Augustus

by Anthony Everitt

  This was a clear breach of the agreement among the triumvirs and, so far as Antony was concerned, tantamount to a declaration of war. He laid plans for the invasion of Italy. Civil strife was set to resume, and everyone knew who would win. After Philippi, Antony was regarded as the greatest general of the day; he would make short work of his junior partner in power.

  Somehow or other Octavian had to prevent Sextus and Antony from entering into an alliance against him. The depth of his anxiety can be gauged by his next step. He put aside his untouched wife, Fulvia’s daughter Claudia, sent Sextus’ mother, Mucia, to Sicily to convey a friendly message from him to her son; and wed Scribonia, Sextus’ aunt-in-law. Married twice before, she was considerably older than her new husband, perhaps in her early to mid-thirties. Scribonia was not a life partner of personal choice, but this did not prevent him from quickly consummating the union and making Scribonia pregnant.

  Antony set off for Italy from Sicyon hurriedly, giving Fulvia the further grievance that he was leaving her on her sickbed. He did not even say goodbye before his departure. Estrangement from her husband seems to have been the final blow for this Lady Macbeth of the ancient world, for she soon died. It would appear that her steely determination to advance her husband’s cause concealed a fragile psyche. Antony was greatly upset by her death, and blamed himself for it.

  The triumvir set a course for Brundisium with only a small number of troops, but with two hundred ships. En route he joined forces with Ahenobarbus’ powerful republican fleet. The two men had come to a secret agreement that they would work together as partners.

  This was an important moment, for it marked a change of opinion among republicans about the victor of Philippi. A number of leading personalities had escaped the proscription by fleeing to Sextus Pompeius in Sicily, but he was a young and untried leader. Now surviving optimates, recalling his readiness to come to terms with the Senate and freedom fighters in 44 B.C., increasingly placed their hopes in Antony and joined his following.

  The understandings with Ahenobarbus and Sextus strongly suggest that Antony was ready to succeed where his brother Lucius had failed, and bring about the destruction of his tiresome young colleague. He had had his fill of him, not merely from personal irritation but because the triumvirs’ dysfunctional relationship was destabilizing Roman politics and needlessly delaying the invasion of Parthia. The ancient sources are studiously vague about Antony’s exact intentions; it may be that a renewed civil war was meant to be a last resort if Octavian proved uncooperative and undependable. More probably, Antony actively sought a showdown.

  Supported by Ahenobarbus, he made his way to Brundisium. The port, garrisoned by five of Octavian’s cohorts, closed its gates to them, and Antony immediately laid siege to it. He sent to Macedonia for immediate reinforcements. It was a sign of the depth of his anger that he also asked Sextus, with whom he had no formal alliance, to launch naval attacks against Italy; the young commander enthusiastically complied. He sent a large fleet and four legions to Sardinia, then in Octavian’s possession, capturing it and its two legions.

  Octavian, with a leaden heart, took the road to Brundisium. Although he had many more troops at his disposal than did his fellow triumvir, he did nothing but watch and wait outside Antony’s fortifications. As often happened at times of crisis, he fell ill for several days, we are not told with what ailment.

  The Roman world was about to be convulsed once more, were it not for one familiar obstacle. Not for the first time, the soldiers took a hand in events. Octavian’s veterans came to a secret decision that they would reconcile the triumvirs if they could; they would fight for Octavian only if Antony refused to come to terms (in fact, some turned back from the march to Brundisium). Fraternization between the armies grew and compelled a reconsideration. There was to be no war, because there was no one willing to fight it. This was a blow to the generals’ authority, but there was nothing they could do about it, no punishment they could order, that would not make matters worse. Their only realistic option was to come to terms.

  Peace negotiators were appointed to resolve the dispute, among them Maecenas, Octavian’s trusted school friend, for Octavian. The two sides agreed that there should be an amnesty for the past acts of both triumvirs. Each side had bitter claims to put forward about the other’s behavior, but it was time, as political realists have said throughout history, to move on.

