“Mars Ultor, you who have protected, favoured and blessed my undertakings,” he declaimed, raising his arms and holding up the entrails of the sacrificed animal, “accept these entrails in place of those of the murderers who have just paid for their crime. The road of revenge is still long, but with your support and help, Mars the Avenger, dispenser of Justice, in time, my ministers and I will be able to rid the earth of the foul pack of traitors and cowards who raised their fetid hands against my divine father, killing him with a ferocity worthy of barbarians, they who more than anyone else had benefitted from his magnanimity with titles and positions which they still hold close to their chests.”
He glanced at his three ministers, the three men without whom he would have been able to do little in that eventful year and a half. So great had their impact been that he even wondered if Mars himself hadn’t put them in his way at various points in his short existence: Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in his childhood, Salvidienus Rufus just before Caesar was killed, and Gaius Cilnius Maecenas shortly after the fateful Ides of March. His three friends nodded with conviction, as absorbed as he was in the rite celebrating the sect’s latest double success.
He kept his arms raised, despite the blood seeping out of the bull’s entrails which continued to drip onto his head and trickle from his hands down his arms. He spoke again. “Five months ago I sacrificed another bull, Mars Ultor, to offer you the death of the first two of Caesar’s killers, Pontius Aquila, killed by the minister and brother Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and Gaius Trebonius, executed by the sect member Ortwin. You guided their movements and ensured them success in extremely difficult circumstances: Agrippa in a battle in which he shouldn’t even have taken part but during which he saved my life, and Ortwin with a skilful attack in the midst of a horde of enemies. Our German follower also killed a man whose elimination had become necessary given the nature of the society we created in your name: Dolabella, who Caesar promoted to the rank of consul but who later boasted of participating in the conspiracy to kill him, thinking that it would win him greater popularity. For this reason, I felt we had to add him to the list of people who should atone for my father’s murder.
“And now… now I rejoice with your ministers because justice has been done again. Our disciple Etain has put an end to Minucius Basilus, and the valuable Ortwin has managed to eliminate the vile Decimus Brutus Albinus! We have managed four in a year and a half! And here, now, in your presence, and in front of your ministers, I swear to execute as many again by the end of next year! Give me the strength to assemble all the forces of Rome against Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus, and I will make war upon them and destroy them in a single battle! Give me the chance to convert Mark Antony into an instrument of our vengeance and justice, as he has hitherto always refused to be, and we will have an army so powerful that none will be able to oppose it. And Rome will be cleansed of the filth of those men who committed the most appalling murder it is possible to commit, that of the greatest man who ever lived – a man, like Romulus, destined to become an immortal god.”
Once again, his ministers prayed to Mars Ultor, without assistants and without the audience of soldiers that usually preceded a battle. It was just the four of them, four men who would change the world and lead everyone else – junior disciples, external allies who knew nothing of the existence of the sect, even rivals and enemies – to shape history according to their plans. Because what Octavian hadn’t said as he’d called his ministers to him was that now he felt had the support of the gods, he too wanted to be remembered as one of the greatest men that had ever lived, worthy of standing in the Pantheon alongside his divine father.
He didn’t have Caesar’s strength and endurance and would never be a great general, but he had his lucid intelligence and, as he was discovering, his ruthlessness. Everything else he could get from the three men who watched as he dipped his hands and arms into the animal’s butchered stomach and smeared blood and bodily fluids over himself whilst praying to Mars. When he saw them in the dim and flickering light of the brazier which burned next to him, stained red like himself, he pierced the bull’s entrails with a poker and hung them over the fire, turning them until he judged them properly cooked. All the while, he reflected on the mission with which he felt he had been charged and how best to accomplish it.
He wanted to bring peace to Rome – a peace that had been missing for almost half a century – and to make Rome the largest, most powerful and enduring empire that had ever existed. He wanted every citizen to be proud of being a Roman, for them to be aware that they were privileged, and for even the poorest and most wretched of the Quirites to know that they always had more resources than a foreigner. He wanted the borders to be solid, consistent, and secure, and for the barbarians absorbed into the city’s domain to feel no desire to leave. He wanted it to be possible to travel quickly from one end of the empire to the other in safety, for trade and supplies to be guaranteed throughout the year, for justice to be fair, and for the soldiers to maintain a large, professional army. And for Rome primarily, but also other important centres, to be able to boast of great monuments and efficient services capable of satisfying every need and providing every convenience. Finally, he wanted the religion of their ancestors to be scrupulously adhered to in public and private, for customs and traditions to be restored, and for institutions and their representatives to be respected.
And he wanted to be the one to accomplish all of this.
He placed the cooked entrails on the tree trunk he’d chosen as an improvised altar, pulled them off the poker with a knife and cut them into four pieces, which he distributed to the three ministers, saying, “Blood brothers, eat this as though it were the heart of my father’s murderers. Take nourishment from their spirit and strength to continue our arduous mission. Revenge is just the first step on a path that will lead us to change the world, to make it more just, to glorify the power of Rome and save it from the inevitable decline to which it has been condemned by civil war.”
