they were not even agreed as to what was to be done next. In the first
moment, Cassius demanded that Antony should die; but Brutus was against
it, declaring that it was enough that one man should have died. In this
Brutus was evidently wrong, as many besides ought to have been slain, to
set everything right: at all events, Antony should have been killed, if
even a shadow of the republic was still to be kept up; for indeed it was
he, and men like him, who had made Cæsar’s rule hateful. He had been his
chief instigator to take the diadem, and it is generally acknowledged
that, if left to himself, Cæsar would have done nothing but good. In the
height of the tumult, most of the senators took to flight, a few openly
declared for Brutus and his companions, as tyrannicides. Cicero was one
of these, which shows no small courage on his part. On neither side were
people at all aware of what was next to follow. One might have believed
that the people would have been full of exultation after Cæsar’s murder,
as public opinion was against him, ever since he had aspired to the
diadem; yet there is nothing more changeable than man: now that the
thing which they had wanted was done, the same people who a few days
before had wished for Cæsar’s death, were bewailing and lamenting him.
The tumult lasted for some days. Cæsar had been murdered on the
fifteenth of March; on the seventeenth, the senate met to deliberate on
the steps which were to be taken in a time of such great excitement. In
this meeting, Antony behaved quite differently from what had been
expected, holding out his hand for a reconciliation: people indeed did
not trust him; yet they believed that he was forced by circumstances to
act in this way. Cicero came forward as an adviser, and it was decreed
that an amnesty should be granted for all that was past; just as they
did at Athens after the time of the thirty tyrants. There was much
consultation about what was to be done. Brutus and Cassius, as public
opinion was against them, had betaken themselves to the Capitol to
escape from the storm; and from thence they began to negotiate: there
were many of Cæsar’s soldiers in the city, others thronged in, and the
commotion was very great. The resolutions which were come to, aimed at
reconciliation; but they were full of contradictions to each other.
Whilst, on the one hand, there was a strong feeling of admiration for
the murderers, the decrees of the senate took quite the opposite turn.
The proposal that Cæsar should be declared a tyrant, and all his acts be
repealed, was not only rejected by the senate, through fear of the
veterans, but divine honours were even conferred upon him, and the
validity of all his ordinances expressly acknowledged. The motion had
been made that his will should be annulled; but his father-in-law, L.
Calpurnius Piso, with persevering impudence, carried that it should be
ratified, publicly read, and executed. Cæsar had bequeathed to the
soldiers, and to every single individual of the Roman people, great sums
from his immense treasures; with this one would be sure to rekindle the
enthusiasm of the soldiers and of the populace for him who was dead.
Some had wisely requested that the burial should be quite private; yet
this also was overruled, owing to the boldness of the faction and the
cowardice of the senate, and it was ordered that he should have a
stately funeral in the _Campus Martius_. The corpse in an open bier,
according to the Italian custom, as is still the case at this day, was
set down in the Forum before the _rostra_; and there his nearest kinsman
Antony, who was allied to him by his mother Julia, delivered the
oration, thus working powerfully on the minds of the fickle and
capricious people: he not only recounted Cæsar’s great achievements, but
he afterwards showed the wounds, and held aloft the bloody toga pierced
by the daggers. At this sight, the people became so frantic and enraged,
that instead of bearing the dead body to the _Campus Martius_, they at
once built up a funeral pile of the benches and whatever wood besides
chanced to be at hand, and there they burnt it: they then tore a man to
pieces, whom they had groundlessly mistaken for one of the conspirators,
and they stormed the houses of Brutus and Cassius. These had already
come down from the Capitol on a promise which Antony and Lepidus had
made on oath; and now they betook themselves to Antium, whilst others
went down to the provinces of which they were governors. Dec. Brutus
withdrew to Cisalpine Gaul which had been promised him by Cæsar; there
he meant to take the oaths of the legions, and to make sure of them: M.
Brutus was to have had Macedon; Cassius, Syria.
The events of this year (708) are so complicated and various, that it is
quite impossible to relate them in order. Fr. Fabricius gives a detailed
account of them in his life of Cicero: the knowledge of them is of
importance for the Philippic orations.
Cæsar had in his will made the grandson of his sister Julia, C.
Octavius, his heir _ex dodrante_ after the payment of all legacies; the
remaining quarter he had bequeathed to his wife’s relations: Antony and
L. Piso, were not among the heirs. Cæsar’s aunt Julia, had been married
to Marius; his sister Julia, the wife of M. Atius Balbus, had a daughter
Atia, who was married to C. Octavius, the son of C. Octavius: this last
was a worthy man, and but for his early death, would have risen to the
consulship. Whether these Octavii belonged to those who in former days
had acted a part in history, especially the colleague of Tib. Gracchus,
is a point which I do not clearly know. I am, however, inclined to deny
it, as they are spoken of too positively as having been _ordinis
equestris_. At the time of Cæsar’s murder, C. Octavius was in his
nineteenth year, having been born on the 23d of September, 689. Cæsar
had taken an interest in this young man after his return from Spain; for
hitherto he does not seem to have bestowed any attention upon him. He
had settled that he was to accompany him in the Parthian war, and
thenceforth remain with him to finish his education: until then, he had
sent him to Apollonia in Illyricum, to get Grecian learning there. The
Greek language was at that time quite common among the Romans: Cassius
and Messalla spoke it to each other;[19] and in Cicero’s letters there
are long passages in Greek, without the writers being themselves aware
of it: Cicero’s Greek, however, has sometimes a peculiarly foreign air
about it; it would be interesting to make this at once the subject of an
accurate research. When Octavius had heard the sad news, he came up to
Rome, and presented himself to Antony as Cæsar’s heir, ready to enter
upon his inheritance. This was a most unpleasant arrival for Antony, who
had the most urgent reasons not to let the property go out of his hands:
for as he was answerable for it, he had to look sharp that no mistake
should be made, and that it should be most faithfully administered; just
as was the case with those with whom Napoleon had deposited the five
millions. Octavius is the first example which I know of in history of an
adoption by will; afterwards, this was very often done. Antony now tried
to deter Octavius: he as well as others represented to him that he had
better give it up, telling him that he was still too young: his mother
and his stepfather had allowed themselves to be intimidated. But he
already had Agrippa for his adviser, a man of whom, at a later period,
there is a great deal of good to be said, but whose conduct at this
crisis brought sad consequences upon the republic. But for Agrippa,
Octavius would have played quite a different part: he would have let
himself be intimidated; or else would have been overpowered, and Brutus
would at last have been obliged to take upon himself the dictatorship,
though perhaps under a different name, as the _dictatura_ had been
abolished for ever by a decree of the senate. Octavius now attached
himself to those by whom he hoped to strengthen himself against Antony;
and as, of course, he could not league himself with the murderers of
Cæsar, he made particular advances to Cicero, whose hands were clean in
that affair, and who allowed himself to be entrapped by the deep cunning
of the young man: for he deemed it impossible that one so young should
be false; and he always tried to see what he wished, to find in Octavius
a disposition to consult the good of the commonwealth. Thus arose this
connexion.—Octavius carried his point, and Antony had to give up to him
the will and the inheritance, that is to say, as much of the latter as
was still left; for Antony had already made away with the greatest part
of the sums which Cæsar had deposited with him. The ill-feeling between
Octavius and Antony now ran very high: each suspected the other, and
perhaps with good reason, of trying to murder him. To so great a height
had the excitement risen, that Cicero resolved to go away to Athens,
until the first of January of the following year, when Hirtius and Pansa
were to be consuls: the former of these was a very worthy and able man,
and really his friend, whilst Pansa was much less eminent, being only a
commonplace soldier.
