6. The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

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6. The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra Page 70

by Colleen McCullough


  Toward the end of December, his three legions comfortably camped in the neighborhood of Arretium, Octavian returned to Rome, where his family greeted him with uneasy gladness. Philippus, who steadfastly refused to commit himself to Octavian in public, was not so behindhand in private, and spent hours and hours with his wayward stepson, telling him that he must be cautious, that he mustn't ever commit himself to a civil war against Antony, that he mustn't keep insisting that he be called Caesar, or horrors! Divi Filius. Octavia's husband, Marcellus Minor, had come to the conclusion that young Octavian was a major political force who was not about to wait for maturity to claim high office, and started cultivating him assiduously. Caesar's two nephews, Quintus Pedius and Lucius Pinarius, indicated that they were firmly on Octavian's side. There were also three more men on the fringes of the family, for Octavian's father had been married before he married Atia, and had a daughter, also named Octavia. This older Octavia had espoused one Sextus Appuleius, and had two adolescent sons, Sextus Junior and Marcus. The Appuleii too began to nose around the nineteen-year-old who had assumed family leadership. Lucius Cornelius Balbus Major and Gaius Rabirius Postumus had been the first of Caesar's bankers to take up Octavian's cause, but by the end of the year the rest were in his camp too: Balbus Minor, Gaius Oppius (who was convinced Octavian had stolen the war chest), and Caesar's oldest friend, the plutocrat Gaius Matius. As well as his blood father's relative, Marcus Mindius Marcellus. Even that cagey individual Titus Atticus was taking Octavian very seriously, warned his colleagues to be nice to Caesar's heir. "The first thing I have to do," said Octavian to Agrippa, Maecenas and Salvidienus, "is get myself adlected to the Senate. Until I am, I have to operate as a complete privatus." "Is it possible?" asked Agrippa dubiously. He was enjoying himself immensely, for upon him and Salvidienus devolved the army duties, and he was discovering in himself a competence quite the equal of the older Salvidienus. The troops of the Fourth and the Legio Martia had taken a strong fancy to him. "Oh, very possible," said Maecenas. "We'll work through Tiberius Cannutius, even though his term as a tribune of the plebs is finished. We'll also buy a couple of the new ones. Additionally, Caesar, you have to go to work on the new consuls the moment they step into office on New Year's Day. Hirtius and Pansa belong to Caesar, not to Antonius. Once Antonius ceases to be consul, they'll get up more courage. The Senate has reinforced their appointment and stripped Macedonia off Gaius Antonius. All promising for you, Caesar." "Then," said Octavian, smiling Caesar's smile, "we'll just have to wait and see what the New Year brings. I have Caesar's luck, so I'm not about to go down. The only direction I'm going is up, up, up."

