Octavian, too, had reason to be satisfied with the general trend of events. Thanks to the enthusiastic and wholehearted way in which the head of the constitutionalist party had pledged his word for Octavian's loyalty, the Senate had granted to their youthful champion pro-praetorian authority and senatorial rank among the praetorii. These distinctions they bestowed on January 1st. On the following day they admitted him to a seat in the Senate, gave him the ornamenta consularia, and facilitated his speedy rise to the highest offices of the State by relaxing in his favor the usual restrictions of age. Nor was this all. On the motion of Philippus, he was voted an equestrian statue and was entrusted, in conjunction with the consuls, with the duty of effecting the release of Decimus Brutus from Mutina. Octavian and his legions were already within striking distance of the army of Antonius, and by these decrees Cicero and the Senate hoped to bind them fast to the support of their cause. Yet a considerable section still hesitated to declare formal war against Antonius, and, in spite of Cicero's remonstrances, eventually persuaded the Senate to send a last embassy to the Ex-Consul. Piso, Sulpicius, and Philippus were chosen for this important duty. Their instructions were precise and clear. They were not to negotiate, but to deliver an ultimatum; not to conclude a treaty, but to demand entire submission. They were to lay before Antonius the commands of the Senate and threaten him with war unless he at once complied. He was to raise the Siege of Mutina, quit Cisalpine Gaul, and not approach within two hundred miles of Rome, on the penalty, if he declined, of being declared a public enemy. The embassy proved a total failure. Servius Sulpicius died on the journey, and Antonius refused to allow Piso and Philippus to enter his lines, and sent back to the Senate a long list of counterdemands. He retorted to their ultimatum with an ultimatum of his own, and claimed rewards for his troops, full confirmation of his enactments as consul, an indemnity for the State moneys he had disbursed, and the grant of Gallia Comata with six legions to the close of the year 39 B.C. These were impossible terms, and on February 2nd war was declared. Levies were set on foot by the consuls throughout Italy, and the results more than answered Cicero's expectations. "All are offering themselves spontaneously," he writes "such is the enthusiasm which has taken possession of men's minds from their yearning for liberty."
As money was urgently required for the equipment and payment of the troops, the usual festivals were abandoned to save expenditure. A property tax of four percent, was imposed, and the senators also contributed a special charge of three sesterces on every tile in their houses. Encouraged by the good news constantly arriving from the East, Cicero was in good heart, and delivered speech after speech to the senators and the people in order to fan the flame of resentment against Antonius. But the rival forces were slow in coming to handgrips. It was winter, and at the end of February the position was much the same as at the beginning of the month. Antonius had drawn off a considerable part of his army from Mutina and was holding Bononia in strength. Hirtius was at Claterna. Octavian at Forum Cornelii, while Pansa was still collecting and organizing the levies and did not leave Rome for the north until March 19th. Nor was it until the middle of April that the opposing armies came to close quarters and brought on the general action which Cicero and the Republicans at Rome were awaiting with feverish impatience.
The story of the brief campaign which effectually raised the Siege of Mutina, set Decimus Brutus free from his long confinement, and compelled Antonius to beat a hasty retreat, to all appearances totally discomfited, must be narrated in few words. Hirtius and Octavian, acting throughout in concert, had moved up to Bononia which was strongly held by Antonius' troops. After a series of unimportant skirmishes, Bononia seems to have been evacuated by the Antonians, and Antonius himself sought to crush the recruits of Pansa before they could effect a junction with the main republican army. Advancing, therefore, with two veteran legions eastward along the Aemilian Road, Antonius came into touch with Pansa at Forum Gallorum on April 15th, and after a stubborn engagement, in which Pansa himself received a mortal wound, succeeded in gaining a victory. But his triumph was short-lived. Hirtius had skillfully divined the strategy of Antonius and had sent a strong contingent to attack him on the flank, which arrived in time to turn the fortunes of the day and thrust back the army of Antonius upon Mutina. Meanwhile Octavian had repulsed an attack delivered upon his camp by Antonius' brother, Lucius, and the general issue of the day's fighting was completely favorable to the republican cause. A week later the republican generals made a combined assault upon the Antonian lines and stormed the camp. Whether Decimus Brutus contributed to the victory by sallying out of Mutina is doubtful. Probably his troops were too enfeebled by the long siege which they had undergone to be of much active assistance. The victory, however, was complete and, in the first flush of exultation at the defeat of Antonius, the Republicans scarcely realized the serious blow they had sustained in the death of the two consuls.
