Augustus Caesar: A Life From Beginning to End (Roman Emperors: Julio-Claudian Dynasty Book 1) by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hourly History
Published: 2018-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

The Second Triumvirate

“Make haste slowly.”

—Augustus

While Octavian was consolidating his power base and authority in Rome, it didn’t take Mark Antony very long at all to build a new army for himself in Gaul. He also managed to make a new friend in the form of the leading Roman political figure Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. It was through Lepidus that the idea of peace talks between Mark Antony and Octavian had been conceived. Octavian agreed to give it a try, and with 11 legions, he marched off to the predetermined meeting grounds near Bologna in November of 43 BCE.

There was a small island located in the river Lavinius which flowed between Bologna and Mutina, and it was determined that it would be on this small piece of isolated terrain that Mark Antony and Octavian would meet. The two men and their armies, marching from opposite directions, converged on this tiny waterlogged island. It is said that both Antony and Octavian posted about 5,000 troops on their side of the river banks. Then about 300 soldiers were placed on opposite ends of the bridges leading to the island.

Finally, once convinced that their side was secure and the other side was not plotting any underhanded tricks, Mark Antony and Octavian stepped foot onto the island with Lepidus standing between them as mediator. The three men quickly got down to business and hammered out their objectives. Top priorities for them if they were going to work together were to legitimize their power as well as hunt down the remaining senatorial conspirators Brutus and Cassius. These two senators were responsible for Caesar’s death and were now fomenting rebellion in the east, so both Mark Antony and Octavian could agree that they needed to be shut down.

Seizing upon this common ground, Mark Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus would from this moment forward form the so-called Second Triumvirate patterned after the First Triumvirate that Julius Caesar formed with the powerful Roman figures of General Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus. As was the case with the First Triumvirate, the three men apportioned territory to each other to govern. Mark Antony was governor of Gaul, Lepidus was given Transalpine Gaul and Spain, and Octavian was awarded North Africa and the Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily.

Once this was established, the men enacted a program of proscription in which Roman politicians and nobles were quantified as enemies of the state based on their involvement in Caesar’s assassination and any other subsequent civil turmoil. Those who were classified as such had their land and possessions confiscated and often faced execution as well. This was all just a staging ground, however, for the final confrontation with the renegade senators Brutus and Cassius. The two senators, who had been building a power base in Greece, sent their troops to meet Octavian’s men in the nearby Macedonian city of Philippi on October of 42 BCE. These troops were promptly decimated by Antony and Octavian’s combined force of 28 legions. Upon hearing that all was lost, Brutus and Cassius opted to end their own lives by committing suicide.

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