Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [49]
In July a deputation of four hundred centurions arrived in Rome to lay proposals before the Senate. They wanted the soldiers’ promised bounty paid in full, and for their commander they required, rather than requested, the consulship. With extraordinary short-sightedness, the Senate refused.
As soon as this news reached him, Octavian, who was waiting in Cisalpine Gaul, called a soldiers’ assembly. They told him to lead them at once to Rome and they would elect him consul themselves. Octavian marched them off the parade ground—eight legions, cavalry, and auxiliaries—and took the road south.
As he neared the city, he became worried about the safety of his mother, Atia, and sister, Octavia. They clearly had great value as hostages, and with help from Caesarians in the city they went into hiding. There being no consuls, the praetors were in charge of Rome’s defense, but their men would not fight.
Determined to put on a show of constitutional propriety, the young candidate for the consulship waited twenty-four hours before entering Rome. On October 19, ostensibly without the slightest evidence of external threat, the people elected Octavian and the dim and unambitious Quintus Pedius, a nephew of Julius Caesar and one of his heirs, to the supreme governance of the Republic. Pedius had the advantage of being a safe pair of hands and could be guaranteed not to oppose his young colleague’s wishes. On the next day, Octavian made his way through the city to the Forum, surrounded by a precautionary bodyguard. His political opponents came out to meet him along the route, with what Appian called “spineless readiness to serve.”
Much to his relief, the new consul saw Atia and Octavia at the Temple of Vesta, waiting to greet him. They had survived the last few difficult days unscathed. Although she had advised against his accepting Caesar’s will only a short year previously, his mother must have been proud to see him at the pinnacle of power when he was not yet twenty years old. She was lucky to have witnessed this day, for within a few weeks or months she was dead. We do not know what killed her, nor has any account survived of her son’s reaction.
One of Octavian’s first official tasks was to preside over a sacrifice to the immortal gods in the Campus Martius. As he did so, he looked up and saw six vultures. This was a good omen, but an even better one followed: later, while he was haranguing his troops, twelve vultures appeared, as had happened to Romulus at Rome’s foundation in 753 B.C. The livers of the animal victims Octavian slaughtered were found to be doubled up at the lower end—an omen the haruspices unanimously declared to foretell a prosperous and happy future. The supporters of the new regime made the most of this lucky propaganda opportunity.
The message the vultures gave to the world was that Rome was being founded for a second time.
By the summer of 43 B.C., Octavian had made good progress toward fulfilling the three-point program he set out in the letter he wrote Philippus on reaching Italy after the catastrophe of the Ides of March. One, he had accepted the legacy, and the lex curiata confirming his adoption, which Antony had obstructed, was now finally passed. Two, with the consulship, he had “succeeded to [Caesar’s] power,” at least in part, although there was more to do as and when opportunity offered. Three, now at last, he was in a position to “avenge his ‘father’’s death.”
The consul calmed the public by completing the payments that Julius Caesar had bequeathed to citizens, and by settling the bounties promised to the legions. He behaved with pretended gratitude to the Senate, but dared not attend its meetings without a bodyguard.
Then his colleague Pedius won approval for a bill that made Caesar’s killing a crime and outlawed the conspirators. A special court was set up, which sat for one day and found all the accused guilty.