Antony spent much of the Ides of March barricaded inside his house. He had thrown off his consular robes and disguised himself as a slave when he fled – the latter an ironic repeat of his flight from Rome at the beginning of 49 BC. In the past, Roman politicians who resorted to violence had never stopped with the death of just one man and there was no reason to expect anything else now. Apart from the conspirators, as yet no one else knew of Brutus’ insistence that only Caesar be killed. Like Caesar’s own clemency to his defeated opponents, this attitude was surprising. Antony was Caesar’s fellow consul and political ally and knew himself to be an obvious target. Lepidus, Caesar’s Magister Equitum, similarly took refuge in his own house, as did the vast majority of the Senate, anticipating a bloodbath. Some may have feared death at the hands of the conspirators and their supporters, others at the hands of Caesar’s vengeful supporters. All were nervous that mobs of looters would take advantage of the chaos.1
The news of the murder would have taken longer to cross the River Tiber and reach Cleopatra. No doubt she was stunned, probably grief-stricken and certainly nervous, but she was in no real danger unless Rome descended into total anarchy. Politically she was irrelevant, and she may already have known enough about Roman public life to realise this and that the conspirators would have no reason to think her worth the trouble of killing. Whatever new regime emerged following the death of the dictator, it would be formed by Romans. The queen could not play a part in this process and could only hope for an accommodation with the leaders who emerged. She had lost her political protector and her lover. It was impossible to know how Rufio and his legions would react to the news of Caesar’s death and whether she would be able to cling on to power without her Roman backer. Cleopatra did not flee from Rome as soon as she heard of the assassination, fearing for her own life or that of her child. She remained there for several weeks, watching events.2
An already depleted Senate had suffered a further cull of its leading members during the civil war. Caesar had enrolled hundreds of new senators, but few of these men had much prestige or political influence. His enlarged Senate of some nine hundred members was very light at the top. When Caesar lay dead, Brutus had called out Cicero’s name, for he was one of the very few distinguished former consuls who might now lead a restored Republic. The sixty-two-year-old orator had not been aware of the conspiracy and ran away in the general panic.
The conspirators had wound themselves up to stab the dictator to death in a flurry of wild blows. They do not seem to have prepared well for what would happen next, and were taken by surprise by the stampede that left them alone in the temple. They raised a freedman’s cap on a pole as a sign that citizens had gained their freedom once more, just as a slave put on this headgear on the day his master granted him liberty. (The French Revolutionaries would one day adopt the same symbol.) Then, joined by Decimus Brutus’ troop of gladiators, they climbed up on the Capitoline Hill, Rome’s ancient citadel, and waited to see what would happen next. Three of Caesar’s litter-bearers returned and carried his body home.3
Caesar’s supporters did not appear seeking vengeance, nor did citizens of all ranks rush to cheer the men who had heroically killed the dictator and restored liberty. Rome was stunned, and only slowly and tentatively did it begin to stir again. A trickle of senators made their way up to the Capitoline to congratulate the conspirators. Cicero was one, and he was warm in his praise, but neither he nor any of the others stayed very long. Dolabella was another visitor, and either then or in the next days he assumed the garb and status of a consul. Warm in his praise for the assassins, he saw no reason not to take the office allocated to him by the dictator. Brutus and Cassius addressed the thin crowds now milling about in the Forum. There was no great enthusiasm for their justification of the murder and even the money they distributed failed to produce an outburst of support. Appian noted the irony of men who expected their fellow citizens to embrace liberty at the same time as they bribed them.4
Later in the day, Antony must have realised that no attack was imminent. Like any Roman senator, he sought council from family, friends and political associates. He met with Lepidus and other prominent Caesareans such as Aulus Hirtius, the man nominated as one of the consuls for 43 BC. Given her strong character, and no doubt a reluctance to mourn a third husband, it is likely that Fulvia played a very active part in encouraging Antony. Lepidus commanded the only legion in Italy. At least some of his troops were near Rome and on the 16th he brought them into the city. Technically, now that the dictator was dead, the power of his Magister Equitum ought to have lapsed, but the soldiers responded to Lepidus’ orders and that was all that really mattered for the moment. Antony and Hirtius restrained him from using the troops to launch an immediate attack on the conspirators, and the former went to Caesar’s father-in-law, Calpurnius Piso, and with his support obtained the dictator’s will from the Temple of Vesta.
