A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

  Octavius carefully studied everyone of any influence in Rome at all. While Antony busied himself with administration and consulted the Senate, Octavius thought long thoughts and made his plans. He appeared more and more at the meetings of the Senate and showed a grave and respectful face. The Senators smiled at him sentimentally. They even smiled when they heard he was known, outside of Rome, and in all Italy, as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius. The boy had adored his uncle; he wished Caesar’s name not to be forgotten. One should praise such family devotion. It was encountered rarely these sad days. Caesar’s veterans had adored their leader. It was of no importance to the Senators that they now began to adore Octavius. “Let the boy play Caesar,” they said to each other. “It consoles him for his sorrow.”

  But for some reason a few about Antony began to suspect the fair-haired, blue-eyed Octavius, and to become suspicious of his devoted activities in keeping the name of Caesar alive and revered among the people: Antony, so much older, had not the wit to fear so young a man, and a man now so obscure since his great-uncle had been murdered. After his year as Consul, Antony chose Macedonia to govern. His advisers were astute. While governor of Macedonia he obtained a ruling from the Assemblies to give him the rule of northern Italy, and rule over Gaul. Many thousands about him loved him as a soldier, and among them were veterans of Caesar who did not love Octavius. The struggle for power was resumed.

  “As a tyrant, who sought complete subjugation of Rome, Caesar deserved to die,” Cicero was imprudent enough to say. But to himself he said, “I loved you, Julius, my little schoolmate.” His imprudent words were relayed to Octavius, who only smiled his glacial smile. His remark was conveyed to Antony, who said, “What a monster is this Cicero, that he finds any excuse for the death of our beloved Caesar!” He vowed that he would ask the removal of Cicero from the Senate. “Who loves him now, this contentious man?” he asked his friends. They assured him that Cicero was “a blind old dog with one tooth.” So enraged did the hot-tempered Antony become against Cicero that he hardly listened to his advisers who told him urgently that Octavius was gaining great influence among the people of Rome. He, Antony, was powerful. Octavius was only a youth. Cicero was a cynical monster. He would dispose of both in his own good time. He said so, passionately, and the few friends Cicero now possessed advised him to leave Rome for a while.

  He went to Athens to see his son, young Marcus, who was living in a luxury of which the ascetic father did not approve. But, as usual, his son deluded him with much facile talk of philosophy and many marks of affection. “I want nothing more to do with any of the affairs of Roman politics,” Cicero told young Marcus. “I am old and tired. I wish only that you marry and give me grandchildren.” To no one, not even Atticus or his son, did he speak of his beloved Tullia, for the wound of her loss bled in him and was never to be healed. He remembered the dream he had of her, and the book he had written, Consolations. But he was not consoled. He was done with all that was Rome and the struggle for power among the great factions. He wanted only memories and his grandchildren and a peaceful old age. Hearing this, young Marcus said, “It is always well to avoid extremes.” He yawned discreetly. Anything that did not pertain to pleasure was excessively boring to him, though he had an excellent mind. He had come to the conclusion that controversy interfered with what should be of the only importance to man: physical appetites and their gratifications.

  “Extremes?” repeated Cicero, and suddenly he was alive again. “You have forgotten what Aristotle said in his Ethics: ‘Virtue is rightly defined as a Mean, and insofar as it aims at the highest excellence it is an Extreme.’ As for myself, I prefer a man who is totally evil and destructive to one who idly smiles and has no opinions at all, and is neither hot nor cold. We are openly warned by the first; the second will not oppose evil nor will he champion good. He is like lukewarm wine, an offense to the palate.”

  “Yes, my father,” said young Marcus, and wondered when Cicero would leave Athens so that his son could again pursue pleasure in peace.

