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

by Colleen McCullough

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  After March came in, the weather in Italian Gaul improved a little; Hirtius and Octavian pulled up stakes and moved closer to Mutina, forcing Antony, who had control of Bononia, to abandon that city and concentrate all his legions around Mutina. When news came that Pansa was on his way from Rome with three legions of recruits, Hirtius and Octavian elected to wait for him before offering Antony battle. But Antony also knew that Pansa was approaching, and struck at Pansa before he could join forces with his two co-commanders. The engagement took place at Forum Gallorum, some seven miles from Mutina, and the decision went to Antony. Pansa himself was badly wounded, but managed to get a message to Hirtius and Octavian that he was under attack. The official dispatches to Rome later said that Hirtius had ordered Octavian to remain behind and defend their camp while he went to Pansa's aid, but the truth was that Octavian had come down with asthma. What kind of general Antony was he demonstrated very clearly at Forum Gallorum. Having trounced Pansa, he made no attempt to form up his ranks and march to shelter; instead he let his men run wild, ransack Pansa's baggage train, scatter in all directions. Coming up without warning, Hirtius caught him in no condition to fight, and Antony went down so badly that he lost the better part of his army, extricated himself only with great difficulty. So the overall honors of the day went to Aulus Hirtius, Caesar's beloved clerkly marshal. Some days later, the twenty-first one of April, Hirtius and Octavian tricked Antony into a second battle and defeated him so decisively that he had no choice other than to evacuate his siege camps around Mutina, flee westward on the Via Aemilia. It had been Hirtius in command, Hirtius's battle plan Octavian followed, but even so, he divided his share of the legions into two and put Salvidienus in charge of one half, Agrippa of the other. He had not lost sight of the fact that he was no general, but he also had no intention of putting legates in command of his legions who had the necessary birth and seniority to claim his half of the victory for themselves. Though they had won and the assassin Lucius Pontius Aquila, fighting for Antony, was killed Fortuna was not completely on Octavian's side. Supervising the battle atop a horse on a mound, Aulus Hirtius was felled by a spear and died on the spot. The next day Pansa died of his wounds, which left Caesar Octavianus the only commander the Senate and People of Rome retained. Except for Decimus Brutus, liberated from the siege of Mutina, and very upset that he hadn't had a chance to fight Antony himself. "The only legion Antonius managed to save unharmed is the Fifth Alauda," Octavian said to Decimus Brutus when they met inside Mutina, "but he has some stray cohorts from the remainder of his forces, and he's moving westward very swiftly indeed." For Octavian, this was an unpleasant encounter; as the Senate's lawful commander, he was obliged to be friendly and cooperative in his relations with this murderer. So he was stiff, reserved, cold. "Do you intend to follow Antonius?" he asked. "Only after I see what develops," Decimus answered, liking Octavian no better than Octavian liked him. "You've come a long way since you were Caesar's personal contubernalis, haven't you? Caesar's heir, a senator, a propraetore imperium my, my!" "Why did you kill him?" Octavian asked. "Caesar?" "Who else's death would interest me?" Decimus shut his pale eyes, put his pale head back, and spoke with dreamy detachment. "I killed him because all that I or any other Roman nobleman had was by his grace and favor at his dictate. He took upon himself the authority of a king, if not the title, and deemed himself the only man capable of governing Rome." "He was right, Decimus." "He was wrong." "Rome," said Octavian, "is a world empire. That means a new form of government. The annual election of a group of magistrates won't work anymore, nor even five-year imperiums to govern in the provinces, which was Pompeius Magnus's answer. Caesar's too, in the beginning. But Caesar saw what had to be done long before he was murdered." "Aiming to be the next Caesar?" Decimus asked maliciously. "I am the next Caesar." "In name, that's all. You won't be rid of Antonius easily." "I am aware of that. But I will be rid of him, later if not sooner, said Octavian. "There will always be an Antonius." "I disagree. Unlike Caesar, I will show those who oppose me no clemency, Decimus. That includes you and the other assassins." "You're a cocksure child in need of a spanking, Octavianus." "I am not. I am Caesar. And the son of a god." "Oh yes, the stella critina. Well, Caesar is far less of a danger now he's a god than when he was a living man." "True. However, as a god he's there to be made capital out of. And I will make capital out of him as a god." Decimus burst out laughing. "I hope I live long enough to see Antonius administer that spanking!" "You won't," said Octavian.