In the meantime, Brutus made a speech to a crowd that had gathered on the slope of the Capitoline, but once again failed to fire their enthusiasm. Most people had not seen Caesar as a tyrant and could see no advantage to themselves from his death. There were large numbers of discharged veterans in Rome, waiting to be allotted farms, and these now feared that a Senate led by the conspirators would end the dictator’s colonisation programme. Brutus vainly tried to reassure them that they would receive their land. There was growing hostility towards the conspirators and the house of a senator who had publicly supported them was menaced by a mob.
On 17 March, Mark Antony as consul summoned a meeting of the Senate. It was convened in the Temple of Tellus, not far from his house and away from the Capitoline. Lepidus’soldiers, supported by veterans, stood on guard outside. Most senators, including Cicero, attended, and whatever their attitudes to Caesar, the universal hope was for stability and peace. The conspirators remained where they were, still guarded by their gladiators and depressed by their failure to recruit citizens as supporters.
The fundamental question was whether the murder had been justified. If Caesar was a tyrant then it was, and everything he had done was illegal. The problem with this was that he had done so much. Many senators owed office and privilege to the dictator. Brutus and Cassius were praetors, and Decimus Brutus was named as proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul for the following year and consul in 42. If Caesar’s acts were declared invalid then they had no right to these offices and nor were Antony or Dolabella consuls, nor any other provincial governor or magistrate entitled to hold power. Caesar’s decisions spread far beyond the Senate, to the colonists and the many provincial communities granted status or rights by his decisions. Individuals had a lot to lose, but as importantly there was the risk of plunging all of government into chaos. It would take time to hold new elections and their outcome would be uncertain. Many of Caesar’s appointees were below the legal age to hold a particular office – Dolabella by more than a decade. Even when this was not the case, launching an electoral campaign would have been expensive and its outcome uncertain. Yet if Caesar was not a tyrant, then the conspirators were murderers and deserved to be punished. A good number of senators sympathised with Brutus, Cassius and the others. More were simply afraid that condemning them would provoke the bloodbath and perhaps civil war, which they had feared on the Ides itself.
Antony advocated a compromise. Cicero was willing to support him and the vote was actually taken on the proposal made by the orator. The conspirators were not to be prosecuted or held responsible in any way. At the same time, all of Caesar’s acts were confirmed, and on the following day he was granted the right to be given a public funeral and his will was formally recognised. It was illogical, but for the moment it was enough to keep the peace. Cicero later claimed that it was the best that could be hoped for once it was clear that the conspirators were not to be formally vindicated and Caesar condemned, but at the time he may have been more optimistic. That evening Antony and Lepidus sent their sons as hostages up to the Capitoline and entertained Brutus and Cassius to dinner with every sign of goodwill. Cassius’ and Lepidus’ wives were sisters, both daughters of Brutus’ mother Servilia.5
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
In describing the months that followed it is especially important to avoid any sense of inevitability or view things as a simple conflict between the conspirators and the Caesareans. The latter were not a coherent party or even faction with common policies, but a loose collection of people who had chosen for various reasons to support him. Caesar’s position in the state had been personal, his powers awarded to him individually. He was dictator for life and controlled an enormous army of soldiers who had taken an oath of loyalty to him – as had the Senate not long before the Ides. There was no heir waiting to assume his powers and lead his army, nor even any indication that either Caesar or anyone else assumed that there should be.
