Mark Antony and Octavian had forty-three legions at their command, twenty-eight of them in Italy. The fifteen legions elsewhere were distributed between the provinces the Triumvirs controlled, save for Africa, which was so cut off and absorbed in its local war that, for the moment, it had to wait.
“Three legions in Further Spain and two in Nearer Spain,” Antony said to his war council on the Kalends of June. “Two in Narbonese Gaul, three in Further Gaul, three in Italian Gaul, and two in Illyricum. That puts a good curtain between our provinces and the Germani and the Dacians—will deter Sextus Pompeius from raiding the Spains—and, should the opportunity arise, Lepidus, will give you troops for Africa.” He grunted. “Food, of course, is the main strain on our purse strings, between the legions and the three million people of Italy, but you should be able to manage in our absence, Lepidus. Once we get hold of Brutus and Cassius, we’ll be in better financial condition.”
Octavian sat and listened as Antony went on to fill out his plans in greater detail, well content with the first six months of this three-man dictatorship. The proscriptions had put almost twenty thousand silver talents in the Treasury, and Rome was very quiet, too busy licking her wounds to offer trouble, even among the least co-operative elements in the Senate. Thanks to the sale of those distinctive maroon leather shoes to men desirous of senatorial rank, that body had grown back to Caesar’s thousand members. If some of them hailed from the provinces, why not?
“What of the situation in Sicily?” Lepidus asked.
Antony grinned sourly and squiggled his brows expressively at Octavian. “Sicily is your province, Octavianus. What do you suggest in our absence?”
“Common sense, Marcus Antonius,” Octavian answered levelly. He never bothered to ask Antony to call him Caesar; he knew what the response would be. Antony would keep.
“Common sense?” asked Fufius Calenus, blinking.
“Certainly. For the moment we should permit Sextus Pompeius to regard Sicily as his private fief, and buy grain from him as if he were a legitimate grain vendor. Sooner or later the huge profits he’s making will return to Rome’s coffers, namely when we have the leisure to deal with him the way an elephant deals with a mouse—splat! In the meantime, I suggest that we encourage him to invest some of his ill-gotten gains inside Italy. Even inside Rome. If that leads him to assume that one day he’ll be able to return and enjoy his father’s old status, well and good.”
Antony’s eyes blazed. “I hate paying him!” he snapped.
“So do I, Antonius, so do I. However, since the state does not own Sicily’s grain, we have to pay someone for it. All the state has ever done is tithe, though we can’t do that now. In this time of poor harvests, he’s asking fifteen sesterces the modius, which I agree is extortionate.” That sweet and charming smile showed; Octavian looked demure. “Brutus and Cassius pay ten sesterces the modius—a discount, but not free grain by any means. Sextus Pompeius, like a few other people I know, will keep.”
“The boy’s right,” said Lepidus.
Another grate on Octavian’s hide. “The boy” indeed! You too will keep, you haughty nonentity. One day you’ll all call me by my rightful name. If, that is, I let you live.
Lucius Decidius Saxa and Gaius Norbanus Flaccus had already taken eight of the twenty-eight legions across the Adriatic to Apollonia, under orders to march east on the Via Egnatia until they found an impregnable bolt-hole in which they could sit and wait for the bulk of the army to catch them up. It was good strategy on Mark Antony’s part. When Brutus and Cassius marched west on the same road, they had to be halted well east of the Adriatic, and a formidably entrenched force eight legions strong would bring them to an abrupt stop, no matter how enormous their own army was.
Word from Asia Province was patchy and unreliable; some sources insisted that the Liberators were many months off their invasion, others that they would commence any day now. Both Brutus and Cassius were at Sardis, their spring campaigns a stunning success—what was there to delay them? Time was money when one waged a war.
“We have twenty more legions to ship to Macedonia,” Antony went on, “and that will have to be in two segments—we lack the transports to do it all at once. I don’t plan on using all the twenty-eight in my attack force. Western Macedonia and Greece proper have to be garrisoned so we get whatever food there is.”
