The Dictator

by Robert Harris

  “Spare us this humiliation,” cried out Fulvia, “we beseech you!”

  The vote to declare Antony an enemy of the state was duly lost, while the motion to send a delegation of envoys to make him a final peace offer was carried. The rest, however, was all for Cicero: Octavian’s army was recognised as legitimate and incorporated with Decimus’s under the standard of the Senate; Octavian was made a senator, despite his youth, and also awarded a pro-praetorship with power of imperium; as a nod to the future, the age requirement for the consulship was lowered by ten years (although it would still be another thirteen before Octavian was eligible to stand); the loyalty of Plancus and Lepidus was bought, the one being confirmed as consul for the following year, the other being honoured by a gilded equestrian statue on the rostra; and the raising of new armies and the imposition of a state of military preparedness in Rome and all across Italy was ordered to begin immediately.

  Once again the tribunes asked Cicero, rather than the consuls, to convey the Senate’s decisions to the thousands gathered in the Forum. When he told them that peace envoys were to be sent to Antony, a collective groan went up. Cicero made a soothing gesture with his hands. “I gather, Romans, that this course is also repudiated by you, as it was by me, and with good reason. But I urge you to be patient. What I did earlier in the Senate I will do before you now. I predict that Mark Antony will ignore the envoys, devastate the land, besiege Mutina and raise more troops. And I am not afraid that when he hears what I have said, he will change his plans and obey the Senate in order to refute me: he is too far gone for that. We shall lose some precious time, but never fear: we shall have victory in the end. Other nations can endure slavery, but the most prized possession of the Roman people is liberty.”

  —

  The peace delegation left the next day from the Forum. Cicero went with an ill grace to see them off. The chosen envoys were three ex-consuls: Lucius Piso, who had come up with the idea in the first place and so could hardly refuse to take part; Marcus Philippus, Octavian’s stepfather, whose participation Cicero called “disgusting and scandalous”; and Cicero’s old friend Servius Sulpicius, who was in such poor health that Cicero begged him to reconsider: “It’s two hundred and fifty miles in midwinter, through snow and wolves and bandits, and with only the amenities of an army camp at the end of it. For pity’s sake, my dear Servius, use your illness as an excuse and let them find someone else.”

  “You forget I was at Pompey’s side at Pharsalus. I stood and watched the slaughter of the best men in the state. My last service to the republic will be to try to stop that happening again.”

  “Your instincts are as noble as ever, but your hold on reality is poor. Antony will laugh in your face. All that your suffering will accomplish is to help prolong the war.”

  Servius looked at him sadly. “What happened to my old friend who hated soldiering and loved his books? I rather miss him. I certainly preferred him to this rabble-rouser who stirs up the crowd for blood.”

  With that he climbed stiffly into his litter and was borne away with the others to begin the long journey.

  Preparations for war now slowed to a half-hearted pace, as Cicero had warned they would, while Romans awaited the outcome of the peace mission. Although levies took place across Italy to recruit four new legions, there was no great sense of urgency now that the immediate threat seemed to have been lifted. In the meantime, the only legions the Senate could draw on were the two encamped near Rome that had declared for Octavian—the Martian and the Fourth—and after receiving permission from Octavian, these agreed to march north to relieve Decimus under the command of one of the consuls. Lots for the office had to be drawn in accordance with the law, and by a cruel jest of the gods it went to the sick man, Hirtius. Watching this ghostly figure in his red cloak painfully ascend the steps of the Capitol, perform the traditional sacrifice of a white bull to Jupiter and then ride off to war filled Cicero with foreboding.

  —

  It was to be almost a month before the city’s herald announced that the returning peace envoys were approaching the city. Pansa summoned the Senate to hear their report that same day. Only two of them came into the temple—Piso and Philippus. Piso stood and in a grave voice announced that the gallant Servius had no sooner reached Antony’s headquarters than he had died of exhaustion. Because of the distance involved, and the slowness of winter travel, it had been necessary to cremate him on the spot rather than bring the body home.

  “I have to tell you, gentlemen, that we found that Antony has surrounded Mutina with a very powerful system of siege works, and throughout our time in his camp he continued to pound the town with missiles. He refused to allow us safe passage through his lines to talk to Decimus. As to the terms you had empowered us to offer him, he rejected them in favour of terms of his own.” Piso produced a letter and began to read. “He will give up his claim to the governorship of Nearer Gaul but only if he is compensated by the award instead of Further Gaul for five years together with the command of Decimus’s army, raising his total strength to six legions. He demands that all the decrees he has issued in Caesar’s name should be declared legal; that there should be no further investigation into the disappearance of the state’s treasury from the Temple of Ops; that his followers should be given an amnesty; and finally that his soldiers should be paid what they are owed and also awarded land.”

  Piso rolled up the document and tucked it into his sleeve. “We have done our best, gentlemen. I am disappointed, I will not hide it. I fear this house must recognise that a state of war exists between the republic and Mark Antony.”

