When Julius Caesar fell, pierced with twenty-three wounds, at the foot of Pompeius' statue in the Senate House at Rome, the Roman world was left without a master. The conspirators had slain the one man strong enough to evolve order out of the chaos into which the Republic had been plunged. They had destroyed Caesar, and with him they had hoped to destroy Caesarism. But the sole result of their act of assassination was to throw the State for a period of thirteen miserable years into a constant succession of civil wars, out of which emerged, triumphant and alone, the commanding figure of Augustus, who shattered forever the Roman Republic, and founded upon its ruins the majestic structure of the Empire. Yet not one of those who took part in the tragedy of the Ides of March, and not one of the leading statesmen of the day, seems to have given a passing thought to him who was to profit most by the crime which was then committed. Neither Brutus nor Caesar, neither Antonius nor Lepidus, neither Cicero nor any of his associates, imagined that a youth who was pursuing his military studies at Apollonia was destined to set all their calculations at naught and to prove himself the ablest and strongest of them all. Octavius, however, does not enter upon the scene until a month after the assassination of his grand-uncle and adopted father, and it will be well, therefore, to describe in brief the course of events from the 15th of March, B.C. 44, down to the middle of April, when he returned to Italy.
It was a troubled and anxious time for all, but especially for the republican chiefs. There is no occasion here to analyze the motives which had led Brutus, Cassius, and their fellow conspirators to plot the assassination of Caesar. They were men of widely different types. All had been generously treated by their victim, and most had been selected by him for high official posts. But it is important to lay stress upon their unanimous conviction that if only Julius were removed, the Republic might be restored upon its old footing, as it was prior to the outbreak of the civil war between Caesar and Pompeius. They believed, in short, that the Roman people were at heart thoroughly devoted to the ancient constitution, and that, once Caesar was put out of the way, the Senate would reassert its control of public affairs, and the oligarchical families, to which they themselves belonged, resume their wonted places in the State. But they had been rudely undeceived on the very day of the assassination. When they marched to the Forum from the Curia, waving their bloody daggers and crying out that they had slain the tyrant, they had been received with chilling silence. So far from being enthusiastically hailed as saviors of their country, the people held aloof from them. Caesar's veterans had raised menacing shouts, and Marcus Brutus himself was scarcely vouchsafed a hearing. Hence they had slunk back to the Capitol, glad of the security which the presence of the swordsmen of Decimus Brutus afforded them. It was but little compensation for their bitter disappointment that Cicero and a number of other senators climbed the hill of the Capitol to congratulate them on their deed and join their councils.
There they spent in fruitless debate the hours which should have been devoted to strenuous and decisive action. Acting on the recommendation of Brutus, they had spared Marcus Antonius, Caesar's colleague in the consulship. Nor did they apprehend any danger from Lepidus, the Master of the Horse, who was just on the point of starting to take up his command in Gaul and Spain. They mistook their men. As soon as Antonius heard that Caesar had fallen, he made himself secure in his house and opened communications with Lepidus, who assured him of support and moved a detachment of his troops into the city with orders to seize and hold the Forum. On the morning of the 16th, Antonius took steps to gain possession of Caesar's private papers and treasure, and laid hands upon the seven million sesterces which were stored in the Temple of Ops. The conspirators again harangued the people and again met with a frigid reception. Brutus declaimed against the tyranny of the dead usurper and boldly claimed the favor of his hearers on behalf of Sextus Pompeius and the banished defenders of the Republic. But there was no popular response, and he and his friends returned to the Capitol and there decided to treat with the Consul Antonius and request him to convene a meeting of the Senate for the following day.
The Senate, accordingly, met in the Temple of Tellus in the Carinae and, surrounded by the cohorts of Lepidus, debated the question of the hour. The fate of Rome hung upon the decision that might be reached. The conspirators sought to obtain from the Senate a formal justification of their action, but dared not lay before the meeting the true alternative policies. A justification of the murder ought logically to have been accompanied by a reversal of Caesar's decrees and Caesar's official appointments. But they themselves held their appointments from Caesar, and they had already recognized the succession of Dolabella, the Consul-designate, to the consulship which Caesar's murder had just made vacant. They had no soldiers at their command, except the gladiators of Decimus Brutus, while the city was full of Caesar's veterans, and the Forum was held by the troops of Lepidus, acting in concert with Antonius. The conspirators, therefore, realized the essential weakness of their position, and felt obliged to temporize, especially as they were suspicious of Antonius, though he spoke them fair and promised to cooperate with them in the task of restoring order and public confidence. They were, in fact, practically helpless. The control of events had passed into other hands than theirs. Consequently, after many hours of anxious debate, the Senate passed an act of general amnesty, but confirmed the decrees and appointments of the dead dictator. This was plainly a confession of weakness on the part of all the contending parties. Each wanted time to form new combinations. Each felt that the chance of immediate success was too precarious to put fortune to the test. Antonius, Lepidus, and Cicero all urged the same course — to say nothing of the murder of Caesar, to forget the past, and to begin again.
