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Spartacus
Julius Caesar
Mark Antony (83 to 30 BCE)
Cleopatra, click for description
Octavian as Augustus Caesar
A Roman soldier named Spartacus became an outlaw, perhaps after having deserted. For survival he joined drifters in bandit raids, and he was caught. For punishment, Roman authorities sold him as a slave. He became a prisoner at a training school for gladiator contests in the city of Capua. And there, in 73 BCE, he and seventy-seven other prisoners and slaves escaped and seized control of nearby Mount Vesuvius. As before, news of the revolt encouraged other slaves to revolt, and they joined Spartacus on Mount Vesuvius - an army of from fifty to a hundred thousand. Thus began what historians called the Third Servile War.
The slaves on Vesuvius were too diverse for any one leader to control. Some wished to go north across the Alps and disperse. Others wished to remain in Italy and plunder. Despite their disorganization they managed to hold off the first Roman legions sent against them, which were incompetently led. Rome sent more legions, led by the talented Marcus Crassus, an ambitious aristocrat with the unostentatious manner traditionally valued among Romans. Crassus was a former slave trainer. He had amassed a great fortune, much of it by buying estates cheaply from Sulla's victims and reselling them later for a big profit. He had acquired political position by lending money to young aristocrats with political ambitions, and he had made money by operating a fire brigade in Rome that would rush to the scene of a fire and buy the property at a bargain price before agreeing to put the fire out.
The slave army broke through Crassus' lines and pushed south to the toe of the Italian peninsula, where it hoped to cross into Sicily. But the slaves were unable to buy passage or commandeer ships, and Rome's legions cornered them. To escape, the slaves scattered. Piecemeal they were defeated and captured, and, to advertise their defeat and lift the morale of Roman citizens, Crassus had them crucified along the road (the Appian way) between Capua and Rome.
After this latest slave uprising the demand for slaves declined among the Romans, largely from fear of slaves in great numbers. Landowners in Italy began replacing gangs of slaves with what they saw as an easier and less frightening alternative: freemen farming as tenants, the landlords receiving a third or more of their harvests. Slaves would still be used by the Romans, especially in workshops and as domestics. They would work as firemen, torturers for the police, laborers in the military, accountants, and guards for public buildings, but slavery had seen its peak among the Romans. With less warring abroad and a reduced supply of slaves, the price of slaves would rise and the purchase of slaves decline.
Crassus won prestige by defeating Spartacus, and so too did another general: Gnaeus Pompeius, known to his fellow Romans as Pompey. In the year 70 BCE, the Military Assembly elected them as Rome's two consuls, and while consul, Pompey added to his prestige by sweeping away much of the piracy that had begun to cut Italy off from vital food supplies. In Pompey's drive against pirates, Rome established a garrison at Cyrenaica (in eastern Libya), and he made Cyrenaica a Roman province. And with the arrival of a greater supply of grain its price dropped.
Meanwhile, thanks in part to his friendship with Crassus and Pompey, a young aristocrat named Julius Caesar acquired a position as quaestor in Spain, a position responsible for government finances. Three years later, in a campaign financed by Crassus, Caesar ran for and won the office in Rome that was responsible for supervising public games. And, with money he had borrowed from Crassus, Caesar spent lavishly on public entertainments, including gladiator contests, which added to his popularity.
After Sulla died, his old enemy Mithridates of Pontus abandoned the agreement he had made with him, and Mithridates began extending his rule again. Rome sent another force against him, drove him from Greece and Macedonia and continued to war with him. The Senate sent Pompey to the East, and it gave him authority to settle all matters there - a move supported by businessmen impatient to defeat Mithridates. Naval squadrons under Pompey went into the Black Sea after Mithridates. Mithridates slipped away to the Crimea, where he began hastily rebuilding his army. Then Pompey went southward into Syria, where Seleucid princes had been feuding. He brought that area under Roman control, and there he learned of Mithridates' death. Mithridates had been too hard on his conscript troops, who had rebelled against him.
It was now that Pompey went into Judea to put and end to civil war there. The following year, 63 BCE, Rome made Syria and Palestine, including Judea, a Roman province, and it reduced Judean territory. In 62, Rome annexed Pontus, leaving Cappadocia the only independent region in Asia Minor, and in 62 Rome took control of the island of Crete.
By now the Parthians, under their Arsacid king, had expanded from southeast of the Caspian Sea and had taken control of Media and much of Mesopotamia. The Seleucids were off the world stage, and only the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Parthian Arcasids remained as rivals of Roman power.
Amid the variety of attitudes among the Romans was that of their distinguished poet, T. Lucretius Carus, who lived from 94 to 55. Lucretius denounced conventional morality and the traditional mythology that he believed supported it. He turned in disgust from the strife he found in Rome, and like Sulla he found solace in Epicurianism. He had the Epicurean's awe for the beauties of nature. He wrote a book entitled On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura), which described the ideas of Democritus and Epicurus and was to be the source among moderns on Epicurus.
Rome had other poets: young men from wealthy families who were clever with words, who hung out together and delighted in being different. Like the Cynics these poets felt themselves to be outsiders and superior to much that their society was about. One of them, C. Valerius Catullus, was to be considered Rome's greatest lyric poet. Like many brilliant poets he died young, at around thirty. Being self-centered, he and his poet friends wrote mostly about their love-life, their petty jealousies and acts of revenge.
Rome now had bakeries and public eating places. But around 320,000 Romans were still dependent on free grain, and widespread discontent among the poor still existed. And, while some aristocrats continued believing in simplicity and frugality, many others wished to keep up with or surpass the affluent in high living.
Like other cities, Rome had no municipal police force, and hired ruffians in the pay of discontented aristocrats ruled the streets. Among these discontented aristocrats was one who was deeply in debt: Lucius Catiline. He was a greedy, ambitious, former soldier who had zealously participated in Sulla's bloody repressions. In 73, Catiline had been prosecuted but acquitted of having fornicated with a Vestal Virgin. Then Catiline had begun climbing the political ladder. He served as Praetor in the year 68. In 67-66 he served as a governor in northern Africa. He wished to run for consul in 65, but he was ineligible because he was being prosecuted for extortion.
