"The boy" was in possession of Rome and, on August 19th, he was elected consul, receiving as his colleague his kinsman, Quintus Pedius. Octavian acted at this critical moment with rare judgment and coolness. The comitia were held in due form, and the candidate made a parade of self-denial by abstaining even from entering the Forum. Cicero and those who had acted with him silently disappeared from the scene, apprehensive of danger, but as yet unmolested. The remnant of the Senate hastened to comply with the young consul's wishes. They rescinded the decrees against Dolabella, against Antonius, and against Lepidus. They passed a resolution for the condemnation of Caesar's murderers, who were formally interdicted from fire and water. And then, when he had paid his soldiers 2,500 drachmae a head from the State treasures on the Janiculum, and the curies had once more ratified his legal adoption by Julius, Octavian was ready to quit the city and march north with his army to intercept the retreat of Decimus Brutus and complete his understanding with Antonius and Lepidus.
The constitutionalist party in Rome had fallen with a crash. Brutus and Cassius, with a cynical disregard for the fate of their staunchest champion, had not sent so much as a single cohort to help him during these months of stress. Cicero, indeed, had seen all his props snap and break one by one. The governors of the western provinces had gone over to the enemy. Pollio, marching from Spain with three legions, had got no farther than the headquarters of Lepidus and Antonius. He could not pass them. He therefore joined them, and it was through Pollio's influence and mediation that Plancus became reconciled with Antonius, and transferred himself and his army to the enemies of the Senate. Decimus Brutus alone remained faithful. For him, there was no room in the Antonian camp. With him, there could be no accommodation. Deserted by Plancus, he decided to risk the desperate hazards of a long march across the Alps, and then make his way through Aquileia and lllyricum to the side of his brother Marcus in Macedonia. His ten legions, mostly composed of recruits, refused to follow him. One by one they deserted his standard and joined either Octavian or Antonius, until Decimus was left with no more than three hundred horsemen, who finally dwindled down to ten. Disguising himself as a Celt, he and his little band at length fell into the hands of a brigand chief, named Camillus, who sent word to Antonius of the prize he had taken, and was at once bidden to forward the head of his captive. Such was the miserable end of Decimus, one of the few able soldiers who supported the sinking cause of the Republic. By his death and by the loss of his legions, the Constitutionalists were left without a single general or a single army west of the Adriatic. They now waited with shivering apprehension to learn the fate their conquerors would impose.
Nor had they to wait long. Antonius and Lepidus, marching south with their troops, met Octavian in the neighborhood of Bononia. A conference was arranged to take place on a little island of the river Rhenus, which was approached by a bridge from either bank of the stream. It was agreed that each of the generals should be escorted by five legions to within a certain distance of the river. That each should advance with a bodyguard of three hundred horsemen to the head of the bridge, and that the three chiefs should then cross unarmed to the islet in the middle. Such were the careful precautions taken against treachery by those who were about to divide amongst themselves the dominion and the spoils of the Roman Republic. For three days the conference lasted, and it was then announced to the expectant armies that their leaders had formed themselves into a Triumvirate for the reconstitution of the State. They were to be appointed for five years with full powers to select the occupants of the yearly magistracies. Octavian was to resign the consulship in favor of Ventidius for the remainder of the year, and the provinces were to be divided into three spheres of influence — to borrow a term from modern diplomacy — in which each should be supreme and secure from the meddling of his colleagues. The Gallic provinces were to fall to Antonius, with the exception of Gallia Narbonensis, which, together with the two Spains, was allotted to Lepidus. Octavian, on the other hand, was to rule over Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. Italy was to remain neutral ground, but Lepidus, with Plancus for colleague, was to be consul for the ensuing year, and, in consideration of the advantages which this office would give him, was to retain only three legions, and divide his remaining seven among his colleagues for the prosecution of the war against Brutus and Cassius. Three were to join the standard of Octavian, and four were to transfer themselves to Antonius, thus raising the armies of both to twenty legions each. The soldiers were to be rewarded for their past services by a liberal grant of money and lands, and, as ready cash was hard to find, the Triumvirs did not scruple to apportion among their troops eighteen of the most flourishing towns in the south, as well as others in the north, of Italy, which were thus treated as though they had been the spoils of foreign war.