  Cicero got to his feet, but yet again Pansa called his father-in-law, Calenus, to speak first. He said: “I deplore the use of the word ‘war.’ On the contrary, I believe we have here, gentlemen, the basis for an honourable peace. It was my suggestion, first made in this Senate, that Antony should be offered Further Gaul, and I am glad that he has accepted it. Our main points are all met. Decimus remains as governor. The people of Mutina are spared any further misery. Roman does not take up arms against Roman. I can see by the way he shakes his head that Cicero does not like what I am saying. He is an angry man. But more than that, I venture to say that he is an angry old man. Let me remind him that it will not be men of our age who die in this new war. It will be his son, and my son, and yours, gentlemen—and yours, and yours, and yours. I say let us have a truce with Antony and reconcile our differences peacefully as our gallant colleagues Piso, Philippus and the lamented Servius have shown us how to do.”

  Calenus’s speech was warmly received. It was clear that Antony still had his supporters in the Senate, including his legate, the diminutive Cotyla, or “Half-Pint,” whom he had sent south to report on the mood in Rome. As Pansa called speaker after speaker—including Antony’s uncle, Lucius Caesar, who said he felt duty-bound to defend his nephew—Cotyla ostentatiously made notes of their remarks, presumably so that he could report them back to his master. It had an oddly unnerving effect, and at the end of the day, a majority of the house, including Pansa, voted to remove the word “war” from the motion and declare instead that the country was in a state of “tumult.”

  Pansa did not call Cicero until the following morning. But once again this worked to Cicero’s advantage. Not only did he rise in an atmosphere of intense expectation; he was able to attack the arguments of the previous speakers. He started with Lucius Caesar: “He excuses his vote because of his family connections. He is an uncle. Fair enough. But are the rest of you uncles too?”

  And once he had his audience laughing—once he had softened the ground, so to speak—he proceeded to pulverise them with a cataract of invective and derision. “Decimus is being attacked—there is no war. Mutina is being besieged—not even this is war. Gaul is being laid waste—what could be more peaceful? Gentlemen, this is a war such as has never been seen before! We are defending the temples of the immortal gods, our walls, our homes, and the birthrights of the Roman people, the altars, hearths a
nd tombs of our ancestors; we are defending our laws, law courts, liberty, wives, children, fatherland. On the other side, Mark Antony fights to wreck all this and plunder the state.

  “At this point my brave and energetic friend Calenus reminds me of the advantages of peace. But I ask you, Calenus: what do you mean? Do you call slavery peace? Heavy fighting is in progress. We have sent three leading members of the Senate to intervene. These Antony has repudiated with contempt. Yet you remain his most constant defender!

  “With what dishonour did yesterday dawn upon us! ‘Oh, but what if he were to make a truce?’ A truce? In the presence, before the very eyes of the envoys he pounded Mutina with his engines. He showed them his works and his siege train. Not for a moment, although the envoys were there, did the siege find a breathing space. Envoys to this man? Peace with this man?

  “I will say it with grief rather than with insult: we are deserted—deserted, gentlemen—by our leaders. What concessions have we not made to Cotyla, the envoy of Mark Antony? Though by rights the gates of this city should have been closed to him, yet this temple was open. He came into the Senate. He entered in his notebooks your votes and everything you said. Even those who had filled the highest offices were currying favour with him to the disgrace of their dignity. Ye immortal gods! Where is the ancient spirit of our ancestors? Let Cotyla return to his general but on condition that he never returns to Rome.”

  The Senate sat stunned. They had not been shamed in such a fashion since Cato’s day. At the end, Cicero laid a fresh motion: that those fighting with Antony would be given until the Ides of March to lay down their arms; after that, any who continued in his army, or who went to join him, would be regarded as traitors. The proposal passed overwhelmingly. There was to be no truce, no peace, no deal; Cicero had his war.

  —

  A day or two after the first anniversary of Caesar’s assassination—an occasion that passed without notice apart from the laying of flowers on his tomb—Pansa followed his colleague Hirtius into battle. The consul rode off from the Field of Mars at the head of an army of four legions: almost twenty thousand men scoured from every corner of Italy. Cicero watched with the rest of the Senate as they paraded past. As a military force it was less impressive than it sounded. Most were the rawest of recruits—farmers, ostlers, bakers and laundrymen who could barely even march in time. Their real power was symbolic. The republic was in arms against the usurper Antony.

  With both consuls gone, the most senior magistrate left behind in the city was the urban praetor, Marcus Cornutus—a soldier picked by Caesar for his loyalty and discretion. He now found himself required to preside over the Senate even though he had minimal experience of politics. He soon placed himself entirely in the hands of Cicero, who thus, at the age of sixty-three, became the effective ruler of Rome for the first time since his consulship twenty years before. It was to Cicero that all the imperial governors addressed their reports. It was he who decided when the Senate should meet. It was he who made the main appointments. His was the house that was packed all day with petitioners.