  6

  When Brutus reached Athens at the end of Sextilis, he finally found the adulation he had expected for assassinating Caesar. The Greeks had a very soft spot for a tyrannicide, and so they regarded Brutus. Much to his embarrassment, he discovered that statues of himself and Cassius were already under construction, and would go up on imposing plinths in the agora right next to the statues of the great Greek tyrannicides, Aristogeiton and Harmodius. With him he had taken his three tame philosophers, Strato of Epirus, Statyllus and the Latin Academic, Publius Volumnius, who wrote a little and sponged a lot. The four of them entered into Athenian intellectual life with enthusiasm and delight, spent their time going from this talk to that, and sitting at the feet of the current philosophical idols, Theomnestus and Cratippus. Which puzzled Athens very much. Here was the tyrannicide behaving like any other Roman with intellectual pretensions, skipping from theaters to libraries to lectures. For Athens had assumed that Brutus was there to raise the East and throw Rome out. Instead nothing! A month later Cassius too reached Athens, and the pair moved into a commodious house; of Brutus's vast fortune, hardly any was left in Rome or Italy. It came east with him, and Scaptius was every bit as good a manager as Matinius. In fact, Scaptius intended to be better than Matinius. Thus there was no shortage of money, and the three tame philosophers lived terrifically well. For Statyllus, used to Cato, a welcome change. "The first thing you have to do is come and see our statues in the agora," Brutus said eagerly, almost pushing Cassius out the front door. "Oh, I am awed! Such wonderful work, Cassius! I look like a god. No, no, I'm not suffering from Caesar's complaint, but I can tell you that a good Greek statue of oneself is far superior to anything the Velabrum workshops can produce." When Cassius set eyes on them, he fell on the ground laughing, had eventually to move to a place from which he couldn't see them before he could regain his equanimity. Both statues were full length, and absolutely nude. The spindling, round-shouldered, unathletic Brutus looked like a Praxiteles boxer, bulging with muscles, and suitably endowed with an imposing penis, plump long scrotum. No wonder he thought it marvelous! As for himself well, maybe he was as well endowed as his effigy and as splendid in body but to see himself there for all homophilic Athens to drool over was just terribly, terribly funny. Brutus flew into a huff and marched them home without saying another word. One day in Brutus's company told Cassius that his brother-in-law was idyllically happy living the life of a wealthy Roman in this cultural capital of the world, whereas Cassius itched to do something, get on with something significant. Servilia's news that Syria expected him as its governor had given him his idea; he would go to govern Syria. "If you have the sense you're born with," he told Brutus, "you'll go to Macedonia and govern it before Antonius finishes pulling all its legions out. Grab the legions still there, and you'll be inviolable. Write to Quintus Hortensius in Thessalonica and ask him what's happening." But before Brutus could, Hortensius wrote to him and told him that as far as he, Quintus Hortensius, was concerned, Marcus Brutus was welcome to come and govern Macedonia. Antonius and Dolabella weren't true consuls, they were wolfsheads. With a prod from Cassius, Brutus wrote back to Hortensius and said yes, he would come to Thessalonica, bringing a couple of young men who could act as legates Cicero's son, Marcus, and Bibulus's young son, Lucius. Plus others. Within a nundinum Cassius had taken ship to island-hop the Aegean to Asia Province, leaving the hesitant Brutus hovering between what he saw as his duty, to go to Macedonia, and his true inclination, to stay in Athens. So he didn't hurry north, as he should have, especially after he heard that Dolabella was rushing through the province on his way to Syria. And, of course, he had to write letters from Athens before he started out; the proximity of Servilia and Porcia worried him. So he wrote to Servilia and warned her that from this time on he would be difficult to contact, but that whenever he could, he would send Scaptius to see her. Writing to Porcia was far harder; all he could do was beg her to try to get along with her mother-in-law, and tell her that he loved her, missed her. His pillar of fire. Thus it was the end of November before Brutus arrived in Thessalonica, the capital of Macedonia; Hortensius greeted him ecstatically, and promised that the province would stand by him. But Brutus quibbled. Was it right to take Hortensius's place before the New Year? Hortensius was due to step down then, but if he acted prematurely, the Senate might decide to send an army to deal with a usurping quasi-governor. Four of Antony's crack legions were gone, but the other two, said Hortensius, seemed likely to remain in Dyrrachium for some time to come. Even so, Brutus procrastinated, and a fifth crack legion left. The one fascinating piece of news from Rome was Octavian's march on the city, which puzzled Brutus greatly. Who was this extremely young man? How did he think he could get away with defying a boar like Marcus Antonius? Were all the Caesars cut from the same cloth? In the end he decided that Octavian was a nonentity, that he would be eliminated by the New Year.

  Very much out of things, Publius Vatinius the governor of Illyricum sat in Salona with his two legions and waited for news from Mark Antony that the drive into the lands of the Danubius River was to take place. Finally late in November he received a letter from Antony that ordered him to take his men and march south to assist Gaius Antonius in taking charge of western Macedonia. Unaware of the degree of Antony's unpopularity, Vatinius did as he was told, alarmed by Antony's insistence that Brutus was ai
ming to snatch Macedonia, and that Cassius was on his way to Syria to snatch it from Dolabella. So Vatinius marched south to occupy Dyrrachium at the very end of December, his progress an ordeal of snow and ice; winter was early and unusually severe. He found all but two legions gone, one crack and one not so crack, but at least Dyrrachium was a comfortable base. He settled down to wait for Gaius Antonius, as far as he knew the legitimate governor of Macedonia.

