yourself under a landslide of papers, Caesar, you’d know,’ Agrippa said in a tone only he dared use to Octavian. ‘They’ve been ready for days. And Maecenas has sweet-talked the neutral Nerva into coming along.’
‘Excellent!’
‘Why is he so important, Caesar?’
‘Well, when one brother elected Antonius and the other me, his neutrality was the only way the Cocceius Nerva faction could continue to exist should Antonius and I come to blows. Antonius’s Nerva died in Syria, which left a vacancy on his side. A vacancy that saw Lucius Nerva in a lather of sweat – did he dare choose to fill it? In the end, he said no, though he would not choose me either.’ Octavian smirked. ‘With his wife wielding the lash, he’s tied to Rome, therefore – neutrality.’
‘I know all that, but it begs the question.’
‘You’ll have an answer if my scheme succeeds.’
What had jerked Mark Antony off his comfortable Athenian couch was a letter from Octavian.
‘My very dear Antonius,’ it said, ‘it grieves me sorely to have to pass on the news I have just received from Further Spain. Your brother Lucius died in Corduba not very long into his tenure as governor. From all the many reports I have read of the matter, he simply dropped dead. No lingering, no pain. The physicians say it was a catastrophe originating in the brain, which autopsy revealed was full of blood around its stem. He was cremated in Corduba, and the ashes were sent to me along with documentation sufficient to satisfy me on all counts. I hold his ashes and the reports against your coming. Please accept my sincere condolences.’ It was sealed with Divus Julius’s sphinx ring.
Of course Antony didn’t believe a word of it beyond the fact that Lucius was dead; within a day he was hurrying to Patrae and orders had gone to western Macedonia to embark two legions from Apollonia immediately. The other eight were put on stand-by for shipment to Brundisium as soon as he summoned them.
Intolerable that Octavian should have the news first! And why had no word come to him ahead of that letter? Antony read the missive as a challenge thrown down: your brother’s ashes are in Rome – come and get them if you dare! Did he dare? By Jupiter Optimus Maximus and all the gods, he dared!
An informative letter from Plancus to Octavian sped off from Patrae, where the enraged Antony was obliged to wait until his two legions were confirmed as sailed. It went (had Antony only known of its contents, it would not have) together with Antony’s curt order to Pollio to get his legions moving down the Via Adriatica; at the moment they were in Fanum Fortunae, where Pollio could move on Rome along the Via Flaminia, or hug the Adriatic coast to Brundisium. A quailing Plancus begged a place on Antony’s ship, judging his chances of slipping through the lines to Octavian easier on Italian soil. By now he was desperately wishing that he hadn’t sent that letter – could he be sure Octavian wouldn’t leak its contents back to Antony?
His guilt made Plancus an edgy, anxious companion on the voyage, so when, in mid-Adriatic, the fleet of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus hove in sight, Plancus soiled his loincloth and almost fainted.
‘Oh, Antonius, we’re dead men!’ he wailed.
‘At the hands of Ahenobarbus? Never!’ said Antony, nostrils flaring. ‘Plancus, I do believe you shit yourself!’
Plancus fled, leaving Antony to wait for the arrival of a rowboat heading for his ship. His own standard still fluttered from the mast, but Ahenobarbus had lowered his.
Squat, dark and bald, Ahenobarbus clambered neatly up a rope ladder and advanced on Antony, grinning from ear to ear. ‘At last!’ the irascible one cried, hugging Antony. ‘You’re moving on that odious little insect, Octavianus, aren’t you? Please say you are!’
‘I am’ was Antony’s answer. ‘May he choke on his own shit! Plancus just shit himself at sight of you, and I would have put his courage higher than Octavianus’s. Do you know what Octavianus did, Ahenobarbus? He murdered Lucius in Further Spain, then had the gall to write and inform me that he’s the proud owner of Lucius’s ashes! He dares me to collect them! Is he mad?’
‘I’m your man through thick and thin,’ Ahenobarbus said huskily. ‘My fleet is yours.’
‘Good,’ said Antony, extricating himself from a very strong embrace. ‘I may need a big warship with a solid bronze beak to break Brundisium’s harbor chain.’
But not a sixteener with a twenty-talent bronze beak could have broken the chain strung across the harbor mouth; anyway, Ahenobarbus didn’t have a ship half as large as a sixteener. The chain was anchored between two concrete piers reinforced with iron pieces, and each of its bronze links was fashioned from metal six inches thick. Neither Antony nor Ahenobarbus had ever seen a more monstrous barrier, nor a population so jubilant at the sight of their frustrated attempts to snap that barrier. While the women and children cheered and jeered, the men of Brundisium subjected Ahenobarbus’s battle quinquereme to a murderous hail of spears and arrows that finally drove it offshore.
‘I can’t do it!’ Ahenobarbus yelled, weeping in rage. ‘Oh, but when I do, they’re going to suffer! And where did it come from? The old chain was a tenth this one’s size!’
‘That Apulian peasant Agrippa installed this one,’ Plancus was able to say, sure he no longer smelled of shit. ‘When I left to seek refuge with you, Antonius, the Brundisians were quick to explain its genesis. Agrippa has fortified this place better than Ilium was, including on its land sides.’
‘They won’t die quickly,’ Antony snarled. ‘I’ll impale the town magistrates on stakes up their arses and drive them in at the rate of an inch a day.’
‘Ow, ow!’ said Plancus, flinching at the thought. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Wait for my troops and land them wherever we can to north and south,’ said Antony. ‘Once Pollio arrives – he’s taking his sweet time! – we’ll squash this benighted place from its land side, Agrippa’s fortifications or no. After a siege, I suppose. They know I won’t be kind to them – they’ll resist to the end.’
So Antony withdrew to the island off Brundisium’s harbor mouth, there to wait for Pollio and try to discover what had become of Ventidius, curiously silent.
Sextilis had ended and the Nones of September were gone, though the weather was still hot enough to make island living an ordeal. Antony paced; Plancus watched him pace. Antony growled; Plancus pondered. Antony’s thoughts never left the subject of Lucius Antonius; Plancus’s ranged far and wide on one subject too, but a more fascinating one – Marcus Antonius. For Plancus was seeing new facets in Antony, and didn’t like what he saw. Wonderful, glorious Fulvia wove in and out of his mind – so brave and fierce, so … so interesting. How could Antony have beaten a woman, let alone his wife? The granddaughter of Gaius Gracchus!
He’s like a small child with its mother, Plancus thought, brushing at tears. He should be in the East fighting the Parthians – that’s his duty. Instead, he’s here on Italian soil, as if he hasn’t the courage to abandon it. Is it Octavianus who eats at him, or is it insecurity? At his core, does Antonius believe he can win future laurels? Oh, he’s brave, but generaling armies doesn’t demand bravery. It’s more an intellectual exercise, an art, a talent. Divus Julius was a genius at it, Antonius is Divus Julius’s cousin. But, to Antonius, I suspect that fact is more a burden than a delight. He’s so terrified of failing that, like Pompeius Magnus, he won’t move unless he has superior numbers. Which he has here in Italia, between Pollio, Ventidius