  Though Decimus Brutus tendered the invitation with apparent sincerity, Octavian declined to move into his house in Mutina; he remained in his camp to hold the funerals of Pansa and Hirtius, return their ashes to Rome. Two days later Decimus came to see him, very perturbed. "I've heard that Publius Ventidius is on the march to join Antonius with three legions he's recruited in Picenum," he said. "That's interesting," Octavian observed casually. "What do you think I ought to do about it?" "Stop Ventidius, of course," Decimus said blankly. "That's not up to me, it's up to you. You're the one with proconsular imperium, you're the Senate's designated governor." "Have you forgotten, Octavianus, that my imperium doesn't permit me to enter Italy proper? Whoever stops Ventidius must enter Italy proper, because he's traveling through Etruria and marching for the Tuscan coast. Besides," said Decimus frankly, "my legions are all raw recruits who can't stand up to Ventidius's Picentines his are all Pompeius Magnus's old veterans Magnus settled on his own lands in Picenum. Your own men are veterans and the recruits Hirtius and Pansa brought are either veterans or blooded here. So it has to be you who goes after Ventidius." Octavian's mind raced. He knows I can't general, he wants me to get that spanking. Well, I think Salvidienus could do it, but that's not my problem. I daren't budge from here. If I do, the Senate will see me as another young Pompeius Magnus, indeed cocksure and overweeningly ambitious. Unless I tread carefully, I will be removed, and not merely from my command. From life itself. How do I do it? How do I say no to Decimus? "I refuse to move my army against Publius Ventidius," he said coolly. "Why?" gasped Decimus, staggered. "Because the advice has been tendered to me by one of my father's assassins." "You've got to be joking! We're on the same side in this!" "I am never on the same side as my father's assassins." "But Ventidius has to be stopped in Etruria! If he meets up with Antonius, we have it to do all over again!" "If that be the case, then so be it, said Octavian. He watched Decimus stalk off in high dudgeon, sighing with relief; now he had a perfect excuse not to move. An assassin had told him what to do, and his troops would back him in his refusing to take Decimus's advice. He didn't trust the Senate as far as he could throw it. Men in that body were hungering for a pretext to declare Caesar's heir hostis, and if Caesar's heir entered Italy proper with his army, that was a pretext. When I enter Italy proper with an army, said Octavian to himself, it will be to march on Rome a second time. A nundinum later he received confirmation that his instincts had been correct. Word came from the Senate hailing Mutina as a wonderful feat of arms. But the triumph it awarded for the victory went to Decimus Brutus, who had taken no part in the fighting! It also instructed Decimus to take the high command in the war against Antony, and gave him all the legions, including those belonging to Octavian, whose reward was an ignominious minor triumph, the ovation. The fasces of the dead consuls, said the Senate, had been returned to the temple of Venus Libitina until new consuls could be elected but it mentioned no date for an election, and Octavian's impression was that no election would ever be held. To further rebuff Octavian, the Senate had reneged on paying the bonuses to his troops. It was forming a committee to dicker with the legion representatives face-to-face, bypassing their commanders, and neither Octavian nor Decimus was to be on this committee. "Well, well, well!" said Caesar's heir to Agrippa. "We know where we stand, don't we?" "What do you intend to do, Caesar?" "Nihil. Nothing. Sit pat. Wait. Mind you," he added, "I don't see why you and a few others can't quietly inform the legion representatives that the Senate has arbitrarily reser
ved the right to decide for itself how much cash my soldiers will get. And emphasize that senatorial committees are notoriously miserly."

