and pride of race a Macedonian princess; Romans called her an Egyptian simply as a term of abuse, like Dago, for she had no Egyptian blood. She was not especially beautiful, but she had a wonderful voice and the seductiveness which attracts men, and she was intensely alive, tireless and quite fearless; even her wretched coin-portraits have occasionally preserved traces of the eager vitality of her face. Apart from her attractions, she was highly educated, interested in literary studies, conversant with many languages, and a skilled organizer and woman of business. Brought up at a corrupt Court, she knew no conventions and few scruples; the moral code had little meaning to her; she was her own law. But she was to be a loyal wife to Antony, though certainly she did not love him; perhaps she never loved any man; her two love affairs were undertaken quite deliberately, with the same purpose as all her actions. For the keynote of her character was not sex at all, but ambition—an ambition surpassing that of any other princess of her ambitious Macedonian race; and the essence of her nature was the combination of the charm of a woman with the brain of a man, both remorselessly bent to the pursuit of that one object, power.

The belief that she was unpopular in Egypt is unfounded. She was unpopular with the faction in the capital which had supported her sister Arsinoe, and probably unpopular with some Alexandrian Jews (not with all Jews), perhaps because they, as non-citizens, had once been excluded by her, as they were later by Germanicus, from a distribution of corn to citizens of Alexandria during a famine; but the evil spoken of her by the Jewish Josephus is largely taken from Nicolaus, who after her fall had gone over to her enemy Herod, and only represents what was current at Herod’s court. But outside Alexandria she was certainly popular in Egypt, especially with the native Egyptians. From 216 to 86 native risings against the dynasty, centred in Upper Egypt, had been endemic; not only were there none in her reign, but at the end Egypt offered to rise for her, and, though she forbade it, Upper Egypt rose against the Romans as soon as she was dead. In her relations with the native Egyptians she seems to stand close to Alexander; and in some way she had won their confidence. One reason may have been that she could speak to them in their own language, a thing unique among monarchs of Macedonian blood; but much more important, probably, was her sympathetic attitude towards the native religion, which had laid its spell upon her. Alexander had sacrificed to Apis, but she went further: she began her reign by going to Upper Egypt, to the very centre of the old disaffection, and in person, at the head of her fleet and of the burghers and priests of Thebes and Hermonthis, escorted a new Buchis bull to his home; for Buchis, the sacred bull of Hermonthis, was the manifestation of the Sun-god Re, whose daughter she was. At Hermonthis she built a temple and her figure appears as the goddess Hathor in the temple at Dendera.

These facts amply disprove Dio’s story that she acquired her wealth by plundering native temples. Indeed in the first century a.d. it was believed that she was skilled in alchemy and could make gold, having been taught the sacred mystery of the philosopher’s stone by a ‘philosopher’ named Cornarius; the illustrations to her recipe for making gold still survive. The truth is that she possessed a great treasure accumulated by her predecessors, the famous Treasure of the Ptolemies; her father may have diminished it somewhat, but he had met most of his difficulties by debasing the coinage, a process she continued; she intended that her treasure should serve other ends than the restoration of a sound currency. Later times ascribed to her the authorship of a treatise, extracts from which survive, on weights, measures, and coinage in Egypt. Modern statements that the two famines in her reign were caused by the canals silting up through her neglect cannot be supported, for famine in Egypt depended upon the Nile not rising above the ‘cubits of death’, and there had been a great famine under Ptolemy III when presumably the canals were in good order. No doubt the agricultural system had deteriorated under the later Ptolemies, and Augustus found it advisable to clean out the canals; but one point of his measures was the deepening of them, which made a rise of 12 cubits at Memphis a full Nile as against the 14 of Ptolemaic times. But though Cleopatra did not attempt to restore the agricultural position to what it had been under the earlier Ptolemies, there seems no reason to suppose that she was negligent in her working of the system which she actually inherited; for in 32 and 31 she not only fed Antony’s great army and fleet but also presumably supplied the grain for his depots in Greece, which shows that Egypt was still producing a considerable surplus of corn. She put on her coinage the double cornucopiae of Arsinoe II, ‘Lady of Abundance’, and her one certain surviving rescript attests a care for agriculture, and relieves from unauthorized local taxation some Alexandrians engaged in that business.

Many things after her death show what Egypt, whether Greek or native, really felt for her. One man gave 2000 talents to ransom her statues from destruction. For a generation she remained ‘the queen’, whom there was no need to name; two generations later the Alexandrian grammarian Apion was championing her memory; her cult was still a living thing in the third century. Alone of Alexander’s successors she became a legend, like Alexander himself; and, besides her alchemy, there were attributed to her for centuries many of the great works of the past—the building of the palace and the lighthouse, the construction of Alexander’s Heptastadion, the creation of the canal which brought water into Alexandria. Even in the seventh century a Coptic bishop, John of Nikiu, said that none of the kings who preceded her wrought such deeds as she, and praised her as ‘the most illustrious and wise among women’, ‘great in herself and in her achievements in courage and strength’. But it is not only in her legend, or in her policy towards the native Egyptians, that she recalls Alexander. Mystically daughter of Re as he had been mystically son of Ammon, near to the gods as he had been, with dreams of empire that matched his own, there burnt in her a spark of the fire from his own flaming spirit, perhaps the only one of all his heirs whom his fire had touched.

The Roman story that she drank to excess may be noticed here, as it doubtless originated in a misunderstanding of her ring. She wore a ring with a figure of the goddess Drunkenness engraved on an amethyst, the stone of sobriety; and a contemporary epigram explains the contradiction to mean that on her hand Drunkenness herself had to be sober. This gives the meaning of the figure; it was that Sober Drunkenness, ‘mother of virtue’, which was to play such a part in Philo of Alexandria, and for long afterwards, as the expression of the Mystic Wisdom or divine Joy of Life. In origin it was connected, on the Greek side, with the ‘drunkenness without wine’ of the Bacchic women; and what the ring, which is called a ‘sacred possession’, presumably did signify was that Cleopatra, like Arsinoe II, was an initiate of Dionysus.

It is said that Antony, when in Egypt as Gabinius’ lieutenant, had been attracted by her as a girl of fourteen; but since then she must have often seen him in Rome, and she thought she knew what manner of man he was. She intended now to make use of him; as to his personality she had no choice, for if she wanted power she could only get it through the Roman governor of the East, whoever he might be. Had Antony been a different character, we might have seen a different Cleopatra—perhaps the friend of philosophers, perhaps the business woman who ran a wool-mill with her slave girls; as Antony loved pleasure, we see too much of the Cleopatra who, legend said, wrote a book on coiffures and cosmetics. But how far she really understood Antony’s contradictory nature may be doubtful; it was four years before she acquired any real influence over him, though of course events in Italy hampered her. She knew what she wanted, and thought she knew what Antony wanted; that she gave him, casting her bread upon the waters; she found it indeed after many days—when it was, for her, too late.

