Augustus

Table of Contents

In a house at the eastern corner of the Palatine, called “At the Oxheads,”[1] on the 23rd of September, B.C. 63—some nine weeks before the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators by Cicero’s order—a child was born destined to close the era of civil wars thus inaugurated, to organise the Roman Empire, and to be its master for forty-four years.

The father of the child was Gaius Octavius, of the plebeian gens Octavia, and of a family that had long occupied a high position in the old Volscian town of Velitræ. Two branches of the Octavii were descended from C. Octavius Rufus, quæstor in B.C. 230. The elder branch had produced five consuls and other Roman magistrates, but of the younger branch Gaius Octavius, the father of Augustus, was the first to hold curule office. According to the inscription, afterwards placed by his son in the sacrarium of the palace,[2] he had twice served as military tribune, had been quæstor, plebeian ædile, iudex quæstionum, and prætor. After the prætorship (B.C. 61) he governed Macedonia with conspicuous ability and justice. He is quoted by Cicero as a model administrator of a province; and he was sufficiently successful against the Bessi and other Thracian tribes—constant scourges of Macedonia—to be hailed as “imperator” by his soldiers. He returned to Italy late in B.C. 59, intending next year to be a candidate for the consulship, but early in B.C. 58 he died suddenly in his villa at Nola, in the same chamber as that in which his son, seventy-two years later, breathed his last.[3]

The mother of the young Gaius Octavius was Atia, daughter of M. Atius Balbus,[4] of Velitræ, and Iulia, sister of Gaius Iulius Cæsar. This connection with Cæsar—already rising in political importance—may have made his birth of some social interest, but the ominous circumstances said to have accompanied it are doubtless due to the curiosity or credulity of the next generation. The people of Velitræ, it is reported, had been told by an oracle that a master of the Empire was to be born there. Rumours, it is said, were current in Rome shortly before his birth that a “king of the Roman people” was about to be born. His mother dreamed strange dreams, and the learned Publius Nigidius prophesied the birth of a lord of the world; while Catullus and Cicero had visions.[5] But there was, in fact, nothing mysterious or unusual in his infancy, which was passed with his foster-nurse at Velitræ. When he was two years old his father, on his way to his province, carried out successfully an order of the Senate to destroy a band of brigands near Thurii, survivors, it is said, of the followers of Spartacus and Catiline. In memory of this success his parents gave the boy the cognomen Thurinus. He never seems to have used the name, though Suetonius says that he once possessed a bust of the child with this name inscribed on it in letters that had become almost illegible. He presented it to Hadrian, who placed it in his private sacrarium.[6]

About B.C. 57 or 56[7] his mother Atia re-married. Her husband was L. Marcius Philippus (prætor B.C. 60, governor of Syria B.C. 59-7, Consul B.C. 56); and when in his ninth year Octavius lost his foster-mother he became a regular member of his stepfather’s household. Philippus was not a man of much force, but he belonged to the highest society, and though opposed to Cæsar in politics, appears to have managed to keep on good terms with him.[8] But during his great-nephew’s boyhood Cæsar was little at Rome. Prætor in B.C. 62, he had gone the following year to Spain. He returned in B.C. 60 to stand for the consulship, and soon after the consulship, early in B.C. 58, he started for Gaul, from which he did not return to Rome till he came in arms in B.C. 49. But though occupied during the summers in his famous campaigns beyond the Alps, he spent most of his winters in Northern Italy—at Ravenna or Lucca—where he received his partisans and was kept in touch with home politics, and was probably visited by his relatives. Just before entering on his consulship he had formed with Pompey and Crassus the agreement for mutual support known as the First Triumvirate. The series of events which broke up this combination and made civil war inevitable must have been well known to the boy. He must have been aware that the laurelled despatches of his great-uncle announcing victory after victory were viewed with secret alarm by many of the nobles who visited Philippus; and that these men were seeking to secure in Pompey a leader capable of outshining Cæsar in the popular imagination by victories and triumphs of his own. He was old enough to understand the meaning of the riots of the rival law-breakers, Milo and Clodius, which drenched Rome in blood. Election after election was interrupted, and, finally, after the murder of Clodius (January, B.C. 52), all eyes were fixed on Pompey as the sole hope of peace and order. There was much talk of naming him dictator, but finally he was created sole consul (apparently by a decree of the Senate) and remained sole consul till August, when he held an election and returned his father-in-law, Metellus Scipio, as his colleague.