  The new Consuls were installed in Rome in the month of Janus, and Cicero received reports that Antony was becoming a reasonable man. Therefore, he prepared to return to Rome and the Senate. On returning he heard from avid friends that Antony had sneeringly denounced him “for fleeing from controversy.” This burned in his spirit slowly but consumingly. Octavius and Antony were more and more hostile to each other, for Octavius had claimed his great-uncle’s legacy to him and Antony had dogmatically informed him that he “was certain” that Caesar, in spite of his will, had not meant exactly what he had written. Cicero made it known that he was on the side of Octavius, which did not endear him to Antony. In spite of all his resolutions to remain an elder statesman only, and to use his conciliatory powers, he was again embroiled. He confessed to himself that a small measure of the love he had had for Julius Caesar had been transferred to Octavius; as for Antony, he disliked him for his flamboyance, his superb and swaggering insolence, his superior smiles, and his air—though he was a man of only average intellect—of knowing wisdom. He had the professional soldier’s contempt of civilians, and he loved display, drums, and the snapping banners in his wake. To Cicero, Julius had been a magnificent and subtle actor; Antony was only a buffoon. Unfortunately, he also remarked to eager friends that Octavius was too young to be important as yet, and too untried and one should not take him too seriously. This was duly reported to Octavius, and it made him irritable.

  Late in the year, after his return from the island, Cicero delivered the first of his great Philippics against Antony to the Senate. The Senators were transfixed by his fiery eloquence; Antony might call Cicero a blind old dog with one tooth but his voice remained, puissant and full of fire and strength. Antony, he said, should not depend on his support nor the support of the Senate in any of his “adventures.” He ridiculed Antony so that even the Senators who secretly supported the soldier had to smother laughter. Octavius was among the spectators, and his blue eyes smiled coldly and narrowly though the rest of his face remained as if carved from marble. It was reported later that Antony was so enraged at this attack on him that he became drunk for several days. “The last refuge of the violent and the uncertain man,” Cicero said of him, and this too was repeated to Antony.

  Antony disseminated the false accusation that Cicero had been among “the conspirators who had assassinated Rome’s greatest patriot and soldier, Julius Caesar.” Only those who wished to believe this lie claimed that it was most true. This provoked Cicero into his second Philippic, which was not delivered before the Senate, however. He induced his publisher to present it in the form of a pamphlet which was widely distributed in Rome. In it Cicero denounced Antony as a coward, a liar, and possessed of nearly all the vices disapproved of in Rome. Antony ought to be executed as a criminal! He ought to be assassinated as a tyrant! It was an extraordinary publication by a man known for his amiability, his profound reason, his desire for peace and his hatred for violence, but he and Antony had always been antipathetic to each other for temperamental reasons and the fact that Cicero had caused the execution years ago of Antony’s beloved stepfather. “I had forgiven him,” said Antony, with an air of military candor, “after Caesar had convinced me that Cicero had acted solely in behalf of the safety of Rome and not from personal narrow malice. I even visited him in the company of Caesar to offer my condolences on the death of his daughter! Yet, how does he repay me? With contumely, with aspersions on my bravery, with hints that I am a traitor and a fool!”

  In the meantime, Octavius was silently but sternly and steadfastly working to gain power among the veterans and legions who disliked Antony. He had an adamantine perseverance; nothing dismayed nor disheartened him. Let older men in Rome smile at his youth. Their attitude was his protection; they did not take him seriously. Octavius’ agents were as quietly and as thoroughly working to draw the conservatives of Rome to his side, and those who had deeply loved Caesar among the civilians. “Antony has uttered no word against
those who murdered my uncle, Caesar,” said Octavius to large assemblies held in private. “He was behind the general amnesty. I do not accuse him of being in the plot against Caesar; after all, it is known that he has no brains and plots demand cunning, planning, and forethought, and none of these does Antony possess.”

  Octavius’ contemptuous remark reached Antony with remarkable celerity. Then, belatedly, he did not underestimate “the boy.” He worked feverishly to gain the support of the Caesarians, who were, however, committed to Octavius by this time. He discovered to his rage and incredulity that while he had been swaggering about Rome and bringing peace to the State Octavius had been buying the loyalty of legions in one form or another. For the first time Antony attacked the assassins of Caesar; so long as he lived, he declared, he would hunt them out and destroy them. He rushed to Brindisi to gather four legions from Macedonia about him, and marched to the northern Italian province which had been allotted to him. But the governor already there, Decimus Brutus, informed Antony coldly that despite the law—which he refused to recognize—he would not give Antony the rule of the province. Antony, outraged, suspected with truth that Octavius had purchased the loyalty of the legions there. “Have we no law!” he cried. “Octavius has raised a private army of his own, and that is illegal!”