Catiline was acquitted, and he ran for consul in 64, but he was defeated. He ran again in 63, and by now he was opportunistically appealing to the discontented to build a popular base. He promised the poor that if he were elected he would abolish all debts. Again he was rejected, and, believing that he had been cheated, he gathered around him a group of hardcore supporters: aristocratic malcontents, unhappy veterans of Sulla's army, some who had lost their property under Sulla, some who had tried but failed at farming, and a various assortment of opportunists. Maintaining the spirit of politics by violence, Catiline plotted a coup. A leading senator, Marcus Cicero, exposed the plot before it was executed, and Cicero succeeded in having the Senate declare martial law. Catiline fled with an army of followers, and on the run they accepted what support they could, taking into their ranks some foolish slaves and proletarians, while few from the Italian countryside joined them - discontent among Italy's peasantry having declined. Soldiers sent by the Senate overpowered Catiline's forces as the latter were fleeing across the mountains into Cisalpine Gaul. Catiline, it has been written, died rushing into battle. Cicero asked life imprisonment for those few conspirators who were apprehended. Instead, the Senate sentenced them to death. The episode with Catiline ended with some seeing Catiline as a martyr for the poor, and at the grave on the hill where he was buried, flowers would be strewn for years to come.
For his role in exposing and defeating Catiline, Cicero received from the Senate the title "Father of his Country," a title he was to speak of with pride. Cicero was from a town about seventy miles east of Rome, a town whose inhabitants had been Roman citizens for a century and a half. Snobbish senators from old Roman families saw a man like Cicero as a foreigner. And although Cicero was from a well-to-do family, Rome's elite looked down upon him because they thought his family undistinguished. Cicero's family and several friends had perished in Sulla's first massacre, but Cicero had sided with Sulla, because he believed in law and order, found ordinary people crude, and hated mob violence.
At the age of twenty-six, Cicero had begun his career as a lawyer, and he won a case for a man who was heir to property confiscated during Sulla's terror, a case in which he won fame for himself. Ambitious and talented, he had risen to the rank of senator. Later he was elected consul. He gained wealth by investing in land and tenement houses, and he bought a great house on classy Palatine Hill and eight country houses. He delighted in reading philosophy, and he translated much of it into Latin, becoming a source for the study of these philosophies by Romans and by modern scholars. He respected Greek learning, observing that Greek literature was read world wide.
Cicero saw the Greeks as having thought of every philosophical alternative, and from these philosophical alternatives he sided with the Stoics against the Epicureans, for whom he had contempt. He believed it necessary to persuade Romans that there were gods who governed all things, that these gods were the benefactors of mankind and that the gods judged the character, acts, intentions and the piety of individuals. Concerned with morality of his fellow Romans, he was disgusted by the sight of people, some with pretensions of being cultivated, watching animals tear a weak man to pieces or by the sight of strong men with spears killing what he saw as splendid animals.
Cicero believed that Rome should remain a nation of laws. He believed in Rome's ancient customs and its constitution. He saw as rivals those politicians whose words and actions were designed to please what he called "the mob." He believed that conservatives appealed to the best in Romans, that they appealed to thinking people. He believed that Tiberius Gracchus had been a rebel against Rome's constitution, and he blamed Tiberius for having begun a century of bloodshed.
Early in his career, Cicero had thought that subject peoples were inferior to Romans, but, after the war between Rome and the Italians he changed his mind. After that war, the Stoic belief in universal ties among people was preached on street corners and supported in literary gatherings and philosophical debates. Cicero had come to believe in Stoicism's brotherhood of man, and he saw this brotherhood as compatible with Roman imperialism. Rome, he believed, had created safety, Rome was the light of the world, and the Roman Empire was the work of the gods.
Helped by the popularity he won in creating great entertainments, Julius Caesar had been chosen Pontifex Maxiumus. Then in 62 he was chosen Praetor, and in that position he supported Cicero and other conservative Senators against Catiline, but he showed courage by protesting against executing the conspirators without a trial, arguing that such a trial was an ancient right that was supposed to be accorded all citizens. And this increased Caesar's popularity among the common people of Rome.
In 61, Caesar was sent to Spain as a Propraetor - a governor and military commander. There he expanded Roman rule against local tribes, to the peninsula's Atlantic coast. He gained more prestige, and like other governors he gained personal wealth. In the year 60, when his term as governor ended, he returned to Rome with enough wealth to pay his enormous debts.
Meanwhile, the Senate refused to grant lands to Pompey's veterans - despite the wealth Pompey had added to Rome's treasury by his recent conquests - and Pompey saw this as preventing him from keeping faith with his men. In 59, Pompey accepted Caesar's invitation to form an alliance as a counter to their opponents in the Senate. Crassus was annoyed with the Senate for the position it took against bribery and his business interests, and, although he disliked Pompey personally, he joined Caesar and Pompey, creating a force to be known as the First Triumvirate: Pompey with his soldiers, Crassus with his money, and Caesar with his popularity.
Benefiting from this alliance, Caesar was elected consul in 58. And as consul he proposed to the Senate a land bill for Pompey's veterans. The Senate did not respond, and, while attempting to remain affable with senators, Caesar took his proposed bill to a Plebeian Assembly, which passed the bill with a clause that senators would be required to take an oath to uphold the new law. But three tribunes vetoed the bill. Pompey lent his veterans to Caesar, and the veterans created a dominant force in Rome. The Senate acquiesced and passed the bill. Pompey's veterans got the lands they wanted. And Caesar, remaining as affable as before, took other legislation that he wanted directly to the Plebeian Assemblies. He rewarded Crassus by supporting legislation that Crassus sought, and his alliance with Pompey was reinforced by Pompey marrying his daughter, Julia.
Forbidden by law to run for a second term as consul, Caesar won a five-year appointment as governor of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. As governor there he began to quell disturbances in Transalpine Gaul, and he launched a war to extend Roman rule over the unconquered areas of Gaul - lands occupied by about fifty tribes. These tribes had been fighting among themselves, and some of them, respecting the power of Rome, allied themselves with Caesar. Caesar conquered Gaul piecemeal, his successes the result of good military tactics, well-disciplined troops and use of the kind of terror that the Romans considered necessary and appropriate to frighten an enemy. Caesar was not a bloodthirsty man, but popularity was important to him, and to maintain the support of his soldiers he submitted to their passion for blood. And with his generosity and his brilliance as a commander he won their devotion.