She had been in turn exile, client-queen, and potential mistress of the Roman world; she was now a client-queen again, but she did not mean to remain one. She came to Cilicia in response to Antony’s summons, and sailed up the Cydnus to Tarsus, adorned as Aphrodite, in her golden barge; Shakespeare has drawn that wonderful picture once for all. She took the upper hand with Antony from the first; when he invited her to dinner she declined, and made him come to her—the judge to the accused. All the resources of Greek imagination were lavished on the description of her banquets; if true, she would have needed to bring half the transports in Egypt. With the actual charge she hardly troubled herself; she had not in fact helped Cassius, as she proved without difficulty; but she wanted Antony at Alexandria, and took the shortest way by becoming his mistress. To be the lover of a queen flattered his vanity; he was ready to give her what she asked, provided it was no trouble to himself. She had never forgiven her sister Arsinoe (who had favoured Cassius) for her attempt on the crown of Egypt; she asked Antony to put Arsinoe to death for her, and that he did, tearing her from sanctuary. The Ptolemies had long practised dynastic murder, and Cleopatra had seen her father murder her elder sister, herself a murderess; in this matter she ran true to type, and the Antony of the proscriptions had no objections to offer. He also at her request executed Arsinoe’s governor in Cyprus, Serapion, for aiding Cassius, and a man who pretended to be her dead brother, Ptolemy XII. Before she left Tarsus she had his promise to visit her at Alexandria.

Antony spent little time in Syria. He confirmed on their thrones the two principal dynasts, Ptolemaeus of Chalcis, who ruled all central Syria with Damascus, and Iamblichus of Emesa; but he expelled some petty tyrants, who fled to Parthia. The Jews again tried to get Herod removed, but after consulting Hyrcanus he made Herod and his brother Phasael tetrarchs. He imposed heavy contributions, against which one city, Aradus, revolted, and he tried to get some money by a cavalry raid upon Palmyra, but the Palmyrenes had removed themselves and their belongings into Parthian territory. He made Decidius Saxa governor of Syria, left with him his two legions, composed of Cassius’ men, and hurried on to Alexandria, which he reached by winter. Caesar had entered Alexandria as a Roman magistrate, with the lictors before him; Antony entered without the lictors as a private man, Cleopatra’s guest, and the queen had achieved the first step; she was no longer a client-queen, but by Antony’s fiat an independent monarch.

They did spend the winter in extravagant festivities and amusements, and Antony did become leader of some gilded youths who called themselves ‘The Inimitables’, but exaggeration has entered into the things they did, both at Alexandria and later at Samos; for example, Cleopatra did not drink a pearl dissolved in vinegar, for vinegar does not dissolve pearls, and an acid that would destroy one, had she known of such, would have destroyed her also. What she was seeking was to make herself indispensable to him, both to guarantee her existing rule and to pave the way to something larger; she was his good comrade in all he did, whether hunting or fishing, whether the lecture room or the streets at night, though she did remind him that these things were folly and that his true quarry was thrones and empires. She probably suggested marriage, as she was ready to marry him without parley in 37; doubtless she impressed upon him the advantage to himself of controlling the wealth, resources, and organization of Egypt. But beyond that she could not go. Antony was not thinking of marriage; he was enjoying himself, as a successful warrior might; she did not even succeed in making herself indispensable. The two things certain are that he did not fall in love with her and that he got no money from her Treasury; she was keeping it for a definite purpose, but of that she naturally gave him no hint, for as yet he was loyal to his compact with Octavian.

That loyalty explains his attitude towards events in Italy. He had known in the autumn that his wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius were making trouble, and during that winter the Perusine War was fought; but he did not intervene. The theory that he let Fulvia attack Octavian, meaning to reap the benefit if she won, supposes a duplicity quite foreign to his character; the theory that he dared not face the troops in Italy without the money he ought to have collected for them overlooks the fact that he did face them empty-handed a few months later. In fact he knew nothing of the war; his last advices from Italy before navigation closed were sent off just after the arrangement of Teanum, when all seemed settled. He did not seek further information, because Octavian had accepted the task of settling Italy, and to deal with any troubles which arose was not only his duty but his right; and with that right Antony did not propose to interfere. What drew him from Alexandria was the news, received in February or early March, that the Parthians had invaded Syria. He hurried north at once, and nearly four years were to pass before Cleopatra saw him again. She kept herself informed of his doings through an Egyptian astrologer in his train, whose business was to impress upon him, in carefully veiled language, that to get free play for his own lofty personality he must break loose from Octavian. Probably she believed, from the political position, that he would have to return to her; but the world had no reason to think so, and only saw in her another of his discarded mistresses. After he left she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.

Antony sailed to Tyre, learnt of the defection of Saxa’s troops, and went on to Asia Minor, collecting his fleet. Censorinus in Macedonia was facing an invasion of the Parthini, and there was nothing Antony could do till he got men from his western provinces, where he had twenty-four legions—eleven in Gaul under Fufius Calenus, seven in Cisalpine Gaul under Asinius Pollio, and six divided between Ventidius Bassus and L. Munatius Plancus, all seasoned troops except two legions of Plancus’ force which had been newly raised by Fulvia. But in Asia Minor he heard of the Perusine War and Octavian’s victory. Asia had to take its chance; he must return to Italy. He did not blame Octavian; he had been within his rights. He crossed to Athens, where he met Fulvia and Plancus, who had fled from Italy, and also envoys from Sextus Pompeius, seeking his alliance. He must, too, have heard that Pollio had reached the Po delta, while Ventidius was near Brundisium; Plancus had lost two legions to Agrippa and had fled, leaving his remaining troops to join Ventidius. Fulvia told Antony that he must ally himself with Sextus; but Antony merely overwhelmed her with bitter reproaches. She had been a masterful woman, ambitious, and no more moral than her world was; but she had been devoted to him and his interests as she understood them, and what she saw was that, while she had tried to make him master of the world, he had first failed to support her and had then reproached her for trying to serve him. Whatever her faults, Antony treated her brutally enough; he left her ill in Greece without a farewell, and, with nothing left to live for, she died. To Sextus’ envoys he said that, if Octavian kept his compact with him, he would try to reconcile him with Sextus; but if he did not he would accept Sextus’ alliance.

By the time he reached Corcyra Antony must have heard that Calenus was dead and that his inexperienced son had, on Octavian’s demand, handed over to him Calenus’ legions. It seemed to Antony that Octavian had broken his compact with him; he had taken from him Gaul and eleven legions, and that meant alliance with Sextus and war. But Sextus was not the only sea-king. Pollio on reaching the Adriatic coast had got into touch with Domitius Ahenobarbus, and now told Antony that Domitius would join him; and Antony, who wished to show the outlaw that he was trusted, fearlessly set out with only five war-ships and met Domitius’ whole fleet bearing down upon him. There was a moment of tense anxiety, and Plancus was terrified; then Domitius’ flag came down and he turned his galley broadside on to Antony’s ram. They went on to Brundisium together, to find the gates of the town closed against them.