The upshot of these disorders, therefore, was to give Pompey a very strong position. He was, in fact, dictator (seditionis sedandæ causa) under another name; and the Optimates hastened to secure him as their champion. A law had been passed in B.C. 56, by agreement with Cæsar, giving Pompey the whole of Spain as a province for five years after his consulship of B.C. 55. As Cæsar’s government of Gaul terminated at the end of B.C. 49, Pompey would have imperium and an army when Cæsar left his province. He would naturally indeed be in Spain; but the Senate now passed a resolution that it was for the good of the State that Pompey should remain near Rome. He accordingly governed Spain by three legati, and remained outside the walls of the city with imperium. The great object of the Optimates was that Cæsar should return to Rome a privatus while Pompey was still there in this unprecedented position. Cæsar wished to be consul for B.C. 48. The Optimates did not openly oppose that wish, but contended that he should lay down his provincial government and military command first, and come to Rome to make his professio, or formal announcement of his being a candidate, in the usual way.[9]

But Cæsar declined to walk into this trap. He knew that if he came home as a privatus there were many ready to prosecute him for his actions in Gaul, and with Pompey there in command of legions he felt certain that a verdict inflicting political ruin on him could be obtained. He therefore stood by the right—secured by a law of B.C. 55, and reinforced by Pompey’s own law in B.C. 52—of standing for the consulship without coming to Rome, and without giving up his province and army before the time originally fixed by the law. He would thus not be without imperium for a single day, but would come to Rome as consul.

Here was a direct issue. Pompey professed to believe that it could be settled by a decree of the Senate, either forbidding the holder of the election to receive votes for Cæsar in his absence, or appointing a successor in his province. Cæsar, he argued, would of course obey a Senatus-consultum. But Cæsar was on firm ground in refusing to admit a successor till the term fixed by the law had expired, and also in claiming that his candidature should be admitted in his absence—for that too had been granted by a law. If neither side would yield the only possible solution was war.[10]

Cæsar hesitated for some time. He saw no hope of mollifying his enemies or separating Pompey from them. His daughter Iulia’s death in B.C. 54 after a few years’ marriage to Pompey had severed a strong tie between them. The death of Crassus in B.C. 53 had removed, not indeed a man of much strength of character, but one whose enormous wealth had given him such a hold on the senators that any strong act on their part, against his wishes, was difficult. After his death the actual provocations to Cæsar had certainly increased. The depriving him, under the pretext of an impending Parthian war, of two legions which were being kept under arms in Italy; the insult inflicted upon him by Marcellus (Consul B.C. 51) in flogging a magistrate of his new colony at Comum, who if the colony were regarded as legally established would be exempt from such punishment;—these and similar things shewed Cæsar what he had to expect if he gave up office and army. He elected therefore to stand on his legal rights.

Legality was on his side, but long prescription was in favour of the Senate’s claim to the obedience of a magistrate, especially of the governor of a province. There was therefore a deadlock. Cæsar made one attempt—not perhaps a very sincere one—to remove it. He had won over Gaius Curio, tribune in B.C. 50, by helping him to discharge his immense debts. Curio therefore, instead of opposing Cæsar, as had been expected, vetoed every proposal for his recall. His tribuneship ended on the 9th of December, B.C. 50, and he immediately started to visit Cæsar at Ravenna. He told him of the inveteracy of his opponents, and urged him to march at once upon Rome. But Cæsar determined to justify himself by offering a peaceful solution—“he was willing to hand over his province and army to a successor, if Pompey would also give up Spain and dismiss his armies.” Curio returned to Rome in time for the meeting of the Senate on the 1st of January, B.C. 49, bringing this despatch from Cæsar.

The majority of the Senate affected to regard it as an act of rebellion. After a debate, lasting five days, a decree was passed on January the 7th, ordering Cæsar to give up his province and army on a fixed day, on pain of being declared guilty of treason. This was vetoed by two tribunes, M. Antonius and Q. Cassius. Refusing, after the usual “remonstrance,” to withdraw their veto, they were finally expelled and fled to Ariminum, on their way to join Cæsar at Ravenna. The Senate then passed the Senatus-consultum ultimum, ordering the magistrates and pro-magistrates “to see that the state took no harm,” and a levy of soldiers—already begun by Pompey—was ordered to be held in all parts of Italy.

Cæsar, informed of this, addressed the single legion which was with him at Ravenna, urging it to support the violated tribunes. Satisfied with the response to his appeal, he took the final step of passing the Rubicon and marching to Ariminum, outside his province.

