Augustus

At last it was time to go home—to Calpurnia and Cleopatra, to Atia and Philippus. The civil war was definitely over. No enemy was left standing. What now? This was a hard question to answer. At the pinnacle of his success, Caesar should have had little on his mind to trouble him. But like so many conquerors before and after, he had learned the hard lesson that military victory does not necessarily win consent from the vanquished.

The army soon encountered streams of noble Romans approaching from the opposite direction. Everyone of importance had felt it necessary to take to the road and greet the Republic’s new master. At Narbo (today’s Narbonne), Mark Antony arrived, to find that his misgovernment of Italy in 49 B.C. had been forgiven. So far as Caesar was concerned, their quarrel was over. He invited Antony to ride with him, displacing Octavius, who traveled in the following carriage with another Caesarian supporter, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus.

Under the pressure of the dictator’s displeasure, the reprobate appeared to have turned over a new leaf, toned down his public extravagances, and directed his thoughts to marriage. His eye lighted on Fulvia, the widow first of a murdered gang leader, and then of a Caesarian tribune. The alliance was as much political as personal. According to one ancient commentator, she had “nothing womanly about her except for her body.” Intelligent and intemperate, she was able, and more than willing, to give her new husband some sensible career guidance.

The dictator and his entourage arrived in northern Italy in July. He planned to hold a triumph in October, but the legal fiction that it marked a victory over a foreign enemy was embarrassingly unconvincing. Nevertheless, he observed the convention that a conquering general had to remain outside Rome until the date of his processional entry into the city.

He made for an estate of his southeast of Rome at Labici (today’s Monte Compatri), where he spent a few weeks. Here he was able to find some peace and quiet, and time for thought. For years, he had been extraordinarily busy, fighting or legislating, and he needed a holiday. He was aware, too, that his health was deteriorating; his proneness to what may have been a form of epilepsy, or spells of dizziness, was getting worse. He was reported to have had a fit in Africa and another on the day of the battle of Munda.

It is probable that Octavius stayed with him for a while. Their relationship was becoming closer and closer, and Octavius, who had tested his physical stamina to the limit, would have profited from a rest as well. At some point he asked leave to go home to see his mother, who had doubtless pressed him to do so in a letter, and Caesar gave his permission.

Although he was approaching his eighteenth birthday, Octavius retreated into domesticity. After the excitements of his Spanish adventure, his life became quiet and uneventful. He spent much of his time with his mother and stepfather, seldom leaving them. Occasionally he invited some of his young friends to dinner, Agrippa and Maecenas presumably among them. He lived soberly and moderately. Nicolaus reports that, unlike many upper-class young Romans, especially those with access to money, he abstained from “sexual gratification.”

Octavius’ good behavior is as likely to reflect a concern for his health as a virtuous disposition. This was an age when the principles of hygiene were little understood, surgery was life-threatening, medicines and medical advice were of uncertain value, and few illnesses were easily cured. Unsurprisingly, many Romans concentrated their attention on prevention. According to Celsus, a medical expert who wrote in the first century A.D., a healthy man “should sail, hunt, rest sometimes, but more often take exercise.” He should spend time in the countryside and on the farm as well as in town. Doctors advised that people whose health was delicate should take care to avoid any kind of physical excess. We may take it that Octavius and his ever-anxious mother did exactly that.

Caesar set in motion a flurry of important social and economic measures, but he was wearying of Rome with its tiresome and self-destructive politics. He had received reports of a conspiracy against his life. If he had ever intended to reform and restore the constitution, he now gave up the attempt. He would leave Rome to its own devices, for power lay wherever he happened to be, not in the Senate House or Forum. He was worried by the growth of a Dacian empire in the untamed region of the southern Danube. The barbarians there needed to be taught a sharp military lesson.