Marching With Caesar-Antony and Cleopatra: Part II-Cleopatra

by Peake, R. W.

  Also by R.W Peake

  Marching with Caesar-Conquest of Gaul

  Marching with Caesar-Civil War

  Marching With Caesar-Antony and Cleopatra: Part I-Cleopatra

  Critical praise for the Marching With Caesar series:

  "Fans of the author will be delighted that Peake’s writing has gone from strength to strength in this, the second volume...Peake manages to portray Pullus and all his fellow soldiers with a marvelous feeling of reality quite apart from the star historical name... There’s history here, and character, and action enough for three novels, and all of it can be enjoyed even if readers haven’t seen the first volume yet. Very highly recommended."

  ~The Historical Novel Society

  “The hinge of history pivoted on the career of Julius Caesar, as Rome’s Republic became an Empire, but the muscle to swing that gateway came from soldiers like Titus Pullus. What an amazing story from a student now become the master of historical fiction at its best.”

  ~Professor Frank Holt, University of Houston

  Marching with Caesar

  Antony and Cleopatra

  Part 2 Cleopatra

  By R.W. Peake

  Marching with Caesar –Antony and Cleopatra by R.W. Peake

  Copyright © 2013 by R.W. Peake

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover Artwork by Marina Shipova

  Cover Artwork Copyright © 2013 by R.W. Peake

  Map of Actium reprinted from "The Roman Republic and The Founder of The Empire" by T. Rice-Holmes

  Oxford University Press; London, 1923

  Maps of Armenia reprinted with permission from "The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World"; Richard J.A. Talbert (Editor); © 2000 Princeton University Press

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2013

  Foreword

  Since this is just a continuation of what is essentially the third book in the Marching With Caesar series, I don't feel my normal compulsion to say something especially wordy or attempt to be profound, other than the normal thanks to my editor Beth Lynne, my artist Marina Shipova, and to my beta readers that I mentioned in Part I.

  I will just say that, as of this writing here in late March, the response to Part I has been so positive and overwhelming that it's hard for me to put it in perspective. Just two days after release, Part I took the #1 spot in the genre of Ancient Rome on Amazon in the U.S., and held that spot for more than 3 weeks, before falling to the second spot.

  Normally, this would not be something that thrilled me; I am extremely competitive (as my daughter will attest, as I never let her win at anything, until she was able to do so on her own merit), but this time it's somewhat different watching my third book fall a spot.

  That's because what replaced it was my first book Marching With Caesar-Conquest of Gaul, now just two weeks short of its first anniversary of release. I can only attribute this to you, my readers, who have proven to be the most effective marketing tool of everything I've tried.

  So I would like to take this space to thank all of you, the readers who took a risk on a story by a completely unknown, unpublished author, and most importantly took to heart what I asked of the first 150 people who liked Facebook page for Marching With Caesar. (Which you can find at http://facebook.com/rwpeake)

  "If you like it, tell somebody" is what I asked of you, and you have done that, and then some.

  Thank you.

  R.W. Peake

  March, 2013

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Damascus

  Chapter Two: Armenia

  Chapter Three: Interlude in Ephesus

  Chapter Four: Actium

  Chapter Five: Nicopolis

  Chapter Six: The Fall of Antonius and Cleopatra

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1-Damascus

  No Roman in Antonius’ camp had forgotten that while Antonius was clearly besotted with the queen of Egypt, he was still married to Octavia, who had stayed in Rome and, from all accounts, was the model of what a highborn Roman wife was expected to be. Now she was about to be used as another piece in the great game going on between the two remaining players. Much has been made of what Antonius did to Octavia, and it is inexcusable. Nevertheless, it was Octavian who sent her, though I suppose the winner escapes the blame. She left Rome to go to Athens bearing supplies, 70 ships, and 2,000 more troops in the style of the Brundisium Cohorts, which I personally thought were useless. It was from the Greek city that Octavia sent word to Antonius she would be sailing with all of these goods as soon as the weather permitted. I must admit that it was a very clever ploy on the part of Octavian, even if it was not particularly admirable, putting Antonius in the fork of a cleft stick as it did. Many a watch has been spent in the intervening years with men sitting around fires, or at a table in some roadside inn arguing about what course Antonius should have taken. Naturally, each man is certain that he knows what Antonius should have done, but I do not count myself among those men. For I do not know that Antonius made the wrong decision, nor do I know that he made the right one, because in truth, I think that the gods had decreed that matters among us mortals had gone on long enough without a resolution, thereby moving Octavian to put Antonius in a dilemma that ultimately had only one outcome. If Antonius had not done as he did, telling Octavia that she was to send on the men, ships, and supplies, but for Octavia herself to return to Rome, he undoubtedly would have offended Cleopatra, and he needed the queen of Egypt for the money to fund his campaign. Also, it would have been a sign to the East that he still counted himself as Roman and not the Eastern monarch he had set himself up to be. While I understand why he did it, that does not mean it was a decision that I could follow, for I am and always will be a man of Rome. Therefore, when he turned his back on Octavia, and by extension Rome, it sealed my decision that when the moment came, I would do as Octavian bid me to do. I do think that Octavia did not deserve the treatment she received, from either of the men in her life. I am not alone in that by any means, and it was his abrupt and heartless repudiation of her that turned the lower classes against Antonius once and for all. This, of course, was exactly what Octavian had hoped to accomplish. The sum total of this event meant Octavian had little opposition in enacting any of his deeds from this point forward, no matter how injurious they may have been to Antonius. One other event occurred that, while it did not have a huge impact on our world, did finally close a chapter, and that was the fate of Sextus Pompey.

