On the 27th (after hearing of the fight at the camp) he thinks Octavian is with Decimus Brutus in pursuit of Antony or, as he says, “of the remnant of the enemy.”[134]
But presently he is informed that Octavian is not thus acting, or serving the interests of the Senate. Decimus Brutus writes from Dertona on the 5th of May:—
“If Cæsar had hearkened to me and crossed the Apennines, I should have reduced Antony to such straits that he would have been ruined by failure of provisions rather than the sword. But neither can any one control Cæsar, nor can Cæsar control his own army—both most disastrous facts.”[135]
Decimus Brutus was inaccurately informed as to the relations between Octavian and his troops,[136] but was quite right in concluding that he had no help to expect from him. He wrote again on the 12th of May, attributing his delay in beginning the pursuit to the fact that “he could not put any confidence in Cæsar without visiting and conversing with him.”[137] He had, however, gained nothing by the interview, and had been specially dismayed to find that the Martia and Quarta refused to join him.[138] On the 24th of May he writes again, warning Cicero that Octavian has heard of his epigram; that the veterans are indignant at the proceedings in Rome; and that Octavian had secured all the troops lately commanded by Pansa.[139] Later in the same month he appears to have suggested the recall of M. Brutus, and that meanwhile the defence of Italy should be intrusted to Octavian.[140]
This last suggestion shows how far he had failed to penetrate the policy of Octavian. The mistake was shared by L. Munatius Plancus, governor of Celtic Gaul, who was moving down towards the province expecting to be joined by Octavian in opposing Antony, or, at any rate, supposing that Octavian’s army was at the disposal of the Senate. “Let Cæsar,” he says, on the 6th of June, “come with the best troops he has, or, if anything prevents him from coming in person, let his army be sent.”[141] Some weeks later he too had learnt that Cæsar’s real purpose had been misunderstood. He writes on the 28th of July:—
“I have never ceased importuning him by letter, and he has uniformly replied that he is coming without delay, while all the time I perceive that he has given up that idea, and has taken up some other scheme. Nevertheless, I have sent our friend Furnius to him with a message and a letter, in case he may be able to do some good.”[142]
While the generals in Gaul were thus being gradually brought to see that Octavian had an independent policy of his own, the hopes of support entertained by Cicero at home were one by one disappearing. By the middle of May he knew that Antony’s retreat was not the disorganised flight supposed, nor the end of the war.
“The news which reached Rome,” he says, about the 15th of May, “and what everybody believed, was that Antony had fled with a small body of men, who were without arms, panic stricken, and utterly demoralised. But if he is in such a position (as Græceius tells us) that he cannot be offered battle without risk, he appears to me not to have fled from Mutina, but merely to have changed the seat of war. Accordingly there is a general revulsion of feeling.”[143]
In these circumstances Cicero could do nothing but try to keep Decimus Brutus, Lepidus, and Plancus loyal to the Senate, and urge them to act with vigour.