Reading the Roman Revolution 9: The First March on Rome

Chapter 9 in Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution starts with one of the most stirring passages in the book so far. It’s worth quoting in full as it captures a sense of tensions and movement in events. 

“At the beginning of the month of August certain political intrigues went wrong, and hopes of concord or of dissension were frustrated. Brutus and Cassius did not return to Rome and the rival Caesarian leaders were reconciled through the insistence of the soldiery.”

That this occurred in the month of August provides a useful, if coincidental, opportunity for foreshadowing the rise of Octavianus to the rank of Augustus despite the somewhat ambivalent results of his first march on Rome in November: “The coup failed. Antonius was approaching with the Macedonian Legions. The veterans refused to fight. Many deserted and returned to their homes, none the worse for a brief autumnal escapade.”

The moves of Antonius and Octavianus over the later months of 44 led to both sides securing the loyalty of legions and positioning them in northern Italy and Cisapline Gaul. The action was described in a series of short, propulsive, declarative sentences:

“Antonius had failed as a non-party statesman in Roman politics; as a Caesarian leader his primacy was menaced. Senate, plebs and veterans were mobilized against him. His enemies had drawn the sword: naked force must decide.”

More complex and strategic passages, such as Antonius’s initial efforts to repudiate Octavianus rhetorically, required more elaborate expression: “Turning to the person and family of the revolutionary, he invoked both the traditional charges of unnatural vice with which the most blameless of Roman politicians, whatever his age or party, must expect to find himself assailed, and the traditional contempt which the Roman noble visited upon the family and extraction of respectable municipal men. Octavianus’ mother came from the small town of Aricia!” 

The first half of the chapter focused on the movement of armies and the political strategies of the two rival heirs to the Caesarian party. The latter half detailed the retinue of Octavianus and introduced us to “C. Maecenas, a diplomat and a statesman, an artist and a voluptuary” and Q. Salvidienus Rufus and M. Vipsanius Agrippa. Despite Agrippa’s later fame: “Of the origin and family of M. Agrippa: “friends or enemies have nothing to say; even when it became safe to inquire or publish, nothing at all could be discovered.”

These character fit well the part of Octavianus which, to Syme: “was purely revolutionary in origin, attracting all the enemies of society: old soldiers who had dissipated gratuities and farms, fraudulent financiers, unscrupulous freedmen, ambitious sons of ruined families from the local gentry of the towns of Italy.”

This all being said, Syme knows that both he and Octavianus have more work to do. Octavian cannot become Augustus without “the open backing of senior statesmen in the Senate : through their auctoritas he might acquire recognition and official standing. Which of the principes were ready to give their sanction?”

oOo 

The short essay is part of my Reading The Roman Revolution at 80 project. It’s so awesome that I have two hashtags: #ReadingRomanRevolution and #ReadingRonaldat80. I explain the project here. You can read the rest of the entries here.