John Williams - Augustus

Yet I am restless, and filled with a foreboding. For the first time I become unsure of the rightness of our course. Every success uncovers difficulties that we have not foreseen, and every victory enlarges the magnitude of our possible defeat.

Octavius has changed; he is no longer the friend we had in Apollonia. He seldom laughs, he takes almost no wine, and he seems to disdain even the harmless, distracting pleasures that we took with the girls once. So far as I know, he has not even had a woman since our return to Rome.

"So far as I know," I realize I have said. Once we knew all about each other; now he has become contained, withdrawn, almost secretive. I, to whom he once talked with open friendship; from whom he had no secret of his heart; with whom he shared the closest dreams-I no longer know him. Is it grief for his uncle that will not leave him? Is it that grief which has hardened into ambition? Or is it something else that I cannot name? A cold sadness has come over him and draws him apart from us.

In my leisure now in Rome, as I wait for the consular armies to be raised, I can think of these things, and wonder. Perhaps when I am older and wiser I shall understand them.

Gaius Octavius on Cicero: "Cicero is a hopeless conspirator. What he does not write to his friends, he tells to his slaves."

When did the distrust begin?-if it is distrust.

The morning that Octavius and Maecenas announced the plan to me?

I said: "We would aid that Decimus who was one of the murderers of Julius Caesar?"

Octavius said: "We would aid ourselves, so that we might survive."

I did not speak. Maecenas had not spoken.

Octavius said: "Do you remember the oath we made-you and I and Agrippa and Maecenas-that night in Apollonia?"

I said: "I have not forgotten."

Octavius smiled. "Nor have I… We shall save Decimus, though we hate him. We shall save Decimus for that oath, and we shall save him for the law." For an instant his eyes were cold upon me, though I think he did not see me. Then he smiled again, as if remembering himself.

Did it begin with that?

Facts: Decimus was one of the murderers; Octavius goes to his aid. Casca was one of the murderers; Octavius has agreed not to oppose his election as tribune of the people. Marcus Antonius was a friend of Caesar; Octavius now opposes him. Cicero rejoices publicly in the murder; Octavius has made an alliance with him.

Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius raise armies in the East, plunder the treasuries of the provinces, and daily augment their strength; Marcus Aemilius Lepidus is secure in the West and waits with his legions-to what purpose no one knows; and in the south, Sextus Pompeius roams the seas at will, raising barbarian armies that may destroy us all. The legion that I command-all the legions in Italy-is the task too large?

But Gaius Octavius is my friend.

IV. Letter: Marcus Tullius Cicero to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus at Narbonne, from Rome (43 B. c.)

My dear Lepidus, Cicero sends you greetings, and begs you to remember your duty to the Senate and the Republic. I would not mention now the many honors I have been privileged to do you, were I not filled with gratitude for the many kindnesses you have done me. As we have assured each other in the past, our differences have always been honorable ones, and have rested upon our mutual love for the Republic.

Though I put little faith in such, the rumors in Rome are that you will join forces with Marcus Antonius against Decimus. I do not seriously entertain such a possibility, and I see the rumor only as a symptom ofthat disease of instability that now afflicts our poor Republic. But I think you should know that the rumor does persist, so that for your own safety and honor you might take the most urgent measures to prove it baseless.

The young Caesar, with the blessing of the Senate and the Republic, marches toward Mutina against the outlaw, Antonius, who besieges Decimus. It may be that he will need your aid. I know that you will now, as you have in the past, observe the order of the law and refuse the chaos of lawlessness, for the sake of your position and the security of Rome.

V. Letter: Marcus Antonius to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus at Narbonne, from Mutina (43 B.C.)

Lepidus: I am at Mutina against the hired armies of the murderers of Caesar. Decimus is surrounded; he cannot break out.

I am informed that Cicero and others of his odor have been writing you, urging treason against the memory of our slain Julius. The reports of your intentions are ambiguous.

I am not a subtle man; I am not a flatterer; and you are not a fool.

There are three courses open to you: you can march from your camp to join me in the destruction of Decimus and the enemies of Caesar, and thereby gain my eternal friendship and the power that will come to you from the love of the people; you can remain unconcerned and neutral in the comfort of your encampment, and thereby receive neither my blame nor the hatred of the people-nor their love; you can come to the aid of the traitor Decimus and his "savior," the false son of our leader, and thereby receive my enmity and the lasting despite of the people.

I hope that you have the wisdom to choose the first course; I fear that you will have the caution to choose the second; I implore you, for your own safety, not to choose the third.

VI. The Memoirs of Marcus Agrippa: Fragments (13 B. c.)

We found the Rome we entered torn by strife and ambition. Marcus Antonius, the pretended friend of the slain Julius Caesar, consorted with the murderers, and would not allow him whom we now called Octavius Caesar to receive the honors and powers bequeathed him by his father. Upon ascertaining the ambition of the usurper Antonius, Octavius Caesar took himself into the countryside where his father's veterans tilled the soil, and we raised those troops loyal to the memory of their dead leader who would oppose with us the plunderers of our nation's dream.

Unlawfully, Marcus Antonius levied the Macedonian troops and marched with them into Rome, and thence to Mutina, where he laid siege to Decimus Brutus Albinus. And though Decimus had been among the murderers of Caesar, for the sake of order and the state, Octavius Caesar agreed to defend his lawful governorship of Gaul against the force of the outlaw Antonius; and with the thanks and sanction of the Senate, we gathered our forces and marched toward Mutina, where Antonius had encamped around the legions of Decimus.

Now I must tell of that campaign at Mutina, which was the first responsibility of war I had under Octavius Caesar and Rome.

The senatorial legions were under the command of the two consuls of the year, Gaius Vibius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, the latter of whom had been the trusted general of our late Julius Caesar. Octavius Caesar commanded the Martian and Macedonian IV legions, though of the latter I had military leadership. Quintus Salvidienus Rufus had been given the military command of the new legion of recruits we had levied in the countryside of Campania.

Antonius had made his siege of Decimus complete, and he proposed to lie in wait until Decimus's legions, weakened by hunger, must attempt to break through his encampment. We determined that Decimus had put away enough food within the walls of Mutina to endure, so we made winter quarters at Imola, only a two-hour march from Mutina, so that we might quickly go to the aid of Decimus if he made a sally against the Antonian forces. But he cowered within the safety of the city walls, and would not fight; so that when spring came, we faced the prospect of breaking through Antonius's lines ourselves, to save that Decimus who would not save himself. Early in April we determined to move.

Around Mutina the ground is marshy and uneven, cut by gullies and streams; beyond this marsh Antonius was encamped. In secret we searched the land for a way to cross, and discovered a ravine that was unguarded; and in the dead of night, joined by Pansa and five cohorts of his legion, Octavius Caesar and Salvidienus and I led our Martian legion and other soldiers into this ravine, having wrapped our swords and spears with cloth so that the enemy would not be aware of our approach. The moon was full, but a heavy fog clung to the earth, so that we could not see before us; and in single file, each man's hand upon another's shoulder, we inched blindly through the glowing mist, never sure of where we went or whom we might encounter.