Then swiftly and remorselessly fell the blow for which the Constitutionalists had been waiting. During their deliberations upon the islet of the Rhenus, the Triumvirs had decreed not only the subversion of the Republic but the ruin of their private enemies. They had determined to kill off their principal antagonists and to safeguard their position by a massacre. The precedents which Marius and Sulla had established were to be followed once again. At first, only seventeen names appeared in the fatal list. But the city was already in a state of wild panic, for the Triumvirs had dispatched their executioners in advance, so that they might strike down their victims without warning. Rome was suddenly startled one night to learn that four senators had been slain in the streets and that their murderers were hunting for others. Appian describes how, as the news spread, every man thought that he was the person for whom the pursuers were searching, and how, in order to stay the frenzied alarm, Pedius, the consul, hurried round with heralds to the houses of the leading citizens and implored them to wait until daylight, when he hoped to obtain more accurate information as to the purpose of the Triumvirs. Then, on the morrow, he published the list of seventeen names and pledged the public faith that these were all. Stricken with sudden illness, Pedius died the following night, and was spared the knowledge that he had pledged his word to a falsehood. But his assurance had calmed the city, and so, when the Triumvirs entered Rome soon after, on three separate days, each with a praetorian cohort and one legion, the Republicans thought that the blood of the unfortunate seventeen would suffice to slake their new masters' thirst for vengeance. But no sooner had the people passed a law ratifying the appointment of the Triumvirate than a second proscription list, containing a hundred and thirty names was published, followed shortly afterwards by a third, containing a hundred and fifty more. Nor was that all. New names were constantly added, and for weeks Rome and Italy lived in a state of hideous terror, while the bloody work was being carried on and the soldiers were hunting down their victims to destruction.
Appian has fortunately preserved for us what purports to be the text of the manifesto issued by the Triumvirs, in which they sought to justify their policy of murder. They went straight to the point. Caesar, they said, had been assassinated by the men whom he had pardoned and admitted to his friendship. For their part, they preferred to forestall their enemies rather than suffer at their hands. Those whom they now proscribed had lavished honors upon Caesar's assassins, and had declared Lepidus and Antonius public enemies. They had clearly shown what course they would have taken had they proved victorious. Was it reasonable, therefore, to expect that the Triumvirs would allow them to take advantage of their absence and plot their ruin while they were grappling with Brutus and Cassius? So ran their argument. In a word, they justified themselves by the cruel necessities of the situation. We should at least ask what the policy of the victims would have been if they had had it in their own power to slay or spare those who now condemned them to die. What would Cicero have counseled if Antonius had lain at his mercy? There can be no hesitation as to the answer. He would have taken his enemy's life with as little compunction as he had taken the lives of Lentulus and Cethegus during the Catilinarian conspiracy. Cicero, though one of the gentlest and most humane spirits of antiquity, gloried in the assassination of Julius Caesar. The memory of the Ides of March had been his chief consolation during the last two years of his life, tempered only by the regret that, when the Conspirators slew the master, they spared the man. "How I wish you had invited me to that banquet of yours on the Ides," he had written to Trebonius, "there would have been no leavings." If these were the real sentiments of Cicero — and the constant repetition of the thought in his letters leaves no room for doubt — what had Cicero to expect from Antonius but death. "I don't approve your clemency," Cicero had written to Brutus in Macedonia, "I am convinced that as a policy it is wrong, and that, if it be adopted, there will never be any hope of ending the civil wars." What is this, again, but a naked justification of proscription, a definite advocacy of the principle of killing off your foes when they fall into your power? We cannot believe that Cicero would have approved a general proscription and reign of terror. His humanity would have revolted at the sight of indiscriminate slaughter. But his party would have had no such scruples. If Pompeius had defeated Julius Caesar, there would have been another Sullan massacre. The Optimates had gloried in the prospect of exterminating their enemies. Julius, on the other hand, tried clemency and lost his life by the rash experiment. And it is idle to deny that the Pompeians, who followed Cicero's lead, were prepared to take the same vengeance upon Antonius and Lepidus, which these in their hour of triumph now took upon them. "Vae victis" had been the cry with which the combatants on both sides had taken up arms.