East of the Rhine River, Caesar came into contact with a Germanic people he described as tall and blond, warlike and utterly savage, people with wagons who had come from Scandinavia - what is now Denmark, southern Norway and Sweden. They were running from population growth, shortages of food and wars between tribes. Already some of these Germans had settled on the western side of the Rhine River. Caesar fought them. He made slaves of those his army captured. And he made the Rhine River the empire's frontier.
Romans welcomed Caesar's victories against their ancient enemy the Gauls, and they welcomed extension of their empire. News of each of Caesar's victories inspired a celebration, while some senators remained unimpressed. The more glory that Caesar won the more conservative senators feared him as another Marius, and they described his victories as cheap aggressions against inoffensive peoples.
Caesar knew that he needed support against the will of the Senate. In Gaul he acquired more wealth with which to buy political support in Rome. But his position in Rome suffered with the death of his daughter Julia, which ended an important tie between him and Pompey. And Crassus was jealous of Caesar's successes in Gaul.
With Caesar agreeing, Crassus won appointment as governor of Syria. This put Crassus in charge of Rome's relations with the Parthians, and it gave Crassus his opportunity to win the glory than Caesar had been winning. In the spring of 53, Crassus took an army of around forty thousand - mainly infantry - from Syria and moved them into northeastern Mesopotamia. He had not taken the time to learn much about the local geography and local people as Caesar had. With Crassus, ignorance and impatience led to disaster. The old fireman and victor over Spartacus was forced to capitulate. Much of his army was taken into captivity while around ten thousand of his men managed to escape and return to Syria. And while a captive he died in a scuffle with a Parthian officer.
In Rome, meanwhile, the most popular gang was led by Clodius, a supporter of Caesar and a fighter for legislation that would give more free food to Rome's poor. His gang clashed with a gang led by Milos, a friend of Pompey. A clash between these two gangs in the year 57 left some dead. Another clash in 52 left Clodius dead, killed by order of Milos. Irate supporters of Clodius carried his body into the Senate, where they made a funeral pyre from Senate benches and burned his corpse and the Senate building.
The Senate turned to Pompey to establish law and order - perhaps some Senators also seeing an opportunity to split Pompey from his alliance with Caesar. The Senate decided to make Pompey the sole consul for 52 and to allow Pompey to raise an army to restore order and to suppress the gangs that roamed the streets. Pompey was delighted by the opportunity to do something heroic.
The Senate established special courts to prosecute those responsible for the recent disorders. Milos was convicted and given lenient punishment: exile to the port city of Massilia (now Marseilles) in Roman controlled southern Gaul. Pompey restored order. Then despite the illegality of second terms, Pompey won another term as consul, leading one Senator to quip that any government was better than no government.
The Senate passed a bill that called for Caesar to be replaced as governor of Gaul. A tribune ally of Caesar's vetoed the bill. The Senate ignored the veto and demanded that Caesar disband his army and resign unconditionally. Caesar refused, and the Senate appealed to Pompey for military support and voted in martial law. Rather than accept an end to his career and perhaps death, Caesar chose to attack. On his way to Rome, some Italians and other soldiers rushed to join his forces. Faced with a popular rising and the might of Caesar's army, most of the Senate fled the city in panic, leaving behind their wives and children. Pompey believed his force too meager to combat Caesar and his supporters, and, comparing himself to Sulla, he fled with his army to the east - his place of recent victories and power - in hope of gathering to his side the troops stationed there.
Caesar entered Rome triumphant. People throughout Italy cheered his success. Rather than attempt to crush those in Rome opposed to him, as had Sulla and others, Caesar sought reconciliation - while in Pompey's camp in the East they damned Caesar and talked of revenge, killing and confiscating of properties. For the security of his regime, Caesar had to defeat those armies loyal to Pompey. He and his army went to Spain, and in forty days triumphed against an army allied with Pompey. They returned to Rome for eleven days while on their way to Greece to confront Pompey, and Caesar found that he had been declared dictator. Caesar presided over elections in which he was also made consul, and he passed a law creating relief for debtors.
Caesar and his army confronted Pompey in Greece, Pompey having twice as many infantrymen as Caesar, and seven thousand cavalry to Caesar's one thousand. But Caesar was brighter and his troops more experienced, and his army crushed Pompey's army. Pompey fled toward Egypt. Continuing his policy of reconciliation, Caesar offered a pardon to those whom Pompey left behind, and many of them joined Caesar's armies, while others fled.
The young Egyptian king, Ptolemy XII, saw Pompey as a loser and a danger. He had Pompey stabbed to death when Pompey stepped ashore on a sandy beach. Three days later Caesar arrived with his army, and Ptolemy offered Caesar Pompey's embalmed head as a trophy. Caesar was annoyed and dismayed. But in Jerusalem, Pompey's death was interpreted as punishment for his having entered that city's sacred temple - the House of the Lord - and there was rejoicing.
Caesar found Egypt in political disarray, and he began asserting authority there that many Egyptians believed was not his. He would have preferred reconciliation with Pompey, and he had two Egyptians who had taken part in Pompey's murder executed. He tried to arbitrate a dispute within the Ptolemy family and finally sided with the king's daughter, Cleopatra. In the streets and harbor at Alexandria war erupted between Ptolemy XII and Caesar and his small force, with Caesar fighting Roman naval forces that had remained loyal to Pompey. Reinforcements for Caesar arrived from Palestine, and Caesar won. Ptolemy XII died in the conflict, and Caesar and his army remained in Egypt for a couple of months.
Caesar married Cleopatra to her younger brother, as was the Egyptian custom, and he set the couple upon Egypt's throne. Caesar and Cleopatra vacationed together on a ship on the Nile, which would lead to a son by the two. Then on his return to Rome, through Palestine and Syria, he stopped in Asia Minor and defeated an army of the son of Mithridates, who had attempted expansion as had his father. And Caesar described this conflict with his famous phrase "I came, I saw, I conquered."
In the autumn of 47, Caesar arrived in Rome with a great torchlight parade that included forty elephants and delirious crowds. Many Romans must have thought that their troubles were over, that at last a champion of the people had secured power. Some saw his good fortune as having been granted by the gods for the sake of his fulfilling grand aims. Some elevated Caesar to godliness. A rumor spread that the storm that Caesar had recently experienced when crossing the Adriatic he had stilled by the power of his will, just as it was believed that Alexander had imposed his will on the waters of the gulf of Pamphylia when he first journeyed to Asia Minor, or as Jews believed that Moses had parted the Red Sea.