 

III. BRUNDISIUM AND MISENUM

 

In closing their gates against Antony and Domitius Ahenobarbus, which they did without Octavian’s knowledge or order, the townsmen of Brundisium had acted unfortunately, but their action was natural enough: Domitius had been condemned by the Lex Pedia as one of Caesar’s murderers, he was technically an outlaw, and only the previous year his fleet had attacked Brundisium and ravaged its territory. Antony’s reaction was equally natural: convinced that this was Octavian’s order, he immediately set about blockading the town and sent forces up the coast to seize strategic points such as Sipontum; at the same time he passed the word to Sextus, and Sextus too began operations; he himself attacked Thurii and Consentia in South Italy, while four of his legions easily overpowered Octavian’s smaller garrison in Sardinia. Octavian marched hastily southwards and encamped opposite Antony; Agrippa rescued Sipontum, and Sextus was repulsed from Thurii; at Brundisium there was a deadlock. But though Antony, by a brilliant cavalry exploit near Hyria, showed that the name of the victor of Philippi could still inspire terror, Octavian had already won a hold over the veterans he had settled: they did not wish to fight, for they intended to reconcile Antony to Octavian, but if Antony refused, fight they would.

Fortunately the deadlock did not continue long: the veterans on each side began to fraternize; the news of Fulvia’s death at Sicyon, though it came as a shock to Antony, meant that one of the chief causes of war was gone; it was not too late to think of peace and L. Cocceius Nerva, a tactful and moderate man, went between the two leaders, eliciting their grievances and trying to ease them. All would be well could suspicion but be allayed; Antony suspected Octavian of intending to keep Gaul and Calenus’ legions and of having deliberately shut him out of Italy; Octavian suspected that, Antony had been behind the Perusine War and was now making common cause with outlaws such as Ahenobarbus and Sextus. Characteristically, Antony made the first gesture, for he told Sextus to return to Sicily and discreetly sent Domitius Ahenobarbus away to be governor of Bithynia. The soldiers chose two more envoys, Pollio on behalf of Antony and Maecenas to represent Octavian; negotiations went well, the two triumvirs embraced, the past was to be wiped out, and as a token of restored friendship Octavian gave his own sister Octavia to Antony in marriage.

Naturally a fresh partition of territory between the masters of the Roman world followed; Antony agreed that Lepidus should be undisturbed in Africa, but the rest of the Empire the two divided between them, Antony taking the East and Octavian the West; though the dividing line passed through Scodra in Dalmatia both were to have equal recruiting right in Italy. Like Julius Caesar they nominated consuls for some years in advance, and so secured honours and commands for their chief supporters. Antony soon gave an earnest of his reconciliation; not only did he put Manius to death for his share in the Perusine War but he informed Octavian of a piece of unexpected treachery. Salvidienus Rufus had been Octavian’s most trusted general and rewarded with the governorship of all Gaul; the possession of a large army apparently turned his head; he meditated revolt, but was imprudent enough to sound Antony, and Antony as in duty bound warned his partner. Salvidienus was hastily summoned to Rome on some plausible pretext, accused of treasonable designs before the Senate, and condemned to death—the first of a long line of army-commanders in the provinces to arouse suspicion and suffer the consequences. In his turn Octavian gave to Antony the remaining five legions of Calenus’ army, and recognized the Agree­ment with Ahenobarbus, from whom the ban of outlawry was now formally removed; he could also point to the fact that Antony’s brother Lucius was governor in Spain.

The Pact of Brundisium, which can be dated securely to the first days of October, 40 b.c., was greeted with an outburst of jubilation by soldiers and civilians alike which reveals how deep had been the dread of civil war; the cloud had rolled away, peace, was secured. Of all that human excitement and hope, too soon to be dashed, one echo remains, for Virgil fashioned out of the joy of that moment the famous Fourth Eclogue. Some seven years before he had greeted the rising hope of the young Octavius, a fellow-pupil under Epidius; then had come civil war, a reign of brute force, and eviction; now in the union of the two great houses he foresaw the end of faction and warring and predicted the birth of a son who would bring back the age of gold; with this return he could link the name of his protector, Asinius Pollio, who had brought about the reconciliation and who in the last months of the year assumed the consulship.

‘teque adeo decus hoc aevi, te consule, inibit,

Pollio, et incipient magni procedere menses.’

But joy was short-lived, for the triumvirs had not sufficiently reckoned with Sextus, who feeling that Antony had played him false and untroubled by the marriage-connection into which Octavian had recently entered, determined to assert himself. The addition of Sardinia to Sicily gave him two bases for harrying the Italian coast: a raid was made on Etruria, corn-supplies were threatened. Such were the tidings that damped the festivities that had greeted the marriage of Antony and Octavia in Rome and the ovatio granted to the two leaders, and depression sharpened to exasperation as the cost of living rose and the triumvirs, in view of a war with Sextus, imposed fresh taxation, notably on slaves and on inheritances. The passing of the Lex Falcidia, which corrected some unfairnesses in the existing laws as to testamentary disposition by guaranteeing the heir at least a quarter of the estate, came opportunely enough for the new taxes. But at the Ludi Plebeii in mid-November the populace broke into open riot and could only be repressed by the use of the soldiery. For the moment obviously Sextus must be satisfied, and at last he had achieved his aim; a first interview near Puteoli proved abortive, for he claimed more than the triumvirs would give, but in the spring of 39 b.c. a concordat was reached off Misenum. In return for concessions made by Sextus, that he would keep the peace, give safe conduct to the corn-supply, and stop receiving runaways or planting garrisons in Italy, he was to be given a large command for the duration of the triumvirate; Octavian was to yield him Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily (most of which he possessed already), and Antony the Peloponnese; he was to receive substantial monetary compensation for his confiscated property, to be an augur (like the other two leaders), and hold a future consulship. In addition all exiles were to be free to return to Italy, and this provision restored to their homes and eventually to political life such notable men as Cn. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, Tib. Claudius Nero, L. Arruntius, M. Iunius Silanus, C. Sentius Saturninus and the younger Cicero. The terms were signed, and the treaty deposited with the Vestal Virgins; to celebrate the pact dinners were given to which the three came with friendly looks and concealed daggers.

Sextus sailed off proudly to his province; Antony and Octavian returned to Rome, hailed on their journey as saviours and protectors, and with all their popularity regained. To gratify Octavian Antony now consented to be designated priest of the deified Julius, and both triumvirs made arrangements for the defence and pacification of their respective regions. The north and the west of Gaul had been disturbed recently and to fill the place of Salvidienus there was only one man whom Octavian trusted sufficiently, Agrippa; he was given the governorship of Gaul, while Cn. Domitius Calvinus, a stern disciplinarian of the old school, was sent to Spain to deal with an insurrection of the Cerretani. Beyond the Adriatic the Illyrian Parthini had been troublesome, and Antony dispatched Pollio against them. Far more grave was the menace of the Parthian invasion of Syria and Asia Minor; early in the year Ventidius Bassus was sent eastwards, and in the autumn Antony himself with Octavia crossed the Adriatic to winter at Athens. For about a year exhausted Italy enjoyed a respite from war or rumours of war.

