War Drums Part Two

Then Antony summoned Cleopatra, who joined him en route, bringing with her a very rich war chest of twenty thousand talents (about 480 million sesterces), and the two arrived at the port of Ephesus (near the modern town of Selcuk in southern Turkey) and made it their headquarters. The Triumvirate officially ended at the close of December 33 BC. Octavian, now had to maintain his new public image as a strict observer of the constitution and upholder of the "old" values that had made Rome so great. Octavian had no governmental position of any kind now, and it was exceedingly risky to be disarmed this way-now of all times.

In his favor was the fact that after more than ten years at the head of affairs he had built up a powerful auctoritas and political base. He had proven record of success, and was the overlord of a huge clientela-thousands of people had obligations to him. Maybe the most important fact was that the legions of the west remained under his command. Maintaining an outwardly defensive posture, he withdrew from Rome to await events.

Two new consuls took office in January 32 BC. During the period that the triumvirs had ruled, consuls had been named for years ahead. They were chosen from a roughly equal lot of supporters of the two triumvirs. As luck would have it, however, the two named for this year were both supporters of Mark Antony. The senior consul was Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (the cognomen means "Bronze Beard"), the noble who had proven himself a good admiral for Brutus and Cassius. His colleague was also an able man named Gaius Sosius, a new man. Typically for this timeframe he was a provincial. Both men had an important mission to carry out for Antony.

Previous to their taking office, they had been sent a letter they were to read to the Senate upon taking office. Antony had probably sought to state his state his own case forcefully; he probably restated his eastern settlement, his various acta, and in particular his Armenian victory. However, the consuls made a strange decision about reading the letter.

Dio writes: "Domitius and Sosius...being extremely devoted to [Antony], refused to publish [the letter] to all the people, even though Caesar urged it on them."

What this means, in all probability is that the consuls' viewed the letters import on public or senatorial, opinion as the opposite of what Antony had intended. The problem with the letter could have been a prideful reasoning behind the Donations of Alexandria. Antony wasn't aware of Octavian's propaganda against Cleopatra-or the fact that it had been so successful. If this were the case, any reference to the Donations by Antony that weren't somehow apologetic would have added more fuel to the flames. Gaius Sosius went on the offensive on 1 February. He strongly advocated for Mark Antony and proposed a measure of censure of Octavian. Sosius' message had been that if there was a threat to peace it hadn't come from Antony who had shown no sign of aggression toward Octavian.

I hope to be back very soon with more. This is going to start getting very interesting for awhile for anyone interested in this. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!