Moreover, the Triumvirs had still the eastern half of the Republic to conquer, where Brutus and Cassius were in arms with a formidable army. If, then, they had spared their enemies, with what confidence could they have marched to the East, leaving Cicero behind to inflame the multitude against them and to persuade the Senate once more to declare them public enemies, should the fortune of war incline even momentarily to the side of the Republicans? While Cicero lived, the Triumvirs could not feel secure, and though, doubtless, Antonius claimed him as his special victim, we can scarcely hesitate to believe that both Octavian and Lepidus willingly acquiesced in placing his name first on the list of the proscribed. The patriot statesman — and with all his faults — was the common enemy of the enemies of the Republic. But if Cicero was marked down for destruction, not so much to gratify the private animosity of Antonius as because, even in the hour of his failure, he threatened danger to the Triumvirate, there were crowds of more obscure victims, for whose appearance on the proscription lists reasons of state could offer no pretext. The Triumvirs had drawn up the lists of the doomed in cold blood. Each had his own special enemies, and in many cases the enemy of the one was the friend of the other two. It came, therefore, to be a barter of one's friends and even of one's relatives. Antonius sacrificed an uncle to the resentment of his colleagues. Lepidus and Plancus each wrote the death warrant of a brother. Then when reasons of state and private hatred had been satisfied, another and perhaps even more powerful motive came into play. The most pressing need of the Triumvirs was money. The public treasury was empty. Not a drachma of revenue was coming in from the East, and vast sums were required in view of the military operations for which the Triumvirs were preparing. Confiscation seemed to afford the simplest and readiest method of obtaining the necessary supplies, and the Triumvirs did not hesitate to place upon the proscription list the names of rich men whose sole crime was that they were rich while the new masters of the State were poor. The property of the victims was confiscated and sold for what it would fetch to the highest bidders, and then, having started the work of murder, the Triumvirs found that they could not control it. Numbers of men, whose names were never on the fatal list at all, were wantonly murdered by their private enemies, and the lurid pages of Appian show how from end to end of the Italian peninsula the hateful massacre went on.
The odium and guilt of the proscription must rest upon the Triumvirs equally. Suetonius, indeed, tells us that Octavian at the outset opposed the suggestion, but that when the bloody work had once begun he prosecuted it with greater zest than either of his colleagues. While they, in certain cases, showed themselves amenable to influence or entreaty, he alone stood out resolutely for sparing none. Moreover, a story was current that when at length the lists were closed, and Lepidus, speaking in the Senate, held out hopes of a milder administration in the future, Octavian spoke in quite a different strain, and declared that, so far as he was concerned, he had determined to reserve to himself an absolutely free hand. Against this, we have to set the statement of Velleius Paterculus that Octavian was driven to consent to the proscription by the insistence of his colleagues. But as Velleius throws the entire blame upon Antonius, whom he paints in the blackest colors, his testimony must be taken with reserve. The probabilities are that Octavian required very little persuasion to fall in with the views of his older associates. There was little of the generous enthusiasm of youth in his disposition. He could see, as well as they, the advantage to be reaped by the removal of their most dangerous antagonists, and, though he may have regretted the harsh fate which was to fall upon Cicero, for whom he entertained a strong personal regard, he made no effort to save him. Cicero stood in his path. Cicero had not scrupled to throw him aside as soon as he thought he and his party could do without him. In after years Augustus, the Emperor, might remember with emotion "the great man and lover of his country," whose death sentence he had signed, but Octavian, the Triumvir of twenty, was pitiless. He could not afford to be generous until he was supreme.