Antony was Caesar’s fellow consul and a distinguished supporter, but he lacked Caesar’s wealth, reputation and auctoritas, and the network of clients who were tied to him by past favours. The dictator’s status and importance were the product of years of effort, as well as civil war, and could not readily be taken over by anyone else. What the legions would do was hard to predict. Many were composed of soldiers originally recruited by the Pompeians. On the whole, these men had responded well to Caesar’s rewards and promises and had proved loyal to him. That did not mean that they would automatically obey someone else, simply because they had also served Caesar. In 44 BC Antony commanded no troops, although he had been allocated a province containing legions for the next year. Brutus and Cassius could similarly expect provincial commands after their year as praetors, but at the moment none of the conspirators commanded any soldiers. Decimus Brutus was due to govern Cisapline Gaul, which had an army well placed to intervene in Italy, but he had not yet left Rome to take up his post. Lepidus had just the one legion and that was not really enough to dominate Rome for very long. If political rivalries became violent and civil war broke out, none of the key players could be confident of victory.6
Caesar was dead, and if no one could expect to replace him as the overwhelmingly dominant man in the Republic, then there were still new opportunities. Antony was consul, but he was also an Antonius, something he would stress repeatedly in the coming months. He expected to be one of the leading men in the state and win office and honours accordingly. He also still needed money, for although he had done well from the civil war, he had not yet acquired the wealth to finance either his lifestyle or his career. Barely forty, he could expect to be active in public life for decades. He wanted further honours, and perhaps eventually the sort of dominance Caesar had shown to be possible. He had much to be grateful to the dictator for and had liked Caesar as a man, but a Roman aristocrat with his background was never fully anyone else’s man. His own success, and the success of his family, came first. Avenging Caesar’s murder would not in itself make Antony’s own position stronger or more secure, at least for the moment.7
Similarly, the conspirators wanted acceptance and not conflict. Success and security for them would come only if senators and the majority of all other classes approved of their action. They, too, were mainly young men by the standards of Roman politics. Brutus and Cassius were in their late thirties and few of the others were much older. One of the reasons they wanted their ‘free’ Republic was so that they could advance further in public life, unrestricted by a dictator. Dolabella was younger still, probably no more than thirty, and although one of Caesar’s supporters, it can have seemed no bad thing to the conspirators that Antony’s new consular colleague was a man he detested. Bitter personal rivalries were a very traditionally Roman way of restricting the power of individuals. Apart from that, the restoration of liberty could not very well have begun with attacks on the consuls. Brutus in particular hoped that the willingness of Antony to meet was an indication that he too saw that the Republic could not function as it should while there was a permanent dictator. This did not mean that he and the others did not watch Antony as warily as he watched them. All of them were looking to advance their own position in the new Republic.
Cassius is said to have argued against permitting Caesar a public funeral and allowing Antony to conduct it, but allowed himself to be overruled by Brutus. This proved to be a mistake, although it is possible that refusing the dictator this honour would have produced even greater resentment. The simple truth was that Caesar had been popular with many citizens. On 20 March the funeral was held in the Forum itself, witnessed by a large and volatile crowd. Details of the dictator’s will had already been released and it was known that he had left his extensive gardens in the city to become a public park. Valued in itself, it was a reminder of Caesar’s generosity to many and what little support there had been for the conspirators ebbed even lower. Shakespeare’s version of the speech Mark Antony made on this occasion is justly famous and gives a good flavour of the power of an orator to move the Roman crowd. However, our sources are divided over what he actually said. Caesar’s body was displayed, dressed in his regalia and laid on an ivory bier. The bloodstains on his official cloak were clearly visible.
Antony seems to have begun by listing some of the many honours voted to Caesar by the Senate, leading up to the oath to support and protect him that all senators – including the conspirators – had taken. The irony was as heavy as the Shakespearean repetition of Brutus as an ‘honourable man’. From this he moved on to speak of some of Caesar’s great deeds and gradually became more emotional. He pulled the cloak off the corpse and held it up to show the tears made by the assassins’ knives. Someone shouted out a famous line from an old tragedy – ‘to think that I saved those men so that they could destroy me!’ The terms of the will were read out. There was dismay that Decimus Brutus was mentioned as one of the lesser heirs, showing once again how fond Caesar had been of the men who killed him. Apart from the gift of the gardens, each citizen living in Rome was to receive a gift of 300 sesterces. A wax effigy of the body had been made and was now raised into the air on a crane of the type used in the theatre or games. It was slowly rotated, displaying all twenty-three wounds, which were graphically marked on the model.
