B.C. 41 Consuls L. Antonius Pietas, Serv. Vatia Isauricus II. Allotting lands for the veterans.
Cæsar sent reassuring messages to Rome, but he did not arrive in the city till the beginning of the next year (B.C. 41). He found Lucius Antonius consul, who had celebrated a triumph on the first day of the year for some trifling successes in Gaul. The real control of affairs, however, was being exercised by Fulvia, the masculine wife of Marcus Antonius, widow successively of Clodius and Curio, against whom Lepidus had been afraid or unable to act. Fulvia and Lucius professed to be safeguarding the interests of Marcus and fulfilling his wishes, and Lucius adopted the cognomen Pietas as a sign of his fraternal devotion. But the moving spirit throughout was Fulvia. Cæsar’s first business in Rome was the allotment of land to the veterans. This had been begun a year before in Transpadane Gaul, on the establishment of the Triumvirate, by Asinius Pollio, left in command of that district; and Vergil has given us some insight into the bitterness of feeling which it often roused:
“Shall some rude soldier hold these new ploughed lands?
Some alien reap the labours of our hands?
Ah, civil strife, what fruit your jangling yields!
Poor toilsome souls—for these we sowed our fields!”
When there was public land available for the purpose, the allotment could generally be made without much friction; but as there was not enough of it, the old precedent of “colonisation” was followed. A number of Italian towns (nineteen in all) were selected, in the territories of which the veterans of a particular legion were to be settled as coloni, with a third of the land assigned for their support. No doubt in each case the lands held by men who had served in the opposite camp were first taken as being lawfully confiscated; but it must often have happened that there was not enough of such lands, and that those of persons not implicated in the civil wars were seized wholly or in part. In such cases it was understood that the owners were to be compensated by money arising from the sale of other confiscations. But this money was either insufficient or long in coming. Petitions and deputations remonstrating against the injustice poured in upon Cæsar, who, on the other hand, had to listen to many complaints from the veterans of inadequate provision made for them and of promises still unfulfilled.
L. Antonius and Fulvia take advantage of the discontent.
This was a sufficiently thorny task in itself. But it was made still more irksome by L. Antonius and Fulvia. Their pretext was that the veterans in Antony’s legions were less liberally treated than those in Cæsar’s own; and Lucius claimed, as consul and as representing his brother, the right of settling the allotments of Antony’s veterans. Cæsar retorted by complaining that the two legions to which he was entitled by his written agreement with Antony had not been handed over to him. Starting from these counter charges they were soon at open enmity, embittered by the frequent collision between the constitutional authority of the consul and the extra-constitutional imperium of the triumvir. Lucius and Fulvia made capital out of this, maintaining that Marcus was ready to lay down his extraordinary powers as triumvir, and to return to Rome as consul. Fulvia was credited with a more personal motive. Antony’s infatuation for Cleopatra was becoming known in Rome, and it was believed that Fulvia designedly promoted civil troubles in the hope of inducing her husband to return.[177] At any rate she and Lucius took advantage of the ill-feeling against Cæsar caused by the confiscation of land. They feigned to plead for the dispossessed owners, maintaining that the confiscations had already produced enough for the payment of all claims, and that, if it were found that this was not so, Marcus would bring home from Asia what would cover the balance. They thus made Cæsar unpopular with both sides—with the veterans who thought that he might have satisfied their claims in full; with the dispossessed owners, who, over and above the natural irritation at their loss, thought that his measure had not been even necessary, and that he might have paid the veterans without mulcting them, or might have waited for the money from Asia. Specially formidable was the anger of landowners who were in the Senate. The discontent was increased by the hardness of the times; for corn was at famine price owing to Sextus Pompeius and Domitius Ahenobarbus infesting the Sicilian and Ionian seas. Cæsar was therefore in a serious difficulty. Unable to satisfy veterans and Senators at the same time, he found how powerless is mere military force against widespread and just resentment. His one answer to senatorial remonstrance had been, “But how am I to pay the veterans?” Now, however, he found it necessary to let alone the properties of Senators, the dowries of women, and all holdings less than the share of a single veteran. This again led to mutinies among the troops, who murdered some of their tribunes, and were within a little of assassinating Cæsar himself. They were only quieted by the promise that all their relations, and all fathers and sons of those who had fallen in the war, should retain lands assigned to them. This again enraged a number of the losers, and fatal encounters between owners and intruding “colonists” became frequent. The soldiers had the advantage of training, but the inhabitants were more numerous, and attacked them with stones and tiles from the housetops, both in Rome and the country towns. The burning of houses became so common that it was found necessary to remit a whole year’s rent of houses let for 500 denarii (£20) and under in the city, and a fourth part in the rest of Italy.
Other provocations offered to Augustus. He takes steps to protect himself.