Opposition from abroad still concerned Caesar. Troops who had been with Pompey gathered in North Africa a little east of where Carthage had been, and there they wiped out whole communities they saw as supporting Caesar. In the spring of 46, Caesar took an army to North Africa and defeated the forces hostile to him there. From North Africa he went to Spain to battle some who had fled there, and there Caesar narrowly escaped death while winning his final victory against his opposition abroad.
Returning to Rome, Caesar turned his attention to creating a stable government and solving economic and social problems. He gave land in Gaul and Spain to his veterans. Seeking order, he announced that the revolution was over. He began to create a politics of consensus and a government of laws - but not democracy, which was commonly believed to be an unruly form of government. He banned the clubs that had created turmoil in Rome's streets. He restored the Senate, which now consisted of many new members and fewer aristocrats. And he accepted the title of "Dictator for Life."
Caesar outlined a program for the reorganization of the courts, and for the sake of order he increased the penalties for crimes committed by the rich and the poor. He passed laws against extravagance. He upheld property rights and took steps toward the restoration of Rome's system of finances and the creation of economic stability. To prevent the kind of profiteering that had taken place under Sulla and to ease the burden of debt, he put restrictions on lending and borrowing. He gave Romans temporary relief from rents and began a program of improving housing for the poor. He began welfare reform, reducing the number of those on the dole in Rome from 320,000 to 150,000 (the latter roughly fifteen percent of Rome's population). He ruled that to go onto welfare in Rome one had to wait for someone else to leave the program - a move designed to discourage people from coming to Rome to take advantage of welfare there. And the roughly eighty thousand whom he disqualified from welfare he sent to new, overseas colonies.
Caesar laid plans for economic improvements across the empire. Marshes south of Rome were drained, business districts of various cities were improved, and new theaters and temples were built. He proposed construction projects for improving trade by sea and for improving harbors. He laid plans for a new canal for the city of Corinth. Caesar began enlisting men of talent into public service, and he saw the need for improvement in the organization of municipal governments throughout Italy. He started standardizing and streamlining cumbersome local governmental operations. He sought to bind citizens in the provinces closer to Rome by doing away with laws that made distinctions between them and the citizens of Rome. He gave Roman citizenship to Gauls who had fought alongside him when he was governor there. He created better government in territories governed by Rome, including Judea. He gave Jews there a greater autonomy, reduced their taxes, exempted them from having to serve in Rome's armies, and he allowed them freedom again to worship their god Yahweh.
Caesar placed a learned man in charge of Rome's library, and he laid plans for an increase in government involvement in Rome's public education. He gave Roman citizenship to Greek teachers in hope of encouraging them to come to Rome. Caesar also had the calendar revised. The old calendar was a hodgepodge of contributions by various priests. Caesar was an Epicurean and closer to its materialism than he was to traditional religion. He wanted a calendar that was organized around considerations not colored by religion. He drew from the expertise of astronomers and mathematicians, the result being the basic calendar of today.
Some among Rome's privileged saw Caesar as responsible for an end to the republic, and rather than patience, argument and compromise, they opted for a return to the politics of violence: assassination. They did not understand that political improvements would need widespread consensus and respect for law and that assassinating Caesar would bring neither. Like most assassins they had little grasp of what would follow their deed.
Some of the conspirators were former supporters of Caesar who hoped to advance their careers. Some were from families as distinguished as Caesar's who resented his condescending air of superiority. Toward them and others, Caesar had been acting like a parent: chiding, urging them to get along, caring about them all and seldom asking for their opinions.
The conspiracy to assassinate Caesar was led by a former first commander under Pompey, Gaius Cassius, whom Caesar had pardoned and made a legate. Another conspirator, Marcus Brutus, was a senator and a former follower of Pompey whom Caesar had pardoned. He was also a Stoic and had a reputation as an idealist, and when he joined the conspiracy his prestige inspired twelve other senators to join. Another Stoic and senator, the great, voluble Cicero, was aware of the plot to murder Caesar. He continued to pretend friendship with Caesar while seeing the conspiracy as patriotism that would rid Rome of despotism.
Caesar was preparing to go east to do battle against the Parthians, who were creating trouble for Rome on the border if its empire, and those plotting Caesar's assassination wanted to strike before he left. Caesar had heard rumors of a plot, but he had not surrounded himself with spies, and he knew nothing of who the plotters were or when they might strike.
On the morning of March 15, 44 BCE, Caesar went to a meeting at the Forum to ratify his using the title of king when outside Italy - a title for dealing with foreign peoples, who understood authority mainly by that name. As he often did, he went without his bodyguards, but he was accompanied by a rugged companion: one of his former generals and Rome's other consul, Marcus Antonius, a name to be anglicized to Mark Antony.
Brutus believed that killing Antony would be an injustice, so another conspirator detained Antony in conversation as Caesar made his way to his seat. It appeared that people were approaching Caesar, as usual, to exchange words and ask for favors. Alongside a statue of Pompey, someone pulled at Caesar's cloak. Someone else stabbed him from behind in the neck. Caesar turned and wrestled with the assailant. As many as sixty others joined in the attack, wounding one another in the fray. Nearby senators looked on, some of them stunned. Caesar saw Brutus with his knife raised and asked him: "You too my son?" Brutus plunged his knife into Caesar and shouted congratulations to the Senate's leader: Cicero. Stabbed twenty-three times, Caesar fell to the floor and died.
News of Caesar's assassination spread fast in Rome and struck terror into Caesar's close associates, who believed that they too might be targeted for death. With some others, the commander of Caesar's military guard, Lepidus, had a failure of nerve, and he failed to mobilize his troops against the assassins. Two days after the assassination, Mark Antony, seeing no reign of terror, emerged in public with a personal guard that he had organized. Still afraid, he was ready and willing to compromise with the Senate, and he made his now famous speech about burying rather than praising Caesar - his ability as a speaker to be exaggerated by Shakespeare. As the surviving consul he accepted power and spoke favorably of the powers of the Senate.
The Senate was glad to be rid of Caesar but wished to avoid civil war, and in a show of conciliation it voted for a public funeral for Caesar. The funeral was spectacular, with frenzied people packing surrounding streets. Into the funeral pyre women threw their jewelry, some threw their robes, and soldiers their weapons. Foreigners in the crowd, including Jews, joined the mourning. Some believed that Caesar's death was the signal of the end of the world. And some believed that Caesar's assassins should be punished. From the crowd of mourners came the retaliation that had failed to come from Caesar's top lieutenants. Packs of outraged people rushed to the vacated homes of those rumored to be the assassins.
