The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

"I have worked out," said Hemicillus to the assembled war council in Melan Aphrodisias, "that we can afford to pay the Roman rankers six thousand each, going up to fifty thousand for a primipilus centurion say averaging out over the tortuous gradations of centurion rank twenty thousand per centurion, and there are sixty per legion. Six hundred million for the rankers, a hundred and fourteen million for the centurions, seventy-two million for the horse, and two hundred and fifty million for the fleets. That comes to something over one thousand million, which leaves us with something under four hundred million in the war chest for provisions and ongoing expenses." "How did you arrive at six hundred million for the rankers?" asked Brutus, frowning as he did the sums in his head. "Noncombatants have to be paid a thousand each, and there are ten thousand non-citizen foot soldiers to pay as well. I mean, troops need water on the march, their needs have to be catered for you don't want to run the risk of noncombatants neglecting their duties, do you, Marcus Brutus? They're free Roman citizens too, don't forget. The Roman legions don't use any slaves," Hemicillus said, a trifle offended. "I've done my computations well, and I do assure you that, having taken many more things into account than I have enumerated here, my figures are correct." "Don't quibble, Brutus," said Cassius wearily. "The prize is Rome, after all." "The Treasury will be empty," Brutus said despondently. "But once we have the provinces up and running again, it will soon fill" from Hemicillus. He cast a furtive eye around to make sure that no representative from Sextus Pompey sat there, and coughed delicately. "You do realize, I hope, that once you have put Antonius and Octavianus down, you will have to scour the seas of Sextus Pompeius, who may call himself a patriot, but acts like a common pirate. Charging patriots for grain, indeed!" "When we beat Antonius and Octavianus, we'll have the contents of their war chest," said Cassius comfortably. "What war chest?" from Brutus, determined to be miserable. "We'll have to go through the belongings of every legionary to find their money, because it will be where our money will be in the belongings of every legionary." "Well, actually, I was going to talk about that," said the indefatigable Hemicillus, with another little cough. "I recommend that, having paid your army and navy, you then ask to borrow the money back at Caesar's ten percent simple interest. That way, I can invest it with certain companies and earn something on it. If you just pay it over, it will sit there in legionary belongings earning nothing, which would be a tragedy." "Who can afford to hire the money in this dreadful economic climate?" Brutus asked gloomily. "Deiotarus, for one. Ariarathes, for another. Hyrcanus in Judaea. Dozens of little satrapies in the East. A few Roman firms I know that are looking for liquid assets. And if we ask fifteen percent, who's to know except us?" Hemicillus giggled. "After all, we won't have any trouble collecting on the debts, will we? Not with our army and navy our creditors. I also hear that King Orodes of the Parthians is having cash flow troubles. He sold a good deal of barley last year to Egypt, though his own lands are in famine too. I think his credit is good enough to consider him a loan prospect." Brutus had cheered up tremendously as he listened to this. "Hemicillus, that's wonderful! Then we'll talk to the army and navy representatives and see what they say." He sighed. "I would never have believed how expensive it is to make war! No wonder generals like spoils."

That done, Cassius settled to make his dispositions. "The main base for the fleets will be Thasos," he said briskly. "It's about as close to Chalcidice as ships in any number can go." "My scouts," said Aulus Allienus smoothly, knowing that Cassius respected him, even if Brutus thought him a Picentine upstart, "tell me that Antonius is marching east along the Via Egnatia with a few legions, but that he's in no fit state to give battle until he's reinforced." "And that," said Gnaeus Ahenobarbus smugly, "isn't likely to happen in a hurry. Murcus and I have the rest of his army stuck in Brundisium under blockade." Odd, thought Cassius, that the son had followed the father; Lucius Ahenobarbus had liked the sea and fleets too. "Keep up the good work," he said, winking. "As for those of our fleets around Thasos, I predict that we'll soon find Triumvir fleets trying to interrupt our supply lines and grab the food for themselves. The drought last year was bad enough, but this year there's no grain to be had in Macedonia or Greece. Which is why I hope not to have to give battle. If we adopt Fabian tactics, we'll starve Antonius and his minions out."

XIV

Philippi: Everything By Halves

From JUNE until DECEMBER of 42 B.C.

Mark Antony and Octavian had forty-three legions at their command, twenty-eight of them in Italy. The fifteen legions elsewhere were distributed between the provinces the Triumvirs controlled, save for Africa, which was so cut off and absorbed in its local war that, for the moment, it had to wait. "Three legions in Further Spain and two in Nearer Spain," Antony said to his war council on the Kalends of June. "Two in Narbonese Gaul, three in Further Gaul, three in Italian Gaul, and two in Illyricum. That puts a good curtain between our provinces and the Germani and the Dacians -will deter Sextus Pompeius from raiding the Spains and, should the opportunity arise, Lepidus, will give you troops for Africa." He grunted. "Food, of course, is the main strain on our purse strings, between the legions and the three million people of Italy, but you should be able to manage in our absence, Lepidus. Once we get hold of Brutus and Cassius, we'll be in better financial condition." Octavian sat and listened as Antony went on to fill out his plans in greater detail, well content with the first six months of this three-man dictatorship. The proscriptions had put almost twenty thousand silver talents in the Treasury, and Rome was very quiet, too busy licking her wounds to offer trouble, even among the least co-operative elements in the Senate. Thanks to the sale of those distinctive maroon leather shoes to men desirous of senatorial rank, that body had grown back to Caesar's thousand members. If some of them hailed from the provinces, why not? "What of the situation in Sicily?" Lepidus asked. Antony grinned sourly and squiggled his brows expressively at Octavian. "Sicily is your province, Octavianus. What do you suggest in our absence?" "Common sense, Marcus Antonius," Octavian answered levelly. He never bothered to ask Antony to call him Caesar; he knew what the response would be. Antony would keep. "Common sense?" asked Fufius Calenus, blinking. "Certainly. For the moment we should permit Sextus Pompeius to regard Sicily as his private fief, and buy grain from him as if he were a legitimate grain vendor. Sooner or later the huge profits he's making will return to Rome's coffers, namely when we have the leisure to deal with him the way an elephant deals with a mouse splat! In the meantime, I suggest that we encourage him to invest some of his ill-gotten gains inside Italy. Even inside Rome. If that leads him to assume that one day he'll be able to return and enjoy his father's old status, well and good." Antony's eyes blazed. "I hate paying him!" he snapped. "So do I, Antonius, so do I. However, since the state does not own Sicily's grain, we have to pay someone for it. All the state has ever done is tithe, though we can't do that now. In this time of poor harvests, he's asking fifteen sesterces the modius, which I agree is extortionate." That sweet and charming smile showed; Octavian looked demure. "Brutus and Cassius pay ten sesterces the modius a discount, but not free grain by any means. Sextus Pompeius, like a few other people I know, will keep." "The boy's right," said Lepidus. Another grate on Octavian's hide. "The boy" indeed! You too will keep, you haughty nonentity. One day you'll all call me by my rightful name. If, that is, I let you live. Lucius Decidius Saxa and Gaius Norbanus Flaccus had already taken eight of the twenty-eight legions across the Adriatic to Apollonia, under orders to march east on the Via Egnatia until they found an impregnable bolt-hole in which they could sit and wait for the bulk of the army to catch them up. It was good strategy on Mark Antony's part. When Brutus and Cassius marched west on the same road, they had to be halted well east of the Adriatic, and a formidably entrenched force eight legions strong would bring them to an abrupt stop, no matter how enormous their own army was. Word from Asia Province was patchy and unreliable; some sources insisted that the Liberators were many months off their invasion, others that they would commence any day now. Both Brutus and Cassius were at Sardis, their spring campaigns a stunning success what was there to delay them? Time was money when one waged a war. "We have twenty more legions to ship to Macedonia," Antony went on, "and that will have to be in two segments we lack the transports to do it all at once. I don't plan on using all the twenty-eight in my attack force. Western Macedonia and Greece proper have to be garrisoned so we get whatever food there is." "Precious little," grumbled Publius Ventidius. "I'll take my seven remaining legions directly to Brundisium on the Via Appia," Antony said, ignoring Ventidius. "Octavianus, you'll take your thirteen down the Via Popillia on the west side of Italy in conjunction with all the warships we can muster. I don't want Sextus Pompeius in the vicinity of Brundisium while we're shuttling troops, so that means it's your job to keep him in the Tuscan Sea. I don't think he's terribly interested in events east of Sicily, but I also don't want him tempted. He'd find it easier to re-establish himself in a Liberator than a Triumviral one." "Who for admiral?" asked Octavian. "Your command, you pick one." "Salvidienus, then." "Good choice," said Antony, approving, and smirked at the old hands like Calenus, Ventidius, Carrinas, Vatinius, Pollio. He went home to Fulvia well pleased with the way things were going. "I haven't heard a peep out of Pretty Boy," he said, his head cushioned on her breasts as they shared a dining couch; no one else to dinner, a pleasant change. "He's too quiet," she said, popping a shrimp in his mouth. "I used to think so, but I've changed my mind, meum mel. He can give me twenty years, and he's settled for that. Oh, he's sly and devious, I grant you, but he's not in Caesar's league when it comes to staking his all on a single gamble. Octavianus is a Pompeius Magnus he likes to have the odds on his side." "He's patient," she said thoughtfully. "But definitely not in a position to challenge me." "I wonder if he ever thought he was?" she asked, and made a slurping noise. "Oh, these oysters are delicious! Try them." "When he marched on Rome and made himself senior consul, you mean?" Antony laughed, sucked in an oyster. "You're right perfect! Oh yes, he thought he had me beaten, our Pretty Boy." "I'm not so sure," Fulvia said slowly. "Octavianus moves in strange ways."

