Intermezzo Part Five

The following information in this article is from Anthony Everitt's Augustus from pages 196 to 200. Octavian looked upon the body for a time, then paid his respects by crowning the head with a golden diadem and placing flowers on the trunk. He was asked, "Would you like to visit the mausoleum of the Ptolemies?" To this he sneered, "I came to see a king, not a row of corpses." The Alexandrians may have warmed a bit to Octavian and his admiring curiosity-but this newfound warmth towards their conqueror may have lessened when he accidentally knocked off part of Alexander's nose!

Octavian's friend Areius may have shown him the Mouseion or Place of the Muses. This was a group of buildings on the palace grounds. They included lecture halls, laboratories, a park and a zoo. These were all richly endowed by the Ptolemies and were a center of scientific research and literary studies. The Library of Alexandria was famous over the whole known world at the time. It had about 300,000 books, or scrolls as it were and was opn to anyone who could read. Julius Caesar is wrongfully accused of burning the whole library down during his short Alexandrian war of 48-47 BC-in fact only a part of it was destroyed at that time.

Octavian's stay in Alexandria probably got many wheels turning in his head about what a capital should be, both architectually and culturally. The genius of the Ptolemies had been to show how intellectuals and artists could flower and grow with a "soft" guilding hand by the state. Octavian returned to Rome with his mind made up to create a city whose public image and monuments emanated an appropriate magnificence.

Egypt now lost the independence it had held dear (with a few intervals) for thousands of years and would not reclaim until the 20th century A.D. Octavian gave the new possession, as was proper, to the Senate and People of Rome. However, in many ways Egypt had become his private fiefdom. There was a bit of irony here, as not only was Octavian considered the "lord of the two lands" (that is upper and lower Egypt), but also king of kings-the same high-flown title that Mark Antony had accorded Cleopatra. It didn't take the Egyptians long to accept and pay homage to their pharaoh from the Alban Hills of Italy. Modern archaeologists have made a recent discovery of the Egyptian jackal-headed god, Anubis, as a Roman soldier guarding the entrance to a tomb.

There was a very good reason to give Egypt higher priority than other provinces in the empire. Egypt was the Meditteraneans major producer of wheat, it was Rome's breadbasket. This made it too important to let a senator govern the kingdom as a proconsul. Octavian made his friend, the poet Gallus its first prefect. At first, Gallus seems to have done a great job as an energetic and effective leader, but his new exalted status as a kind of lieutenant pharaoh mad him drunk with power. He also engaged in "indiscreet talk when drunk" about his boss-Octavian.

Gallus even had statues made of himself and a list of his achievments inscribed on the pyramids! This was too much and a colleague sent word to Rome about his activities. In 27 BC Gallus was dismissed. Octavian only denied him entry to his house and the right to enter the provinces of which he was the proconsul. This wasn't enough for the Senate, which exiled him and confiscated his estates. Octavian thanked the Senate for supporting him in the harsh measures he had taken against his friend. Octavian stated: "I am the only man in Rome who cannot limit his displeasure with his friends. The matter always has to be taken further." There are different accounts left to us from history about how Gallus dealt with his disgrace. One has him so humiliated by it that he committed suicide. Another story says he died while having sexual intercourse. The fate of Gallus was a warning to those who orbited the center of power, not to take anything for granted or get out of line.

Enough time had elapsed between the Battle of Actium and the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra for the Meditteranean world to deal with the final conclusion of the civil wars and now to contemplate the unchallenged ascendancy of Octavian. Honors came to him from every corner of the empire, including the right to use the title Imperator, this was the name soldiers used to acclaim victorious generals, as his permanent first name. Octavian declined other awards and honors in a calculating show of modesty.

There was one senatorial decree that gave Octavian the greatest satisfaction above all others. This was the formal closing of the gates of the very modest Temple of Janus. This temple stood in the Forum and had perhaps been used as a bridge over a stream that used to flow across the square (covered a long time now and turned into a drain). Janus was the god of gateways. This god had two faces-one always facing towards the future and the other-the past. The temple had doors on either end; closed in times of peace and open in times of war. Seeing how the Romans were a very warlike people, empire-building people-these doors were almost always open. It was a great compliment and acclamation to Octavian that these doors were shut. A great symbol of the much talked about-and much delayed arrival of peace throughout the entire empire under one supreme leader.