Hirtius had fallen in the hour of victory, and a few days later Pansa succumbed to the wound he had received at Forum Gallorum. Their vacant places simply acted as another incentive to the ambitions of the aspirants for power. But these considerations were overlooked in the joy of victory. No sooner did the news of Antonius' first defeat reach Rome than the citizens acclaimed Cicero as their savior and bore him triumphantly to the Capitol, and the orator, on the following day, delivered the "Fourteenth" and last of his Philippics before an applauding Senate. On the 25th, news came that Mutina had been relieved and that Antonius was in full flight, and twenty-four hours afterwards he and his supporters were declared public enemies. Everyone took it for granted that the success of the republican cause was assured. The Senate, on the motion of Cicero, heaped distinctions on the head of Decimus Brutus, decreed a thanksgiving of fifty days, and awarded him a triumph. Statues and a public funeral were voted to the dead consuls. The soldiers were to be paid the donatives which had been promised them, while Octavian's share of the honors was limited to an ovation. Nothing more clearly shows the universal conviction that the war was over and that there was nothing more to be feared from Antonius than the difference between the extravagant rewards voted to Decimus Brutus and the grudging acknowledgment paid to Octavian. The mistake cost the Senate dearly. Antonius, so far from being irretrievably ruined, was to give signal proof of his military genius by rescuing himself from a desperate position. The war, far from being over, had in reality only just begun, and the tables were turned with melodramatic suddenness.
It is important to emphasize this delusion of Cicero and the Senate, for on no other supposition can we explain the recklessness with which they prepared to fling aside the young general whose energy and whose legions had contributed so much to the defeat of Antonius' designs. They seem to have taken for granted that as both consuls of the year had fallen in battle, Octavian would be content to accept Decimus Brutus as the generalissimo of the republican forces. To what extent they really believed in Octavian's loyalty we cannot say. Cicero, indeed, had pledged his reputation that the young man was devoted, heart and soul, to the Republic. But when he made that pledge the ascendancy of Antonius was still unbroken, and the Senate had imperative need of Octavian's legions. They were obliged, therefore, to accept his protestations, just as they were obliged to accept the army which he placed at their service. Yet that they were jealous and suspicious of the boy, whom they had loaded with privileges in the day of imminent danger, became evident when the peril seemed to have passed away. By their vote they gave all the credit for the successful issue of the campaign to the general, who had done little or nothing towards earning the victory. This would have been rash and ill-timed if Antonius had been slain. It was nothing short of madness with Antonius still at liberty and in command even of a broken army.
The disastrous consequences of such mistaken policy speedily became apparent. Antonius soon gave renewed proof of the generalship which had earned for him the confidence of his old commander, Julius. Extricating his shattered army from his camp near Mutina, he marched south into Etruria, and then, turning sharply to the west, struck across to the sea. At Vada, near Genoa, he was joined by his trusted lieutenant, Ventidius, who, with three legions, had skillfully evaded the republican armies, and marched up unopposed from the south of Italy. Unhampered by any close pursuit, though in considerable straits for money and supplies, Antonius crossed the Maritime Alps and encamped at Forum Julii, the modern Fréjus, within touch of the camp of Lepidus. Whether Antonius might have been overtaken and crushed by the republican armies, if they had followed him up at once, is one of those unsolved military problems to which no answer can be given. But that the attempt ought to have been made is obvious. Who, then, was to blame for the neglect to push home the victory won at Mutina? The responsibility rests with Octavian. Antonius was deliberately spared from effective pursuit by Octavian, who was in no mood to accept orders from Decimus Brutus. The latter clearly saw what the necessities of the moment demanded, but his army, which for months had been besieged and cooped up within narrow lines, had not the mobility required for a hot pursuit. Decimus explained his enforced inaction in a letter to Cicero, written in the middle of May, which entirely acquits him of blame for allowing Antonius to escape from the net:
"I could not pursue Antonius at once for the following reasons: I had neither cavalry nor pack animals. I did not know that either Hirtius or Aquila had fallen. I could not feel confidence in Caesar, until I had met with him and talked with him. Thus the first day after the relief passed. The next morning I was summoned to Bononia to see Pansa. On the way I received information that he was dead. I hastened back to my feeble forces (ad meas copiolas) for I can give them no other name; they are terribly thinned and in a wretched plight for lack of necessaries. Antonius got two-days start of me and marched much further in his flight than I did in pursuit, for he went in disorder, I in regular formation."