Both sides were now in the wrong, the Senate by forcibly interfering with the action of the tribunes, Cæsar by entering Italy. An attempt, therefore, was made to effect a compromise. Lucius Cæsar—a distant connection of Iulius—visited him at Ariminum, bringing some general professions of moderation from Pompey, though it seems without any definite suggestion. Cæsar, however, so far modified his former offer as to propose a conference, with the understanding that the levy of troops in Italy was to be stopped and Pompey was to go to his Spanish province. On receiving this communication at Capua Pompey and the consuls declined all terms until Cæsar had withdrawn from Ariminum into Gaul; though they intimated, without mentioning any date, that Pompey would in that case go to Spain. But the levy of troops was not interrupted; and Cæsar’s answer to this was the triumphant march through Picenum and to Brundisium. Town after town surrendered, and the garrisons placed in them by Pompey generally joined the advancing army, till finally a large force, embracing many men of high rank, surrendered at Corfinium. Cæsar had entered Italy with only one legion, but others were summoned from winter quarters in Cisalpine Gaul, and by the time he reached Brundisium Pompey had given up all idea of resisting him in Italy, and within the walls of that town was preparing to cross to Epirus, whither the consuls with the main body of his troops had already gone. Cæsar had no ships with which to follow him. He was content to hasten his flight by threatening to block up the harbour. Pompey safely out of Italy, he went to Rome to arrange for his regular election into the consulship. Meeting with opposition there[11]—one of the tribunes, L. Cæcilius Metellus, vetoing all proposals in the Senate—he hastened to Spain to attack the legates of Pompey, stopping on his way to arrange the siege of Marseilles (which had admitted Ahenobarbus, named successor of Cæsar in Gaul), and sending legati to secure Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. Of these the only failure was in Africa, where Curio was defeated and killed. This province therefore remained in the hands of the Pompeians; but Cæsar’s own successes in Spain, the fall of Marseilles, and the hold gained upon the corn supplies of Sicily and Sardinia placed him in a strong position. The constitutional difficulty was surmounted; he was named Dictator to hold the elections, returned himself as consul, and, after eleven days in Rome for the Latin games, embarked at Brundisium on January 3, B.C. 48, to attack Pompey in Epirus.

It is not necessary to follow the events of the next six months. Cæsar had to struggle with great difficulties, for Pompey as master of the sea had a secure base of supplies; and therefore, though Cæsar drew vast lines round his camp, he could not starve him out. Pompey, in fact, actually pierced Cæsar’s lines and defeated him in more than one engagement. Eventually, however, Cæsar drew him into Thessaly; and the great victory of Pharsalia (August 9th) made up for everything. Pompey fled to Egypt, to meet his death on the beach by order of the treacherous young king; and though Cæsar still had weary work to do before Egypt was reduced to obedience, and then had to traverse Asia Minor to crush Pharnaces of Pontus at Zela, when he set foot once more in Italy in September, B.C. 47, he had already been created Dictator, and was practically master of the Roman world.

In these momentous events the young Octavius had taken no part. At the beginning of B.C. 49 he had been sent away to one of his ancestral estates in the country. But we cannot suppose him incapable of understanding their importance or being an uninterested spectator. His stepfather Philippus was Pompeian in sympathy, but his close connection with Cæsar kept him from taking an active part in the war, and he was allowed to remain in Italy, probably for the most part in his Campanian villa. From time to time, however, he came to Rome; and Octavius, who now lived entirely with him, began to be treated with a distinction natural to the near relative of the victorious dictator. Soon after the news of Pharsalia he took the toga virilis, and about the same time was elected into the college of pontifices in the place of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had fallen in the battle. This was an office desired by the highest in the land, and the election of so young a boy, just entering upon his sixteenth year, put him in a position something like that of a prince of the blood; just as afterwards Augustus caused his two grandsons to be designated to the consulship, and declared capable of official employment as soon as they had taken the toga virilis.[12]

The boy, who three years before had made a great impression by his delivery of the laudatio at his grandmother Iulia’s funeral, again attracted much attention by his good looks and modesty. He became the fashion; and when (as was customary for the pontifices) he presided in a prætorian court during the feriæ Latinæ, it was observed to be more crowded by suitors and their friends than any of the others. It seems that the rarity of his appearance at Rome added to the interest roused by his great-uncle’s successes. For his mother did not relax her watchfulness. Though legally a man he was still carefully guarded. He was required to sleep in the same simple chamber, to visit the same houses, and to follow the same way of life as before. Even his religious duties were performed before daylight, to escape the languishing looks of intriguing beauties. These precautions were seconded by his own cool and cautious temperament, and the result seems to have been that he passed through the dangerous stage of adolescence—doubly dangerous to one now practically a prince—uncontaminated by the grosser vices of Rome. Stories to the contrary, afterwards spread abroad by his enemies, are of the most unsubstantial and untrustworthy kind.

But though he seems to have quietly submitted to this tutelage, he soon conceived an ardent desire to share in the activities of his great-uncle. Cæsar had been very little at Rome since the beginning of the civil war. A few days in March, B.C. 49, thirteen days in December of the same year, were all that he had spent in the city. He was absent during the whole of his consulship (B.C. 48) till September, B.C. 47. On his return from Alexandria in that month, he stayed barely three months at Rome. On the 19th of December he was at Lilybæum, on his way to Africa to attack the surviving Pompeians. Octavius longed to go with him, and Cæsar was willing to take him. But his health was not good, and his mother set herself against it. The Dictator might no doubt have insisted, but he saw that the boy was not fit to face the fatigues of a campaign. Octavius submitted, quietly biding his time. He was rewarded by finding himself high in his great-uncle’s favour when he returned in B.C. 46 after the victory of Thapsus. He was admitted to share his triple triumph, riding in a chariot immediately behind that of the imperator, dressed in military uniform as though he had actually been engaged. He found, moreover, that he had sufficient interest with Cæsar to obtain pardon for the brother of his friend Agrippa, taken prisoner in the Pompeian army in Africa. This first use of his influence made a good impression, without weakening his great-uncle’s affection for him. Though Cæsar did not formally adopt him,[13] he treated him openly as his nearest relation and heir. Octavius rode near him in his triumph, stood by his side at the sacrifice, took precedence of all the staff or court that surrounded him, and accompanied him to theatres and banquets. He was soon besieged by petitions to be laid before Cæsar, and shewed both tact and good nature in dealing with them. This close connection with the wise and magnanimous Dictator, inspired him with warm admiration and affection, which help to explain and excuse the severity with which he afterwards pursued his murderers.