 

IV. THE PARTHIAN INVASION

 

The Parthian invasion of Syria in 40 b.c. was much more than a raid. Cassius had not disdained to seek Parthian help, and at the time of Philippi one of his officers, Q. Labienus, son of Caesar’s general, was at Orodes’ court. Philippi marooned Labienus in Parthia; but in the winter of 41, with Asia Minor denuded of troops, only two disaffected legions in Syria, and Antony in Alexandria, he persuaded Orodes’ brilliant son Pacorus that a real conquest of these provinces was possible; probably the fugitive Palmyrenes, good trade customers, added their voices. Labienus and Pacorus entered Roman Syria very early in 40; Saxa was defeated, Cassius’ old troops going over to Labienus, and Pacorus got his eagles; Saxa held out for a time in Apamea, but finally it surrendered, as did Antioch, and he fled to Cilicia and was killed. In Cilicia the allies separated, Labienus going west and Pacorus south. Antony’s neglect to reorganize the client-kings now bore its fruit; hardly one stood by the triumvirs. Ariarathes of Cappadocia and Antiochus I of Commagene were pro-Parthian, while Castor of Galatia made no attempt to stop Labienus, who moved rapidly westward, enrolling men from the Taurus tribes. Cleon of Gordium, a brigand chief in Mysia, killed his emissaries; but no city closed its gates till he reached Laodicea-on-the-Lycus, which the orator Zeno and his son Polemo, soon to be famous, held against him. In Caria Hybreas tried to hold Mylasa, but it was taken and razed, though Hybreas escaped to rebuild it later; Alabanda was also taken; Stratoniceia and Aphrodisias alone resisted successfully. Zeus indeed saved Panamara by performing a miracle, but Hecate, less efficient, saw her sanctuary at Lagina violated. This half-hearted opposition did not mean that men remembered Cassius with favour; it was disgust with Roman misrule, by whomsoever exercised. The Parthians named Labienus ‘the Parthian general’, and he put the shameful title, Parthicus Imperator, on his coins.

Pacorus swept southward through Syria. He could not take Tyre on its island; otherwise all Syria joined him, including Lysanias of Chalcis, who had just succeeded his father Ptolemaeus, and even Malchus of Nabataea was ready to be friendly. Pacorus perhaps was now joint-king with his father and struck coins, which may point to an intention to hold Syria permanently. The Hasmonaean Antigonus (Mattathias), Aristobulus’ son, pretender to the throne of Judaea, now offered Pacorus 1000 talents and 500 women—the families of his political opponents—to make him king. The Jews, who hated the rule of the Idumaeans, welcomed Antigonus, and a Parthian force entered Jerusalem and seated him on the throne. He cut off Hyrcanus’ ears so that he could never again be High Priest and gave him to Pacorus, who left Syria and took him to Parthia; there Orodes treated him kindly and gave him a residence in Babylonia. Antigonus struck bilingual coins with ‘King Antigonus’ in Greek and in Hebrew ‘Mattathias the High Priest, the Commonwealth of the Jews’; and for a century the Jews regarded the Parthians with affection as saviours, for they had delivered the people from Rome and her Idumaean friends. The tetrarchs, Herod and Phasael, held the castle till Phasael fell into the Parthians’ hands and committed suicide; then with courage and skill Herod collected the threatened women, who included his mother and sister, Hyrcanus’ widowed daughter Alexandra, and her daughter Mariamme, his betrothed, and got them away to his fortress of Masada in Idumaea. He left his brother Joseph to hold it, which he did successfully, and, after being refused help by Malchus, took the road to Egypt. To Cleopatra he was just a young man struggling to uphold Antony’s interests; she gave him a ship, and he sailed to Rome to find Antony. He was fortunate in arriving after the peace of Brundisium; Antony agreed with him that only he could maintain Rome’s cause against Parthia, and interested Octavian, who remembered his father Antipater’s services to Caesar; and an obedient Senate made Herod king of Judaea. This the first breach in the Roman custom that a new client-king must be chosen from the old line was thus made by Antony and Octavian in concert. From that day, whatever Herod did to his subjects, he never faltered in loyalty to Antony. He now returned to Palestine, raised mercenaries, and attacked Antigonus.

The legions at Antony’s disposal after the peace of Brundisium were six brought from Macedonia, seven under Pollio, four under Ventidius, two from Domitius (who was sent with them to Bithynia as governor), and five once under Calenus. Antony’s army down to 36 consisted of these twenty-four legions only, no extravagant force with which to safeguard the Balkan frontier, manage the whole East, and conquer Parthia, and sufficient proof that he was not aiming at the sole power. He had retained 10,000 cavalry after Philippi, largely Gauls and Spaniards; how much more Ventidius and Pollio brought him cannot be said. Besides the Parthians, he now had to deal seriously with the Illyrian trouble. The Illyrian Parthini had invaded Macedonia in 40 and been expelled by Censorinus, who triumphed 1 Jan. 39; Antony now gave Pollio eleven legions and sent him to Macedonia to subdue them. Pollio successfully reduced the Parthini, retook Salonae, and celebrated his triumph on 25 Oct. 39 or 38; Antony then divided Pollio’s army, stationing four legions in Epirus and leaving seven to guard Macedonia and Illyria. The other eleven legions not with Pollio or Domitius he gave to Ventidius, with a strong force of cavalry and slingers, and sent him against the Parthians; he himself was urgently needed in Italy, and with more than one cam­paign to watch he naturally did not take the field himself. Either he or Ventidius had realized that the sling, with leaden bullets, would outrange the Parthian bows; but what neither knew was that there had been a change in Parthia’s tactics and that it was not the archers whom Ventidius would meet. Carrhae had been won by the common man, trained and led by a genius; the nobility had felt slighted—hence perhaps Surenas’ fall—and they were now going to show the Romans what they could do themselves. It was a great stroke of luck for Ventidius; no archers are mentioned in his campaigns, and his battles show clearly that Pacorus was relying on heavy cavalry, the cataphracts. Antony appointed Plancus to be governor of the province of Asia when cleared.

Our accounts of Ventidius’ victories go back to a rhetorical panegyric written for his triumph by Sallust from material supplied by himself after Antony had cashiered him; and Antony’s opponents glorified him at Antony’s expense. He landed in Asia early in 39 and surprised Labienus, who evacuated Caria and fled to Cilicia with Ventidius’ cavalry in pursuit; he fortified a camp on the Taurus slopes and summoned the Parthians, while Ventidius camped on rising ground and waited for his legions, who arrived first. The Parthians evacuated Syria, but were too confident merely to join Labienus, and attacked Ventidius by themselves. Their cataphracts charged the Roman camp up the hill and met the legions hand to hand; they were thrown down the hill in rout, and Ventidius discovered that at short range his slingers could penetrate their armour. He then attacked Labienus’ camp; Labienus lost his nerve and fled, and was subsequently killed. The retreating Parthians stood at the Amanic Gates, and must have dismounted men to hold the pass; it was easily forced, the defenders fled across the Euphrates, and Ventidius had cleared Roman Asia as quickly as it had been overrun. Antony took the title of Imperator for the second time for the victories of Ventidius and Pollio, and Ventidius marched through Syria to dethrone Antigonus. But Antigonus bribed him, and he did nothing; he went into winter quarters with his army strung out from Judaea to Cappadocia, that country being a danger-point should Artavasdes of Armenia, Parthia’s ally, enter the war.

