Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [26]
Traveling with a flotilla of four hundred ships, Caesar went for a long cruise up the Nile in Cleopatra’s company to look at the country, and, writes Appian, he “enjoyed himself with her in other ways as well.”
Caesar left Egypt in June 47 B.C. to deal with a revolt in Asia Minor a few weeks before Cleopatra gave birth to a son, Ptolemy Caesar, derisively nicknamed by the Alexandrian mob Caesarion, or Little Caesar.
By October he was back in Rome, having been away for nine months. Largely thanks to Mark Antony’s incompetence as an administrator, Italy was in disarray and the legions were in a mutinous frame of mind. Cato with fellow optimates had assembled a powerful force in Africa.
Caesar acted fast. First, he dismissed Antony and, with cold brilliance, faced down his troops. Caesar’s relationship with his men was almost that of a love affair. Although from time to time they had lovers’ tiffs, the soldiers adored him and he in turn was utterly loyal to them. Few deserted from his legions. This link of trust and affection to many thousands of soldiers was a political fact of the highest importance and a crucial guarantee of his power.
What is more, many of Caesar’s men came not from Roman Italy but from the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul. Mostly they were not Roman citizens (as in principle they should have been). They had no compunctions about invading Italy and fighting Romans. They might complain about their length of service, but never about where or against whom their commander was leading them.
It was during this visit to Rome that Octavius definitely met Caesar, if he had not already done so. Caesar made up his mind quickly about people. He was impressed by Octavius, who was growing into a thoughtful and prudent young man, and detected great promise in him. He arranged for the boy to be enrolled as a patrician. The patricians were Rome’s original aristocracy and were distinguished from the plebeians, who made up the rest of the population. They may originally have been the city’s founding citizens; or possibly an “aristocracy of invaders” who lorded it over the native population; or a grouping of royal appointees when Rome was a kingdom. Whatever the truth of the matter, patrician status became a nobility of birth.
The symbolism of Octavius’ promotion was significant. Caesar, as a Julius, was a patrician, but an Octavius, albeit connected through his mother to the Julii, was not. Without going so far as to adopt him, Octavius’ great-uncle was hinting that he regarded Octavius as an honorary member of the Julian clan.
Another signal honor was conferred on the teenager: appointment as praefectus urbi (city prefect) during the Feriae Latinae, the Latin Festival. This important ceremony was conducted at a shrine on the Alban Mount (today’s Monte Cavi) some twenty miles south of Rome. The Feriae was originally a celebration of the unity of the Latin League, an alliance of the Latin communities in Latium (Lazio); the Romans took it over for themselves when the league was incorporated into the Republic.
The festival was accompanied by a sacred truce: no battle could be fought while it was taking place. Both the consuls headed a procession from the city to the Alban Mount, on the top of which stood a very ancient shrine to Jupiter. An ox was sacrificed to the god and the victim’s flesh distributed among the towns and cities that made up the community of Latins. Individual towns also offered lambs, cheeses, milk, or cakes. A symbolic game, called oscillatio, or swinging, was played and, back in Rome, a four-horse chariot race took place on the Capitoline Hill, the winner of which received as his prize a drink called absynthium, or essence of wormwood (perhaps like the absinthe of modern times mixed with wine).
In theory, the praefectus was in charge of the city during the consuls’ absence, but the role was temporary and purely symbolic. Octavius presided over a ceremony in the Forum, where he sat on a speaker’s tribunal. According to Nicolaus, many people