A month after Caesar's death, his eighteen year-old grand-nephew, Gaius Octavianus, to be known as Octavian, arrived in Italy from the East, where he had been waiting to serve Caesar in the war that was planned against the Parthians. Octavian had served with Caesar in Spain, and Caesar had adopted him and made him his heir. Against the advice of his stepfather and others, Octavian decided to use his inheritance politically. Like many who have inherited wealth or position from a brilliant man, Octavian would prove less capable, but he was determined, and he would prove able enough in his coming competition with Mark Antony. Antony considered himself Caesar's political heir. He controlled Caesar's private fortune, which he had quickly spent. When Octavian went to Antony to claim his share of Caesar's estate, Antony rebuffed him in a public display of contempt.
With what money Octavian had, and help from friends, family and supporters, Octavian was able to make himself a public figure. He paid the gift of money that Caesar had promised citizens in his will - which Antony was refusing to pay. He paid for athletic games in honor of Caesar, and at these games a comet streaked across the sky. The crowd thought it was Caesar's star, a sign of Caesar's immortality, a sign of Caesar having risen, and a sign of heavenly favor bestowed upon Octavian. News of Caesar's star spread rapidly across the empire. And Octavian inherited the affection of soldiers and civilians who had worshiped Caesar. Many of Caesar's veterans gathered around Octavian and proclaimed their devotion to him, and war between Octavian and Antony appeared imminent.
The accord between Antony and the Senate fell apart. As consul, Antony canceled the Senate's appointment of one of Caesar's assassins, Decimus Brutus (no relation to Marcus Brutus), to the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul. With his position as consul soon to expire, Antony appointed himself to the position. Still conciliatory, the Senate approved. But Cicero feared Antony's influence. He made a speech with an undertone of criticism against Antony. Antony took offense and attacked Cicero verbally. And before the year ended a war of words was on between the two. Antony and Cicero disliked each other personally. Antony was affable but thought good manners were hypocritical and stuffy, and stuffy was what he though of Cicero. Antony saw himself as in tune with traditional male directness and simplicity. In manner and dress he was intentionally casual, and he had a coarseness and boyishness that appealed to soldiers. Some complained that he was sloppy in eating and noisy in drinking. Cicero described him as vulgar and as a drunken, lusting debaucher, and Cicero spoke of Antony's speeches as little more than bombast.
Cicero saw Antony's choosing to go to Cisalpine Gaul as governor as an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Caesar, and he accused Antony of preparing to create a military dictatorship. Cicero decided that it best to keep Antony and Octavian divided, to exploit their differences and to help Octavian against Antony. The Senate refused Antony's attempt to have it declare Octavian a public enemy. Instead, the Senate made Octavian a senator, annulled its appointment of Antony as governor of Cisalpine Gaul and declared Antony an outlaw.
Antony did now what he could have done just after the assassination: he rallied an army against Caesar's assassins. The first of his targets was his rival in Cisalpine Gaul: Decimus Brutus. Cicero called on the governors in Spain, Transalpine Gaul and Narbonensis Gaul, to side with the Senate. But these commanders chose instead to side with Antony. The commander in Narbonensis Gaul - Lepidus - had Caesar's best troops, and Antony agreed to recognize him as equal in rank.
Octavian was uncomfortable allied with the Senate, and he saw opportunity in overthrowing those responsible for his uncle's assassination. He signaled Antony that he was willing to create an alliance against those they both opposed. Some were to claim that Octavian and Antony agreed that they had better hang together or they might eventually hang separately.
While Antony was winning his war against Decimus Brutus, Octavian and his troops marched on Rome, entering the city unopposed. There, Octavian took charge and in effect annulled the powers of the Senate. He instituted elections for the two consulships, winning one seat for himself and one for a second cousin, and he abolished the law that had made Antony an outlaw. A victorious Antony returned to Rome with his army. Lepidus, Antony and Octavian formed a ruling triumvirate. The triumvirate enlarged the Senate with their supporters. The Plebeian Assembly passed a law giving the triumvirate dictatorial powers for five years.
Octavian and Antony chose not to repeat Caesar's attempt at reconciliation. Against those who had conspired against Caesar they launched a massacre as terrible as Sulla's. Three hundred former senators and two thousand equites were killed, destroying much of what had been Rome's old governing elite. Cicero was among those assassinated - his severed head and hands presented to Antony. Caesar was declared a god of the Roman state. The two most prominent of Caesar's assassins, Cassius and Marcus Brutus, had fled east and taken command of armies there, and, in the year 42, armies under the combined command of Antony and Octavian waged war against them in Macedonia, Antony performing well as a general and Octavian, who lacked such skills, remaining in his tent. Brutus and Cassius committed suicide. An enemy navy, led by the son of Pompey, Sextus Pompeius, remained undefeated.
Antony was considered the senior member of Rome's ruling triumvirate, and he was named authority over most of Gaul and over all of Rome's eastern empire. Octavian ruled in Rome, Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. Lepidus was left with only the promise of rule in northern Africa west of Egypt. Touring in the eastern part of the empire, Antony exacted indemnities from those provinces that had given support to Brutus and Cassius - despite this support having been forced upon them. Some of this money he put aside for a war he planned against the Parthians. He ordered Egypt's ruler, Cleopatra, to journey north and appear before him in Cilicia to explain her having aided Cassius. She arrived in her gilded ship with purple sails and silver-lined oars, and her many attendants, and to Antony she exonerated herself. She invited him to pass the winter in Alexandria, and there (in the winter of 41-40 BCE) the two spent much time feasting together, playing dice and fishing on the Nile.
In the year 41, Antony's brother, who commanded an army, attempted to grab power from Octavian. He was encouraged by Antony's wife. Octavian defeated Antony's brother, and Antony arrived from the east with an army and had a standoff with armed forces loyal to Octavian. Antony backed down, blaming his brother and wife for having made war without consulting him. To patch up their differences, Octavian and Antony created a new accord in which Octavian would have authority over Spain and all of Gaul. Antony's wife had died, and Octavian and Antony reinforced their tie by Antony marrying Octavian's widowed half-sister, Octavia - a woman of high repute among the Romans.
