The Story of Civilization: Volume III: Caesar and Christ

by Will Durant

  While Antony frolicked in Alexandria, his wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius were plotting to overthrow Octavian’s power in Rome. Octavian had found no happiness there: the Senate was a rump of adventurers and generals, labor was restless with unemployment, the populares were disorganized, Sextus Pompey was blocking the import of food, business was petrified with fear, taxation and spoliation had ruined nearly every fortune, and many men were living in a reckless and sensual riot on the ground that the morrow might in any case bring repudiation of the currency, or further spoliation, or death. Octavian himself was anything but an exemplar of chastity at this time. To perfect the confusion, Fulvia and Lucius raised an army and called upon Italy to oust him. Marcus Agrippa, Octavian’s general, besieged Lucius in Perusia and starved him out (March, 40). Fulvia died of illness, frustrated ambition, and grief over Antony’s neglect of her. Octavian pardoned Lucius in the hope of maintaining peace with Antony, but Antony crossed the sea and besieged Octavian’s troops in Brundisium. The armies, showing more sense than their leaders, refused to fight each other, and compelled them to a peaceable agreement (40). As a pledge of good behavior Antony married Octavian’s sister, the gentle and virtuous Octavia. Everybody was briefly happy; and Virgil, writing now his Fourth Eclogue, predicted the return of Saturn’s Utopian reign.

  In 38 Octavian fell in love with Livia, the pregnant wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero. He divorced his first wife Scribonia, persuaded Nero to release Livia, married her, and found, in her persuasive counsel and her aristocratic connections as a member of the Claudian gens, a passage to reconciliation with the propertied classes. He reduced taxes, returned 30,000 runaway slaves to their masters, and set himself patiently to restoring order in Italy. With the help of Agrippa, and of 120 ships contributed by Antony, he destroyed the fleet of Sextus Pompey, secured Rome’s food supply, and ended the resistance of the Pompeians (36). The Senate by acclamation named him tribune for life.

  After marrying Octavia in a state ceremony at Rome, Antony went with her to Athens. There for a time he enjoyed the novel experience of living with a good woman. He put aside politics and war and, with Octavia at his side, attended the lectures of philosophers. Meanwhile, however, he studied the plans that Caesar had left for conquering Parthia. Labienus, son of Caesar’s general, had entered the services of the Parthian king and had led Parthian armies victoriously into Cilicia and Syria—lucrative provinces of Rome (40). To meet this threat Antony needed soldiers; to pay soldiers he needed money; and of this Cleopatra had plenty. Suddenly tiring of virtue and peace, he sent Octavia back to Rome and asked Cleopatra to meet him at Antioch. She brought him a few troops, but she disapproved of his grandiose plans and apparently gave him little of her fabulous treasury. He invaded Parthia with 100,000 men (36), tried in vain to capture its citadels, and lost almost half his forces in a heroic retreat through 300 miles of hostile country. On the way he annexed Armenia to the Empire. He awarded himself a triumph and shocked Italy by celebrating it at Alexandria. He sent a letter of divorce to Octavia (32), married Cleopatra, confirmed her and Caesarion as joint rulers of Egypt and Cyprus, and bequeathed the Eastern provinces of the Empire to the son and daughter that Cleopatra had borne him. Knowing that he would soon have to square accounts with Octavian, he abandoned himself to a year of frolic and luxury. Cleopatra encouraged him to dare the last gamble for omnipotence, helped him to raise an army and a fleet, and chose as her favorite oath, “As surely as I shall one day give judgment in the Capitol.”13