"I'm definitely not in a position to challenge Antonius," Octavian was saying to Agrippa at much the same moment in time. They too were dining, but sitting on hard chairs at either side of a small table holding a plate of crusty bread, some oil in dipping bowls, and a pile of plain broiled sausages. "When do you plan to challenge him?" Agrippa asked, chin shining with sausage fat. He had spent most of his day playing medicine ball with Statilius Taurus, and was starving. The plain fare suited his palate, though it never ceased to surprise him that a high aristocrat like Caesar also liked plain fare. "I won't say boo until after I return to Rome on an equal footing with him as far as the army and the people are concerned. My main obstacle is Antonius's greed. He'll try to steal all the victory laurels when we beat Brutus and Cassius. Oh, we will beat them, I've no doubt of that! But when the two sides meet, my troops have to contribute as much to our victory as Antonius's troops and I have to lead them," Octavian said, wheezing. Agrippa stifled a sigh; this awful weather was taking its toll, what with the grit and chaff on every puff of wind. Caesar wasn't well, wouldn't be well until after some good rains had laid the dust and prompted some green growth. Still, he knew better than to remark on the wheezing. All he could do was be there for Caesar. "I heard today that Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus has come out of his retirement," Agrippa said, pulling the crunchy brown ends off a sausage and saving them to eat last; he had been brought up in a frugal household, treasured treats. Octavian sat up straighter. "Has he, now? To ally himself with whom, Agrippa?" "Antonius." "A pity." "I think so." Octavian shrugged, wrinkled his nose. "Well, they're old campaigning comrades." "Calvinus is to command the embarkation at Brundisium. All the transports are back from Macedonia safe and sound, though it can't be long before some enemy fleet tries to blockade us."

Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus arrived to blockade Brundisium harbor as Antony left Capua with his seven legions, and had been joined by Staius Murcus before Antony reached his destination. With close to a hundred and fifty galleys cruising offshore and the Triumviral fleet accompanying Octavian and his troops down Italy's west coast, Antony had no choice other than to sit and wait for a chance to break out. What he needed was a good stiff sou'wester, as this wind would give him a chance to outdistance pursuit provided Murcus and Ahenobarbus were where blockading ships usually were, off to the south. But no sou'wester blew. Aware that Caesar's heir should emulate his divine father in speed of movement, Octavian hustled his thirteen legions and reached the lower section of the Via Popillia in Bruttium by the middle of June, with Salvidienus's fleet shadowing him a mile out to sea. Some of Sextus Pompey's handy triremes appeared, but Salvidienus did surprisingly well in the series of skirmishes that followed between Vibo and Rhegium. For those on land, the march was wearisome; it was three times as long as the Via Appia route to Brundisium, hugging the littoral of the Italian foot all the way to Tarentum. Then, with Sicily clearly visible across the Straits of Messana, came a curt note from Antony: Ahenobarbus and Murcus had him penned up, he couldn't get one single legionary or mule across the Adriatic. Therefore Octavian would have to forget trying to contain Sextus Pompey, send the fleet to Brundisium in a tearing hurry. The only problem in obeying that order was Sextus Pompey, whose major fleet chose to block the southern outlet of the straits not long after Octavian had flagged Salvidienus to break out the oars and sails and make haste for Brundisium. Caught in the midst of one chaos by another bearing down on him, the unlucky Salvidienus was too slow bringing his ships into battle formation, and found the fastest of Sextus Pompey's galleys in among his own before he could do more than order up the next rank of vessels. So the early phases of the conflict went all Sextus Pompey's way, but not as decisively as he had hoped; the young Picentine military man was no sloth on the sea either. "I could do better," muttered Agrippa under his breath. "Eh?" asked Octavian, beside himself with anxiety. "Maybe it's sitting on shore watching, Caesar, but I can see how Salvidienus should be doing things, and isn't. For one thing, he has that squadron of Liburnians in the rear, when they ought to be in the front rank they're faster and nippier than anything Sextus Pompeius has," said Agrippa. "Then next time, the fleet is yours. Oh, what wretched bad luck! Quintus Salvidienus, extricate yourself! We need your fleet in Brundisium, not on the sea bottom!" Octavian cried, arms rigidly by his sides, fists clenched. He's willing Salvidienus out of it! thought Agrippa. Suddenly a wind came up out of the northwest that pushed Salvidienus's heavier ships through Sextus Pompey's hordes and allowed his lighter ships to follow in their wake; the Triumviral fleet bore away to the south with two holed triremes making for port in Rhegium, and only minor damage to a few other galleys. "Statilius," Octavian barked at Gaius Statilius Taurus, "take a pinnace and catch Salvidienus. Tell him he has to get to Brundisium as quickly as possible, then return to me. The army will follow as best it can. Helenus where's Helenus?" This last query was to his favorite freedman, Gaius Julius Helenus. "Here, Caesar." "Take this letter down:

"This is all rather silly, Sextus Pompeius. I am Gaius Julius Caesar Divi Filius, in command of that army your sea captains must surely have reported to you as heading down the Via Popillia in company of a fleet. I gladly concede you the honors of the maritime engagement, but was wondering if there is any possibility that we could meet for a parley? Just the two of us? Preferably neither at sea nor in a place I would have to reach by sea. I am sending you four hostages with this note, in the hope that you will agree to meet me in one nundinum at Caulonia."

Gaius Cornelius Gallus, the Brothers Cocceius and Gaius Sosius were chosen to go as hostages; Cornelius Gallus, not a patrician Cornelian but of a family from Ligurian Gaul, was so well known to be one of Octavian's intimates that even an exile like Sextus Pompey would appreciate his value to Octavian. The note, Gallus and the others boarded a second pinnace; the little craft raced off across the deceptively placid waters wherein lurked the awful monsters Scylla and Charybdis. The army now had to reach Caulonia, on the sole of the Italian foot, in just eight days only eighty miles, but who knew what the road would be like? This was not a legionary route, and the chain of the Apennines plunged into the Sicilian Sea through high, rugged countryside. The ox wagons and artillery had gone with the rest to be shipped from Ancona, so only men and mules made the march. Which turned out to be an easy one. The road was in good condition save for an occasional small landslide, and the army reached Caulonia in three days. Octavian sent it onward under the command of another nicknamed Gallus, Lucius Caninius Gallus. His first choice had been Agrippa, but that worthy refused to leave him attended by, as he put it, "Servants and fools. Who knows whether this son of Pompeius Magnus is honorable? I'm staying with you. So are Taurus and a cohort of the Legio Martia."