Emotion spilled over at the sight. Helvius Cinna, a loyal supporter of Caesar and a respected poet, was mistaken for another man named Cinna who had supported the conspirators and was beaten to death. Angry mobs went to the conspirators’ houses – as prominent senators, many will have lived on the slopes of the Palatine edging the Forum – but they found none of them and after a while came back to cluster around the corpse. The cremation was to have occurred outside the city in the Campus Martius, but now the crowd hastily heaped up a pyre on the spot, dragging anything wooden from the Forum and its shops. Like Clodius, Caesar was burned in the heart of Rome. Veteran soldiers threw their decorations onto the burning pyre and women threw their jewellery. Amongst the crowd were many non-citizens from all over the empire. For nights to come some of Rome’s Jewish community went to the spot, publicly mourning the man who had been generous to their people.8
Antony had helped the wider population’s simmering resentment to boil over into rage. The conspirators feared for their lives – they never appeared in public, never once felt safe enough to attend a meeting of the Senate. Over the next month all of them slipped away from the city. Antony had the Senate grant Brutus and Cassius special dispensation to leave, because normally as serving praetors they were expected to remain in Rome. Decimus Brutus and Trebonius soon set out for the provinces allocated to them by Caesar. From now on, the conspirators could only hope to influence politics through friends and family who remained in Rome. The self-proclaimed ‘Liberators’ had been forced to leave Rome, making it much harder for them to challenge Antony’s current dominance.9
Hatred of the conspirators did not mean a wave of popular enthusiasm for Antony’s leadership. Soon after the funeral, an altar was set up on the spot where Caesar had been cremated. There was no official sanction for this, and the main leader was a man called Amatius, who claimed to be Marius’ grandson and so Caesar’s relation. Dolabella dispersed the crowd and removed the altar. Amatius and his followers set it up again and this time it was Antony who took action and had the man executed. The deep affection for Caesar and anger against his murderers was sometimes useful, but both consuls wanted to keep it under control.10
On the 17th the Senate had agreed to ratify all of Caesar’s acts, including those that had been announced, but not yet implemented. It was obvious that the allocation of land to veterans had to continue if the large numbers of the latter were to be kept in order. Brutus and Cassius had tried to win these men over by getting them granted the right to sell their new farms if they wanted, something that Caesar had forbidden since he wanted the men to settle permanently. Antony had taken possession of Caesar’s papers from his widow Calpurnia and presented to the Senate a steady stream of the dictator’s decisions to be put into force.11
Soon, he was announcing things that had not been mentioned in Caesar’s lifetime and Cicero and others believed were his own inventions. The dictator had granted Latin status to much of the population of Sicily and now Antony had them made full Roman citizens. King Deiotarus of Galatia had supported Pompey in the civil war and had his kingdom substantially reduced in size by Caesar. Now the lost power and territory was restored. There were rumours of a bribe and Cicero claimed that Fulvia had done much to arrange the business. It was felt a bad thing for a Roman senator to be influenced too much by his wife, so this may be no more than routine denigration of Antony. Yet many aristocratic women were influential behind the scenes of public life so there is nothing inherently implausible about it.12
To Cicero it seemed that although the tyrant was dead, tyranny continued, as one man issued a stream of arbitrary decisions. This was a little unfair. Antony wrote him an ostensibly courteous letter in April, asking his permission to recall from exile one of the orator’s old enemies, an associate of Clodius. Cicero accepted as politely as he could, believing that Antony would have gone ahead anyway. There was certainly a poorly veiled threat in the consul’s letter: ‘Though I know your fortune, Cicero, is above any danger, yet I think you would rather enjoy old age with peace and honour rather than anxiety’13
Antony was determined to get his way, but he was also very busy and this no doubt fed his impatience. There was a great deal of business to be done, for Caesar had had so little time and the government of the Republic had not functioned well for many years. Especially in the provinces, there were communities and individuals pressing for recognition, appealing for favours or seeking arbitration in disputes. While it may have been preferable to Cicero that the Republic function more traditionally, this would have meant these delegations waiting patiently until the Senate had time to consider their cases. The delays would have been long, without any certainty that the matters would be decided at all, let alone in a way satisfactory to those involved. Most provincials had readily taken to dealing with a single supreme individual, in preference to the slow and tortuous securing of favours through the Senate.