This summer Cicero displayed the greatest intellectual activity. He
began the books _de Officiis_; he wrote the ones _De Divinatione_, _De
Fato_, _De Gloria_, the _Topica_, and also that huge quantity of
letters, many of which are no longer extant. I do not know of any
person, who was so intensely laborious as Cicero, was at that time. A
common man will under such circumstances be stunned; he only thinks with
terror of what is before him: Cicero, on the contrary, was aware of
everything that was going on; but instead of letting himself be made the
slave of events which he could not check, he turned all his thoughts to
the intellectual world. This activity was the recreation which he found
in this grief; it shows the wonderful strength of his soul. Contrary
winds obliged him to stop at Rhegium.
Antony had, by means of decrees which he had wrung from the senate,
given Macedonia to his brother Caius, and Syria to Dolabella, who, after
Cæsar’s death, was consul with him: for himself, he had chosen Cisalpine
Gaul. All at once, he turned round, and seemed to be quite another man:
he showed himself friendly to the _optimates_, and most ready to
conciliate men’s minds; and he enacted laws which aimed at peace. When
Cicero was told that Antony was doing everything that one could wish,
his friends earnestly begged him to return, and to reconcile himself
with Antony. Had Cicero, on his arrival, ventured to appear in the
senate, notwithstanding the risk there was of his being murdered in it;
and had he brought himself to speak there to Antony, as if he could
trust him; he might have prevented a great deal of mischief. Antony was
embittered against him, and hated him; but he would perhaps after all
have consented to make friends with him. On the whole, Cicero was guilty
of a blunder in so loudly expressing his too just abhorrence of Antony’s
utter profligacy. Antony, though a bad man, might still to some extent
be gained over; he was at least an open character. Octavian, on the
other hand, was a thorough hypocrite; and there was much truth in his
last words at Nola, when he asked, whether he had well acted the comedy
of his life: for it was all a part which he had got up most carefully
and deliberately, and which he played with uncommon skill. Dissimulation
was the master faculty of his mind. Antony, profligate as his life was,
still did some good-natured, and even generous actions: Cicero could not
have made a worse choice between the two. He may likewise have uttered
things, which gave deep offence to Antony, and very often have made him
the butt of his wit. However this may be, when Cicero did not show
himself in the senate, Antony broke out against him in the most unseemly
manner; and this called forth the second Philippic, which was never
spoken, but written, and being immediately circulated, was devoured with
the greatest admiration. As Cicero no longer deemed himself to be safe
at Rome, he now went into the country.
Towards the end of the year, Antony betook himself to Cisalpine Gaul:
Gallia Transpadana likewise had already received the franchise from
Cæsar. During the whole of the summer, he went on in the most outrageous
manner: on the strength of the senate having confirmed the _acta
Cæsaris_, he did what he listed, pretending that he was acting according
to commands which he had found among Cæsar’s papers. He granted to
colonies immunity; gave others the franchise, and to some the _jus
Latii_; chose his creatures into the senate; and all for money. In the
same way, he had distributed the provinces.—In Spain, there was Asinius
Pollio; in Gaul, M. Lepidus and L. Munatius Plancus. Antony betook
himself to his province, where he tried to tamper with the legions of
Dec. Brutus, but without success. The Transalpine and Illyrian towns
showed themselves at first very friendly towards him; but his
debaucheries and extortions estranged them from him. In the beginning of
the year 709, the two consuls whom Cæsar had still nominated, Hirtius
and Pansa, entered upon their office,—so far did Cæsar’s power reach
even now!—and the senate assigned them the provinces of Gaul and Italy,
to carry on, in common with Dec. Brutus, the struggle against Antony.
Octavius had beguiled Cicero to get him the power and insignia of a
prætor. Antony having, on the other hand, recalled the legions from
Macedonia, whither they had been sent by Cæsar to be employed against
the Parthians, two of them went over to Octavian; and they formed the
nucleus of his force against Antony, and afforded protection to Cicero
and the other patriots, although there was no one whom they hated so
much. In the meanwhile, Brutus and Cassius had gone to Greece.
To the last year of Cicero’s life (709), belong the last Philippics,
which come down to the end of April, besides several of the letters _ad
diversos_, and also those to Brutus. This collection of epistles, as is
well known, consists of two portions: an older one, which was very
likely found in the same manuscript with those _ad Quintum fratrem_; and
another, which has first appeared in the _Cratandrina_, and is stated to
have been found in Germany. With regard to these last letters, there is
a difficulty which cannot be cleared up. Whether they were forged in the
sixteenth century, or, whether they are really old, I am not able to
decide: if they are forged, he who did it has produced an incomparable
masterpiece. And as for the other letters to Brutus in the first part,
there is likewise a great dispute whether they be genuine or not. That
they are very old, even as old as the first century, there can be no
doubt; yet for all that they may very easily have been fabricated, even
as early as the reign of Augustus, or at least in that of Tiberius: they
are written by an ingenious man who had a very good knowledge of that
age. It is nearly a hundred years since the question of their
genuineness was first mooted by an English editor. Wolf was fully
convinced that they were spurious; but I would not assert it so
positively. I should however be glad if they were not genuine, of which
I am morally convinced, as I am also with regard to the oration _pro
Marcello_; yet there are still great doubts on the subject. These
letters show some misunderstanding between Brutus and Cicero; and
although we must not implicitly rely on them, yet they date so near the
time itself, and are written so much from contemporary sources, that
they may be looked upon as authorities.
While the first months were passing, Antony was besieging Dec. Brutus in
Mutina. All in those parts had now declared against Antony. Modena must
at that time have been of very great extent, since Brutus with all his
army lay in it. Antony however, who was very much superior to him in
numbers, having nine or ten legions, could have starved him out; and he
was going to compel him to surrender, when Hirtius and Pansa, and C.
Octavius as prætor, came up with three armies to his relief. Hirtius and
Octavius first posted themselves in the neighbourhood of Bologna,
whither Pansa followed with reinforcements: Octavian only had veterans;
the rest were newly raised legions inferior to those of Antony. The
latter having marched against the enemy to prevent the junction with
Pansa, the troops of Pansa and especially the _legio Martia_ which had
been sent forward to his aid, heedlessly let themselves be drawn into a
sort of irregular fight in which Antony at first had the worst of it,
and then the better. When he was on the point of turning this advantage
into a decided victory, Hirtius came up with reinforcements, and won the
day. We have still extant an official bulletin of this battle, which was
sent to Rome, and of which perhaps something must be abated. Pansa was
severely wounded. As Antony did not stir from his lines, and the
position of Dec. Brutus was by no means improved; the armies united, and
ten or fourteen days afterwards Hirtius undertook an attack upon the
camp of Antony: he broke through the upper lines, and took the camp; but
he himself was killed in the battle. Dec. Brutus, however, had in the
meanwhile made a furious sally, and joined the troops of the senate; so
that Antony was obliged to give up the siege. He might still have kept
his ground; but he entirely lost his head, and resolved upon leaving
Italy.