Sextus Pompey arrived off Caulonia so suspiciously soon after dawn on the eighth day that the reception committee assumed he had moored somewhere in the neighborhood overnight. His lone ship, a sleek bireme, was faster than anything sitting in what passed for a harbor, and he came ashore in a small boat accompanied by a crew of oarsmen who dragged the boat up on the shingle, then went off in search of a good breakfast. Octavian advanced to meet him with a smile and his right hand extended. "I see what the gossip means," said Sextus, shaking it. "Gossip?" asked Octavian, escorting his guest to the duumvir's house, Agrippa in their wake. "It says you're very young and very pretty." "The years will take care of both." "True." "You're quite like your father's statues, but darker." "Did you never see him, Caesar?" Acknowledgment! Octavian, prone to like Sextus anyway, liked him even more. "In the distance, when I was a child, but he didn't mix with Philippus and the Epicures." "No, he didn't." They entered the house, were received by an awed duumvir, and taken to his reception room. "We're not very different in age, Caesar," said Sextus, seating himself. "I'm twenty-five. You are ?" "Twenty-one in September." Helenus waited on their needs, but a vigilant Marcus Agrippa stood just inside the door, sword in scabbard and face set. "Does Agrippa have to be here?" Sextus asked, breaking fresh bread eagerly. "No, but he thinks he does," Octavian said tranquilly. "He's no gossip. Whatever we say will go no further." "Ah, there's nothing like new bread after four days at sea!" said Sextus, crunching and tearing with gusto. "Don't like the sea, eh?" "I hate it," Octavian said frankly, shuddering. "Well, some men do hate it, I know. I'm the opposite, never happier than when the water's busy." "A little mulled wine?" "Yes, but just a little," Sextus said warily. "I made sure the poker was white-hot, so it won't addle your wits, Sextus Pompeius. Myself, I like a warm drink first thing in the morning, and mulled wine is far preferable to my father's vinegar in hot water." And so the conversation went while they ate, pleasant and unprovocative. Then Sextus Pompey clasped his hands between his knees and looked up at Octavian from under his brows. "Just why did you ask to parley, Caesar?" "Well, I'm here, you see, and it might be years before I get another opportunity to talk to you," said Octavian, face unclouded. "I'm marching on this route with my army and our fleet in order to keep you in the Tuscan Sea. Not unnaturally, we want to ship our forces across the Adriatic in time to stop the Liberators short of Macedonia proper, and Marcus Antonius is of the opinion that you'd rather a Liberator than a Triumviral Rome. Thus he doesn't want you sniffing up Brundisium's arse as well as the Liberator fleets." "You make it sound," said Sextus, grinning, "as if you yourself are not so sure that I'm a Liberator supporter." "I keep my options open, Sextus Pompeius, and it's occurred to me that you probably do the same. Therefore I don't automatically suppose you a Liberator supporter. My feeling is that you're a Sextus Pompeius supporter. So I thought that two such open-minded young men as you and I should parley on our own, without any of those elderly, terrifically experienced warriors of the battlefield and the Forum present to remind us of our tender years and our navet." Octavian smiled broadly. "Our provinces are, you might say, much the same. I am supposed to be in charge of the grain supply, whereas, in actual fact, you are." "Well put! Go on, I'm agog." "The Liberator faction is huge and august," said Octavian, holding Sextus's eyes. "So huge and august that even a Sextus Pompeius is liable to be buried beneath a plethora of Junii, Cassii, patrician Claudii and Cornelii, Calpurnii, Aemilii, Domitii need I go on?" "No," said Sextus Pompey between his teeth. "Admittedly you have a large and competent fleet to offer the Liberators, but little else apart from grain which, my agents say, is not a commodity in short supply for the Liberators, who stripped inland Thrace and all Anatolia and have a nice deal in place with King Asander of Cimmeria. Therefore it seems to me that your best course is not to ally yourself with the Liberators. Indeed, to hope that Rome does not end up a Liberator Rome. They don't need you as badly as I do." "You, Caesar. What about Marcus Antonius and Marcus Lepidus?" "They're elderly, terrifically experienced warriors of the battlefield and the Forum. As long as Rome and Italy are fed, and we can buy grain for our forces, they don't really care what I do. Or with whom I dicker, Sextus Pompeius. May I ask you a question?" "Go ahead." "What do you want?" "Sicily," said Sextus. "I want Sicily. Without a fight." The golden head nodded sagely. "A practical ambition for a maritime man positioned on the grain route. An achievable one." "I'm halfway there," said Sextus. "I own the coasts and I've forced Pompeius Bithynicus to er hail me as his co-governor." "Of course he's a Pompeius," Octavian said smoothly. The olive skin flushed. "Not one of my family!" he snapped. "No. He's the son of Junius Juncus's quaestor when Juncus was governor of Asia Province and my father brought Bithynia into the Roman fold. They made a deal. Juncus took the loot, Pompeius took the name. The first Pompeius Bithynicus wasn't much either." "Am I correct in thinking that, were I to assume command of the Sicilian militia and spill Pompeius Bithynicus Filius, you would confirm me as governor of Sicily, Caesar?" "Oh, absolutely," said Octavian blandly. "Provided, that is, that you agree to sell Sicily's grain to Rome of the Triumvirs for ten sesterces the modius. After all, you'll completely eliminate the middlemen if you own the latifundia and the transports. I do trust that's what you aim for?" "Oh, yes. I'll own the harvest and the grain fleet." "Well then . . . You'll have so few overheads, Sextus Pompeius, that you'll make more selling to the Treasury for ten sesterces the modius than you currently do selling to all and sundry for fifteen sesterces the modius." "That's true." "Another, very important question is there going to be a harvest in Sicily this year?" Octavian asked. "Yes. Not an enormous harvest, but a harvest nonetheless." "Which leaves us with the vexed question of Africa. Should Sextius in the New province manage to overcome Cornificius in the Old province and African grain flows to Italy again, naturally you will intercept it. Would you agree to sell it to me for the same ten sesterces the modius?" "Provided that I'm left alone in Sicily, and that the veteran colonies around Vibo and Rhegium in Bruttium are abolished, yes," said Sextus Pompey. "Vibo and Rhegium need their public lands." Out went Octavian's hand. "Done!" Sextus Pompey took it. "Done!" "I'll write to Marcus Lepidus at once and have the veteran colonies relocated on the Bradanus around Metapontum and the Aciris around Heracleia," said Octavian, very pleased. "We tend rather to forget these lands in Rome the instep's so remote. But the locals are of Greek descent, and lack political power." The two young men parted on the best of terms, each aware that this amicable verbal treaty had a tenuous time span; when events permitted, the Triumvirs (or the Liberators) would have to strip Sicily from Sextus Pompey and drive him off the seas. But for the moment, it would do. Rome and Italy would eat for the old grain price, and sufficient grain would come to keep them eating. A better bargain than Octavian had envisioned in a time of such terrible drought. For the fate of Aulus Pompeius Bithynicus he cared not a fig; the man's father had offended Divus Julius. As for Africa, Octavian had been busy there too, written off to Publius Sittius and his family in their Numidian fief and begged, for Divus Julius's sake, that Sittius aid Sextius, in return for which, Sittius's brother would come off the proscription list and see his property fully restored. Cales could open its gates. Having released the four hostages, Sextus Pompey sailed. "What do you think of him?" Octavian asked Agrippa. "That he's a worthy son of a great man. His downfall as well as his advantage. He won't share power, even if he considered any of the Triumvirs or the assassins his equal on the sea." "A pity I couldn't make a loyal adherent out of him." "You'll not do that," Agrippa said emphatically.

"Ahenobarbus has disappeared, where to or for how long I can't find out," said Calvinus to Octavian when he arrived in Brundisium. "That leaves Murcus's sixty ships on blockade. They're very good, and so is Murcus, but Salvidienus is in the offing, just out of sight. We have reason to believe that Murcus doesn't know. So I think, Octavianus and Antonius agrees that we should load every transport we have to the gunwales and make a run for it." "Whatever you wish," said Octavian. Now, he realized, was not the moment to trumpet his successful negotiations with Sextus; he took himself off to write again to Lepidus in Rome to make sure that slug got the message. The port of Brundisium had a wonderful harbor containing many branches and almost limitless wharfage, so the groaning, whining soldiers were put aboard the four hundred available transports in the space of two days. Somehow the cursing centurions managed to stuff eighteen of the twenty legions into them; men and mules were packed so tightly that the less seaworthy vessels lay too low in the water to survive a minor gale. In the absence of Ahenobarbus, Staius Murcus's technique was to hide behind the island at the harbor's narrow mouth and pounce on any ships venturing out. It gave him the advantage of the wind at this time of year, for the only wind that would have benefited the Triumvirs was a westerly, and it was not the season of the Zephyr, it was the season of the Etesians. The transports sailed in their literal hundreds on the Kalends of Sextilis, swarming out of the harbor just as far apart as their oars permitted. At the same moment as the mass exodus began, Salvidienus brought his fleet in from the northeast ahead of a good wind and swung it in a semi-circle around the island to pen Murcus up. He could get out, yes, but not without a naval battle, and he wasn't at Brundisium to engage in naval battles he was there to sink transports. Oh, why had Ahenobarbus rushed off on the hunt for a rumored second Egyptian expedition? Impotent, Murcus had to watch while four hundred transports streamed out of Brundisium all day and far into the night, their way lit by bonfires atop tall rafted towers Antony had originally built as offensive weapons a vain business, but they came in handy now. Western Macedonia was eighty miles away; half the ships were destined for Apollonia, half for Dyrrachium, where, with any luck, the cavalry, heavy equipment, artillery and the baggage train, all sent from Ancona earlier in the year, would be waiting.

If Italy was dry, Greece and Macedonia were far worse, even on this notoriously wet Epirote shore. The rains that had so dogged other generals from Paullus to Caesar hadn't fallen, wouldn't fall, and the hooves of Antony's cavalry horses plus the oxen and spare mules had trodden whatever grass there was into superfine chaff that the Etesians picked up and blew in the direction of Italy. Their transport hadn't shaken free of the harbor before the shrinking Octavian began to wheeze loudly enough to be heard as one more component of the noises aboard a rickety ship on a perilous voyage. The hovering Agrippa decided that seasickness was not contributing to Octavian's malady; the water was board-flat and the vessel so overloaded that it sat like a cork, hardly rolling even after it heeled to bear northeast under oar power. No, all he suffered was the asthma. Neither young man had wanted to seem unduly exclusive when their ship was stuffed with ranker soldiers, so their accommodation was limited to a tiny section of deck just behind the mast, out of the way of the tillers and the captain, but surrounded by men. Here Agrippa had insisted that Octavian place a peculiar-looking bed that had one end sloping upward at a sharp angle. It bore quite a few blankets to cushion the hard wood, but no mattress. Under the frightened eyes of legionaries he didn't know (Legio Martia had been one of the two units left behind in Brundisium), Agrippa propped Octavian in a sitting position on the bed to help him catch his breath. An hour later, sailing free on the Adriatic, held now within Agrippa's arms, he labored fiercely and stubbornly to draw enough air into his lungs, his hands clenched around Agrippa's so strongly that it was to be two days before all the feeling came back. The spasms of coughing racked him until he retched, which seemed to give him a slight temporary relief, but his face was both livid and grey, his eyes turned inward. "What is it, Marcus Agrippa?" asked a junior centurion. They know my name, so they know who he is. "An illness from Mars of the Legions, said Agrippa, thinking quickly. "He's the son of the god Julius, and it's a part of his inheritance to take all your illnesses upon himself." "Is that why we're not seasick?" asked a ranker, awed. "Of course," lied Agrippa. "How about we promise offerings to Mars and Divus Julius for him?" someone else asked. "It will help," said Agrippa gravely. He looked about. "So would some kind of shield against the wind, I believe." "But there's no wind," the junior centurion objected. "The air's laden with dirt," said Agrippa, improvising again. "Here, take these two blankets" he wrenched them from under himself and the oblivious Octavian "and hold them up around us. It will stop the dirt getting in. You know what Divus Julius always used to say dirt is a soldier's enemy." It can't do any harm, Agrippa thought. The important thing is that these fellows don't think any the worse of their commander for being ill they have to believe in him, not dismiss him as a weakling. If Hapd'efan'e is right about dirty air, then he's not going to get much better as this campaign goes on. So I'm going to harp about his being Divus Julius's son that he's set himself up as the universal victim in order to bring the army victory, for Divus Julius is not only a god to the People of Rome, he's a god to Rome's armies. Toward the end of the voyage and after a long night afloat in a vast nothingness, it seemed, Octavian began to recover. He came out of his self-induced trance and gazed at the ring of faces, then, smiling, held out his right hand to the junior centurion. "We're almost there," he wheezed. "We're safe." The soldier took his hand, pressed it gently. "You brought us through, Caesar. How brave you are, to be ill for us." Startled, the grey eyes flew to Agrippa's. Seeing a stern warning in their greenish depths, he smiled again. "I do whatever is necessary," he said, "to nurture my legions. Are the other ships safe?" "All around us, Caesar," said the junior centurion.