  The arrangement they came to distinctly favored Octavian, for it left him with Gaul and Calenus’ legions. However, this seems not to have troubled Antony; he came to a strategic decision that he could not go on treating Octavian as a temporary annoyance who would either disappear through illness (quite likely) or mistakes (unlikely), or whom he would swat like a fly at some convenient moment. He wanted a full, final, and permanent settlement. To achieve it, he was willing to make substantial compromises.

  The Triumvirate was renewed for another five years. The empire was cut neatly in half, with Octavian taking all of the west, including Gaul, and Antony the east from Macedonia onward. Italy was to be common ground, where both men would be allowed to recruit soldiers. The increasingly insignificant Lepidus retained Africa, a courtesy granted by Octavian. Antony had received help from the anomalous and threatening Sextus Pompeius, who still held Sicily and the western Mediterranean; he now had to abandon him. It would be Octavian’s duty to dispose of Sextus, just as Antony would punish Parthia.

  Divisions on a map were insufficient to guarantee a permanent peace, however. Octavian and Antony had never got on with each other and were unlikely to do so in the future. Unless something decisive was done to bind them personally as well as politically, the Treaty of Brundisium, as the accord is called, would not be worth the marble on which it was inscribed. A solution to the conundrum was made possible by two recent deaths. That of Fulvia not only enabled Antony to blame her for his past misdeeds, but also made of him a merry widower (Roman opinion regarded the queen of Egypt as an innocuous diversion). In the same year, 40 B.C., Octavia, Octavian’s sister, lost her elderly husband, Gaius Claudius Marcellus, and, perhaps five years older than her brother, became a highly eligible widow (albeit with two daughters and an infant son).

  The proposition that the treaty should be sealed by their marriage was irresistible. Although Octavian’s brief betrothal to Fulvia’s daughter Claudia had failed to reconcile the two triumvirs, there was a benign precedent for such a union in the long-ago and extremely happy marriage between Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar’s daughter, Julia. As long as she lived the two warlords had stayed friends; history would now be given an opportunity to repeat itself.

  Octavian’s short but dazzling political career had exposed a ruthlessness that overrode ordinary affection, but on this occasion we may guess that he sincerely wanted reconcilation with Antony. Plutarch records that he was “deeply attached to his sister, who was, as the saying is, a wonder of a woman.” He is unlikely to have handed her over into the hands of his unpredictable and womanizing colleague if he did not have his adoptive father’s example in mind.

  Great celebrations took place to honor the historic accord. At Brundisium, the triumvirs entertained each other at banquets in their respective camps, Octavian “in military and Roman fashion and Antony in Asiatic and Egyptian style.” They then moved on to Rome, where the wedding of Antony and Octavia was held; Antony struck a coin showing their heads (the first time a woman’s likeness is known to have appeared on a Roman coin). They marched into the city on horses as if celebrating a military triumph.

  Only one shadow was cast across the new landscape of peace and harmony. Octavian’s friend and supporter, the talented Quintus Salvidienus Rufus, was in command of the legions in Gaul. Sometime before the triumvirs became reconciled, he had opened a secret correspondence with Antony, hinting that he might be ready to switch sides. His motives are obscure; perhaps there were hidden jealousies in Octavian’s circle of intimates, or Salvidienus may simply have judged that his leader’s prospects wer
e poor.

  Astonishingly, if we are to believe the ancient sources, Antony told Octavian that Salvidienus had been plotting to defect to him and had sent a message to that effect while he was besieging Brundisium. Octavian was loyal to a fault, but if a friend betrayed him he was merciless. He immediately sent the proconsul a summons to come to Rome for urgent consultations, after which he would return to his command in Gaul. Salvidienus unwisely obeyed. Octavian arraigned him before the Senate and had him condemned both an inimicus (a personal enemy) and a hostis (a public enemy), and put to death. It was the end of a spectacular career. Salvidienus came from a humble background and had started out as a shepherd boy. He had been designated a consul for the following year, 39 B.C., without ever having held civilian office or sat in the Senate.