Agrippa, Rufus and Maecenas waited for him to take the first bite. He speared his piece with a sword and bit into the intestines – and his palate was assailed by the unpleasant contrast between bits that had been burned to a crisp and others that were still raw. He got it down hastily, swallowing with difficulty. Tears came to his eyes, but he immediately opened his mouth and took another bite, and the others promptly followed suit in silence. Their eyes, wild in the light of the brazier, glowed in their scarlet faces, like those of victors riding their chariots to the Capitoline Hill on the day of their triumphal ceremony.
It was their triumph. They had won a new, personal battle, defeating yet more enemies, and they deserved it. They were already beginning to change the world: their decisions and their actions were influencing events, and had already profoundly changed the course of Rome’s history in that year and a half. But they had only just started. Up until that point, the foreign wars had shown themselves to be nothing more than a means for favouring and enriching certain political allies, and not a way of consolidating Rome’s supremacy. The civil wars, however, had simply created exasperation between factions, rival generals, and parties, rather than a new, more rational, solid and coherent system of government as Caesar had intended. Soon everything would change.
If more blood still had to be spilled to achieve peace, so be it, the young consul said to himself as he looked at his friends, covered from head to foot in the stuff. But this time no blood would be wasted: the blood of Caesar’s killers, and of all those opposed to a new order would be the sacrifice, the tribute to the gods, for the survival of the Urbe.
“Mars Ultor, I offer you human victims so you will allow me to save Rome from certain death!” he said in his mind, without opening his mouth.
*
“They’re coming!”
Salvidienus Rufus burst into the praetorium pavilion, startling all present. He was well aware he was bringing bad news and he’d spent the whole journey from the outpost on the Po to the ca
mp wondering how best to deliver it. Eventually, he’d concluded that the quicker he gave it to them, the quicker they’d think of a way to confront the dramatic situation.
The young tribune read the shock in his friends’ expressions. Too soon. Antony and Lepidus had arrived too soon: the consul hadn’t yet got the Senate’s blessing to negotiate with them, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to come to an agreement with people the civic fathers had defined as ‘public enemies’. At least not until Quintus Pedius had changed the illustrious assembly’s mind…
“How many legions do they have?” Agrippa asked. He was always the most practical one.
“More than we do. And that’s all you need to know,” Rufus replied, venomously, immediately hating himself for being unable to conceal the hostility he felt towards him. He blamed himself, because he was well aware that his hatred was fuelled by envy, and he would have liked to have been a better man. But he couldn’t manage it. Fortunately, he told himself, the others hadn’t noticed, and even Agrippa was too upright a type to suspect that a sect member, a man he considered a friend, harboured such a grudge. “Then it’s a real problem,” said Maecenas, rising from the chair he was sitting on at a table next to the sect’s leader, and pacing back and forth in the tent. “We need to find a way to play for time until news arrives from Rome.”
“The problem is if they don’t play for time,” Octavian intervened. “Antony and Lepidus know that it’s in their interests to make an agreement with me. But it would be even more advantageous for them to destroy me, offer my head to the Senate, and re-propose an amnesty for Caesar’s killers. Those old windbags like Cicero would be more than happy to sacrifice me to save their friends Brutus and Cassius. They’d even be willing to hold their noses and put up with someone like Antony… Cicero, who has said and written every imaginable awful thing about him, would accept him if he returned, just to protect Brutus and Cassius. That’s why I wanted it to look like Decimus Brutus was killed on Antony’s orders: perhaps that will make it more difficult for him to reach terms with those traitors.”
“Right,” Agrippa agreed, “even more so given that the senators know full well Antony’s ambitions can be reined in by Caesar’s killers, while with Antony at your side and your father’s murderers in Hades, you would be uncontrollable.”
“I hate to say it, but this time we must act absolutely legally,” Octavian said gravely. “We need the Senate’s damned consent, otherwise we might find ourselves up against the whole lot of them: those old windbags, Caesar’s murderers and Antony and Lepidus. Even all the provincial governors, people like Munatius Plancus and Pollio who are still waiting to see which way the tide turns. It didn’t take long for Antony to make an agreement with Caesar’s assassins after the Ides of March, and he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again – even more so if his political survival depended on it.”
“But if they attack us, we’re done for,” Rufus objected. “At this point, the only hope is to attack first – the Senate’s consent might not reach us in time.”
“These are frenetic times,” Maecenas said, continuing to pace up and down. Rufus was annoyed by his pacing, but as no one else dared take him by the arm and sit him down, he didn’t feel he could either. “It takes very little to disrupt an equilibrium and alter the make up of opposing blocks, as we’ve seen in the year and a half since Caesar’s death. We must always keep in mind that we need to be working to create a united front against Caesar’s killers. That’s what we need to do to complete our revenge and consolidate our rise to power. But it would only take one false step on our part for everyone to unite against us, as Octavian has just postulated. And to attack now would undoubtedly be a false step. If we want to change the world, we’ll have to control it first if we want to avoid being hindered by circumstance.”