Three days later, every legion safely landed because, rumor had it, Caesar Divi Filius had offered himself up in their place, the two Triumvirs realized that communication with Brundisium had been cut. "Probably permanently," said Antony, visiting Octavian in his House on top of Petra camp's hill. "I imagine that Ahenobarbus's fleet has returned, so nothing is going to get out, even a small boat. That means news from Italy will have to come through Ancona." He tossed Octavian a sealed letter. "This came for you that way, along with letters from Calvinus and Lepidus. I hear you've cut a deal with Sextus Pompeius that guarantees the grain supply very clever!" He huffed irritably. "The worst of it is that some fool of a legate in Brundisium held the Legio Martia and ten cohorts of stiffening troops until last, so we don't have them." "A pity," said Octavian, clutching his letter. He was lying on a couch propped up with cushions, and looked very sick. The wheezing was still present, but the height of his house in Petra camp had meant some relief from the chaffy dust. Even so, he had lost enough weight to look thinner, and his eyes were sunk into two black hollows of exhaustion. "I needed the Legio Martia." "Since it mutinied in your favor, I'm not surprised." "That's water under the bridge, Antonius. We are both on the same side," said Octavian. "I take it that we forget what's still in Brundisium, and head east on the Via Egnatia?" "Definitely. Norbanus and Saxa are not far to the east of Philippi, occupying two passes through the coastal mountains. It seems Brutus and Cassius are definitely on the march from Sardis to the Hellespont, but it will be some time before they encounter Norbanus and Saxa. We'll be there first. Or at least, I will." The reddish-brown eyes studied Octavian shrewdly. "If you take my advice, you'll stay here, O good luck talisman of the legions. You're too sick to travel." "I'll accompany my army," said Octavian in mulish tones. Antony flicked his thigh with his fingers, frowning. "We have eighteen legions here and in Apollonia. The five least experienced will have to stay to garrison western Macedonia three in Apollonia, two here. That gives you something to command, Octavianus, if you stay." "You're implying that they have to be from my legions." "If yours are the least experienced, yes!" snapped Antony. "So of the thirteen going on, eight will belong to you and five to me. As well then that Norbanus's four legions up ahead are mine," said Octavian. "You're in the majority." Antony barked a short laugh. "This is the oddest war since wars began! Two halves against two halves I hear that Brutus and Cassius don't work any better in tandem than you and I." "Equal co-commands tend to be like that, Antonius. Some halves are bigger than others, is all. When do you plan to move?" "I'll take my eight in one nundinum's time. You'll follow me six days later." "How are our supplies of food? Our grain?" "Adequate, but not for a long war, and we won't get any from Greece or Macedonia, there's no harvest whatsoever. The locals are going to starve this winter." "Then," said Octavian thoughtfully, "it behooves Brutus and Cassius to wage Fabian war, doesn't it? Avoid a decisive battle at all costs and wait for us to starve." "Absolutely right. Therefore we force a battle, win it, and eat Liberator food." A brusque nod, and Antony was gone.

Octavian turned his letter over to study the seal, which was Marcellus Minor's. How peculiar. Why would his brother-in-law need to write? Came a stab of anxiety: Octavia must surely be due to have her second child. No, not my Octavia! But the letter was from Octavia.

You will be happy to know, dearest brother, that I have given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I suffered hardly at all, and am well. Oh, little Gaius, my husband says that it is my duty to write before someone who loves you less gets in first. I know it should be Mama to write, but she will not. She feels her disgrace too much, though it is more a misfortune than a disgrace, and I love her just the same. We both know that our stepbrother Lucius has been in love with Mama ever since she married Philippus. Something she either chose to ignore or else genuinely didn't see. Certainly she has nothing to reproach herself with through the years of her marriage to Philippus. But after he died, she was terribly alone, and Lucius was always there. You were so busy, or else not in Rome, and I had little Marcella, and was expecting again, so I confess I was not attentive enough. Therefore what has happened I must blame on my neglect. I am to blame. Yes, I am to blame. Mama is pregnant to Lucius, and they have married.

Octavian dropped the letter, conscious of a creeping, awful numbness in his jaws, of his lips drawing back from his teeth in a rictus of disgust. Of shame, rage, anguish. Caesar's niece, little better than a whore. Caesar's niece! The mother of Caesar Divi Filius. Read the rest, Caesar. Finish it, and finish with her.

At forty-five, she didn't notice, dearest brother, so when she did notice, it was far too late to avoid scandal. Naturally Lucius was eager to marry her. They had planned to marry anyway when her period of mourning for Philippus was over. The wedding took place yesterday, very quietly. Dear Lucius Caesar has been very good to them, but though his dignitas is undiminished among his friends, he has no weight with the women who "run Rome," if you know what I mean. The gossip has been malicious and bitter, the more so, my husband says, because of your exalted position. Mama and Lucius have gone to live in the villa at Misenum, and will not be returning to Rome. I write this in the hope that you will understand, as I do, that these things happen, and do not indicate depravity. How can I not love Mama, when she has always been everything a mother ought to be? And everything a Roman matron ought to be. Would you write to her, little Gaius, and tell her that you love her, that you understand?

When Agrippa came in some time later he found Octavian lying on his couch, propped against the pillows, his face wet with tears, his asthma worse. "Caesar! What is it?" "A letter from Octavia. My mother is dead."

2

Brutus and Cassius moved westward from the Gulf of Melas in September, not expecting to meet the Triumviral armies until they reached Macedonia proper, somewhere between Thessalonica and Pella. Cassius was adamant that the enemy would not advance east of Thessalonica in this terrible year, for to do so would stretch their supply lines intolerably, given that the Liberator fleets owned the seas. Then, just after the two Liberators crossed the Hebrus River at Aenus, King Rhascupolis appeared with some of his nobles, riding a beautiful horse and clad in Tyrian purple. "I came to warn you," he said, "that there is a Roman army about eight legions strong divided between two passes through the hills east of Philippi." He swallowed, looked miserable. "My brother Rhascus is with them, and advising them." "What's the nearest port?" Cassius asked, not perturbed about what couldn't be remedied. "Neapolis. It's connected to the Via Egnatia by a road that meets it between the two passes." "Is Neapolis far from Thasos Island?" "No, Gaius Cassius." "I see Antonius's strategy," Cassius said after a moment's thought. "He intends to keep us out of Macedonia, so he's sent eight legions to do that. Not by giving battle, by preventing our going forward. I don't believe Antonius wants a battle, it's not in his best interests, and eight legions aren't enough, he knows that. Who's in command of this advance force?" "A Decidius Saxa and a Gaius Norbanus. They're very well situated and they'll be hard to dislodge," said Rhascupolis. The Liberator fleets were ordered to occupy the port of Neapolis as well as Thasos Island, thus ensuring the rapid transfer of supplies to the Liberator army when it arrived. "As arrive we must," said Cassius in council with his legates, admirals and a silent Brutus, down in the dumps again for some inexplicable reason. "Murcus and Ahenobarbus have the Adriatic closed and Brundisium under blockade, so it will be Patiscus, Parmensis and Turullius in charge of maritime operations around Neapolis. Is there any danger of a Triumviral fleet coming up?" "Absolutely none," Turullius said emphatically. "Their only fleet a very big one, but not big enough enabled them to break most of their army out of Brundisium, but then Ahenobarbus returned, which forced their fleet to retire to Tarentum. Their army will get nothing but grief in the Aegean, rest assured." "Which confirms my hypothesis that Antonius won't bring the bulk of his army east of Thessalonica," said Cassius. "Why are you so sure that the Triumvirs don't want a battle?" Brutus asked Cassius in private later. "For the same reason we don't want one," Cassius said, voice carefully patient. "It's not in their best interests." "I fail to see why, Cassius." "Then take my word for it. Go to bed, Brutus. Tomorrow we march west."

Many square miles of salt marsh and a range of tall, jagged hills compelled the Via Egnatia to dive ten miles inland on the plain of the Ganga River, above which stood the old town of Philippi on its rocky mesa. In the massif of nearby Mount Pangaeus, Philip, father of Alexander the Great, had funded his wars to unite Greece and Macedonia; Pangaeus had been extremely rich in gold, long since mined out. That Philippi itself still survived was due to a fertile, if flood prone, hinterland, though its population had dwindled to fewer than a thousand souls when the Liberators and the Triumvirs met there two and a half years after Caesar's death. Saxa had put himself and four legions in the Corpilan Pass, the more easterly of the two, while Norbanus occupied the Sapaean Pass with his four legions. Riding out with Cassius, Rhascupolis and the legates to see just how Saxa had dug himself in, Brutus noticed that Saxa had no view of the sea, whereas Norbanus in the more westerly Sapaean Pass had two watchtowers well able to spot any maritime activity. "Why," said Brutus timidly to Cassius, "don't we lure Saxa out of the Corpilan Pass by loading one of our legions aboard transports and making them cluster along the landward rails so that it looks as if half our army is sailing to Neapolis to march up the road and outflank him?" Thunderstruck at this unexpected evidence of military acumen, Cassius blinked. "Well, if either of them is in Caesar's class as a commander it won't work, because sitting between them isn't prising either of them out, but if they're not in Caesar's class, it just might panic them. We'll try it. Congratulations, Brutus." When a huge fleet stuffed with soldiers hove in sight of Norbanus's watchtowers and cruised toward Neapolis, Norbanus sent a frantic message to Saxa imploring him to withdraw in a hurry. Saxa did as he was told. The Liberators marched through the Corpilan Pass, which meant they had direct contact with Neapolis, but there ground to a halt. United in the Sapaean Pass, Saxa and Norbanus had fortified their position so formidably that they could not be dislodged. "In Caesar's class they're not, but they know we can't land our forces west of them before Amphipolis. We're still stuck," said Cassius. "Can't we just bypass them and land at Amphipolis?" asked Brutus, rather emboldened by his last bright idea. "What, and put ourselves in the middle of a pincer? Antonius would move east of Thessalonica in a mighty hurry if he knew he had eight legions to fall on our rear," Cassius said, his tones long-suffering. "Oh." "Um, if I may speak, Gaius Cassius, there's a goat track along the heights above the Sapaean Pass," said Rhascupolis. A remark that no one paid any attention to for three days, both commanders having forgotten their school history lessons on Thermopylae, where the stand of Leonidas and his Spartans had finally been thwarted by a goat track called Anopaea. Then Brutus remembered it because Cato the Censor had done the same thing in the same gorge, outflanked the defenders. "It is a literal goat track," Rhascupolis explained, "so to accommodate troops it will have to be widened. That can be done, but only if the excavators are very quiet and carry water with them. Believe me, there is no water until the goat track ends at a stream." "How long would the work take?" asked Cassius, failing to take account of the fact that Thracian noblemen were not experts on manual labor. "Three days," said Rhascupolis, making a wild guess. "I'll go with the road makers myself to prove that I'm not lying." Cassius gave the job to young Lucius Bibulus, who set off with a party of seasoned sappers, each of whom took three days' water with him. The work was extremely dangerous, for it had to be done right above Saxa and Norbanus in the bottom of the ravine nor, once he commenced, did Lucius Bibulus think of turning back. This was his chance to shine! At the end of three days the water ran out, but no stream manifested itself. Parched and frightened, the men needed to be coaxed and wheedled into carrying on when the fourth day dawned, but young Lucius Bibulus was too like his dead father to coax and wheedle. Instead, he ordered his work force to continue on pain of a flogging, whereupon they mutinied and began to stone the hapless Rhascupolis. Only a faint sound of trickling water brought them to their senses; the sappers raced to drink, then finished the road and returned to the Liberator camp. "Why didn't you just send back for more water?" Cassius asked, stunned by Lucius Bibulus's stupidity. "You said there was a stream" came the answer. "Remind me in future to put you somewhere that's suited to your mentality!" snarled Cassius. "Oh, the gods preserve me from noble blockheads!" Since neither Brutus nor Cassius wanted a battle, their army marched over the new high road making as much noise as possible, with the result that Saxa and Norbanus pulled out in good order and retired to Amphipolis, a large timber seaport fifty miles west of Philippi. There, well ensconced but cursing Prince Rhascus, who hadn't told them of the goat track they sent word to Mark Antony, rapidly approaching. Thus by the end of September, Brutus and Cassius owned both passes, and could advance on to the Ganga River plain to make a spacious camp. No fear of floods this year. "It's a good position here at Philippi," said Cassius. "We hold the Aegean and the Adriatic Sicily and the waters around it belong to our friend and ally Sextus Pompeius there's widespread drought and the Triumvirs won't find food anywhere. We'll settle here for a while, wait for Antonius to realize he's beaten and retreat back to Italy, then we'll invade. By then his troops will be so hungry and all of Italy so fed up with Triumviral rule that we'll have a bloodless victory."