In order to give him experience of civic duties, one of the theatres was now put under his charge. But his assiduous attention to this duty in the hot season brought on a dangerous illness, one of the many which he encountered during his long life. There was a general feeling of regret at the prospect of a career of such promise being cut short. Cæsar visited him daily or sent friends to him, insisted on the physicians remaining constantly at his side, and being informed while at dinner that the boy had fainted and was in imminent danger, he sprang up from his couch, and without waiting to change his dining slippers, hurried to his chamber, besought the physicians in moving terms to do their utmost, and sitting down by the bed shewed the liveliest joy when the patient recovered from his swoon.

Octavius was too weak to accompany the Dictator when starting for Spain against Pompey’s sons in December B.C. 46. But as soon as he was sufficiently recovered he determined to follow him. He refused all company except that of a few select friends and the most active of his slaves. He would not admit his mother’s wish to go with him. He had yielded to her before, but he was now resolved to take part in a man’s work alone. His voyage, early in B.C. 45, proved long and dangerous; and when at length he landed at Tarraco he found his uncle already at the extreme south of Spain, somewhere between Cadiz and Gibraltar. The roads were rendered dangerous by scattered parties of hostile natives, or outposts of the enemy, and his escort was small. Still, he pushed on with energy and reached Cæsar’s quarters near Calpe, to which he had advanced after the victory at Munda (March 17th). Gnæus Pompeius had fled on board a ship, but was killed when landing for water on the 11th of April, and it was apparently just about that time that Octavius reached the camp. Warmly received and highly praised for his energy by the Dictator, he was at once admitted to his table and close intimacy, during which Cæsar learned still more to appreciate the quickness of his intelligence and the careful control which he kept over his tongue.

Affairs in Southern Spain having been apparently settled (though as it proved the danger was by no means over), Octavius accompanied Cæsar to Carthage, to settle questions which had arisen as to the assignment of land in his new colony. The Dictator was visited there by deputations from various Greek states, alleging grievances or asking favours. Octavius was applied to by more than one of them to plead their cause, and had therefore again an opportunity of acquiring practical experience in the business of imperial government, and in the very best school.

He preceded Cæsar on his return to Rome, and on his arrival had once more occasion to shew his caution and prudence. Among those who met him in the usual complimentary procession was a young man who had somehow managed to make himself a popular hero by pretending to be a grandson of the great Marius. His real name was Amatius or Herophilus, a veterinary surgeon according to some, but certainly of humble origin. As Marius had married Cæsar’s aunt Iulia, this man was anxious to be recognised as a cousin by the Dictator. He had in vain applied to Cicero to undertake his cause, and to Atia and her half-sister to recognise him. The difficulty for Octavius was that the man was a favourite of the populace, of whose cause Cæsar was the professed champion; yet his recognition would be offensive to the nobles and a mere concession to clamour. Octavius avoided the snare by referring the case to Cæsar as head of the state and family, and refusing to receive the would-be Marius till he had decided.[14]

He did not remain long at Rome however. Cæsar returned in September, and was assassinated in the following March. And during that interval, though he found time for many schemes of legislation, and of restoration or improvement in the city, he was much employed in preparing for two expeditions—calculated to last three years—first against the Daci or Getæ on the Danube, and secondly against the Parthians in Mesopotamia. These were the two points of active danger in the Empire, and Cæsar desired to crown his public services by securing their peace and safety. For this purpose six legions were quartered in Macedonia for the winter, in readiness to march along the Via Egnatia to the eastern coast of Greece. Returning from Spain Dictator for life, Cæsar was to have two “Masters of the Horse.” One was to be Octavius, who had meanwhile been created a patrician by the Senate.[15] But for the present he was sent to pass the winter at Apollonia, the Greek colony at the beginning of the Via Egnatia, where he might continue his studies in quiet with the rhetors and other teachers whom he took with him or found there,[16] and at the same time might get some military training with the legions that were not far off. He was accompanied by some of the young men with whom he habitually associated. Among them were Agrippa and Mæcenas, who remained his friends and ministers to the end of their lives, and Salvidienus Rufus, who almost alone of his early friends proved unfaithful.[17]

He seems to have led a quiet life at Apollonia, winning golden opinions in the town and from his teachers for his studious and regular habits. The admiration and loyalty of his friends were confirmed; and many of the officers of the legions seem to have made up their minds to regard him as the best possible successor to the Dictator.