  In the meantime Octavius, in Rome, had mysteriously gained the support of the financiers, the bankers, the businessmen, and the industrialists. They did not trust the volatile Antony; he had often expressed his military contempt for them “as an army which can always be bought and which always operates in its own interest: profits.” But Antony could not ignore the fact that even a regular army cannot march without money—and all the money was with “that boy,” the youth with the lake-blue eyes and the carved face and the unsmiling mouth, the youth of inexorable personality who was never moved by tempers or emotions. Octavius was like an iron battering ram against gates of wood.

  “I am tired; I shall no longer engage in controversy,” Cicero had told his son. Then he had issued his Philippics against Antony. Now, like an old warhorse who hears the trumpets, he quickened again. Quintus tried to restrain him, pointing out that as a Constitutional lawyer he ought to denounce Octavius, who had raised a private army. Was it not inconsistent that he should support Octavius, then, against Antony who, as Consul, was in legal command of troops? Antony was paying them from the public treasury and was attempting to hold their loyalty against the disaffected soldiers under Octavius, which was eminently his right and his duty. Octavius, said Quintus, appeared determined to bring on a civil war with his private army, and had not the people been torn enough, and bloodied enough, in these years? Octavius wished his uncle’s power. Antony was trying to restrain him.

  “I always choose the lesser of two evils,” Cicero said stubbornly. “I have always disliked Antony. Octavius is young, but he is intelligent. I distrust fools, and Antony is a fool.” But he was inwardly torn. He had invariably denounced men who were unreasonable. He was acting in an unreasonable manner now, he confessed to himself. Octavius had raised an illegal army; Antony was legally opposing that army. One would win. Cicero again confessed to himself that he should prefer Octavius as the victor to Antony, who was unstable, violent of temperament, a professional soldier, and entirely too colorful for Cicero’s restrained tastes.

  Friends came to Cicero to urge him to consider. Octavius had no allegiances except to himself. He used everybody ruthlessly. Antony, the soldier and the Consul, might be distasteful to many, but at least he kept within the law that Cicero revered. But Cicero was in one of his rare emotional moods—he who had always mistrusted emotion. Moreover, Octavius’ quietness, which the unfortunate Cicero seemed to think was a virtue like his own, had impressed the aging Senator. Above all men, he hated the noisy, and Antony was noisy. In short, he had an affection for Octavius, whom he had earlier recognized as implacable and self-serving, because of Octavius’ blood relationship with Caesar, and because he had always had a fondness for the young. He regarded Octavius’ coldness and lack of vehemence as signs of maturity. As a somewhat vacillating man, himself—for rational men are always torn by intricate thought and self-doubts—he secretly admired men who knew what they were about and who displayed a virility of temperament. Octavius, he was positive, would refrain from the last infamy of man: civil war.

  Octavius, with preternatural wisdom, soon came to his own conclusions of the aging Senator who was still powerful in Rome, though he appeared not to know it. So with secret mendacity—for Octavius had no scruples whatsoever—but with engaging and youthful frankness, he began to woo Cicero. Loving the young, and trusting them, and hearing in Octavius’ voice the braver tones of Caesar, the older man was flattered. He did write to Atticus that he did not “trust” Octavius and “I am in doubt as to his intentions.” Nevertheless, his heart warmed toward the youth out of all reason. When Atticus urgently warned him not to be seduced by either side, Cicero replied: “I agree with you that if Octavius gets more power the acts of the tyrant will be confirmed much more decisively than they were by the Senate last March. But if he is vanquished you can see that Antony will become intolerable. So, it is impossible to say which to prefer.”

  But he had already decided to prefer Octavius. He had always been ardent and had always thrown himself passionately into whatever cause he believed the better. So Octavius, against his secret uneasiness, became the salvation of Rome to Cicero. Some friends argued with Cicero that Antony was in exactly the same position in which Pompey had found himself. Cicero scoffed with anger. He induced many of the Senators to side with Octavius. “He will refrain from civil war. He has so assured me. He has no passions as has Antony. He loves Rome.”