They proceeded to make a properly fortified camp, but in two separate halves. Cassius took the hill to the south side of the Via Egnatia for his camp, his exposed flank protected by miles of salt marsh, beyond which lay the sea. Brutus occupied the twin hill on the north side of the Via Egnatia, his exposed flank protected by cliffs and impassable defiles. They shared a main gate on the Via Egnatia itself, but once through that common entrance, two separate camps with separate fortifications existed; free access between them was impossible anywhere, which meant that troops couldn't be shuttled between north and south of the road. The distance between the summit of Cassius's hill and the summit of Brutus's hill was almost exactly one mile, so between these two rises they built a heavily fortified wall on the west side. This wall didn't travel in a straight line; it bent backward in the middle where it crossed the road at the main gate, giving it the shape of a great curved bow. Within that wall, each camp had its own inner lines of fortification, which then traveled down either side of the Via Egnatia to the commencement of the Sapaean Pass. "Our army is just too big to put into one camp," Cassius explained to his and Brutus's legates in council. "Two separate camps mean that if the enemy should penetrate one, it can't get inside the other. That gives us time to rally. The side road to Neapolis makes it easy for us to bring up supplies, and Patiscus is in charge of making sure we get those supplies. Yes, when all is said and done, in the highly unlikely event that we should be attacked, our dispositions will answer very well." No one present contradicted. What was preying on every mind at the council was the news that Mark Antony had reached Amphipolis with eight more legions and thousands of cavalry. Not only that, but Octavian was at Thessalonica and not stopping either, despite reports that he was so ill his conveyance was a litter.

Cassius gave the best of everything to Brutus. The best of the cavalry, the best legions of old Caesarean veterans, the best artillery. He didn't know how else to shore up this hesitant, timid, unmartial partner in the great enterprise. For Brutus was those things, no matter how many occasional tactical inspirations he might have. Sardis had shown Cassius that Brutus cared more for abstractions than he did for the practical necessities war brought in its train. It wasn't quite cowardice on Brutus's part, it was more that war and battles appalled him, that he couldn't flog up interest in military matters. When he should have been poring over maps and visiting his men to jolly them along, he was huddled with his three tame philosophers debating something or other, or else writing one of those chilling letters to a dead wife. Yet if he were taxed with his moods and chronic depression, he denied suffering them! Or else he started up about Cicero's murder, and how he had to bring the Triumvirs to justice, no matter how unsuited for the task he was. He had a kind of blind faith in rightness as he saw rightness, nor could he credit that evil men like Antonius and Octavianus stood a chance of winning. His stand was for the restoration of the old Republic and the liberties of free Roman noblemen, causes that couldn't possibly lose. Himself very different, Cassius shrugged his shoulders and simply did what he could to protect Brutus from his weaknesses. Let Brutus have the best of everything, and offer to Vediovis, god of doubts and disappointments, that they would be enough. Brutus never even noticed what Cassius had done.

Antony arrived on the Ganga River plain on the last day of September and pitched camp a scant mile from the western, bow-shaped wall of the Liberators. He was acutely aware how bad his position was. He had no burnable fuel and the nights were freezingly cold, the baggage train's better food was lagging behind by some days, and the wells he dug in search of more potable water turned out to be as foul and brackish as the river. The Liberators, he deduced, must have access to good springs in that rocky chain of hills behind them, so he sent parties to explore Mount Pangaeus, where he managed to find fresh water then had to transport it to his camp until his engineers, using troops as laborers, built a makeshift aqueduct. However, he proceeded to do what any competent Roman general would: protect and fortify his position with walls, breastworks, towers and ditches, then manned them with artillery. Unlike Brutus and Cassius, he built one camp for his and Octavian's foot soldiers, and tacked a smaller camp on either side of it for that fraction of his cavalry whose horses would drink the brackish water. Then he put his two worst legions in the seaward small camp, where his own quarters were located, and left sufficient room in the other small camp for two of Octavian's legions when they arrived. They would act as reserves. After studying the lie of the land, he decided that any battle hereabouts was going to be an infantry one, so secretly, at dead of night, he sent all but three thousand willing drinkers among his cavalry back to Amphipolis. In locating Octavian's personal headquarters as a mirror image of his own in the other small camp, it did not occur to him that Octavian's illness was affected by the proximity of horses; it simply filled him with fury that the legions thought no worse of the little coward for his girly complaint indeed, they seemed to think that he was interceding with Mars on their behalf! Still in a litter, Octavian drew up with his five legions early in October, and the baggage train a day later. When he saw where Antony had put him, he rolled his eyes despairingly at Agrippa, but had too much sense to protest to Antony. "He wouldn't understand anyway, his own health is too rude. We'll pitch my tent on the outer palisades at the very back, where I might get a sea wind across those marshes and I hope, I hope! blow the dust from trampling hooves away from me." "It will help," Agrippa agreed, amazed that Caesar had gotten this far. The will inside him, he thought, is truly more than mortal. He refuses to quit, let alone die if only because, should he do either, Antonius would be the chief beneficiary. "If the wind changes or the dust increases, Caesar," Agrippa added, "you can slip through that little gate there and make your way into the marshes themselves for relief."

Both sides had nineteen legions at Philippi and could marshal about a hundred thousand foot, but the Liberators had over twenty thousand horse, while Antony had reduced his thirteen thousand to a mere three. "Things have changed since Caesar's time in Gaul," he said to Octavian over a shared dinner. "He thought himself superbly well off if he had two thousand horse to pitch against half of Gaul and a few levies of Sugambri to boot. I don't think he ever fielded more than one horseman to the enemy's three or four." "I know you're milling your troopers around as if you still had thousands upon thousands of them, Antonius, but you don't," said Octavian, forcing down a piece of bread. "Yet our opponents have a vast cavalry camp up the valley, so Agrippa tells me. Why is that? Something to do with Caesar?" "I can't find forage," said Antony, wiping his chin, "so I'm betting that what cavalry I have will be enough. Just like Caesar. It's going to be a foot-slogger battle." "Do you think they'll fight?" "They don't want to, that I know. But eventually they'll have to, because we're not going away until they do."

Antony's abrupt arrival had shattered Brutus and Cassius, positive that he would skulk at Amphipolis until he realized that he was doing himself no good in Thrace. Yet here he was, it seemed spoiling for a battle. "He won't get one," said Cassius, frowning at the salt marshes. The very next day he started work on his exposed salt marsh flank, bent on extending his fortifications right out into their middle, thus rendering it impossible for the Triumvirs to get around behind his lines. At the same time the gate across the Via Egnatia began to put forth ditches, extra walls and palisades; previously Cassius had thought that the Ganga River, flowing right in front of their two hills, would provide sufficient protection, but every day its level visibly dropped in this cold, rainless autumn of a cold, rainless year. Men could not only cross it, they could now fight in it. Therefore, more defenses, more fortifications. "Why are they so busy?" Brutus asked Cassius as they stood atop Cassius's hill, his hand pointing to the Triumviral camp. "Because they're preparing for a major engagement." "Oh!" gasped Brutus, and gulped. "They won't get one," said Cassius, tones reassuring. "Is that why you've extended your defenses into the swamp?" "Yes, Brutus." "I wonder what they're thinking about all this in Philippi town when they look down on us?" Cassius blinked. "Does what Philippi town thinks matter?" "I suppose not," said Brutus, sighing. "I just wondered."