At the end of April, things looked very cheerful in Rome, were it not
for the death of the two consuls. Octavian’s reputation was then already
such, that people suspected him of having had the wound of Pansa
poisoned by his surgeon, and Hirtius killed in the battle, in the midst
of his soldiers, by assassins: it is true that his moral character was
by no means too good for such things to be ascribed to him; at any rate,
great suspicion attaches itself to him, as those deaths left him the
stage quite free. To the consuls who might have followed, the republic
could not have intrusted itself. Under these circumstances, C. Cæsar, as
he is now called, took the command of the armies of the two consuls, and
Antony, whose army was dispersed, crossed the Alps with a small troop.
It would now have been in the power of M. Lepidus—an abandoned fellow
whom Cæsar unfortunately had been intimate with, and who after his
death, in defiance of all right, had managed to get the _pontificatus
maximus_—and of Munatius Plancus, to put an end to the whole affair, as
the two were staying in Gaul, and might have crushed Antony: but this
they did not wish. Lepidus would not have raised a hand against Antony.
The latter—perhaps it was a got up farce,—was received in his camp, and
proclaimed _imperator_ by his soldiers and those of Plancus. This
happened in the course of the summer, that season beginning in Italy as
early as the seventh or eighth of May.
In this orphan state of the republic, Octavianus unmasked his real
sentiments, and got his veterans loudly to demand that the consulship
should be given him. Before that, he had applied to Cicero, proposing
that they should be consuls together, in which case he would be entirely
guided by Cicero’s advice. But Cicero did not fall into the snare: he
saw that everything was hopeless. These last months after June were the
most unhappy ones which he had ever known; so that it is no wonder that
he got so tired of life, and would not even try to escape from death.
The veterans with threats demanded the consulship for Octavian; but
Cicero spoke against it quite as resolutely as any other senator. Surely
here are no signs of cowardice, for which his excessive sensibility has
indeed too often been mistaken!—They were, however, at last obliged to
give way, and on the 19th of August, Octavian had himself proclaimed
consul, together with his cousin Q. Pedius. There was now no more hope
left for the lovers of their country: the senate was ready for slavery,
and Cicero withdrew himself altogether. One of the first acts of the new
consuls, was that frightful _Lex Pedia_ by which criminal proceedings
were instituted against all the accomplices in the murder of Cæsar.
Judges were appointed, who were _pro forma_ to summon Brutus, Cassius,
and the other conspirators; and as these last, of course, did not
surrender, they were condemned for contempt and proscribed:—they were
outlawed and a price was set on their heads. This was quite against all
Roman law; for whoever of his own free will renounced the republic,
might always save his life. Dec. Brutus, whose army had been made
disaffected by Octavian, fled to the borders of Gaul, and there he was
murdered by a guest-friend. Octavian also reproached the senate with
having ill-treated him, and with having slighted him after the war of
Mutina; yet as he had the _potestas prætoria_, the senate could not
indeed have done more for him than it did.
It was now November. Antony returned with Lepidus and Plancus and their
army, and Octavian marched to the neighbourhood of Bologna to meet them.
Lepidus, however, acted as a mediator, and the three came together on an
islet in the river Reno, where they agreed to share among themselves for
five years the government of the Roman world as _triumviri reipublicæ
constituendæ_. The idea of such a magistracy was not a new one, as it
had already been legally instituted once before, after the time of the
Licinian law,[20] under quite different circumstances: it is also
possible that on some other occasion there may also have been something
of the kind. Italy was to be administered by them in common with
consular power: of the provinces, Lepidus was to have Spain and
Narbonnese Gaul; Antony, Cisalpine, Lugdunensian, and Belgic Gaul;
Octavian, Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia. With regard to the eastern
provinces nothing was settled. And likewise they first began with
publishing a proscription of seventeen persons. Antony gave up his uncle
as a victim; Lepidus, his brother,—or rather he demanded his death; as
for Octavian, the historians say that it was only after a struggle that
he made up his mind to sacrifice Cicero. Yet this cannot by any means
have been hard for him to do: on the contrary, it must have been a
relief to him to get rid of a benefactor, whom he had so beguiled and
deceived, and to whom he had so often made vows of gratitude and of
devotion to the republic. And moreover, this is only stated by Velleius
and those writers who follow the historians of the Augustan age. How
Livy treated this part of history, we unfortunately do not know for
certain; but it is very likely that he was more free-spoken than others:
we are told that Augustus called him a Pompeian, and a fragment also of
his with regard to Cicero displays much boldness. It is, on the whole,
astonishing how openly the writers of Augustus’ times—Asinius Pollio for
instance—spoke out what they thought of the state of things in their
day: this was partly because it was looked upon as the opinion of
private persons, and perhaps also because these writings were not
immediately circulated. A second proscription followed of a hundred and
thirty senators, which was afterwards still further enlarged. These
lists were much worse than those of Sylla. These last were the offspring
of party spirit alone,—plunder was only a secondary object, or at most
it followed as a thing of course; nor was it even for Sylla’s own
benefit,—whereas now in most cases there was less of revenge than
rapacity. Men who had never given any offence whatever, were made
victims because they were rich, and of every one who was proscribed the
goods and chattels were confiscated.
Cicero was in his Tusculan villa when the proscription list came out. He
was undecided whether he ought not at once to await his death; yet he
let himself be persuaded by his brother to flee. They went to the sea
coast as far as Astura, to look out for a ship; and thence his brother
returned, only to be murdered. Cicero took a fishing boat; but being
tired of life, he had not the least wish to escape, and the murderer was
welcome to him. Much as he honoured Cato, he did not think it right to
lay hands on his own life: he therefore wished to leave it to
Providence, whether he should flee to Sextus Pompey, who was already
master of Sicily, or to Brutus, or any where else. Had he got to Sex.
Pompey, he would have very likely died a natural death; for he would
have lived to see the time when the latter made his peace, and all the
proscribed persons of note who were with him returned to Rome. But
Providence willed otherwise. The wind was contrary; he became sea sick,
and found his wretched life not worth having: the sailors wanted to put
back, and he allowed them to land near Mola di Gaëta, in the
neighbourhood of one of his estates, to wait till the storm was over.
Here he was betrayed by one of his own people, and a centurion,
Popillius Lænas,—a man of a very distinguished plebeian clan, whose
crime was perhaps exaggerated by the rhetorical invention that Cicero
had once defended him,—overtook him. Cicero’s friends had prevailed upon
him to let himself be carried away in a litter; but when his pursuers
had come up with him, he ordered it to be set down, and, forbidding his
slaves to fight for him, he himself stretched out his head to receive
the deathblow. He died on the seventh of December 709, with great
courage. His son, who was at that time with Brutus in Macedonia, still
behaved in such a way as to give hopes of what he would become: he
afterwards plunged into the lowest sensuality, and the coarsest
debauchery. For all that, he was a man of much intellect, and he had his
father’s wit; but he wanted all the moral qualities, which distinguished
the first Cicero.