The Triumvirs had thus consolidated their position by the murder of their leading opponents, and replenished their treasury by the plunder of the confiscated estates. At the earnest entreaty of the troops, whose Caesarian sympathies made them impatient of the rivalry between Antonius and Octavian, the new alliance was cemented by the marriage of Octavian to a stepdaughter of Antonius — the daughter of his wife Fulvia by her first husband, Clodius the tribune. Lepidus and Plancus entered upon their consulships and celebrated the unearned triumphs voted to them by the obsequious Senate, while active preparations were set on foot for prosecuting the war in the regions which still held out for the Republic. In Africa, where Cornificius refused to acknowledge the authority of Sextius, who was sent by Octavian to take over the province as his nominee, the issue was speedily decided, for, after a sharp campaign, Cornificius was slain in battle. But a more formidable antagonist appeared in Sextus Pompeius, who, with a well-equipped fleet, had eagerly accepted the offer made to him by the Senate in its days of despair, that he should become commander of the naval forces of the Republic. Quitting Spain, where for years he had maintained a foothold against the lieutenants whom Caesar had sent against him, Sextus swooped down upon Sicily, besieged the governor, and forced him to surrender, and thus, gaining possession of the whole island, showed bold defiance to the Triumvirs. As Sicily had fallen to Octavian's portion in the division of the provinces, he collected a fleet, which he placed under the command of Salvidienus, and himself marched down to Rhegium with an army to cooperate with his lieutenant. A naval engagement followed, in which the advantage lay with Sextus Pompeius, but then, in answer to a pressing summons from Antonius, Octavian was obliged to abandon for the time being the conquest of the island and make what haste he could to Brundisium, where his colleague lay waiting to transport his troops across the Adriatic into Macedonia. The campaign which was to end on the battlefield of Philippi in the utter ruin of the Republicans had now begun.
It is difficult to understand the strategy adopted by Brutus and Cassius with regard to the disposition of their forces at so critical a time. Cassius held the East and was preparing an expedition against Egypt, whose queen, Cleopatra, was in league with the Triumvirs. Brutus then summoned him to a conference at Smyrna, whither he had withdrawn his army from Macedonia, and there they held their council of war. According to Appian, Brutus was alarmed at the intelligence that Norbanus and Decidius Saxa, two of Antonius' lieutenants, had already crossed the Adriatic with eight legions, and urged that they should unite their forces at once and march towards Macedonia, in order to check the forward movement of the Triumvirs. Cassius, on the other hand, insisted that the armies of the Triumvirs might safely be ignored for the present and that their first concern should be to crush the Rhodians and the Lycians, who were friendly to Antonius and were possessed of squadrons which might otherwise harass their rear. The Egyptian fleet also required to be watched, and, in the meantime, he counted upon the difficulty which the Triumvirs would experience in obtaining the necessary supplies for their armies to cripple their activity. The counsel of Cassius prevailed, and while that general, with characteristic energy, captured Rhodes and levied a tribute of 8,500 talents from the inhabitants, Brutus subdued the Lycians, took Zanthus and Patara, and exacted from the towns of Asia Minor ten years tribute in advance. Then their admiral, Murcus, who had been stationed off the Peloponnese to intercept the fleet which Cleopatra had fitted out, learned that a storm had shattered it off the Libyan coast and that the Queen herself had returned to Egypt. He was thus free to operate in the Adriatic and moved at once to blockade Antonius in the port of Brundisium, and prevent the transportation of his army. It was then that Antonius summoned Octavian to his assistance from his unsuccessful campaign against Sextus, and the question of the moment was whether Murcus could establish an effective blockade. He failed to do so. Favored by fortune and their own daring, the Triumvirs succeeded in eluding the blockading fleet, though this had been reinforced by a squadron of fifty ships under Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Murcus had now at his command no fewer than 130 ships of war and an even greater number of smaller vessels. The transports crossed and recrossed without mishap, and though the passage continued to be hazardous and the presence of Murcus was a constant source of peril, the whole army of the Triumvirs was successfully transported. The naval supremacy of the Republicans which, according to the accepted theory of today, ought to have kept Antonius and Octavian prisoners and helpless in the port of Brundisium, proved impotent to prevent the crossing, and Murcus and Ahenobarbus did not succeed in getting a blow home until the very day when the fortunes of their cause were ruined at Philippi. Then they intercepted a few triremes which were convoying across a long string of transports, containing two legions, a praetorian cohort, and four squadrons of horse, and destroyed the whole flotilla.
The Triumvirs thus enjoyed more than their reasonable share of good luck. They were favored, too, in another particular. Brutus apparently had withdrawn all his legions from Macedonia and had not left a single garrison to dispute the advance of the enemy. The eight legions under Norbanus and Saxa had pushed on, without encountering any opposition, right through Macedonia, and had entered Thrace before Brutus and Cassius moved up the coast of Asia Minor, crossed the Hellespont and reviewed their army at Cardia on the gulf of Melas. They then found that Norbanus and Saxa had seized the two difficult passes of the Sapaeans and Corpileans, through which ran the only available road. By the aid of the fleet they were able to outflank the enemy, who were obliged to vacate the first of the two passes, and a friendly Thracian chief disclosed to them a circuitous and waterless track along the side of the Sapaean mountain, whereby they could again turn their opponents' position. Norbanus, finding his line of retreat threatened, retired in the night towards Amphipolis, and the republican generals advanced to Philippi, where they chose an advantageous site for a camp and were joined by the troops who had followed round the coastline on shipboard. There they awaited the approach of Antonius and Octavian, and looked forward with confidence to a battle on ground of their own choosing.