The new Parthian tactics were obviously wrong; but Pacorus had not been with the army, which seemingly was not numerous, and did not recognize its defeat as decisive. Early in 38 he assembled a larger force; he may have brought every cataphract in Parthia. Ventidius, to gain time to collect his troops, skilfully let him hear that he was afraid he might cross the Euphrates, not at Zeugma, but to the south; Pacorus, perplexed and suspicious, apparently avoided both courses and made a detour to the north, crossing perhaps at Samosata; by the time he entered Cyrrhestice Ventidius was ready and had fortified a camp on rising ground near Mt Gindarus. Again the Parthian chivalry charged the camp, with the same result as before but with heavier loss, for Pacorus was killed and some of his men died fighting round his body; the main force escaped across the Euphrates. Ventidius became extraordinarily popular, for he was held to have avenged Carrhae; but the story that Gindarus was fought on the anniver­sary of that battle is probably an invention. Pacorus’ death was a loss to Parthia, for he is highly praised, not only for energy and valour, but for his moderation and equity, which everywhere at­tracted much support. But, except for that, the defeat of Gindarus was Parthia’s salvation; it taught her not to rely upon cataphracts against a Roman army.

 

V. ANTONY AND OCTAVIA

 

At the beginning of November 40 the seal had been set to the treaty of Brundisium by the marriage of Antony and Octavian’s sister Octavia, Marcellus’ widow, the pledge that the two sides were henceforth one; Fulvia’s death had left Antony free, and though Octavia had not completed the obligatory ten months mourning for her husband the Senate obediently gave her permission to remarry. Through the murk of the civil wars Octavia shines like a star; in an age when every restraint was relaxed, and Roman virtues seemed likely to go down in a welter of license and cruelty, no evil about her was ever even hinted by anybody. Beautiful and still young, highly cultured, the friend of the honoured philosophers Athenodorus (who dedicated a book to her) and Nestor, she preferred her home to politics; but she was a match for her brother in diplomacy, as she was to show at Tarentum by her quiet but conclusive handling of his accusations against Antony. Her gentleness and goodness, and her devoted obedience to her husband, sprang from strength, not from weak­ness; what she saw to be her duty, that, quite simply, she did. She made no complaint of Antony’s treatment of her; she helped him as long as he would let her, and when the end came she took charge of his children by the rival who had ousted her and brought them up with her own, the crowning heroism of perhaps the loveliest nature which the ancient world can show.

Antony did not leave Italy till after the birth of Octavia’s daughter, the elder Antonia, about August or September 39; then he and Octavia went to Athens, which for the next two years was his headquarters. The Senate had confirmed in advance his measures in the East, and the disaffection among the client-kings revealed by the Parthian invasion invited a complete reorganization. He made a partial one only. Labienus had got help from the Taurus peoples, and Antony took advantage of the breach made in Roman custom in Herod’s case to pick out two good men who did not belong to any dynasty but who had given their proofs, Amyntas from Galatia, the former secretary of Deiotarus, and Polemo of Laodicea, and put them in authority over the tribes. Amyntas’ kingdom was western Pisidia and Phrygia-toward-Pisidia. Polemo had his seat at Iconium and ruled Cilicia Tracheia, a wild country which had once been part of the Roman province of Cilicia but which was difficult to manage. Antony strengthened Tarcondimotus, a dynast in the unruly Amanus, by making him king, with his capital at Hieropolis-Castabala; on his coins he called himself Philantonius. Cleon, the brigand chief who had defied Labienus, was confirmed in his rule of the Mysian Olympus. Aphrodisias received freedom and immunity from taxation; Antony’s grant is remarkable as containing (in simple form) a most-favoured­nation clause, apparently its first appearance in history. He also raised his fleet to five squadrons of the line (300 ships), partly by incorporating Domitius’ fleet; if it came to trouble, he did not mean to be weaker than Sextus. He made fleet-stations of Cephallenia and Zacynthus, convenient for keeping watch over Sicilian waters, and posted detachments there under Proculeius and C. Sosius, who acted as lords of their respective islands and struck coins; the coins of Antony’s fleet-prefects of this period are notable for their naval symbolism. Either now or in 38 he brought to Asia the four legions from Epirus, leaving seven in Macedonia.

He spent the winter at Athens with Octavia in the enjoyment of a new sensation, the company of a virtuous woman. He became respectable; he dressed simply, went with his wife to philosophers’ lectures and the public festivals, and served as gymnasiarch (minister for education); perhaps it was now that he projected a universal association of victors in the games. Athens gave Octavia many honours, and the Panathenaia of 38 bore the added name Antonicia. But, if more decorous, Antony was as self-indulgent at Athens as he had been at Alexandria; he put aside all business till the spring, though apparently he meant to conquer Armenia in 38 as the prelude to the invasion of Parthia. For his eastern subjects he now assumed divinity like a Hellenistic king and proclaimed himself a New Dionysus, the god who had conquered Asia. The story that he married Athene and exacted from the Athenians a million drachmae as her dower first appears in a rhetorical exercise and reads like a refurbishing of the story of the marriage of Antiochus IV with Atargatis; to ‘woo Athene’ was almost a proverb for the insolence of power.

Antony’s plans for 38 were altered by a message from Octavian, who was having trouble with Sextus and asked Antony to be at Brundisium on a given day for a conference. Antony came, but Octavian did not; and Antony, naturally angry at what he considered an insult, went back again, after advising Octavian to keep his treaties. Pacorus’ second invasion prevented further thought of the conquest of Armenia, and Gindarus was followed by a fresh complication. Some fugitive Parthians had taken refuge with Antiochus of Commagene, and Ventidius marched on Samosata; but Antiochus, in imitation of Antigonus, offered him 1000 talents to mark time, and the siege made no progress. This second scandal created an impossible position, and Antony was forced to supersede him and take command in person. Samosata surrendered to him, and he presumably removed Antiochus, who is not heard of again, and made his brother Mithridates king; and he took the title of Imperator for the third time, really for Gindarus. He sent Ventidius to Italy for the well-earned triumph which the people had voted him and of which he was too generous to deprive him in spite of his misdoings. Ventidius triumphed 27 Nov. 38 or 37, and is not heard of again; naturally Antony could not employ him, and as Octavian never did he probably died soon afterwards.

After Gindarus Ventidius had detached a force to help Herod; but Antigonus again bribed the Roman commander, and Herod, in despair of getting anything done, went himself to Antony, who was before Samosata. As soon as Samosata had surrendered, Antony put Sosius in command with strict orders to deal with Antigonus, and Sosius sent Herod on ahead with two legions, a rare instance of a foreigner commanding Roman troops. Herod defeated Antigonus’ men at Jericho and formed the siege of Jerusalem, and when Sosius arrived the siege was energetically pressed by the entire Roman army. Jerusalem held out manfully, but was taken in July 37 B.C.; Herod prevented the desecration of the Temple and ransomed the town from pillage, saying that he wanted a kingdom, not a desert. Antigonus surrendered to Sosius, who subsequently took him to Antony; and Herod, who had married Mariamme, the last Hasmonaean princess, began his long reign as king of Judaea. Sosius commemorated his success by striking a coin with the figures of Antigonus and of Judaea as a captive woman. But some Jews at once revolted against Herod, and that winter (37) Antony executed Antigonus lest he should become a centre of disaffection.

