Augustus

by John Williams

  As if it were an afterthought, he had sent to Octavia letters of divorce, and had her evicted without ceremony or warning from his Roman dwelling.

  We could not then evade what must ensue. Octavius returned from Illyria, and we began to prepare for whatever madness might come from the East.

  IX. Senatorial Proceedings, Rome (33 B.C.)

  On this day Marcus Agrippa, Consular and Admiral of the Roman Fleet, Aedile of the Roman Senate, does declare, for the health and welfare of the Roman people, and for the glory of Rome, the following:

  I. From his own funds, and without recourse to the public treasury, Marcus Agrippa will have repaired and restored all public buildings that have fallen into neglect, and will have cleaned and repaired the public sewers that carry the waste of Rome into the Tiber.

  II. From his own funds Marcus Agrippa will make available to all free-born inhabitants of Rome sufficient olive oil and salt to suffice their needs for one year.

  III. For both men and women, free-born and slave, the public baths will for the period of one year be open for use without fee.

  IV. To protect the gullible and ignorant and poor, and to halt the spread of alien superstition, all astrologers and Eastern soothsayers and magicians are forbidden within the city walls, and those who now practice their vicious trades are ordered to quit the city of Rome, upon pain of death and forfeiture of all monies and properties.

  V. In that Temple known as Serapis and Isis, the trinkets of Egyptian superstition shall no longer be sold or purchased, upon pain of exile for both purchaser and seller; and the Temple itself, built to commemorate the conquest of Egypt by Julius Caesar, is declared to be a monument of history, and not a recognition of the false gods of the East by the Roman people and the Roman Senate.

  X. Petition: the Centurion Quintus Appius to Munatius Plancus, Commander of the Asian Legions of the Imperator Marcus Antonius, from Ephesus (32 B.C.)

  I, Appius, son of Lucius Appius, am of the Cornelian tribe and of Campanian origin. My father was a farmer, who left me a few acres of land near Velletri, which from the age of eighteen to twenty-three I tilled for a humble livelihood. My cottage is there yet, overseen by the wife I married in my youth, who, though a freedwoman, is chaste and faithful; and the land is tended by the three of my sons who remain alive. Two sons I lost—one to disease, and the eldest to the Spanish campaign against Sextus Pompeius, under Julius Caesar, these many years ago.

  For the sake of Italy and my posterity, I became a soldier in the twenty-third year of my life, in the consulship of Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius, who was uncle to the Marcus Antonius who is now my master. For two years I was a common soldier in that army under Gaius Antonius which defeated in honorable battle the conspirator Catiline; in my third year as a soldier I was with Julius Caesar in his first Spanish campaign, and though I was a young man, in reward for my bravery in battle, Julius Caesar made me a lesser centurion of the IV Macedonian legion. I have been a soldier for thirty years; I have fought in eighteen campaigns, in fourteen of which I was centurion and in one of which I was acting military tribune; I have fought under the command of six duly elected consuls of the Senate; I have served in Spain, Gaul, Africa, Greece, Egypt, Macedonia, Britain, and Germany; I have marched in three triumphs, I have five times received the laurel crown for saving the life of a fellow soldier; and I have twenty times been decorated for bravery in battle.

  The oath I took as a young soldier bound me to the authority of the magistrates, the consuls, and the Senate for the defense of my country. To that oath I have been faithful, and have served Rome with that honor of which I am capable. I am now in my fifty-third year, and I ask release from military service, so that I may return to Velletri and spend my remaining years in privacy and peace.

  I know that, in the law, you may refuse this release, despite my age and service, since I volunteered freely for another campaign; and I know, too, that what I shall now say may put me in jeopardy. If it is to do so, I shall accept my fate.

  When I was detached from the army of Marcus Agrippa and sent to Athens and thence to Alexandria and finally here to Ephesus and the army of Marcus Antonius, I did not protest; that is the soldier’s lot, and I have grown accustomed to it. I had fought the Parthians before, and had no fear of them. But the events of the past few weeks have put me into a deep doubt; and I must turn to you, with whom I fought in Gaul under Julius Caesar, and whose honorable behavior toward me gives me some hope that you may hear me before you judge me too harshly.