October dragged on, saw nothing beyond a few minor skirmishes between foraging parties. Every day the Triumvirs stood waiting for battle, every day the Liberators ignored them. To Cassius it seemed that this daily brandishing of arms was all the Triumvirs were doing, but he was wrong. Antony had decided to outflank Cassius in the marshes, and had put more than a third of the whole army to laboring in them. The noncombatants and baggage train attendants were clad in armor and made to imitate soldiers at the brandishing of arms ritual, while the soldiers toiled. To them, the work was a signal that battle was in the offing, and any soldier worth his salt looked forward to battle. Their mood and their attitude were sanguine, for they knew that they were well generaled and that most men lived through a fight. Not only did they have the great Marcus Antonius, they also had Caesar Divi Filius, who was their sacrificial victim as well as their darling. Antony began to cut a negotiable channel through the marshes alongside Cassius's extended flank, his plan to come around behind and block the road to Neapolis as well as attack Cassius's underbelly. Every day for ten days he pretended to call his men to assemble for battle, while more than a third of them sweated in the marshes, hidden from Cassius by swamp grass and reeds. They labored to build a firm roadway, even driving piles to throw stout bridges across bottomless fens and all in utter silence. As they progressed they equipped the road with salients ready to receive fortifications that would turn them into redoubts complete to towers and breastworks. But Cassius saw none of it, heard none of it.

On the twenty-third day of October, Cassius turned forty-two; Brutus was four and a half months younger than he. By rights he ought to have been consul this year; instead, he was at Philippi outwaiting a determined enemy. Just how determined, he learned at dawn on this birth anniversary; Antony abandoned secrecy and sent a column of shock troops to occupy all the salients, use the materials put there to turn them into redoubts. Aghast, Cassius raced to cut Antony off by trying to extend his fortifications all the way to the sea; he used his entire army, and drove them ruthlessly. Nothing else entered his mind, even the possibility that this was the start of something far bigger than one army trying to outflank the other. Had he only stopped to think, he might have realized what was really in the wind, but he didn't. So he threw battle preparedness away among his own troops, and completely forgot all about Brutus and his troops, to whom he sent no word, let alone orders. Not having heard a word from Cassius, Brutus assumed as the racket built that he was to sit pat and do nothing. At noon Antony attacked on two fronts, using most of the combined army; only Octavian's two most inexperienced legions were held in reserve inside his small camp. Antony lined his men up facing east at Cassius's camp, then swung half of his line south to charge Cassius's men as they worked desperately in the swamps, while the other half charged at the main gate across the road, but on Cassius's side of it. Those at the main gate front had ladders and grapples, and fell to with great enthusiasm, delighted that the battle had finally come on. The truth was that even as Antony attacked, Cassius was still convinced that Antony didn't want a battle. Though he and Antony were much the same age, they had not mixed in the same circles as children, or youths, or men. Antony the bully-boy demagogue riddled with vices, Cassius the martial scion of an equally old noble plebeian family doing everything the correct way: when they met at Philippi, neither man knew how the other's mind worked. So Cassius failed to take Antony's recklessness into account, he assumed that his opponent would act as he would himself. Now, with battle thrust upon him, it was too late to organize his resistance or send word to Brutus. Antony's troops ran at Cassius's marsh wall under a hail of missiles and routed Cassius's front line, men drawn up outside the wall on dry ground. As soon as the front line fell, the Triumviral soldiers stormed Cassius's outer defenses and cut off those still toiling in the marshes. Good legionaries that they were, they had their arms and armor with them; they scrambled for battle and rushed up to join the fight, but Antony dealt with them by wheeling a few cohorts and driving them, leaderless, back into the swamps. There his shock troops manning the redoubts took over and rounded most of them up like sheep. Some managed to evade capture, sneaked around behind Cassius's hill, and sought shelter in Brutus's camp. With the marsh attack an assured success, Antony turned his attention to the assault on Cassius's camp alongside the main gate, where his men had part of the wall down, were up and over to tackle Cassius's inner line of fortifications. Thousands of soldiers stood along the Via Egnatia wall of Brutus's camp in full war gear, ears straining for the sound of a bugle or the bellowing of a legate. In vain. No one gave them the order to go to Cassius's rescue. So at two in the afternoon, the watchers took matters into their own hands. Without orders, they unsheathed their swords, dropped from Brutus's ramparts and charged Antony's men as they tore down Cassius's inner defenses. They did well until Antony brought up some of his reserves and threw them into a line between his own men and Brutus's men, at a disadvantage because they were attacking uphill. These men of Brutus's were the hoary old veteran Caesareans; the moment they saw their cause was hopeless, they gave up that fight and embarked upon another. There stood Octavian's small camp, so they turned and charged it, literally romped into it. It held those two reserve legions, the bulk of the baggage train and a few cavalrymen. No match for the attackers. Brutus's hoary old Caesarean veterans took the camp, killed those defenders who stood up to them, and proceeded into the main camp, where there were no defenders at all. Having thoroughly looted the Triumviral camps, at six o'clock they turned and went home in the darkness to Brutus's hill.

At the start of the conflict a huge pall of dust had arisen, so dry was the ground outside the marshlands; never was a battle so befogged as First Philippi. For which fact Octavian could give thanks, for it spared him the ignominy of being captured; feeling the asthma worsening, with Helenus's assistance he had gotten himself through the small gate and made his way to the marshes, where he could face the sea and breathe. But for Cassius the opaque cloud meant total loss of contact with what was going on now that the swamp battle had gone all Antony's way. Even atop the hill inside his camp, he could see nothing. Brutus's camp, such a short distance away, was blotted from sight, utterly invisible. What he did know was that the enemy was penetrating his defenses along the Via Egnatia, and that his camp was inevitably doomed. Was Brutus under the same ferocious assault? Was Brutus's camp doomed too? He had to presume so, but he couldn't see. "I'm going to try to find a vantage spot," he said to Cimber and Quinctilius Varus, with him. "Get yourselves away, I think we're defeated. I think but I don't know! Titinius, will you come with me? We might be able to see from Philippi itself." So at half after four in the afternoon, Cassius and Lucius Titinius mounted a pair of horses and rode out the back gate, around the rear of Brutus's hill, and came to the road that led up to Philippi's mesa. An hour later, with dusk closing in, they reached the heights above the dust cloud and looked down. To see that the light below had died and the pall lay like a higher level, flat, featureless plain. "Brutus must be done for as well," said Cassius to Titinius, his voice dull. "We've come so far, and all for nothing." "We still don't really know," Titinius comforted. Then a group of horsemen emerged from the brown fog, coming up the hill toward them at a gallop. "Triumviral cavalry," said Cassius, peering. "They could as easily be ours let me intercept them and find out," said Titinius. "No, they look like Germans to me. Don't go, please!" "Cassius, we have German troopers too! I'm going." Kicking his horse in the ribs, Titinius turned and rode down to meet the newcomers. Cassius, watching, saw them surround his friend, take hold of him the noise of cries drifted up to him. "He's taken," he said to Pindarus, his freedman who bore his shield, and dismounted, struggling to unbuckle his cuirass. "As a free man, Pindarus, you owe me nothing except my death." His dagger came free of its sheath, the same knife he had twisted so cruely in Caesar's face odd, all he could think of at this moment was how much he had hated Caesar at that moment. He held the dagger out to Pindarus. "Strike well," he said, baring his left side for the blow. Pindarus struck well. Cassius pitched forward to lie in the road; his freedman stared down, weeping, then scrambled on to his horse and spurred it away toward the town above. But the German cavalry troopers belonged to the Liberators, and had come to tell Cassius that Brutus's men had stormed the Triumviral camp, won a victory. First Philippi was a draw. With Titinius in their midst, they came up the slope to find Cassius alone and dead, his horse nosing at his face. Tumbling from the saddle, Titinius ran to him, held him close and wept. "Cassius, Cassius, it was good news! Why didn't you wait?" There seemed no point in continuing to live if Cassius was dead. Titinius pulled his sword and fell on it.

Brutus had spent the whole of that frightful afternoon on top of his hill, trying vainly to see the field. He had no idea what was happening, had no idea that several of his legions had taken matters into their own hands and won a victory, had no idea what Cassius expected him to do. Nothing, was what he presumed, and "Nothing, I presume" was what he told his legates, friends, all those who came badgering him to do something, do anything! It was the disheveled and breathless Cimber who told him of his victory, the spoils his legions had dragged across the Ganga River whooping in jubilation. "But but Cassius didn't didn't order that!" said Brutus with a stammer, eyes dismayed. "They did it anyway, and good for them! Good for us too, you doleful stickler!" Cimber snapped, patience tried. "Where's Cassius? The others?" "Cassius and Titinius rode for Philippi town to see if they could discern what's happening in this fog. Quinctilius Varus thought all was lost, and fell on his sword. About the rest, I don't know. Oh, was there ever such a mess?" Darkness fell, and slowly, very slowly, the dust cloud began to settle. No one on either side would be able to assess the results of this day until the morrow, so those Liberators who had survived it gathered to eat in Brutus's wooden house, bathed and changed into warm tunics. "Who died today?" Brutus asked before the meal was served. "Young Lucullus," said Quintus Ligarius, assassin. "Lentulus Spinther, fighting in the marshes," said Pacuvius Antistius Labeo, assassin. "And Quinctilius Varus," Cimber, assassin, added. Brutus wept, especially for the unflappable and innovative Spinther, son of a more torpid, less worthy man. Came the sound of a commotion; young Cato burst into the room, eyes wild. "Marcus Brutus!" he cried. "Here! Out here!" His tone brought the dozen men present to their feet, then to the door. On the ground just outside, the bodies of Gaius Cassius Longinus and Lucius Titinius lay on a rough litter. A thin scream erupted from Brutus, who fell to his knees and began to rock, his hands covering his face. "How?" asked Cimber, taking command. "Some German cavalry brought them in," young Marcus Cato said, standing stiffly, pose martial; his father would not have known him. "It seems Cassius thought they were Antonius's troopers come to take him prisoner he and Titinius were on the road at Philippi. Titinius went to intercept them and found out that they were ours, but Cassius killed himself while Titinius was away. He was dead when they reached him. Titinius fell on his sword."