  Whatever the background to this mysterious affair, Appian remarks drily that “Antony did not win general approval for making this admission” about Salvidienus. In these murky and shifting times, few were without guilty secrets and Antony might have been expected to turn the same blind eye to Salvidienus as others were to his own maneuverings. It is hard to see what he expected to gain from his treachery. Perhaps he simply wanted to demonstrate, at someone else’s expense, that he was sincerely committed to his new friendship with Octavian.

  Salvidienus’ death is a reminder of an alienation deep inside Antony’s personality. It was easy to be misled by his celebrated bonhomie, his fondness for fun and games, for binge drinking and easy women; but below the affability lay a casual brutality and an inability to imagine the feelings of others.

  IX

  GOLDEN AGE

  40–38 B.C.

  * * *

  The rising poets of the age celebrated the arrival of peace with works that still speak vividly of their relief and joy. One of these, Publius Vergilius Maro (Englished as Virgil), came from the middle or lower middle ranks of Italian society, but his father ensured he received a good education. Virgil migrated to Rome, where, like any ambitious young man, he studied rhetoric. Painfully shy, though, he apparently lost the first law case at which he spoke.

  Suetonius gives a portrait sketch of the man: “He was tall and bulky, with a dark complexion and the appearance of a countryman. He had changeable health [and] ate and drank little. He was always falling in love with boys.”

  Virgil was thirty, approaching the height of his powers. Having abandoned Rome and a public career, he lived in Neapolis. His first major publication was the Eclogues (from the Greek for “selection”), a series of ten poems that describe an ideal countryside. But in Virgil’s neverland of lovely young shepherds and shepherdesses, real emotions and real events (such as the loss of the author’s farm because of Octavian’s veteran settlements, and its return thanks to the triumvir’s intervention) lie close to the surface.

  The young poet could recognize reality when he saw it. Whatever emotional scars his brush with triumviral power left him with, he made his peace with the regime. In these days before print, a professional writer without a personal fortune had no large middle-class market to provide him with an income from book sales. He needed rich patrons to supply his means—in the form of money or gifts of property and slaves—and to pay for the laborious copying out of his books. In the first instance, then, Virgil probably attached himself to Octavian’s cause for the sake of financial security. However, he also acted from political conviction, for the triumviral regime promised stability and prosperity. The two men became fast friends.

  Virgil wrote that the Golden Age had returned to Italy, and with a curious infantine addition. This was the messianic theme of his fourth eclogue:

  The Firstborn of the New Ages is already on his way from high heaven down to earth.

  With him, the Iron Age shall end and Golden Man inherit all the world. Smile on the Baby’s birth, immaculate Lucina [goddess of childbirth]; your own Apollo is enthroned at last.

  What exactly is Virgil getting at? Who is this baby? Is he a metaphor for something, or is a real person being denoted? Some detective work is needed to unravel the mystery.

  The poem is addressed to Gaius Asinius Pollio; he was a friend of Antony and had assisted him in the recent negotiations with Octavian. A man of principle in an age of turncoats, he was about to leave politics and write his History of the Civil Wars describing the period from the First Triumvirate to Philippi (sadly lost).

  Pollio had a dry sense of humor and a reputation for straight talking. When Octavian once wrote some lampoons about him, Pollio only observed: “For my part I am saying nothing in reply; for it is asking for trouble to write against a man who can write you off.”

  Some commentators have wondered whether the child could be Pollio’s son, but it is hard to see why Virgil should have imagined such a boy as savior of the world. A more likely candidate would be the predicted offspring of Antony and Octavia, whose union presaged peace after long years of war. Indeed, she was soon pregnant. Some scholars even believe that the poem was written as a wedding hymn.

