THE WARS OF THE TRIUMVIRATE

In 44 BC Caesar fell to the daggers of the conspirators anxious to preserve the Republic. However, in the power struggle that ensued, culminating in Antony’s defeat at Actium, the Republican era ended and Octavian – the future Emperor Augustus – emerged victorious.

Ancient Authorities

The period with which we are now about to deal comprises the years between Julius Caesar’s assassination and the battle of Actium in 31 BC. This battle may conveniently be regarded as marking the end of the Roman Republic. Contemporary evidence, such as was available to later ancient historians, derived in an important degree from one of the main military and political protagonists of the epoch. This was the man who had in 63 BC begun life as Gaius Octavius and received (according to normal usage) the name of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian) when he became the adoptive son of his great-uncle Julius Caesar. After Actium, recognizing in himself a benevolent despot at the head of the Roman imperial establishment, Octavian assumed the title of Augustus (meaning “revered”), and he is generally referred to by this title when the imperial stage of his career is under consideration. He died in AD 14.

Augustus wrote his memoirs, and on these Livy was able to rely. They thus provide material for Dio Cassius, who made use of Livy’s now lost books. The relevant portion of Dio’s Roman History is fortunately extant in complete form. Augustus’ memoirs themselves do not survive, but an important official record of his own career, which he wrote for posterity, has been preserved in inscriptions, the best copy being that discovered in 1555 at Ancyra (Ankara). This invaluable record is generally known as the Res Gestae.

Contemporary witnesses of events, let alone participants in them, possess an obvious advantage. But to the extent that their personal interests are affected, they are often more biased than historians of subsequent ages. Augustus, even if he had wished, could not afford to be generous to Antony, his defeated rival. Since he was himself not only a writer but the patron of a gifted literary generation which included Virgil, Horace and Livy, he had every means of ensuring that a view of history favourable to himself would be transmitted to posterity.

Fortunately, history was also written by Gaius Asinius Pollio, who had been one of Julius Caesar’s officers. In the fighting that followed Caesar’s death at the hands of Brutus and Cassius and their fellow conspirators, Pollio had served under Antony. After the victory of Antony and Octavian at Philippi (42 BC), Pollio’s intercession on behalf of his fellow poet had prevented Virgil’s property from being allocated to one of the veteran soldiers who had defeated the armies of Brutus and Cassius. Even when the victors of Philippi had clashed and Antony’s suicide had followed the defeat at Actium, Pollio never wholly acquiesced in the supremacy of Augustus. His view of history tended to correct a more one-sided version which might otherwise have gained exclusive currency. Unfortunately, Pollio’s own writings, apart from some letters to Cicero, do not survive. But Appian made considerable use of him, and so did Plutarch in his Life of Antony. Plutarch, incidentally, draws on the accounts of some other interesting eyewitnesses, including Quintus Dellius, who served as Antony’s officer against the Parthians in 40 BC, and Olympus, who is remembered as Cleopatra’s medical adviser.

Other important contemporary evidence is to be derived from Cicero’s Philippics, a series of fourteen orations in which Antony was bitterly attacked. The title of these speeches invites us to compare them with those directed by Demosthenes against Philip of Macedon. They belong, of course, to the literature of invective and do not pretend to impartiality, but like Cicero’s letters written at this time, they shed great light on the politics of the period.

We may also notice among almost contemporary writers the historian Velleius Paterculus, who was born in 19 BC, when Augustus was firmly established in power. Velleius was certainly in no position to be impartial, and he made no attempt to be so.

Further evidence is preserved in Suetonius’ Life of Augustus. Suetonius had access to many official documents now lost. His pronounced interest in scandal was not associated with any political bias and, writing in the second century AD, at a comfortable distance from events, he was under no particular pressures. He is not, however, a useful military historian.

Political History

The conspirators by whose swords Caesar died at a meeting of the Senate in 44 BC were old-fashioned constitutionalists. They were extremely stupid men. They could not see that a constitution which needed to be upheld entirely by military force was no constitution. It had been Pompey’s weakness that he made too many concessions to constitutional appearances; Caesar was murdered because he made too few. But military power was the only real basis of authority in Rome during the first century BC.

The conspirators were surprised to find that their action was unpopular. Yet Caesar had always been lavish in the pursuit of his political ends – even in the days when he had been sustained by loans from Crassus. With the proceeds of world conquest at his disposal, he had been considerably more lavish. Nor did this largesse end with his death, for the terms of his will included a cash hand-out to the citizens.

Mark Antony, surviving Caesar’s death, made sure that Caesar’s will was publicized and assumed the powers of an executor. He was able to do this because Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (whom Caesar in his recently relinquished role of dictator had made Master of the Horse) was available with troops not far from Rome. Antony won the support of Lepidus, and the conspirators, now thoroughly on the defensive, were glad to concede a highly honourable public funeral to Caesar in return for an amnesty.

