The remaining captives were so disgusted by his behavior that while they were being led off in chains they courteously saluted Antony and shouted obscene insults at Octavian.
Antony knew how to win graciously, treating Brutus’ body with respect and laying over it his own general’s scarlet cloak. Octavian was less generous with the remains: he had the head chopped off and sent to Rome to be thrown at the feet of a statue of Julius Caesar.
Philippi, following hard on the heels of the proscription, marked the end of the Republic. Rome’s ancient ruling class was decimated, and surviving nobiles were scattered to all corners of the empire. In theory, the triumvirs’ task was to restore the old order of things, but this was evidently not their intention.
Many ordinary people will have heaved a sigh of relief, for the uncertainties, confusion, bloodshed, and, above all, ruinously high taxes brought about by eight years of civil war appeared to be over.
However, it was unwise to be too optimistic. How Rome was to be governed in the future was altogether unclear; government by three men did not promise stability. Two of them had been enemies and, although allies for now, were still rivals for Julius Caesar’s inheritance, and the love of the people and the legions.
As for Octavian, the coming months and years promised to be difficult. Since the Ides of March he had played his cards with great skill (no doubt advised by the clever men his adoptive father had gathered around him). He had acted unscrupulously, but his lies and killings were always for a carefully planned purpose. He had learned his politics from Caesar, and from the outset he aimed to reestablish an autocracy, not only out of personal ambition but also from a conviction that the Republic was incompetent and needed to be replaced.
But although Octavian had much for which he could congratulate himself, his position was subordinate and insecure. The real victor of Philippi was Mark Antony, whose generalship contrasted shamingly with his own performance on the battlefield. For the time being, Octavian had no choice but to accept his colleague’s predominance; he must seize each opportunity to advance his authority as and when it presented itself.
Antony and Octavian held a magnificent sacrifice for their victory. Then the living left the two hills, the plain, and the marshes of Philippi as soon as possible. The scarred landscape fell silent and the evidence of slaughter slowly disappeared, although to ensure a memory of what had taken place the town was renamed Julia Victrix Philippi (Victorious Philippi of the Julian Clan) and some soldiers settled there.
The unloving triumvirs parted company. Antony stayed in Greece for a while, where he attended games and religious ceremonies, and listened to the discussions of scholars. He soon had enough of that and moved on to Asia Minor, intent on having a good time.
Octavian was carried back to Italy, where his arrival was awaited with fear and loathing. His illness flared up again dangerously on the journey, and he stayed for a while at Brundisium. He was thought unlikely to survive and at one point a rumor circulated that he was actually dead. Some thought his sickness was a charade, that he was delaying his return because he was planning some devilish new scheme for fleecing the citizenry. Despite his reassurances to the contrary, people hid their property or left town.
Followers of Brutus and Cassius, such as Cicero’s son, who were, even now, unwilling to accept defeat, made their way to join Sextus Pompeius in Sicily, or to the two republican admirals, Lucius Staius Murcus and the high-and-mighty nobleman Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. But many survivors shared the view of one of Brutus’ military tribunes, a plump young man called Quintus Horatius Flaccus, whose experience at Philippi gave him a loathing for warfare that lasted his lifetime. Known to us as Horace, he became one of the greatest poets of the age.
Years later he wrote a poem welcoming a friend back to the pleasures of civilian life after long military postings. They had fought together at Philippi, as the poet ruefully recalls. He is amused by his own cowardice and not a little scornful of the valor that kills.
We two once beat a swift retreat together,
Upon Philippi’s field
When I dumped my poor shield,
And courage cracked, and the strong men who frowned
Fiercest were felled, chins to the miry ground….
…In my laurel’s shade
Stretch out the bones that long campaigns have made
Weary. Your wine’s been waiting
For years: no hesitating.
VIII
DIVIDED WORLD
42–40 B.C.
The great families that had controlled the Senate and the consulship had been bloodily culled and many now disappear from the historical record. Most of the senior politicians active before the civil wars had joined their ancestors. New men from the provinces with unfamiliar names entered the Senate and commanded armies. Aristocracy gave way to meritocracy, and Rome became a city of opportunity for men with energy and talent.
Before going their separate ways after Philippi, Antony and Octavian signed an agreement and reconfirmed the division they had made of Rome’s provinces, with a few changes. The loser was Lepidus, who had commanded the triumviral forces in Italy during the Philippi campaign. He was not only idle but was suspected of treasonable communication with the republican leader, Sextus Pompeius, master of Sicily. He was made to disgorge Spain to Octavian and Narbonese Gaul to Antony. If Lepidus could clear his name, Octavian might be persuaded to give him a province or two from his allocation. Antony retained Long-haired Gaul, but gave up Cisalpine Gaul, which the triumvirs decided should be incorporated into Italy instead of continuing as a province. Originally an idea of Julius Caesar, this had the great advantage that it removed the risk of an overmighty provincial governor in command of an army only a few days’ march from Rome—in short, the risk of another Julius Caesar.
Octavian and Antony liked each other no more than they had in the past, but they were now bound together as permanent partners. They agreed that each should automatically approve the political decisions of the other. However, the two men were not on an equal footing. The victor of Philippi was a world-bestriding colossus. Little wonder then that, as before, when it came to a division of tasks, the junior colleague came off worse.
Antony was to reorganize the east, raise money there, and restore the state’s solvency; in due course, he would pick up the baton let drop by the murdered dictator and launch the much delayed expedition against the Parthian empire. By contrast, Octavian’s thankless duty was to demobilize a large number of troops and settle them on smallholdings in Italy.
About fourteen thousand survivors from the legions of Brutus and Cassius were incorporated into the victorious army. Old Caesarian veterans and soldiers who had been recruited in 49 and 48 B.C., some forty thousand in all, were sent to Italy and civilian life. That left enough men to make up eleven legions, eight of which Antony took to the east; the remaining three came home with Octavian.