Roman Empire: New Wars Old Enemies Part Eighteen

It was also paramount in Roman society that there should not be any doubt as to who a Roman citizen's father was. This is precisely why Octavian himself ordered a favorite freedman of his to commit suicide after he had been convicted of adultery with freeborn Roman women. This policy of the properness of "who it was ok to have sex with" was a preventative measure to keep foreign genes out of the Roman gene pool. Citizens were supposed to marry citizens, and to wed a foreigner was looked down upon; if not illegal, such a union was not recognized by law-especially when it came to the matter of heirs to a will. For Mark Antony this meant that he could screw around with Cleopatra-but not marry her. For Octavia, a woman who appears to have been a wonderful, intelligent, loving spouse this may have stung a bit, but she understood the social mores of her time. Octavian, her loving brother was the one who absolutely hated the thought of Antony's liason with the eastern seductress. Then amidst Octavian dealing with his feelings about his Antony, some very interesting news started coming in from the east in the winter of 36 to 35 BC. This news-largely in the form of letters home from officers and others involved in Antony's Parthian campaign told a different story than Antony's gleaming tales of easy victory. In fact, it seems that his Parthian campaign came very close to defeat.

This interested Octavian greatly and other political higher-ups in Rome and a confidential investigation was commissioned to get the real story. Indeed it turns out that Mark Antony did make a series of mistakes that added up to a disaster. The campaign started out well enough but Antony started it too late in the year to afford a single setback or he would find himself fighting or retreating in the winter: think Napoleon or Hitler in later ages. Apparently Antony was so upset at himself he actually prepared for suicide several times. He was still a general in the midst of the quagmire, even after losing 20,000 men, one-third of his army, during the month it took to retreat to the relative safety of what would be modern Aremenia. I won't go into too may details of the actual battle as I am so behind on the major questions I want to at least ask if not answer on this blog, but I will try to find a link that describes it in full detail. When Antony's crippled army reached Syria, Antony started drinking heavily, as his sense of self-esteem was probably at the lowest point in his life. The soldiers that were left to him did stick by their general. According to Plutarch Antony's men, "greeted him with cheerful faces and gripped his hand as he passed: they begged him not to let their sufferings weigh upon him, but to go and take care of himself."

Messengers had been sent to ask Cleopatra for money and clothing for the soldiers. Apparently she took her sweet time (perhaps not wanting to be taken for granted?) but eventually brought everything that was required. After the soldiers were completely outfitted and supplied, Antony returned to Alexandria to contemplate how to proceed. When Octavian had absorbed all of the information about his colleague's debacle he decided to take a wait and see approach. Here is where some interesting thoughts about Octavian's motives come in. There are no records of any secret dealings or thougthts Octavian may have had with regard to sharing power with Antony until one or the other died. Who knows-maybe Octavian was just an intelligent and normally very careful opportunist and had no desire to unseat Mark Antony and rule the empire alone? But the sheer volume of evidence of his behavior-to me anyway (and not to worry-other "real" historians;-) argues very much against this. Octavian's slow but relentless and ruthlessness in chipping away at Antony's power and prestige (amongst other competitors) and his absolute refusal to do the barest minimum-even below minimum I think to help his fellow triumvir-taken as a whole points to an eventual plan to have sole rulership of the Roman world. I do think that Octavian truly adored his sister and am not entirely sure if he had an extra psychological push to get rid of Antony because of his dealings with Cleopatra; this situation probably added to the impetus to take Antony out, but I think this was the plan all along-ever since Octavian learned of his adoption by Julius Caesar.

The image is a Roman mosaic of a lion on a roundel. I do not know exactly when the next article will be here. I have developed the worse case of the summertime blahs on record I think-been very lazy regarding blogging lately. I do hope to come up with a schedule where I work on material for each blog three days of the week when I can with a day of rest. Hopefully I will get somewhat back on track soon. Thanks again to anyone following or commenting on this blog!