  * * *

  Brutus still waited for news from Rome, which Scaptius brought midway through December. Octavian had gone to earth in Arretium, and a bizarre situation was developing. Two of Antony's legions had mutinied in favor of Octavian, yet nobody's troops would fight, not Octavian's against Antony, or Antony's against Octavian. Caesar's heir, said Scaptius, was now called plain Caesar by almost everyone, and he had a distinct look of Caesar about him. Two attempts by Antony to have Octavian declared hostis had failed, so Antony had gone off to Italian Gaul to invest Mutina, where Decimus Brutus was holed up. How extraordinary! More to the point for him, he learned that the Senate had stripped him of Crete, and Cassius of Cyrenaica. They were not yet declared public enemies, but Macedonia had been given to Gaius Antonius to govern, and Vatinius was ordered to help him. According to Servilia and Vatia Isauricus, Antony's intentions were grandiose. Armed with a five-year imperium maius, he would crush Decimus Brutus, then sit north of the Italian border with Rome's very best legions for five years, having guaranteed himself a continuous frontier westward through Plancus and Lepidus to Pollio, plus eastward through Vatinius to Gaius Antonius. He had ambitions to rule Rome, yes, but understood that the presence of Octavian meant that he couldn't for perhaps another five years. Finally Brutus acted. He left Hortensius in Thessalonica and marched west on the Via Egnatia with Hortensius's one legion and a few cohorts of Pompey the Great's veterans who had settled in the country around the capital. Young Marcus Cicero and Lucius Bibulus went with him; so did the tame philosophers. But the weather was appalling, Brutus's progress painfully slow. He battled on at a snail's pace, and was still in the Candavian highlands at the end of the year Caesar died.

  Cassius got to Smyrna in Asia Province early in November, to find Gaius Trebonius in residence and well ensconced as governor. With him was another of the assassins, Cassius Parmensis, who was serving as Trebonius's legate. "I make no secret of it," Cassius said to them. "I intend to beat Dolabella to Syria and take the province off him." "Good for you," said Trebonius, beaming approval. "Have you any money?" "Not a sestertius," Cassius confessed. "Then I can give you some to start off your war chest," said Trebonius. "What's more, I can give you a small fleet of galleys, and I'll donate you the services of two handy legates, Sextilius Rufus and Patiscus. Both good admirals." "I'm a good admiral too," said Cassius Parmensis. "If you can use me, I'll go with you as well." "Can you really spare three good men?" Cassius asked Trebonius. "Oh, yes. Asia Province is nothing if not peaceful. They'll be glad of some activity." "I have less palatable information, Trebonius. Dolabella is going to Syria by land, so you're bound to see him." Trebonius shrugged. "Let him come. He has no authority in my province." "Since I'm going on as soon as possible, I'd be grateful if you could round up those war galleys," said Cassius. They appeared at the end of November. Cassius sailed with his three admirals, determined that he was going to acquire more ships en route. With him went a cousin, one of the many Lucius Cassiuses, and a centurion named Fabius. No tame philosophers for Gaius Cassius! In Rhodes he had no luck whatsoever. True to form, the city of Rhodus refused him ships or money, explaining that they wanted no part of internecine Roman strife. "One day," he said pleasantly to the ethnarch and the harbormaster of Rhodus, "I'll make you pay for this. Gaius Cassius is a bad enemy, and Gaius Cassius doesn't forget an insult." In Tarsus he met the same response, and made the same reply. After which he sailed on to northern Syria, though he was too clever to leave his fleet moored where it might encounter a fleet belonging to Dolabella when he arrived. Caecilius Bassus occupied Apameia, but the assassin Lucius Staius Murcus occupied Antioch and had those six restless, disaffected legions. When Cassius appeared, Murcus handed over the reins gladly and paraded his troops to show them that they now had the governor they wanted, Gaius Cassius. "I feel as if I've come home," he said in a letter to Servilia, always his favorite correspondent. "Syria is where my heart is."

