the command of Salvidienus, writing to Antonius regularly in an attempt to switch sides. One little item I didn’t tell Octavianus.
What Antonius fears in Octavianus is that genius Divus Julius had in such abundance. Oh, not as a general of armies! As a man of infinite courage, the kind of courage Antonius is beginning to lose. Yes, his fear of failure grows, whereas Octavianus starts to dare all, to gamble on unpredictable outcomes. Antonius is at a disadvantage when dealing with Octavianus, but even more so when dealing with foes as foreign as the Parthians. Will he ever wage that particular war? He rants about lack of money, but is that lack really the sum total of his reluctance to fight the war he should be fighting? If he doesn’t fight it, he’ll lose the confidence of Rome and Romans; he knows that too. So Octavianus is his excuse for lingering in the West. If he drives Octavianus out of the arena, he’ll have so many legions that he could defeat a quarter of a million men. Yet, with sixty thousand men, Divus Julius defeated over three hundred thousand. Because he went about it with genius. Antonius wants to be master of the world and the First Man in Rome, but can’t work out how to go about it.
Pace, pace, pace, up and down, up and down. He’s insecure. Decisions loom, and he’s insecure. Nor can he embark upon one of his famous fits of ‘inimitable living’ – what a joke, to call his cronies in Alexandria the ‘Society of Inimitable Livers’! Now here he is, in a situation where he can’t binge his way to forgetfulness. Haven’t his colleagues realized, as I have, that Antonius debauched is simply demonstrating his innate weakness?
Yes, concluded Plancus, it is time to change sides. But can I do that at the moment? I doubt it, in the same way as I doubt Antonius. Like him, I’m short on steel.
* * *
Octavian knew all this with more conviction than Plancus, yet he couldn’t be sure which way the dice would fall now Antony had arrived outside Brundisium; he had staked everything on the legionaries. Then their representatives came to tell him they would not fight Antony’s troops, be they his own, or Pollio’s, or Ventidius’s. An announcement that saw Octavian limp with relief. It only remained to see if Antony’s troops would fight for him.
Two nundinae later, he had his answer. The soldiers under the command of Pollio and Ventidius had refused to fight their brothers at arms.
He sat down to write Antony a letter.
My dear Antonius, we are at an impasse. My legionaries refuse to fight yours, and yours refuse to fight mine. They belong to Rome, they say, not to any one man, even a Triumvir. The days of massive bonuses, they say, are past. I agree with them. Since Philippi I have known that we can no longer sort out our differences by going to war against each other. Imperium maius we may have but, in order to enforce that, we must have command of willing soldiers. We do not.
I therefore propose, Marcus Antonius, that each of us chooses a single man as his representative to try to find a solution to this impasse. As a neutral participant whom both of us deem fair and impartial, may I nominate Lucius Cocceius Nerva? You are at liberty to dispute my choice and nominate a different man. My delegate will be Gaius Maecenas. Neither you nor I should be present at this meeting. To attend it would mean ruffled tempers.
‘The cunning rat!’ cried Antony, screwing up the letter.
Plancus picked it up, smoothed it out and read it. ‘Marcus, it’s the logical solution to your predicament,’ he faltered. ‘Consider for a moment, please, where you are and what you face. What Octavianus suggests may prove a salve to heal injured feelings on both sides. Truly, it is your best alternative.’
A verdict echoed by Gnaeus Asinius Pollio several hours later when he arrived by pinnace from Barium.
‘My men won’t fight, nor will yours,’ he said flatly. ‘I for one can’t change their minds, nor will yours change theirs; and from all reports Octavianus is in like straits. The legions have decided for us, so it’s up to us to find an honorable way out. I have told my men that I will arrange a truce. Ventidius has done the same. Give in, Marcus, give in! It’s not a defeat.’
‘Anything that enables Octavianus to wriggle out of the jaws of death is a defeat,’ Antony said stubbornly.
‘Nonsense! His troops are as disaffected as ours.’
‘He’s not even game to confront me! It’s all to be done by agents like Maecenas – ruffled tempers? I’ll give him ruffled tempers! And I don’t care what he says, I’m going to his little meeting to represent myself!’
‘He won’t be present, Antonius,’ Pollio said, eyes fixed on Plancus, rolling his eyes skyward. ‘I have a far better scheme. Agree to it, and I’ll go as your representative.’
‘You?’ Antony asked incredulously. ‘You?’
‘Yes, I! Antonius, I’ve been consul for eight-and-a-half months, yet I haven’t been able to go to Rome to don my consular regalia,’ Pollio said, exasperated. ‘As consul, I outrank Gaius Maecenas and a paltry Nerva combined! Do you really think I’d let a weasel like Maecenas dupe me? Do you?’
‘I suppose not,’ Antony said, beginning to yield. ‘All right, I’ll agree to it. With some conditions.’
‘Name them.’
‘That I am free to enter Italia through Brundisium, and that you be permitted to go to Rome to assume your consulship without any impediments put in your way. That I retain my right to recruit troops in Italia. And that the exiles be allowed to go home immediately.’
‘I don’t think any of those conditions will be a problem,’ said Pollio. ‘Sit down and write, Antonius.’
Odd, thought Pollio as he rode down the Via Minucia toward Brundisium, that I always manage to be where the great decisions are made. I was with Caesar – Divus Julius, indeed! – when he crossed the Rubicon, and on that river isle in Italian Gaul when Antonius, Octavianus and Lepidus agreed to divide up the world. Now I’ll be presiding over the next momentous occasion – Maecenas is not a fool, he won’t object to my assuming the chair. What extraordinary luck for a writer of modern history!
Though his family had not been prominent until his advent, Pollio owned an intellect formidable enough to have made him one of Caesar’s favorites. A good soldier and a better commander, he had advanced with Caesar after Caesar became Dictator, and never had had any doubt where his loyalties lay until after Caesar was murdered. Too pragmatic and unromantic to side with Caesar’s heir, he had only one man left to whom to hew – Marcus Antonius. Like many of his peers, he found the eighteen-year-old Gaius Octavius farcical, couldn’t begin to fathom what a peerless man like Caesar could see in such a pretty boy. He believed too that Caesar hadn’t expected to die so soon – he was as tough as an old army boot – and that Octavius had been a temporary heir, just a ploy to exclude Antony until he could judge whether Antony would settle down. Also to see what time would make of the mama’s boy who now denied his mama’s existence. Then Fate and Fortuna had exacted the ultimate penalty from Caesar, allowed a group of embittered, jealous, short-sighted men to murder him. How Pollio rued that, despite his ability to chronicle contemporary events with detachment and impartiality. The trouble was that at the time Pollio had no idea what Caesar Octavianus would make of his unexpected rise to prominence. How could any man foresee the steel and gall inside an inexperienced youth? Caesar, he had long realized, was the only one who had seen what Gaius Octavius was made of. But, even when Pollio had come to understand what lay within Octavian, it was already too late for a man of honor to follow him. Antonius was not the better man, he was simply the alternative pride permitted. Despite his failings – and they were many – at least Antony
