The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough
“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.
1
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 tangible 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
“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 miles 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.”
* * *
Knowing what was coming, Octavian marched north from Arretium to the Via Flaminia, and had reached Spoletium when the Senate’s commission caught up with him. The nineteen-year-old senator’s propraetorian imperium was right there for all his three legions to see: six lictors clad in crimson tunics, bearing the axes in their fasces. The two leading lictors were Fabius and Cornelius, and all had served Caesar since his days as a praetor.
“Not bad, eh?” he asked Agrippa, Salvidienus and Maecenas, sounding complacent.
Agrippa grinned proudly, Salvidienus began to plan military action, and Maecenas asked a question.
“How did you manage it, Caesar?”
“With Vatia Isauricus, you mean?”
“Well, yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”
“I asked to marry Vatia’s eldest daughter as soon as she’s of age,” said Octavian blandly. “Luckily that won’t happen for several years, and a lot can happen in several years.”
“You mean you don’t want to marry Servilia Vatia?”
“I don’t want to marry anyone, Maecenas, until I’m smitten, though it mightn’t work out that way.”
“Will it come to a battle with Antonius?” Salvidienus asked.
“I sincerely hope not!” Octavian said, smiling. “And most definitely not while I’m the senior magistrate in the neighborhood. I’m perfectly happy to defer to a consul. Hirtius, I imagine.”
Aulus Hirtius had commenced his junior consulship a sick man, had struggled through the inauguration ceremony and then retired to his bed to recover from a lung inflammation.
So when the Senate notified him that he was to lead three more legions in Octavian’s wake, catch the new young senator up and assume the co-command of their combined forces, Hirtius was in no fit condition to take the field. Which
He and Octavian joined forces on the Via Aemilia inside the province of Italian Gaul, southeast of the big city of Bononia, and went into camp between Claterna and Forum Cornelii, much to the delight of these two towns, assured of fat army profits.
“And here we stay until the weather improves,” said Hirtius to Octavian through chattering teeth.
Octavian eyed him in concern. It was no part of his plans to let the consul die; the last thing he wanted was too high a profile. So he agreed to this ultimatum eagerly, and proceeded to supervise Hirtius’s nursing, armed with the knowledge of lung ailments which he had soaked up from Hapd’efan’e.
Mobilization in Italy proper was going ahead at full speed; hardly anyone in Rome had realized the enmity Antony had generated among large elements of the Italian communities, which had suffered more at his hands than Rome herself had. Firmum Picenum promised money, the Marrucini of northern Adriatic Samnium threatened to strip Marrucine objectors of their property, and hundreds of rich Italian knights subsidized the equipping of troops. The groundswell was greater outside Rome than inside.
A delighted Cicero took the opportunity to speak out against Antony again at the end of January, when the House met to discuss trivia. By this time, the betrothal of Octavian and Vatia’s eldest daughter was generally known, and heads nodded while lips smirked. The fine old custom of making political alliances through marriage still flourished, a cheering thought when so much had changed.
Word had traveled ahead of the returning embassage that it had gotten nowhere with Antony, though just what Antony had told it wasn’t known. Which didn’t deter Cicero from delivering his seventh oration against Antony. This time he attacked Fufius Calenus and other Antonian partisans savagely for manufacturing reasons why Antony couldn’t possibly agree to the Senate’s terms.