  Hirtius's legions were camped on their own, whereas Pansa's three legions were camped with Octavian's three. Decimus took command of Hirtius's legions at the end of April, and demanded that Octavian hand over his own and Pansa's forces. Octavian politely but firmly refused, stoutly maintaining that the Senate had given him his commission, and that its letter was not specific enough to convince him that Decimus really was empowered to take command and legions off him. Very angry, Decimus issued a direct order to the six legions, whose representatives told him flatly that they belonged to young Caesar and would prefer to stay with young Caesar. Young Caesar paid decent bonuses. Besides, why should they soldier for a man who had murdered the old boy? They'd stick with a Caesar, wanted no part of assassins. Thus Decimus was obliged to move westward after Antony with some of his own troops from Mutina and Hirtius's three legions of Italian recruits, well blooded at Mutina and therefore the best men he had. But oh, for the six legions with Octavian! Octavian retired to Bononia, and there sat down to hope that Decimus ruined himself. A general Octavian might not be, but a student of politics and power struggles he was. His own options were few and inauspicious if Decimus didn't ruin himself; Octavian knew that if Antony merged with Ventidius and then succeeded in drawing Plancus and Lepidus on to his side, all Decimus had to do was reach an accommodation with Antony. That done, the whole pack of them would then turn on him, Octavian, and rend him. His one hope was that Decimus would be too proud and too shortsighted to see that refusing to join Antony spelled his ruin.

  The moment he received Cicero's presumptuous letter telling him to mind his own provincial business, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus marshaled his legions and moved all of them to the vicinity of the western bank of the Rhodanus River, the border of his Narbonese province. Whatever was going on in Rome and in Italian Gaul, he intended to be positioned so that he could demonstrate to upstarts like Cicero that provincial governors were quite as large a part of tumultus as anyone else. It was Cicero's Senate had declared Marcus Antonius inimicus, not Lepidus's Senate. Lucius Munatius Plancus in Further Gaul of the Long-hairs was not quite sure whose Senate he supported, but a state of tumultus in Italy was serious enough for him to marshal all his ten legions and start marching down the Rhodanus. When he reached Arausio he halted in a hurry; his scouts reported that Lepidus and his army of six legions were camped a mere forty miles away. Lepidus sent Plancus a friendly message that said, in effect, "Come on over and visit!" Though he knew that Antony had been defeated at Mutina, the wary Plancus didn't know about Ventidius and the three Picentine legions marching to Antony's aid, or about Octavian's refusal to co-operate with Decimus Brutus; thus Plancus decided to ignore Lepidus's friendly overtures. He reversed his direction of march and moved north a little to see what happened next. In the meantime, Antony had hustled himself to Dertona and there took the Via Aemilia Scauri to the Tuscan Sea coast at Genua, where he met Ventidius and the three Picentine legions. The pair then laid a false scent for the pursuing Decimus Brutus, deluding him into believing that they were on the Via Domitia to Further Gaul rather than down on the coast. The ruse worked. Decimus passed Placentia and took the Via Domitia across the high Alps, far to the north of Antony and Ventidius. Who followed the coast road and sat down at Forum Julii, one of Caesar's new veteran colonies. Where Lepidus, moving east from the Rhodanus River, arrived on the opposite bank of the local stream and sat his army down casually. In close contact, the troops of both armies fraternized with some help from two of Antony's legates. A new version of the Tenth was with Lepidus, and the Tenth had developed a tradition of liking Antony ever since the days when he had stirred mutiny in Campania. So it was easy for Antony at Forum Julii; Lepidus accepted the inevitable and joined forces with him and Ventidius. By this time May was wearing down into its second half and even in Forum Julii there were rumors that Gaius Cassius was busy taking over Syria. Interesting, but not of great moment. The movements of Plancus and his huge army up the Rhodanus were more important by far than Cassius in Syria. Plancus had been edging his