Octavian did not get back to Italy until 29 August 30 B.C. He was consul again, and had been regularly holding the consulship since his triumviral mandate rendered in 31 B.C. Like his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, Octavian knew that he couldn't govern alone, and he made sure Rome knew that reconciliation was very much back in fashion. In his official autobiography, Octavian claimed: "Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the world, on sea and land, and when victorious I spared all citizens who sued for pardon."

The claim of clemency should be taken with a grain of salt. Yes-many were forgiven, but some were not. Octavian was not near as free in his let bygones be bygones attitude as his great-uncle was-perhaps remembering what had happened to him by many he trusted on the Ides of March.

Revenge was even taken on the dead. Mark Antony's name was removed from the Fasti, the state register of official events, and many other steps taken such as removing statues of him-his birthday was even made a dies nefastus, an unlucky day, on which public business could not be carried out. There was more going on here than just Octavian's wish to see all memory of Mark Antony expunged from the face of the earth.

There was a propaganda machine cranking up that meant to rewrite history. Actium, which had really been no more than a minor naval engagement with the romantic twist of the star-crossed lovers Antony and Cleopatra breaking through the blockade, was being transformed into a great battle between the hardy and upright moral Rome and the effeminate and devious East, between Good and Evil itself. The poets who associated with Octavian's childhood friend Maecenas, worked on his imaginative rewritings of history.

Horace composed a memorable and-although it was well written-the poem did not have even one accurate statement in it! Virgil, who was the greatest poet of the age, wrote the most complete verse of what all of this was about, in his great national epic of Rome's beginnings, the Aeneid. In this epic, Julius Caesar's ancestor, Aeneas, has Octavian prophetically engraved on his shield at the head of tota Italia, all Italy. The nova or comet that had shone so brightly in the night sky for a week after Julius Caesar's assassination shines above Octavian as he sets out to put the corrupt and craven East in its place:

High up on the poop [he] is leading
The Italians into battle, the Senate and People with him,
His home gods and the great gods: two flames shoot up from his helmet
In jubilant light, and his father's star dawns over its crest.

The image is a marble bust of Octavian at a very young age. I do hope to post the next segment soon. I need to think of a new series name! The "intermission" is over now-if it indeed could ever have been considered one. I am glad I had some of this saved to drafts already. I can't do this near as much as I would like but it helps enormously when I can because of my back and lousy typing. The rest of this week until Monday starts again might be a bit of a mess depending on what happens, but I don't want to say what will or won't get done- as when I do I am often wrong! Please hope and pray if you want for a positive result for me with my disability hearing on the 17th-Thursday. I may not even know the answer for another 3 to 5 months-but my case will be "decided" Thursday whatever happens. The extra time is because there are not enough staff to type up decisions made-like a whole four people for the whole of Maricopa County-maybe even the whole state-forgot which. Thanks again to Jon and anyone else who has commented here or reads this blog-I appreciate it so very much-and hope to keep going with this blog as best I can in the future!

Roman Empire: New Wars Old Enemies Part Ten

Publius Virgilius Maro (Virgil) was a poet of the age who had come up from the lower or middle ranks of Italian society. However, his father saw to it that he got a good education. Virgil went to Rome and studied rhetoric. Suetonius describes him as "tall and bulky with a dark complexion and the appearance of a countryman. He had changeable health [and] ate and drank little. He was always falling in love with boys." By the time Virgil was around thirty years old he had left Rome and the dream of having a public career. He was almost at the summit of his talent as a poet and lived in Neapolis (modern Naples). Virgil's first major works had been published called the Ecologues which were a series of ten poems that described a pastoral ideal of life in the countryside. In Virgil's paradise of handsome young shepherds and beautiful shepherdesses very real and painful events are in the background; such as the young poet losing his farm to Octavian's veteran settlers and its thankful return due to Octavian's intervention. As much as Virgil's original experience of the naked power of the triumvirs may have wounded his soul, he did find an accord with the new regime. Maybe Virgil, along with many other people, not only in Italy but through the Meditteranean world were hoping that the concord reached with the Treaty of Brundisium heralded the dawn of a new age.