Consequently Decimus and his legions merely followed in the track of Antonius and never got within striking distance. Then, when he found it was Antonius' intention to cross the Alps, Decimus rightly concluded that there must be a secret understanding between Antonius and Lepidus, and abandoning any further pretense of pursuit, he turned off to the north, crossed the Graian Alps, joined Plancus at Cularo, and waited.
It was Octavian who, with his comparatively fresh troops and with the legions of Hirtius and Pansa, now left leaderless, should have pursued Antonius, if he had been the loyal servant of the Senate he pretended to be. But Octavian remained inactive. He held aloof from Decimus, and though it is certain that some communications passed between them their precise nature is unknown. The extraordinary story narrated by Appian may certainly be dismissed as mythical. According to him, Decimus requested an interview, declaring that he repented the part he had taken in the assassination of Julius. To this Octavian is reported to have replied that he had come, not to rescue Decimus but to fight with Antonius; and that while he had no scruples about effecting a reconciliation with Antonius he would never look upon the face or listen to the words of Decimus. Thereupon Decimus read aloud the decree of the Senate investing him with the command of the Cisalpine, and forbade Octavian to cross the river or pursue Antonius, saying that he was strong enough to pursue him alone and unaided. The story is clearly a fabrication on the part of the Caesarian historian, devised to throw the blame of the escape of Antonius upon the shoulders of Decimus and to acquit Octavian of all responsibility. Nor have any modern historians accepted it as credible. Nevertheless, it corroborates what we know from other sources of the ill-will subsisting between the two commanders. "Caesar will take no orders from anyone, and his soldiers will take no orders from him," wrote Decimus to Cicero. "If he had acted on my advice and crossed the Apennines, I should have reduced Antonius to such straits that he would have perished of hunger and not by the sword." Obviously, therefore, it was Decimus who urged a vigorous pursuit and Octavian who held back and facilitated Antonius' escape.
Young as Octavian was, his was the coolest head of all those who were taking a leading part at this critical moment. He must have seen that Cicero and his Senate were using him as their cat's paw and accepted him as their champion only so long as it was Antonius from whom they had most to fear. Their principal anxiety had been to safeguard the position of the Conspirators. Hence the alacrity with which they had declared war against Dolabella for the murder of Trebonius, and hence the decree which gave Brutus and Cassius full power and control over all the provinces and armies between the Adriatic and the Orient. They had disclosed their hand thus clearly even before the short campaign around Mutina had opened. They showed their purpose still more unmistakably when news came of the successes won by the consuls. It was quite manifest which way the wind was blowing. Fully convinced as they were at the moment that Antonius was irreparably ruined, they made haste to give the cold shoulder to Octavian and cumulate all the honors they had in their power to bestow upon Decimus Brutus, who was one of themselves and was committed, hand and foot, to the oligarchical cause. But if it was the policy of the Senate to crush Antonius by means of Octavian and then sharply assert their own authority over Octavian, it was the policy of the latter to see that he was not shelved. While the power of Antonius was unbroken, it was obviously to his interest to side with the Senate and side with them he did. But it was not to his interest to crush Antonius beyond hope of recovery. Both were throwing for the same stake — personal domination. The Senate, the republican chiefs, and the Conspirators above all, were their common enemy, and until these were destroyed neither had any chance of ultimate victory. We can hardly suppose that at this early stage Octavian foresaw how things would turn out, but we may fairly assume that he read the intention of the Senate to ignore as far as possible his claims to reward. From that moment, Octavian broke with the Senate and began to intrigue for an understanding with Antonius.