“Precious little,” grumbled Publius Ventidius.
“I’ll take my seven remaining legions directly to Brundisium on the Via Appia,” Antony said, ignoring Ventidius. “Octavianus, you’ll take your thirteen down the Via Popillia on the west side of Italy in conjunction with all the warships we can muster. I don’t want Sextus Pompeius in the vicinity of Brundisium while we’re shuttling troops, so that means it’s your job to keep him in the Tuscan Sea. I don’t think he’s terribly interested in events east of Sicily, but I also don’t want him tempted. He’d find it easier to re-establish himself in a Liberator Rome than a Triumviral one.”
“Who for admiral?” asked Octavian.
“Your command, you pick one.”
“Salvidienus, then.”
“Good choice,” said Antony, approving, and smirked at the old hands like Calenus, Ventidius, Carrinas, Vatinius, Pollio.
He went home to Fulvia well pleased with the way things were going. “I haven’t heard a peep out of Pretty Boy,” he said, his head cushioned on her breasts as they shared a dining couch; no one else to dinner, a pleasant change.
“He’s too quiet,” she said, popping a shrimp in his mouth.
“I used to think so, but I’ve changed my mind, meum mel. He can give me twenty years, and he’s settled for that. Oh, he’s sly and devious, I grant you, but he’s not in Caesar’s league when it comes to staking his all on a single gamble. Octavianus is a Pompeius Magnus—he likes to have the odds on his side.”
“He’s patient,” she said thoughtfully.
“But definitely not in a position to challenge me.”
“I wonder if he ever thought he was?” she asked, and made a slurping noise. “Oh, these oysters are delicious! Try them.”
“When he marched on Rome and made himself senior consul, you mean?” Antony laughed, sucked in an oyster. “You’re right—perfect! Oh yes, he thought he had me beaten, our Pretty Boy.”
“I’m not so sure,” Fulvia said slowly. “Octavianus moves in strange ways.”
“I’m definitely not in a position to challenge Antonius,” Octavian was saying to Agrippa at much the same moment in time.
They too were dining, but sitting on hard chairs at either side of a small table holding a plate of crusty bread, some oil in dipping bowls, and a pile of plain broiled sausages.
“When do you plan to challenge him?” Agrippa asked, chin shining with sausage fat. He had spent most of his day playing medicine ball with Statilius Taurus, and was starving. The plain fare suited his palate, though it never ceased to surprise him that a high aristocrat like Caesar also liked plain fare.
“I won’t say boo until after I return to Rome on an equal footing with him as far as the army and the people are concerned. My main obstacle is Antonius’s greed. He’ll try to steal all the victory laurels when we beat Brutus and Cassius. Oh, we will beat them, I’ve no doubt of that! But when the two sides meet, my troops have to contribute as much to our victory as Antonius’s troops—and I have to lead them,” Octavian said, wheezing.
Agrippa stifled a sigh; this awful weather was taking its toll, what with the grit and chaff on every puff of wind. Caesar wasn’t well, wouldn’t be well until after some good rains had laid the dust and prompted some green growth. Still, he knew better than to remark on the wheezing. All he could do was be there for Caesar.
“I heard today that Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus has come out of his retirement,” Agrippa said, pulling the crunchy brown ends off a sausage and saving them to eat last; he had been brought up in a frugal household, treasured treats.
Octavian sat up straighter. “Has he, now? To ally himself with whom, Agrippa?”
“Antonius.”
“A pity.”
“I think so.”
Octavian shrugged, wrinkled his nose. “Well, they’re old campaigning comrades.”
“Calvinus is to command the embarkation at Brundisium. All the transports are back from Macedonia safe and sound, though it can’t be long before some enemy fleet tries to blockade us.”
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus arrived to blockade Brundisium harbor as Antony left Capua with his seven legions, and had been joined by Staius Murcus before Antony reached his destination. With close to a hundred and fifty galleys cruising offshore and the Triumviral fleet accompanying Octavian and his troops down Italy’s west coast, Antony had no choice other than to sit and wait for a chance to break out. What he needed was a good stiff sou’wester, as this wind would give him a chance to outdistance pursuit provided Murcus and Ahenobarbus were where blockading ships usually were, off to the south. But no sou’wester blew.