I recommend to you Middleton’s Life of Cicero: it is written not only in
a very fine style, but also in a very fine spirit, whereas Hooke is
revoltingly unjust to Cicero, and his diffuse work after all is only
patchwork. Until the time of my youth, Cicero was ever revered as a
great name, like a god before whom one bows the knee, albeit a θεὸς
ἄγνωτος. Throughout the whole of the middle ages also, he stood high in
men’s esteem: great minds, like Dante, St. Bernard, Petrarch and others,
knew how to enter into his ideas, and could admire him. This feeling
rose even to a greater height at the time of the revival of learning.
The mania of the _Ciceroniani_ in the sixteenth century is well known:
it was held to be quite a heresy to use a phrase which was not to be
found in Cicero. Some have been made quite dull by it; others, on the
contrary, have thus formed a noble style: of this Manutius is an
instance. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, a reaction began:
people neglected, and even disdained the Latin language and literature,
whilst the study of Greek got more in fashion. This was carried still
farther during the first ten years of this century, when distinguished
philologists would look down upon Cicero with scorn, and sneer at his
twaddle, especially in his philosophical writings. Nowadays an
enlightened and just estimation of Greek and Latin philology seems to
have come into vogue. The philologist’s true standing, according to
Quintilian’s saying, is to be judged of by his love of Cicero’s Latin:
on the whole, nothing better can be said of him as a writer than this
passage of Quintilian. Yet his style is not without its faults: in his
earlier writings, particularly in the speeches against Verres, there are
passages which are quite unworthy of him, and which he himself also
afterwards criticised so severely in his Brutus. In his latest writings,
on the other hand, he has not gone down, nor become dry; but there is
always a freshness about him. The real spring-time of his life was the
time of his prætorship and consulate. After his return, the oration _pro
Cælio_ is particularly distinguished; in the later ones, we must take
the distress of the times into account. The famous second Philippic, as
compared with the rest, has in my opinion been much overrated by the
rhetoricians: wherever he gives himself up to vehemence, he exaggerates,
which was not natural to him. His mind in fact was thoroughly
benevolent, and wherever he shows himself in this light, he is finest.
M. Seneca in the Suasoria gives us opinions on Cicero by Livy, Asinius
Pollio, and Cassius Severus, which are most remarkable.
Cicero’s death ends for us this unhappy year. During its course, Brutus
and Cassius had more and more established their power in the east: the
former had made himself master of Macedonia, and been acknowledged by
the legions; the latter whilst Cassius was in possession of Syria, had
hemmed in Dolabella near Laodicea, and compelled him to surrender. This
fellow, though he had at Rome as _consul suffectus_ overthrown the
statue of Cæsar, had afterwards, when in Asia, killed Trebonius, who
indeed, like Decius Brutus, had formerly been Cæsar’s friend, and
therefore was one of the most guilty of his murderers: for this, he was
now condemned as a traitor, and put to death. Cassius was still most
highly popular in Syria owing to the Parthian war; the legions declared
for him, and the whole of the country submitted to him. At the end of
the year, Brutus and Cassius were masters of the whole of the east, of
the Adriatic sea, of Macedonia, and of Achaia, as far as the frontiers
of Egypt. Brutus kept C. Antonius, a brother of the triumvir, as a
prisoner in Macedonia; but when the tidings came of the proscriptions at
Rome, he had him executed.
In the unfortunate issue of the war of Philippi, we may see the
irresistible sway of what the ancients called _fatum_: one untoward
circumstance followed close upon another, and everything which seemed to
promise well took an unlucky turn. This was especially the case with the
long expeditions of Brutus and Cassius in Asia. Though indeed these were
of some advantage to them in bringing in money and soldiers, as they
could both of them increase their resources and make conscriptions; they
became notwithstanding the cause of their mishap. The chastisement of
Xanthus in Lycia by Brutus, the taking of Rhodes by Cassius, and other
things of the same kind, belong rather to the later Greek history than
to this. Whilst they were training and recruiting their troops, they
ought indeed to have kept themselves in Macedon and Greece, and have
made it impossible for the triumvirs to bring together large masses;
they would have compelled them to march a long way round through
Illyricum, and should the enemy have landed at last, they might have
prevented them from undertaking anything. Thus the chances would have
been considerably in their favour. Fortune was likewise against their
fleet. The two commanders, Statius Murcus and Domitius Ahenobarbus, who
were stationed in the Illyrian waters, do not seem to have neglected
anything; but the wind was fair for the triumvirs, and they landed two
or three times in several squadrons on the Illyrian coast, and advanced
from thence to Macedon. Here Brutus and Cassius had no troops, although
they were not at all in want of soldiers; so that they must have
withdrawn them to Thrace. It was not until the armies of Octavius and
Antony had established themselves in Greece, and had subdued the whole
of it, that their two antagonists concentrated their forces in Asia, and
passed over the Hellespont into Macedon. Near Philippi, in the
neighbourhood of the gold mine of Pangæus, there is between the
mountains and the sea, where the road leads from Amphipolis to Thrace, a
narrow defile which the triumvirs had occupied. Brutus was guided by a
faithful Thracian ally, and so he turned the pass, and encamped over
against the enemy near Philippi: the fleet was in the western seas.
Before he started for this march, Brutus, either at Sardis or at Abydus,
saw the vision which called itself his evil genius, and announced that
it would meet him again at Philippi. The question now was, what was to
be done. Cassius, an experienced general, rather shrank from bringing
matters to a quick decision; but the general voice of the army called
for the attack. The troops stood faithful to their generals, and no
desertion took place: it would therefore have been possible to protract
the war. Had Brutus and Cassius caused themselves to be joined by their
fleet, which they did not know that they could do, and then acted for a
considerable time on the defensive, Octavian and Antony would very
likely have been forced for want of provisions to retreat; but unhappily
they determined upon giving battle. In the army of Brutus and Cassius
were the Romans of the highest rank; the greater part of these had been
proscribed. Most of those who had saved their lives were now with them;
only a few were with Sextus Pompey in Sicily, who had a large fleet of
pirate ships, with which, however, Brutus and Cassius, as men of honour,
and, even for the simple reason that they would thus have made
themselves hateful to the people, would not unite themselves. The battle
was fought; Brutus leading the left, Cassius the right wing (or rather,
according to the ancient way of speaking, the left and right _horns_;
for the term wing supposes a centre, whereas there were two separate
armies, which were drawn up close together). In the battle, the _fatum_
again showed its influence. Brutus overcame the enemy with great ease;
and the one who distinguished himself most under him, was M. Valerius
Messalla, a very young man, whom Cicero much loved, and whom he had
recommended to him. In the reign of Augustus also, Messalla afterwards
bore a high character. Brutus opposed Octavian; Cassius, Antony.