After taking Samosata Antony returned to Athens and again spent the winter (38) with Octavia. He was still not fated to reduce Armenia, for Octavian, after his disaster at Cape Scyllaeum, sent Maecenas to him with an urgent request for naval help. Antony’s star was in the ascendant; three of his generals had recently celebrated or been granted triumphs, and that of Sosius was to come, while Octavian’s campaign against Sextus in 38 had been a failure. Antony stood loyally by his colleague, and in the spring of 37 sailed to Tarentum with Octavia and his whole fleet, only to find that Octavian, who had built a new fleet during the winter, now intimated that he no longer required his help. What followed is related elsewhere; Octavia prevented war, and the result was the treaty of Tarentum, under which Antony handed over to Octavian two complete squadrons—120 ships of the line and their 10 scouts—against Octavian’s promise of four legions, which Antony perhaps claimed that he owed already; Antony agreed because he was short of money and wished to get rid of the upkeep of the ships. The treaty itself was only an uneasy truce; the legions were never given; and when in the autumn (37) Antony quitted Italy for Greece he had already reconsidered his position. So far, he had been loyal to all his agreements with Octavian; but he felt that Octavian had not been loyal to him. As he saw it, he had been shut out of Brundisium in 40, though Italy was common ground; Octavian had called him to a conference and had never appeared, and had asked for and then rejected his help; for two years he had been prevented from beginning the conquest of Parthia; his treaty right of recruiting in Italy was a dead letter; and now Octavian had his ships and he had not his legions. He had become convinced that further cooperation with Octavian was impossible; and a personal motive was reinforcing that conviction. He was tired of Octavia. He could not live on her level; his was a nature which no woman could hold unless she had something of the devil in her. His mind, reacting from Octavia’s virtues, had gone back to a very different woman; memory, which glosses all defects, presented Cleopatra as more desirable even than the reality; he fell in love with her during, and perhaps because of, his absence from her. From Corcyra he sent Octavia back to Italy, for which her approaching confinement and his coming Parthian campaign provided an excuse, and summoned Cleopatra to meet him at Antioch. She came, and he married her forthwith; he had burnt his boats.

 

VI. SICILY AND THE END OF SEXTUS POMPEIUS

 

Between the treaties of Brundisium and Tarentum a little less than three years had elapsed, yet actual peace in Italy lasted but an uneasy twelve months, and the troubler of it was, as before, Sextus Pompeius. Ancient historians were often unfair to unsuccessful candidates for power, and our sources combine to depict Sextus as the degenerate antithesis of his father, cruel and boorish, deficient alike in initiative and intellect, and wholly dependent on the brains of his Sicilian freedmen, Apollophanes, Demochares and Menas. In spite of the character of these sources—and much of Sextus’ wickedness was perhaps that of the animal which, if attacked, defends itself—it is hard to find much in his favour. Neither before nor after Philippi had he the sense to co-operate with other anti-Caesarian leaders, and though the heritage of a great name attracted to him clients and nobles alike, he was unable to hold for long the loyalty of any Roman of note. His freedmen might win victories, but he himself had not enough energy or insight to follow them up. In all, his actions betray little beyond the limited purpose and outlook of a guerilla leader. But at the time he had a genuine grievance: though Octavian acquiesced in yielding the islands to him, there was some difficulty over the transference of the Peloponnese, which was to come from Antony, Sextus declared that it had been granted him unconditionally and that Antony was deliberately lowering its value by extortion and taxation, to which Octavian replied that Antony had stipulated that Sextus should either pay over the tribute owing to him from Achaea or delay entry till it had been collected. Whatever the truth (and it looks as though there had been negligence on Antony’s party), Sextus immediately let loose his pirate squadrons; captured pirates confessed under torture that Sextus had instigated them, and Octavian determined on reprisals. To justify his action he published the terms of the treaty of Misenum; if war had to be made it would open with advantage for him, since Menas (Sextus’ governor in Sardinia) deserted, bringing over the island and three legions; in addition he was sure of the loyalty of two of the most important South Italian towns, Vibo and Rhegium, for he had exempted them from the assignations of 43 b.c., and had guaranteed their territories. To mark the end of the hollow pact with Sextus he divorced Scribonia (‘utterly disgusted’, as he wrote afterwards, ‘with her contrary temper’) on the very day that she bore him a daughter, Julia, who was destined to cause him more trouble than all her mother’s tempers.

He now entered into an alliance very different from the coldly political one he had just thrown off, though this new one perhaps indicated a desire to appease and come nearer to that old senatorial aristocracy, with whom Caesar had so signally failed. He had fallen in love passionately with Livia, the wife of Tiberius Nero, and the ardour of his passion no less than the complaisance with which Nero divorced his wife to give her to Octavian became a target for the wits of the day. The marriage took place on 17 January, 38 b.c., three days after Livia had given birth to her second son Drusus; he and his three-year old brother Tiberius were to be reared in Octavian’s house. Livia was nineteen, ambitious, beautiful, discreet; of aristocratic Republican stock, herself earlier a victim of the triumvirs’ orders, she was a fit symbol of the reconciliation that was to come; throughout a devoted married life of fifty years she remained an influence for moderation and forgiveness.

Though Lepidus vouchsafed no reply to the appeals that Octavian sent out, Antony naturally promised help, and a meeting was arranged at Brundisium. Unfortunately, on the appointed day, Octavian did not turn up, and Antony, declaring that Parthian affairs allowed no delay, returned to Athens, leaving a curt message to Octavian not to violate the pact. Sextus immediately interpreted this as proof that Antony could not justify his colleague, and Octavian had to assure the populace that he and Antony were in full sympathy, and that Antony’s reason for not surrendering Achaea was his annoyance at Sextus’ piracies. But the events of the year went wholly in favour of the ‘pirate’. The plan of campaign was to invade Sicily in force: as Agrippa was away in Gaul, Octavian appointed C. Calvisius Sabinus as his admiral (with Menas under him), gathered legions from Gaul and Illyricum, and ordered L. Cornificius to bring a fleet from Ravenna to Tarentum. An action off Cumae was indecisive, but Octavian, who had himself brought Cornificius’ fleet from Tarentum to Rhegium in order to join with Calvisius, refused through excessive caution to attack the smaller squadron of Sextus; as he was sailing northwards through the Straits the ships of Sextus flashed out and drove him back towards land, the rocky promontories of Cape Scyllaeum; there followed a night of confusion, and next morning a strong south wind turned confusion into complete disaster. Octavian had lost half his fleet and had to abandon any attempt on Sicily; Sextus’ exultation was correspondingly great; proclaiming himself ‘son of Neptune’ he offered sacrifices to his father, but strangely enough made no effort to follow up his victory.

Though the year closed thus in humiliation for Octavian the labours of his devoted friends gave promise of better things for 37. The mob at Rome murmured against war, but cities and well-wishers, to show their confidence, promised money towards the construction of ships, and Maecenas, who had journeyed to Greece in the previous autumn to discuss disputed points with Antony came back with the glad assurance that he was willing to help. Best of all, Agrippa returned from Gaul with a splendid record: he had been the second Roman general to lead troops across the Rhine, he had settled the Ubii on the site of Cologne and had won a brilliant victory over the insurgent Aquitani. He was to be consul for 37 and was offered a triumph, but with rare sympathy refused the coveted honour while his friend was in such distress. Octavian immediately entrusted him with the preparation and exercise of a fleet for next year, and shipbuilding was soon in full swing, but as Italy did not possess a harbour or manoeuvring area sufficiently spacious Agrippa crowned his work by making the famous roadstead of Lakes Lucrinus and Avernus and connecting the two lakes with the sea; here there was ample room and for over a year freed slaves were practised at the oar, while experiments were carried out with a device of Agrippa, whereby grapnels were shot from a catapult to make it easier to hold and board an enemy ship. Even Lepidus finally consented to help.