Aware that Caesar’s heir should emulate his divine father in speed of movement, Octavian hustled his thirteen legions and reached the lower section of the Via Popillia in Bruttium by the middle of June, with Salvidienus’s fleet shadowing him a mile out to sea. Some of Sextus Pompey’s handy triremes appeared, but Salvidienus did surprisingly well in the series of skirmishes that followed between Vibo and Rhegium. For those on land, the march was wearisome; it was three times as long as the Via Appia route to Brundisium, hugging the littoral of the Italian foot all the way to Tarentum.
Then, with Sicily clearly visible across the Straits of Messana, came a curt note from Antony: Ahenobarbus and Murcus had him penned up, he couldn’t get one single legionary or mule across the Adriatic. Therefore Octavian would have to forget trying to contain Sextus Pompey, send the fleet to Brundisium in a tearing hurry.
The only problem in obeying that order was Sextus Pompey, whose major fleet chose to block the southern outlet of the straits not long after Octavian had flagged Salvidienus to break out the oars and sails and make haste for Brundisium. Caught in the midst of one chaos by another bearing down on him, the unlucky Salvidienus was too slow bringing his ships into battle formation, and found the fastest of Sextus Pompey’s galleys in among his own before he could do more than order up the next rank of vessels. So the early phases of the conflict went all Sextus Pompey’s way, but not as decisively as he had hoped; the young Picentine military man was no sloth on the sea either.
“I could do better,” muttered Agrippa under his breath.
“Eh?” asked Octavian, beside himself with anxiety.
“Maybe it’s sitting on shore watching, Caesar, but I can see how Salvidienus should be doing things, and isn’t. For one thing, he has that squadron of Liburnians in the rear, when they ought to be in the front rank—they’re faster and nippier than anything Sextus Pompeius has,” said Agrippa.
“Then next time, the fleet is yours. Oh, what wretched bad luck! Quintus Salvidienus, extricate yourself! We need your fleet in Brundisium, not on the sea bottom!” Octavian cried, arms rigidly by his sides, fists clenched.
He’s willing Salvidienus out of it! thought Agrippa.
Suddenly a wind came up out of the northwest that pushed Salvidienus’s heavier ships through Sextus Pompey’s hordes and allowed his lighter ships to follow in their wake; the Triumviral fleet bore away to the south with two holed triremes making for port in Rhegium, and only minor damage to a few other galleys.
“Statilius,” Octavian barked at Gaius Statilius Taurus, “take a pinnace and catch Salvidienus. Tell him he has to get to Brundisium as quickly as possible, then return to me. The army will follow as best it can. Helenus—where’s Helenus?” This last query was to his favorite freedman, Gaius Julius Helenus.
“Here, Caesar.”
“Take this letter down:
“This is all rather silly, Sextus Pompeius. I am Gaius Julius Caesar Divi Filius, in command of that army your sea captains must surely have reported to you as heading down the Via Popillia in company of a fleet. I gladly concede you the honors of the maritime engagement, but was wondering if there is any possibility that we could meet for a parley? Just the two of us? Preferably neither at sea nor in a place I would have to reach by sea. I am sending you four hostages with this note, in the hope that you will agree to meet me in one nundinum at Caulonia.”
Gaius Cornelius Gallus, the Brothers Cocceius and Gaius Sosius were chosen to go as hostages; Cornelius Gallus, not a patrician Cornelian but of a family from Ligurian Gaul, was so well known to be one of Octavian’s intimates that even an exile like Sextus Pompey would appreciate his value to Octavian. The note, Gallus and the others boarded a second pinnace; the little craft raced off across the deceptively placid waters wherein lurked the awful monsters Scylla and Charybdis.