It is easy, with the advantage of hindsight, to approve the judgment of Cassius, who had urged that Antony as well as Caesar should be killed. But while it could be hoped that the single murder of Caesar would look like tyrannicide, the assassination of both consuls, to a generation which still remembered Sulla, could portend the beginning of new massacres and provoke more opposition than it removed. Brutus was perhaps right about this. Certainly, the skill with which Antony now exploited the situation had not been foreseeable. He had served Caesar well in a military capacity, but his civil administration of Italy during Caesar’s absence had done little to make him popular.

At the same time, Caesar’s will was a great disappointment to Antony. For it named as principal heir Gaius Octavius, Caesar’s great-nephew, now receiving military training in Illyricum1 in preparation for Caesar’s projected campaign against Parthia. At Caesar’s death, the young man, completely without political experience, boldly returned to Italy, and his boldness was rewarded. But even the vast financial resources and the prestigious name of Caesar, conferred on him by the terms of the will, would not have enabled him to survive, let alone predominate, if he had not possessed innate political and military ability. His possession of such ability was something which was unforeseen by Antony, by the conspirators and by Cicero, who, although not one of the assassins, approved their constitutional principles.

The ensuing conflict, which resulted in heavy fighting round Mutina (Modena), wore the aspect of a four-cornered struggle. The nonviolent constitutionalists represented by Cicero were already allied with the conspirators, and they enjoyed the temporary support of Octavian, for in 43 BC, Antony, who promised to be a more oppressive autocrat than Caesar, grudged Octavian his inheritance and treated him with corresponding coolness. However, the future both of Antony and Octavian depended on respect for Caesar’s memory, and after the Mutina fighting – in which Antony fared ill and Octavian revealed his powers – the two men were reconciled, to the exclusion of the constitutionalists. Lepidus, now governor of Gaul, wavered but eventually joined them. The triumvirs, as they now became, jointly wielded dictatorial power, and their power was recognized by a formal legal enactment. They were the committee of three, appointed for the establishment of the constitution.

Modern historians sometimes refer to the Triumvirate as the “second triumvirate”, regarding the informal agreement of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus as the first. But the authority conferred on Antony, Octavian and Lepidus in 43 BC more closely resembled that enjoyed by Sulla, and they used their authority as Sulla had used his. Their proscriptions (formal outlawry followed by systematic massacre) were singularly cold-blooded. Friends and relatives of each triumvir were ruthlessly sacrificed to the malice, suspicion and self-interest of the others, nor could the goodwill of Octavian protect Cicero from Antony’s murderous resentment.

The Mutina Campaign

The strategy and tactics of the Mutina campaign were almost as complicated as its politics. The multisided nature of renewed civil strife became evident when Antony had himself appointed to supersede Decimus Brutus, Caesar’s old admiral, as governor of Italian Gaul. Decimus had treacherously participated in Caesar’s assassination, and he enjoyed the confidence of the Senate. He now refused to hand over his province to Antony. Antony marched against him with those legions whose loyalty he could command and occupied the major towns of the province. Decimus pretended to withdraw southwards towards Rome, but suddenly occupied Mutina and prepared for a siege, killing and salting cattle. His preparations were well advised. Antony blockaded him in Mutina, encircling the city with a rampart and a trench, and maintained this position until Decimus’ supplies began to fail.

Meanwhile, the newly appointed consuls for the year, Hirtius and Pansa, with the Senate’s authority marched northward from Rome to raise the siege. Guided by Cicero, the Senate still regarded Caesar’s assassins as champions of the constitution. In the circumstances, Cicero was also disposed to accept Octavian as an ally – if only for the reason that he was now in conflict with Antony. Octavian, with loyal Caesarian troops, whom he was able to pay out of his private resources, having received the title of propraetor, accompanied Hirtius. Approaching Mutina, the two commanders found their cavalry involved in skirmishes with Antony’s horsemen, who were numerically superior but hindered by a terrain intersected by torrent beds. Pansa, with some veteran legions and raw levies, came to the support of his fellow consul. Octavian’s headquarters cohort was sent out to guide and escort him as he approached. However, Pansa’s troops, together with their escort, were ambushed by Antony’s forces on the road and a fierce battle was fought, for the legions on either side regarded their enemies as traitors. The battle was, in fact, threefold. For the high embankment which carried the road over the marsh made the combatants on one side of it invisible to those on the other, while the headquarters cohorts of Antony and Octavian clashed with each other on the road itself.

Octavian’s cohort was eventually annihilated, and Pansa’s veteran legionaries fell back to defend the camp, into which his raw troops, prudently instructed to take no part in the battle, had already retreated. Pansa himself was mortally wounded. Hirtius now marched eight miles (13km) from his camp near Mutina with fresh troops and defeated Antony’s exhausted men. Night fell, and the dangers presented by the marshes stopped him from pursuing the enemy, while Antony’s cavalry extricated many of their lost and wounded comrades. Some of these were placed on the horses’ backs, with or without the usual riders. Others hung on to the horses’ tails and were led away.

Antony’s besieging force still surrounded Mutina. When Hirtius and Octavian seemed about to break through the blockading lines at their weakest point, Antony withdrew two legions from other points on the circumvallation in order to oppose them. But he again had the worst of a battle. Hirtius himself broke through into Antony’s field headquarters, where he was killed fighting.