Octavian is generally accused—Antony taxed him with it in his letters,
and in public—of not having taken the least share in the battle; his
army was utterly defeated. The excuses which are pleaded for him are
very sorry ones; but as the command had devolved upon Agrippa, it
certainly had not fallen into worse hands. In the Julian centre, a stout
resistance was made; the right wing, however, was undeniably beaten, and
the camp of Octavian taken. That of Cassius was not forced; but his
troops were routed before it. Owing to the centre standing its ground,
it was not possible to see the success of the army on the left wing; so
that Cassius was led to think that all was lost. He sent an officer to
bring him a report of the state of things on the other side, and after
waiting a very long time for his return, matters appeared to him so
desperate, that he bade his servant take away his life. The suspicion
was already afloat among the ancients, that the slave behaved as a
traitor, and did this without being ordered. Brutus was very downcast
about the issue; twenty days passed, and both parties were still in the
same position to each other as before: all was not yet lost. Had Brutus
known that on the very day of the first battle his fleet had gained a
complete victory, he would certainly have sent for it, and would have
remained firm to his plan of keeping on the defensive. He had much
trouble to get provisions, and it pained him to see that his troops were
as lawless as those of the enemy: he had been obliged to promise them
the plunder of Thessalonica and Lacedæmon in case of victory. On the day
only that he yielded to the wish of his army to decide the war at once,
he heard from the prisoners of the victory of his fleet; but
low-spirited as he was, he would not believe it,—the messengers sent to
him had been intercepted,—and he let himself be brought to an
engagement. In this battle, his troops did not behave with the same
gallantry as before, and they were signally beaten: Brutus escaped with
a small band to a hill. As he could not reach the sea, and life would
only be to him a most heavy burthen, he called upon his faithful
servants to do the last duty to him; and on their refusing it, he fell
upon his sword.
He was only in his thirty-seventh year when he died: at the time of
Cicero’s consulship therefore, he was fifteen years old.[21]
Antony at that time saved many a life, whereas Octavian displayed a
cold-blooded sneering cruelty which was revolting to the feelings: of
this the strangely impartial account in Suetonius bears evidence. Antony
had the body of Brutus solemnly buried: it is true that he likewise
caused the son of Hortensius to be put to death, as he laid to his door
the execution of his brother Caius. Most of the proscribed who were
still alive, now killed themselves. Strikingly enough, among these was
the father of that Livia who afterwards became the wife of Augustus, and
the whole of whose family belonged to Pompey’s party: her first husband,
Tiberius Claudius Nero, even tried to get up an insurrection in favour
of the last of the proscribed.
After the battle, the fleets were still untouched. The army took service
with the conquerors; many of the soldiers were scattered, many also
returned unobserved to Italy; especially the young volunteers, among
whom was also the poet Horace. From Athens, where he was pursuing his
studies with other young Romans, he had joined the army of Brutus, who
gave them appointments as tribunes. He was afterwards very badly off,
until he was recommended to Mæcenas by whose means he got his
pardon.[22]
THE PERUSIAN WAR. PEACE OF BRUNDUSIUM. PEACE OF MISENUM. EVENTS DOWN TO
THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM. END OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Octavian led his legions back to Italy. Antony remained in the East, and
was really master of all the countries on the other side of the
Adriatic. Immediately after the victory, he behaved everywhere with
humanity, and what was heard from Italy of Octavian was more terrible
than what those countries suffered from him: moreover the provincials
were well accustomed to ill usage, which in this case was after all such
as might be borne. In Greece, he was forbearing; in Asia Minor only, he
extorted immense contributions; the inhabitants there had had already
before to pay to Cassius the tribute for the next five years, and now
Antony demanded new ones. Yet these countries were always sure to
recover after a short time.
While he was on his way through these provinces to Cilicia, he summoned
Cleopatra to come to him: in this he was either led by the fame of her
beauty, or by pride. Cleopatra, conscious of her irresistible charms,
repaired fearlessly to him, although she had formerly supported Cassius,
and done many things besides which must have given offence. With a
fairylike pomp, on galleys bedecked with gold and purple, she sailed up
the Cydnus to Tarsus, where she invited Antony to a banquet, who was
quite dazzled by this enchanting scene:—there were but few Romans who
understood how to display such splendid luxury. He fell irretrievably
into her nets, and she went about with him in Asia, and he accompanied
her to Alexandria.
Whilst he now lay there in the chains of Armida, but not as Rinaldo,
there arose in Italy a new misfortune which sprang from his love affair
with Cleopatra. Octavian had led back his legions, and his veterans were
about as insolent as in the times after the death of Commodus: it is
surprising how for two centuries these wild beasts, in whose hands was
the fate of the empire, still let themselves be kept under as subjects.
Octavian had promised them the most flourishing municipal towns and
colonies of Italy,—one cannot for certain make out which: in 710, the
battle of Philippi took place; and in 711, the founding of the Julian
colonies. (I trust that I shall one day ascertain these military
colonies, with tolerable exactness.) Every one knows that Cremona, which
had at first been a Latin colony, and afterwards since the _lex Julia_,
a _municipium_, had become now—perhaps ever since the time of Sylla—a
military colony: it was on this occasion that Virgil’s life was
endangered. The allotments of those days far exceeded the old
proportions: the fields around for many square miles were parcelled out,
and a common soldier got from fifty to a hundred _jugera_, a centurion
double, a tribune three times as much. If however, the territory of a
place thus doomed would not suffice, there was cut off from a
neighbouring district as much as was required to complete the
assignments; for the soldier was everything. Thus when Cremona was
allotted, a great part of Mantua was taken in, which otherwise would not
have been divided; and Virgil moreover lived about three (Italian) miles
from Mantua: from the distance between the two towns, one may learn what
was the extent of such assignments. One can hardly form an idea of it!
All the landed property was entirely taken away from the citizens, and
given to the soldiers, from whom the countryman of course generally had
his piece of ground again to farm; and perhaps he bought it all back, in
the course of time, when the new possessor had lived too wastefully.
In Italy there now arose the greatest despair. Places which had not
offended in the least, nor ever once withstood the Julian party, were
confiscated just as much as those which had sided with the Pompeians.
Among those who were driven out, there were no doubt in many instances
the sons of the old soldiers of Sylla: these were ready to rush to arms,
and were only looking about for some one who would put himself at their
head. Two men now declared for them. One of these was the consul L.
Antonius, a brother of the triumvir, who was seeking for an opportunity
to overthrow the rival of his brother, in which he was chiefly set on by
Fulvia, his sister-in-law. Fulvia was a termagant, a furious
bloodthirsty woman, profligate but clever: to Antony she was attached
with passionate love, and she had also been faithful to him ever since
she married him. The late Queen Caroline of Naples, the wife of
Ferdinand, was by no means unlike her. Fulvia had been a deadly enemy to
Cicero; now she was jealous of Cleopatra, and brooding over schemes for
putting everything into confusion, so as to bring Antony back to Italy.
In Præneste she gave out that the oppressed should be protected. In the
same manner, Tib. Claudius Nero, the husband of Livia, had stood forth
in Campania, and he seems to have done it out of humanity and justice.
