To Cicero’s annoyance and disappointment, Decimus Brutus made little progress. He wrote in extenuation that his “apology for an army” had hardly recovered from the privations of a siege. He had no cavalry and no pack animals. He was short of money. Also, although he did not admit this to Cicero, he was alarmed by the growing strength of Octavian’s military position and may not have wanted to see the young man’s only effective military rival in the west destroyed for good. Soon Antony joined forces with a supporter of his who had been raising troops in central Italy on his behalf: he was now back in charge of a powerful force and made his way north with greater confidence towards Lepidus. If he could win Lepidus (and Plancus in Long-haired Gaul) to his side, the defeat of Mutina would be reversed.
It took some time for the Senate to take in the significance of the loss of its Consuls. One of Cicero’s correspondents, surveying the scene at a distance, wrote wisely that those who were rejoicing at the moment “will soon be sorry when they contemplate the ruin of Italy.” However, for the moment the constitutionalists could think only of victory. In his fourteenth and last Philippic, Cicero called for an official Thanksgiving to last for an unprecedented period of fifty days. Antony was finally declared a public enemy. Decimus Brutus was voted a Triumph. There were to be ceremonies and a monument to honor the fallen. Cassius was confirmed in place in Asia Minor and Sextus Pompey, still in Spain with his guerrilla forces, was given a naval command.
Careful thought should have been given to Octavian’s position, but it was not. He was an ally of the Senate and had played his part, a minor one though useful for all that, in the battles at Mutina. But would he continue to obey its orders? The answer to that question depended on whether his rapprochement with Cicero was sincere or tactical. Whatever the leadership in Rome might propose, he disposed of the only significant army in Italy and was now at last in a position to act as he pleased. He could see that he was stronger than Antony—but was it really in his interest to see him swept away? If Brutus and Cassius were to come to Italy with their seventeen legions, he might wonder what his fate would be.
It would have been wise to placate him, but the Senate took the contrary view. It was reluctant to grant him the same honors as Decimus Brutus and excluded them both from membership of a commission established to distribute land allotments to the veterans who (it was presumed) would soon be demobilized. The Senate ruled that the commissioners should deal directly with the soldiers and not go through their commanders. It also reduced their promised bonuses. These were extraordinarily shortsighted measures, for they were bound to irritate rank-and-file opinion, which was fundamentally Caesarian. The Senators must have known this but presumably thought it did not matter. So far as they were concerned the war was over.
Cicero saw the dangers in this attitude and tried to have both generals appointed as commissioners, but the Senate, complacent now that the crisis was over, was less willing to do his bidding than it had used to be. He praised Octavian as highly as the other generals, despite the fact that he had played a subordinate role in the fighting. He proposed an Ovation for him, but it is not certain that the motion was passed.
Completely unexpectedly, Cicero’s policy was on the verge of collapse. Critics, even friendly critics, began to speak openly of the unwisdom of his cultivation of the young Caesar. In the middle of May an anxious Marcus Brutus wrote to him from Macedonia about reports that the young man was seeking the Consulship. “I am alarmed,” he commented. “I fear that your young friend Caesar may think he has climbed too high through your decrees to come down again if he is made Consul.… I only wish you could see into my heart, how I fear that young man.”
Privately, Brutus was increasingly unhappy about his friend’s behavior. He confided his feelings to Atticus, in a letter one hopes its subject never read. His judgment was that Cicero was swayed by vanity. “We’re not bragging every hour of the day about the Ides of March like Cicero with his Nones of December [the date in 63 when he put down the Catilinarian conspiracy].” The kernel of Brutus’s complaint was that Cicero was too eager to please.
You may say that he is afraid even now of the remnants of the civil war. So afraid of a war that is as good as over that he sees no cause for alarm in the power of the leader of a victorious army and the rashness of a boy? Or does he do it just because he thinks the boy’s greatness makes it advisable to lay everything at his feet without waiting to be asked? What a foolish thing is fear!… We dread death and banishment and poverty too much. For Cicero I think they are the ultimate evils. So long as he has people from whom he can get what he wants and who give him attention and flattery he does not object to servitude if only it be dignified—if there is any dignity in the sorriest depth of humiliation.
This is a powerful indictment, but it is not all there is to be said about the matter. It is true that Cicero was nervous and lacking in physical courage—but with the saving grace that he knew it, admitting that he was “susceptible to scares.” He was prone to seesaws of emotion and longed for compliments, of which he felt he did not receive nearly enough. But although his connection with Octavian fed his self-esteem, it was also based on a sound analysis of the political situation. Brutus’s judgment was distorted by his irritation with Cicero’s personality and he failed to understand that the only card Cicero had left in his hand was his relationship with Octavian, who might otherwise join forces with Antony so that he could be strong enough to deal with any conflict that might arise with Brutus and Cassius. Somehow or other he had to be charmed into staying loyal to the Republic. This was the essential priority and whatever had to be done to achieve it, however embarrassing and disagreeable, had to be done.
If the Consuls had survived and his strategy had succeeded, as it very nearly did, Cicero’s attitude towards Octavian would surely have been very different, for his usefulness to the Senate as its protector against Antony would have been at an end. In this connection it was most unfortunate that Octavian learned his “father’s” true intentions. Never one to avoid careless talk if a witty remark or a pun occurred to him, Cicero had observed that “the young man must get praises, honors—and the push.” The Latin is laudandum, ornandum, tollendum; the last word had a double meaning: to “exalt” and to “get rid of.” Towards the end of May, Decimus Brutus warned Cicero that someone had reported this joke to the young man, who had been unamused, commenting tersely that he had no intention of letting that happen.
Cicero watched, exhausted, as the edifice he had laboriously constructed during the previous six months was gradually demolished. In early June he wrote to Decimus Brutus: “What is the use? Believe me, Brutus, as one not given to self-deprecation, I am a spent force. The Senate was my weapon and it has fallen to pieces.” He realized that for all his struggles the constitution was dead and power lay in the hands of soldiers and their leaders.
Lepidus, claiming he had been forced into it by his men, switched allegiance to Antony and was followed by Plancus and then Pollio. The supposedly loyal army in Africa was recalled to Rome (a desperate measure, for its commander, Titus Sextius, was a Caesarian) and a legion of new recruits was formed. Frantic appeals were sent to Brutus in Macedonia to come home, but he knew better than to accede to them. He still hoped to avoid civil war; this was why he was keeping Caius Antonius alive as a hostage, despite Cicero’s obdurate appeals for his execution. He knew that safety lay in joining forces with Cassius and marched off eastwards to meet him. An invasion of Italy would be practicable only with their combined forces. For the time being, the Senate was on its own.