Augustus (27 page)

As time passed it began to appear that Sextus was losing more ships than his adversary (thanks in good part to Agrippa’s
harpax
). Some of his galleys began to surrender, and Agrippa’s men raised the paean, or victory shout, which was picked up and echoed by the soldiers onshore. A setback became a rout. One of Sextus’ admirals killed himself, the other surrendered to Agrippa. Only seventeen warships survived.

Sextus was so stunned by what had taken place that he omitted to give any orders to his infantry, with the result that they, too, immediately surrendered. He rushed to Messana and changed out of his commander in chief’s uniform with its blue cloak into civilian clothes. He loaded everything of any use, including all the money he had, into the poor remainder of his fleet, embarked with his daughter and some of his entourage, and sailed eastward, intending to apply to Mark Antony for help. Yet again, unconsciously no doubt, he was following his father’s example, who, when shocked by his defeat at Pharsalus, fled to seek safety in the east.

The battle of Naulochus, as it was named, was over, and with it the Sicilian war.

Lepidus was feeling extremely pleased with himself. Sidelined by Antony and Octavian, he had found the last few years less than satisfactory; but now he was having an excellent war. As commander of a great army, he was the master of Sicily. The chance of a lifetime presented itself. It was time for him to flex his muscles. He laid claim to the island on the grounds that he had landed there first and received the largest number of surrenders by cities.

Octavian, enraged, took action typical of him, at once careful and bold. He sent out some agents, who discovered that Lepidus’ soldiers thought little of him, admired Octavian’s courage, and were exasperated by the prospect of another civil war.

Once the ground had been prepared, the moment came for a bravura display of personal heroism. Octavian rode up to Lepidus’ camp with some cavalry, which he left by the outer defenses. Then, unarmed and dressed in a traveling cloak, he walked with a handful of companions into the camp—as one contemporary commentator put it, “bringing with him nothing but his name.” It was a striking piece of political theater, repeating his earlier forays into potentially hostile crowds. As he walked through the lines, the soldiers he met saluted him.

As Naulochus had shown, Octavian still found it hard to cope with the experience of battle, but when stung by opposition to him personally he did not hesitate to place his life at risk. For him, bravery was not an assertion of collective defiance and solidarity among colleagues but a solitary, obstinate act of will.

Lepidus, alerted by the uproar that something was amiss, rushed out of his tent and ordered that the intruder be repelled by force. Suddenly Octavian was in mortal danger. According to Appian, Octavian “was hit on the breastplate but the weapon failed to penetrate to the skin and he escaped by running to his cavalry. The men in one of Lepidus’ outposts jeered at him as he ran.”

It was a painful humiliation. Yet in the next few hours Lepidus’ men began to desert him. He went out and pleaded with them to remain loyal. He caught hold of a standard, saying he would not release it. “You will when you’re dead!” one of the standard-bearers said. Now it was Lepidus’ turn to be humbled. Frightened, he let go: the game was up. Seeing that this was so, he changed out of uniform and made his way to Octavian at top speed, with spectators jogging along beside him as if at a public entertainment.

Octavian was well able to be ruthless and cruel when opponents fell into his hands; his performance to date had been an implicit criticism of his adoptive father’s policy of clemency. But now he made a decision that presaged a change of approach.

At this very moment, for the first time since leaving Apollonia eight years previously, he faced no visible threat to his position. He knew that what everyone wanted was peace and a return to the rule of law. As a demonstration that this was his desire, too, he stood when Lepidus came up to him, and prevented the suppliant from falling to his knees as he intended. He administered no punishment and sent Lepidus to Rome dressed as he was, as a private individual.

Most significantly of all, Octavian did not strip him of his highly prestigious position as
pontifex maximus,
where his predecessor had been Julius Caesar. He was, however, deposed as triumvir; he left public life and spent his remaining twenty years in comfortable retirement at Circeii, a seaside resort about fifty miles south of Rome.

The town was built on the side of a steep crag, crowned by a temple of the sun and a lighthouse; it was originally an island, and the malarial Pomptine Marshes lay on its landward side. According to legend, in one of the numerous caves on its slopes the witch Circe had once lived, she who changed visitors into swine. It was not an inappropriate spot for one of Rome’s least appealing politicians to end up in.