The army now had to reach Caulonia, on the sole of the Italian foot, in just eight days—only eighty miles, but who knew what the road would be like? This was not a legionary route, and the chain of the Apennines plunged into the Sicilian Sea through high, rugged countryside. The ox wagons and artillery had gone with the rest to be shipped from Ancona, so only men and mules made the march.
Which turned out to be an easy one. The road was in good condition save for an occasional small landslide, and the army reached Caulonia in three days. Octavian sent it onward under the command of another nicknamed Gallus, Lucius Caninius Gallus. His first choice had been Agrippa, but that worthy refused to leave him attended by, as he put it,
“Servants and fools. Who knows whether this son of Pompeius Magnus is honorable? I’m staying with you. So are Taurus and a cohort of the Legio Martia.”
Sextus Pompey arrived off Caulonia so suspiciously soon after dawn on the eighth day that the reception committee assumed he had moored somewhere in the neighborhood overnight. His lone ship, a sleek bireme, was faster than anything sitting in what passed for a harbor, and he came ashore in a small boat accompanied by a crew of oarsmen who dragged the boat up on the shingle, then went off in search of a good breakfast.
Octavian advanced to meet him with a smile and his right hand extended.
“I see what the gossip means,” said Sextus, shaking it.
“Gossip?” asked Octavian, escorting his guest to the duumvir’s house, Agrippa in their wake.
“It says you’re very young and very pretty.”
“The years will take care of both.”
“True.”
“You’re quite like your father’s statues, but darker.”
“Did you never see him, Caesar?”
Acknowledgment! Octavian, prone to like Sextus anyway, liked him even more. “In the distance, when I was a child, but he didn’t mix with Philippus and the Epicures.”
“No, he didn’t.”
They entered the house, were received by an awed duumvir, and taken to his reception room.
“We’re not very different in age, Caesar,” said Sextus, seating himself. “I’m twenty-five. You are—?”
“Twenty-one in September.”
Helenus waited on their needs, but a vigilant Marcus Agrippa stood just inside the door, sword in scabbard and face set.
“Does Agrippa have to be here?” Sextus asked, breaking fresh bread eagerly.
“No, but he thinks he does,” Octavian said tranquilly. “He’s no gossip. Whatever we say will go no further.”
“Ah, there’s nothing like new bread after four days at sea!” said Sextus, crunching and tearing with gusto. “Don’t like the sea, eh?”
“I hate it,” Octavian said frankly, shuddering.
“Well, some men do hate it, I know. I’m the opposite, never happier than when the water’s busy.”
“A little mulled wine?”
“Yes, but just a little,” Sextus said warily.
“I made sure the poker was white-hot, so it won’t addle your wits, Sextus Pompeius. Myself, I like a warm drink first thing in the morning, and mulled wine is far preferable to my father’s vinegar in hot water.”
And so the conversation went while they ate, pleasant and unprovocative. Then Sextus Pompey clasped his hands between his knees and looked up at Octavian from under his brows.
“Just why did you ask to parley, Caesar?”
“Well, I’m here, you see, and it might be years before I get another opportunity to talk to you,” said Octavian, face unclouded. “I’m marching on this route with my army and our fleet in order to keep you in the Tuscan Sea. Not unnaturally, we want to ship our forces across the Adriatic in time to stop the Liberators short of Macedonia proper, and Marcus Antonius is of the opinion that you’d rather a Liberator than a Triumviral Rome. Thus he doesn’t want you sniffing up Brundisium’s arse as well as the Liberator fleets.”
“You make it sound,” said Sextus, grinning, “as if you yourself are not so sure that I’m a Liberator supporter.”
“I keep my options open, Sextus Pompeius, and it’s occurred to me that you probably do the same. Therefore I don’t automatically suppose you a Liberator supporter. My feeling is that you’re a Sextus Pompeius supporter. So I thought that two such open-minded young men as you and I should parley on our own, without any of those elderly, terrifically experienced warriors of the battlefield and the Forum present to remind us of our tender years and our naïveté.” Octavian smiled broadly. “Our provinces are, you might say, much the same. I am supposed to be in charge of the grain supply, whereas, in actual fact, you are.”
