Augustus

Now in his sixty-third year, Cicero watched with dismay the unspooling of events during the spring and summer of 44. When he saw Antony shift position and come out against the Senate, he returned to frontline politics and delivered the first of a series of great oratorical attacks on Antony, which were soon nicknamed the Philippics after the speeches the Athenian orator Demosthenes made against Philip, king of Macedon in the fourth century B.C. Cicero soon dominated the Senate and became so influential that he was, in effect, the unofficial ruler of Rome.

At a meeting of the Senate on December 20, Cicero delivered his third Philippic, in which, to universal surprise, he went out of his way to shower Octavian with praise. He told the house:

Gaius Caesar is a young man, or almost a boy, but one of incredible and, so to speak, godlike intelligence and courage…. He recruited a very powerful force of invincible veterans and lavished his inheritance—no, lavished is not the right word, he invested it in the survival of the Republic.

There was no hesitation now to address Octavian as Caesar; even more remarkably, the great constitutionalist was complimenting a private citizen on his creation of a completely unauthorized army.

Addressing the Senate on January 1, 43 B.C., he returned to the theme of Octavian, “this heaven-sent youth.” Cicero put forward and carried a motion that Octavian be made a propraetor (a post usually held by a man who had already served as a praetor) and a member of the Senate.

The orator went on to claim that he had a unique insight into Octavian’s motives. “I promise, I undertake, I solemnly engage, that Gaius Caesar will always be such a citizen as he is today, and as we should especially wish and pray he should be.” In a word, he guaranteed the young man’s good behavior as a sincere supporter of the restored Republic.

What was going on? The dictator’s heir, who had sworn vengeance on his adoptive father’s murderers, is revealed as entering into an alliance with a man who rejoiced at the Ides of March.

It must have cost Octavian and his advisers, the financiers and political agents who had once worked for Julius Caesar and were now devoted to his adopted son’s cause, a great deal emotionally to discard their deepest ideals and join forces with republicans. But the discarding was only apparent; they were acting from necessity, not conviction.

Octavian’s position, after his failed coup in November, was perilously weak. How long, he must have asked himself, would his demoralized veterans stay with him? Mark Antony had already briskly outmaneuvered Decimus Brutus and bottled him up in the old Roman colony of Mutina (today’s Modena) in northern Italy. The new consuls, backed by the Senate, were raising legions with a view to relieving Decimus and putting an end to Antony’s ambitions.

From Cicero’s point of view, Octavian would reinforce the Senate’s new military strength by placing himself and his army at the Senate’s disposal, and thus would hasten the day when Antony could be challenged and eliminated. This was important, for dispatches from Decimus Brutus suggested that he was hanging on at Mutina only with difficulty. In the longer run, Cicero and his followers feared that at some stage Octavian would reconcile with Antony. The new entente made that a less likely prospect.

As for Octavian, he was no longer outside the law, for at one leap he had acquired a senior constitutional position. Above all, he had bought time. His soldiers will have been mystified, even perturbed, by the volte-face, but could see the advantage of their army being legitimized.

Neither side had any illusions about its sincerity; there was a good deal of playacting. Octavian used to call Cicero father, and was much too discreet to betray his real motives. The gossipy Cicero, on the other hand, could not keep his mouth shut. He joked about Octavian: “Laudandum adolescentem, ornandum, tollendum.” That is, the boy must be “praised, honoured—and raised up.” But tollendum was a pun, with the second meaning of “must be removed.” Someone was kind enough to pass the witticism to Octavian, who was unamused and almost certainly unsurprised.

In February, Octavian marched off to join forces with the new consul Hirtius, while the other consul, Pansa, stayed behind to recruit four new legions. The young propraetor probably commanded about two legions. In the last few months, he had had to learn fast the duties of a military commander. He had never witnessed a battle and had had little time for the military training that upper-class Romans were expected to undertake in their teens.