Despite contrary advice from his staff, Antony now raised the siege. He was afraid that with the arrival of enemy forces he might in turn be besieged himself. When he had withdrawn, Decimus Brutus cautiously thanked Octavian from the other side of the river for his action, but Octavian coldly indicated that he had come to oppose Antony, not to help Caesar’s murderers. Antony, with great difficulty, made his way northwards to the Alps and found eventually, as he had hoped, an ally in Lepidus, governor in Narbonese Gaul (southern France).

Decimus was confirmed in his command by the Senate, but the troops who had served under him decided otherwise and deserted to Octavian. Decimus’ position deteriorated until he was left a fugitive. While trying to escape through wild territory, to join Marcus Brutus in Macedonia, he fell into the hands of a Gallic chief friendly to Antony and was put to death.

Cassius against Rhodes

The Senate showed consistent favour to Caesar’s assassins. Having declared Antony a public enemy, it conferred the province of Macedonia, which he had previously regarded as an unacceptable alternative to Italian Gaul, upon Marcus Brutus. Cassius was assigned Syria, with responsibility for making war on Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who had originally secured the consulate left vacant at Caesar’s death. Dolabella had, in Rome, favoured the constitutionalists, but in his subsequent provincial appointment he had changed sides and treacherously murdered the governor of Asia, Gaius Trebonius, one of the ides of March conspirators. Dolabella, soon defeated by Cassius, committed suicide at Laodicea in Syria.

Brutus and Cassius probably did not at first regard war with Antony – let alone Octavian – as inevitable. But they found it prudent to build up their military and financial position. This involved hostilities against states which would not pay them tribute, and among such states the courageous and highly respectable community of Rhodes was conspicuous. The Rhodians, in fact, resisted Cassius in the same fearless and independent spirit that their ancestors had shown in resisting Demetrius Poliorcetes and Mithridates. Sadly, on this occasion, their heroic resolve was in vain.

Rhodes, like Laodicea, had supported Dolabella, so Cassius had a good pretext for plundering it. The Rhodians hoped to resist his heavy war galleys with lighter ships of their own which employed the old Greek manoeuvres of diekplus and broadside ramming. Cassius had been educated at Rhodes and did not underestimate the naval prowess of his enemies. Basing himself on the island of Myndas, off the Carian coast, he prepared his own fleet with its full complement of personnel and trained his crews.

The Rhodians with 33 galleys met Cassius’ fleet in the open sea near Myndus. Cassius himself watched the battle from a high point on the shore. At first, the nimble Greek tactics of the Rhodian seamen were effective, but Cassius had the advantage of numbers and was able to surround the Rhodians who, thus confined, soon found it impossible to carry out the manoeuvres on which they had relied. Whether it was a question of ramming or boarding, the heavier Roman ships with their larger complements gained the upper hand. Two Rhodian vessels were captured, with their crews. Two were rammed and sunk; the remainder escaped to Rhodes.

Cassius now based himself on the Asiatic mainland. He then embarked troops in transport ships and landed a military force on the island of Rhodes in order that they might attack the city from the land, while he himself sailed against it with 80 ships. The Rhodians again tried to fight at sea, but the numerical odds were too great and, after losing two more ships, their navy was forced into harbour and blockaded. The Roman fleet had carried siege-towers, prefabricated in sections; in the event, these proved unnecessary. Cassius, with a picked troop of men, suddenly appeared in the middle of the city, persons unknown having opened the gates to him when it became evident that Rhodes was completely unprepared for a siege.

Cassius put to death 50 of the leading citizens and seized all the gold and silver that he could lay hands on. His naval victory, though it owed much to his prudence and experience, was also the result of superior numbers. The mere fact that the Rhodians had undertaken to fight him with lighter ships meant that heavier galleys were no longer regarded as self-evidently more effective. The use of lighter against heavier vessels was to be vindicated 12 years later at the battle of Actium where Octavian’s ships defeated Antony’s less manoeuvrable fleet.

Strategy before Philippi

Cassius was ready to proceed against Cleopatra, who had helped Dolabella. She had been established by Caesar with her son in Rome, but returned to Egypt after Caesar’s murder. Naturally, she was to be counted among the Caesarians. But before Cassius could launch a punitive expedition against Egypt, he was warned by Brutus, who had, with gentlemanly expressions of regret, been plundering the cities of Lycia (southern Asia Minor), that Antony was preparing an eastward offensive from Brundisium. Brutus and Cassius united their forces and concentrated them on the Gulf of Melas, in the north-east corner of the Aegean, from which point they could best advance through Thrace to meet Antony’s expected invasion. The triumvirs were certainly well advised to seize the initiative. After their savage proscriptions, Brutus and Cassius might have been regarded as deliverers if they had been allowed to land in Italy.