Meanwhile, the Parthian king, Orodes, was expecting war with Rome, and he sent an army into Syria. The Parthians won a few towns in Syria and then pushed into Asia Minor and Palestine. And, in the years 39 and 38, Antony's generals drove the invaders back, out of Asia Minor, Syria and Judea.
The law that had granted the Triumvirate five years of dictatorial power expired in 38, and the Plebeian Assembly extended the dictatorship another five years. Also that year, Antony returned to the east, and Octavius married into the aristocratic Drusus family, taking Livia Dursilla as his wife. In 38, Octavius sent naval forces against Sextus Pompeius that Pompeius destroyed. Octavius needed another navy to combat Pompeius, and Antony gave him 120 warships in exchange for 20,000 Italian troops.
In the east, Antony renewed his contacts with Cleopatra. The two apparently hoped to gain from each other: Antony needing Cleopatra's wealth to pursue his conflict with Parthia, and Cleopatra wanting to revive boundaries of the old Ptolemy kingdom of her forefathers. Within a year, Antony sent his pregnant wife, Octavia, back to Rome. Antony lived in opulence with Cleopatra. He acknowledged publicly that he had fathered twins by Cleopatra - a boy and girl - while in Rome Antony's wife (Octavian's sister) presided with dignity over Antony' s household, caring for Antony's children by a previous marriage and her own.
The Romans still associated marriage with morality, and many looked upon Anthony's association with Cleopatra with disgust and saw Octavia as a mistreated heroine. Octavius was outraged by what he saw as Antony's mistreatment of his sister. But conflict between them was delayed while Octavian made war against Pompeius and Antony was preoccupied with a renewed war against the Parthians.
Against Sextus Pompeius, Octavian's commander, Agrippa, won a foothold on the eastern coast of Sicily. Lepidus joined Agrippa against Pompeius and landed a detachment in Sicily. With three hundred ships on each side, the largest sea battle that had taken place in western waters followed, and Agrippa triumphed, with Pompeius escaping to Asia Minor, where he was executed by subordinates of Antony.
Octavian emerged with a military force greater than that of Antony: five to six hundred warships and forty-five legions. Italians were impressed by Octavian's victory. An encouraged Octavian began to care more about support from the people of Italy, and he promised everyone that eventually he would restore the Republic. Lepidus claimed Sicily, but he lacked support among his troops, who deserted him. Octavian took away Lepidus' triumviral powers, but he allowed Lepidus to retain his position as Pontifex Maximus and he made Lepidus a tribune. Octavian then began to clear the Adriatic Sea of pirates and to send troops into the Balkans in a successful move to advance the interests of Rome there.
In 36 BCE - the same year that Octavius defeated Pompeius - Antony attacked the Parthians, through Armenia. He and his troops arrived at what is now Azerbaijan, and for months he laid siege to its major city: Phraaspa. Parthian attacks on Antony's supply lines left him facing a winter without shelter or adequate provisions. Antony fell back, through Armenia again, returning with most of his troops but losing some twenty-two thousand men in the retreat. Cleopatra met him in Syria, bringing him money and supplies. It took until 34 for his forces to regain strength for an assault against the king of Armenia, who had helped the Parthians, and in 34, Antony and his army dethroned him.
In the autumn of 34, Antony returned to Egypt, and in Alexandria he celebrated his victory in Armenia with a grand pageant, which many Romans visualized as an impious parody of their traditional celebrations of triumph. Antony's funds were now depleted, and he was more dependent on the wealth of Cleopatra. To please her, he staged a ceremony at which he pronounced her "Queen of Kings" and distributed to her children the titles that were traditionally given to children of royalty. Antony declared Cleopatra's thirteen year-old son by Caesar, Caesarion, as Julius Caesar's legitimate son and as heir to the rule of Egypt, Cyprus and a part of Syria. Antony declared Cleopatra's six-year old boy as king of Armenia and its neighbor, Media. He gave the boy's twin sister titles to Cyrenaica and Libya. And he declared Cleopatra's two year-old son as king of Cilicia and Phoenicia.
Making Caesar's son by Cleopatra Caesar's legitimate son was equivalent to putting the boy ahead of Octavian, who was merely Caesar's nephew and adopted son. This increased Octavian's displeasure with Antony. Antony, in turn, remained upset with Octavius for not having given him a share of Sicily. Antony gave word that he wanted Octavia and her children out of his house. This severed the final bond between Octavius and Antony. A war of words erupted between the two, with Antony trying to discredit Octavian for what he described as Octavian's past acts of disloyalty.
Toward the end of 33, the second five-year rule of Octavian and Antony expired, and it was not renewed. Octavian professed legal rectitude by disclaiming that he still had the powers given by the expired law. He remained a consul. But Antony continued as if he were still Rome's designated ruler in the East. In the summer of 32 Antony's divorce from Octavia was announced along with Antony's will, which included his wish to be buried alongside Cleopatra, and Antony's will reaffirmed his claim that, Caesarion - Caesar's son by Cleopatra - was Caesar's legitimate son. To many Romans, Antony, without formal office, seemed in the employ of a foreign queen. Rumor spread in Italy that Antony wanted to make Cleopatra queen of Rome and to transfer Rome's government to Egypt. By now many Romans saw him as a renegade from Roman tradition, and they disliked him for his wearing the royal clothing of the Ptolemies and for what they heard of his fondness for luxuries.
Backed by opinion across Italy and much of Rome's western provinces, Octavian, as consul, obtained a declaration of war against Cleopatra - but not against Antony. It was to be a war against a foreigner, putting Antony in a position of treason. Antony's troops also disliked Cleopatra. Their morale was low, and some high ranking officers among them deserted to Octavian.
Antony, with Cleopatra at his side, moved with his army to a strong point in western Greece. There, near the town of Actium, Octavian's talented commander, Agrippa, defeated Antony in a great sea battle, and Antony and Cleopatra fled back to Egypt. Nine months later, Octavius and his forces arrived in Egypt. Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra became Octavian's prisoner, and fearing that Octavian would take her back as display for his triumphant entry to Rome, she sent herself as a goddess into the world of the dead - using the bite of what was probably a cobra.[note] Octavian saw both Caesarion and Cleopatra's eldest son by Antony as dangerous rivals and had them executed, but he adopted into his own family the other children of Cleopatra and Antony, including the daughters of Antony and Octavia.