When he gathered together all the various armies, Octavian found that he had under his command a grand total of forty-five legions, twenty-five thousand cavalry, about thirty-seven thousand light-armed troops, and six hundred warships. It was impractical to demobilize them all at once, for to acquire land on which they could settle would take time and money. Instead he paid part of the promised donatives, distributed honors, and pardoned Sextus’ officers.

The soldiers, especially his own, mutinied, demanding full payment of everything owed and immediate discharge. In response, Octavian announced a campaign against the Illyrians (in today’s Albania), for which he would need legions, and increased the number of awards to officers and men. He also made some conciliatory gestures, discharging those who had fought at Mutina and Philippi and offering an additional donative of two thousand sesterces. Calm returned to the camp.

After Naulochus, Sextus Pompeius made good speed to the eastern Mediterranean and, in another uncanny echo of his father’s flight in 48
B.C.
, put in at Mytilene. Only sketchy accounts survive of his next moves. He seems to have been well provided with cash, for he crossed over to the province of Asia, where he managed to raise large numbers of troops. Soon he was in command of three legions.

Antony showed little interest in Sextus, but was irritated to find that he had offered his services to the Parthian king. The governor of Asia, Gaius Furnius, offended by Sextus’ incursion into his province, marched against him with a large force. A sensible man would have surrendered, and Sextus was promised honorable treatment if he did so. Unaccountably he dug his heels in, tried to escape, but was caught.

The son of Pompey the Great had wasted his last chance of survival. He no longer had the slightest political or military value and could not be trusted to behave intelligently. In 35
B.C.
, Sextus Pompeius was executed, presumably with Antony’s approval. He was about twenty-six when he died—an age at which most men are launching, not concluding, their lives and careers.

Why did Sextus not win his war? For a long time he went from victory to victory. If he had taken Menodorus’ advice and refused to discuss terms with the triumvirs he could have starved Italy into submission and this biography might well have had him instead of Octavian as its subject.

The later ancient literary sources depict Sextus as a pirate, but he and his contemporaries saw him as a great Roman nobleman in pursuit of his rights. Appian claims that Sextus had no discernible strategic purpose and a pronounced tendency to avoid following up successes. There is some merit in the charge that Sextus failed to prosecute a long-term aim with adequate vigor.

He also did not take into account the disproportion in the relatively limited resources over which he had control and those at the disposal of the triumvirs, even when taken singly. This meant that he could not afford to wait on events, for sooner or later he would be outnumbered.

The youthful challenger to the post-republican regime lost, not so much through lack of intelligence or military and naval ability, but because he failed to think things through.

XI

PARTHIAN SHOTS

36–35
B.C.

Octavian accepted three honors from those that had been voted to him. The first was an annual festival to mark the victory at Naulochus, the second a gold-plated statue of himself in the Forum, dressed as he was when he entered Rome and standing on top of a column decorated with ships’ rams.

The third honor was by far the most important:
tribunicia sacrosanctitas.
This meant that his person was
sacer,
consecrated and inviolable on pain of outlawry. This protection was given to tribunes of the plebs, but Octavian did not have to hold the office of tribune, although he was additionally awarded the right to sit on the tribunes’ benches at meetings.

Of greater practical benefit to citizens, Octavian forgave unpaid installments of special taxes as well as debts owed by tax collectors. It was announced that documents relating to the civil wars would be burned. The administration of the state was returned to the regular magistrates, and Octavian agreed to hand back all his extraordinary triumviral powers when Antony returned from Parthia.

Octavian owed a great deal to his friends and supporters, and he made sure they were well rewarded. Agrippa, who had masterminded the Sicilian victory, was given a probably unprecedented honor—a
corona rostrata,
or golden crown decorated with ships’ beaks, which he was entitled to wear whenever a triumph was celebrated. Priesthoods were liberally distributed. Booty and land flowed into the hands of the triumvir’s friends; thus, Agrippa was granted large estates in Sicily and married one of Rome’s greatest heiresses, Caecilia, daughter of Cicero’s friend the multi-millionaire Titus Pomponius Atticus.

