Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (12 page)

As word of the proscription spread, Rome’s affluent and powerful panicked. To calm the situation, consul Pedius, who had received a copy of the list containing just seventeen names, issued an edict in earnest that no more would be added and published the names.
¹⁵⁹
Next day he was found dead. Foul play was not suspected, but his edict failed. The list was posted up in the
Forum
.
¹⁶⁰
The triumvirs were intent on carrying out their plan and the proscriptions proceeded, resulting in the liquidation of almost a third of the Senate.
¹⁶¹
Butchered bodies lay un-buried in the streets and the heads of many were displayed on spikes on the
Rostra
.
¹⁶²
Innocents who were not on the list also fell victim to the spite of accusers who used the proscription as cover to settle old scores.
¹⁶³
Amidst this horrific slaughter one man showed humanity. Agrippa interceded to have a man
removed
from the list of the proscribed. A certain Marcus, being a deputy of Brutus, was captured at Philippi pretending to be a slave and had been purchased by a man named Barbula. Marcus’ true identity was revealed and Agrippa successfully negotiated to scratch his name from the list.
¹⁶⁴

As winter gripped Italy, Rome was a grim place to be in. The mood in the city was chaotic, fearful and tragic. When Lepidus celebrated his triumph for his victory in Hispania, crowds turned out and cheered, but their broad smiles and hollers masked deep sadness and despair.
¹⁶⁵
The burned out ruins of houses owned by some of the proscribed were dotted around the city. Those still standing had been picked bare of their contents. Buyers for the assets had proved too few, some not wishing to take part in the immoral trade or fearing the properties would bring bad luck to their new owners, others unwilling to be seen in public with precious items.
¹⁶⁶
Consequently, the prices the Triumvirs had hoped to achieve at auction were not realized. When the proceeds were tallied up the three commissioners were still short of their financial goal by 20,000,000
drachmai
.
Undaunted, they then turned to the 1,400 richest women of the city to make up the difference.
¹⁶⁷
But they met with stout defiance. Only 400 women finally subjected themselves to the required assessments.
¹⁶⁸
Now desperate, the triumvirs decreed that any man – Roman or foreigner or freedman – with wealth of more than 100,000
drachmai
was required to advance them loans at an interest rate of one fiftieth of the value of their property and to contribute one year’s income to the cost of the war.
¹⁶⁹

On 1 January 42 BCE, with Antonius’ allies M. Lepidus and L. Munatius Plancus sworn in as consuls, the Senate passed resolutions in honour of Iulius Caesar.
¹⁷⁰
The Ides of March was declared a
die nefastus
– a day on which public business could not be conducted – and the building in which the Senate met was renamed the
Curia Iulia
.
¹⁷¹
Anyone seeking sanctuary there in future could not be forcibly removed. Eventually it was barricaded off so it could not be entered. It was also declared that his wax effigy could not be displayed by living members of his family during funerals.
¹⁷²
The official process of transforming him into a divinity had begun.

Lepidus remained in Rome, but his colleagues set off to wage their wars of vengeance.
¹⁷³
War would be fought on three fronts.
¹⁷⁴
Many of the families able to evade the proscriptions headed to northern Greece to join Brutus and Cassius or Africa to be with Cornificius, but others moved southern Italy to join Pompeius’ son Sextus.
¹⁷⁵
Caesar and Salvidienus departed for Sicily to campaign against Sex. Pompeius, who had taken the island by forcing the surrender of its governor Clodius Bithynicus.
¹⁷⁶
He had engaged Sextus at Scylae, but he quickly ran into trouble on account of the inexperience of his crews; his fleet was scuppered, and his opponent slipped away.
¹⁷⁷
Salvidienus retreated to Balarus to carry out repairs. Antonius despatched eight legions to Macedonia under the command of C. Norbanus Flaccus and Decidius Saxa. Norbanus took up a position in Thrace.

