Chapter VI #2
Octavius had overall command of the army.
But he recognised his inexperience and appointed Salvidienus to be his deputy, responsible for its discipline and training.
I was disappointed, but at the age of nineteen, having never commanded men in battle, I could hardly object.
Even so, Old Big Nose and I remained wary of one another.
He came from humble stock and had risen by merit after he caught the eye of Caesar.
He must have wondered sometimes whether he had been wise to throw in his lot with a pair of teenagers; if so, he kept such thoughts to himself.
Although he had promoted Salvidienus, Octavius did not entirely trust him. Insofar as he ever trusted any man, he only trusted me, and one day in October, when we had squeezed every last willing veteran out of Campania, he summoned me for a private talk.
We were encamped in the town of Calatia, near Capua.
He had just finished addressing an assembly of recruits.
He was seated at a folding table in his tent and explained that he was writing yet another letter to Cicero, which he did almost daily, sometimes twice a day, even though Cicero seldom replied.
When I started to repeat that I still did not trust ‘the Father of the Nation’, he held up his hand.
– The only way I can beat Antony is to drive a wedge between him and the Senate, and the only man capable of accomplishing that is Cicero, but he keeps refusing to meet me.
Therefore I have decided to return with the army to Rome to demonstrate my strength.
In the meantime, I want you to go with Maecenas to Brundisium.
The Macedonian legions are due to arrive back in Italy any day.
They professed great loyalty to me when we were in Apollonia.
Take what remains of our money and see if you can win them over to our cause.
By the time Maecenas and I arrived at Brundisium, two of the legions – the Fourth and the Martian – had already disembarked and were encamped outside the city walls, preparing to march north.
I knew many of the commanders from our time in Apollonia.
It was an easy matter for us to slip into the camp after darkness and arrange a conference.
We had hoped to reach the legions before Antony, but to our dismay the officers told us he had got there a week ahead of us.
However, the meeting had been a disaster.
He had come with Fulvia, who had behaved with her usual haughtiness, and the pair had made themselves deeply unpopular.
Their offer of a hundred denarii per man was regarded as insulting.
Antony had been jeered. Infuriated, and no doubt encouraged by Fulvia, he had arrested a dozen ringleaders and had them executed in front of their comrades.
The centuries had then been forced to swear allegiance to the consul.
But their mood was sullen, and when I announced that Octavius was willing to pay a bounty of five hundred denarii a man, the officers told us that for such a sum we could probably buy the loyalty of the entire army.
Antony had piled folly upon cruelty by promptly returning to Rome, confident he had done enough.
The officers gave us the daily password and so enabled Maecenas and me to infiltrate ourselves into the camp.
Our party was given tents to sleep in, and when the army moved off to begin the long march towards Rome, we went with it.
Maecenas and his secretaries wrote out hundreds of leaflets to be distributed among the troops, appealing to them to join Caesar’s heir, and repeating the offer of five hundred a head, while over the next two weeks I went from century to century to convince them to defect.
Remember, I was very young. Often I was greeted with derision, especially by the older men.
But I knew how to talk to soldiers. When I marched alongside them, or joined them at their campfires in the evenings, I told them I had fought with the Tenth at Munda and described the spectacle of Caesar grabbing a shield and charging into the thick of the fighting.
Some wept at the memory of their dead chief, and I promised that if they joined with us, they would have revenge for his murder.
Gradually I began to be treated with more respect.
By the time we halted at the town of Alba Fucens, three days’ march east of Rome, to await further orders, I was able to send a message to Octavius that if he came in person to address the legions, Maecenas and I were confident they would come over to his cause.
He arrived a week later, in the middle of November. Over the next two days, at a series of meetings, he addressed the soldiers and swore vengeance against the assassins. On the third day, at a ceremony on a plain outside the town, the centuries roared out an oath of loyalty.
Octavius now commanded a total of thirteen thousand men – roughly the same number that were pledged to Antony – and our expectation was that the consul would want to give battle as soon as possible.
After rendezvousing with the Campanian legions, we scouted the terrain for the best defensive positions and drew up our forces in readiness.
I have often wondered what would have happened if Antony had seized this opportunity to attack us.
I am sure that is what Caesar would have done.
Our destiny might then have been very different.
Instead, at the end of November, a messenger brought news from Rome that upon hearing of the defection of the Fourth and Martian, Antony had rushed out of a night-time meeting of the Senate in a panic and was moving his army north to confront Decimus, who was holed up in the town of Mutina, on the frontier of Nearer Gaul.
Victory there would give him control of the province and its legions.
He could then turn around and crush us at his leisure.
We held a council of war and decided to follow him at a distance.