War Drums Part Four

The west must be left open for Mark Antony to make a move against Italy so he would receive the black eye for beginning the war. During this game of cat and mouse, Octavian had to not only maintain but enlarge his army and naval fleet. There was no getting around raising taxes. An unprecedentedly harsh income tax was levied (25 percent to an individual's annual earnings) with the result that riots immediately broke out. Octavian might have felt as if he had stepped backwards in time to ten years earlier when he was the unpopular man who confronted the crowds when the Triumvirate had been forced to raise taxes for the wars against Brutus and Cassius.

Once again Octavian showed a knack for making surprise moves when the stakes were high. Some time during 32 BC he held a sort of personal referendum in which people were required to swear their loyalty to him. Later he wrote boasting: "The whole of Italy [and the western provinces] voluntarily took an oath of allegiance to me and demanded me as its leader in the forthcoming war." Octavian claimed that half a million citizens bound themselves to him. Even though we don't have to accept this dubiously round number to still concede the plebiscite was a surprising success.

It had been less than 50 years since the War of the Allies, when the peoples of Italy had rose up against Rome to claim their rights and were granted full citizenship. Octavian was a provincial as were many others in his regime. After centuries of being bossed around by Rome, they were enjoying the new era and definitely did not want to see Antony and Cleopatra overturn it. The rage over the new taxes was dying down. In its place a new patriotism emerged in the Italian consciousness.

Then things were once again to turn in favor of Octavian. Lucius Munatius Plancus had defected to Mark Antony after the Battle of Mutina in 43 BC, and became one of his closest advisers. However, in the summer of 32 BC, he seems to have taken stock of the situation and left Athens quietly, where Antony and Cleopatra were spending some time before hostilities commenced. Plancus made his way as quietly as possible to Italy. We can wonder what precipitated this move?

In May or June of that year Antony had at last divorced Octavia. He told her to leave his house in Rome. Once again there is actual historical evidence to back up what was being said by people at the time about Octavia being an affectionate and maternal woman. Because when she left the family home she took all of Antony's children with her, except for his eldest son by Fulvia, the teenaged Antyllus. Antyllus left Rome to join his father in Greece, where he gave Antony the uncomfortable news that Octavia had looked after the growing boy with great kindness. The divorce of Octavia by Antony had very serious consequences for him in the court of public opinion.

It had more to do with the fact that he had behaved boorishly to a loving wife but even more so that he had scorned a Roman woman in favor of a foreign queen. However, all this business with Antony, Octavia and Cleopatra was not enough in and of itself to force Plancus' hand. It would seem that Plancus noted the extremely corrosive effect Cleopatra's presence in the campaign and Mark Antony's supporters. Plancus could have figured out easily the effect of a foreign queen helping to lead an invasion of Italy would be!

Once he got to Rome, Plancus presented himself to Octavian and told him that he knew most of Antony's secrets. Antony kept a document with the Vestal Virgins that was too good not to expose. Octavian sent a message to the Vestal Virgins to give him Antony's document. They refused and said if he wanted it he would have to get it himself. This, Octavian was more than willing to do.

I hope to post at least one more article to this blog today. The post/article sizes may vary a bit as lately, my neuropathy/back pain is giving me more trouble than normal and I need to stand up and down more to keep it from going completely out-so many times it is easier to just post an article than to keep saving it to drafts-even though I do normally like my posts to be at least a certain length before publishing.