Augustus: The Life and Times of the Founder of the Roman Empire

by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh

It was clear that a breach between the two was imminent. The younger man was not abashed by the years or high office of the other; and though some formal reconciliation was brought about by common friends or by military officers, Octavian seems to have allowed the Ciceronians to believe that he intended to join them in opposing Antony. His attentions to them became more marked after the meeting of the Senate of the 1st of June. To this meeting the Constitutionalists had been looking forward as likely to bring the uncertainty to an end. At it the question of the provinces was to be settled; the two consuls, with the aid of a committee, were to report on what were the genuine acta of Cæsar; and some means were to be found to enable Brutus and Cassius to carry on their duties as prætors in Rome with safety.

Antony and Cæsar’s acta and veterans.

Meanwhile Antony had been availing himself of the papers of Cæsar as though the committee had already reported. He had also been securing himself—as he thought—by visiting the colonies of Cæsar’s veterans in Campania[89] and by gradually collecting a bodyguard. This had now assumed sufficiently formidable proportions to overawe the Senate.[90] It is true that he had experienced difficulties at Capua, where the existing coloni resented his attempt to plant others in the same territory; but, on the whole, he seems to have improved his position by his tour in April and May. Then again Lepidus had visited Sext. Pompeius in Spain, and was reported to have induced him, on condition of recovering his father’s property, to return to Rome and place his naval and military forces (amounting to more than six legions) at the disposal of the consuls.[91] This, thinks Cicero, would make Antony irresistible; and so no doubt thought Octavian also.

The position of Brutus and Cassius. The change of provinces.

Nor did the meetings of the Senate in June effect anything to dissipate these fears. What was done for Brutus and Cassius satisfied neither party. They were offered the cura annonæ, superintendence of the corn supply—Cassius in Sicily, Brutus in Asia—which would give them a decent pretext for being absent from Rome for the rest of the year. They, however, regarded this offer as an insult.[92] So also in regard to the provinces: Brutus and Cassius were deprived of Macedonia and Syria, which Cæsar had assigned to them respectively, and were offered the unimportant governorships of Crete and Cyrene. But Antony in the same meetings secured still greater military strength for himself by an arrangement with Dolabella. The latter was appointed to Syria and the command against the Parthians by a lex; and he then induced the Senate to give Macedonia to himself, with the command of the legions stationed there, one of which he had bargained with Dolabella to hand over to him. These decrees having been passed,[93] he sent his brother Gaius over at once to announce the fact to the legions in Macedonia and to give them notice that they might at any time be summoned to Italy. For Antony himself had no intention of going to Macedonia. His private resolve was to hold Gallia Cisalpina with the largest force possible, as giving him most hold on Italy. He had only accepted Macedonia in order to get these legions into his hands. At the same time he carried a repeal of Cæsar’s law confining the tenure of a province for a proprætor to one, and for a proconsul to two, years.

Antony gets himself nominated to Cisalpina Gaul.

Though this increasing power of Antony was naturally calculated to alarm Octavius, he was, on the other hand, opposed to Decimus Brutus—one of the assassins—retaining Gallia Cisalpina. He therefore supported Antony in carrying a law conferring that province on him at the end of his consulship.[94] The Senators now saw that they had been tricked. They had given Antony the Macedonian legions without conditions, and he would now use them in another province given him by a lex—over which they had no control. Suggestions were made to remove Gallia Cisalpina from the list of provinces, and incorporate it (as was afterwards done by Augustus) in Italy, thus doing away with any pretext for a proconsul residing there with legions. But for the present the law stood which assigned it to Antony for B.C. 43. It appears to have been passed by the beginning of July, and he at once sent word to his brother to bring the legions over. They were expected in July,[95] but did not actually arrive till nearly three months later. Meanwhile a war of recriminations was maintained between Antony the consul and Brutus and Cassius the prætors by letters or edicts. Antony accused the prætors of collecting forces hostile to the government, the prætors accused Antony of making it impossible for them to come to Rome by denouncing them in speeches and edicts, in breach of his promise. On the 1st of August L. Calpurnius Piso—father-in-law of the late Cæsar—inveighed against Antony in the Senate, ending with a hostile motion, of the exact nature of which we are not informed. But he could get no one to speak or vote with him, so completely cowed were the Senators by Antony’s military forces.[96] On the other hand, Antony was uneasy at the growing popularity of Octavian, especially among the veterans. He had himself made a bid for their favour by two commissions for assigning land to them both in Italy and the provinces. But the veterans were suspicious; they had expected some signal act of vengeance for the murder of Cæsar; and at the same time Antony’s lavish grants of public land to unworthy favourites impoverished the exchequer and diminished the amount available for distribution. They lowered his popularity with the veterans as much as they annoyed the Senators, who yet did not venture to oppose him.

Attempted assassination of Antony.

The friction between the two men—varied by occasional reconciliations—became more and more acute, until about the end of September it was rumoured that Octavian had suborned men to assassinate Antony. Of course Octavian disclaimed it, and upon Antony giving out that certain men had been found in his house with daggers, he went openly with an offer to serve along with his friends among his bodyguards. The popular belief was that Antony had invented the whole story to discredit him; but Cicero and others of his party both believed and approved, and subsequent writers are divided in opinion. Nicolas of Damascus probably gives Octavian’s own version, according to which Antony was unable to produce the pretended assassins to a council of his friends, or to induce them to advise active retaliation upon Octavian. Appian points out that it was not to Octavian’s interest just then that Antony should disappear, for it would have been a great encouragement to the party of the Assassins, of whose real sentiments towards himself he was no doubt aware.[97]