Some men did not know how to handle success with the expected decorum. Cornificius, awarded the consulship in 33, so prided himself on his Sicilian exploits that he had himself conveyed on the back of an elephant whenever he dined out.

It is hard to exaggerate the importance of the Sicilian victory. In his early years of struggle, Octavian had boasted of his connection to Julius Caesar; but from now on he no longer insisted on his rank as
divi filius
. He was who he was in his own right.

And what of Mark Antony? Octavian’s victory over Pompeius and his acquisition of Sicily and Africa (taken from the dismissed Lepidus) marked an important shift in the triumvirs’ respective positions. His two rivals for control of the west were now gone.

This simplification of the political scene had an important consequence. Despite the years of bloodshed, there was still a republican faction, an assorted group of diehards who were unwilling to accept what looked increasingly like the settled verdict of history.

With the end of Sextus Pompeius, the only remaining refuge was Mark Antony. In part, this was because, compared with Octavian, Antony was the lesser of two evils. But they could also detect in him a more relaxed approach to autocracy. In the last resort, he liked an easy life. He was no revolutionary and, provided that he could retain his
dignitas
and
auctoritas,
a preeminence of respect and influence, he had no difficulty in envisaging a return to the familiar rough-and-tumble of the Republic.

In the spring of 36, Antony launched his long-planned invasion of Parthia, leading an army of sixty thousand legionaries and other troops. His task was to settle an overdue piece of military business: to avenge the catastrophe of the battle of Carrhae in 53
B.C.
, the death of the Roman commander, Marcus Licinius Crassus, at the hands of the Parthians, and the loss of many Roman legionary standards. Few people doubted that Antony would score a great victory, which would set the seal on his predominance.

Information took time to filter back from the eastern deserts, and when the battle of Naulochus was fought nobody in Italy had any idea how the Parthian campaign was going. Then, sometime during the autumn, dispatches from Antony arrived announcing victory. Although it would have suited him very well if Antony had at least met with a setback, facts were facts and Octavian must needs rejoice.

It had taken Mark Antony years to prepare for his Parthian war. After the Treaty of Brundisium in October 40, he faced two challenges. The first was posed by the Parthini, an Illyrian tribe that occupied rough and mountainous country overlooking the port of Dyrrachium and the beginnings of the Via Egnatia, which, we remember, gave access to Greece and Rome’s eastern provinces. The Parthini, who had sided with Brutus and served in his army, were in a state of revolt. They invaded Macedonia and by moving south were able to cut one of the empire’s crucial communications links. They also captured the Illyrian port of Salonae in the north (Salon, near Split, in Croatia). Antony dispatched eleven legions, which efficiently suppressed the rebellion.

The second challenge concerned the Parthians, who posed a far more serious threat than an Illyrian hill tribe. They were well aware that once a senior Roman took time off from fighting other Romans, he would assemble all the forces of the empire to punish them for the Carrhae disaster. Would it not be sensible to launch a preemptive strike?

In the spring or summer of 40
B.C.
, Parthian horsemen, led by Pakûr, the brilliant son of King Urûd, swept across the province of Syria, killing the governor. The invasion was the greatest threat to Roman rule since the days of a rebel monarch, Mithridates of Pontus, half a century before.

Unfortunately, dealing with Octavian and the aftermath of the Perusian war distracted Antony for much of this year. He decided not to take the lead, perhaps wanting to hold himself in reserve for the full-scale Parthian invasion. Instead, he dispatched one of his best generals, Publius Ventidius, who had served under Julius Caesar and understood the need for celerity in war.

In a two-year campaign Ventidius won three great battles, the last of which was fought northeast of Antioch, the capital of Syria, on June 9, 38
B.C.
Pakûr was killed. The Parthian prince had been well liked in the Syrian region; Ventidius sent his head around various cities to deter his sympathizers. Having smashed and dispersed the invaders, the general marched east and besieged the city of Samosata (now Samsat, in Turkey) on the Euphrates.