legions closer to Antony, but when his scouts reported that Lepidus was also at Forum Julii, Plancus panicked and retreated to Cularo, well north of the Via Domitia, and sent a message to Decimus Brutus, still on the Via Domitia. When Decimus received this letter, he struck off toward Plancus, reaching Cularo early in June. There the two decided to amalgamate their armies and cleave to the Senate of the moment, Cicero's. After all, Decimus had its full mandate, and Plancus was a legal governor. When he then heard that Lepidus had also been declared inimicus by Cicero's Senate, Plancus congratulated himself that he had chosen rightly. The problem was that Decimus had changed terribly, lost all his old panache, that marvelous military ability he had displayed so consistently during Caesar's war against the Long-hairs. He wouldn't hear of their moving from around Cularo, fretted about the unblooded state of the majority of their troops, insisted that they do nothing to provoke a confrontation with Antony. Their fourteen legions were just not enough not nearly enough! So everybody played a waiting game, unsure of success if it came to a pitched battle. This was not a clear cut ideological contest between two sides whose soldiers believed ardently in what they were fighting for, and there were no lions anywhere. At the beginning of Sextilis the scales tipped Antony's way; Pollio and his two legions arrived from Further Spain to join him and Lepidus. Why not? asked a grinning Pollio. Nothing exciting was going on in his province now that Cicero's Senate had given command of Our Sea to Sextus Pompey what a stupid thing to do! "Truly," said Pollio, shaking his head in despair, "they go from bad to worse. Anyone with a particle of sense can see that Sextus Pompeius is simply gathering strength to hold Rome to ransom over the grain supply. Still, it has made life extremely boring for an historian like me. There'll be more to write about if I'm with you, Antonius." He gazed around in delight. "You do pick good camps! The fish and the swimming are superb, the Maritime Alps a magnificent backdrop much nicer than Corduba!" If life was offering Pollio a wonderful time, it was not doing nearly as well by Plancus. For one thing, he couldn't get away from Decimus Brutus's eternal complaints. For another, when the listless Decimus wouldn't, it fell to him to write to the Senate trying to explain why he and Decimus hadn't moved against Antony and his fellow inimicus, Lepidus. He had to make Octavian his chief butt, blame Octavian for not stopping Ventidius, and condemn him for refusing to give up his troops. The moment Pollio arrived, the two inimici sent Plancus an invitation to join them; abandoning Decimus Brutus to his fate, Plancus accepted with relief. He marched for Forum Julii and its gala atmosphere, failing to notice as he came down the eastern slopes of the Rhodanus valley that everything was unnaturally dry, that the crops of this fertile region weren't forming ears.

  The terrible panic and depression he had experienced after Caesar's death had returned to haunt Decimus Brutus; after Plancus deserted, he threw his hands in the air and abdicated his military duty and his imperium. Leaving his bewildered legions where they were in Cularo, he and a small group of friends set off overland to join Marcus Brutus in Macedonia. Not an unfeasible endeavor for Decimus, who was fluent in many Gallic tongues, and envisioned no problems en route. It was high summer, all the alpine passes were open, and the farther east they traveled, the lower and easier the mountains became. He did well until he entered the lands of the Brenni, who inhabited the heights beyond that pass into Italian Gaul bearing their name. There the party was taken prisoner by the Brenni and brought before their chieftain, Camilus. Thinking that all Gauls must loathe Caesar, their conqueror, and thinking to impress Camilus, one of Decimus's friends told the chieftain that this was Decimus Brutus, who had killed the great Caesar. The trouble was that among the Gauls Caesar was passing into folklore alongside Vercingetorix, was loved as a supreme martial hero. Camilus knew what was going on, and sent word to Antony at Forum Julii that he held Decimus Junius Brutus captive wha
t did the great Marcus Antonius want done with him? "Kill him" was Antony's curt message, accompanied by a fat purse of gold coins. The Brenni killed Decimus Brutus and sent his head to Antony as proof that they had earned their money.