Among the troops now assembled to confront the triumvirs were 19 legions, not all fully up to strength. Most of them had been inherited from official predecessors, though Brutus had taken over one legion from Antony’s brother Gaius, whom he had defeated and killed in Macedonia. Accompanying cavalry and auxiliaries included Gauls, Spaniards, Thracians, Illyrians, Parthians, Medes and Arabs; and these were joined by the armies of various allied potentates. Thanks to the methods already described, the two “liberating” generals had ample funds for the maintenance of these forces.

Meanwhile, Cleopatra was contemplating naval aid to Antony. This would indeed have been valuable, for the triumvirate was weak at sea. But Cleopatra and her fleet were wrecked on the Libyan coast; she herself returned to Alexandria with great difficulty, feeling very ill. Cassius’ commander, who had been lying in wait near the southernmost promontory of the Peloponnese to intercept her, having already employed his time profitably in plundering Greece, now sailed to prevent Antony from crossing the Adriatic. It was not the first time that Antony had faced this particular challenge, having previously ferried reinforcements across the Adriatic, in the teeth of opposition, to support Caesar at Dyrrhachium.

Octavian had been absorbed by naval operations against Sextus Pompeius who, after making a living by piracy during the years that followed Munda, had on Caesar’s assassination been recognized by the Senate as the commander of a Republican fleet. Clashing with Octavian’s officer in Sicilian waters, he had the better of some naval fighting. The fleets of the triumvirs, however, were now combined at Brundisium, and they eventually managed to slip across the Adriatic with a strong following wind which enabled the troop transports, under sail, to outstrip the streamlined war-galleys of escorts and enemies alike. They even eluded interception on the return journey and made a second crossing with more troops. Antony and Octavian thus transported 28 legions, of a total of 43 legions at the disposal of the Triumvirate, into Macedonia. Lepidus guarded Italy with the rest.

At Dyrrhachium, Octavian fell ill. Antony pushed on eastward to face Brutus and Cassius. Food supplies were his major problem. The wreck of Cleopatra’s fleet had left his enemies indisputably in command of the sea, and to make matters worse there had been a failure of crops in Egypt, with resultant famine. It was therefore necessary for Antony to seize what grain-growing areas he could and to force an urgent military decision. He sent an advance guard to hold the mountain passes of Thrace against Brutus and Cassius, thus assuring himself of control over the cornlands farther west.

The purpose of this strategy was not lost on Brutus and Cassius. They sent a naval force along the Thracian coast, outflanking Antony’s advance guard and compelling the officer in command of it to abandon his forward positions. They then led their armies through the pass. When a second defile was defended by Antony’s force, a friendly Thracian prince showed them a difficult and hazardous way round it. But the prince’s brother, who supported the other side, gave warning of the move, and Antony’s officer was able to fall back on Amphipolis in Macedonia before he was encircled. The armies of the “liberators” then linked up with their naval squadron and fortified a position near the sea at Philippi, within the Macedonian frontier.

Fortifications at Philippi

Antony pushed on in haste to Amphipolis and was extremely glad to find it already occupied by his own advance guard. As September, 42 BC, drew to its close, the supplies of Macedonian and Thessalian corn were limited. Other difficulties apart, Sextus Pompeius with his active fleet would ensure that no grain reached the triumvirs from Spain or Africa. The need for a decisive battle became ever more imperative.

The camps of Brutus and Cassius were about one Roman mile apart, straddling the road to Asia. A trench, rampart and palisade of the usual military type connected the two camps, cutting the road and featuring a central gate through which troops from either camp could issue against the enemy and be deployed in the plain beyond. This plain was flanked by mountains and rocky gorges inland and by marshes southward towards the sea. The pathless mountain area prevented Brutus’ camp from being outflanked in the north, and there remained only a short stretch of open terrain between Cassius’ camp and the marsh. When Antony approached more quickly than expected and fortified a position only one mile in front of Brutus’ and Cassius’ camps, Cassius promptly closed the gap on his left, so that there was a continuous rampart from marsh to mountains.

Antony’s apparent eagerness for battle at a point which was not of his own choosing surprised Brutus and Cassius. But battle was his only hope, even though, at Philippi, tactical as well as strategic factors militated against him. As long as the enemy did not move, he would face the necessity of attacking uphill against extremely strong positions. Nor had the enemy any reason to move. They had secured a well-stocked base on the island of Thasos, not many miles offshore in their rear. Opposite the island, a gulf in the mainland coast offered a convenient anchorage for their galleys, and a river ran alongside their fortifications, providing an easily accessible water supply. Antony was obliged to find water by digging wells.

When it became clear that Brutus and Cassius, apart from cavalry skirmishing, did not intend to take the initiative, Antony acted with energy and ingenuity. Under cover of the tall swamp reeds, while distracting attention with a show of frontal activity, he built a causeway through the marsh without Cassius’ knowledge. Hurrying men along the causeway, he then occupied strong commanding points in Cassius’ rear. The latter, however, responded vigorously, building another causeway, fortified by a palisade, through the marsh, more or less at right-angles to Antony’s, severing all communications with the strong-points which had been occupied.