  Sextus, as I have described, escaped from the naval battle over Sicily, which occurred at roughly the same time as our arrival at Phraaspa. For months, nobody knew his whereabouts, until he showed up on this side of Our Sea, where he immediately began to make mischief, and in fact was one of the causes of our difficulties in finding men to fill our ranks. When he landed in Africa, he began recruiting from his father Pompey’s veterans, raising three Legions of men before proceeding to try to sell their services to the high
est bidder, with Sextus as their commander, of course. While he did approach Antonius, the Triumvir learned that young Sextus had also approached Phraates with the same offer and, in doing so, sealed his fate. This despite the fact that Sextus had supported Antonius, while according to some, he had been in a secret alliance against Octavian, which if true would explain why Antonius refused to lift a finger to help his colleague for years as the younger man struggled to break Sextus’ grip on Rome’s food supply. Personally, I think that is the real reason Antonius sent word to Titius, who Antonius had appointed to govern in Africa and who was the man in contact with Sextus, acting as the intermediary between the two, commanding Titius to lure Sextus to meet him. Telling Sextus that Antonius accepted in principle, but wanted Titius to work out the details with Pompey’s sole surviving son, Antonius’ quartermaster convinced him to meet. However, when Sextus arrived, his bodyguard was overpowered, with Sextus’ head summarily removed from his shoulders to be sent to Antonius. With the death of Sextus, the line of Pompey Magnus came to an end and along with it any chance of Sextus possibly embarrassing Antonius with details of the bargain they made to starve Rome and cause Octavian difficulty.

  There was one unexpected bonus for us in the army; with the death of their commander, suddenly there were a number of men who had expected to march again. A good number of them had flocked to the standard because of who Sextus was, and some of these men returned to their homes. However, others were still bored and looking for the opportunity for loot, so these men, hearing that there was a dilectus being held by a number of Legions, found their way to the nearest party. Sometimes they became men of the 10th, sometimes not, but in the space of two or three weeks, I received word from Scribonius that he was returning with the full complement of men that we needed. It had become clear to all of us that there would be no campaign that year, so I sent a message to Scribonius to march overland to condition the men and get a feel for their abilities instead of securing shipping to transport them.

  Meanwhile, I spent more time with young Gaius, working with him on his sword and shield skills, both as a way to help him and to help myself. I worked harder that spring than I had in many years, finally coming to terms with the fact that the things that came naturally just a few years before I now had to work to achieve. The conditioning and muscle strength that never seemed to leave me now required a level of effort I had never had to exert before this. I cannot say that I was happy about it, and I am afraid I was not very good company at the end of the day when I would limp back to Miriam’s apartment, but slowly I saw progress. By the time of my forty-third birthday, I finally felt close to my old self, but I recognized that I would never be the same Titus Pullus I had been when I marched with Vibius in Gaul.

  Scribonius and the rest of the dilectus came marching in with the men he had recruited for the 10th Legion a bit short of three weeks later, just in time for us to pack up to march to Damascus, where we would spend the rest of the campaign season to winter, as Antonius sent word confirming that we would not march that year. Despite the men being sorely disappointed, none of the Centurions were, because we had not been keen on marching with essentially new men in our ranks, no matter how experienced they may have been in other Legions. It takes time for a Centurion to learn the character, strengths, and weaknesses of every man in his Century; for example, who are the shirkers and who are the men that might be troublemakers, for it is very unlikely that a man essentially asking for a job is going to tell the dilectus that he is lazy, a coward or likely to cause trouble. If one were to go by what men claimed when presenting themselves, we would never be defeated, while roads would be built in a matter of days instead of weeks or months, since every man had the fighting skill of Achilles, along with the strength of Hercules. Now we would have a whole year to train and evaluate these new men. They were not particularly happy to be told almost as soon as they came off a three-week march that they would only be in camp for a matter of two or three days before setting out again, and the decision was made by all the Primi Pili receiving new men to wait to issue armor, weapons, and equipment until we got to Damascus, so it was not the most martial-looking bunch that departed Leuke Kome.