Back in the era of the classical world, before mass printing became available a professional writer who didn't have money needed to find rich patrons to give him the necessary tools to publish his work as there was no extensive middle class market to provide income from book sales. This is probably the first reason Virgil came to support Octavian-the need for financial backing. But he also acted out of real political ideals, for in the years after Brundisium, the new regime seemed to offer hope, peace and prosperity. There was a messianic message in his fourth ecologue:
"The Firstborn of the New Ages is already on his way from heaven down to earth.
With him, the Iron Age shall end and Golden Man inherit all the world. Smile on the baby's birth, immaculate Lucina [goddess of childbirth]; your own Apollo is enthroned at last."
Many historians believe that with this verse, Virgil is not only trumpeting the return of a Golden Age but also this poem could have been a wedding hymn, should either Antony and Octavia or Octavian and Scribonia produce a male child. To whomever the poem was written for the issue became a moot point. In 39 BC both women gave birth to daughters; Scribonia had Julia and Octavia had Antonia.

The dawn of the new age was to be short lived. Sextus Pompeius still lurked in the background. He had attempted to help Mark Antony gain the upper hand and been rejected at the last moment. Now Sextus put a blockade around Italy. In Rome prices skyrocketed. This is one of the few times Octavian was out of touch with public opinion. The people of Italy wanted Octavian to make peace with Sextus. Not only did he refuse to do this, he levied a new tax on property owners to pay his soldiers. Once again rioting broke out in Rome, the people's patience had snapped after all they had gone through. Courageously-or perhaps foolishly, Octavian decided to face the mob of protesters, as he had done with the mutinous soldiers on the Campus Martius. This time, however, the crowd began lobbing projectiles at him and didn't stop even after injuring the young man. Mark Antony on hearing news of what was happening dashed to the Forum. When the protesters first eyed Antony they didn't throw anything at him because it was known he favored peace with Sextus, but they did warn him not to interfere. When Antony refused to go back they also began stoning him. Mark Antony was able to summon reinforcements and eventually rescued Ocatavian from the crowd, after being able to get him only after much harrassment.

I think this incident illustrates two things at least. Octavian, although not a great warrior definitely had a kind of courage. The twenty-four year old showed determination and grit in facing both crowds. It also shows-I think anyway-that Antony wanted to continue in power with Octavian in the way things had now been setttled-otherwise why risk his life to save him? Octavian did finally realize he had to give in on the matter of Sextus. In the summer of 39 BC a very cautious peace conference was arranged between the triumvirs and Sextus at Misenum, a headland at the northern end of the Bay of Naples. Sextus himself had rejected advice to make all-out war or at least wait and see if the famine in Rome would give him greater leverage. The concessions Antony and Octavian made to Sextus at the Treaty of Misenum were not essential to their hold on power. Sextus could also proclaim the treaty was a rather good deal for him as he was no longer an outlaw, and was even given membership in the College of Augurs (the committee of senior statesmen who were charged with seeing that the correct measures had been prescribed to placate the gods were carried out) and also nominated for the consulship in the forthcoming year of 38 BC. In private, however, Sextus already regretted not taking the advice to stand firm.

Could this have been because he realized something that may not have occurred to the triumvirs? The Treaty of Misenum did bring Sextus back inside the political life of Rome, but it also gave the priceless gift of separating opposition politicians from Sextus. The deal between Sextus and the triumvirs was sealed with a marriage bond as had happened between Antony and Octavian at Brundisium. Sextus' infant daughter was formally betrothed to Marcellus, who was three years old and Antony's stepson and Octavian's nephew. Plutarch tell us that Menodorus, one of Sextus's admirals spoke to Sextus out of hearing of the guests: "Shall I cut the cables and make you master not just of Sicily and Sardinia, but of the whole Roman empire?" Sextus is supposed to have replied: "Menodorus, you should have acted, not spoken to me beforehand. Now we must be content with things as they are. I do not break my word." This famous exchange has some silver-tongued qualities that make some historians doubt its veracity. However, Plutarch's records could very well have been the truth. It tells us two things that are very much in keeping with Sextus's character. In calling himself Pius, "dutiful" or "honest", Sextus was thinking mostly of his father's memory, but it also showed that Sextus thought of himself as a Roman of the republican values of being honest and straightforward. Also the story tells of the lack of the cut-throat and killer instinct in Sextus, which can be verified by his political career-especially in comparison to Antony and Octavian. After the peace conference, the men left for their different destinations. Octavian to Gaul where reports of resistance were coming in. Antony to the east and the Parthians and Sextus back to Sicily. Many of the refugees in Sextus's entourage bade him goodbye and left for Rome.

The image is of a stamp issued of a mosaic of Virgil found at an ancient villa in Tunisia. I have more information that is ready to go and hope to have the next post here soon. Thanks to anyone following or commenting on this blog!