In the course of these operations, however, Cassius’ forces were necessarily dispersed. Antony suddenly launched a violent attack on the rampart between the camp and the marsh, brought up ladders, filled in ditches, demolished the palisade and overran the position. He then turned on the almost unguarded camp and captured it. Meanwhile, the forces of Brutus, encamped on the northern hill, were presented with an excellent opportunity, for as Antony attacked Cassius, his flank was completely exposed. Without waiting for orders, they charged down from the higher ground, created havoc in Antony’s rear, found themselves suddenly face to face with Octavian’s legions but routed them also, and went on to seize the camp which had been jointly occupied by the triumvirs’ armies.

In the course of these operations, enormous clouds of dust had been raised and the situation was confused. Cassius seems to have thought that Brutus’ camp, like his own, had fallen into enemy hands. Certainly, he did not realize that Brutus’ men had occupied the enemy camp. Indeed, it is not certain that Brutus himself knew. He never ordered the attack. The suicide of Cassius, which followed, and the exact nature of his misapprehension have been variously explained. One theory current among ancient historians was that he had been murdered by his slave, who contrived to make the act look like suicide.

Both sides now withdrew from the enemy positions which they had occupied, both realizing that their own bases were in danger. Even so, as Appian says, they looked more like porters than soldiers, being intent on carrying off whatever plunder they could. In the swirling dust clouds, friends were indistinguishable from enemies, and Brutus’ troops, who had begun the battle without any authorization, may have felt at liberty to terminate it as and when they chose. But when the dust cleared, Antony and Octavian, who, though still in poor health, had arrived in time for the fighting and accompanied his men to the battlefield, were back in their camp. At the same time, Brutus had reoccupied Cassius’ lost positions.

The Days of Decision at Philippi

On the day that Cassius met his death at Philippi, his officer commanding the Adriatic naval contingent enjoyed a major success. In an attempt to ferry reinforcements, the triumvirs’ commanders at Brundisium tried the experiment of running across under sail once too often. The wind dropped and they were caught. The small escort of warships that had sped them on their way was no match for the enemy’s 130 galleys. The troops in the transports, when they saw there was no way of escape, lashed their ships together to provide a fighting platform and prevent single vessels from being isolated. However, the enemy plied them with fire darts and thus obliged them to separate, lest flames should spread from one ship to another. Many eventually surrendered; others drifted in derelict hulks, dying of hunger, thirst and burns.

The news, when it reached Philippi, was obviously a blow to the triumvirs and put heart into Brutus, who was now titular commander of Cassius’ army as well as his own. He would willingly have continued his static strategy, but his officers, as well as his men, were otherwise inclined. They had already gained one victory without his permission and felt themselves quite capable of repeating the achievement. The triumvirs’ men did everything they could to provoke an engagement, approaching close to Brutus’ lines and challenging the soldiers with jeers and insults: a naive procedure which was nevertheless often adopted in ancient wars. Apart from this, political warfare was waged and messages were flung across the ramparts, promising rewards to deserters. Brutus retaliated by sporadic night attacks, and on one occasion diverted the river into the enemy camp. But a general engagement was still no part of his plan.

The triumvirs had sent a legion southward into the Peloponnese to forage in Achaea, but their corn supply remained a crucial problem. In their attempts to break the stalemate, they had some minor success. There was a hill close to the camp which Cassius had commanded. But as the hill was within bowshot of the camp, and therefore difficult for an enemy to hold, Brutus now evacuated it. Seeing an opportunity, Octavian promptly occupied the position with four legions, who protected themselves against arrows with screens of wicker and hide. With this strongpoint as a base, it was possible to establish a series of outposts southwards towards the sea, leading perhaps to another outflanking attempt through the marsh. However, against all such possible springboards, Brutus built and garrisoned bastions.

Morale and discipline, meanwhile, especially in the defeated army which Brutus had inherited from Cassius, continued to be bad and tended to worsen as the result of inaction. Under pressure from his staff, Brutus at last consented to fight a pitched battle. He did so with great reluctance, comparing himself to Pompey in a similar situation at Pharsalus. The engagement which followed was not preceded by the usual exchange of javelins, nor was any attempt made at tactical manoeuvre. Fighting closely resembled that of the classical Greek phalanx, except in so far as swords took the place of spears. Appian says that Octavian’s legionaries gradually rolled the enemy back as if they were revolving some kind of heavy mechanism. Brutus’ infantry at first retreated in good order, step by step; but under relentless pressure, this order was eventually lost. Gaps appeared in the ranks. The front line became intermingled with the rear. Congestion, confusion and full-scale flight resulted. Octavian’s men, following instructions, though exposed to missile attack from the ramparts, captured the central gateway in the enemy’s fortifications and prevented any withdrawal by this route. Antony’s soldiers hunted down fugitives both in the direction of the sea and the mountains, while Octavian kept watch on the enemy camp, which had not yet fallen into the triumvirs’ hands. Brutus himself, having been cut off, retreated northward into the mountains and spent the night there, with less than four legions, hoping to return to his camp under cover of darkness. But his return was blocked by Antony, and his officers and men were too demoralized to attempt a breakthrough. Perceiving that he survived only as the champion of a lost cause, he persuaded a loyal member of his staff to kill him.

