Augustus

She may have been irritated by, even jealous of, Antony’s infidelity with Cleopatra. However, such behavior was commonplace and wives were expected to take it in stride. A political motive is much more plausible. Octavian was a nuisance, and here was a chance to eliminate him—a chance that Lucius and Fulvia seized, to give Antony the supreme power he scarcely seemed to covet.

Antony claimed that he was completely ignorant of much that was done in his name, and that he learned of what was happening in Italy too late to influence the course of events. However, Octavian and others wrote him many letters about the situation. It would have been amateurishly odd for Fulvia to act without her husband’s knowledge. We must conclude that Antony knew perfectly well what Lucius and Fulvia were up to, although it may not have been his idea. He was anxious to be regarded as a man who kept his word, and wanted to exploit the outcome whatever it happened to be. So he turned a blind eye.

The Perusian war proved that Antony and his supporters were poorly organized and prone to miscalculation. By contrast, it greatly strengthened Octavian’s political position and provided evidence of his staying power. Now twenty-three years old, he was no longer a virginal boy over-protected by his mother, but a fully grown adult and one of Rome’s two most powerful citizens. The year and a half since Philippi had been miserable, unglamorous, and testing, but it had brought out the best in him. He had succeeded in every endeavor.

His reputation for physical cowardice in the field was probably not unjustified; he was never at ease as a soldier. But Octavian had demonstrated something better—a dogged moral courage that saw him impose an unpopular but necessary policy of land confiscation and nearly cost him his life when confronting angry soldiers in the Campus Martius.

He would not shirk what needed to be done and moved patiently from task to task. This methodical approach to politics had two important dimensions: Octavian was naturally cautious and avoided impulsive gestures; and he showed an unforgiving fury to anyone who crossed him.

So far as contemporaries were concerned, the inexperienced triumvir was no nine days’ wonder, as some had predicted or hoped he would be. He had earned himself a permanent place at the head of affairs. Barring accident or ill health, he was there to stay.

We have relatively little information about Octavian’s personal life; what we do have falls broadly into two categories—dynastic marriages and stories put about by his enemies.

Julius Caesar’s heir was the finest match in Rome. Since he was only of middling provincial stock (despite his connection with the patrician Julii), it was in his interest to ally himself to blue blood. This would not only increase his personal social status but also be a signal that he wanted a political reconciliation with the aristocracy, thinned by the civil wars but still powerful, if only as an obstacle.

Probably in the spring or early summer of 43 B.C., Octavian married the daughter of Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, a member of Rome’s most ancient nobility. However, the union lasted only a few months, for Mark Antony and Octavian, uncomfortable colleagues, agreed that it would be wise to cement their political deal, enshrined in the Second Triumvirate, with a family bond. Antony’s wife, Fulvia, had a daughter, Claudia, by her first husband, a lordly rabble-rouser, Publius Clodius Pulcher. She was only just of marriageable age and too young to have sex, but a match was arranged.

A girl was considered ready for wedlock at about twelve, a boy at fourteen. Husband and wife must both have reached puberty. Children could be betrothed provided that they were old enough to understand what was being put to them—say, from seven upward.

We are told rather more about Octavian’s sex life away from the marriage bed, by his opponents. Politicians often publicized the sexual peccadilloes of those with whom they disagreed, and were expected to be capable of producing scabrous lampoons. Octavian was no laggard in this regard; and a scabrous verse attributed to him survives, which is very probably authentic. It broadcasts a cheerfully indecent explanation of the motives that underlay Fulvia’s political activity. One can imagine the guffaws in the Forum and among the soldiery.