As consul, Antony therefore busied himself addressing a long series of different issues. It was simply quicker to assert that each decision had actually been made by Caesar, since this ensured approval. There is no doubt that he was also exploiting the situation to strengthen his own position. Favours granted to Romans and provincials brought him bribes, but also placed the individuals and communities in his debt for the future. There was a new land bill, extending the colonisation programme. Former centurions – Cicero maliciously claims also veteran rankers from the V Alaudae Legion raised from Gauls – were to be included in the juries for major trials, which represented a substantial growth in their importance. The centurions were the single most influential group within each legion and well worth cultivating. Caesar had portrayed them in an heroic manner in his War Commentaries for the same reason.14
Antony effectively wielded immense patronage and used this as any Roman would to gain more clients. He became richer and more influential. His consulship would only last until the end of the year. At the moment he had more power than anyone else, and he needed to do enough with this to improve his position when the office lapsed. Potential rivals and enemies were for the moment weak, but there was no guarantee that they would stay that way. Antony needed wealth, connections and prestige to both compete in the future and make himself safe from attack. There was no assurance that Brutus’ reluctance to kill anyone other than Caesar would last forever.
Antony won over Lepidus by ensuring that he became Pontifex Maximus in place of Caesar. He also betrothed his daughter to Lepidus’son to reinforce the alliance, although the children were too young for the wedding to take place. Antony had accepted Dolabella’s assumption of the consulship because it was both better than any alternative and a well-known decision of Caesar. He helped him to secure the province of Syria for a five-year proconsulship. Syria was wealthy and contained a substantial army as part of the preparations for Caesar’s Parthian War. Dolabella had the prospect of leading this expedition and successful eastern wars were always lucrative. For a man whose debts were still vast — he had been unwilling and unable to repay the dowry when he divorced Cicero’s daughter — this was very attractive.15
The spring of 44 BC was a time for new alliances and arrangements, as individuals strove to build up their own power and connections. They acted through a mixture of ambition and fear, so familiar to Roman politicians of the last generation or so. The renewal of civil war and violence was a real possibility, perhaps almost inevitable. Antony and everyone else hoped to make themselves safe and strong enough to profit from the opportunities to come. Caesar’s murder had radically shifted the balance of power within the Roman state and the readjustment to the new reality took time.
CAESAR’S SON
Cleopatra may well have waited in Rome to receive formal recognition of her power, and perhaps confirmation of her status as a friend of the Roman people. Cicero mentions that she had left Rome in a letter dated 16 April 44 BC. Later, there would be false rumours that she had perished on the journey home, and some have interpreted a later letter written by Cicero to mean that she was pregnant, presumably with another child of Caesar. This seems unlikely, since it is not mentioned in any other source and a more natural reading would make this a reference to Caesarion. Nervous about her hold on power in Alexandria, it was sensible for the queen to return as soon as she had made some effort to secure approval from Rome.16
Soon after Cleopatra decided to return to her own kingdom, an eighteen-year-old youth arrived in Rome. His name was Caius Octavius and he was the son of Caesar’s niece Atia. His father had died some years before, but had held the praetorship and been expected to rise further. Atia had then married Lucius Marcius Philippus, who was consul in 56 BC. Octavius was Caesar’s closest male relative and at the age of just twelve the boy had given the oration at his daughter Julia’s funeral in 54 BC. The dictator had taken an interest in the boy, enrolling him in the college of pontiffs in 47 BC, and he had joined the campaign against Pompey in Spain, although illness had prevented him playing a very active role. At the start of 44 BC he was in Apollonia on the Adriatic, waiting to take part in Caesar’s Parthian War.17
The first report of Caesar’s death brought with it news that he had made Octavius his principal heir and also adopted him as his son, which meant that he was to inherit his name. The Romans took adoption very seriously, and it was a common means for childless men to perpetuate the family name and ambitions. There is no indication that he knew of the provisions of the will before this and they were certainly not common knowledge in the dictator’s lifetime.