The conspirators had also been making preparations of their own. M. Brutus assembled an army in Eprius and Macedonia with help of money from Trebonius in Asia.
¹⁷⁸
Adding to his numbers Brutus had secured the army of Illyricum from its unpopular commander Vatinius at Dyrrhacium.
¹⁷⁹
When M. Antonius’ brother landed at Apollonia with his expeditionary force, Brutus met him, won over his soldiers, adding them to his force, and took Caius prisoner.
¹⁸⁰
Separately Cassius secured twelve legions from Bithynia, Iudaea and Syria and a prized unit of mounted Parthian archers.
¹⁸¹
The two commanders met at Smyrna (modern İzmir) and agreed to combine their army of nineteen legions, with Orodes of Parthia offering help, and prepared to leave for Macedonia.
¹⁸²
They too had extorted large sums from communities in Asia Minor, such as Tarsus and Laodikeia, who had been forced to pay ten years’ of taxes at one time, and if they could not find the cash, were compelled to melt statues and turn them into coin.
¹⁸³

As the opposing forces jockeyed for position, Rome’s eastern allies and client kingdoms found themselves forced to pick sides. Queen Kleopatra VII of Egypt (
plate 19
), a close ally of the former Roman
dictator
, sent a fleet to Antonius and
Caesar in Greece. It was forced to return home when blocked by Cassius.
¹⁸⁴
Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia who refused to pay, was summarily executed by Cassius’ nephew for plotting against the
Res Publica
.
¹⁸⁵
His treasury and supplies were confiscated. Cassius laid siege to Rhodes and, having defeated their fleet of thirty-three ships at Myndos and then taken the city, imposed a fine of 1,500 talents, saw fifty of its leading citizens executed, and confiscated all the portable silver and gold.
¹⁸⁶
Brutus meanwhile defeated the army of Lykia in a surprise attack, and in Xanthus the citizens committed mass suicide rather than surrender. Other cities reluctantly threw in their lots with the self-styled ‘liberators’.
¹⁸⁷

By September Brutus had eight legions and Cassius nine. Many, however, were not at full strength.
¹⁸⁸
The combined force, representing some 80,000 men, advanced through Thrace. Additionally, Brutus brought cavalry, comprising 4,000 from Gaul and Lusitania, 3,000 from Thrace and Illyricum and 2,000 from Parthia and Thessaly; Cassius contributed 2,000 Spanish and Gallic regular cavalry and 4,000 mounted bowmen, Arabs, Medes, and Parthians. A large additional force of infantrymen and about 5,000 horse were provided by the allied kings and tetrarchs of Galatia in Asia.
En route
they outflanked Norbanus’ army of eight legions with the help of 3,000 cavalry under Reskupolis (Rhescupolis), prince of Thrace; they would have trapped them at Thasos had Antonius not arrived in time.
¹⁸⁹
Brutus and Cassius picked a site at Philippi on the high ground to establish their separate camps near marshes, connecting by them a rampart, and anchored their fleet at Neapolis.
¹⁹⁰

Norbanus had established and fortified his position at Amphipolis, much to Antonius’ delight.
¹⁹¹
Antonius dug a second camp audaciously in view of Cassius on the plain, having found no other elevated site, only then to discover that the plain was prone to flooding by the nearby Thasos River. He built entrenchments, raising numerous towers and on all sides with ditch, wall and palisade. Antonius ordered his men to dig a dyke through the marsh in order to isolate Cassius’ camp from the
Via Egnatia
by which the supplies reached him. Cassius’ men responded by building a wall to block their path.

After reaching Dyrrhachium, Caesar was taken ill, finally reaching Amphipolis in late September.
¹⁹²
He erected his camp opposite Brutus’. Caesar recovered sufficiently to join Antonius, only to have to be carried about in a litter when his malady returned.
¹⁹³
A comment by Pliny the Elder infers Agrippa was there attending to