  It is clear that we shall not fight the Parthians, or the Medians, or anyone else to the East. And yet we arm, and we train, and we build the engines of war.

  I have given my oath to the consuls and the Senate of the Roman people; it is an oath that I have not broken.

  And yet where is the Senate now? And where is my oath to find its fulfillment?

  We know that three hundred senators and the two consuls of the year have quit Rome, and are now here in Ephesus, where the Imperator Marcus Antonius has convened them against the seven hundred senators who have remained in Rome; and new consuls in Rome have replaced those who have come here.

  To whom do I owe my oath? Where is the Roman people, whom the Senate must represent?

  I do not hate Octavius Caesar, though I would fight him, were that my duty; I do not love Marcus Antonius, though I would die for him were that my duty. It is not the place of the soldier to think of politics, and it is not the business of the soldier to hate or love. It is his duty to fulfill his oath.

  A Roman, I have fought against Romans before, though I have done so with sorrow. But I have not fought against Romans under the banner of a foreign queen, and I have not marched against my nation and my countrymen as if they were the painted barbarians of a foreign province, to be plundered and subdued.

  I am an old man, and tired, and I ask release to return quietly to my home. But you are my commander, and I shall not move against your authority. If it is your decision that I may not be released, I shall acquit myself with that honor in which I trust I have lived.

  XI. Letter: Munatius Plancus, Commander of the Asian Legions, to Octavius Caesar, from Ephesus (32 B.C.)

  Though we have differed, I have not been your enemy so much as I have been friend to Marcus Antonius, whom I have known since those days when we were both the trusted generals of your late and divine father, Julius Caesar. Through all the years, I have tried to be loyal to Rome, and yet be loyal to the man whom I have had for friend.

  It is no longer possible for me to remain loyal to both. As if in an enchantment, Marcus Antonius follows blindly wherever Cleopatra will lead; and she will lead where her ambition takes her, and that is simply the conquest of the world, the succession of her progeny in kingship over that world, and the establishment of Alexandria as the capital of that world. I have been unable to dissuade Marcus Antonius from this disastrous course. Even now, troops from all the Asian provinces gather at Ephesus to join the sad Roman legions which Antonius will hurl against Rome; the doors of Cleopatra’s treasury are open to prosecute the war against Italy; and she will not leave Marcus Antonius’s side, but goads him bitterly toward your destruction and the fulfillment of her ambition. It is said that henceforward she will march at his side and command, even in battle. Not only myself, but all of his friends have urged him to send Cleopatra back to Alexandria, where her presence might not provoke the hatred of the Roman troops, but he will not, or cannot, move.

  Thus I have been forced to choose between a waning friendship for a man and a steady love for my country. I return to Italy, and I renounce the Eastern adventure. And I will not be alone. I have spent my life with the Roman soldier, and I think I know his heart; many will not fight under the banner of a foreign queen, and those who in their confusion will fight, will do so with sorrow and reluctance, so that their strength and soldierly determination will be lessened.

  I come to you in friendship, and I offer you my services; if you cannot accept the former, perha
ps you will find use for the latter.

  XII. The Memoirs of Marcus Agrippa: Fragments (13 B.C.)

  I come now to the account of those events which led to the battle of Actium and at last to the peace of which Rome had long despaired.

  Marcus Antonius and the Queen Cleopatra gathered their strength in the East, and moved their armies from Ephesus to the Island of Samos, and thence to Athens, where they poised in threat to Italy and peace. In the second consulship of Caesar Augustus, I was aedile of Rome; and when the year of those duties was over, we turned ourselves to the task of rebuilding the armies of Italy that would repel the threat of Eastern treason, a task which necessitated our absence from Rome for many months. We returned to discover the Senate subverted by the friends of Antonius who were the enemies of the Roman people; we opposed those enemies, and when it became clear to them that they would not prevail in their designs against the order of Italy, the two consuls of the year, and behind them three hundred senators without faith or love for their homeland, quit Rome and made their way out of Italy to join Antonius; and went without hindrance or threat from Caesar Augustus, who saw them depart with sorrow, but without anger.