  All of which was a subtle beginning to civil war, if indeed civil war was to emerge from this confused hodgepodge of provinces and would-be governors. Everything depended upon how those in Rome handled the situation; at this stage of affairs, neither Brutus nor Cassius nor even Decimus Brutus really presented major threats to the Senate and People of Rome. Two good consuls and a strong Senate could quash all these pretensions to imperium, and no one had actually challenged the central government on its own turf. But did Gaius Vibius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius have the clout to control the Senate or Marcus Antonius or his martial allies to east and west or Brutus or Cassius or Caesar's heir? When the old year died, that awful year of the Ides of March, no one knew what might happen.

  X

  Armies All Over The Place

  From JANUARY until SEXTILIS (AUGUST) of 43 B.C.

  Exactly twenty years after his own memorable consulship, during which (as he would tell anyone prepared to listen) he had saved his country, Marcus Tullius Cicero found himself at the center of events again. Fear for his own safety had muzzled him many times over the course of those twenty years, and the one time he had desperately tried to save the Republic when he had almost talked Pompey the Great out of civil war he had failed, thanks to Cato. But now, with Marcus Antonius gone north, Cicero could look around Rome and see no one with the steel or the sinew to prevent his carrying all before him. At long last a golden tongue would prove more telling than military might and brute force! Though he had hated Caesar and worked constantly to undermine him, a part of him had always known that Caesar was the phoenix capable of rising from his own ashes. Ironically vindicated after he was physically burned, when that star had risen to tell all of Rome's world that Caesar would never, never go away. But Antony was better to work against because Antony provided so much ammunition: coarse, intemperate, cruel, impulsive, thoughtless. And, swept away on the power of his own rhetoric, Cicero set out to destroy Antony in the sure knowledge that this was one target without the ability to rise again. His head was stuffed with visions of the Republic restored to its old form, in the charge of men who revered its institutions, stood forth as champions of the mos maiorum. All he had to do was convince the Senate and People that the Liberators were the true heroes, that Marcus Brutus, Decimus Brutus and Gaius Cassius the three Antony had singled out as Rome's worst enemies were in the right of it. That it was Antony in the wrong. And if, in this simplistic equation, Cicero neglected to incorporate Octavian, then he had good reason: Octavian was a nineteen-year-old youth, a minor piece to be used on the game board as a lure, carrying within him the seeds of his own destruction. When Gaius Vibius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius were inaugurated the new consuls on New Year's Day, Mark Antony's status shifted. He was no longer consul, but consular, and whatever powers he had accrued could be chipped away. Like others before him, he hadn't bothered to obtain his governorship and imperium from the body constitutionally able to endow them, the Senate; he had gone to the Plebs in its tribal assembly. Therefore one could argue that the whole People had not consented because all patricians were excluded from the Plebeian Assembly. Unlike the other comitia and the Senate, the Plebs was not constrained by religious precursors; the prayers were not said, the auspices were not taken. A tenuous argument after men like Pompey the Great, Marcus Crassus and Caesar had obtained provinces and imperium from the Plebs, but one that Cicero used nonetheless. Between the second day of September and New Year's Day he had spoken against Mark Antony four times, to telling effect. The Senate, full of Antony's creatures, was beginning to waver, for Antony's own conduct made the position of his creatures difficult. Though not accompanied by tangibl