Octavian, however, never once lost his head. He was a coward; but by
degrees he had accustomed himself to look difficulties in the face,
events having matured him, and therefore, thanks chiefly to Agrippa, he
now behaved with prudence and address. He turned himself to his
veterans. Those generals of Antony who were near at hand, showed
themselves undecided; C. Asinius Pollio in Gaul and Illyria, would not
declare for Antony, though in his heart he was for him; and thus
Octavian succeeded in isolating L. Antonius, who with part of the old
soldiers, with refugees, senators, and knights, and also with Fulvia,
betook himself to Perugia. There they were blockaded by Octavian, and as
peace seemed hopeless, they held out to the last: at length, driven to
it by the most frightful famine, and left by M. Antony to their fate,
they capitulated. L. Antonius betrayed his party, made up with Octavian,
and was allowed to go free with Fulvia who now withdrew to Asia. The
veterans went into the service of the young Cæsar, having hopes of new
assignments of land, as he promised to take care of them as he would of
his own men; the newly levied soldiers also went over to him: and thus
there remained only the unfortunate senators, knights, and inhabitants
of Perugia, who were obliged to surrender at discretion. Three hundred
of these, all of them men of rank, were offered up like beasts of
sacrifice at the altar of Divus Julius; Perugia was set fire to, and
burned to ashes, either during the pillage, or owing to the despair of
the inhabitants. The town was afterwards rebuilt as a Julian military
colony, under the name of Augusta Perusia, as it is still called on
solemn occasions.
From the year of the Perusian war (712), dates Virgil’s fourth eclogue,
which is in praise of Asinius Pollio under whose protection he then was,
probably at Mantua: Asinius was, at that time, all but an enemy to
Octavian, and very near taking up arms against him. Now that all was
over, Antony, who had concentrated his troops in Greece, went across to
Brundusium; and there, by the mediation of Mæcenas and Cocceius, a peace
was concluded between him and Octavian, by which the civil war was put
off for nine years. To this period belongs Horace’s journey to
Brundusium. (The greatest part of his poems were written in his early
youth, or at least before the battle of Actium: his most poetical time
was about his thirtieth year.) As a bond of peace, it was agreed that
Antony should marry Octavia, the widow of C. Marcellus, and half sister
of Octavian,—not indeed by Atia, and therefore not of the Julian house,
but by the same father. In the midst of a most corrupt age, and in a bad
family, she was a noble-minded woman,—a sad example of the hard fate to
which persons of the highest rank may be subjected. She was an exemplary
wife: in her behaviour to C. Marcellus, she was spotless; and such she
was also to Antony, who neglected her in the most shameful way. An
excellent mother she also was; but she had the misfortune of losing her
dearest son, the hope of the Roman people: of her children by Antony,
the Antonia who was afterwards married to Drusus, the son of Livia,
seems alone to have been worthy of her. Antony got the empire of the
east as far as the Ionian Sea,—the self-same division which was
projected under Severus, nearly settled under Diocletian, and at last
established under the sons of Theodosius; the west was given to
Octavian; but Lepidus was to have Africa, and doubtless Sicily also and
the islands between those countries.
But Sicily was then in the power of Sextus Pompey, the younger son of
the great Pompey. He had, after the battle of Munda, collected a force
among the Celtiberians, and in the year of Cæsar’s death he carried on
an indecisive war against Asinius Pollio. When the amnesty was decreed,
at which time he was at Marseilles, he was recalled together with the
rest by the senate; the value of his father’s property was to be
refunded to him, and the _imperium oræ maritimæ_ was promised him. This
_imperium_, however, he had first to create. When the proscriptions came
out, he was in great danger: Antony was in possession of his paternal
mansion on the Carinæ, and for the sake of it, he was already trying to
have him killed. He did not therefore venture to come to Rome, but
surrounded himself with all sorts of adventurers, and gathered together
a swarm of pirates such as his father had crushed,—in fact the sons of
these, and even in some instances the self-same men: he was their
natural patron; for, according to Asiatic custom, the conquered placed
themselves under the protection of the conqueror. Thus he made himself
master of Sicily, which was still quite a Greek island: his pirates too
were either Greeks or hellenized Asiatics. He was joined by Statius
Murcus, with part of the fleet of Brutus and Cassius. With the rest of
it, Domitius Ahenobarbus carried on the war for two years under his own
auspices; after this, he united himself with Asinius Pollio, and by him
was reconciled to Antony, to whom also he then attached himself. Antony
had, even before the battle of Philippi, been foiled in an attempt on
Sicily, and moreover Sextus Pompey had very much strengthened himself
since; Antony therefore and Octavian now began to treat with the latter
by themselves, taking no heed of Lepidus, whom, without asking his
leave, they confined to Africa. There was a peace made near the headland
of Misenum. Pompey went to them on shore, and trusted himself to them
with some generosity; they, on the other hand, with a magnanimity which
was otherwise foreign to them, went on board his flagship, and partook
of a meal with him. One of his commanders wanted on this occasion to cut
the cables of the anchors, and to seize them; but Pompey ordered that it
should not be done. By this peace Pompey had Sicily, and as it is stated
in an account very likely to be true, Achaia likewise, together with
Sardinia, given up to him; so that he had the heart of the maritime
dominion. In this possession he peacefully maintained himself for four
years.
Sextus Pompey is said to have been _sermone barbarus_. He was indeed a
rough fellow, and had lived abroad from his earliest youth; but we see
in what a corrupt and neglected state the vulgar tongue must at that
time already have been. People only who were highly educated spoke well;
it was a particular refinement, a perfection of language, which, if not
carefully cultivated, was very liable to degenerate before long. Cicero
tells us of the _sermo urbanus_ of the time of Lælius, and remarks that
the ladies of that period spoke an idiom of uncommon elegance.[23] But
now this refined style was already gone off, as is the case at the
present day nearly everywhere, even in England and France. Sextus Pompey
was a mere _condottiere_ like Antony and others: he thought of nothing
beyond maintaining himself in Sicily and those parts, the restoration of
the republic being no concern of his. By the peace of Misenum, all the
proscribed were allowed to return to Rome.
Peace having been thus restored, Antony turned to the east, where
Labienus had fled over to the Parthians. The latter was one of those men
whose fate does not inspire any sympathy: he was a seditious tribune in
Cicero’s consulship, and afterwards a tool of Cæsar’s usurpation. His
family also was a seditious one: his uncle had been slain with
Saturninus, and he had tried to avenge him upon C. Rabirius, one of the
few still living of those who with Marius had stormed the Capitol,
thirty-seven years having passed since then. Labienus was an intriguer
from inclination, not from need, as he was very rich: he threw himself
into the arms of Cæsar, and distinguished himself as an officer in the
Gallic wars. Afterwards, it is not known for what reason, he went over
to Pompey, to whom he remained faithful. Then, after the battle of
Pharsalus, he went to Africa, and from thence to Spain; after which he
again makes his appearance in the army of Brutus, takes a part in the
battle of Philippi, and at last betakes himself to the Parthians. He now
led a Parthian army to Syria, and these barbarians, when commanded by
one of Cæsar’s comrades, achieved things such as they had never done
before: yet after gaining several victories, they were at length driven
back by Ventidius.