“Well put! Go on, I’m agog.”
“The Liberator faction is huge and august,” said Octavian, holding Sextus’s eyes. “So huge and august that even a Sextus Pompeius is liable to be buried beneath a plethora of Junii, Cassii, patrician Claudii and Cornelii, Calpurnii, Aemilii, Domitii—need I go on?”
“No,” said Sextus Pompey between his teeth.
“Admittedly you have a large and competent fleet to offer the Liberators, but little else apart from grain—which, my agents say, is not a commodity in short supply for the Liberators, who stripped inland Thrace and all Anatolia—and have a nice deal in place with King Asander of Cimmeria. Therefore it seems to me that your best course is not to ally yourself with the Liberators. Indeed, to hope that Rome does not end up a Liberator Rome. They don’t need you as badly as I do.”
“You, Caesar. What about Marcus Antonius and Marcus Lepidus?”
“They’re elderly, terrifically experienced warriors of the battlefield and the Forum. As long as Rome and Italy are fed, and we can buy grain for our forces, they don’t really care what I do. Or with whom I dicker, Sextus Pompeius. May I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“What do you want?”
“Sicily,” said Sextus. “I want Sicily. Without a fight.”
The golden head nodded sagely. “A practical ambition for a maritime man positioned on the grain route. An achievable one.”
“I’m halfway there,” said Sextus. “I own the coasts and I’ve forced Pompeius Bithynicus to—er—hail me as his co-governor.”
“Of course he’s a Pompeius,” Octavian said smoothly.
The olive skin flushed. “Not one of my family!” he snapped.
“No. He’s the son of Junius Juncus’s quaestor when Juncus was governor of Asia Province and my father brought Bithynia into the Roman fold. They made a deal. Juncus took the loot, Pompeius took the name. The first Pompeius Bithynicus wasn’t much either.”
“Am I correct in thinking that, were I to assume command of the Sicilian militia and spill Pompeius Bithynicus Filius, you would confirm me as governor of Sicily, Caesar?”
“Oh, absolutely,” said Octavian blandly. “Provided, that is, that you agree to sell Sicily’s grain to Rome of the Triumvirs for ten sesterces the modius. After all, you’ll completely eliminate the middlemen if you own the latifundia and the transports. I do trust that’s what you aim for?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll own the harvest and the grain fleet.”
“Well then…You’ll have so few overheads, Sextus Pompeius, that you’ll make more selling to the Treasury for ten sesterces the modius than you currently do selling to all and sundry for fifteen sesterces the modius.”
“That’s true.”
“Another, very important question—is there going to be a harvest in Sicily this year?” Octavian asked.
“Yes. Not an enormous harvest, but a harvest nonetheless.”
“Which leaves us with the vexed question of Africa. Should Sextius in the New province manage to overcome Cornificius in the Old province and African grain flows to Italy again, naturally you will intercept it. Would you agree to sell it to me for the same ten sesterces the modius?”
“Provided that I’m left alone in Sicily, and that the veteran colonies around Vibo and Rhegium in Bruttium are abolished, yes,” said Sextus Pompey. “Vibo and Rhegium need their public lands.”
Out went Octavian’s hand. “Done!”
Sextus Pompey took it. “Done!”
“I’ll write to Marcus Lepidus at once and have the veteran colonies relocated on the Bradanus around Metapontum and the Aciris around Heracleia,” said Octavian, very pleased. “We tend rather to forget these lands in Rome—the instep’s so remote. But the locals are of Greek descent, and lack political power.”
The two young men parted on the best of terms, each aware that this amicable verbal treaty had a tenuous time span; when events permitted, the Triumvirs (or the Liberators) would have to strip Sicily from Sextus Pompey and drive him off the seas. But for the moment, it would do. Rome and Italy would eat for the old grain price, and sufficient grain would come to keep them eating. Abetter bargain than Octavian had envisioned in a time of such terrible drought. For the fate of Aulus Pompeius Bithynicus he cared not a fig; the man’s father had offended Divus Julius. As for Africa, Octavian had been busy there too, written off to Publius Sittius and his family in their Numidian fief and begged, for Divus Julius’s sake, that Sittius aid Sextius, in return for which, Sittius’s brother would come off the proscription list and see his property fully restored. Cales could open its gates.