The latter, reinforced by Ventidius and his three legions, was now encamped at Forum Julii. Twenty-four miles away, at Forum Voconii, lay Lepidus, who, as soon as he heard of Antonius' approach, moved closer. Lepidus, at this time, was trusted by very few. His reputation was bad, and his conduct since the murder of Julius had not been such as to inspire confidence. There can be little doubt that if he had declared himself openly on the side of the Senate he would have carried with him both Asinius Pollio and Munatius Plancus. But so long as he temporized they temporized also, and with seven legions — including the famous Tenth — under his command he was able to prevent Pollio and Plancus from moving. Moreover, even in March, if Pollio is to be believed, Lepidus was making speeches and writing to tell everybody that he was one with Antonius. He intercepted the couriers whom Pollio sent to Rome, and it became more and more evident that he would finally range himself on the side of his old friend, especially when letters arrived at Rome from him advocating peace. Decimus Brutus had seen the danger and had written an agitated note to Cicero begging him to make a last effort to keep that "weather-cock Lepidus" straight, though for his own part he was firmly convinced that he meditated treachery. Decimus was right. Instead of attacking Antonius, Lepidus allowed his soldiers to mingle with the legionaries of the Ex-Consul and, after a show of compulsion, received him into his camp and joined forces with the man who had been declared a public enemy. Disgusted with the treason of his chief, Laterensis, the chief lieutenant of Lepidus, slew himself before the soldiers, but they fraternized with the Antonians, and at the end of May Antonius was again master of a powerful army. Lepidus surrendered to him the real command of the combined legions, and thus, instead of being a fugitive, Antonius was once more a formidable competitor for power.
The defection of Lepidus was the ruin of the senatorial cause in the western provinces. His treachery was contagious, and the two other governors of the Gallic and Spanish provinces wavered. Of these, the stronger was Lucius Munatius Plancus. Judging from his subsequent career, a career so full of treachery that Velleius in a scathing phrase declares that he had "an itch for treason" — morbo proditor — and was constitutionally incapable of remaining loyal, we may safely infer that his repeated protestations to his friend Cicero had been insincere, and that he was only waiting to see which side would win. Yet for a time he had a strong personal motive to keep him honest to the Senate, inasmuch as Antonius was seeking to obtain Plancus' province of Gallia Comata for himself. This naturally threw Plancus into the arms of the Senate, and determined him to do his best to keep Lepidus loyal. Thus he was in correspondence with Lepidus at the beginning of April, when he proposed to march to the support of Decimus at Mutina. But he started late. The Battle of Mutina had already been fought when he crossed the Rhone, and the news reached him while he was still in the country of the Allobroges. At once he wrote to Rome pressing for reinforcements, and received a reply from Cicero imploring him to act boldly, not to wait for instructions, but to do what seemed best for the cause. "Be your own Senate," wrote Cicero, while still under the impression that Antonius was a ruined man, "and complete his destruction." Plancus crossed the Isara on May 12th and moved towards Lepidus, intending to join him if he remained loyal. He had marched south for two days, when Lepidus sent word to him to come no nearer, for he was strong enough to finish the business alone. Thereupon Plancus retired to the Isara, but on the 18th he again marched south, still negotiating. On the 29th Lepidus and Antonius joined camps, and Plancus hurriedly retraced his steps to Cularo, on the Isara, where he was joined by Decimus Brutus about the middle of June.