In the summer of 29, Octavian returned to Rome. He was thirty-four and in command of all of Rome's sixty legions, and respected by the legions' rank and file. He brought with him from Egypt a wealth of treasure and two annexations: Egypt and Illyricum. His fellow Romans believed they had seen the end of war and strife, and they hailed him as the Prince of Peace and benefactor of mankind. Celebrations lasted for days. Animals were sacrificed to Rome's gods. The Senate gave Octavian the permanent title "Commander Imperitor" - from which the English word emperor is derived.
Immediately after returning to Rome in 29 BCE, Octavian fortified his support by giving some of the wealth from Egypt to the troops who had fought for him. He gave them land in Italy and abroad, and some of Egypt's treasure he gave as prizes to the people of Rome. Thirty years had passed since Rome's republican government had functioned normally, and Octavian considered what the nature of his rule was to be. He theorized that a republic was better than a monarchy, that the sons of kings often became incompetent rulers. He believed that Rome's republican government had helped make Rome great, but he also believed that it had produced chaos. He decided that although the republic was suited to Rome when Rome was small, it was inadequate in meeting Rome's task as the leader of the world's greatest empire. He believed that democracy could not achieve the political stability that the Senate had failed to achieve, and therefore he remained opposed to giving more power to the Plebeian Assembly. He decided also that clinging to absolute power would appear evil. He did not wish to appear to be the autocrat that is uncle Julius Caesar had appeared to be, and he recalled that after having won against Sextus Pompeius in 36 he had promised that he would restore the Republic.
Octavian and his trusted aide, Agrippa, were the two consuls, and Octavian used his powers as a consul to make the Senate more to his liking. Building on the purge of 43, in which about three hundred senators had been eliminated, Octavian purged two hundred more, and in their place he added some whom he had elevated to the rank of nobility, and the Senate became a body of eight hundred.
In 27 BCE, Octavian began his seventh term as Consul, and on the first day of that year he renounced his consulship and declared that he was surrendering all powers to the Senate and other bodies, including control of the army. It was a bogus withdrawal from power. As Octavian expected, the Senate, packed with his supporters, responded by returning much of his power, claiming that it was doing so for the sake of unity and relief from factionalism and civil strife. The Senate granted Octavian a ten-year governorship over those areas where the bulk of Rome's armies were stationed: Spain, Gaul and Syria. This gave Octavian control over foreign policy, and it left him with authority over Rome's military.
The Senate voted that Octavian be given the crown of oak leaves that signified service to Rome, and it made him Consul again. From the period of the Second Triumvirate, Octavian still held the title of Princeps, which could be translated as Leader (or, in German, Führer). In keeping with his great prestige, the Senate gave him a title that had the ring of his being divinely chosen: Augustus Caesar. And the Senate made it law that he be included in the prayers of Rome's priests. In appearance the Republic had been restored, but in fact ultimate power still lay with Octavian - Augustus Caesar.
From the years 27 through 24 BCE, Augustus continued as consul, and he spent those years outside Rome, administering and organizing, first in Gaul and then in Spain. In 26 BCE, to protect commerce, he allowed a military expedition to be sent against southern Arabs who were trying to maintain a monopoly of trade with India and the coast of Somalia. While Augustus toured Gaul and Spain, Romans were enthusiastic over rumors that he was planning an invasion of Britain. But Augustus had had his fill of war. He decided to leave Britain alone. Most of Britain's tribal chieftains were friendly toward Rome and wished to maintain and develop trade with the continent. Augustus saw them as no threat to Gaul, and he saw great and ambitious military undertakings as economically harmful.
The wars against Gallic tribes that had begun with Caesar were over. Gallic tribes had come down from their fortified towns in the hills and settled onto more fertile soil in the plains, where they established new towns. What Gaul needed was administration. But in Spain between the years 26 and 19 BCE, Augustus' commander, Agrippa, waged what was called pacification - a bitter but successful war in Spain's mountainous north. The warfare ended with defeated peoples being transferred to Spain's central plains and with colonies of Rome's veterans being established at what are now the cities of Merida in the southwest and Zaragoza in the northeast.
Meanwhile, Rome's main rival continued to be the Parthian Empire, on Rome's eastern frontier. Romans continued to hunger for revenge against the Parthian Empire. Instead, Augustus made a treaty with Parthia. He promised that Rome had no more ambition against any area under Parthia control, and the Parthians in turn recognized Armenia as a Roman protectorate and returned to the Romans the banners that had been captured from Cassius' army more than thirty years before.
Augustus' policy of conciliation was the mainstay of the relatively stable peace called Pax Romana. Only minor disturbances would continue, as in 17 BCE, when a Roman legion was overrun by Sugambri Germans. Rome countered with an invasion of Germany in order to keep Gaul secure from German attacks and to create a new frontier along the Elbe River. Peace was disturbed again when Gauls from Pannonia and the Alps made raids into Roman territory. Rome responded, securing Italy's northern plain by extending its authority into Pannonia, Raetia and Noricum (between Raetia and Pannonia).
In Spain in the mid-20s Augustus became ill and returned to Rome, and in 24 BCE he became ill again and close to death. When recovering the following year, he resigned again as consul, which relieved him of the routine duties that had been wearing him down. In compensation for this loss of power, the Senate revised the constitution and made Augustus Tribune-for-Life, which gave him power in domestic affairs. And, he was made Proconsul for life, giving him authority to override governors and the power to conclude treaties with foreign powers without submitting the treaties to the Senate for ratification. Technically Augustus remained an elected official and subject to the laws of the land. Officially his positions were a gift of the Senate and the Roman people.
Augustus still had the power to convene the Senate, to present legislation and to have his motions discussed in the Senate prior to any other business. He favored free discussion in the Senate, and he gave into the Senate on minor points, but most senators viewed arguments against the major thrust of his proposals as a waste of time, and the Senate merely stamped its approval on measures that Augustus proposed. Then in 18 BCE the Senate was again purged of two hundred members - to a body of six hundred. Seeing themselves as having no real power, many senators would come late or not show up. And by 11 BCE so many senators would be absent that a new rule was passed permitting business to be conducted with less than four hundred members present.
