The Augustan Empire 43 BC

Plancus derided Antony in the Senate; not everyone was impressed,²⁷⁶ and a more sensational ploy was needed. The two renegades suggested that Antony's will, which rested with the Vestal Virgins, might repay study. It was illegal, as it happened, to open the will of a living man; no matter — Octavian opened it, alone and unsupervised.²⁷⁷ Its provisions were extraordinary: when Antony died he was to be buried in Alexan­dria; Caesarion was recognized as Caesar's son (though it is hard to say why this quite fitted in Antony's will); vast gifts were to be made to the children borne by Cleopatra to Antony. It was all exactly what Octavian might have wished for. Why, he might almost have written it himself. Perhaps indeed he did, at least in part:²⁷⁸ the Vestals would not know the will's contents, and Octavian could claim what he wished. And he was skilful enough to allege provisions which Antony, eager to retain his eastern support, would find as uncomfortable to deny as to admit.

Even Antony's preparations, worryingly massive as they were, could be turned to account. Perhaps by early August, his force was on the west coast of Greece.²⁷⁹ Was he intending to invade Italy, the natural climax of such treachery to Rome?²⁸⁰ That was desperately unlikely, in fact. Octavian firmly held Tarentum and Brundisium, the two great harbours of southern Italy, and it would be no easy matter for Antony to transport large quantities of troops in several waves and land them on hostile beaches.²⁸¹ Roman civil wars were always fought in Greece, for precisely this reason: it was natural for one side to flee to exploit the resources of the East, but then virtually impossible to force a passage back to a defended Italy.

Still, the Italian public were not strategists. They feared what they were told to fear. Evidently they needed a champion, and it could only be Octavian; but his status was still uncertain. He was no longer calling himself triumvir (Antony, incidentally, had no such compunctions);²⁸² though it would be hard to doubt that Octavian retained his vast provincial imperium, he wanted something more, something which would clearly justify him as the defender of Rome and its traditions, and

Cf. the cutting remark of one Coponius, Veil. Pat.11.83.).

Just as, alone and unsupervised in a temple, he found equally convenient material a few years later: the truth (so he claimed) about the consular status of old Cornelius Cossus. Cf. Livy 1v.20.5-11 with Ogilvie 196; (в ijj ) ad loc. and below, ch. 2 p. 80.

Cf. e.g. Syme 1939 (a 93) 282 n.i; Crook 1957 (c 68) 36-8; contra, Johnson 1978 (c 128); Wallmann 1989 (c 243) 310—13. ²⁷⁹ Kromayer 1898 (c 143) 57.

Cf. Livy, Per. 132; Dio l.9.2; Veil. Pat. 11.82.4; Plut. Ant. 58.1-3 with Pelling 1988 (в 138) ad be.

Cf. Plut. Ant. 62.3; Hermocrates at Thuc. vi.34.5. The strategic position is set out masterfully by Kromayer 1898 (c 143) 57-67- ²⁸² MRR 11 417-18, cf. RRC 545-6.

render this the most moral of civil wars. The propertied classes of Italy came to his rescue. For much of summer 3 2 he was organizing an oath to follow his personal leadership:²⁸³ it was to be taken throughout Italy, and indeed all the western provinces (that probably meant little more than the Roman citizens in each).

Of its own free will, all Italy swore allegiance to me, and demanded me as its general for the war I won at Actium; the Gallic and Spanish provinces, Africa, Sicily and Sardinia took the same oath. (Rm Gestae 25.2)