e evidence, the allegation that Antony had conspired with the Liberators to kill Caesar held enough logic to damage him, and his rudeness to Caesar's heir put his creatures in a cleft stick, as they were mostly Caesar's appointees. Antony had come to power as Caesar's heir, even if he wasn't mentioned in Caesar's will; a mature man, he was the natural inheritor of the staggering army of Caesar's clients, and had walked off with enough of them to cement his position. But now Caesar's real heir was wooing them to his service from the bottom up. Octavian couldn't say yet that the majority of senators rued their connection to Antony, but Cicero was intent upon helping him there for the time being. Once the senators were detached from Antony, he, Cicero, would gradually swing them not to Octavian but to the Liberators. Which meant making it look as if Octavian himself preferred the Liberators to Mark Antony, so unacceptable was Mark Antony. In this, Cicero was immeasurably helped by the fact that Octavian wasn't a senator, therefore found it hard to deny the attitude Cicero was bestowing upon him for Cicero's ends. The Great Advocate had embarked upon this tack at a meeting of the Senate held toward the end of December; a groundswell had developed against Antony that he couldn't fight because he wasn't in Rome. Which put both Octavian and Antony in the same bind, at the mercy of a master senatorial tactician. Cicero had a powerful ally in Vatia Isauricus, who blamed Antony for his father's suicide, and implicitly believed that Antony was one of the assassination conspirators. Vatia's clout was enormous, including on the back benches, for he had been, with Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, Caesar's staunchest aristocratic supporter. Now, commencing on the second day of January, Cicero set out to discredit Antony so completely that the Senate would endorse Decimus Brutus as the true governor of Italian Gaul, vote to fire Antony and declare him hostis, a public enemy. After both Cicero and Vatia spoke, the senators were definitely wavering. All each really wanted was to hang on to what little power he had, and to stick to a lost cause would imperil that. Were they ripe? Were they ready? Was this the moment to call for a division on the motion that Marcus Antonius be declared hostis, an official enemy of the Senate and People of Rome? The debate seemed to be over, and looking at the faces of the hundreds of pedarii on the top tiers, it was easy to see where the vote was going to go: against Antony. What Cicero and Vatia Isauricus overlooked was the right of the consuls to ask others to speak before a division. The senior consul was Gaius Vibius Pansa, who therefore held the fasces for the month of January, and was chairing the meeting. He was married to the daughter of Quintus Fufius Calenus, Antony's man to the death, and loyalty dictated that he should do what he could to protect his father-in-law's friend Marcus Antonius. "I call," came Pansa's voice from the chair, "upon Quintus Fufius Calenus for his opinion!" There. He had done what he could; it was up to Calenus now. "I suggest," said Calenus craftily, "that before the House sees a division upon Marcus Cicero's motion, an embassage be sent to Marcus Antonius. Its members should be empowered to command Antonius to lift his siege at Mutina and submit to the authority of the Senate and People of Rome." "Hear, hear!" cried Lucius Piso, a neutral. The pedarii stirred, started to smile: a way out! "It is madness to send ambassadors to see a man whom this House declared an outlaw twelve days ago!" roared Cicero. "That's stretching it, Marcus Cicero," said Calenus. "The House discussed outlawry, but it wasn't formally implemented. If it were, what's today's motion all about?" "Semantic quibbling!" Cicero snapped. "Did the House on that day or did it not? commend the generals and soldiers opposing Marcus Antonius? The men of Decimus Brutus, in other words? Decimus Brutus himself, in other words? Yes, it did!" From there he launched into his usual diatribe against Mark Antony: he passed invalid laws, blocked the Forum with armed troops, forged decrees, squandered the public moneys, sold kingdoms, citizenships and tax exemptions, besmirched the courts, introduced bands of brigands into the temple of Concord, massacred centurions and troops at and near Brundisium, and threatened to kill anyone who stood up to him. "To send an embassage to see such a man is only to delay the inevitable war and weaken the indignation rampant in Rome! I move that a state of tumultus be declared! That the courts and other governmental business be suspended! That civilians don military garb! That a levy to raise soldiers be instituted throughout the whole of Italy! That the welfare of the state be entrusted to the consuls by an Ultimate Decree!" Cicero paused to wait out the hubbub this ringing peroration brought in its wake, shivering in exultation and oblivious to the fact that his oratory was thrusting Rome into yet another civil war. Oh, this was life! This was his own consulship all over again, when he had said much the same about Catilina! "I also move," he said when he could be heard, "that a vote of thanks be tendered to Decimus Brutus for his forbearance, and a second vote of thanks be tendered to Marcus Lepidus for making peace