Yet it is beyond dispute that the republican chiefs had committed a blunder of the very first magnitude in leaving Amphipolis undefended and making a present to their enemies of the town which commanded the passage of the river Strymon and the entrance into Thrace from Macedonia. Amphipolis was the key of Thrace, and so accomplished a Hellenist as Brutus must have been well aware of the struggles which had taken place for its possession in ancient times, first during the Peloponnesian War, and later in the struggle between Philip of Macedon and Athens. The Republicans, as masters of the sea, could have held it without difficulty, even with a small garrison, while their main army had been withdrawn to Asia Minor, but, with almost inconceivable fatuity, they allowed it to fall into the hands of Antonius. The latter had given Norbanus orders to hurry on and seize it while Brutus was still on the other side of the Hellespont, and he was naturally delighted to find on his arrival that his lieutenant had fortified it and made it secure against attack. Antonius, therefore, leaving a single legion to hold the place, moved on with his main army and encamped within sight of the entrenchments of Brutus and Cassius. Octavian, owing to illness, had been obliged to remain behind for a time at Epidamnus, but when he heard that the two armies were in touch he insisted on being carried forward in a litter, and brought up his legions to join his colleague.
Brutus and Cassius had chosen their ground well. The high road ran through a narrow plain, flanked on either side by a range of hills on which they had pitched their camp. Across the intervening space they built a connecting chain of fortifications. Nearby ran the river Gangites, and at their back lay the sea, only eight stades distant, from which they drew their supplies. Brutus' exposed flank was protected by high cliffs. Cassius' flank rested upon a marsh which ran down to the sea. The advantage of position lay entirely with them. Time, also, was on their side. They had abundance of supplies. Their line of communications was absolutely safe. They were in Wellington's favorite position — holding high ground, with their ships as a base. The Triumvirs, on the other hand, were in a far more dangerous plight. Amphipolis was two hundred and fifty stades away, and they had to subsist on the countries in their rear. They could draw nothing from Spain or Africa, which were closed by the squadrons of Sextus. The Adriatic was blockaded by Murcus and Domitius, and Thessaly and Macedonia were already exhausted by the strain which had been imposed upon them. Cassius, especially, who knew far better than his colleague the difficulties of maintaining a large army in the field, strongly counseled delay. Antonius did his best to force an issue. The very boldness with which he had advanced right up to the republican encampments — a boldness which astonished his opponents — bore witness to the urgency of his situation. And so he endeavored to cut a passage through the marsh and penetrate to the rear of Cassius' camp. The maneuver was discovered and thwarted by Cassius, and Antonius then led his troops to the assault of Cassius' main position, and brought on a general engagement.
Our accounts of the first Battle of Philippi are confused and contradictory. According to Plutarch, the Republicans had held a council of war on the previous night and had decided to fight on Brutus' recommendation, though Cassius still counseled inactivity. Appian's story is that the battle began with the charge of the Antonians, and that the soldiers of Brutus, watching the enemy moving to the assault, rushed impetuously down upon the camp of Octavian. The legions of Octavian broke and fled. His camp was captured and pillaged, and the Triumvir himself, still prostrate from his illness, only just managed to escape from his litter in time. Rushing up, the soldiers pierced it in triumph with their swords, and the rumor spread that Octavian himself had been slain. But while Brutus was carrying all before him, Cassius, on the other wing, was suffering an equally decisive defeat. The Antonians stormed his camp, and Cassius took refuge in flight. Retiring to the top of an eminence from which he hoped to view the battleground, he noticed a number of horsemen approaching and sent his companion, Titinius, to reconnoiter and see if they were friends. As Titinius approached they opened their ranks to let him pass among them, and one of their number embraced him. Cassius, noticing the act and rashly leaping to the conclusion that his friend was slain, upbraided himself with having lived too long and begged his freedman, Pindarus, to inflict the fatal blow. Pindarus was never seen again, but the corpse of Cassius was found with the head severed from the body. Thus, in a moment of reckless folly, the ablest of the two republican generals consented to his own death, and died not knowing that his colleague had gained an entire success. "The last of the Romans," as Brutus called him when bewailing his loss, by this unsoldierly act contributed more to the ruin of his cause and the discouragement of his soldiers than did the defeat which he had that day sustained. The next morning Antonius again drew out his men in battle array, as though eager to resume the contest, but when Brutus followed his example and offered to accept the challenge Antonius withdrew his men into their quarters.