After Philippi

Philippi was followed by a redistribution of authority among the triumvirs. Octavian was left in charge of Italy and most of the western provinces, while Antony, though retaining Gaul, undertook to re-establish Roman authority in the East. Lepidus, who had been suspected of collusion with Sextus Pompeius, despite his much diminished role, was eventually permitted to control Africa. With power, Octavian inherited many problems. The claims of veteran soldiers to the land promised them as a reward for service could only be satisfied by the flagrant injustice of evicting present occupants. Moreover, Octavian was naturally concerned to satisfy his own veterans in preference to those of the absent Antony. In these circumstances, Lucius Antonius, brother of the triumvir, tried to assert his constitutional position as consul and champion the injured parties. Since Lucius was a titular head of state, one can hardly say that he “raised a revolt”, but in terms of political and military realities that was what it amounted to. A minor war resulted. Octavian besieged Lucius in Perusia (Perugia) and starved him into surrender. Perusia, reserved by the victor for plunder, was burned down as the result of a fire started by one of its desperate inhabitants. At least, the city qualified more plausibly for enemy status than did those other unoffending Italian territories which had been allocated to victorious troops. But Octavian was still trying to avoid conflict with Antony. Lucius was pardoned and sent as governor to Spain.

A more serious problem was presented by Sextus Pompeius. The pirate son of a man who had done more than any Roman to suppress piracy, Sextus now occupied and controlled Sicily, where he had been joined by fugitives from Philippi, as well as the Adriatic fleet commanded by Cassius’ officers. He was thus in a position to deprive Italy of its overseas corn supply. After the Perusia episode, Mark Antony had himself arrived in Italy, and war between the two triumvirs had narrowly been averted by a treaty made at Brundisium in 40 BC. This was followed in the next year by another treaty made at Misenum, near Naples, with Sextus Pompeius. According to its terms, Sextus was appointed governor of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Achaea. That was the price of corn for Italy. But the treaty broke down and naval warfare resulted. Octavian was twice defeated in sea battles off Cumae and Messana, though Sextus never assumed an offensive role or made any bid for supreme power.

One secret of Octavian’s success was his ability to delegate authority, and he had an outstandingly efficient officer in the person of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who had been his comrade as a young man, while training in Illyricum. Agrippa, who had rendered distinguished service in Gaul and contributed to the defeat of Lucius Antonius at Perusia, now proved himself as able on sea as on land. Though Octavian suffered another naval defeat near Tauromenium (Taormina), Agrippa overcame Sextus’ fleet at Mylae. This was followed by another victory at Naulochus, which proved decisive. Octavian, by land operations, with the help of Lepidus, had already deprived the enemy of supply centres in Sicily. Sextus fled to Asia, where he was eventually captured and executed at Antony’s orders.

Agrippa was noticeably alert to the possibilities of technical innovation. In order to create a suitable naval base for war on Sextus Pompeius, he had cut a canal through the narrow strand which carried the Herculean Way between Baiae and Puteoli, thus linking the inland Lucrine lagoon (lacus Lucrinus) with the Bay of Naples. A second canal connected the Lucrine waters with those of Lake Avernus beyond. The combined basins provided a training area in which Octavian’s fleet could carry out manoeuvres and tactical exercises whenever they desired.

Sextus Pompeius’ success had, throughout this war in Sicilian and southern Italian waters, been dependent very largely on his use of war galleys which were lighter and smaller than those manned by his enemies. As in Cassius’ attack on Rhodes, we find evidence that the lighter galley was returning to favour and that the tactics of manoeuvre and ramming were being reintroduced against the heavier ships which provided a basis for grappling and boarding. Strategically, the light ship, with its vulnerability to wind and weather was at a disadvantage. But in localized inshore operations, it often proved its tactical value. Where fighting took place in a choppy sea, the light ship could ride the waves and was more flexible in manoeuvre. Sextus had demonstrated this even before Philippi. If by misadventure his vessels were grappled by the enemy, the crews abandoned ship at once by flinging themselves into the water. They were then picked up by friendly lifeboats, which followed the battle collecting anyone who had abandoned ship.

Admittedly, Agrippa used a new type of harpoon which made it easier to grapple the elusive Pompeians, but it is also apparent that he himself was in part a convert to the tactics of manoeuvre and ramming.

The Parthians Again

In the East, Antony may seem to have had a simpler task than that which awaited Octavian. It was, at least, less invidious to plunder foreign treasuries than to expropriate Italian farmers. But Antony also faced a Roman enemy. Quintus Labienus, the son of Julius Caesar’s officer, had taken sides with Brutus and Cassius; before Philippi he had been sent on a mission to the Parthian king to solicit military aid. The events at Philippi had been reported to him while still in Parthia, and he can hardly be blamed for not hastening homeward into a world of which his political enemies had now acquired control. But Quintus Labienus did not remain aloof. He joined the Parthian prince Pacorus in invading Syria, and defeated the Roman provincial governor, who had been one of the officers commanding Antony’s advance guard in the Philippi campaign.

