Cicero - Anthony Everitt [163]
When Octavian asked Antony to make over the moneys promised in the Dictator’s will so that he could pay out the various bequests, the Consul coolly responded that the funds belonged to the state and had, in any event, been spent. With a sharp eye on public relations, Octavian simply raised the necessary funds from his family and by loans.
The atmosphere in Rome grew tense and uneasy. Antony’s popularity slid and he enlisted the services of veterans to keep public order. The Consuls, who had been squabbling, were now friends, for Dolabella, bribed (or so Cicero thought) by Antony, had changed sides and abandoned the constitutionalists. They had already dispossessed Brutus and Cassius of their original provincial allocations, with Antony taking over Macedonia and Dolabella Syria. But this was no longer enough for Antony, who decided that it was time to tackle Decimus Brutus head-on in Italian Gaul. With the help of the General Assembly, Antony engineered a further switch of his Consular province from Macedonia (taking the army there with him) to the two Gauls. This was an unusual maneuver, for according to convention it was the Senate that decided provincial appointments, and the move was seen as a blatant attempt to undermine Decimus Brutus. A land-distribution bill was also passed, which would please the demobilized soldiery. In place of their original provincial commands, Brutus and Cassius were given insultingly unimportant commissions to purchase corn, respectively, in Asia and Sicily.
Many moderates in the Caesarian camp, including the following year’s Consuls-elect Hirtius and Caius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus, now agreed with Cicero that open hostilities were approaching. They did their best to stop the main players from provocations. When Hirtius heard that Brutus and Cassius were thinking of leaving Italy, to raise troops he suspected, he sent Cicero a desperate appeal to try to prevent them. “Hold them back, Cicero, I beg you, and don’t let our society go down to ruin; for I swear it will be turned upside down in an orgy of looting, arson and massacre.”
The conspirators’ position was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and a conference was called in Antium to consider the situation. Cicero was invited to attend. He gave Atticus a long description of what was said. Those present included Brutus and Cassius, together with their wives. Brutus’s mother and Julius Caesar’s onetime lover, Servilia, was also in attendance. For many years this well-connected and astute matriarch had been an influential figure in Roman politics behind the scenes, and she was still in a position to pull strings when necessary.
Without revealing his source, Cicero passed on Hirtius’s advice that Brutus should not leave Italy. A general conversation followed, full of recriminations about lost opportunities. Cicero remarked that he agreed with what was being said, but there was no point in crying over spilled milk. He then launched into a reprise of all his familiar views (“nothing original, only what everyone is saying all the time”): Antony should have been killed alongside Julius Caesar, the Senate should have met immediately after the assassination and so forth. He was doing exactly what he had just criticized the others for, and no doubt at much greater length. Servilia lost her temper. “Really, I’ve never heard anything like it!” This silenced Cicero and the gathering went on to debate, with little success, what should be done next. The only firm decision taken was that the official Games, which Brutus was financing in his capacity as Praetor, should go ahead in his absence. Servilia promised to use her good offices to get the corn commissions revoked.
“Nothing in my visit gave me any satisfaction except the consciousness of having made it,” Cicero concluded. “I found the ship going to pieces, or rather its scattered fragments.