  We were leaving what had been a small, sleepy town that in the space of months had become a good-sized place with several more streets added to accommodate the wineshops, whorehouses, smiths, grain merchants, and the residences that accompanied such explosive growth. The original inhabitants of the town were no doubt happy to see us go, while the newer residents lined the streets and wailed, some of them tearing at their clothes and hair at the departure of their future earnings. As is so often the case a fair number of people, most of them whores who had latched onto one of the men, along with merchants whose goods and services were more portable, tagged along behind us as we marched, giving us a tail that would be with us all the way to Damascus. Every night, they settled down in their own makeshift hovels and patchwork tents a short distance away from our own camp and since we were not marching in enemy territory or expecting enemy contact, the men were allowed to go visit their women after our camp was completed and the evening formation was held. The pace was easy, as we were in no hurry so we did not have many stragglers, and I was very happy to see that none of them were the new men.

  We had been so busy preparing for the move that it was not until the first night on the march that I had the chance to sit down with Scribonius to get his initial impressions of the new men. We were sitting in my tent as I cursed the absence of Diocles, for I now had to rely on Agis, who was in effect Diocles’ servant and a very slow-witted boy. I had sent Diocles ahead with Miriam to secure accommodations near the winter camp, detaching Gaius to go with them as security, the road to Damascus being rife with bandits looking for easy prey. I cuffed Agis about the head, something that I would not normally do, but it was the second time he had stumbled and spilled the cups of wine he was bringing to us in as many tries. I despised masters who took advantage of a slave or servant’s position because it reminded me of Lucius, my father, and his treatment of Phocas and Gaia, but there are limits. Still, I was cursing myself at my display of ill temper and I had to force myself back to the subject at hand. I had asked Scribonius for his report on the new men, yet he was forced to wait while I raged and now was sitting patiently, looking at me with a raised eyebrow and a sardonic smile.

  “Well?” I snapped.

  “I was just waiting for you to get over your fit,” he replied, knowing full well that he was the only man who could speak to me in such a manner and not get his own cuffing.

  His words had the effect he desired, as I laughed. Waving at him to go ahead, he pursed his lips as he referred to the wax tablet he had brought with him. Scribonius was the only Centurion I knew who actually took notes on matters he considered important, and it was such a good idea that I had tried to get the other Centurions to adopt it, but with limited success.

  He looked up, then said, “Overall, it’s a good bunch, but I'm concerned that we have a few too many former Centurions and Optios.”

  With those words, Scribonius touched on one of the biggest problems with enlisting veterans from other Legions into your own. While it would seem that it could only strengthen a Legion to have former Centurions and Optios in the ranks, I had observed that other Legions who had done so did it to their detriment. As I have said before, every Centurion runs his Century, every Pilus Prior runs his Cohort and every Primus Pilus runs his Legion in slightly different ways, while in each of their minds, the way they do it is the right way. Of course, their thinking is shaped by their superior Centurion, as a Pilus Prior has his Centurions run their Centuries to his standards, while all the Pili Priores must conform to what the Primus Pilus wants. After years of doing things a certain way, it becomes ingrained in a Centurion that this is the proper way of doing things, which is why the first preference when promoting Centurions is to do so from within the Legion, so there is less of a ripple of confusion when he takes over his new comma
nd. Having men who had gotten accustomed to command, then finding them doing things their way while marching in the ranks had shown to be problematic in other Legions, and in fact, Scribonius and I had discussed it before he left. I did not voice the question that popped into my mind at Scribonius’ words, knowing that if he had allowed it to happen there was a good reason for it.

  “How many, do you figure?”

  He shook his head. “It’s hard to say, because a number of them claimed to be rankers, but you know it’s impossible for a man who was a Centurion or even an Optio to hide it for long. Maybe 50 altogether.”

  I whistled. That would be almost one such man in every Century, so depending on their intentions and attitude, it could cause a number of problems. Most concerning was the Tenth Cohort, which still was the weakest in numbers if not quality, so I made the decision that we would not put any of those men who had either claimed the Centurionate or who we suspected of being such into the Tenth Cohort. Frontinus was doing an adequate job of running the Cohort, but this would be the first big test of his leadership with the influx of men from outside the 10th.

  “Otherwise how are they?”

  He shrugged. “They’re mostly old-timers who are long in the tooth for a full enlistment, but we promised them that they'd only be marching for the rest of this enlistment, which suits us anyway. We do have a few youngsters, maybe twenty percent of the men.”