In spite of these half-hearted and doubtful expressions of Cicero, the Senate at his own suggestion was presently glad to approve Octavian’s action, and to accept his aid. For events now followed quickly. When Antony met the legions at Brundisium, sent over by his brother Gaius,[103] he seems at first to have found them ready to obey him. But difficulties were presently promoted by the agents of Octavian, who offered the men liberal bounties, or scattered libelli among them denouncing Antony’s tyranny and neglect of Cæsar’s memory, and urging Octavian’s claim on their allegiance. Signs of mutiny soon shewed themselves, and after a stormy meeting at which some officers and men used insubordinate language, Antony arrested and put to death several of the officers as ringleaders, and about 300 men.[104] These severities, followed by more liberal offers and some conciliatory language, seemed for the time to put an end to the mutiny. Selecting therefore a “prætorian cohort” from the legions, Antony started for Rome, ordering the rest to march in detachments up the coast road to Ariminum, where the via Æmilia through the valley of the Po begins. In Cicero’s letters of the 8th, 11th, and 12th of November are recorded the various rumours of his approach, and the anxieties as to what he intended to do at Rome.[105] He arrived about the 20th in full military array, and entered the city with a strong bodyguard, the rest of his men being encamped outside the walls. He did not stay long however. Having summoned the Senate for the 25th, in an edict, in which he denounced the character and aims of Octavian,[106] he went to Tibur, where he had ordered his new levies to muster. Here he delivered a speech, which Cicero afterwards described as “pestilent.”[107] On the 25th, however, he did not appear in the Senate. A second edict postponed the meeting to the 29th. Cicero insinuates that his non-appearance on the 25th was caused by some extra debauch. But, in fact, the reason may have been the news about the legio Martia, which, instead of going to Ariminum, had turned off from the coast road and reached Alba Fucensis. It might be of course that the legion was on its way to join Antony at Tibur, to which there was a good road from Alba Fucensis (via Valeria). Antony therefore went to Alba, but found the gates closed, and was greeted by a shower of arrows from the walls. It was clear that this legion at least did not mean to serve him. He came to Rome for the meeting of the Senate on the 29th, but was informed just before it that the Quarta had followed the example of the Martia, and was at Alba Fucensis. He understood that these legions meant to join Octavian, and he no longer thought it possible to get Octavian declared a hostis, though one of his partisans was ready to propose it. Having therefore transacted some formal business—chiefly the allotment of provinces, in which his brother Gaius obtained Macedonia, and a supplicatio in honour of Lepidus, he hurriedly returned to Tibur. His friends and supporters visited him in great numbers; but within a few days he was on his march to Ariminum to join what remained of the five Macedonian legions.[108]
Cicero’s doubts as to Octavian’s intentions.
Antony’s object was to attack Decimus Brutus, whose forces were concentrated at Mutina. But at any rate, he was gone from Rome, and Octavian had won the first trick in the game. Cicero attributes Antony’s lowered tone in the Senate, and his hurried departure, to Octavian’s promptness and success in raising the veterans, and inducing the Martia and Quarta to desert him. At first, however, he had not felt easy as to the young man’s intentions. Writing from Puteoli on the 5th of November he tells Atticus that he gets a letter from Octavian every day, begging him to come to Capua and once more to save the republic, or, if not, at least to go to Rome. Cicero is “shamed to refuse and yet afraid to take”; but owns that Octavian is acting with vigour, and will probably enter Rome in great force. But he doubts whether the young man understands the situation, or the terrorism established by Antony in the Senate. He had better wait, he thinks, till the new consulate begins on January 1st.[109] About the 12th of November, he tells Atticus that if Octavian wins now, the fear is that he will confirm Cæsar’s acta more completely than ever, which will be against the interests of Brutus, while, if he is beaten, Antony will become more despotic still.[110] Early in December (or the end of November), he mentions with alarm the possibility of Octavian being elected for a chance vacancy in the Tribunate[111]; and assents to a remark made by Atticus, that though Octavian had given Antony a notable check, “they must wait to see the end.” Again he says to Oppius, “I cannot be warmly on his side without having some security that he will cordially embrace the friendship of Brutus and Cassius and the other tyrannicides.”[112]
Octavian begins his march.
On the 9th of December, however, when he came to Rome after Antony’s departure, Cicero made up his mind that for the present all distrust was to be dismissed or at least concealed. Octavian had mustered his forces at Alba Fucensis, and after some communications with the Senate—which warmly welcomed his offer of aid—had started with his legions on the track of Antony; who before the end of the year began the investment of Mutina, upon the refusal of Decimus Brutus to quit the province.
Octavian is recognised by the Senate, and obtains imperium, Jan. B.C. 43.
Accordingly, on the 20th of December, Cicero himself proposed a resolution in the Senate authorising the Consuls-designate to provide for the safe meeting of the Senate on the 1st of January; approving of an edict of Decimus Brutus, just arrived, in which he forbade any one with imperium entering his province to succeed him; directing all provincial governors to retain their provinces till successors were named by the Senate; and, lastly, approving the action of “Gaius Cæsar” in enrolling the veterans, and of the Martia and Quarta in having joined him. These resolutions were to be formally put to the Senate on the 1st of January by the new consuls.[113] Accordingly on that and the following days, after somewhat stormy debates, these decrees were passed, as well as one which acknowledged the services of Octavian, and gave him the rank of proprætor with imperium. It was also enacted that in regard to elections to office he should be considered to have held the quæstorship. He thus became a member of the Senate, with a right of speaking among the prætorii, and consequently with a plausible claim to stand for the consulship, in spite of his youth. A second decree—after the battles at Mutina—gave him consularia ornamenta.[114]
Octavian was now fully launched on his public career. He had shown both Antony and the Senate that he was no negligible quantity. Though the Senate neither liked nor trusted him, he had played his cards with such skill that it was forced to treat him as its champion; while Antony had contrived to put himself in such clear opposition to the constitutional claims of the Senate, that Octavian could attack him without thereby committing himself to the support of the Assassins, and had made himself so strong that (if he proved successful against Antony) he would hereafter be able to dictate his own terms. Cicero saw this clearly enough, but he hoped that the defeat of Antony would secure to the side of the Senate the governors of Gaul and Spain with their legions,[115] and that thus supported they would be able to discard their youthful champion. “He was,” he said later on, “to be complimented, distinguished, and—extinguished.”[116] We shall now see how the hopes of the sanguine orator were once more blasted, and how all these intrigues were baffled by the wary policy and cool persistence of “the boy.”