Cicero - Anthony Everitt [165]
The story was that disorder on the streets of Rome and Octavian’s ceaseless efforts to gain the public-relations initiative were shifting the Consul’s policy again. Perhaps, after all, Antony was believed to think, his best bet would be to return to the March 17 settlement and align himself with moderate, antiwar Caesarians and the Senate. He delivered a speech in which he made some friendly references to the conspirators. A Senate meeting was called for August 1, which Brutus and Cassius begged all ex-Consuls to attend.
Cicero also learned, to his dismay, that people were commenting adversely on his absence. Atticus was having second thoughts too and, although he had endorsed Cicero’s original plan to spend some time in Athens, now took him to task. Cicero decided to abandon the expedition. On his way back to Rome he met Brutus, who was in the southwest of Italy gathering ships in preparation for his departure for Macedonia. “You wouldn’t believe how delighted he was at my return or rather my turning back!” Cicero told Atticus. “Everything he had held back came gushing out.”
Unfortunately, the Republicans had been tempted by a false dawn. Caesar’s father-in-law, Piso, who Cicero still believed had connived at his exile and whom he consequently loathed, launched a fierce attack on Antony at the August Senate meeting. He received no support, but, if a tentative rapprochement was being considered, this was enough to halt it in its tracks.
In fact, the idea had probably never been seriously viable. Octavian, or his advisers, was too canny to allow a complete breach with his competitor. Dealing with Antony was a balancing act: on the one hand the two were rivals for popularity with the army—that is, for Caesar’s political succession, for whoever controlled the legions in the last analysis controlled Rome. On the other hand, it was essential not to drive the Consul back into the arms of the optimates. The task was to manage him, not to crush him.
At a personal level the two men had little in common. Antony, who was twenty years older than Octavian, was a playboy. He probably had no long-term strategy and seems not to have been particularly interested in avenging the Ides of March. He would react vigorously if prodded but preferred to live and let live. By contrast, Octavian had a colder personality and, although he told no one about it, intended to pursue the conspirators to the end. Yet, whether they liked it or not, the two men were obliged to cooperate. The legionnaires, aghast at their disagreements, forced a reconciliation and a special ceremony was held on the Capitoline Hill to mark the event.
Hopes of compromise dashed, Brutus and Cassius had finally made up their minds to abandon Italy, although their precise intentions after that were unclear. Servilia had evidently fulfilled her promise to work behind the scenes to get the corn commissions canceled and they had again been awarded new provinces, but they did not go to them. Instead, Brutus settled in Athens in the province of Macedonia where, hoping that the political situation would improve, he waited for as long as possible before determining whether or not to recruit an army. Cassius traveled to Syria (where he had been Quaestor in 51) with the idea of taking over the legions based in the region.
Cicero’s return to Rome on August 31 echoed the excitement and applause of his return from exile thirteen years earlier. The crowds that poured out to meet him were so large that the greetings and speeches of welcome at the city gates and during his entry into the city took up most of a day. It would be wrong to exaggerate Cicero’s influence, for he commanded no divisions, but his significance can also be undervalued. Perhaps he undervalued it himself; his letters show him to be much preoccupied with the preservation of his public standing, but they convey little awareness of his authority and influence.
That autumn a combination of factors conspired to give him real political influence for the first