In the sixth month of his residence at Apollonia, in the afternoon of a March day, a freedman of his mother arrived with every sign of rapid travel and agitation. He delivered a letter from Atia, dated the 15th of March. It briefly stated that the Dictator had just been assassinated in the Senate House. She added that she “did not know what would happen next; but it was time now for him to play the man, and to think and act for the best at this terrible crisis.”[18] The bearer of the letter could tell him nothing else, for he had been despatched immediately after the murder, and had loitered nowhere on the way; only he felt sure that as the conspirators were numerous and powerful, all the kinsfolk of the Dictator would be in danger.

This was the last day of Octavius’s youth. From that hour he had to play a dangerous game with desperate players. He did not yet know that by the Dictator’s will he had been adopted as his son, and was heir to the greater part of his vast wealth; but a passionate desire to avenge him sprang up in his breast, a desire strengthened with increasing knowledge, and of which he never lost sight in all the political complications of the next ten years.

At the death of Cæsar the Roman Empire had been for the most part won. Egypt was indeed annexed by Augustus, though on a peculiar tenure, but subsequent additions were in a manner consequential, the inevitable rectifications of a long frontier. Such were the provinces of the Rhine, the Alps, and the Danube as far east as Mœsia; and to a certain extent the province of Galatia and Lycaonia (B.C. 25). The Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates seemed already the natural boundaries of the Empire on the north and east, the Atlantic Ocean on the west, and the African and Arabian deserts on the south. And these boundaries, with occasional modifications, and for the most part temporary extensions, continued to the end.

But though the greater part of this wide Empire was already won, it was not all equally well organised and secured. Thus, in Northern Gaul, there were still Germans and other enemies to be conquered or repelled; in Southern Spain a son of the great Pompey was in arms; Macedonia was continually subject to invasion by Getæ, Bessi, and other barbarians; the Dalmatians and neighbouring tribes made Illyricum an uncertain member of the Empire; in Syria, Cæcilius Bassus—an old officer of Pompey’s—was defying Roman armies, and inviting the aid of the Parthians always ready to cross the Euphrates into the Roman province.

To confront two of these dangers Cæsar had collected a large army in Macedonia in the autumn of B.C. 45 to crush the Getæ, and then crossing to Syria to force the Parthian to respect the frontier of the Euphrates, or even to attack them in Mesopotamia. The former of these projects was no doubt important for the safety of the Empire, and was in after years successfully secured by Augustus and his legates. The latter was more visionary and theatrical, meant perhaps to strike the imagination of the Romans rather than to secure great practical advantage. After Cæsar’s death Antony lost more than he gained by similar enterprises, and Augustus always avoided coming into actual contact with the Parthians, or attempting to extend his rule beyond the Euphrates. But there were dangers within the Empire no less formidable than from without. Its integrity had rested, and generally securely rested, on the loyalty of its provincial governors to the central authority as represented by the Senate, or, in the last resort, by the order of the people expressed in a lex or plebiscitum. It was the beginning of the end when these governors used the forces under their command, or the wealth and influence secured abroad, to defy or coerce the authorities at home. Sertorius, Sulla, and Cæsar himself, had shewn that this was not an impossible contingency. It was against this danger that, among other reforms in the government of the Provinces, Cæsar’s own law had provided that the tenure of a proprætor should be confined to one, and of a proconsul to two years. But now that he was going on a distant expedition, calculated as likely to occupy three years, he took other precautions. Having provided for the chief offices at home,[19] he was careful to see that the provinces should be held by men whom he believed to be loyal to himself, and likely from their character and ability to maintain their peace and security. Being Consul and Dictator, and his acta being confirmed beforehand by Senate and people, he could make what nominations he pleased. A decree of the Senate was still taken as a matter of form, but the old practice (often a farce) of drawing lots for the provinces was abandoned;[20] Pompey’s law ordaining a five years’ interval between curule office and a province was neglected, and Cæsar practically nominated the governors. But it raises a doubt as to the unfettered power or the insight of the Dictator that five of those thus nominated were among the assassins on the Ides of March.[21] Nor in other respects did his choice prove happy. The state of open war or dangerous unrest which shewed itself in almost all parts of the Empire after his death must be learnt by a review of the provinces, if we are to understand the problem presented to Augustus and his colleagues in the triumvirate, and the relief felt by the Roman world when Augustus finally took the administration into his own hands, and shewed himself capable of restoring law and order.