  III. ANTONY AND OCTAVIAN

  Octavia bore her rejection silently, lived quietly in Antony’s house at Rome, and brought up faithfully his children by Fulvia and the two daughters that she herself had given him. The daily sight of her mute desolation inflamed Octavian’s conviction that both Italy and he were doomed if Antony’s plans succeeded. He saw to it that Italy should realize the situation: Antony had married the Queen of Egypt, had assigned to her and her illegitimate offspring the most tribute-yielding of Rome’s provinces, was seeking to make Alexandria the capital of the Empire, and would reduce Rome and Italy to subordinate roles. When Antony sent a message to the Senate (which he had for years ignored) proposing that he and Octavian should retire to private life, and that the institutions of the Republic should be restored, Octavian escaped a difficult situation by reading to the Senate what he claimed was Antony’s will, which he had taken by force from the Vestal Virgins. It named Antony’s children by Cleopatra his sole heirs, and directed that he should be buried beside the Queen in Alexandria.14 The last clause was as decisive for the Senate as it should have proved suspicious; instead of raising doubts that a will filed in Rome should have made such provisions, it convinced the Senate and Italy that Cleopatra was scheming to absorb the Empire through Antony. With characteristic subtlety Octavian declared war (32) against her rather than Antony, and made the conflict a holy war for the independence of Italy.

  In September, 32, the fleet of Antony and Cleopatra sailed into the Ionian Sea, 500 warships strong; no such armada had been seen before. Supporting it was an army of 100,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, mostly supplied by Eastern princes and kings in the hope of making this a war of liberation from Rome. Octavian crossed the Adriatic with 400 vessels, 80,000 foot, 12,000 horse. For almost a year the rival forces prepared and maneuvered; then, on September 2, 31, they fought at Actium, in the Ambracian Gulf, one of the decisive battles of history. Agrippa proved the better tactician, and his light ships more manageable than Antony’s heavy-towered leviathans. Many of these were consumed by fires set by burning brands cast upon them by Octavian’s crews. “Some sailors,” says Dio Cassius,

  perished by the smoke before the flames could reach them; others were cooked in their armor, which became red hot; others were roasted in their vessels as though in ovens. Many leaped into the sea; of these some were mangled by sea monsters, some were shot by arrows, some were drowned. The only ones to obtain an endurable death were those who killed one another.15

  Antony saw that he was losing, and signaled to Cleopatra to carry out their prearranged plan for retreat. She headed her squadron southward and waited for Antony; unable to extricate his flagship, he abandoned it and rowed out to hers. As they sailed for Alexandria he sat alone on the prow, his head between his hands, conscious that everything was lost, even honor.

  From Actium Octavian went to Athens; thence to Italy to quell a mutiny among his troops, who clamored for the plunder of Egypt; then to Asia to depose and punish Antony’s adherents and raise new funds from long-suffering cities; then to Alexandria (30). Antony had left Cleopatra and was staying on an island near Pharos; thence he sent offers of peace, which Octavian ignored. Unknown to Antony, Cleopatra sent Octavian a golden scepter, crown, and throne as tokens of her submission; according to Dio he replied that he would leave her and Egypt untouched if she would kill Antony.16 The beaten Triumvir wrote to Octavian again, reminding him of their former friendship and of “all the wanton pranks in which they had shared as youths”; and agreed to kill himself if the victor would spare Cleopatra. Again Octavian made no reply. Cleopatra gathered all that she could of the Egyptian treasury into a palace tower and informed Octavian that she would destroy it all, and herself, unless he granted an honorable peace. Antony led what small forces remained to him in a last fight; his desperate courage won a temporary victory; but on the next day, seeing Cleopatra’s mercenaries surrender, and receiving a report that Cleopatra was dead, he stabbed himself. When he learned that the report was false he begged to be brought to the tower in whose upper chambers the Queen and her attendants had locked themselves; they drew him up through the window, and he died in her arms. Octavian allowed her to come forth and bury her lover; then he granted her an audience and, immune to what lure survived in a broken woman of thirty-nine, he gave her terms that made life seem worthless to one who had been a queen. Convinced that he intended to take her as captive to adorn a Roman triumph, she arrayed herself in her royal robes, put an asp to her breas
t, and died. Her handmaidens Charmion and Iris followed her in suicide.18

