Augustus (12 page)

Since the victory in Spain, the Senate had awarded him ever more extravagant honors. Caesar was allowed to add the word
imperator,
“commander in chief,” to his name as a hereditary addition (until then it had been awarded by soldiers in the field after an important victory); likewise, his son or adopted son was to be designated
pontifex maximus
on his death. These two heavy hints pointed to the possible establishment of a dynasty, even if no obvious successor existed, or was even on the horizon.

The dictator loved women but begot few children; the only known offspring had been a beloved daughter, Julia, and (one assumes) Caesarion. If he had no legitimate son himself, he would have to find somebody else’s. Adoption was common in Roman life, a strategy for binding clans to one another, as well as for making good genetic deficits. Kinship and loyalty to the
familia
and
gens
were valued very highly, but little attention was paid to strict blood ties. Men often adopted the grown sons of others.

Octavius will have pondered these matters. Where, if at all, did he fit into this glorious future? Might he, at some stage, be designated his great-uncle’s heir? These were daydreams. The dictator showed no sign of leaving the stage, and even if he were to do so, Octavius was far too young and inexperienced to step into his giant shoes. If Caesar lived another ten years, and if Octavius proved himself worthy of responsibility, then, just possibly, he might be seen as a potential ruler with all the
gravitas
and
auctoritas
such a figure would have to command…. For now, though, Octavius had more immediate matters to engage his attention.

The dictator was burdened with business, but he did not forget his great-nephew. He decided that the boy would accompany him on the great Parthian campaign planned for the next spring. Toward the end of 45
B.C.
, he sent him to Apollonia. There the young man would spend four months completing his education in literature and public speaking.

He would also undertake training with the army, as it awaited its general and the long march to the east. At last Octavius would acquire some military experience.

V

A BOY WITH A NAME

44
B.C.

The city stood on an extended hill overlooking the river Aous, where the remains of its ancient perimeter walls can still be seen. Today the marble columns of the council chamber, and a street with a central stone pavement on an extended hill overlooking the Aous, are evidence that the place thrived in antiquity. In spring, this part of the site is smothered in wildflowers. Not far away are the foundations of a public bath and a large
stoa,
or roofed colonnade. A small theater, or odeon, with seats for six hundred, has had its steps restored and is used for modern concerts. A larger theater, seating 7,500, is in a poor state of repair.

The small acropolis at the far end of the city, where a few olive trees grow, gives a spectacular view of the surrounding landscape; originally it housed a temple, probably dedicated to Apollo or his sister, Artemis.

Apollonia, although little remembered today, was what Cicero called a “great and important city.” Founded in the seventh century
B.C.
, for many years it was a place of no very great significance, because it gave access only to the turbulent tribes of Illyria and Macedonia. Italians traveling to Greece or the Middle East found it easier and safer to make their way by sea from Brundisium.

However, Rome needed a fast and reliable connection between Italy and its new provinces, especially for the safe and speedy movement of armies. So in 130
B.C.
the Via Egnatia was built. This highway, linked by a loop road to Dyrrachium and Apollonia, transformed the strategic importance of the two ports. It ran along a river into high uplands, skirted two mountain lakes, and descended to a plain near Thessalonica on the seacoast. It then followed the littoral to the small town of Philippi and on to the Hellespont (the Dardanelles).

In late 45
B.C.
, the eighteen-year-old Gaius Octavius settled into lodgings at Apollonia. He was accompanied by Agrippa and another early friend, Quintus Salvidienus Rufus, who was older than Agrippa and, like him, not of noble blood; also, perhaps, by Maecenas. Little is known of Salvidienus’ origins, but he may have been an officer of Caesar’s. Perhaps Octavius got to know and like him in Spain; in any event, he was one of the small group of intimates on whom he depended.

The young men exercised with squadrons of cavalry. By virtue of his kinship with the dictator, Octavius was of high status, and senior officers used to call on him. He gave everyone a warm welcome and was popular both in the city and in army circles. He was given good reports by his instructors.