Octavian, meanwhile, was biding his time. His army had not moved since the Battle of Mutina. He had declined to place his troops at the disposition of Decimus Brutus. He now declined to take orders from the Senate. Instead of acting as a general under the direction of the Executive, he took up the role of a general with whom the Executive must treat. Thus, while Decimus was marching first on the track of Antonius and afterwards, when Lepidus and Antonius had joined hands, was effecting a junction with Plancus, Octavian remained where he was, determined not to lose the advantage he possessed of being nearest to Rome. Cicero, indeed, had recognized as early as April that there was the stuff in the boy of which statesmen are made, real character, will, and insight, and that it might be a difficult matter for the Senate to keep a tight rein over him in the flush of honors and popularity. Yet on the whole he had had little doubt of his ability to manage him. But when Mutina had been relieved and Octavian refused to acknowledge Decimus as his commander-in-chief, Cicero and the Senate began to show impatience at these proofs of Octavian's independent spirit, and Cicero, in a fit of petulance, declared that the policy of the Senate towards the young man would be that of "kicking him upstairs." They would give him honors and decorations and then quietly shelve him. The bon mot cost Cicero dearly. Someone carried it to Octavian's ears, and Cicero had reason to repent his jingling play upon words — laudandum adolescentem, ornandum, tollendum — as the days passed by, and the truth of the situation in the North became known. The plight of the Constitutionalists grew graver as each courier came in. But the Roman oligarchs never learned. Their appointment of a commission of ten to distribute lands among the soldiers, and their refusal to give Octavian a seat on the board was a piece of gratuitous folly and party spite. It angered the soldiers on whose loyalty their very lives depended, and was a plain intimation to Octavian that they meant at the very first opportunity to clip his wings. At the end of May, Cicero's illusions were shattered. His serene confidence was gone. "I am utterly paralyzed," he writes to Brutus: "the Senate, which was my instrument, is broken in my hands." The treasury was empty. None of the generals, nominally under senatorial control, could or would move a step. Their troops demanded the pay which was not forthcoming, and the emissaries of Antonius and Lepidus were busy tempting them from their allegiance. In despair, Cicero wrote to Brutus and Cassius, urging them to come over at once with their armies and save the situation, but they did not even reply. The Senate still showed a bold front and declared Lepidus a public enemy, but decrees were valueless when what was wanted was money and legions. Throughout the whole of July nothing was done. Cicero seems to have hoped that Decimus and Plancus would march to attack Antonius and Lepidus without delay, and that Octavian would again set his army in motion. But Plancus had no such expectation. In a striking letter written from his camp in Gaul on July 28th, he cast the whole blame for the desperate straits to which the Senate had been reduced upon Octavian. He said that he had never ceased importuning Octavian to march up and join him, and that Octavian had uniformly replied that he was coming without delay. And so, while professing every regard for Octavian, he felt bound to declare, more in sorrow than in anger, that they had to thank the boy for all their troubles. "That Antonius is alive today, that Lepidus has joined him, that they have an army which commands respect, and that they are full of hopes and daring — all this is due to Octavian." At last the Senate ordered Pollio in Further Spain to march towards Italy, Cornificius to embark two of his African legions, and Octavian to go to the support of Decimus and Plancus. Octavian's answer was decisive. He sent four hundred of his soldiers and centurions to Rome to demand their promised rewards.
It is difficult to understand why, in a crisis of such gravity, the Senate allowed the consulship to remain vacant for so many months after the deaths of Hirtius and Pansa. One would have expected that the first object of so sincere and devoted a constitutionalist as Cicero would be to proceed to the election of two safe men upon whose loyalty the Senate might implicitly depend. There were, of course, technical difficulties in the way. No one but a consul or a dictator could hold the consular comitia, and, while the two consuls were dead, the office of dictator had been formally abolished during the previous year. Nor could an interrex be appointed for electing consuls until the auspicia became vested in the whole body of patricians, and this again was impossible as long as the auspicia were held by any patrician magistrates. Many of these magistrates were absent from Rome, and their voluntary resignations could not be obtained. There was thus a deadlock of the sort which seems insurmountable to the rigid constitutionalist, but which a strong leader, supported by a strong party, would have resolutely brushed aside. Eventually the problem was solved by the appointment of two privati with consular powers to hold the consular comitia, a step which should have been taken much earlier, when it was still possible for the Senate to exercise a free choice. Yet the technical difficulties were not the only ones. Even more potent were the jealousies and ambitions to which the two vacant offices gave rise. Octavian lost not a moment in urging his claims, and his friends at Rome began a vigorous canvas on his behalf. But Cicero opposed them stoutly, and, as he says, exposed in the Senate "the source of their most criminal designs." The later historians, Appian, Cassius Dio, and Plutarch, agree in saying that Octavian approached Cicero with the proposal that they two should be the new consuls. There is no trace of this in Cicero's own letters, but it is unwise to dismiss the story as a mere fabrication. Such a proposal might well have emanated from Octavian, desirous as he was of obtaining a definite constitutional position in the State, and knowing, too, that Cicero himself would like to be elected to a second consulship. We are told that Cicero advised the Senate to make a friend of Octavian, because he had an army, and to give him as colleague a judicious, elderly statesman; and Appian goes on to say that the Senate laughed outright at the suggestion, because they knew Cicero's hankering after office, and that when he spoke of "a judicious elderly statesman" he meant none other than himself.