  And in the East, loyal Roman troops, at first by tens and then by hundreds, refusing the yoke of a foreign queen, made their way to Italy; and from them we knew that there would be no escape from war; and knew also that that war would come soon, for Antonius was weakening from the desertions, and would, if he delayed too long, be wholly dependent upon the caprice and inexperience of his barbarian legions and their Asian commanders.

  Thus in the late autumn of the year after his second consulship, Caesar Augustus, with the consent of the Senate and the Roman people, did declare that a state of war existed between the Roman people and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt; and led by Caesar Augustus, the Senate in solemn march took themselves to the Campus Martius, and at the Temple of Bellona, the herald read the words of war, and the priests made sacrifice of a white heifer to the goddess, and prayed that the army of Rome be made safe in all the battles that were to come.

  After the defeat of Sextus Pompeius, Augustus had vowed to the Roman people that the civil wars were ended, and that not again would the soil of Italy suffer to receive the blood of her sons. Throughout the winter we trained our soldiers on land, repaired and augmented our fleet, exercising upon the sea when weather allowed us; and in the spring, learning that Marcus Antonius had gathered his fleet and his army at the seaward opening of the Bay of Corinth, whence he purposed to strike swiftly across the Ionian Sea at the Eastern coast of Italy, we moved against him, to save Italy from the wounds of war.

  Against us was arrayed the might of the Eastern world—one hundred thousand troops, of which thirty thousand were Roman, and five hundred ships of war, deployed along the coastal lands of Greece; and eighty thousand reserves of troops that remained in Egypt and Syria. Against this force we brought fifty thousand Roman soldiers, a number of which were veterans of the sea campaign against Pompeius, two hundred fifty ships of war, the latter under my command, and one hundred fifty vessels of supply.

  The coast of Greece boasts few harbors that may be defended, and thus we had no trouble landing the troops that would fight Antonius on the land; and the ships under my command blockaded the sea routes of supply from Syria and Egypt, so that the forces of Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius would have to depend upon the land that they had invaded for food and supplies.

  Loath to take Roman lives, throughout the spring we skirmished, hoping to accomplish our ends by blockade rather than warfare; and in the summer, we moved in strength to the Bay of Actium, where the largest enemy force was concentrated, hoping to lure there those who would prevent our pretended invasion, in which effort we succeeded. For Antonius and Cleopatra sailed in full complement to rescue the ships and men we did not intend to attack, and we fell back before the advance of their ships, and let them enter into the bay, whence we knew eventually they would have to emerge. We would force them to do battle upon sea, though their strength was upon the land.

  The mouth of the Bay of Actium is less than one half a mile in width, though the bay itself widens considerably within, so that the enemy ships had sufficient room to harbor; and while they rested inside with the soldiers encamped ashore, Caesar Augustus sent troops of infantry and cavalry around them, and fortified the encirclement, so that they would have retreated overland at great cost. And we waited; for we knew that the armies of the East suffered from hunger and disease, and could not muster the strength for a retreat by land. They would fight by sea.

  The ships of war that we had returned to Antonius after the defeat of Sextus Pompeius were the largest of the fleet, and I had learned that those which Antonius had built to war against us were even larger, some carrying as many as ten banks of oars and girded by bands of iron against ramming; such ships are nearly invincible against smaller ships in direct combat, when there is no room for maneuvering. Therefore I had much earlier resolved to rely upon a preponderance of lighter and more maneuverable craft, with as few as two and as many as six banks of oars, and none larger; and resolved to be so patient as to lure the Eastern fleets into the open sea. For at Naulochus, against Pompeius, we had had to engage the enemy ships at shore, where swiftness meant nothing.