There could be no finality in a compromise which solved nothing. The refusal of the Senate to approve or condemn, as a body, an act which each senator violently approved or violently condemned in his own conscience was dictated solely by the desire to evade a definite decision which was bound to lead to blows. The ratification of Caesar's acts was a public confession that his regime was not destroyed. The amnesty granted "for the sake of peace" was a futile compromise which could not last. When, therefore, the friends of Caesar boldly and successfully urged the Senate to sanction a public funeral, Atticus shrewdly observed to Cicero that "all was lost." It only needed a spark to light a conflagration. For the moment, however, a hollow truce was patched up. Lepidus banqueted Brutus, and Antonius invited Cassius to sup with him. Then, on the morrow, the Senate formally confirmed the conspirators in the offices to which Caesar had appointed them. Marcus Brutus was to proceed to Macedonia; Decimus to Cisalpine Gaul; Cassius to Syria; Trebonius to Asia, and Cimber to Bithynia, as soon as the year was out. But there were nine fateful months still to run before they could lawfully take up their respective commands; and, meanwhile, Brutus and Cassius were bound to remain in the city to fulfill their praetorian duties. They might flatter themselves with the certain prospect of military power when they reached their provinces, but for the remainder of the year Antonius was supreme. He was consul. He had the legionaries of Lepidus at his beck and call. He had one brother among the praetors, and another among the tribunes, and, above all, he controlled the treasures of the state, which he skillfully employed to purchase the support of the doubtful and reward the services of his friends. The Senate entrusted him with the duty of superintending the public funeral of Caesar, and providing against any breach of the peace.
How he carried out his instructions is known to everyone from the pages of Plutarch and Shakespeare. When the funeral procession reached the Forum and the bier was placed before the rostrum, Antonius, as chief magistrate, stepped forward to pronounce the oration over the dead. With consummate skill he recited the honors which the Senate had heaped upon Caesar, the titles they had showered upon him of "Consecrate," "Inviolable," "Father of his Country." And the Senate had slain him! Claiming only to speak as the dead man's friend, he passionately declared that he was prepared to avenge the victim he had not been able to save. Then, when the senators around him murmured their disapproval at the tone of his address, he artfully pretended to allay the dangerous passions he had aroused, by saying that Caesar's death must have been a judgement of the gods. Divine power alone could have destroyed so potent a divinity and so godlike a man. Then, approaching the bier, he broke into a wild invocation, chanting the praises of the conqueror who had avenged the defeats of the Roman arms, and had never lost a battle. The waxen effigy, which showed every red and gaping wound, was held aloft to excite the compassion of the vast assembly, and Antonius himself seized the blood-stained toga which Caesar had worn on the Ides of March, and waved it in the air to display the rents made by the pitiless daggers. The clever actor had played his part well. He had roused his excitable hearers to a state of frenzy. The seething crowd in the Forum refused to allow the body of their murdered patron to be taken outside the walls to the Field of Mars. Cries were raised that the last rites should be performed in the adjoining Temple of Jupiter, and the ashes of the dead deposited at the shrine of the god. When the priests came forward and stayed this act of profanation, the crowd rushed into the neighboring houses, stripped them of their benches and tables, and built the funeral pyre in the Forum itself. Overcome by uncontrollable emotion, Caesar's veterans cast their arms upon the blazing pyre; women and children threw their trinkets and jewels into the flames, and the body of the dictator was consumed amid the lamentations of the whole people. Violence formed the inevitable accompaniment of this dramatic scene, and it was fortunate for Brutus and his friends that they had been wise enough to withdraw from public observation on so dangerous a day.
Antonius had raised the storm. It was Antonius who quelled it. But the tumult which he had so artfully contrived strengthened his position enormously. It helped to shatter the nerves — never very strong — of the Republicans and their sympathizers. After the scene in the Forum, it was idle for Brutus and Cassius to delude themselves with the belief that the murder was popular with the people of Rome. Antonius, therefore, felt strong enough to invite them to his councils, and show a conciliatory front. He summoned frequent meetings of the Senate, reassured the House by his constitutional procedure, and further gained its confidence by moving that the obnoxious office of dictator should be forever abolished. The proposal was carried by acclamation, and the attitude of the consul seemed so frank and honest that Cicero was led to break out into the exulting cry that Rome was at length delivered not only from kingly rule, but even from all apprehension of it. Antonius pretended to be reconciled with his colleague, Dolabella, and the Senate voted him permission to enroll a bodyguard of six thousand soldiers for his personal protection. He made good use of his power. Relying upon the ratification of Caesar's acts by the Senate, he boldly claimed the same authority for the notes and memoranda which he had found amongst Caesar's papers and, when genuine memoranda were lacking, forged others to suit his purpose. The senators had given themselves over, bound, into his hands, and even when they saw that they were being tricked their protests were ineffectual. The consul ruled in the dead Caesar's name and by the dead Caesar's authority. Surrounded by his six thousand swordsmen, he turned his mansion into a strong fortress, while the state treasure which he had seized in the Temple of Ops supplied him with abundant resources. So secure did he feel that he even quitted the city and proceeded to Campania to superintend a new assignment of lands to the veterans under the provisions of an agrarian law which his brother Lucius, the tribune, had brought forward. Meanwhile, his colleague, Dolabella, to whom he had left the administration of Rome, set to work to undermine his position, and leveled to the ground the monuments of Caesar. During Antonius' absence, the nobles again plucked up a momentary courage, and Cicero, from his villa at Puteoli, lauds Dolabella to the skies. "Our friend Dolabella is doing amazingly well," he writes, "he is quite one of us now." Thus, from day to day, the miserable round of intrigue went on until the middle of April, when Octavius returned to claim his patrimony.