The Gauls now included three districts, the status of which was somewhat unsettled. (1) Cisalpine Gaul, that is, Italy between Etruria and the Alps, was still nominally a province, though Cæsar’s law of B.C. 48 had granted full civitas to the transpadane, as that of B.C. 89 had to the cispadane, towns. It had formed part of Cæsar’s province from B.C. 58 to B.C. 48, and he seems to have retained it until after the battle of Pharsalia, when he appointed first Marcus Brutus and then C. Vibius Pansa to it. Though part of Italy, and generally peaceful, it had great military importance in case of an invasion from the north. After March B.C. 44 it was to be in the hands of Decimus Brutus, who had long served under Cæsar, and was regarded by him with special confidence and affection. Antony’s attempt to wrest it from Decimus Brutus brought on the first civil war after Cæsar’s death.

(2) Transalpine Gaul technically consisted of “the Province,” that is, South-eastern France, from the Cevennes on the west to Italy, and from the Lake of Geneva on the north to the sea. But since Cæsar’s conquests there had to be added to this the rest of France, Belgium, and Holland as far as the Rhine. No formal division into distinct provinces had yet been made. In B.C. 49 Decimus Brutus, after driving out Ahenobarbus, the governor named by the Senate, remained in command of the whole till B.C. 45, when he returned in Cæsar’s train to Italy. But in the course of these four years, or on his return, (3) Belgica was separated from the rest and assigned to Hirtius, who, however, governed it by a legate named Aurelius, without going there himself.[22] In the course of the next year a farther division was made: Aurelius retained Belgica; Lepidus, with four legions, was appointed to “the Province” (afterwards called Gallia Narbonensis) together with Hispania Citerior; while L. Munatius Plancus governed the rest, consisting of what was afterwards two provinces—Aquitania and Lugdunensis. Plancus and Decimus Brutus were named consuls for B.C. 42, and therefore their governorships necessarily terminated at the end of B.C. 43, and might do so earlier. In the course of B.C. 43 Plancus founded Lugdunum[23] (Lyon), which was afterwards the capital of the central province of the four organised by Augustus. But though the organisation of this country was not complete, Cæsar’s conquest had been so decisive that no advantage was taken of the civil war by the natives to attempt a rising.[24] There seem to have been some insignificant movements in B.C. 42, but it was not for some years later that any danger of importance arose there. The Belgæ had been expected to rise on Cæsar’s assassination, but their chiefs hastened to assure Hirtius’s legate of their adhesion to the Roman government.[25]

The province of Illyricum had been formed about the same time as that of Macedonia (B.C. 146), but its limits had fluctuated, and it had not received much continuous attention. It included places, such as Dyrrachium, Corcyra, Issa, Pharus, which had been declared free after the contest with Queen Teuta in B.C. 228, but were practically under Roman control. Yet some of the most powerful tribes not only did not acknowledge Roman authority, but made frequent incursions upon Roman Illyricum. The most dangerous of these were the Dalmatians, with whom several wars are recorded. In B.C. 117 L. Cælius Metellus occupied Salonæ;[26] in B.C. 87-5 Sulla won a victory over them;[27] in B.C. 78-77 C. Cosconius, after a two years’ campaign, took Salonæ by storm.[28] But little was really effected in securing the province against its enemies. It was let much alone so long as its tribute was paid, and was put under the governor sometimes of Macedonia, sometimes of Cisalpine Gaul. In Cæsar’s case (B.C. 58) it was specially assigned, like the rest of his province, and he seems at first to have intended to go there in force and subdue the hostile barbarians. But the Gallic campaigns drew him away, and he only once actually entered Illyricum (B.C. 54) to overawe the invading Pirustæ. In the last year of his proconsulship (B.C. 50) some troops which he sent against the Dalmatians were cut to pieces. The result of this was that the barbarians, fearing his vengeance, adhered to Pompey in the civil war, whose legate, M. Octavius, with a considerable fleet, maintained himself there,[29] and in B.C. 49 defeated and captured Gaius Antonius, whom Cæsar sent against him.[30] At the beginning of the next year Aulus Gabinius, while trying to lead a force round the head of the Adriatic to join Cæsar, lost nearly all his men in a battle with the Dalmatians.[31] After Pharsalia Gabinius was sent back to assist Cornificius, who had been despatched to Illyricum as proprætor after the mishap of Gaius Antonius; but he was again defeated and shut up in Salonæ, where he died suddenly.[32] In B.C. 47, however, P. Vatinius, having joined Cornificius, defeated and drove Octavius out of the country.[33] After serving also in the African campaign of B.C. 46, Vatinius was sent back to Illyricum with three legions (B.C. 45) expressly to reduce the still independent tribes. At first he gained sufficient success to be honoured by a supplicatio,[34] but after Cæsar’s death he was defeated by the Dalmatians with the loss of five cohorts, and was driven to take refuge in Dyrrachium.[35] Early in B.C. 43 he was forced to surrender his legions to M. Brutus, who, however, in the year and a half which preceded his death at Philippi, was too busy elsewhere to attend to Illyricum.[36] Hence the expeditions of Pollio in B.C. 39,[37] and of Augustus in B.C. 35 were rendered necessary, and they for a time secured the pacification of the country and the extension of Roman provinces to the Danube.