  We waited; and on the first day of September we saw the lines of vessels draw up for battle, and saw those burned for which there were no rowers; and we made ready for what must ensue on the morrow.

  The morning came bright and clear; the harbor and the sea beyond were smooth like a table of translucent stone. The Eastern fleet raised sail, as if hoping to pursue us when a wind came up; the oarsmen dipped their oars; and the fleet, like a solid wall, moved slowly across the water. Antonius himself commanded the starboard squadron of the three groups, which were so close that often the opposing oars clashed together, and the fleet of Cleopatra followed behind the center squadron at some distance.

  My own squadron opposed that of Antonius; and those ships commanded by Caesar Augustus were at the port. We were beyond the mouth of the bay, and spread thinly out in a curving line, so that we had no ships behind us.

  As the enemy advanced toward us, we did not move; he paused at the mouth, and no oar was dipped for several hours. He wished us to move upon him; we did not move; we waited.

  And at last, out of impatience or an excess of boldness, the commander of the port squadron moved forward; Caesar Augustus made as if to withdraw from danger; the squadron pursued him without thought, and the rest of the Eastern fleet followed. Our center squadron fell back, we lengthened our line, and the enemy fleet rode in like fish into a net, and we surrounded them.

  Until nearly dusk the battle raged, though the issue was at no time in serious doubt. We had not raised sail, and we could move swiftly about the heavier ships; and having hoisted sail, the enemy’s decks did not afford room for slingers and archers to work effectively; and the sails offered easy targets for the fireballs that we catapulted. Our own decks were clear so that when we grappled a ship, our soldiers in superior numbers could board the enemy and overcome him with some ease.

  He would attempt to form a wedge so that he could break our line; we darted upon him and broke his formation, so that he had to fight singly; he tried to form again, and we broke him again, so that at last each ship fought for its own survival, as best it could. And the sea blazed with ships that we fired, and we heard above the roar of the flames the screams of men who burned with their ships, and the sea darkened with blood and was awash with bodies that had thrown off armor and struggled weakly to escape the fire and the sword and the javelin and the arrow. Though they opposed us, they were Roman soldiers; and we were sickened at the waste.

  During all the fighting, the ships of Cleopatra had hung back in the harbor; and when at last a breeze sprang up, she had her sails set into the wind, and swung around the ships that were locked in battle and made toward the open sea where we could not follow.

  It was one of those curious mo
ments in the confusion of warfare with which all soldiers are familiar. The vessel which carried Caesar Augustus and my own ship had come so close together that we could look into each other’s eyes and could even shout to be heard above the furor; not thirty yards away, where it had been pursued and then left, was the ship of Marcus Antonius. I believe that all three of us saw the purple sail of Cleopatra’s departing flagship at the same time. None of us moved; Antonius stood at the prow of his ship as if he were a carven figurehead, looking after his departing Queen. And then he turned to us, though whether he recognized either of us I do not know. His face was without expression, as if it were that of a corpse. Then his arm lifted stiffly, and dropped; and the sails were thrust into the wind, and the great ship turned slowly and gathered speed, and Marcus Antonius followed after his Queen. We watched the pitiful remains of his own ships that escaped the slaughter, and we did not attempt to pursue. I did not see Marcus Antonius again.

  Deserted by their leaders, the remaining ships surrendered; we cared for our wounded enemies, who were also our brothers, and we burned those ships that remained of the Antonian force; and Caesar Augustus said that no Roman soldier who had been our enemy should suffer for his bravery, but should be returned to honor and the safety of Rome.

  We knew that we had won the world; but there were no songs of victory that night, nor joy among any of us. Late into the night the only sound that could be heard was the lap and hiss of water against the burning hulls and the low moans of the wounded; a glow of burning hung over the harbor, and Caesar Augustus, his face stark and reddened in that glow, stood at the prow of his ship and looked upon the sea that held the bodies of those brave men, both comrade and foe, as if there were no difference between them.

  XIII. Letter: Gaius Cilnius Maecenas to Titus Livius (12 B.C.)