  However, we should not forget that Octavian, too, was a newlywed, albeit somewhat unsuitably. It was known that Scribonia was carrying a child. A detail from the eclogue suggests that the answer to the conundrum may lie here. This is the reference to Apollo “enthroned at last”; just as orientalizing Antony favored the dionysiac Dionysus, so throughout his life Octavian appropriated the logical, severe god of light, Apollo. It is rather more likely that Virgil had Octavian’s unborn child in mind than Antony’s.

  In the event, the issue turned out to be academic. In 39 B.C. both women bore daughters, Julia and Antonia.

  For all the poet’s fine words, optimism was fading. Before the Treaty of Brundisium, Sextus Pompeius had attempted to help Antony against Octavian, only to be called off at the last moment. He was angry and threatening.

  Sextus employed two admirals, ex-slaves and former pirates called Menodorus (or Menas) and Menecrates. Perhaps they had been taken prisoner and enslaved by Pompey the Great during his highly successful campaign in 67 B.C. against the pirate fleets that used to dominate the Mediterranean. Having secured control of Sardinia and Corsica, they maintained the blockade of Italy.

  At Rome, the price of goods soared. For once Octavian lost touch with public opinion, which wanted him to restore peace by coming to an understanding with Sextus. He obstinately refused to do this, and to pay his soldiers he levied a new tax on property owners (fifty sesterces per slave, plus a death duty).

  For many, this was the final straw. Forced settlements, war, proscription, and famine—these things had all been endured, but now the people lost patience. There were demonstrations and riots. As he had done with the mutinous soldiers, Octavian decided to brave the mob in person and explain why it was wrong to blame him for the situation. He came to the Forum, attended only by some associates and a handful of bodyguards.

  As soon as the crowd caught sight of him, they started bombarding him with missiles. They did not stop even when they saw they had injured him. Octavian stood his ground, although this meant that he was, in effect, placing himself in their hands. When Antony was told what was happening, he rushed to the rescue. As he came down the Via Sacra into the Forum, the crowd did not at first throw anything at him, for he was known to favor peace with Sextus, but they warned him to go back. When he refused they began to stone him.

  Antony summoned reinforcements. His soldiers quickly surrounded the Forum, broke into small groups, and marched down alleyways into the square. The crowd could not escape and a number of people were killed. Pushing his way through the press, Antony reached Octavian only with the greatest difficulty and escorted him home. There was no doubt that he had saved his colleague’s life, and in spectacular fashion.

  This was a most instructive episode. It illustrates the continuing growth of a bloody-minded courage in Octavian. Through the exercise of will, Octavian, now twenty-four years old, was tempering himself in fire.

  What kept Antony and Octavian in power was the active support of the peo
ple and the legions: this was a lesson they had already learned many bitter times. Octavian eventually realized that he would have to give way on the matter of Sextus. Discreet feelers were put out and soon an entente was in prospect. Menodorus in Sardinia wrote to Sextus, counseling against peace; either he should make war wholeheartedly, he recommended, or he should wait and see if the famine at Rome would enable him to drive a harder bargain.

  Sextus rejected this advice and met the opposing leaders at a peace conference in the summer of 39 B.C. Accompanied by many of his Roman supporters, he sailed from Sicily in a huge flagship, with six banks of oars, leading a fine fleet. He anchored off Misenum, a headland at the northern end of the Bay of Naples dotted with the holiday villas of the rich, where the meeting was to be held. Wooden planks had been laid on piles in the sea, to create two platforms. Antony and Octavian went to the one nearer the coast and Sextus to the seaward platform. Enough water lay between them to allow the members of each party to talk among themselves without being overheard; exchanges between them had to be shouted, in a primitive and literal form of megaphone diplomacy.

  These cautious arrangements were presumably made at the initiative of Sextus. Perhaps recalling the nightmare scene when he had watched his father go to his death on the Egyptian coast, he was determined not to risk his life by abandoning his ship for the terra firma of his enemies.

  Sextus opened the discussions by demanding on behalf of the proscribed the return of all their confiscated property. Antony and Octavian agreed to buy back a quarter of the properties from their new owners. The news was published and immediately welcomed by victims of the proscription.