As the spring of 37 b.c. was ending Antony duly appeared off Tarentum with 300 ships; he badly needed recruits for his Parthian campaigns, he could not obtain them without Octavian’s co­operation, and he hoped to exchange ships for men. But Octavian hesitated: he was mistrustful and angry, he had heard that Antony was in negotiation with Lepidus, and confident in Agrippa and the new-built fleet he probably felt ashamed of his appeals for help in the previous year. Days passed. Octavia, in anguish, obtained leave from her husband to mediate between him and her brother; to each and every plaint or suspicion of Octavian she had a sufficient reply, and thanks to her the two at last met near Tarentum. Twice she had saved Rome from civil war; a third time she was not to be so fortunate. But concord was restored: as the term fixed for the Triumvirate by the Lex Titia had expired with the last day of 38 the two agreed upon an extension of their powers; they also agreed to deprive Sextus Pompeius of what they had granted him, and to give each other mutual assistance. Antony offered 120 ships from his fleet to Octavian and was in return promised four legions; through Octavia’s good offices her brother received in addition ten phaseli and offered Antony the choice of one thousand picked men from his bodyguard. The two now parted: what happened to Antony and Octavia has already been told; in the West, though preparations went on vigorously, Menas—vexed at being kept in a subordinate position—returned to his old master, Sextus, and Octavian used this as a pretext for depriving Galvisius Sabinus of the command of the fleet and handing it to Agrippa.

By the end of spring in 36 the time had come to put the new fleet and new methods to a test, but operations did not begin immediately. Octavian with characteristic caution had prepared a complex scheme of attack, involving the co-operation of three distinct fleets, and orders had to be communicated and acknowledged; the campaign was to begin on 1 July, the month of Julius Caesar. The plan was that Agrippa with his fleet should smash the Sextian fleet and render possible the invasion of Sicily in overwhelming force; yet the crossing of the Straits against a resolute enemy has always been a difficult problem and one to tax the genius even of a Murat or a Garibaldi. Octavian was to start from Puteoli, Statilius Taurus with 102 ships from Tarentum (leaving some empty keels there), and Lepidus was to bring from Africa sixteen legions and 5000 horse. Against this formidable converging offensive Sextus had (at most) 300 warships and ten legions: he stationed himself at Messana with the best of his fleet and troops, and entrusted the defence of Lilybaeum and the west to L. Plinius Rufus. But he could not hold out long once Octavian’s legions landed in the island; his main hope must lie in the capture or killing of the directing will behind the armament, Octavian himself.

The new fleet was solemnly purified, and on 1 July the three great expeditions started, to meet with very different fortunes. Lepidus landed twelve legions safely, blockaded Plinius in Lilybaeum, and overran the western half of Sicily, but on 3 July a terrific storm burst over South Italy and Sicily and though Taurus crept back discreetly to his base Octavian met the full brunt of it. The damage would need a month at least to repair, the season was getting late, but Octavian did not relent. The crews of the shattered vessels were sent to fill the 28 empty keels at Tarentum, Octavian went the round of the colonies and the veterans, and Maecenas hurried to Rome to allay the superstitions of the populace, who felt that Sextus had indeed the gods on his side. But Sextus again made no effort to exploit Neptune’s favour, and Menas in disgust registered his third desertion.

Mid-August saw the attack resumed. This time Octavian made Vibo his headquarters; it was close to Sicily and within less than thirty miles (by land) of Scolacium, where Taurus now lay. Agrippa and his fleet were to attack Sicily from the North and keep Sextus’ attention engaged, while Octavian, helped by M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (who had recently joined him) and by Statilius Taurus, was to transport his legions from Scolacium to Leucopetra, thence across to Tauromenium under cover of night, link up with Lepidus coming from the West, and fall on Messana; three legions under C. Carrinas at Columna Rhegia were to wait on events. But Sextus had learnt, or guessed, this plan of attack and made a skilful counter. Off Mylae Agrippa attacked a squadron under Demochares, and his larger and heavier-built ships had the advantage; Sextus sent reinforcements and finally appeared himself with the main body of his fleet; the Straits were left temptingly clear. Octavian seized the chance to ferry three legions across from Leucopetra and camped them on the lava spit of Naxos. The trap could now close: Sextus had managed to withdraw his ships in good order, Agrippa was resting his men. Before Octavian could return for the rest of the legions Sextus with fleet and cavalry swooped down upon him. Handing over the command of the three legions to L. Cornificius Octavian decided to risk a sea-fight, but the superiority of Sextus’ seamanship was crushingly demonstrated; Octavian’s ships were burnt or wrecked, and though some survivors were rescued by Cornificius, Octavian himself only just managed to evade capture in the gathering darkness and reached the mainland with but one friend to be by him during the night. So near had Sextus come to success.

Octavian was utterly exhausted both in body and soul; for one moment even his will and belief broke and he begged his companion to kill him. His position was critical in the extreme: again Sextus had triumphed, Cornificius was isolated, he could not tell how Agrippa was faring, he could not be sure of Lepidus, for he was rumoured to have begun negotiations with Sextus; such was the outcome of five years’ patient work. But dawn brought help and a renewal of hope; he was seen, recognized and escorted to Messalla. His first thought was for Cornificius and urgent messages were sent to Agrippa and all other commanders. Agrippa had by now attacked again, and had captured Tyndaris, one of the keys of the island; he threw out reconnoitring parties, and after a harassing march across the western slopes of Mt Aetna Cornificius and his three legions reached him unscathed.

The legions once securely in the island the surrender of Sextus could be merely a matter of time; he was cooped up into the north­eastern corner, and while Lepidus and Octavian sat down to blockade Messana Taurus was dispatched to capture the towns that supplied him. Tradition records that the final battle took place after a challenge, as a result of which 300 ships from each side faced each other off Naulochus, while the troops watched from the shore. Though the incident of the challenge may be matched from the period it seems impossible that Sextus could muster 300 ships and the whole story smacks of rhetorical invention. However that may be the final battle was fought on 3 September; the fight was long, but Agrippa’s invention, the harpax, proved its value, and in the evening victory remained with the fleet of Octavian. Twenty-eight of Sextus’ fleet were sunk, the rest were burnt or captured or ran aground, and only seventeen escaped to Messana. Sextus sent a desperate summons to Plinius Rufus to join him there, but time was short and without waiting for the arrival of his lieutenant he changed into civilian dress and with the remnant of his fleet fled from Sicily to throw himself on Antony’s mercy; yet the ruling passion was strong even in flight and on the way he stopped to pillage the rich temple of Hera at Cape Lacinium. The rest of his career demands no long telling: though he had sent envoys to Antony, the news of Roman failure in Media made him pause and he decided to offer his services to the king of Parthia as well; these messengers fell into Antony’s hands, and though at first no active steps were taken against him, he soon made himself so troublesome in Asia Minor that Titius, Antony’s legate, had him executed. It is possible that the fatal order was given by Plancus, but it was Titius who had to bear the blame, and the name of Pompey was still sufficiently revered in Rome for the whole populace later to drive him from the theatre by their execrations.