The same family policy as that of Labienus is met with at that time in
more instances than one. That Asinius Pollio was so determined an enemy
to Pompey, Cicero, Brutus, and the other Pompeian senators, whose
characters he must otherwise have liked, whereas the Cæsarians were not
at all to his taste; was owing to nothing else but personal feeling. It
so happened that when Pompeius Strabo, the father of Cn. Pompey,
overcame in the Social War the Picentines and Marrucinians, the prætor
of the Marrucinians was slain, Herius Asinius, the father or grandfather
of Pollio (very likely his father; for he also called his son again
Herius Asinius). For this reason, he looked upon Cæsar’s party as the
Marian one, and attached himself to it as such. This was also the case
with Munatius Plancus, a man of distinguished intellect, and not to be
slightingly spoken of; but whom in other respects I cannot uphold. He
was a Tiburtine, and all the inhabitants of Tibur, Præneste, in short,
all the Latins, were thoroughgoing partisans of Cinna; so that Munatius
quite naturally became a Cæsarian, as Cæsar, who was Cinna’s son-in-law,
might in truth be deemed the representative of his party.
Antony now again withdrew to the East, and being separated from
Cleopatra, he lived for some time with Octavia, until he obliged her to
go back to Rome. Whilst he now stayed in Asia, and sometimes also in
Alexandria, he was allured by the hope of Asiatic trophies; for the
Romans still smarted under the disgrace of the overthrow of Crassus. The
Armenian king Artavasdes had made advances to him. The whole of the
Parthian empire consisted of a number of distinct kingdoms, which in
reality were vassal principalities, and not mere satrapies of the king
of kings who kept his court at Ctesiphon near Seleucia. Antony marched
with a large army through Armenia and Aderbijan to Media, the true Irak
Ajemi; and there he besieged the town of Phraata. (The geography of
those parts we know very little of.) His plan was wretchedly devised.
Owing to the impassable nature of the ground, he had left his battering
engines behind, with two legions under the legate Statianus to protect
them; this depot was taken by the Parthian sovereign Phraortes, and the
two legions were cut to pieces. Afterwards the main army also was so
closely pressed, that Antony, having narrowly escaped the fate of
Crassus, had to retreat to Armenia: the fourth part of his army had been
annihilated, and most of his baggage entirely lost. Antony now returned
to his revels with his paramour, to whom he gave Cœlesyria, Judæa, and
Cyprus for her empire, a thing which highly disgusted the Romans. To
that kingdom, as the coins of Cleopatra show, the puzzling name of
Chalcis is given, which I cannot account for in any way: it is certainly
to be understood of this realm, and not of the tetrarchy of a later day.
The life of Antony by Plutarch is a very lengthy one; but there are many
very remarkable accounts in it, which he had still heard from his
grandfather or great grandfather, especially about the frightful
distress which there was in Greece: the parallel with Demetrius is very
happy. To this period belong the stories of the profligate way in which
he spent his time, squandering in eastern luxury and pomp the sums which
he had extorted from the nations. The only feeling that one can have
with regard to Antony, is that of satisfaction that all is over with
him. Here he forgets the shame which he had suffered in war. Fortune,
however, was yet once more favourable to him; for the king of Media
besought his protection, and showed himself inclined to acknowledge his
supremacy instead of that of the king of the Parthians.
In the meanwhile, Octavian took up arms against Sextus Pompey. The soul
of this war was Agrippa, who built a fleet on the Lucrine Lake, which he
converted into a sort of harbour, where he exercised his ships: a fair
ground of quarrel did not exist. Twice was the fleet destroyed by
storms: when it was restored, Agrippa gained a glorious victory near
Mylæ (Milazzo); but at Tauromenium, Octavian’s ships were utterly routed
before his eyes, the commanders of the Pompeian fleet, to crown his
disgrace, being freedmen, Mena (Μηνᾶ = Μηνόδωρος, not Mænas; we know the
name from Horace’s Epistles)[24] and Menecrates. Octavian’s troops had
landed under Cornificius, one of his most faithful servants, and had
likewise been beaten, almost indeed annihilated: Agrippa retrieved
matters. Another fleet was built, and now Agrippa won a great naval
victory. Pompey left Sicily, sought the protection of Antony, and staid
for some time in the Levant. Antony was favourably inclined towards him;
but whilst he wavered as to whether he should receive him or have him
executed, Pompey, owing to one of those fatal orders, was murdered by a
proscribed person in Phrygia, a deed which was yet more shameful, as he
had formerly made it a point in the peace of Misenum, that all the
proscribed should be reinstated. Whether the house of the Pompeii became
extinct with him, or whether the consul Sextus Pompeius in the reign of
the emperor Tiberius was a descendant of his, is more than I can say.
Cæsar was now master of Sicily. He had called on Lepidus to give him aid
from Africa; but the latter, who was discontented with the smallness of
his share, and insolent on the strength of the power which belonged to
him, had delayed, and had only come over at last with a considerable
army, when matters had already become very much entangled. He then began
to quarrel with Cæsar for the possession of Sicily; and he seems to have
been quite in the right, if in such a division of robbers there can be
any question at all of right. But Lepidus had neither the respect nor
the love of any one, not even of his own soldiers; and therefore Cæsar,
who was his superior in determination and address, betook himself into
his camp,—the boldest feat of his life!—and called upon the soldiers to
declare for him. The thing succeeded: the daring recklessness of the
step, perhaps also the feeling in favour of Cæsar’s adopted son, but
more especially the hope of a great donation, such as Lepidus was not
able to give, had its effect. Lepidus was forsaken by all the world.
Octavian assigned him Circeii for his abode; and thus the whole of the
west was united under him. In that dreary place near the Pontine
marshes, which is only beautiful from the sea-side, Lepidus passed the
rest of his life, having the title, but not the power of a _pontifex
maximus_.
The immediate cause of the war which ended with the fight at Actium, was
the divorce of Antony and Octavia. The latter had brought to him very
rich presents, military stores, and troops which she had raised for him,
and had gone with them to meet him to Athens; yet he would not see her,
but ordered her to hand over the presents to his officers, and then to
go back to Rome. There, however, she was not to dwell in his house,
although she had even the children of Fulvia with her; and when moreover
she still went on living as his wife, he sent her a letter of
divorcement, and married his paramour, which was a great outrage in the
eyes of the Romans. The war now began under circumstances which left no
doubt whatever as to what its end would be. Antony indeed had formerly
been a much superior general to Octavian; but the best commanders were
now on the side of the latter, who could also recruit his legions, which
his rival had not the means of doing, as he ruled over quite different
races of men, and could get nothing better than deserters to fill up the
ranks of his army with. Where Antony seemed to have the advantage, was
in his fleet; for the Phœnician and Greek nations were at all times far
more seafaring than those of the west: had these resources been for ten
years in the hands of an able man, they might have given him power; but
owing to the carelessness with which Antony had wasted his means, they
were useless. The fleet of Octavian consisted of the remnants of
Pompey’s, and also of the ships which Agrippa had lately built: these
last were small sailing vessels, whereas Antony had immense rowing
galleys fitted up with towers and additional decks, rather as if for
fighting by land, than for manœuvring by sea. Agrippa, who to all
intents and purposes was Octavian’s admiral, displayed from the very
first quite an extraordinary activity.