It is important to remember how young and inexperienced Octavius was in 44 BC, for only then can we hope to understand the amazement at his immediate acceptance of the legacy and his determination to take not only Caesar’s name, but also his political dominance. His stepfather Philippus advised him to decline the legacy, and for some time refused to address him as Caesar. Antony was even less welcoming when the youth arrived in Rome in April and came to see him. He would not hand over Caesar’s papers or private funds, which he was employing to great effect. Later in the year he would dub Octavius a boy ‘who owes everything to a name’, but at this stage Antony was reluctant even to acknowledge that name in any formal way.18
Some of Caesar’s former supporters were more enthusiastic, impressed by the ‘boy’s’ immense self-confidence. A group of wealthy men, including Rabirius Postumus, provided him with the funds to go to some of the colonies set up for Caesar’s veterans and begin recruiting soldiers. Borrowing from these men, and selling some of his own property, he also began to pay citizens the gift Caesar had promised in his will. Generous bounties, combined with the appeal of Caesar’s heir and anger that the conspirators had gone unpunished, soon produced hundreds of volunteers from amongst the veterans. Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus – scholars conventionally call him Octavian to avoid confusion – started to become a political force. For the moment his power was still minor, but his swift rise was remarkable and unsettling.19
Brutus was still in Italy, but did not risk returning to Rome. As praetor he was responsible for the games that formed part of the festival of Apollo, the Ludi Apollinares. Afraid to go, he had agents arrange the spectacles and spent a lot of his own money and effort in the hope that this would win him more support. Octavian personally presided over the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris, voted to commemorate the Battle of Pharsalus, again paying for this with borrowed money. A comet appeared during the celebrations, and normally such things were seen as a bad omen. Octavian, however, persuaded people that it was a sign of Caesar’s ascent into heaven to become a god. Now the youth, who turned nineteen in August, was not simply Caesar, but the son of the divine Julius. A statue of Caesar with a star on his head was placed in the temple he had built to Venus Genetrix. An altar was again set up in the Forum, and in time would be the site of a temple to the new cult.20
Brutus and Cassius finally left Italy. At Antony’s bidding the Senate had allocated them unimportant provinces without troops, but they ignored these tasks. Brutus went to Athens, ostensibly to study. Decimus Brutus was in Cisalpine Gaul and controlled the closest army to Italy itself. Antony had been allocated the province of Macedonia, which contained six well-trained and numerically strong legions, most of which were destined for Caesar’s projected campaigns. At the start of June he carried a bill through the Popular Asssembly that granted him for five years both Cisalpine Gaul and the extensive province of ‘long-haired Gaul’ conquered by Caesar. Decimus Brutus’ command was to be terminated and Caius Antonius would be sent to Macedonia as its governor. Antony would take over Decimus Brutus’ legions and also bring most of the troops from Macedonia across to his new province, although one of these six legions was given to Dolabella. Such a move was unorthodox, but the Roman people could vote for anything and so it was not technically illegal. This did not mean that Decimus Brutus was willing to accept his replacement.21
Antony had already recruited his own force drawn from Caesar’s veterans and employed them as a bodyguard in Rome itself. As consul he had imperium, but the small private army raised by Octavian was illegal in every way, comparable to the legions Pompey had once enrolled from his family estates. In Spain, his surviving son Sextus Pompey still led the Pompeian forces that had survived the defeat in 45 BC. Attempts by Cicero and others to have him rehabilitated after the Ides of March had failed. Soon, Brutus and Cassius would also assume command of armies without any authority to do so. All of the key players had decided that only the control of legions gave them any real security. Civil war was brewing and threatened once more to plunge the whole Mediterranean world including Egypt into conflict and chaos. For monarchs like Cleopatra, there were severe risks of backing the wrong side or simply that the wealth of their kingdom would draw Roman leaders desperate for funds to support their armies. Caesar had given the Republic brief stability. For a few months after his death there had been uneasy peace. Now even this was breaking down.22