From X. to 722, A.C. 45 to 32. Parentage and early life of CAIUS OCTAVIUS CÆSAR AUGUSTUS.—A VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF ROME. FROM U.c. 709 TO U.c. 722, a.c. 45 to a.c. 32. CHAP. WE have already spoken slightly of the family of Augustus Cæsar, and have mentioned his relationU.C. 709 ship to C. Julius Cæsar, as being the grandson of his sister Julia. Julia married M. Attius Balbus, a native of Aricia', who rose to the rank of prætor at Rome; and Attia, their daughter, married C. OctaAugustus. vius, a man of respectable family, who also obtained the same dignity, and died when he was on the point of offering himself as a candidate for the consulship. He left behind him one son, C. Octavius, who was born at Rome on the twenty-third of September, U.c. 690, in the consulship of M. Cicero and C. Antonius. The young Octavius lost his father when he was only four years old, and his mother soon after married L. Philippus, under whose care he was brought up, till his great uncle, Julius Cæsar, having no children, began to regard him as his heir 2, 1 Suetonius, in Augusto, 4. 2 Velleius Paterculus, II. 59. CHAP. From X. to 722, to 32. and when he was between sixteen and seventeen years of age, bestowed on him some military rewards at the celebration of his triumph for his victories in U.C. 709 Africa 3. In the following year he accompanied his A.C. 45 uncle into Spain, where he is said to have given signs of talents and of activity; and in the winter of that same year he was sent, as we have seen, to Apollonia in Epirus, there to employ himself in completing his education till Cæsar should be ready to take him with him on his expedition against the Parthians. He was accordingly living quietly at Apollonia when the news of his uncle's death called him forward, when hardly more than eighteen years of age, to act a principal part in the contentions of the times. * affairs in Cæsar's On the morning of the sixteenth of March, State of Brutus and Cassius, with their associates, were still Rome after in the capitol, and Cicero and several other persons death. attached to the aristocratical party had joined them there. Antonius finding himself exposed to no danger, appeared again in public, as consul; and Dolabella, who had been appointed by Cæsar to succeed him in the consulship, as soon as he should commence his expedition against the Parthians, now at once assumed the ensigns of that dignity; although with strange inconsistency he went up into the capitol to visit the conspirators, and if Appian may be believed, strongly inveighed against the late dictator in a speech addressed to the multitude in 3 Suetonius, 8. 4 Cicero, Philippic. II. 35. VOL. II. 5 Dion Cassius, XLIV. 250. I 114 CHAP. the forum. From X. to 722, A.C. 45 to 32. DISPOSITION OF THE VETERANS, M. Lepidus, who, as we have seen, was at this time invested with a military command, U.C. 709 having been lately appointed to the government of the Nearer Spain, had some intentions, it is said, of availing himself of his actual power to establish himself in the place of Cæsar'; but Antonius, who had no wish to see his own views thus anticipated, easily prevailed upon him to lay aside such designs for the present; representing to him, we may suppose, the danger of such an attempt, and encouraging him with the prospect of obtaining hereafter all that he desired, if he would consent to temporize at the moment. But the real obstacle to the restoration of the Commonwealth, consisted in the numbers and Disposition dispositions of Cæsar's veteran soldiers, many of whom were waiting in Rome to receive their promised allotments of land; and others had come up from their new settlements to compliment their old general, by attending in his train when he should march out of the city to commence his eastern expedition. These then naturally resented the death of their benefactor, and feared at the same time lest they should be deprived of their grants of land if he were declared a tyrant, and his acts should be reversed. They were therefore a great encouragement to Antonius and Lepidus, and gave such alarm to the conspirators, that they remained in the capitol, still trusting to the gladiators of Decimus Brutus for protection, and not venturing to expose their persons of the veterans. 7 Dion Cassius, XLIV. 257. 8 Appian, de Bello Civili, II. 119. AND OF ALL PERSONS PROMOTED BY CESAR. 115 From X. to 722, to 32. in the streets or in the forum. Nor were the CHAP. veterans the only set of men who were interested in upholding the legality of Cæsar's government. He U.C. 709 had nominated, as we have seen, the principal magis- A.C, 45 trates of the Commonwealth for the next two years, under pretence of preventing any disorders during his absence in Asia; and the individuals who, by virtue of these appointments, were either in the actual enjoyment or in the expectation of offices either honourable or lucrative, were little disposed to submit their pretensions to the chance of being confirmed or rejected by the free votes of the Roman people. Besides, the late civil war had so extended over every part of the empire, and every province contained so many persons who had risen to affluence or distinction in consequence of the offices or of the grants of forfeited estates conferred on them by Cæsar, that to repel all his measures, and to brand his government as an usurpation, would have at once unsettled the whole existing order of society. The foreigners who had been admitted to the rights of Roman citizens, and the many individuals who, in the course of the late commotions, had risen from humble stations to greatness, would have ill brooked the return of that exclusive and insulting system which was upheld by the friends of the old aristocracy. Under these circumstances, the act of the assassins of Cæsar was likely to have no other effect than to expose their country to a fresh series of miseries, from which it would have no better prospect of X. From U.C. 709 to 722, A.C. 45 to 32. CHAP. relief, than a return at last to that very military despotism which they had so rashly attempted to overthrow. Cicero indeed had advised the only measure which could have given the conspirators any chance of maintaining their ground in Rome'; for he had urged Brutus and Cassius to summon the senate, by their authority as prætors, to assemble in the capitol immediately after Cæsar's death, before Antonius had recovered from his panic, or the veterans had had time to calculate their own strength or to look out for a new leader. But this counsel was not followed; and it was left for Antonius, in his character of consul, to call the senate together at the temple of the Earth on the seventeenth of March 1o when the doors of the assembly were beset by Cæsar's veterans in arms, and when they who hoped that they had restored the old constitution of the Commonwealth dared not even to leave the shelter of the capitol. Nor was it a slight circumstance, that Calpurnia, Cæsar's widow, had put into Antonius's hands the money and all the papers of her late husband"; a trust from which he intended to derive the most important benefits. Meeting of the senate on the 17th of March. In the meeting of the senate on the seventeenth of March, the reviving strength of Caesar's party was already distinctly marked. Instead of declaring him a tyrant, it was ordered that the late dictator should be honoured with the usual funeral rites paid to 9 Cicero, ad Atticum, XIV. epist. X. 10 Cicero, ad Atticum, XIV. epist. XIV.; and Philippic. II. 35. 11 Appian, II. 125. |