Not only was the Senate officially a legislative body, it became for the first time in its history a court of law and was authorized to try cases of both political and ordinary crimes, including those in which senators were involved. But with many Roman citizens looking to Augustus for help - as was traditional with kings - Augustus acquired recognition as having the power to judge appeals, a power he accepted without enthusiasm.
Augustus believed that each class should have its own ideals and duties. He believed that his class, the aristocracy, gave to Rome skills in leadership. He had men of business - the equites - declared a hereditary class and second in rank to the aristocracy. The equites could serve as officers in the army, as governors of certain provinces, as financial agents for the government and as agents of the courts of law. As for common people, by now their assemblies had vanished. Advocating democracy remained a crime of treason. The only labor organizations that Augustus allowed were those that appeared harmless to the state - fraternal groups of men who met merely to socialize. But Augustus allowed common people to run for minor civic posts and to advance to a higher position if they proved themselves of exceptional ability.
Waging only minor wars allowed Augustus to reduce his legions from sixty to twenty-eight, leaving more money for public works. He had begun building soon after his return from his war against Cleopatra, his first project that of repairing dilapidated temples. In the years that followed he gave Romans bread, games and magnificent shows, paying for these with both public and his own money. He began to complete buildings that had been left unfinished after Caesar's death, and he encouraged Agrippa and Rome's highest ranking military officers to spend for public works and public parks some of the wealth they had received as war booty. In 19 BCE, the construction of a new aqueduct was completed. Splendid new public baths were built. A ministry of transport was begun that built and maintained roads. From a city of sun-dried brick, Rome under Augustus was to become a city of marble.
The new roads improved communications and helped trade. Mail service improved, and improvements were made in civil administration. Augustus upgraded the qualifications for civil service jobs. He created a degree of self-government for cities and provinces and curbed the rapacity of Rome's governors. He created urban fire departments. He created urban police forces to suppress disorders, petty crime and to preserve urban tranquility, and he created police for the countryside to protect against brigandage.
At first, Augustus planned to check the influx of people into Rome from the countryside by cutting people off Rome's welfare, but he abandoned this and instead introduced a new system of control and distribution of food, and by around 5 BCE the dole increased to 200,000, roughly twenty percent of Rome's population. But while maintaining Rome's proletariat, Augustus moved to restore the small farmer, believing that the small farmer had contributed to making Rome the power that it was. Small family farms still flourished in the Po valley, in Campania, and in the southern part of Italy inhabited by those of Greek ancestry, and, to extend small-scale farming, Augustus purchased land and paid gratuities out of his own vast wealth.
As was traditional among the Romans, Augustus associated morality with the well-being of the state and pleasing the gods. To stay on the good side of the gods he began a crusade to revive temperance and morality. He tried setting an example by dressing without extravagance and by living in a modest house. He emphasized the worship of those gods he thought had given him victory in battle, among them the god Apollo. He claimed that Rome's gods had given him victory over Cleopatra and what he saw as the monstrous gods of Egypt. He forbade the worship of Isis, and he forbade Druidism and fortune telling. He collected the oracles of Sibyl - the woman believed to have prophetic power by way of Apollo - and he had her writings stored in a newly built temple for Apollo on the Palatine Hill.
Augustus tried to persuade one of the foremost writers of his time, the poet Horace , to create a work comparable to Homer's Iliad, that would inspire Romans to the worship of the state's traditional gods and give the Romans pride in their history and their race. Horace was not interested, but the poet Virgil was. Virgil wrote the Aeneid, a story about the gods and the founding of the Roman race, a myth about the Romans having descended from Trojans who had fled the flames of Troy. the god Aeneas was described as the son of the goddess Venus and the Trojan Anchises. According to Virgil, among the descendants of Aeneas was Rhea Silva, who married Mars and gave birth to Romulus and Remus. And Virgil described Julius Caesar as a more distant descendant of Aeneas.
Augustus decided to protect the Roman race. Between 2 BCE and CE 4 he had laws passed that he hoped would reduce inter-breeding between Romans and non-Romans. These laws prohibited an indiscriminate emancipation of slaves, prohibited freed slaves from marrying Latins, and prohibited Senators from marrying freed women.
The Romans believed in the family, and they agreed that adultery should be illegal. They believed that the virtue of their women helped win their city favor from their gods, and they continued to be disgusted by criminality. Many Romans found pleasure in seeing criminals punished, which was done in the arena, Rome's entertainment center, where convicted criminals were forced to fight against each other or against ferocious animals. Occasionally, convicted criminals ran from the center of the arena, and men at the edge of the arena used hot branding irons to force the unwilling participant back to the contest, while the crowd expressed its disgust with the criminal's cowardice.
With wars having reduced Rome's population to a level lower than pleased him, Augustus saw having children as moral. He used his powers as tribune-for-life to initiate legislation that he hoped would encourage marriage. Infanticide remained legal and at a husband's discretion, but people who remained single or married without children after they were twenty were to be penalized through taxation. To further what he saw as morality, Augustus had prostitution taxed, and he made homosexuality a punishable offense. Adultery remained a crime, but it was no longer commonly punished by death. An adulterous wife and her lover could now be banished to different islands, with the woman obliged to wear the kind of short tunic worn by prostitutes.
Augustus' crusade for moral regeneration satisfied those who feared that evil would come with abandoned religious traditions. Many females continued to grow up patriotically and dutifully moral, and virginity before marriage continued to be seen as highly desirable and moral. But his moral crusade was hardly a success in changing behavior. Married men continued to look other than to their wives for sexual passion. With unmarried women endeavoring to remain virgins and married women constrained by the tough laws against adultery, males, married and otherwise, continued to seek sexual gratification and to some extent affection from prostitutes, and some from each other.
Augustus had his own daughter, Julia, punished for adultery. After Julia's two previous husbands had died (each of whom had been designated as heir to Augustus' power) Augustus arranged a marriage between Julia and his adopted son and heir, Tiberius. This involved Tiberius leaving a happy marriage. The marriage between Tiberius and Julia turned out to be an unhappy match. Tiberius was often away, and Julia searched for love and sexual gratification outside her marriage. Augustus heard of her infidelities, and he threatened her with death. Instead, he sent her to an island prison from which she was never to return, and he spoke of her as a disease of his flesh.
Recommended Books
From Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68, by H.H. Scullard, 1990.
Roman Realities, by Finley Hooper, 1979.
Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra, by Michel Chauveau, Cornell University Press, 2000.
Augustus, by Pat Southern, 1998.
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