Cicero - Anthony Everitt [157]
14
THE HEIR
Enter Octavian: March–December 44 BC
The two years that followed Caesar’s assassination are the best documented in Roman history. Even so, the actors in the story do not always betray their motives. The press of events was so confusing that even when they were sure of what they wanted they often had no idea how best to achieve it. It was difficult to sense where advantage lay. Interpretation has also been hindered by the fact that the eventual winner in the struggles that lay ahead imposed his own interpretation on the past. The losers lost more than their lives, they lost their stories.
Brutus, Cassius and the other conspirators were much criticized at the time—and have been in the two millennia that have followed—for laying no plans for the aftermath of the assassination. For them, the act of killing, echoing Rome’s deep past, was less a political event than a sacred ritual. Just as soldiers traditionally purified their weapons in March, so the Republic had cleansed itself. The man who dressed in a king’s robes had suffered a king’s death. Tactical details could wait for later.
The Dictator had maintained, if only in form, the constitutional proprieties and Brutus and his friends judged that, once he had been removed, nobody would seriously try to prevent the Republic from slipping back into gear. Their assumption was that the constitution would simply and automatically resume its functions. The Senate would have little difficulty in taking over the reins of power. This was not an unreasonable analysis and was confirmed in the event—for the time being.
A great deal hung on how Antony behaved. It was a question of character and here opinions varied. Cicero’s assessment was much the same as it had been when he had had to prise the teenage rebel out of Curio’s life: he was an unscrupulous and immoral rascal. Although he did not say so at once, Cicero took the view in April that “the Ides of March was a fine deed, but half done.” That is, Antony should have been killed along with his master. Later he remarked to Cassius: “A pity you didn’t invite me to dinner on the Ides of March! Let me tell you, there would have been no leftovers.”
Against Cassius’s advice, Brutus had refused to have Antony killed. By implication, he must have judged that Antony was unlikely to seek to step into the Dictator’s shoes. Brutus was probably right. Antony did not have the prestige, the ability or the application to be a Caesar. An acute observer remarked: “If a man of Caesar’s genius could find no way out [of Rome’s problems], who will find one now?” Antony certainly had no solution.
Now in his late thirties, Antony was a handsome man, built like a bull and, according to Cicero, “as strong as a gladiator.” He was sexually promiscuous and hard drinking and retained the taste he had acquired as a young man for bad company: actors and prostitutes. A good soldier, he was popular with his men. He could summon up great resources of stamina and energy, but only when occasion demanded. His patchy record when he was in charge of Italy during the Dictator’s absences suggested a lack of aptitude for civilian administration. His style was straightforward, and when he said something he tended to mean it.
In all likelihood, Antony genuinely endorsed a return to constitutional methods and, if he had a future career path in mind, might have found in Pompey a safer model than in Caesar. A five-year governorship after his Consulship would establish him as the leading figure in the Republic. He could become the first man in Rome, as Pompey had been, without challenging the very foundations of Roman tradition and its familiar balanced rivalries.
Two important groups