Page 25 of Agrippa

When I informed Caesar of his death, he saw at once how foolish he had been himself to talk of suicide. The fortunes of war and life change quickly. One must never give in to despair.

From that moment, his nerve began to strengthen, as if he had been granted a second life. Even so, it was three days before he could face venturing from his hiding place. He knew his reputation had been damaged by fleeing the camp. He was no longer able to stand up to Antony with the same authority. When Antony convened another council of war, it was humiliating to watch my young friend constantly defer to the older man. Not that he objected to Antony’s strategy, which was one of attrition – to gradually extend our lines to outflank Brutus, while at the same time offering large bribes to the enemy’s legions to defect.

So successful were these tactics over the next three weeks that Brutus, in sole command of an army that was melting away before his eyes, and with his front becoming dangerously stretched, was eventually forced to abandon his strong defensive position on the higher ground and offer a second battle while he still had the legions to do so.

The fighting began on the afternoon of the twenty-third day of October. There were no complicated manoeuvres, barely even a preliminary exchange of javelins or arrows, just a brutal smashing together of the two armies in hand-to-hand combat. Antony chose not to risk his life by fighting, and nor did Caesar. They stayed on horseback, surrounded by their bodyguards, occasionally galloping along the line to places where the struggle was fiercest to show themselves and encourage their men. I stayed close to Caesar to ensure no harm befell him.

The day was certainly full of danger. There was a moment towards the end of the afternoon when Antony’s men who made up our left wing almost buckled under the weight of an enemy cavalry charge. But the line held, and as the light began to fade, Caesar’s legions on the right started to push back Brutus’s forces, step by step. Panic spread as the enemy sensed defeat. The retreat turned into a rout, and this time Caesar and I were in the thick of it. We drove them all the way to the gates of their camp, and in a moment of sweet revenge we captured Brutus’s tent, which I remember was full of books of poetry and philosophy, more like the study of a scholar than the field headquarters of a general.

Our men were exhausted. In the darkness, Brutus escaped into the hills with the remnants of just four legions. It was too late to pursue them. We could see their torches as they climbed the mountain tracks, and then the lights of their campfires flickering in the night.

Antony and Caesar conferred in Brutus’s tent and agreed to send peace emissaries under a flag of truce to demand surrender. When the emissaries returned at first light, they reported that Brutus had committed suicide and his surviving officers had agreed to our terms.

Two and a half years after the assassination, the long-promised vengeance for the murder of Caesar had at last been meted out. The flower of the old Republic was cut down once and for all. Cassius and Brutus were dead, alongside the sons of Hortensius and Cato, and many other noble families whose fight for their own self-interest they had been pleased to pretend was about liberty for all.

Mercy was now the order of the day.

Once the enemy’s legions had been disarmed, they were drawn up on the field of battle, surrounded by our soldiers, to swear loyalty to the Triumvirate. Many had served under Antony in earlier years. As soon as he appeared, they cheered him loudly and hailed him as imperator.

Caesar, though, was received in silence. There was even some contemptuous jeering from the surviving patricians, which enraged him. He jumped down from his horse and singled out a father and son who had been laughing and pointing at him. He had them dragged in front of the others and made them throw dice to determine who should be beheaded first.

After that had been done, he demanded to know if anyone else wished to insult him. Nobody met his furious gaze.

If he could not be loved, he told me afterwards, he would at least be feared.

Brutus’s corpse was retrieved, and in the presence of Antony and Caesar, who sacrificed to Jupiter and Mars in thanks for victory, it was cremated with proper respect – apart from the head, which was cut off and dispatched to Rome to be laid before the dictator’s statue.

Allowing for the forty thousand killed at Philippi, Antony and Caesar now controlled thirty-two legions. They agreed to redivide the world between them. Antony took the Gallic provinces. Caesar took Spain. Antony would go east to extract money from Egypt. Caesar would travel west to Rome. As a sop, Lepidus would be given the province of Africa when his term ended at the beginning of the new year. Antony’s brother Lucius would replace him as consul.

On the face of it, Caesar’s position was strengthened. But he knew that Antony was the true victor of Philippi, and he knew that everyone else knew it too. The awareness that he was now seen as the junior partner nagged away at him. When he returned to Italy, it would be his task to settle thousands of demobbed legionaries on land in the south, which would entail a further campaign of expropriations and huge unpopularity. He also regretted the appointment of Lucius, an arrogant hothead who could cause him endless trouble, but he was too weak to prevent it.

On their last night together before they parted, Antony and Caesar dined with some of their senior officers, including Salvidienus. Antony played the generous host, ordering his attendants to keep refilling the jugs of wine. He went round the table asking everyone in turn to recount their memories of the battle. When it came to Caesar, he had little to offer, and Antony laughed at him.

– Is that it? Well, it does not matter. You have Caesar’s name, and that is all that counts.

As usual, he drank much more than the rest of us. Not long afterwards, his head lolled forward and he began to snore. The dinner ended. One by one the officers took their leave. Caesar was the last to go. I remember how he turned to stare at Antony, and the expression on his face I have never forgotten either – a look of utter and undisguised loathing.

X

At the beginning of November, we began our return journey to Italy.

Caesar was determined to stay in the saddle at the head of his army. It was a brave attempt to demonstrate his leadership. But it was foolhardy. As our long column of three legions wound through the mountains, I could see how much the effort cost him. By the time we reached Dyrrachium two weeks later, he had once again fallen into a state of nervous exhaustion. He had to be carried aboard his flagship in darkness to avoid being seen, and stayed in his cabin throughout the crossing.

The winter sea was grey and rough – too rough, at least, for Sextus’s pirates to trouble us. That was our sole piece of good fortune. Caesar was pitched around for three days and nights, sick and sleepless, and when at last we made land in Brundisium, his doctors were unanimous that unless he rested for at least a month, he was unlikely to survive.

This latest bout of illness was to have serious consequences. It meant he would not be in Rome in time for the opening of the new session of the Senate on the first day of January, when Lucius would assume the consulship.

As the days passed and he did not appear in Rome, his absence set the city talking, and eventually brought our old friend Maecenas hurrying down to Brundisium to discover what was wrong.

We were staying in a villa close to the harbour, surrounded by a cordon of soldiers. They held back the permanent crowd of petitioners and onlookers who filled the neighbouring streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of the most famous young man in the world.

When Maecenas turned up unannounced, I was relieved to see him. I told him about the illness and then took him in to see Caesar, lying in a darkened room. He was weak but alert enough to recognise his visitor. I had grown used to Caesar’s feeble appearance, but Maecenas could not hide his dismay. Their meeting was short, at the doctors’ insistence.

Afterwards, Maecenas described the state of affairs in Rome. Food was short due to Sextus’s pirates, who were intercepting the grain shipments from the east. The city was full of angry farmers fearful that they were about to lose their land to the returning veterans. Lucius and Fulvia were encouraging the protests. She was especially active behind the scenes, practically running the state – appointing magistrates, letting her gangs roam the streets, spreading the rumour that Caesar was dead.

– He must show himself in public to prove he is still alive, otherwise matters could slip entirely out of control.

I replied that given the state of his health, he could not possibly appear in public. He looked so weak it would only fuel the rumours.