with Sextus Pompeius. In fact," he added, "I think a gilded statue of Marcus Lepidus should be erected on the rostra, for the last thing we need is a double civil war." As no one knew whether he was serious or not, Pansa ignored the gilded statue of Marcus Lepidus and very shrewdly set Cicero's motions aside. "Is there any other business the House should consider?" Vatia rose immediately and commenced a long speech in praise of Octavian that had to be adjourned when the sun set. The House would sit again on the morrow, said Pansa, and for however many days it took to settle all business. Vatia resumed his panegyric of Octavian on the morrow. "I admit," he said, "that Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is extremely young, but there can be no getting away from certain facts first, that he is Caesar's heir secondly, that he has displayed maturity far beyond his years thirdly, that he has the loyalty of a great many of Caesar's veteran troops. I move that he be adlected into the Senate immediately, and that he be allowed to stand for the consulship ten years ahead of the customary age. As he is a patrician, the customary age is thirty-nine. That means he will qualify as a candidate ten years from now, when he turns twenty-nine. Why do I recommend these extraordinary measures? Because, conscript fathers, we are going to need the services of all Caesar's veteran soldiers not attached to Marcus Antonius. Caesar Octavianus has two legions of veteran troops and a third legion of mixed troops. Therefore I further ask that Caesar Octavianus, in possession of an army, be given a propraetor's imperium and assigned one-third of the command against Marcus Antonius." That set the cat among the pigeons! But it showed a great many of the backbenchers that they could no longer support Mark Antony in as whole a way as they hoped; the most they could do was refuse to declare him hostis. So the debate raged until the fourth day of January, on which date several resolutions were passed. Octavian was adlected into the Senate and given a one-third command of Rome's armies; he was also voted the money he had promised his troops as bonuses. The governance of all Rome's provinces were to remain as at Caesar's dictate, which meant that Decimus Brutus was officially Italian Gaul's governor, and his army the official one. Matters on that fourth day were enlivened by the appearance of two women in the portico outside the Curia Hostilia doors: Fulvia and Julia Antonia. Antony's wife and mother were dressed in black from head to foot, as were Antony's two little sons, the toddler Antyllus holding his grandmother's hand, the new babe Iullus in his mother's arms. The four of them wept and howled without let, but when Cicero demanded that the doors be shut, Pansa wouldn't allow it; he could see that Antony's women and children were having an effect on the backbenchers, and he didn't want Antony declared hostis, he wanted that embassage sent. The ambassadors chosen were Lucius Piso, Lucius Philippus and Servius Sulpicius Rufus, three eminently eminent consulars. But Cicero fought the embassage tooth and nail, insisted that it go to a division. Whereupon the tribune of the plebs Salvius vetoed a division, which meant that the House had to approve the embassage. Mark Antony was still a Roman citizen, albeit one acting in defiance of the Senate and People of Rome. Fed up with sitting on their stools, the senators disposed of the embassage swiftly. Piso, Philippus and Servius Sulpicius were instructed to see Antony at Mutina and inform him that the Senate wished him to withdraw from Italian Gaul, not to advance within two hundred mil
es of Rome with his army, and to submit to the authority of the Senate and People. Having delivered this message to Antony, the embassage was then to seek an audience with Decimus Brutus and assure him that he was the legitimate governor and had the Senate's sanction. "Looking back on it," said Lucius Piso gloomily to Lucius Caesar, present in the House again, "I don't honestly know how any of this has happened. Antonius acted stupidly and arrogantly, yes, but tell me one thing he's done that someone else hasn't?" "Blame Cicero," said Lucius Caesar. "Men's emotions get the better of their good sense, and no one can stir the emotions like Cicero. Though I doubt that anyone reading what he says can have any idea what it's like actually to hear him. He's a phenomenon." "You would have abstained, of course." "How could I not? Here I am, Piso, between a wolfshead of a nephew and a cousin for whom I can find no comparison in the entire animal kingdom. Octavianus is a completely new creation."

 

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