Antony and Cleopatra (17 page)

Curio did his job well throughout 50
BC
, vetoing any senatorial decree that threatened Caesar's right to go straight from his provincial command into the consulship. In April, Caelius described some of this to Cicero:

Cicero was at the time a reluctant proconsul of Cilicia and was determined to remain there no longer than the minimum term of a year. Caelius noted earlier in the same letter that he and Curio had helped to prevent an extension of his term. Again, this is an indication that many other issues were fiercely contested as part of, or just alongside, the wider struggle. Cicero had little sympathy for Curio's support for Caesar, but welcomed his aid in his own case. Pompey remained outside the city, since he, too, could not enter and retain his provincial command. The Senate obligingly met outside the formal boundary
(pomerium),
of Rome.
¹³

On 1 December there was a major debate, at which Curio cleverly scored a point against his opponents. The Senate voted by a large majority to recall Caesar from Gaul, while a similar motion to end Pompey's term as proconsul of Spain was defeated by just as big a margin. Both decrees were vetoed by tribunes, and Curio then asked the Senate to divide on the proposal that both men should lay down their commands simultaneously. No fewer than 370 senators backed this and only 22 voted against. If few men actively favoured Caesar, and most were sympathetic to Pompey, the overwhelming majority dreaded the civil war that seemed so very likely if the dispute was not resolved peacefully. The consul Marcellus ignored the outcome and dismissed the meeting, bawling out, ‘If that is what you want, be Caesar's slaves!'
¹⁴

By the end of the year Curio had ensured that Caesar remained as proconsul of Gaul, but his direct attacks on Pompey had only fed the tension. All of the issues were carried over into 49
BC.
Curio hurried to confer with Caesar and returned early in January with a message from him. By this time Antony had become tribune and taken over the role of defending Caesar's position, aided in this by one of his colleagues, Quintus Cassius Longinus. Both of the consuls were vehemently opposed to Caesar who claimed that one boasted of becoming a second Sulla as the only way of surviving his staggeringly large debts. Men on both sides were desperate and more than a few thought they would benefit should civil war break out. There was also mutual suspicion, not helped by the inability of the main protagonists to meet face to face. On top of that was a deep-rooted confidence that the other side would back down.
¹⁵

Curio brought a letter from Caesar, but Antony and Curio had to insist before this was read out in the Senate. It contained a restatement of his services to the Republic and claimed that he should only have to lay down his command if Pompey did the same. Cicero had now returned from Cilicia and was waiting outside Rome in the hope of being awarded a triumph. To him the letter's tone was ‘fierce and threatening'. A motion was passed demanding that Caesar immediately lay down his command, but Antony and Cassius vetoed it. There were still attempts at private negotiation, Caesar writing to many leading senators and offering concessions, for instance that he give up Transalpine Gaul and Illyria, keeping only Cisalpine Gaul and a single legion. This way he would be safe from prosecution, but too weak to risk fighting a civil war. Some of his opponents saw this as weakness, confirming their belief that he would give in if they refused to compromise.
¹⁶

Antony had grown into a big, barrel-chested and thick-necked man. While in Greece he had studied oratory and adopted the flamboyant Asiatic style. He had huge force of personality and threw all his energy into defending Caesar, but he was not a man to whom subtlety came naturally. He was also highly inexperienced politically, having spent little time in Rome since becoming a senator. In later years, Cicero talked of Antony ‘vomiting his words in the usual way' when he made a speech. Like Curio, he decided now to attack Pompey's career and especially his third consulship and use of force to restore order. Political exchanges at Rome were often strong, but this was seen as particularly vitriolic and included repeated threats of war. At one public meeting late in December, the tribune elect Antony had been so aggressive that Pompey complained, ‘What do you reckon Caesar himself will be like, if he gets to control the Republic, if now his weak and worthless quaestor acts like this! '
¹⁷

On 7 January the Senate passed its ultimate decree, suspending law and calling on ‘the consuls, praetors and tribunes, and all the proconsuls near the city to ensure that the Republic comes to no harm'. It was obvious that ‘the proconsuls' first and foremost meant Pompey. Attempts by Antony and Quintus Cassius to veto this decree were ignored and one of the consuls told them that he could not ensure their safety if they remained in Rome. There does not seem to have been an actual attack on them, but the two tribunes disguised themselves as slaves and were carried out of the city in a hired cart.
¹⁸

Caesar was at Ravenna, just inside his province of Cisalpine Gaul. With him he had the
Thirteenth
Legion supported by some 300 cavalry. It was a small force, and it was also very unusual for armies to go on campaign in the winter months. Pompey and the hard-line senators opposing Caesar did not think that he could begin the war quickly. They may even have still thought that he would back down, seeing this final proof of their determination.