Apollonia housed a well-known school for public speaking (or rhetoric), comparable with those at Athens and Rhodes. Octavius studied there, and read Greek and Roman literature. He wanted to become proficient in Greek as well as Latin, and he was an assiduous student. As well as literature, he studied elocution. He brought with him a tutor from Rome, Apollodorus of Pergamum, one of the most celebrated teachers of the day, although a very old man.

The month of March, 44
B.C.
, would soon be over. The legions were in a high state of readiness. Julius Caesar was expected any day now, and would soon lead them against Parthia.

Then, one afternoon, a messenger arrived with an urgent letter for Octavius, just as he and his companions were going into dinner. A freedman of Octavius’ mother, the man was in a state of high excitement and dismay. No wonder, for Atia had terrible news to tell. Writing on March 15, 44
B.C.
, she reported that Julius Caesar had been assassinated at Rome before midday by Marcus Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and others. She asked Octavius to return to her as she had no idea what would happen next. According to Nicolaus, she wrote: “You must show yourself a man now and consider what you ought to do, and implement your plans as fortune and opportunity allow.”

The freedman confirmed the contents of the letter, saying that a large number of people had taken part in the murder, and they intended to hunt down and massacre all Caesar’s relatives.

In no time, rumors spread through Apollonia that some catastrophe had taken place, although no one was entirely sure what. After sunset, a delegation of distinguished Apollonians, carrying torches and followed by numerous curious bystanders, presented themselves at Octavius’ front door. They asked, as his well-wishers, what news had come. To avoid setting off a panic, Octavius decided to answer only the leaders of the group, who with some difficulty persuaded the rest to disperse and then, having learned what had happened, eventually departed as well.

Sitting in lamplight, he and his small circle of inexperienced friends spent the rest of the night talking and talking. What was to be done? One line of thought was that they ought to join the army outside the city. Octavius should persuade its commander, Marcus Acilius Glabrio, to let him lead the troops to Rome, where they would take revenge on his great-uncle’s murderers. The soldiers had loved Caesar and would loathe his killers. Their sympathy would increase when they met his young, now defenseless relative.

But the cautious Octavius felt that he was too inexperienced to carry off a bold action of this kind. Too much was uncertain, too little known. He would wait for further news.

Soon another letter from Atia and Octavius’ stepfather arrived. They advised him not to get overexcited or overconfident yet, but to bear in mind what Caesar, who had eliminated all his enemies, suffered at the hands of his closest friends. He should, at least temporarily, take the less dangerous course of acting like a private citizen. The letter repeated Atia’s earlier advice to return to Rome quickly and quietly.

This must have struck Octavius as rather odd. Why should Atia and Philippus suppose that their mild-mannered and totally inexperienced son should be considering bold measures? It was too soon for them to have heard back from Octavius about any proposal to invade Italy, even if he had decided to discuss it with them. There is only one plausible answer to the puzzle: his family were aware that Caesar’s closest supporters—his personal friends and his kitchen cabinet of aides and advisers—were talking about Octavius at Rome, and were planning a political role for him of some sort. One or more of them must have written to him, telling him of the bitter gloom into which the dictator’s inner circle of professionals had been plunged, and of their determination somehow or another to fight back. They knew or guessed that the now leaderless army was enraged, but impotent; and that the city mob, after a day or two of stunned silence, bitterly missed the one politician on whom they could depend to protect their interests. What had happened was not a revolution, but a coup from above.

Since Octavius’ departure from Rome a few months previously, letters and correspondents must have made him aware that the atmosphere had steadily deteriorated even before the assassination. Now dispatches gave him the details of how his great-uncle had died.

The dictator’s position was simultaneously impermeably strong and invisibly very weak. Romans were enormously proud of the Republic formed after the expulsion of the kings in the sixth century
B.C.
The
bien-pensant
ruling class expected Caesar, having won his civil war and being in complete control of Rome and its empire, to reinstall Rome’s traditional constitution.

