Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [70]
Octavian’s short but dazzling political career had exposed a ruthlessness that overrode ordinary affection, but on this occasion we may guess that he sincerely wanted reconcilation with Antony. Plutarch records that he was “deeply attached to his sister, who was, as the saying is, a wonder of a woman.” He is unlikely to have handed her over into the hands of his unpredictable and womanizing colleague if he did not have his adoptive father’s example in mind.
Great celebrations took place to honor the historic accord. At Brundisium, the triumvirs entertained each other at banquets in their respective camps, Octavian “in military and Roman fashion and Antony in Asiatic and Egyptian style.” They then moved on to Rome, where the wedding of Antony and Octavia was held; Antony struck a coin showing their heads (the first time a woman’s likeness is known to have appeared on a Roman coin). They marched into the city on horses as if celebrating a military triumph.
Only one shadow was cast across the new landscape of peace and harmony. Octavian’s friend and supporter, the talented Quintus Salvidienus Rufus, was in command of the legions in Gaul. Sometime before the triumvirs became reconciled, he had opened a secret correspondence with Antony, hinting that he might be ready to switch sides. His motives are obscure; perhaps there were hidden jealousies in Octavian’s circle of intimates, or Salvidienus may simply have judged that his leader’s prospects were poor.
Astonishingly, if we are to believe the ancient sources, Antony told Octavian that Salvidienus had been plotting to defect to him and had sent a message to that effect while he was besieging Brundisium. Octavian was loyal to a fault, but if a friend betrayed him he was merciless. He immediately sent the proconsul a summons to come to Rome for urgent consultations, after which he would return to his command in Gaul. Salvidienus unwisely obeyed. Octavian arraigned him before the Senate and had him condemned both an inimicus (a personal enemy) and a hostis (a public enemy), and put to death. It was the end of a spectacular career. Salvidienus came from a humble background and had started out as a shepherd boy. He had been designated a consul for the following year, 39 B.C., without ever having held civilian office or sat in the Senate.
Whatever the background to this mysterious affair, Appian remarks drily that “Antony did not win general approval for making this admission” about Salvidienus. In these murky and shifting times, few were without guilty secrets and Antony might have been expected to turn the same blind eye to Salvidienus as others were to his own maneuverings. It is hard to see what he expected to gain from his treachery. Perhaps he simply wanted to demonstrate, at someone else’s expense, that he was sincerely committed to his new friendship with Octavian.
Salvidienus’ death is a reminder of an alienation deep inside Antony’s personality. It was easy to be misled by his celebrated bonhomie, his fondness for fun and games, for binge drinking and easy women; but below the affability lay a casual brutality and an inability to imagine the feelings of others.
IX
GOLDEN AGE
40–38 B.C.
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The rising poets of the age celebrated the arrival of peace with works that still speak vividly of their relief and joy. One of these, Publius Vergilius Maro (Englished as Virgil), came from the middle or lower middle ranks of Italian society, but his father ensured he received a good education. Virgil migrated to Rome, where, like any ambitious young man, he studied rhetoric. Painfully shy, though, he apparently lost the first law case at which he spoke.
Suetonius gives a portrait sketch of the man: “He was tall and bulky, with a dark complexion and the appearance of a countryman. He had changeable health [and] ate and drank little. He was always falling in love with boys.”
Virgil was thirty, approaching the height of his powers. Having abandoned Rome and a public career, he lived in Neapolis. His