The legionaries in Syria showed themselves ready to serve under Labienus’ command. With Pacorus, he went on to occupy territories in Asia Minor, but was checked at last by Antony’s officer Ventidius and, like Pacorus, met his death in the campaign which followed. These operations are interesting because they show how ineffective the Parthians could be when not fighting on suitable terrain, such as they found in their own country. This is only what one would expect of an army composed almost entirely of cavalry. Labienus, with the troops which had seceded to him, might well have supplied Pacorus with a much needed complement of infantry, but liaison between the Parthians and their Roman allies was bad. In hilly country, the Parthian mounted archers were unable to carry out their characteristic manoeuvres, and even the heavy, mailed lancers were at a disadvantage. Encouraged by memories of success against Crassus, the Parthians charged uphill at Ventidius’ legions and were completely routed as a result.

Ventidius’ victory (39 BC) had come at a time when Antony was still settling his affairs with Octavian and Sextus Pompeius in Italy. But as soon as he returned to the East, feeling a political need for some patriotic military gesture, Antony planned an offensive war against Parthia, on the pretext of recovering standards and prisoners captured by the enemy during Crassus’ ill-starred campaign.

Once more, the Parthians, fighting on their own ground, had the advantage. They employed their traditional tactics, and Antony was forced into a retreat, throughout which the Romans suffered formidable losses, both from sickness and enemy action. Antony himself was much to blame for the costly failure. He had sacrificed too much to the hope of a lightning victory, abandoning, among other valuable siege equipment, an indispensable 80-foot (24m) ram.

Admittedly, the lessons of Crassus’ ghastly experience were not wholly forgotten. Antony had arranged to take with him a large body of Asiatic cavalry, but the reluctantly allied king of Armenia, who should have provided these troops, deserted him at a critical phase. Antony’s Gallic and Spanish horsemen were not competent to deal with the Parthian cavalry. Although the mounted archers were repeatedly driven away, they were seldom overtaken in their flight. Few were captured or killed, and they returned again and again to the attack. Antony’s men marched, as Crassus’ had done, in square formation, ever ready for action at short notice, and they at last discovered a way of surviving the highly penetrative Parthian arrows. Standing legionaries held their shields in front of others who were kneeling: the overlapping shields gave the necessary protection of double or treble thickness. By feigning dead or wounded, the Romans also sometimes induced their light-armed assailants to fight at close quarters, and this was the only way in which they were able to inflict appreciable casualties on the enemy. Antony was better prepared for treachery than Crassus had been, and was wise enough to reject the offer of safe conduct across plains which would have provided the horde of Parthian bowmen with ideal conditions. His decision to march by a gruelling mountainous route, which was the only alternative, saved his army.

On the other side, the Parthians themselves had learnt some lessons and, overcoming their ordinary repugnance to a night march, followed up the Romans during the hours of darkness. With feelings of profound relief, Antony and his men at last reached the safe mountainous regions of Armenia. They had recovered no standards or prisoners, but there was reason to be thankful that the enemy had not added to his acquisitions in this respect. The campaign again demonstrated the Parthians’ invincibility “at home”.

War-Lords and their Womenfolk

The treasure of Egypt had escaped Cassius’ “itching palm”, for he had been summoned away to meet the triumvirs’ armies just when his attentions began to turn towards Alexandria. In 41 BC, Antony, aware of this untapped source, reprimanded Cleopatra for her allegedly lukewarm support of the Caesarian cause and summoned her to meet him in Asia Minor. Serving under Julius Caesar, he had known her when a girl. But she had changed since then. Antony spent the winter months with her in Alexandria, indifferent to war, politics or even money.

News of his brother Lucius’ ill-judged action in Italy and of the Parthian invasion abetted by Labienus at last caused the triumvir to bestir himself. He set out to confront the Parthians but, on receipt of letters from his wife Fulvia, turned against Italy with 200 ships. Fulvia was a strong-minded woman with a flair for political intrigue. Lucius Antonius had taken up arms in defence of his brother’s interests largely at her instigation. By forcing a crisis of this kind, it was said, she hoped also to recall Antony from the embraces of Cleopatra. After Perusia had surrendered amid a network of circumvallations, Fulvia fled to Greece, where Antony, accepting the current estimates of her motives, met her in no very friendly spirit. She fell ill and died soon after. In the ensuing rapprochement at Brundisium, all concerned were glad to blame the dead Fulvia, and a new wife was found for Antony in the person of Octavian’s sister, Octavia, a serious and attractive young widow. Naturally, she inherited Cleopatra as a personal and political enemy, and against the Alexandrian liaison Octavia’s delicacy availed no more than Fulvia’s determination. She bore Antony two daughters, not the great heir to a reign of concord which Virgil in his poem addressed to Pollio had hopefully anticipated. At the same time, Octavia kept peace between her husband and her brother as long as it was possible.