  Octavius, assured that Cicero had been completely seduced, smiled at the laughing reports of his friends. Methodically, he laid his plans. His secret friend approached Cicero with suggestions that the Senator again denounce Antony before the Senate. So the bemused man, with the energy that had distinguished his attacks on Catilina, whom he now identified with Antony, cried to the Senate: “Nothing is dearer to Octavius than the peace of the State! Nothing more important to him, lords, than yourselves and your authority, nothing more desirable than the opinion of good men, nothing sweeter than genuine glory and stability! I solemnly promise, lords, that Octavius will always be such a citizen as he is today, firm and mature and wise and unswayed by emotions, and we should pray that always he will be.”

  When Octavius heard of this he laughed aloud, a rare demonstration for him. “My uncle, Julius, overestimated him,” he said. “I find him absurd. Nevertheless, he serves me well.”

  Marcus Brutus, who was now governor of Macedonia, was incredulous. Knowing of Cicero’s devotion to Atticus, he wrote to him desperately: “I know that Cicero does everything with the best of intentions, for he is a good man (But we know how often good men can be lured into bad causes, out of their pureness of heart.) What could be clearer to any of us than Cicero’s devotion to the Republic? In upholding what he considers the remnant of the Republic he has deliberately antagonized the powerful Antony.—How strange is the blindness of fear! While taking precautions against what you dread, actually you invite danger and bring it upon you, though perhaps you might have avoided it altogether!—Octavius has been heard to call Cicero ‘father,’ and it is rumored that he consults Cicero in everything, and praises and thanks him. But we know the cold duplicity of Octavius and know that in heart he is not young and is not candid. The truth will come out, eventually, to Cicero’s ruin. Warn him, while there is yet time.”

  Atticus warned him, but for the first time Cicero did not heed his beloved and devoted friend. He had cast his lot with Octavius and would not move from his decision. Quintus implored him. Cicero said, “You are a soldier, and therefore you prefer Antony.”

  “Do you know what you are doing?” cried Quintus, entirely stirred now from his good humor and bluffness. “You are pushing Antony into the position of Caesar, before Caesar crossed the
Rubicon! You have asked the Senate to declare Antony a public enemy! Are you mad? Fortunately, the Senate was not with you, fortunately for the sake of Rome. But Antony will soon have no choice, thanks to you—and I confess that I no longer understand you. Antony will be forced to save himself by declaring civil war and will be compelled to attack Octavius. Octavius has only bought legions, and the support of men who think of nothing but themselves and their coffers. You are inflamed! You wish only to destroy Antony!”

  He could not know that Cicero, at the last, was again trying to reconcile rationality with irrationality, and that he still believed men preferred reason to unreason, despite all his former convictions that men hate rationality, and reason which tends to restrain their passions and defeat their greeds. Octavius had appealed to Cicero as a reasonable and a rational man, for Octavius, despite his youth, knew how to touch men’s hearts where they were most vulnerable. Assured of Cicero’s support, he moved firmly and positively, for never was Octavius swayed by emotion and never by anything that did not contribute to his own good.

  The terrible drama was drawing to an end. Order, which was Cicero’s god, was, as always, being thrown into disorder. Cicero had firmly believed that men instinctively prefer order, and there he made his fatal mistake. The picture in Rome now became one vast confusion and violence. Disaffection was everywhere. One day the populace was for Antony; the next, they were for Octavius. The Senate swayed back and forth in contrary winds. Only Cicero, deluded that he might be able to save some part of the Republic, remained firm. His delusion was deadly to himself.

  Octavius, gathering his legions about him, crossed the Rubicon, as Caesar had crossed it. The Senate went into panic. Troops everywhere were deserting to the youth. He entered Rome in triumph and said with satisfaction, “My friends welcome me!” Antony, resigned to the inevitable, proposed the Second Committee of Three—himself, Octavius, and Lepidus. Octavius graciously consented, and embraced his old enemy. All who opposed the Second Triumvirate, Octavius said virtuously, were enemies of the people. Octavius, in addition, was elected Consul of Rome.