The Italian Campaign 49
BC

They were wrong. On the night of the 10/11 January 49
BC,
Caesar led his men from Ravenna to Ariminum (modern-day Rimini). When he crossed the River Rubicon – so insignificant a stream that we cannot now be sure of its location – he left his province, where he could legally command troops, and entered Italy, where he could not. He is said to have used a gambler's tag when he did so, the famous ‘the die is cast'
(iacta alea est).
Later he would place the blame for the civil war squarely on his enemies, saying that ‘They wanted it; even after all my great deeds I, Caius Caesar, would have been condemned, if I had not sought support from my army' Whatever the rights and wrongs of the conflict, the simple fact was that crossing the Rubicon turned him and all his supporters into rebels.
¹⁹

It is unclear whether Antony, Cassius and Curio joined Caesar at Ariminum or earlier at Ravenna, but the former seems more likely. In either case, the
Thirteenth
was paraded and the proconsul addressed them and explained how he had been forced to act by the bitter and illegal hostility of his enemies, who had lured Pompey away from him. The two tribunes were still dressed as slaves when they were brought before the soldiers to underline the way that his opponents had trampled on the laws. The persons of the tribunes of the people were sacrosanct and yet these representatives of the people had been threatened with violence. All Romans had a deeply emotional attachment to the idea of the tribunate and by the end of the parade the legionaries and their officers were shouting that they were ready to set things right.
²⁰

Antony was a few days short of his thirty-fourth birthday. Years later Cicero would blame him for starting the civil war. That was a huge exaggeration, for it is hard to see enough trust on either side to have made a peaceful resolution possible. It is fair to say that Antony was an active participant in the actual events that sparked the war. He also showed no reluctance about taking part in an invasion of Italy.
²¹

Caesar did not linger, but pressed on. His opponents were unprepared and had no reliable troops to oppose even the small invading army. Town after town opened its gates to Caesar's men. Antony was sent with a force of five cohorts from the
Thirteenth
to occupy Arretium (modern-day Arezzo). There was no fighting. A little later Curio led another column to Iguvium. The Pompeian commander fled, his soldiers deserted and the townsfolk welcomed the cohorts. From the beginning, Caesar maintained very strict discipline and forbade his soldiers from looting or indiscriminate acts of violence. They were to fight only when actively resisted.
²²

Absolutely no one had anticipated Caesar's strategy. Even men like Cicero who knew Caesar personally and had hoped to avoid the war, expected him to advance like Sulla or Marius, plundering and slaughtering all his opponents. Instead, he paraded his clemency. When he surrounded a large force at Corfinium under the inept leadership of Domitius Ahenobarbus, the town surrendered after a brief siege. Ahenobarbus — Antony's rival for the augurate — and all of the senior officers were allowed to go free, taking their possessions with them. His soldiers nearly all changed sides and joined Caesar, who proclaimed that this was ‘a new way of conquest — we grow strong through pity and generosity'.
²³

Early on Pompey had decided that it was impossible to defend Rome. He had very few trained and reliable soldiers. Levies were held, but the raw legions raised in this way would take many months to be trained. Everything had to be improvised and for the moment he and his supporters were weak. Hotheads like Ahenobarbus tried to force him to fight, refusing to obey orders and retire to join him. Attempts at negotiation continued, some involving Antony's cousin, the son and namesake of Lucius Julius Caesar. Both sides repeated their desire for peace and much of this may have been intended to win support from the undecided. The bulk of the Senate, let alone the wider population, felt no strong commitment to either side and tried to remain out of the conflict.
²⁴

Pompey retreated to Brundisium in the south and began transporting his men by sea across to Greece. There he planned to assemble and train a great army, drawing on the resources of the eastern provinces he himself had organised. Once he was ready, he would return and crush Caesar. As he put it, ‘Sulla did it, so why can't I?' Caesar pursued and tried to prevent his escape, but failed to close the harbour. Brundisium fell, but only after Pompey and his forces had escaped.
²⁵

Caesar had won the first campaign, but he remained a rebel with many strong enemies at large. He lacked the ships needed to follow Pompey, so instead decided to march by land to Spain and defeat the Pompeian legions there. First he needed to make arrangements for the governance of Italy. He returned to Rome, but at first did not enter the city itself. Antony and Cassius as tribunes summoned a meeting of the Senate to a spot outside the
pomerium
on 1 April. Few attended, and only two of these were former consuls. Nevertheless, Caesar took the opportunity to address the meeting and later an Assembly of the Roman people to lay out his case. The Senate decreed that an embassy should be sent to Pompey and his allies in the hope of agreeing a peace. No one was willing to serve on the delegation, however, and so the whole matter was dropped. Needing funds to pay his soldiers, Caesar took money from the Republic's Treasury, in spite of the opposition of another of the tribunes. This was only a few months after proclaiming his willingness to fight on behalf of the rights of the tribunate.
²⁶

Caesar then left for the campaign in Spain. Antony's brother Caius Antonius was given command of two legions and sent to Illyricum, nearest to the massing enemies in Greece. Curio received the legions that had defected at Corfinium and was sent to Sicily, with orders to proceed to North Africa once this was secured. On his way, the young aristocrat visited Cicero and spoke with his usual freedom, claiming that Caesar's clemency was a sham and that soon he would reveal his true and far more cruel nature, becoming another Sulla.
²⁷

As well as generals, Caesar needed administrators. Rome was put under the charge of the praetor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the younger brother of the consul of 50
BC
and a man who would later play a major role in Antony's life. Antony himself was given special propraetorian
imperium
to add to his office of tribune and was tasked with overseeing the rest of Italy. Both men were appointed because they were already properly elected magistrates and also because they came from well-established families. It was still an unprecedented responsibility for a tribune. Antony revelled in the power.
²⁸