Having released the four hostages, Sextus Pompey sailed.
“What do you think of him?” Octavian asked Agrippa.
“That he’s a worthy son of a great man. His downfall as well as his advantage. He won’t share power, even if he considered any of the Triumvirs or the assassins his equal on the sea.”
“A pity I couldn’t make a loyal adherent out of him.”
“You’ll not do that,” Agrippa said emphatically.
“Ahenobarbus has disappeared, where to or for how long I can’t find out,” said Calvinus to Octavian when he arrived in Brundisium. “That leaves Murcus’s sixty ships on blockade. They’re very good, and so is Murcus, but Salvidienus is in the offing, just out of sight. We have reason to believe that Murcus doesn’t know. So I think, Octavianus—and Antonius agrees—that we should load every transport we have to the gunwales and make a run for it.”
“Whatever you wish,” said Octavian. Now, he realized, was not the moment to trumpet his successful negotiations with Sextus; he took himself off to write again to Lepidus in Rome to make sure that slug got the message.
The port of Brundisium had a wonderful harbor containing many branches and almost limitless wharfage, so the groaning, whining soldiers were put aboard the four hundred available transports in the space of two days. Somehow the cursing centurions managed to stuff eighteen of the twenty legions into them; men and mules were packed so tightly that the less seaworthy vessels lay too low in the water to survive a minor gale.
In the absence of Ahenobarbus, Staius Murcus’s technique was to hide behind the island at the harbor’s narrow mouth and pounce on any ships venturing out. It gave him the advantage of the wind at this time of year, for the only wind that would have benefited the Triumvirs was a westerly, and it was not the season of the Zephyr, it was the season of the Etesians.
The transports sailed in their literal hundreds on the Kalends of Sextilis, swarming out of the harbor just as far apart as their oars permitted. At the same moment as the mass exodus began, Salvidienus brought his fleet in from the northeast ahead of a good wind and swung it in a semi-circle around the island to pen Murcus up. He could get out, yes, but not without a naval battle, and he wasn’t at Brundisium to engage in naval battles—he was there to sink transports. Oh, why had Ahenobarbus rushed off on the hunt for a rumored second Egyptian expedition?
Impotent, Murcus had to watch while four hundred transports streamed out of Brundisium all day and far into the night, their way lit by bonfires atop tall rafted towers Antony had originally built as offensive weapons—a vain business, but they came in handy now. Western Macedonia was eighty miles away; half the ships were destined for Apollonia, half for Dyrrachium, where, with any luck, the cavalry, heavy equipment, artillery and the baggage train, all sent from Ancona earlier in the year, would be waiting.
If Italy was dry, Greece and Macedonia were far worse, even on this notoriously wet Epirote shore. The rains that had so dogged other generals from Paullus to Caesar hadn’t fallen, wouldn’t fall, and the hooves of Antony’s cavalry horses plus the oxen and spare mules had trodden whatever grass there was into superfine chaff that the Etesians picked up and blew in the direction of Italy.
Their transport hadn’t shaken free of the harbor before the shrinking Octavian began to wheeze loudly enough to be heard as one more component of the noises aboard a rickety ship on a perilous voyage. The hovering Agrippa decided that seasickness was not contributing to Octavian’s malady; the water was board-flat and the vessel so overloaded that it sat like a cork, hardly rolling even after it heeled to bear northeast under oar power. No, all he suffered was the asthma.