Twenty days elapsed before the combat was renewed. In the meantime, news had been brought to the Triumvirs of the disaster which had overtaken their fleet and transports in the Adriatic, and they grew doubly anxious about the insufficiency of their supplies. Daily, therefore, they led out their troops to offer battle to the enemy, but Brutus remained quiet in his unassailable position, reorganizing and encouraging the shattered legions of Cassius and promising them the spoil of the Greek cities as an incentive to steadfastness and loyalty. Officers and men chafed at such prolonged inaction. The senators in his camp thrust their ignorant advice upon him as they had done upon Pompeius before Pharsalus. They taunted him with cowardice, encouraged the troops to murmur against his leadership, and, in the end, prevailed upon him, in defiance of his better judgement, to stake his all upon the issue of a second battle. Appian, indeed, suggests that Brutus distrusted the loyalty of such of his legions as had fought under Caesar and feared lest they should make common cause with the veteran troops of Antonius and Octavian. The determination with which they faced the enemy acquits them of this reproach. In all Roman history, there was no more stubbornly contested fight. Both armies advanced slowly but resolutely. The usual preliminary tactics, the exchange of clouds of arrows, stones, and javelins, were dispensed with. This was a battle of the legionaries alone. The front lines of the opposing armies met and fought out their quarrel in single combat. When they fell, others took their place. At length, the Octavians gradually pressed back those in front of them as if, in the picturesque words of Appian, they were putting in motion a heavy machine. The Republicans retired at first slowly, then in confusion, and finally they broke and ran. Part escaped to the fortified camp. Others sought safety in flight and were cut down by the Antonians, whose general "was everywhere, and everywhere attacking." When night fell, Brutus was cut off from his camp and retired to the summit of a neighboring hill with the remnant of four legions. The next day he would have made a desperate effort to cut his way through, but the spirit of his followers was broken. The officers, who had egged him on to fight, now sullenly told him to shift for himself. They had tempted fortune often enough and would not throw away their last chance of coming to terms with their victor. To a Roman there was but one course left open, and Brutus died on the sword of his friend, Strato. His army no sooner learned that their leader was dead than they sent envoys to the Triumvirs to sue for the pardon which was promptly promised them, and the legions, to the number of 14,000 men, were transferred to the standards of Antonius and Octavian.
The carnage in the two battles of Philippi had been heavy. Brutus, Cassius, and a host of others, bearing the proudest names of the senatorial families, perished, and with them fell the Roman Republic. It is not necessary in this place to attempt to weigh their characters and their actions in the balance. But it may be pointed out how strangely even their memories have experienced the vicissitudes of fortune. For centuries after their death, they were hailed as the champions of liberty, as the vindicators of the old Roman spirit, as the dauntless friends of freedom, and as the last of the Romans. Poets have sung their glories. Their names have been invoked in every political revolution against absolutism. Their example has nerved the arm of regicides and stimulated democracies to rise in angry revolt. But modern criticism has rudely torn them from their pedestal. It has shown how selfish, how narrow, how essentially oligarchical were the liberties which they championed. How impotent was the Senate to rule a worldwide empire. How black was the treachery of the ingrates who slew their patron. How vacillating and feeble were the hands they laid on the helm of the State. How reluctant and suspicious was the support they tendered to Cicero. How even the epithet of "virtuous" must be denied to the student and philosopher, Brutus. While in the crisis of his life the experienced soldier, Cassius, gave way to petulant and womanish despair. And yet, when all is said, they were the real representatives of the Republic, representing its virtues as well as its vices, its weakness as well as its strength, its nobility as well as its meanness. Imitators they left behind them, but no successors.