Tension steadily mounted. At Tarentum, in 37 BC, the assembled fleets and armies of the two triumvirs – for Lepidus could now be discounted – confronted each other but, thanks to Octavia, conciliatory negotiations followed and war was once more averted. She arranged that her brother should give Antony two legions for use against the Parthians and receive in return 100 war galleys. As a result of further pleading, she also secured 20 light ships for use by Octavian against Sextus Pompeius, in exchange for another infantry contingent, 1,000 strong, to augment her husband’s land forces. Antony then returned to the East, leaving Octavia with her brother to look after his children.

Antony no sooner arrived in Syria than Cleopatra joined him. He flatteringly placed under her dominion a number of Roman protégé territories and officially acknowledged her children by him. After the costly Parthian campaign, Octavia tried once more to meet him in Athens, while he was planning yet another eastern offensive to avenge his losses. In addition to her claims as his wife, she brought military equipment, stores and supplies, together with 2,000 magnificently armed legionaries to serve as headquarters troops. To prevent the triumvir from taking this bait, so Plutarch relates, Cleopatra exerted all her charms and wiles. Antony abandoned not only Octavia but his eastern military projects, and returned to Alexandria for another holiday. On the other hand, the contribution which accompanied Octavia may have appeared so inadequate as to explain Antony’s disgust and the deferment of his plans.

Octavian was swift to take advantage of the insult offered to his sister. It gave him an honourable pretext for war, though Octavia, on her return to Rome, still maintained her peace-keeping role. But her brother, with his shrewd political insight, now realized that Cleopatra as a foreign enemy was worth more to him than Antony as a Roman friend. By a unilateral decree, he deprived Antony of his position of triumvir. A patriotic war against Cleopatra was the logical outcome.

The Decision at Actium

The inevitable war was destined to be fought at sea, because Cleopatra wished it so. Antony seems to have been, as Octavian proclaimed, a slave to her wishes, and the sea at any rate offered the best prospect of speedy flight in the event of defeat. The armed conflict was preceded by dramatic challenges which emphasize the personal nature of warfare at this epoch. Octavian offered Antony a beachhead in Italy, with space for a camp, in order that a pitched battle might be fought there. Antony replied first with an invitation to single combat, then to a pitched battle at Pharsalus on the site of Julius Caesar’s victory. Both these offers were refused by Octavian. He had accepted a similar challenge, defining time and place, from Sextus Pompeius five years earlier and had won the decisive battle which followed. But his fleet now consisted largely of light ships, which he was perhaps reluctant to expose to the hazards of the open sea. In any case, he probably crossed in summer when the weather and the sea conditions were favourable, at a time of his choosing.

It is even possible that Octavian’s hesitance to fight in Greece was feigned and that he hoped merely to throw the enemy off his guard. Antony, poised against Italy, with sea and land forces at Actium on the Ambracian Gulf in North Greece, was certainly taken by surprise when Octavian’s armada arrived on the coast of Epirus, not far north of his own position. He was in every sense unprepared. His fleet was not yet manned. As a desperate ruse, he drew his ships up in line of battle and put out the oars, even where there were no rowers to work them. This bluff was effective and Octavian temporarily withdrew.

However, in the strategic manoeuvring and land skirmishing that followed, Antony was unable to shift the enemy from his position, while Octavian’s fleet, under Agrippa, gained important vantage points among the Ionian islands and in the Gulf of Corinth, cutting off Antony from his sources of supply in the Peloponnese. Morale among his officers and eastern allies had deteriorated, and among influential deserters to the enemy was Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Julius Caesar’s officer. But even when the decisive naval battle was imminent, Antony maintained a defensive posture, from which he was drawn only by the threat of encirclement.

Tactics, as well as strategy, reflected a trial of strength between light and heavy ships. Octavian’s slender vessels (liburnae, as they were called) were able to manoeuvre in groups of three or four around single galleys of Antony’s ponderous fleet, exchanging missiles with them; although fear of being grappled and boarded by the swarms of marines which these leviathans carried deterred them from coming too close. In such circumstances, as one might expect, a decision was not quickly reached. But while Antony’s flagship on the right was engaged against Agrippa’s squadron, his own centre and left began a mysterious withdrawal. Cleopatra’s loss of nerve has been blamed by historians. Her contingent had been anchored in the rear, laden with the treasure on which Antony’s war economy largely depended. The Egyptian squadron, taking advantage of a sudden favourable wind, hoisted sail and deserted the scene of the battle. Whatever motives underlay events, Antony certainly followed his mistress in her flight. Most of his fleet, left at the enemy’s mercy, in a state of leaderless confusion, was destroyed.

When Octavian invaded Egypt during the following year, Antony and Cleopatra had no prospect of defending themselves. Antony, abandoned by his officers and troops, committed suicide. Cleopatra was captured by Octavian, but contrived to kill herself before she could adorn the conqueror’s triumph.

REFERENCES

1 He had been stationed at Apollonia, the Roman military base, a point of disembarkation on the eastern Adriatic coast, already connected by road (the Via Egnatia) with Thessalonica.

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