At the death of Iulius Spain was also a source of great danger and difficulty. Since B.C. 197 it had been divided into two provinces—Citerior and Ulterior—separated by the Saltus Castulonensis (Sierra Morena), each governed by a prætor or proprætor. In B.C. 54 Pompey introduced a triple division. Of his three legates Afranius held Hispania Citerior; but the farther province was divided between Petreius, who held the district as far west as the Anas (Guadiana), afterwards called Bætica, while Terentius Varro governed the country west of that river with Lusitania. Having forced Pompey’s legates to surrender the country (B.C. 49), Cæsar seems not to have continued the triple division. Q. Cassius was sent to Hispania Ulterior, M. Lepidus to Hispania Citerior. But Cassius offended his own soldiers as well as the natives, and had to escape by sea, being drowned on his way home. Nor did his successor Trebonius do much better in B.C. 47; for many of his soldiers deserted to Gnæus Pompeius when he came to Spain after the defeat at Thapsus in the spring of B.C. 46.[38] And though Gnæus Pompeius perished soon after the battle of Munda (B.C. 45) his younger brother Sextus survived. At Cæsar’s death he was already at the head of a considerable fleet which enabled him to control Sicily and re-occupy Bætica, when its last Cæsarean governor—the famous C. Asinius Pollio—left it to join Antony in Gallia Narbonensis in the summer of B.C. 43. The upper province had meanwhile been governed by the legates of Metellus, who was about to return to it and Gallia Narbonensis with four legions when Cæsar’s death introduced new complications.[39]

Sicily for eight years after Cæsar’s death was practically separated from the Empire. In B.C. 49 it had been easily won over to Cæsar’s authority by C. Curio, and after his success in Spain against Pompey’s legates Cæsar had nominated Aulus Allienus[40] as its proprætor. In B.C. 46 Allienus was succeeded by M. Acilius[41] (afterwards sent to Achaia), who in his turn was succeeded by T. Furfanius Postumus (B.C. 45). Finally, among Cæsar’s arrangements for B.C. 44 was the appointment of Pompeius Bithynicus to Sicily. His father had served under Pompey and had perished with him in Egypt; and Bithynicus seems to have feared retaliation from the Pompeians if they returned to power; for on the death of Cæsar we find him writing to Cicero in evident anxiety as to his position.[42] He failed to hold the island against Sext. Pompeius, who landed in B.C. 43, and after sustaining a slight reverse at Messene forced Bithynicus to yield him a share in the government, and shortly afterwards put him to death because he believed him to be plotting against him.[43] Sicily therefore had to be restored to the Empire by the triumvirs, a task which fell chiefly to Augustus.

Sardinia was important for its supply of corn. In B.C. 49 Cæsar’s legate Q. Valerius Orca occupied it without difficulty, its governor, M. Aurelius Cotta, escaping to Africa. In B.C. 48 Orca was succeeded by Sext. Peducæus.[44] But the arrangements made between that date and B.C. 44 are not known, for Peducæus appears to have been in Rome from the end of B.C. 45.[45] In the first division of the provinces by the triumvirs (November, B.C. 43) it fell to Octavian’s share,[46] though Suetonius remarks that Africa and Sardinia were the only two provinces never visited by him.[47] Meanwhile Sext. Pompeius occupied it,[48] and it was not recovered till B.C. 38.

The province of Africa—the ancient territory of Carthage—may be taken with this western part of the Empire. It had long been a peaceful province, but in B.C. 46 it was the scene of the great rally of the Pompeians after the disaster at Pharsalia. Since their final defeat at Thapsus it had been farther secured by Cæsar’s colony at Carthage (B.C. 46-5), and had been governed by a fervent Cæsarean, C. Calvisius Sabinus. At the end of B.C. 45 Sabinus returned to Rome, and Q. Cornificius (once Cæsar’s quæstor) was named to succeed him. But affairs in Africa had been complicated by the formation of a new province from the dominions of Iuba, called sometimes New Africa, sometimes Numidia (B.C. 46). Of this new province the first proprætor was the historian Sallust, succeeded in B.C. 45 by T. Sextius with three legions. On Cæsar’s death, therefore, there were two men in Africa who might possibly take different views of the situation. Cornificius indeed—friend and correspondent of Cicero—shewed at once that he meant to stand by the Senate. A few months later he was confirmed in this resolution by the fact of his continuance in office depending on the senatorial decree of the 20th of December,[49] whereas Antony had commissioned Calvisius Sabinus (who had never withdrawn his legates from Africa) to go back to the province.[50] Accordingly, after Antony’s defeat at Mutina (April, B.C. 43), the Senate felt strong enough to order Sextius to transfer his three legions to Cornificius, who was himself under orders to send two of them to Rome.[51] This was done, and with the remaining legion Cornificius maintained his position in Old Africa, when the Triumvirate was formed in November, and was able to offer protection to many of the proscribed. But Sextius now claimed both provinces, as having fallen to Octavian’s share. He enrolled troops in his own province and obtained the help of Arabion, of the royal family of Numidia and chief of the robber tribe of Sittians; and though Cornificius had the stronger force, he was presently defeated and killed. Octavian, however, looked upon Sextius as a partisan of Antony rather than of himself, and presently sent C. Fuficius Fango to supersede him. Sextius seems to have foreseen that differences would occur between Antony and Octavian likely to give him a chance of recovering his province. Therefore under pretence of wishing to winter in a genial climate he stayed on in Africa. His opportunity came with the new distribution of provinces after Philippi (October-November, B.C. 42). Old or “Prætorian” Africa fell to Antony, New Africa or Numidia to Octavian. But upon the quarrel between Octavian and Fulvia (supported by Lucius Antonius) in B.C. 41, Sextius was urged by Fulvia to demand the prætorian province from Fango as properly belonging to Antony. After several battles, in which he met with various fortunes, Fango was at last driven to take refuge in the mountains, and there killed himself. Sextius then held both provinces till, in B.C. 40, the triumvir Lepidus took possession of them as his share of the Empire.[52]

