Roman Empire: New Wars Old Enemies Part Seven

Cassius Dio explains that Antony "had earnestly devoted himself to his duties so long as he had been in a subordinate situation and had been aiming for the highest prizes; but now that he had got into power, he no longer paid strict attention to these things." Bad news has a way of coming in twos and threes as Antony was soon to find out. A consul of 41 BC was Lucius Antonius, Mark Antony's brother. Together with Antony's forceful wife they conspired to form a military attack against Octavian. Antony's wife, Fulvia, played such an active role in the anti-Octavian conspiracy that her powers seemed to equal those of a consul. Their plan was simple. Sympathize with the dispossessed Italian farmers and at the same time tell the legionaires that Octavian was plotting against the absent Mark Antony whom they were claiming to speak for. When Antony returned to Italy things would be set right. Lucius raised eight legions and backed an anti-Octavian protest in Rome. Then he marched north in hopes of joining with two of Antony's generals. Wisely, as the generals were unsure of Antony's true desires they didn't join the plot. Fulvia, in a fantastic show of the strength of her personality actually raised troops-and incredibly for a woman of her time issued orders directly.

Dio writes of her efforts: "And why should anyone be surprised at this, when she would wear a sword at her side, give out the watchword to the soldiers, and on many occasions give speeches directly to them?" Octavian wisely relied on his boyhood friend, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who had a natural gift for military strategy and generalship to get him out of this mess. Agrippa and Salvidienus were able to outmaneuver Lucius, who sought refuge in the strongly fortified hilltown of Perusia (modern Perugia in Umbria, Italy). He waited in vain for the two Antonian generals to come to his aid. However, without instructions from Antony they didn't go all the way to Perusia and pulled back-much to the fury of Fulvia. Octavian then sealed off the town with a ditch and rampart seven miles long. Once again Octavian had a close brush with death being surprised by an enemy sortie while performing a sacrifice for victory outside the town's walls. Both sides exchanged stone and lead sligshots at each other. Archaeologists have found some of these lead balls and many have rude messages scratched on them: "I seek Fulvia's clitoris"; "I seek Octavian's arse"; "Hi, Octavius, you suck dick"; and much more lamely, "Lucius is bald." Lucius was defeated and the defeated legions were pardoned.

Lucius was sent to be the governor of Spain, a situation that wouldn't have happened without him being Antony's brother who was still far too powerful for Octavian to take on directly. Octavian must have been enraged by the plotters, however, for Perusia was given to the troops to plunder and accidentally burned to the ground. According to Suetonius other prisoners of war were far less fortunate than Lucius and his higher-ups: " [Octavian] took vengeance on crowds of prisoners and returned the same answer to all who sued for pardon or tried to explain their prescence among the rebels. It was simply: "You must die!" According to some historians he chose 300 prisoners of equestrian or senatorial rank, and offered them on the Ides of March at the altar of the god Julius, as human sacrifices." This scenario is repeated by Cassius Dio and very likely true-we know all too well how Octavian would behave to those that crossed him. Senatorial decree forbid human sacrifice in 97 BC but it appears through Roman history as a recurrent practice. Roman religious ceremonies show traces of the ritual. It is known that on three occasions during times of great crisis for the Republic during the third and second centuries BC that two pairs of Gauls and Greeks, each a man and a woman, were buried alive in the cattle market (forum boarium). Lucius Sergius Catiline (of the Catiline conspiracy) was said to have sacrificed a boy and eaten his entrails in the 60s BC.

The most recent verified instance of human sacrifice took place during Julius Caesar's triumph in 46 BC, when enraged he had two rioting soldiers sacrificed to the war god Mars. Lucius surrendered in January or February 40 BC, only a matter of weeks before the anniversary of the Ides of March. Octavian performed the mass sacrifice on a commemorative altar placed at the site of Caesar's cremation in the Forum. The sacrifice rocked Rome to the very heart of its being, both because of the number and status of the victims. For Octavian, this marked the end of his blood-letting in honor of his deified adoptive father. The Roman citizenry long remembered the extravagant savagery as these lines show...our fatherland's Perusian graves, The Italian massacre in a callous time. Mark Antony claimed ignorance of what Lucius and Fulvia were doing. But Octavian wrote him many letters about the debacle, so it should be said he had to have known about it. Also, it would have been very strange for Fulvia to do this without her husband's knowledge. In all probablility he knew exactly what was happening, although it may not have been his idea. Step by step, Octavian was gaining immensely valuable political experience and showing good judgment also in letting other men in his entourage perform tasks he wasn't as good at; such as letting Agrippa take the lead in military conflicts.

The Perusian war showed the ineptness of Antony and his crowd-tending to make mistakes in both organization and execution. The twenty-three year old Octavian by contrast was now stronger than ever. It had been a year and a half since Philppi. The times since then must have been horribly vexing for the young man-he had come close to dying several times now. But the bad times seemed to bring out the best in his steely and calculating judgment and character. Never good at things military anyway; Octavian's reputation for physical cowardice on the battlefield may have been deserved. But there were also times when he showed great courage in other matters. Octavian showed an unwavering moral courage in his duties to pursue the unpopular but necessary policy of land confiscation that had come close to costing him his life on the Campus Martius. He had also been extremely brutal and bloodthirsty at times. After Philippi, could it have been the combination of sickness, nervous exhaustion and knowing how much better Antony's command was than his? After Perusia was he showing that you dare not cross him, but also showing that he knew he had to deal with certain people later? As much as Octavian brought to the table that was new, by his faithful treatment of Julius Caesar's memory and priestly duties, he was also showing a side to him that sympathized with the old values of the Republic (although only in certain areas and hypocritical about some as we will see later).

Thanks again to anyone following or commenting on this blog! I am still just slightly ahead of having material ready to be posted. I may not be online tomorrow-not sure yet. Best to anyone stopping by and have a beautiful weekend! The image is a marble bust of Mark Antony.