Julius Caesar: The Last Dictator

JULIUS
CAESAR:
THE LAST DICTATOR

CHAPTER 5.2: AFTERMATH

Coin of Marcus Antonius

"Marcus Lepidus, Marcus Antonius, and Octavius Caesar, the men appointed to regulate the Republic and restore it to order, declare: if it were not for the treachery of criminals who were pitied when they begged for mercy, and when they received mercy became enemies of their benefactors and subsequently conspirators against them, Gaius Caesar would not have been killed by men whom he took prisoner, spared out of pity, admitted to his friendship, and favoured en masse with office, honours and gifts, nor would we have been compelled to deal en masse with those who have insulted us and proclaimed us enemies of the state." Wording of the Triumviral Decree, 43 BC (Appian, The Civil Wars, IV.8).

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Coin of Caesar Augustus, c. 27 BC

"At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction . . Those who slew my father, I drove into exile, punishing their deed by due process of law, and afterwards, when they waged war upon the republic I twice defeated them in battle." Augustus Caesar, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 1.

THE PLAINS OF PHILLIPI, 42 BC

The plains of Philippi midway between Dyrrhachium
on the west and Byzantium on the east. .

With the armies of the now-reconciled Antony and Octavian in hot pursuit through Greece in 42 BC, Cassius and Brutus drew up their legions to meet them near the city of Philippi. Brutus' force was outnumbered and evil portents were later quoted, but at the time it seemed that the Liberators had the advantage. Cassius was apparently worried about risking the future of the Republic on one battle, like Pompey at Pharsalus, but the two battles (with some weeks in between) known as the Battle of Phillipi could very easily have gone for the Liberators. Octavian - who in his youth, suffered from intermittent poor health - was so sick that he could take little part in the battles. The Triumviral forces were probably slightly outnumbered by those of Brutus and Cassius. To a great extent however, the battle depended upon Antony's military skills, and Antony was recognized in his own time as the finest general in Rome, after Caesar.

On October 3, and again on October 23, 42 BC, the opposing armies clashed; the first battle did not defeat the Triumvirs only because, at a critical moment when Cassius' forces were being forced back but Brutus' were actually winning, Cassius misunderstood the fog of battle. He committed suicide in the conviction that their side had lost. Brutus, no military genius, was left to fight the second battle some three weeks later, and in this contest he was soundly beaten. Like Cassius, he also committed suicide.

In the months and years to come, every member of the conspiracy who could be reached was destroyed, to the point that some historians viewed it as the grim reapings of Fate. Some committed suicide; some fell in battles against Antony and Octavian; Decimus Brutus, perhaps Caesar's most loyal lieutenant, was betrayed on every side, captured by a Gallic chief and murdered on Antony's direct orders. Octavian was implacable. So complete was the destruction that ancient historians often ascribed it to divine retribution, as this anecdote about Cassius' death, common in the next century:

	" C. Cassius, never to be named without prefix of public parricide, was standing firm and full of ardor at the battle of Philippi when he saw Caesar, majestic beyond human aspect, robed in a purple commander's cloak, charging at him with threatening countenance and horse at the gallop. Terrified at the apparition, Cassius turned in flight from his enemy, first uttering these words: 'What more is a man to do if killing be not enough?' "
	Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings, I.8.

It was given to Appian, writing two centuries later, to sum up historical judgment on Brutus and his fellow conspirators:

	" In spite of these [noble] characteristics of theirs, there was the crime against Caesar to counterbalance everything. This was no simple nor circumscribed crime: it was committed unexpectedly against a friend, ungenerously against a benefactor who had saved their lives in war, and unlawfully against an emperor; it was committed in the senate, against a priest clothed in his priestly dress, and against a ruler like no other, whose services to his country and its empire far surpassed those of all other men. This incurred the just wrath of heaven, which gave them many forewarnings of its vengeance."
	Appian, The Civil War, IV. 134 .

The bloodbath following the rise of power of Octavian and Antony would be followed by 11 years of increasingly uneasy peace as the inevitable conflicts between Octavian and Antony matured. There be an exhausted end to Civil War only after Antony committed suicide after Actium in 31 BC. Then, in an irony which would have horrified the original conspirators, Octavian took charge of the Roman state and never again relinquished it, nor did the Emperors who followed him. The Republic was as dead as Caesar.

Impassive bust of Caesar in black onyx
(Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)

Sources:

Coins of Antony and Augustus from Wildwinds Coins. Map of Greece from De Imperatoribus Romani The black stone bust - with its eerily magnetic eyes - courtesy of Cleopatra: The Last Pharaoh of Egypt.