Thus the Western Provinces, in spite of Cæsar’s precautions, were all in a condition to cause difficulty to his successors in the government. The Eastern Provinces were for the most part in a state of similar disorder. Illyricum has already been discussed, as most conveniently taken with the Gauls. For those farther east Cæsar’s arrangements were no more successful in securing peace than in the West.

The victory at Pharsalia put Macedonia under Cæsar’s control, and he apparently continued to govern it till B.C. 45 by his legates. While in Egypt (B.C. 48-7), fearing, it seems, that it might be made a centre of resistance,[53] he directed Gabinius to go there with his legions, if the state of Illyricum allowed of it.[54] We have no farther information as to its government till the autumn of B.C. 45, when a large military force was stationed there; and in that, or the following year, Q. Hortensius—son of the famous orator—was made governor. Marcus Brutus was named by Cæsar to succeed him in B.C. 43, and Hortensius did, in fact, hand over the province to him at Thessalonica at the beginning of that year. But meanwhile Antony had induced the Senate to nominate himself (June, B.C. 44). He withdrew five of the legions and then managed to get the province transferred to his brother Gaius. When Antony was declared a hostis, the Senate revoked the nomination of Gaius and restored the province, along with Illyricum, to M. Brutus, who was in fact already in possession, having defeated and captured Gaius Antonius.

Closely connected with Macedonia was Greece, which had been left, since B.C. 146, in a somewhat anomalous position. Thessaly indeed, was, to a great extent, incorporated with Macedonia; but the towns in Bœotia, as well as Athens and Sparta, were nominally free, though connected with Rome in such a way as to be sometimes spoken of separately as “provinces.” So with the towns in the Peloponnese once forming the Achæan League. The League was dissolved and each town had a separate fœdus or charter.[55] But with all this local autonomy Greece was practically governed by Rome, and in certain cases the proprætor of Macedonia exercised jurisdiction in it. But as yet there was no “province” of Greece or even of Achaia, with a separate proconsul or proprætor. Cæsar, as in other cases, made temporary arrangements which afterwards became permanent under Augustus. In B.C. 48, Q. Fufius Calenus, one of his legates, was sent to take possession of Greek cities in Cæsar’s interest, and remained at Patræ with troops till B.C. 47, exercising authority over the whole of the Peloponnese.[56] In the autumn he went home and was rewarded by the consulship for the rest of the year. But in B.C. 46, Cæsar appointed Serv. Sulpicius Rufus governor of Greece, and his authority seems to have extended throughout the Peloponnese and as far north as Thessaly.[57] Sulpicius returned to Rome at the end of B.C. 45, or beginning of B.C. 44, and does not seem to have had a successor. Greece appears to have been tacitly allowed to revert to its old position of nominal freedom and real attachment to Macedonia. M. Brutus at any rate, as governor of Macedonia, assumed that he had authority in Greece. After the re-arrangement at Philippi (B.C. 42), it fell to Antony’s share, who, for a time at least, yielded Achaia to Sext. Pompeius.[58]

As Cæsar was meditating a settlement of Syria, it was important that the Asiatic provinces should be in safe hands. To Bithynia and Pontus—among the newest of Roman provinces—L. Tillius Cimber had been nominated. We know nothing of his antecedents except that we find him among the influential friends of Cæsar in B.C. 46; but his provincial appointment was readily confirmed by the Senate after his share in Cæsar’s death.[59] He devoted himself to the collection of a fleet, with which he aided the pursuit of Dolabella, and afterwards assisted Brutus and Cassius.

The province of AsiaB.C.[60][61]B.C.conventus