At the entrance of the gulf of Ambracia, near the Corinthian colony of
Actium, Antonius collected his fleet; so that in the event of a
favourable issue, he might have the passage open to Italy: the fleet of
Octavian was lying off the Thesprotian coast. As the fleets faced each
other, thus also did the two armies at the entrance of the gulf of
Prevesa. Agrippa undertook several detached enterprises, and by taking
Leucas and Patræ in the rear of the enemy, made it uncommonly difficult
for them to get provisions. In the battle, the strength on Antony’s side
was greatest; and if perhaps he could not have conquered, he might at
least have stoutly disputed the victory, had not Cleopatra and the
Egyptian ships taken to flight with womanish cowardice, at a moment when
nothing as yet was lost. Whether Antony thought in his jealousy that
Cleopatra meant to sacrifice him and gain over Octavian, or whatever it
was; forgetting everything else, he followed her in a fast sailing
vessel, and was received in her royal ship. The whole of the fleet which
remained, being thus bereft of the strongest ships, was now destroyed by
that of Agrippa. All was then lost. Antony was in despair: between him
and Octavian no peace was possible; for the conquered there was nothing
left but to die. Three days was he angry with Cleopatra, whom he had
followed to Alexandria; but her power of bewitching him was so great,
that he made it up with her again. He still tried to deceive himself as
to the terrible condition in which he stood: he hoped that his land
force would be more successful, as it was very much attached to him. It
is remarkable how faithfully in these wars the troops still clung to
their leaders: it was quite different under the Macedonian successors of
Alexander, when, even on the field of the battle, the soldiers would
pass over from one side to the other. After Antony had left his troops,
though hard pressed by Agrippa, and in spite of all Octavian’s great
promises, they held out with unshaken fidelity for six days, nor would
they believe that he was not to return; but when Canidius, his
lieutenant, also deserted them, they acknowledged Octavian as imperator.
With this the war was ended: whatever Roman legions there were still in
the eastern provinces, yielded without a struggle; though indeed there
were some trifling exceptions, owing to personal motives.
The battle was fought on the second of September 721. This ought to have
refuted those later writers, like Gellius and Macrobius, who did not see
with their own eyes, and who would have it that the old rule was still
held, that no battle could be fought on the days after the calends,
nones, and ides, without its being unlucky for Rome. At that time, the
whole state of affairs was unpropitious; but yet, all circumstances
considered, the victory of Octavian over Antony was the most fortunate
thing that could have happened. What Horace says of it, is perfectly
just; and no man of sense, let him think of Octavian what he will, could
have had any other wish than that he should conquer.
Eleven months passed before the war was quite over. Octavian went back
to Italy, where new commotions had broken out; for the veterans, who
were as unruly as ever, were again crying out for allotments of land.
Agrippa took possession of the eastern provinces; but it was not until
the spring of the following year, that Octavian marched through Asia
Minor and Syria to Egypt, so as to force the _claustra_ of the country,
near Pelusium. There was probably a secret order from Cleopatra to open
the gates of the place, as she was afraid of war: it is very likely that
as a vain woman she felt sure that she should be able to enslave
Octavian, even as she once did Cæsar who was so much against her. The
only thing that she seems to have been afraid of, was that the war would
be prolonged, and that Octavian would come to Alexandria quite
implacable. But Octavian made an attack likewise from the other side,
from Parætonium in Libya. This, however, was not feasible for a large
army; for although there were fortified towns in that quarter, the
country between Cyrene and Alexandria is one of the most inhospitable
regions in the world. Here Antony had still a number of Roman soldiers,
both cavalry and infantry, with which he wanted to make a sally; but the
troops went over to the enemy, all but a few who had no hope left, like
Cassius of Parma, one of the murderers of Cæsar. Antony therefore made
up his mind to die; but his end was cowardly and pitiful: the deadly
thrust was not strong enough, and he lingered on for a considerable
time, slowly bleeding to death. Cleopatra had shut herself up in her
palace with all her treasures: Octavian wished very much to get her
alive for his triumph; but it was feared that she might choose the death
of Sardanapalus. On the first of August 722, the day that Antony died,
Alexandria capitulated; and on the morrow, the gates of the town were
opened to the Roman army. Cleopatra kept the dead body of her lover in
her room: she wavered between the hope of gaining Octavian, and the
feeling that she ought not to live any longer. Proculeius, an officer of
Octavian, of whom also Horace makes honourable mention, gave her his
word that her life should be spared, and tried to persuade her not to do
any harm to herself: but when she saw that Octavian would not on any
account let her come before him, but treated her like a slave; when she
got no answer to her prayers, that she might still have the countries
given to her by Antony,—for Egypt, for her treasures, nay even for a
life of freedom,—then it was, that after having tried several sorts of
poison, or not having ventured to try them, she put the asps on her
bosom, and so killed herself.
Thus ended the civil war and the triumvirate: in fact, there had for the
last years already been no more triumvirate, as Lepidus had been set
aside. Augustus was now sole ruler of the Roman world. The first of
August was by a decree of the senate appointed for ever as a holiday,
under the name of _Feriæ Augustæ_:[25] the month of Sextilis henceforth
had the name of August, even as Quintilis, in which Julius Cæsar was
born, had been called after him July. Augustus would have liked better
to have had September, in which he was born, named after him; but as all
the great events of his life had happened in August, and in that month
he had also first entered upon the consulship, the preference was given
to it. These Feriæ were celebrated with banquets, festivities, garlands
of flowers, and the like, and were still observed in the days of
Placidia, and even down to the reign of Pope Leo the Great. It was in
fact a political festival, but accompanied with libations and other
religious ceremonies, all of which were kept up on that day to the
latest times. For this reason, the festival of Vincula Petri[26] was
(according to Beda and Biondo of Forli) appointed for the first of
August. In the church of S. Pietro in Vincola on the Esquiline, in the
baths of Trajan, the chains with which the apostle St. Peter was bound
in Rome, as well as those which he wore at Jerusalem, are deposited; and
the public secular holiday, with its feasting and revelry, still
remains, just as it was on the _Feriæ Augustæ_ of old. Even now, whoever
is in any sort of clientship in the later meaning of the word, visits
his patron on this day; the servants in the houses of acquaintances have
presents given them, as it is with us on the first of January; and the
people spend the money which they get in treating themselves. When first
I lived in Italy, I was very much annoyed at this impudence, until I
found in Biondo that it was the keeping up of a most ancient custom.
There are many of these usages in modern Rome, which have their origin
from the remotest antiquity. Down to the last century, it was still the
practice to carry a carved image of the Virgin on a certain day out of
the city, and to wash it in the river Almo, as was formerly done with
the image of Cybele. A number of such old customs are now become
obsolete; for instance, an image was carried from one church to another,
and back again, by way of paying a visit. The festival of the first of
August has been called, all through the middle ages to this very day,
_Feragosto_.
Here ends the old Roman history: the last contest was the death
struggle, and from henceforth the history changes its character. Here I
hope also to end my (large) work. The events which followed, down to the
fall of the empire, may most suitably be divided into the histories of
the several emperors, the first of whom the ancients themselves quite
rightly deemed Augustus to have been; for Augustus he was now already
called. Yet there is still to be described the transition from an
usurped _tyrannis_ into a regularly constituted monarchy.