Cicero - Anthony Everitt [168]
Between Antony and Octavian there was a standoff. The former was an experienced general and commanded a substantial force, but his soldiers would not follow him against Octavian. For its part Octavian’s illegal army was growing, but he was no military match for the Consul.
Faced with this impasse, Octavian had to regularize his position somehow or he risked being marginalized by both Antony and the Senate. In all probability, Antony would march on Rome, impose a concordat of some sort and then proceed north to Italian Gaul to defeat Decimus Brutus and install himself safely in his province. In January there would be new Consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, who would be able to raise their own troops: this was unhelpful from Octavian’s point of view because they were moderate Caesarians and likely to cooperate with the Senate. Meanwhile, there was no saying what Brutus and Cassius would be getting up to in Macedonia and Asia Minor. It was perfectly possible that they would raise armies and invade Italy if they thought the Republic was in danger.
So the young man and his advisers took what must have been an agonizing step, going against their deepest instincts. This was to ally themselves with the despised Republican leadership, which was only too happy to forget all about Octavian’s adoptive father and had not the slightest intention of making the conspirators pay for his death. But the prize was worth the sacrifice, for, in return for helping the Senate deal with Antony, Octavian and his illegal army would receive official status.
It was at this moment that Octavian decided to approach Cicero: if he could only win over the leading personality in the Senate to his scheme, the other Republicans would follow.
At a safe distance from these alarms and excursions, Cicero continued to devote much of his time to literary pursuits. Besides Duties, he was working on a short dialogue, Friendship, dedicated to Atticus, as a complement to Growing Old, which he probably completed towards the end of November. In it he returned to the theme of his correspondence with Matius: the conflict between loyalty to one’s friend and loyalty to the state. There was no easy answer, he decided, except that one should make sure that a friend deserved one’s trust before giving it to him.
This principle was soon put to the test, for a proposal of friendship arrived from a startling source. On October 31 Cicero, who was staying in his villa at the seaside resort of Puteoli on the Bay of Naples, received a letter from Octavian in which he offered to lead the Republican cause in a war against Antony. The letter was delivered by a personal emissary, who brought the news that the Consul was marching on Rome. “He has great schemes afoot,” Cicero wrote excitedly to Atticus. “So it looks to me as though in a few days’ time we shall be in arms. But whom are we to follow? Think of his name; think of his age.” It was an uninviting choice.
Octavian proposed a secret meeting and asked for Cicero’s advice: should he anticipate the Consul, who would soon be returning from Brundisium with his troops, and march on Rome himself? In Cicero’s opinion, a secret meeting was a childish idea because news of it would inevitably be leaked. He wrote back, explaining that it was neither necessary nor feasible; but he recommended that he go to the capital. He told Atticus: “I imagine he will have the city rabble behind him and respectable opinion too if he convinces them of his sincerity.”
Octavian’s approach was not a one-time advance; it quickly grew into a courtship. On November 4 Cicero reported that he was being pestered:
Two letters for me from Octavian in one day. Now he wants me to return to Rome at once, says he wants to work through the Senate. I replied that the Senate could not meet before the Kalends of January,