Neither young man had wanted to seem unduly exclusive when their ship was stuffed with ranker soldiers, so their accommodation was limited to a tiny section of deck just behind the mast, out of the way of the tillers and the captain, but surrounded by men. Here Agrippa had insisted that Octavian place a peculiar-looking bed that had one end sloping upward at a sharp angle. It bore quite a few blankets to cushion the hard wood, but no mattress. Under the frightened eyes of legionaries he didn’t know (Legio Martia had been one of the two units left behind in Brundisium), Agrippa propped Octavian in a sitting position on the bed to help him catch his breath. An hour later, sailing free on the Adriatic, held now within Agrippa’s arms, he labored fiercely and stubbornly to draw enough air into his lungs, his hands clenched around Agrippa’s so strongly that it was to be two days before all the feeling came back. The spasms of coughing racked him until he retched, which seemed to give him a slight temporary relief, but his face was both livid and grey, his eyes turned inward.
“What is it, Marcus Agrippa?” asked a junior centurion.
They know my name, so they know who he is. “An illness from Mars of the Legions,” said Agrippa, thinking quickly. “He’s the son of the god Julius, and it’s a part of his inheritance to take all your illnesses upon himself.”
“Is that why we’re not seasick?” asked a ranker, awed.
“Of course,” lied Agrippa.
“How about we promise offerings to Mars and Divus Julius for him?” someone else asked.
“It will help,” said Agrippa gravely. He looked about. “So would some kind of shield against the wind, I believe.”
“But there’s no wind,” the junior centurion objected.
“The air’s laden with dirt,” said Agrippa, improvising again. “Here, take these two blankets”—he wrenched them from under himself and the oblivious Octavian—“and hold them up around us. It will stop the dirt getting in. You know what Divus Julius always used to say—dirt is a soldier’s enemy.”
It can’t do any harm, Agrippa thought. The important thing is that these fellows don’t think any the worse of their commander for being ill—they have to believe in him, not dismiss him as a weakling. If Hapd’efan’e is right about dirty air, then he’s not going to get much better as this campaign goes on. So I’m going to harp about his being Divus Julius’s son—that he’s set himself up as the universal victim in order to bring the army victory, for Divus Julius is not only a god to the People of Rome, he’s a god to Rome’s armies.
Toward the end of the voyage and after a long night afloat in a vast nothingness, it seemed, Octavian began to recover. He came out of his self-induced trance and gazed at the ring of faces, then, smiling, held out his right hand to the junior centurion.
“We’re almost there,” he wheezed. “We’re safe.”
The soldier took his hand, pressed it gently. “You brought us through, Caesar. How brave you are, to be ill for us.”
Startled, the grey eyes flew to Agrippa’s. Seeing a stern warning in their greenish depths, he smiled again. “I do whatever is necessary,” he said, “to nurture my legions. Are the other ships safe?”
“All around us, Caesar,” said the junior centurion.
Three days later, every legion safely landed because, rumor had it, Caesar Divi Filius had offered himself up in their place, the two Triumvirs realized that communication with Brundisium had been cut.
“Probably permanently,” said Antony, visiting Octavian in his house on top of Petra camp’s hill. “I imagine that Ahenobarbus’s fleet has returned, so nothing is going to get out, even a small boat. That means news from Italy will have to come through Ancona.” He tossed Octavian a sealed letter. “This came for you that way, along with letters from Calvinus and Lepidus. I hear you’ve cut a deal with Sextus Pompeius that guarantees the grain supply—very clever!” He huffed irritably. “The worst of it is that some fool of a legate in Brundisium held the Legio Martia and ten cohorts of stiffening troops until last, so we don’t have them.”
“A pity,” said Octavian, clutching his letter. He was lying on a couch propped up with cushions, and looked very sick. The wheezing was still present, but the height of his house in Petra camp had meant some relief from the chaffy dust. Even so, he had lost enough weight to look thinner, and his eyes were sunk into two black hollows of exhaustion. “I needed the Legio Martia.”
“Since it mutinied in your favor, I’m not surprised.”
“That’s water under the bridge, Antonius. We are both on the same side,” said Octavian. “I take it that we forget what’s still in Brundisium, and head east on the Via Egnatia?”