But many were beginning to suspect that Caesar had no intention of doing this. His critics believed that, with an insatiable desire for total power, he was set on establishing a monarchy; they decided that the time for talking had passed. A conspiracy was formed, led by former enemies in the civil war, leading members of the regime, and even close friends.

Caesar himself almost certainly did not aim at kingship. However, he realized that his reconciliation policy had failed. The gap between him and Romans of the old school was unbridgeable and, seeing no point in disguising his power, in February of 44
B.C.
he had himself declared dictator for life. For the plotters, this was the clinching proof of their worst fears. The tyrant had to be struck down before he left for the east.

The dictator was due to quit Rome on March 18 to join his legions in Greece. He was to meet the Senate for a final time before his departure three days earlier, on the Ides of March. (The Roman month lasted either twenty-nine or thirty-one days; “Ides” was the name for the thirteenth or the fifteenth, depending on the month’s length.) The meeting with the Senate took place in Pompey’s theater on the Campus Martius. Caesar did not arrive until about eleven o’clock in the morning. He was not in the best of form; there had been a storm the night before, and both he and his wife, Calpurnia, had slept badly. She said she had had a dream portending disaster.

Caesar entered the meeting hall and took his seat at one end, on his special chair between the seats of the two consuls. One of these was Antony, but he was delayed in the anteroom by a conspirator. In spite of his closeness to Caesar, he knew that the assassination was being planned; he had treacherously kept the information to himself. Before the session opened, a large number of senators pressed around the dictator presenting various pleas. They were all members of the plot.

One of them grabbed the dictator’s purple toga to stop him from getting up or using his hands. “Why, this is violence!” he shouted. Someone stabbed him from behind, but he managed to struggle to his feet and turn round to grab his assailant’s hand. Men pressed around Caesar in a tight scrum as each tried to stab him; in the process, a number of the assassins accidentally cut one another.

The wounded victim twisted from side to side, bellowing like a wild animal. He was amazed to see in the throng Marcus Junius Brutus, the son of his favorite mistress, Servilia, and a man of whom he had grown very fond. After Brutus had delivered his blow, Caesar saw that further struggle was pointless. He wound himself in his toga so that he would be decently covered, and fell neatly at the base of the statue of Pompey the Great. He was later found to have received twenty-three wounds, of which only one had been fatal.

Within a day or so, Octavius decided to follow his parents’ advice that he should set sail for Italy. He had become a well-lived figure in Apollonia and many of its citizens came to his house begging him to stay. He would be safe with them in a dangerous world. When he insisted on leaving, a large crowd escorted him to the quay.

Octavius had discovered that the legions he had met in Greece were on his side; on his way to Rome he intended to test opinion among the troops who had been waiting at Brundisium to accompany Caesar across the Adriatic. Having no idea what their reception would be, the small band of friends made landfall a little way from Brundisium, near a small town off the main road called Lupiae (today’s Lecce, in Puglia), to which they walked. There they met people who had been in Rome when Caesar had been buried. This had been a sensational occasion.

The dead dictator had lain in state in the Forum, where Mark Antony, who had briefly gone into hiding, gave a eulogy. The mob, infuriated by the assassination, went berserk. They burned down the Senate House and looted the shopping arcades on either side of the Forum, dragging out anything combustible and building an enormous makeshift pyre. Caesar was cremated on the spot.

The conspirators, or
liberatores
(freedom fighters) as they liked to call themselves, had had no other agenda apart from their act of violence. They supposed that once Caesar had been eliminated, the Republic would automatically come back into being. Peace, order, and constitutional government would resume without any further intervention on their part. This was a disastrous error in judgment, as Brutus and his friends now realized. They hurriedly left the city, where they were no longer safe, and dispersed to their country estates.