"And where," roared Mark Antony, standing amid the ruins of his camp, "were you while all this was going on?" Leaning on Helenus he dared not look at the silent Agrippa, whose hand was on his sword Octavian stared into the small, angry eyes without flinching. "In the marshes trying to breathe." "While those cunni stole our war chest!" "I'm quite sure," Octavian wheezed, lowering his long fair lashes, "that you'll get it back, Marcus Antonius." "You're right, I will, you useless, pathetic ninny! You mama's boy, you waste of a good command! Here was I thinking I'd won, and all the time some renegades from Brutus's camp were plundering my camp! My camp! And several thousand men dead into the bargain! What's the point in killing eight thousand of Cassius's men when I lose men inside my own camp? You couldn't organize a bun fight!" "I never claimed I could organize a bun fight," Octavian said calmly. "You made the dispositions for today, I didn't. You hardly bothered to tell me you were attacking, and you certainly didn't invite me to your council." "Why don't you give up and go home, Octavianus?" "Because I am co-commander of this war, Antonius, no matter how you feel about that fact. I've contributed the same number of men they were my infantry died today, not yours! and more of the money than you have, for all your bellowing and your blustering. In future, I suggest that you include me in your war councils and make better provision for safeguarding our camp." Fists clenched, Antony hawked and spat on the ground at Octavian's feet, then stormed away. "Let me kill him, please," Agrippa pleaded. "I could take him, Caesar, I know I could! He's getting old, and he drinks too much. Let me kill him! It can be fair, I'll fight a duel!" "No, not today," said Octavian, turning to walk back to his battered tent. Noncombatants were digging pits by torchlight, as there were many horses to bury. A dead horse meant a cavalryman who couldn't fight, as Brutus's soldiers well knew. "You were in the thick of things, Agrippa Taurus told me. What you need is sleep, not a duel with a vulgar gladiator like Antonius. Taurus told me that you won nine gold phalerae for being the first over Cassius's wall. It should have been a corona vallaris, but Taurus says Antonius quibbled because there were two walls, and you weren't first over both of them. Oh, that makes me so proud! When we fight Brutus, you'll be commanding the Fourth Legion." Though he swelled with happiness for the praise, Agrippa was more worried about Caesar than concerned with himself. After that undeserved dressing-down from a boar like Antonius, he thought, Caesar should be black in the face and dying. Instead, the roaring out seemed to act like a magical medicine, improved his condition. How controlled he is. Never turned a hair. He has his own sort of bravery. Nor will Antonius get anywhere if he tries to undermine Caesar's reputation among the legions by mocking him for cowardice today. They know Caesar is ill, and they will think that his illness today helped them win a great victory. For it is a great victory. The troops we lost were our worst. The troops the Liberators lost were Cassius's best. No, the legions won't believe Caesar a coward. It's inside Rome among Antonius's cronies and the senatorial couch generals that men will believe Antonius's lying stories. There, he'll forget to mention illness.

Brutus's camp was full to overflowing; perhaps twenty-five thousand of Cassius's soldiers had made it to haven inside. Some of them were wounded, most were merely exhausted from laboring in the marshes and then trying to fight. Brutus had extra rations broken out of Stores, made the noncombatant bakers work as hard as the soldiers had in the swamps, laid on fresh bread and lentil soup laced with plenty of bacon. It was so cold, and firewood was hard to come by because trees felled from the hills behind were too green to burn yet. Hot soup and bread-and-oil would put some warmth into them. When he thought of how the troops were going to react to the death of Cassius, Brutus panicked. He bundled all the noble bodies into a cart and secretly sent them to Neapolis in the charge of young Cato, whom he instructed to cremate them there and send the ashes home before returning. How terrible, how unreal to see Cassius's face leached of life! It had been more alive than any other face he had ever set eyes on. They had been friends since school days, they became brothers-in-law, their lives inextricably intertwined even before killing Caesar had fused them together for better or worse. Now he was alone. Cassius's ashes would go home to Tertulla, who had so wanted children, but never managed to carry them. It seemed a fate common to Julian women; in that, she had taken after Caesar. Too late for children now. Too late for her, too late for Marcus Brutus as well. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Then after Cassius's body had gone, a peculiar strength flowed into Brutus; the enterprise had entirely passed to him, he was the one Liberator left who mattered to the history books. So he wrapped a cloak around his thin, stooped frame and set out to do what he could to comfort Cassius's men. They felt their defeat bitterly, he discovered as he went from one group to another to talk to them, calm them down, soothe them. No, no, it wasn't your fault, you didn't lack valor or determination, Antonius the unprincipled sneaked up on you, didn't behave like a man of honor. Of course they wanted to know how Cassius was, why it wasn't he visiting them. Convinced that news of his death would utterly demoralize them, Brutus lied: Cassius was wounded, it would be some days before he was back on his feet. Which seemed to work. As dawn neared, he summoned all his own legates, tribunes and senior centurions to a conference in the assembly place. "Marcus Cicero," he said to Cicero's son, "it is your job to confer with my centurions and attach Cassius's soldiers to my legions, even if they go to over-strength. But find out if any of his legions survived intact enough to retain their identities." Young Cicero nodded eagerly; the most painful aspect of being the great Cicero's son was that he ought by rights to have been Quintus Cicero's son, and young Quintus the great Cicero's. For Marcus Junior was warlike and unintellectual, whereas Quintus Junior had been clever, bookish and idealistic. The task Brutus had just given him suited his talents. But having comforted Cassius's men, the peculiar strength drained out of Brutus to be replaced by the old despondency. "It will be some days before we can offer battle," said Cimber. "Offer battle?" Brutus asked blankly. "Oh no, Lucius Cimber, we won't be offering battle." "But we must!" cried Lucius Bibulus the noble blockhead. The tribunes and centurions were exchanging glances, looking sour; everyone, it was clear, wanted a battle. "We sit here where we are," said Brutus, drawing himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. "We do not I repeat, we do not! offer battle."

Dawn saw Antony lined up for battle, however. Disgusted, Cimber summoned the Liberator army to do the same. There was actually an attempt at an engagement, broken off when Antony withdrew; his men were tired, his camps in dire need of much attention. All he had intended to do was to show Brutus that he meant business, he was not going to go away. The day after that, Brutus called a general assembly of all his infantry and addressed them in a short speech that left them feeling winded, wronged. For, said Brutus, he had no intention of giving battle at any time in the future. It wasn't necessary, and his first priority was to protect their precious lives. Marcus Antonius had bitten off more than he could chew because all he had to chew was air; there were no crops or animals in Greece, Macedonia and western Thrace, so he was going to starve. The Liberator fleets controlled the seas, Antonius and Octavianus could bring supplies from nowhere! "So relax and be comfortable, we have plenty to eat until next year's harvest, if necessary," he concluded. "However, long before then, Marcus Antonius and Caesar Octavianus will be dead from lack of food." "That," said Cimber between his teeth, "went down very badly, Brutus! They want a fight! They don't want to sit comfortably and eat while the enemy starves they want a fight! They're soldiers, not Forum frequenters!" Brutus's answer was to open his war chest and give each and every soldier a cash donative of five thousand sesterces as thanks for their bravery and loyalty. But the army took it as a bribe, and lost whatever respect they might have felt for Marcus Brutus. He tried to sweeten the gift by promising them a lucrative, short campaign in Greece and Macedonia after the Triumvirs had scattered to eat straw, insects, seeds think of sacking Spartan Lacedaemon, Macedonian Thessalonica! The two richest cities left untouched. "The army doesn't want to sack cities, it wants to fight!" said Quintus Ligarius, furious. "It wants to fight here!" But no matter who said what to him, Brutus refused to fight.

By the beginning of November, the Triumviral army was in severe trouble. Antony sent foraging parties as far afield as Thessaly and the valley of the river Axius far above Thessalonica, but they came back with nothing. Only a sally into the lands of the Bessi along the river Strymon produced grain and pulses, for Rhascus, smarting because he hadn't remembered the goat track in the Sapaean Pass, offered to show them where to go. The presence of Rhascus hadn't improved relations between Antony and Octavian: the Thracian prince refused to deal with Antony, insisted on talking to Caesar. Who handled him with a deference Antony could not have summoned up. Octavian's legions returned with enough edibles to last another month, but no longer. "It's time," said Antony shortly thereafter, "that you and I conferred, Octavianus." "Sit down, then," said Octavian. "Confer about what?" "Strategy. You're not a commander's bootlace, boy, but you're definitely a crafty politician, and maybe a crafty politician is who we need. Have you any ideas?" "A few," said Octavian, maintaining an expressionless face. "To begin with, I think we should promise our troops a twenty-thousand bonus." "You're joking!" Antony gasped, sitting upright in a hurry. "Even with our losses, that would amount to eighty thousand silver talents, and there isn't that much money this side of Egypt." "That's absolutely true. Nevertheless, I think we should go ahead and make that promise. Sufficient unto the day, my dear Antonius. Our men aren't fools, they know that we don't have the money. However, if we can take Brutus with his camp in one piece and the road to Neapolis closed, we'll find many thousands of silver talents. Our troops are clever enough to realize that too. An extra incentive to force a battle." "I see your point. All right, I agree. Anything else?" "My agents inform me that there's a great deal of doubt in Brutus's mind." "Your agents?" "One does what one's physical and mental equipment make it possible to do, Antonius. As you constantly reiterate, neither my physical nor my mental equipment makes me a general's bootlace. However, there's a strong streak of Ulysses in me, so, like that interestingly devious man, I have spies in our own Ilium. One or two quite high up the command chain. They feed me information." Jaw dropped, Antony stared. "Jupiter, you're deep!" "Yes, I am," Octavian agreed blandly. "My agents say that it preys on Brutus's mind that so many of his troops once belonged to Caesar. He's not sure of their loyalty. Cassius's troops also worry him he thinks they have no faith in him." "And how much of Brutus's state of mind is due to the whispers of your agents?" Antony asked shrewdly. Caesar's smile dawned. "A little, for sure. He's vulnerable, our Brutus. A philosopher and a plutocrat all in one. Neither half believes in war the philosopher because it's repulsive and destructive, the plutocrat because it ruins business." "What's that to the point you're obviously trying to make?" "That Brutus is vulnerable. He can be pressured into giving battle, I think." Octavian leaned back with a sigh. "As to how we provoke his men into insisting upon battle, I leave to you." Antony got up, looked down at the golden head with a frown. "One more question." "Yes?" asked Octavian, looking up with lambent eyes. "Do you have agents in our army?" Another of Caesar's smiles. "What do you think?" "I think," Antony snarled, peeling back the tent flap, "that you're warped, Octavianus! You're too crooked to lie straight in bed, and that's something no one could ever say about Caesar. He was straight as an arrow, always. I despise you."