Whether any such speech was made or not, it is certain that Octavian had few followers in the Senate, which was essentially anti-Caesarian, and Pompeian both in sympathy and policy. Cicero, who never quite abandoned the hope that he might still play the part of Nestor to Octavian's Telemachus, might be deluded for a moment into entertaining the specious proposal for a joint consulship, but Cicero's party were to a man against Octavian, and Cicero himself speedily came out in strong opposition to him. Nevertheless, the boy general, whose veteran army lay nearest to Rome, would not be ignored, and it would seem that the Senate sought to compromise matters with him by offering him the praetorship, and appointing him as colleague of Decimus in the war against Antonius. But, as usual, they misjudged the man with whom they had to deal. Octavian was now acting in league with Antonius, and had no intention of marching to attack him. His policy was to pick a quarrel with the Senate, and the opportunity lay ready to his hand. Addressing his legions, he denounced the Senate for the indignities it had heaped upon him by refusing him the triumph and the consulship which he had earned by his services, and by requiring his army to enter upon a second campaign before being paid for the first. He advised them to send their centurions to Rome and press for payment. The centurions went, and received the answer that the Senate would send its own delegates. But these delegates were instructed to address themselves, in the absence of Octavian, to the two legions which had deserted from Antonius, and they endeavored to persuade the troops to rest their hopes not on their general, but upon the Senate, and to betake themselves to the camp of Decimus on the Isara, where they would receive their promised donative. The intrigue was clumsily conceived. The legions refused to hear the delegates except in the presence of their commander, and Octavian again harangued his army in an impassioned speech, in which he declared that his safety and theirs alike depended upon his obtaining the vacant consulship. Once more, therefore, the centurions set out for Rome, to demand this time the consulship for their general. Nor were these blunt soldiers of the camp overawed by their surroundings as they were ushered into the Senate House. When they were told that Octavian was too young for the dignity of the chief magistracy, they replied that the State had profited in days gone by from the consulships of the youthful Scipios, and one of them, bolder than the rest, did not hesitate to throw back his military cloak, and, pointing to his sword, exclaimed: "This shall make him consul, if you refuse." Scarcely less significant than this open threat was the demand that the decree declaring Antonius a public enemy should be repealed, an unmistakable proof that Antonius and Octavian were now acting in unison. But the Senate still refused compliance, and the centurions returned to camp. As soon as the army learned that the embassy had proved a failure they clamored to be led against the city, and Octavian, nothing loth, struck camp and crossed the Rubicon in the early days of August.
With eight legions under his command, and their full complement of cavalry and auxiliaries, Octavian had little reason to be apprehensive of failure. Between him and Rome there was not a single veteran legion to contest his passage. The road was open — he had but to march straight in. The only troops the Senate still had at its disposal were a legion of recruits which Pansa had raised and left behind him when he marched towards Mutina with the rest of the Italian levies. Consequently, as soon as news came that Octavian was advancing towards Rome, the whole city was panic-stricken, and the Senate hastened with ignominious celerity to pass resolutions granting Octavian all he asked for, and promising his soldiers a donative of 5,000 instead of 2,500 drachmae. Messengers were hurriedly dispatched to the general to inform him of these decisions, but no sooner had they started than the senators repented their craven conduct and rescinded the decrees they had just passed. Two legions had arrived at Ostia from Africa, and their timely appearance infused a momentary gleam of hope into the timid Constitutionalists. They remembered with shame the glorious traditions of the past, and determined either to save their liberty or die for it. All who were of military age were called to arms, and the city was placed in a posture of defense. News of this sudden change of front reached Octavian just as he was giving audience to the Senate's delegates, who were promising him full submission. They withdrew at once in confusion and Octavian immediately pressed forward. He seized without resistance a position just beyond the Quirinal Hill, and, as he held his troops well in check, the population poured forth and welcomed his approach. The next day he entered Rome with a strong guard. The three republican legions, in spite of their generals, transferred themselves to his side, and the farcical opposition of the Senate was at an end. Cicero himself sought and obtained an interview with the victor and urged a strong claim to indulgence. Octavian received him with the bitter sarcasm that he was the last of his friends to come and see him. Yet the very next night, when an idle rumor got abroad that the Fourth and Martian legions had deserted from Octavian to the Senate, Cicero greedily accepted it and the senators hastily assembled in the Curia. They had scarcely met when the canard was exposed, and the meeting silently melted away.