  Octavian permitted her to be buried beside Antony. Caesarion, and Antony’s eldest son by Fulvia, he slew; the children of Antony and the Queen he spared and sent to Italy, where Octavia reared them as if they were her own. The victor found the Egyptian treasury intact and as abundant as he had dreamed. Egypt escaped the indignity of being named a Roman province; Octavian merely mounted the throne of the Ptolemies, succeeded to their possessions, and left a praefectus to administer the country in his name. Caesar’s heir had conquered those of Alexander, and absorbed Alexander’s realm; the West again, as at Marathon and Magnesia, had triumphed over the East. The battle of the giants was over, and an invalid had won.

  The Republic died at Pharsalus; the revolution ended at Actium. Rome had completed the fatal cycle known to Plato and to us: monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchic exploitation, democracy, revolutionary chaos, dictatorship. Once more, in the great systole and diastole of history, an age of freedom ended and an age of discipline began.

  * * *

  I Cicero had said of Octavian: laudandum adolescentem, ornandum, tollendum—“the boy is to be praised, decorated, and exalted”; but tollendum also meant “to be killed.”6

  BOOK III

  THE PRINCIPATE

  30 B.C.-A.D. 192

  CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

  B.C.

  30:

  Octavian receives tribunician power for life; Horace’s 2nd book of Satires

  29:

  Virgil’s Georgics; Horace’s Epodes

  27:

  Octavian becomes Augustus

  27-A.D. 68:

  JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY

  27-A.D. 14:

  Principate of Augustus

  25:

  Agrippa’s Pantheon; fl. Tibullus

  23:

  First 3 books of Horace’s Odes

  20:

  First book of Horace’s Epistles

  19:

  Death of Virgil; fl. Propertius

  18:

  Lex lulia de adulteriis

  13:

  Theater of Marcellus; fourth book of Horace’s Odes

  12-9:

  Campaigns of Drusus in Germany; Tiberius subjugates Pannonia

  9:

  Fl. Livy; Ara Pacis of Augustus

  8:

  Death of Maecenas and Horace

  6:

  Tiberius in Rhodes

  2:

  Banishment of Julia

  A.D. 4:

  Augustus adopts Tiberius

  8:

  Ovid banished to Tomi

  9:

  Defeat of Varus in Germany; lex Papia Poppaea and lex lulia de maritandis ordinibus

  14:

  Death of Augustus

  14-37:

  Principate of Tiberius

  14-16:

  Germanicus and Drusus in Germany

  17-18:

  Germanicus in the Near East

  18:

  Death of Ovid

  19:

  Death of Germanicus; trial of Piso

  20:

  Lex maiestatis; rise of informers

  23-31:

  Rule of Sejanus

  27:

  Tiberius settles at Capraea

  29:

  Death of Livia; banishment of Agrippina

  30:

  Fl. Celsus, encyclopedist

  31:

  Death of Sejanus

  37-41:

  Principate of Gaius (Caligula)

  41-54:

  Principate of Claudius

  41-49:

  Exile of Seneca

  43:

  Conquest of Britain

  48:

  Death of Messalina; Claudius marries Agrippina the Younger

  49:

  Seneca praetor, and tutor to Nero

  54-68:

  Principate of Nero

  55:

  Seneca dedicates De Clementia to Nero; Nero poisons Britannicus

  59:

  Nero orders death of his mother Agrippina

  62:

  Fall of Seneca; death of Persius; Nero kills Octavia and marries Poppaea

  64:

  Burning of Rome; first persecution of Christians in Rome

  A.D.