“Nice words,” Rufus said, irked by the implied reprimand. “But for us mere mortals, how do you translate that into action?”
Maecenas gave no sign of wishing to fuel Rufus’ rancour. “Don’t forget that Antony and Lepidus are tempted by the prospect of reaching an agreement with us. In theory, they’re here because Octavian has been trying to meet them for months, and has shown that he doesn’t want a war. And that, despite the fact that the only reason the Senate gave him the praetorship and then the consulship was to fight them. Maybe it’s less advantageous for those two to ally themselves with us rather than destroying us, but it’s certainly less strenuous and less risky. And, fundamentally, Antony is lazy: he prefers to gain a little with minimal effort rather than work hard for a result that may not be achievable. And let’s not forget, he’d struggle to find common ground with a Senate under the sway of Cicero. And, as Octavian noted, Caesar’s killers won’t go along with him since, officially, it was he who executed Decimus Brutus.”
The others remained silent. He was arriving at a conclusion that all were now keen to hear.
“So I say that we should take our time and keep them hanging on until we know that the Senate, willingly or not, is officially on our side.”
“I couldn’t ask for more,” Octavian said. “But I still can’t see how we can stop Antony attacking us if that’s what he decides to do.” Rufus was pleased that his friend had pointed out to Maecenas the inconsistency of his reasoning. He didn’t like always being the only one to be taken for a killjoy, the one who always soured the idyllic atmosphere of mutual respect that bound the sect’s leader and its ministers. As ever, Maecenas kept his calm. He always seemed to know what he was talking about. “Simple,” he said. “We have a powerful weapon, and we should use it. It is…” A cry of alarm from outside cut him off.
The four ran out of the tent almost in unison, and immediately saw soldiers rushing to the side of the fortified camp which looked out over the river. Rufus grabbed a legionary and asked what was going on. The soldier, noticing their rank, stood to attention and said, “I don’t know much, Tribune… it seems that Antony and Lepidus’s men are on the other side of the river and…”
Rufus left him, exchanged a knowing glance with the three friends and together they started walking to the northern fortification. When they reached the embankment, they saw the soldiers massed on the terraces. They continued through the crowds, the men hurriedly moving aside to let them pass when they recognised the consul. They peered over the sharp tips of the poles at the surrounding countryside. Over on the other side of the Po, stretching as far as the eye could see, was Antony and Lepidus’s immense army. Soldiers continued to emerge from the woods in the background in a never-ending flow, forming ever deeper ranks.
“Well, if Anthony wanted to impress us, he’s succeeded…” said Octavian, sounding a little discouraged.
“Look!” Agrippa pointed to a boat in the middle of the river. There were five legionaries on it, one with no equipment and two manning the oars. The vessel proceeded towards them, but before reaching the southern shore, one of the legionaries pushed the unarmed soldier into the water. He thrashed about in the waves trying to swim to the shore, but the current was too strong and he was quickly swept away, disappearing from Rufus’s view. Shortly afterwards the boat reached land and the four men walked up to the rampart.
When they were within earshot, they stopped and one of them shouted: “Soldiers of Rome! The man you saw disappear in the river was one of your comrades in arms. He was in one of your reconnaissance patrols.” Then he stopped to let his words take effect on the legionaries on the terraces, without even asking to speak to those in command.
Amid cries of outrage, Octavian turned to Rufus. “Was that the patrol you were with?”
“Um, I think so,” replied an embarrassed Rufus. “When we returned I sent them back out to check on the movements of Antony’s army. They must have got too close…”
“…Or the enemy got too far forward,” Agrippa suggested, perhaps with a hint of malice. Rufus felt obliged to justify himself. “When we left them it looked like they’d made camp. They didn’t look like they had any intention of moving f
orward.”
In the meantime, the envoy had started talking again, and it was clear that he had no interest in addressing the consul. “We have captured twenty of your men. Every day, we will throw one in the river. If they’re very lucky and the water is calm, they might just survive. If not, you’ll never see them again. And this is the message that Antony sends to you, soldiers of Rome,” the man continued. “Most of you were under his command and he has no wish to fight you. But if it comes to it, you will die because you are outnumbered and your commanders have no military experience, unlike him. Stop resisting and arrest your leaders, who forcefully extorted their positions from the Senate, and we’ll once again be comrades in arms, able to conquer the entire world, and with it rich spoils and a fair reward for our service.”
The soldiers on the terraces began to mutter among themselves, some in an increasingly agitated way, while others glanced towards the four young commanders, and their expressions were far from re-assuring.
“Antony wants to open negotiations from a position of strength, that’s all,” Maecenas commented immediately. “He wants to show us that he has a certain authority over the soldiers. Over all the soldiers.”
“Well then, maybe the time has come for you to tell us what your idea was, my friend,” Octavian said. Maecenas was silent for a moment as he looked around him, noticing, like the other three, that no one had raised a dissenting voice against the envoy’s proposals. Then he shook his head. “Unfortunately, my idea was precisely that: to use the soldiers to put pressure on him. But he’s beaten us to it…”
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