  He sent an amused account of his redux to Octavian:

  I do not think I boast when I say that nothing can happen in this city these days without my approval. Indeed it is actually better than a consulship because no one knows where my power begins or ends; therefore rather than run the risk of offending me, everyone consults me on everything. Actually it is even better, come to think of it, than a dictatorship, because nobody holds me to blame when things go wrong! It is proof that one should never mistake the baubles of office for actual power—another piece of avuncular advice for your glittering future, my boy, from your devoted old friend and mentor.

  Octavian wrote back at the end of March to report that he was doing as he had promised: his army of nearly ten thousand men was striking camp just south of Bononia, beside the Via Aemilia, and moving off to join the armies of Hirtius and Pansa in relieving the siege of Mutina:

  I am placing myself under the command of the consuls. We are expecting a great battle with Antony within the next two weeks. I promise that I shall endeavour to perform as valiantly in the field as you have in the Senate. What was it that the Spartan warriors said? “I shall return either with my shield, or on it.”

  Around this time, word began to reach Cicero of events in the east. From Brutus in Macedonia he learned that Dolabella—heading for Syria at the head of a small force—had reached as far as Smyrna on the eastern shores of the Aegean, where he had encountered the governor of Asia, Trebonius. Trebonius had treated him civilly enough and even allowed him to proceed on his way. But that night Dolabella had secretly turned back, entered the city, seized Trebonius while he was asleep, and subjected him to two days and nights of intensive torture, using whips, the rack and hot irons, to force him to disclose the whereabouts of his treasury. After that, on Dolabella’s orders, his neck was broken. His head was cut off and Dolabella’s soldiers kicked it back and forth through the streets until it was completely crushed, while his body was mutilated and placed on public display. “Thus dies the first of the assassins who murdered Caesar,” Dolabella was said to have declared. “The first—but he will not be the last.”

  Trebonius’s remains were shipped to Rome and subjected to a post-mortem examination to confirm the manner of his death before being passed to his family for cremation. His grisly fate had a salutary effect on Cicero and the other leaders of the republic. They knew now what to expect if they fell into the hands of their enemies, especially when Antony issued an open letter to the consuls pledging his loyalty to Dolabella and expressing his delight at Trebonius’s fate: That a criminal has paid the penalty is a matter for rejoicing. Cicero read the letter out loud in the Senate: it strengthened men’s determination not to compromise. Dolabella was declared a public enemy. It was a particular shock to Cicero that his former son-in-law should have exhibited such cruelty. He lamented to me afterwards: “To think that such a monster stayed under my roof and shared a bed with my poor dear daughter; to think that I actually liked the man…Who knows what animals lurk within the people who are close to us?”

  The nervous strain under which he lived during those early days of April, while waiting for word from Mutina, was indescribable. First there would be good news. After months without contact, Cassius at last wrote to say that he was taking complete control of Syria: that all sides—Caesareans, republicans and the last remaining Pompeians—were flocking to him and that he had under his command a united army of no fewer than eleven legions. I want you to know that you and your friends at the Senate are not without powerful support, so you can defend the state in the best interests of hope and courage. Brutus also was meeting with success and had raised a further five legions, some twenty-five thousand men, in Macedonia. Young Marcus was with him, recruiting and training cavalry: Your son earns my approval by his energy, endurance, hard work and unselfish spirit, in fact by every kind of service.

  But then would come more ominous dispatches. Decimus was in desperate straits after more than four months trapped in Mutina. He could only communicate with the outside world by carrier pigeon, and the few birds that got through brought news of starvation, disease and low morale. Lepidus meanwhile was moving his legions closer to the scene of the impending battle with Antony, and he urged Cicero and the Senate to consider a fresh offer of peace talks. Cicero was so incensed by this weak and arrogant man’s presumption that he dictated to me a letter that went off that same night:

  Cicero to Lepidus.

  I rejoice at your desire to make peace among citizens but only if you can separate that peace from slavery. Otherwise you should understand that all men of sense have taken a resolution to prefer death to servitude. You will act more wisely in my judgement if you meddle no further in this affair, which is not acceptable either to the Senate or the people, or to any honest man.

  Cicero was under no illusions. The city and the Senate still harboured hundreds of Antony’s supporters. If Decimus surrendered,
or if the armies of Hirtius, Pansa and Octavian were defeated, he knew he would be the first to be seized and murdered. As a safety precaution he ordered home two of the three legions stationed in Africa to defend Rome. But they would not arrive until the middle of the summer.

  It was on the twentieth day of April that the crisis finally broke. Early that morning, Cornutus, the urban praetor, hurried up the hill. With him was a messenger who had been dispatched by Pansa six days earlier. Cornutus’s expression was grim. “Tell Cicero,” he said to the messenger, “what you’ve just told me.”

  In a trembling voice the messenger said, “Vibius Pansa regrets to report a catastrophic defeat. He and his army were surprised by the forces of Mark Antony at the settlement of Forum Gallorum. The lack of experience of our men was immediately evident. The line broke and there was a general slaughter. The consul managed to escape but is himself wounded.”