The triumvirs’ combined force of nineteen legions matched their opponents’, though Antonius and Caesar had more cavalry.
¹⁹⁵
With them Antonius tried to provoke battle, but Brutus and Cassius refused to engage; having the greater supplies they hoped to prolong the standoff and starve their opponent into submission.
¹⁹⁶
With limited supplies and no means to replenish them, Antonius knew he could not wait.
¹⁹⁷
He formulated a plan of action. Each day he arrayed his
troops on the plain in battle formation, while part of his force hidden from view by reeds erected a causeway.
¹⁹⁸
After ten days the work was complete. His subterfuge had been discovered, however. Cassius had noticed the constructions and had his men build a transverse wall of their own across the marsh from his camp to the sea, intercepting Antonius’ causeway so that those inside could not escape to him, nor could he render them assistance. Incensed by Cassius’ tactical counter measures, on 3 October Antonius’ troops burst out, scaled the wall with ladders and tools and broke into Cassius’ camp, which was defended by only a few men, and began tearing down the rampart and filling in the ditches.
¹⁹⁹
Watching in disbelief from afar, acting without orders, Brutus’ men responded and charged at the triumvirs’ flank; for a while they had the upper hand and wrought havoc in Caesar’s camp, the commander himself having left only a while before.
²⁰⁰
Cassius had taken the bulk of his soldiers south to work on the causeway, and they were now exposed in the open. In the dust which swirled over the battlefield neither side could not see their allies’ progress and they began to think the worst.
²⁰¹
Both sides hacked at each other, struggling to maintain a firm foothold on the islands of dry ground to prevent themselves falling into the marsh.
²⁰²
Cassius’ side faltered under pressure from the enemy’s right wing, and his cavalry fled in the direction of the sea; he did not relay a call for assistance from Brutus thinking him already dead.
²⁰³
Instead he scrambled to higher ground to get a better view. From there he spotted a unit of cavalry riding towards him. They were Brutus’ coming to his aid; but Cassius believed them to be the enemy.
²⁰⁴
In despair and resignation, believing all was lost, Cassius committed suicide.
²⁰⁵
Brutus learned of his friend’s end, but nevertheless rallied the troops and promised them rewards, for in his mind the war was not lost.
²⁰⁶
By the end of the battle, Cassius and Brutus suffered 8,000 men dead, but Caesar had sustained twice as many casualties.
²⁰⁷
The bloodied and bruised sides parted in what was taken to be a draw and retired to their camps.

Antonius’ hoped for relief supplies failed to arrive when their ships came under attack in the Straits of Otranto from a fleet commanded by Murcus and Domitius Ahenobarbus and were forced to retreat.
²⁰⁸
Rather than face starvation, Antonius and Caesar had to force Brutus to engage them in a last decisive action, in the knowledge that, with supplies aplenty and the better position, Brutus could bide his time.
²⁰⁹
Brutus was blithely ignorant of his opponents’ plight until twenty days after the first battle. Foolishly he gave in to his officers’ demands for a fight. On the other side of the field, the two triumvirs roused their men.
²¹⁰

On 23 October, at approximately 3.00pm, the battle commenced.
²¹¹
Caesar lead his men to press against Brutus’, pushing them back until their line broke, and seized their enemy’s camp. Antonius’ men advanced also, driving down on the fugitives, dispatching cavalry along the
Via Egnatia
to block the path of any escapees.
²¹²
There were defections. As his friend Lucilius attempted to draw Antonius off, Brutus managed to break out with what remained of four legions and scrambled into the surrounding hills.
²¹³
But the battle was lost, and the war with it. Rather than be taken prisoner, next morning, assisted by his friend Strato Messala, Brutus took his own life.
²¹⁴
In a mark of respect, Antonius and Caesar gave their opponent an honourable funeral, and they were kind to Strato.
²¹⁵

Among the survivors who surrendered was Q. Horatius Flaccus (the poet Horace) who had served as a military tribune at the insistence of M. Brutus.
²¹⁶
Learning of Brutus’ demise, the other conspirators took their own lives.
²¹⁷
The triumvirs declared an amnesty and the surviving soldiers transferred their allegiance to them.
²¹⁸
Some 14,000 of the defeated soldiers switched to Antonius and Caesar. There was bad news among the good. By a remarkable coincidence, on 23 October Caesar’s reinforcements – including the
Legio Martia
, a Praetorian Cohort of 2,000 men, 4
alae
of cavalry and other specialist troops – aboard transports with an escort of triremes were intercepted, rammed and set alight in the Adriatic Sea by Domitius Ahenobarbus and Murcus with 130 warships.
²¹⁹
Rather than face capture or being burned alive, the men of the
Martia
committed suicide; others drowned, while the survivors on the remaining seventeen ships surrendered to Murcus.
²²⁰