  65:

  Execution of Seneca and Lucan

  66:

  Death of Petronius and Thrasea Paetus

  68-69:

  Principate of Galba

  69 (Jan.-Apr.):

  Principate of Otho

  69 (July-Dec):

  Principate of Vitellius

  69-96:

  FLAVIAN DYNASTY

  69-79:

  Principate of Vespasian

  70:

  The Colosseum; Quintilian fills first state professorship

  71:

  Vespasian banishes philosophers

  72:

  Suicide of Helvidius Priscus

  79-81:

  Principate of Titus

  79:

  Eruption of Vesuvius; death of the elder Pliny

  81:

  Arch of Titus

  81-96:

  Principate of Domitian; fl. Martial and Statius

  81-84:

  Campaigns of Agricola in Britain

  93:

  Persecution of Jews, Christians, and philosophers

  96-98:

  Principate of Nerva

  98:

  Tacitus consul

  98-117:

  Principate of Trajan

  101-2:

  Trajan’s first war against the Dacians

  105:

  Tacitus’ Histories

  105-7:

  Trajan’s second war against the Dacians

  111:

  Pliny the Younger curator of Bithynia

  113:

  Forum and column of Trajan

  114-6:

  Trajan’s campaigns against Parthia

  116:

  Tacitus’ Annals; Juvenal’s Satires

  117-38:

  Principate of Hadrian

  119:

  Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars

  121-34:

  Hadrian’s tour of the Empire

  134:

  Fl. Salvius Julianus, jurist

  138-61:

  Principate of Antoninus Pius

  139:

  Mausoleum of Hadrian

  161-80:

  Principate of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

  161-9:

  Co-reign of Lucius Verus

  161:

  Institutiones of Gaius

  162-5:

  War against Parthia

  166-7:

  Plague spreads through the Empire

  166-80:

  War with the Marcomanni

  174 (?):

  Marcus writes the Meditations

  175:

  Rebellion of Avidius Cassius

  180:

  Death of Marcus Aurelius

  180-92:

  Principate of Commodus

  183:

  Conspiracy of Lucilla

  185:

  Execution of Perennis

  189:

  Famine; execution of Cleander

  190:

  Pertinax, prefect

  193

  (Jan. 1): Murder of Commodus

  CHAPTER XI

  Augustan Statesmanship

  30 B.C..-A.D. 14

  I. THE ROAD TO MONARCHY

  FROM Alexandria Octavian passed to Asia and continued the reallotment of kingdoms and provinces. Not till the summer of 29 did he reach Italy. There almost all classes welcomed and feted him as a savior and joined in a triumph that lasted three days. The Temple of Janus was closed as a sign that for a moment Mars had had his fill. The lusty peninsula was worn out with twenty years of civil war. Its farms had been neglected, its towns had been sacked or besieged, much of its wealth had been stolen or destroyed. Administration and protection had broken
down; robbers made every street unsafe at night; highwaymen roamed the roads, kidnaped travelers, and sold them into slavery. Trade diminished, investment stood still, interest rates soared, property values fell. Morals, which had been loosened by riches and luxury, had not been improved by destitution and chaos, for few conditions are more demoralizing than poverty that comes after wealth. Rome was full of men who had lost their economic footing and then their moral stability: soldiers who had tasted adventure and had learned to kill; citizens who had seen their savings consumed in the taxes and inflation of war and waited vacuously for some returning tide to lift them back to affluence; women dizzy with freedom, multiplying divorces, abortions, and adulteries. Childlessness was spreading as the ideal of a declining vitality; and a shallow sophistication prided itself upon its pessimism and cynicism. This was not a full picture of Rome, but a dangerous disease burning in its blood. On the sea piracy had returned, rejoicing in the suicide of states. Cities and provinces licked their wounds after the successive exactions of Sulla, Lucullus, Pompey, Gabinius, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Antony, and Octavian. Greece, which had been the battlefield, was ruined; Egypt was despoiled; the Near East had fed a hundred armies and bribed a thousand generals; their peoples hated Rome as a master who had destroyed their freedom without giving them security or peace. What if some leader should arise among them, discover the exhaustion of Italy, and unite them in another war of liberation against Rome?