“Definitely. Norbanus and Saxa are not far to the east of Philippi, occupying two passes through the coastal mountains. It seems Brutus and Cassius are definitely on the march from Sardis to the Hellespont, but it will be some time before they encounter Norbanus and Saxa. We’ll be there first. Or at least, I will.” The reddish-brown eyes studied Octavian shrewdly. “If you take my advice, you’ll stay here, O good luck talisman of the legions. You’re too sick to travel.”
“I’ll accompany my army,” said Octavian in mulish tones.
Antony flicked his thigh with his fingers, frowning. “We have eighteen legions here and in Apollonia. The five least experienced will have to stay to garrison western Macedonia—three in Apollonia, two here. That gives you something to command, Octavianus, if you stay.”
“You’re implying that they have to be from my legions.”
“If yours are the least experienced, yes!” snapped Antony.
“So of the thirteen going on, eight will belong to you and five to me. As well then that Norbanus’s four legions up ahead are mine,” said Octavian. “You’re in the majority.”
Antony barked a short laugh. “This is the oddest war since wars began! Two halves against two halves—I hear that Brutus and Cassius don’t work any better in tandem than you and I.”
“Equal co-commands tend to be like that, Antonius. Some halves are bigger than others, is all. When do you plan to move?”
“I’ll take my eight in one nundinum’s time. You’ll follow me six days later.”
“How are our supplies of food? Our grain?”
“Adequate, but not for a long war, and we won’t get any from Greece or Macedonia, there’s no harvest whatsoever. The locals are going to starve this winter.”
“Then,” said Octavian thoughtfully, “it behooves Brutus and Cassius to wage Fabian war, doesn’t it? Avoid a decisive battle at all costs and wait for us to starve.”
“Absolutely right. Therefore we force a battle, win it, and eat Liberator food.” A brusque nod, and Antony was gone.
Octavian turned his letter over to study the seal, which was Marcellus Minor’s. How peculiar. Why would his brother-in-law need to write? Came a stab of anxiety: Octavia must surely be due to have her second child. No, not my Octavia!
But the letter was from Octavia.
You will be happy to know, dearest brother, that I have given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I suffered hardly at all, and am well.
Oh, little Gaius, my husband says that it is my duty to write before someone who loves you less gets in first. I know it should be Mama to write, but she will not. She feels her disgrace too much, though it is more a misfortune than a disgrace, and I love her just the same.
We both know that our stepbrother Lucius has been in love with Mama ever since she married Philippus. Something she either chose to ignore or else genuinely didn’t see. Certainly she has nothing to reproach herself with through the years of her marriage to Philippus. But after he died, she was terribly alone, and Lucius was always there. You were so busy, or else not in Rome, and I had little Marcella, and was expecting again, so I confess I was not attentive enough. Therefore what has happened I must blame on my neglect. I am to blame. Yes, I am to blame.
Mama is pregnant to Lucius, and they have married.
Octavian dropped the letter, conscious of a creeping, awful numbness in his jaws, of his lips drawing back from his teeth in a rictus of disgust. Of shame, rage, anguish. Caesar’s niece, little better than a whore. Caesar’s niece! The mother of Caesar Divi Filius.
Read the rest, Caesar. Finish it, and finish with her.
At forty-five, she didn’t notice, dearest brother, so when she did notice, it was far too late to avoid scandal. Naturally Lucius was eager to marry her. They had planned to marry anyway when her period of mourning for Philippus was over. The wedding took place yesterday, very quietly. Dear Lucius Caesar has been very good to them, but though his dignitas is undiminished among his friends, he has no weight with the women who “run Rome,” if you know what I mean. The gossip has been malicious and bitter, the more so, my husband says, because of your exalted position.
Mama and Lucius have gone to live in the villa at Misenum, and will not be returning to Rome. I write this in the hope that you will understand, as I do, that these things happen, and do not indicate depravity. How can I not love Mama, when she has always been everything a mother ought to be? And everything a Roman matron ought to be.
Would you write to her, little Gaius, and tell her that you love her, that you understand?
When Agrippa came in some time later he found Octavian lying on his couch, propped against the pillows, his face wet with tears, his asthma worse.
“Caesar! What is it?”
“A letter from Octavia. My mother is dead.”