 

VII. THE END OF THE CIVIL WARS

 

Victory, complete and definite, had come at last, thanks to the skill and fidelity of Octavian’s helpers, but due even more to the indomitable tenacity he himself had exhibited. Yet in the very hour of success a new menace faced him. Lepidus, who had for years acquiesced perforce in his subordination, now judged himself strong enough to strike for what he thought his rightful place; the large force with which he had left Africa suggests that he had carefully planned his coup, and now, while he and Agrippa combined to urge the blockade of Messana, luck suddenly placed the means and the moment in his hand. For Plinius, who had taken charge of the city, offered to surrender: Agrippa advised waiting for the arrival of Octavian, who was at Naulochus, but Lepidus overrode him, accepted the surrender, and then allowed his own fourteen legions to join with the eight Sextian in plundering Messana during one long night of licence. Next morning Octavian arrived to remonstrate, but Lepidus, strong in the backing of twenty-two legions, demanded the restoration of his rights and ordered Octavian to quit Sicily. But the issue could not long be doubtful: the soldiers were weary of civil war and still less inclined to enter one for Lepidus, whose sluggishness they despised, against Octavian, whose achievements were visible and splendid. Gradually they deserted, the Sextians first, then the men and officers of Lepidus’ own legions, till at the last he was reduced to beg for mercy. Octavian spared his life but apparently forced him to resign his office of Triumvir, and dismissed him to drag out the remainder of his days as Pontifex Maximus in honourable captivity at Circeii. Rome knew him no more and in the momentous developments of the next decade he was to take no share.

There now remained, crowded together into the north-eastern corner of the island, a host of over forty legions; though their loyalties had been different, Sextian, Lepidan, or Caesarian, all were one in their longing for release from service and their numbers made them formidable indeed. Mutinous spirits fanned their discontent, and though Octavian reminded them of their oath and offered promises, they clamoured for something more substantial, for instant and profitable dismissal. But one of their ringleaders, a centurion, mysteriously disappeared, his fate deterred others, and finally Octavian disbanded twenty thousand, who had fought at Mutina and Philippi, and bestowed bounties on the rest with promise of early demobilization. Tribunes and centurions were given the rank of decurion in their native town, and Agrippa, for his magnificent services, was awarded a corona rastrata—a golden crown adorned with ships’ prows—an honour never bestowed before. Finally Octavian arranged for the settlement of the territories that had fallen to him: of Sardinia little is known, though a colony was apparently founded at Turris Libisonis; in Sicily a colony was planted at Tauromenium, and though Catana, Centuripa and Syracuse were rewarded for good service during the war, the other Sicilian cities had to face a demand for sixteen hundred talents. The former Sextian commanders were pardoned, and runaway slaves restored to their masters. After a year spent in pacifying Sicily Statilius Taurus crossed over to organize the two provinces of Africa.

Having made the necessary arrangements Octavian could at last return to Rome, and his return was a triumphal progress, for nobles and commons alike flocked out in festal garlands and dress to escort him into the city. He did not however enter until 13 November, when he celebrated the ovatio which the Senate had decreed, but in the meantime other honours had been crowded upon him by a grateful people. The anniversary of Naulochus was to be a festival, a triumphal arch was to be erected, and a golden statue set up with an inscription celebrating the restoration of peace after long disturbances on sea and land. An official residence was voted to him, close to the ground which he himself reserved for a temple to his patron deity Apollo. Like his father he was given the right of wearing the laurel-wreath of the conqueror, and, most important of all, he was granted a sacrosanctity similar to that enjoyed by the tribunes—a privilege which two years later he had conferred upon his wife and sister; thus already his own person was marked out as something hallowed and eminent, and this tribunician sacrosanctity foreshadowed the potestas tribunicia which was to be one of the great props of the coming principate.

The long horror of the civil wars was over, peace and prosperity should return once more—such was the burden of the speeches which Octavian made to the Senate and the People, in which he defended his acts as due to the necessity of the times. In conformity with these utterances he remitted a large number of public debts, cancelled some taxes, burnt the documents relating to the civil wars, and hinted that the Republican constitution would be restored when Antony returned from his Parthian campaigns. Too long had Roman fought against Roman; the time had come to turn against the barbarian. These speeches were not meant only for Rome; they had a message for all Italy, for Octavian published and circulated them throughout the peninsula: men could labour on their farms and homes in security, all could return to the normal business of life. The famine and misery produced by Sextus’ raids and interception of the corn-supply had taught one lesson, the dependence of Italy upon foreign corn; it cannot be coincidence only that Varro’s treatise upon agriculture appeared in 36 b.c. and that while an imperial freedman, Hyginus, was compiling practical handbooks for farmers in plain prose, Virgil at the prompting of Maecenas was beginning with loving care the great epic of the Italian countryside, the Georgies.

Caesar’s murder had been avenged, his last enemies routed, but for the man who had accepted Caesar’s heritage a loftier task remained. Whatever projects Caesar may have had for the East, his main achievement—whether as general or statesman—had been in the West, in Spain and Gaul and Italy. Octavian’s reverence for Italian tradition and religion was deep implanted—as witness his refusal to take the office of Pontifex Maximus from Lepidus—and during nine long years of schooling he had grown to see what Italy and the empire needed and to believe that he was fated to give it. Time and again he had been near death, from illness or enemies, yet his life had always been spared, and the consciousness that destiny was guarding him for a great work must have been continually strengthened. This consciousness and this singleness of purpose explain the devotion that he was able to inspire in his peers; the ordinary soldier might be fascinated by the magic of a splendid name, but it was something high and essential in the man himself that bound men of the calibre of Agrippa and Maecenas in such unquestioning and selfless loyalty or gained the respect and service of the Republican Messalla Corvinus, or of Statilius Taurus and others who were won over to his side. Because he stood for something more than mere ambition he could draw a nation to him in the coming struggle.

For struggle there must be. The Roman realm now lay in the hands of two men; the statutory Triumvirate had dwindled to an unauthorized duovirate. Octavian’s treatment of Lepidus—little though his lethargic personality had counted in the coalition—and appropriation of the provinces of Sicily and Africa could not be defended on any constitutional grounds and could not be overlooked by Antony, even though his own conduct had not been impeccable. Herein lay dangerous chances of dissension between characters so disparate, and the influence Octavia might exert for peace was more than balanced by the imperial designs of Cleopatra. In that struggle few could foretell the result. The legions, weary of interminable fighting, would not always follow a leader’s ambition against countrymen and comrades: the victor must possess not merely name or prestige, but above all a cause and a battle-cry that would rally waverers to his side and convince not only soldiers but citizens also that the unity of the Roman world was at stake.

 

 

CHAPTER III
THE WAR OF THE EAST AGAINST THE WEST