As November wore on, Brutus's dilemma grew. No matter which way he turned, every face was set against him, for every man wanted one thing, and one thing only a battle. To compound his woes, Antony marched his army out every day and lined it up, whereupon those in its front ranks began to howl like hungry curs, yammer like rutting curs, whine like kicked curs. Then they shrieked insults at the Liberator soldiers they were cowards, spineless weaklings, afraid of a fight. The din penetrated every inch of Brutus's camp, and all who heard what the Triumviral troops were screaming gritted their teeth, hated it and hated Brutus for not consenting to battle. Ten days into November, and Brutus began to waver; not only his fellow assassins, his other legates and his tribunes were at him constantly, but the centurions and rankers had joined the perpetual chorus. Not knowing what else to do, Brutus shut his door and sat inside his house, his head in his hands. The Asian cavalry was leaving in droves, not even bothering to conceal the fact; since before First Philippi, grazing had been a problem and water was available only in the hills, to which every horse had to be led once a day for a drink. Like Antony, Cassius had known that the combat would not involve much cavalry, so he had begun to send them home. Now, after First Philippi, the trickle had become a spate. If battle did come, Brutus wouldn't be able to field more than five thousand horse, and didn't understand that even this number was too large. He thought it far too small. When he did venture out of his house, only because he thought he must occasionally, those whispers and shouts all seemed aimed at pointing out that so many of his troops used to belong to dead Caesar, and that every day they could see the yellow thatch of Caesar's heir as he walked up and down the front line smiling and joking with his troops. So back Brutus would go to hide, sit with his head in his hands. Finally, the day after the Ides, Lucius Tillius Cimber barged unannounced into the room, marched across to the startled Brutus and yanked him to his feet. "Whether you want to or not, Brutus, you're going to fight!" Cimber yelled, beside himself with rage. "No, it would be the end of everything! Let them starve," Brutus whimpered. "Issue battle orders for tomorrow, Brutus, or I'll relieve you of the command and issue them myself. And don't think that I've just taken it upon myself to say this I have the backing of all the Liberators, the other legates, the tribunes, the centurions, and the soldiers," said Cimber. "Make up your mind, Brutus do you want to retain the command, or are you going to give it to me?" "So be it," said Brutus dully. "Give the battle orders. But remember when it's over and we're beaten that I didn't want this."

At dawn the Liberator army came out of Brutus's camp and lined up on their side of the river. An anxious and fretful Brutus had badgered his tribunes and centurions to make sure that the men were never too far from free ingress to the camp, that all had a safe avenue of retreat both tribunes and centurions looked amazed, proceeded to ignore him. What was he doing, trying to tell the men that the battle was lost before it began? But Brutus managed to get that message to the ranks anyway. While Antony and Octavian strode down their lines shaking hands with the soldiers, smiling, joking, wishing them the protection of Mars Invictus and Divus Julius, Brutus mounted a horse and rode down his lines telling his soldiers that it was their own fault if they lost today. It was they had insisted upon this battle, he himself wanted no part of it, he had been forced into it against his better judgement. Face mournful, eyes teary and sad, shoulders sagging. By the time he ended his ride, most of his troops were wondering why they had ever enlisted under this defeatist misery. A sentiment they had plenty of time to voice among themselves when no bugle call sounded battle. From dawn they stood in rank and file, leaning on their shields and pila, glad that it was a cloudy, late autumn day. Noncombatants brought food around at noon and both sides ate at their posts, went back to leaning on their shields and pila. What a farce! Plautus couldn't have written a more ludicrous one. "Give battle, Brutus, or take off the general's cape," said Cimber at two in the afternoon. "Another hour, Cimber, just one more hour. Then it will have come on too late to be decisive, because the light will soon be gone. Two-hour battles can't kill too many, or be decisive," said Brutus, convinced he had dreamed up another of those inspirations that had even awed Cassius. Cimber stared, confounded. "What about Pharsalus? You were there, Brutus! Less than one hour was long enough." "Yes, but very few died. I'll sound the bugles in another hour, not a moment before," said Brutus stubbornly. So at three the bugles sounded. The Triumviral army gave a cheer and charged; the Liberator army gave a cheer and charged. An infantry battle once again; the cavalry on the fringes of the field did little save cruise around each other. The two massive collections of foot came together fiercely, with huge strength and vigor. There were no preliminary sallies with pila or arrows, the men lusted too passionately to have at each other, smash bodies and thighs with upthrust short swords. From the start it was hand-to-hand fighting, for both sides had waited too long to clash. The slaughter was immense; neither side gave an inch. When men in the front ranks fell, those behind moved up to take their places perched atop the dead and badly wounded, shields around, hoarse from screaming war cries, sword blades flickering thrust, stab, thrust, stab. Octavian's five best legions formed Antony's right wing, with Agrippa and his Fourth Legion closest to the Via Egnatia. Since it had been Octavian's troops lost the camps, these five legions had a score to settle with Brutus's veterans, opposite them on Brutus's left wing. After almost an hour of a struggle that neither yielded nor gained any ground, Octavian's five legions began to pile on so much weight that they literally pushed Brutus's left wing back by sheer brute force. "Oh!" cried the watching Octavian to Helenus, enraptured. "They look as if they're turning some massive machine around! Push, Agrippa, push! Turn them!" Very slowly Brutus's old Caesareans began to yield ground, the pressure on them increasing until it was so remorseless they were compelled to break ranks. Even so, there was no panic, no flight from the field. Simply that as the rear ranks realized that the front ranks were giving way, they too began to retreat. An hour after the two armies met, the strain became too much to bear. Suddenly the speed of the retreat on Brutus's left turned into a stampede, with Octavian's legions so close behind that they were still in sword contact. Ignoring the rain of stones and darts from the ramparts above them, Agrippa's Fourth stormed the main gate and its fortifications across the Via Egnatia, and closed Brutus's camp to his fleeing soldiers. Scattering, they ran for the salt marshes or the gulches behind his hill. Second Philippi lasted very little longer than Pharsalus, but saw a very high death rate; fully half of the Liberator army perished, or was never heard from again by anyone in the world of Our Sea. Later, it would be said that some survived to go into the service of the King of the Parthians, but not to the fate of the ten thousand from Carrhae who now garrisoned the frontier of Sogdiana against the steppe hordes of the Massagetae. For the son of Labienus, Quintus Labienus, was a trusted minion of King Orodes, and Quintus Labienus invited them to help him coach the Parthian army in Roman fighting techniques.

Brutus and his own party had watched from the summit of his hill, able to see today because the dust stayed confined within the heaving, densely packed bodies. When it was obvious that the battle was lost, the tribunes of his four senior legions came to him and asked him what they should do. "Save your lives," said Brutus. "Try to get through to the fleets at Neapolis, or else try to get to Thasos." "We should escort you, Marcus Brutus." "No, I prefer to go alone. Leave now, please." Statyllus, Strato of Epirus and Publius Volumnius were with him; so were his three most cherished freedmen his secretaries Lucilius and Cleitus and his shield bearer, Dardanus plus a few others. Perhaps twenty in all, including the slaves. "It is over," he said, watching Agrippa's Fourth assaulting his walls. "We had better hurry. Are we packed, Lucilius?" "Yes, Marcus Brutus. May I beg a favor?" "Ask." "Give me your armor and scarlet cape. We're the same size and coloring, I can pass for you. If I ride up to their lines and say I am Marcus Junius Brutus, it will delay pursuit," said Lucilius. Brutus thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right, but on one condition: that you surrender to Marcus Antonius. On no account let them take you to Octavianus. Antonius is an untutored oaf, but he has a sense of honor. He won't harm you when he finds out he's been deceived. Whereas I think that Octavianus would have you killed on the spot." They exchanged garb; Lucilius mounted Brutus's Public Horse and rode off down the hill toward the front gate, while Brutus and his party rode off down the hill toward the back gate. The light was fading, the camp walls were still being torn down by Agrippa's men. So no one saw them leave, enter the nearest defile and negotiate it and others until they emerged on the Via Egnatia well to the east of the Neapolis road, which Antony had captured a few days after First Philippi. With darkness closing in, Brutus chose to leave the road inside the Corpilan Pass, ascend the heavily forested slopes below the gorge escarpment. "Antonius will surely have cavalry out looking for escapees," Brutus said in explanation. "If we settle on this ledge for the night, we can see our best course in the morning." "If we put someone on lookout, we can have a fire," Volumnius said, shivering. "It's too cloudy to see without torches, so we need only douse the fire when our lookout sees approaching torches." "The sky is clearing," said Statyllus, sounding desolate. They gathered around a briskly blazing fire of dead wood to find that they were too thirsty to eat; no one had remembered to carry water. "The Harpessus has to be nearby," said Rhascupolis, getting up. "I'll take two spare horses and bring water back, if I can empty the grain out of these jars and store it in sacks." Brutus hardly heard, so abstracted that the activity went on around him as if seen through a thick mist and heard through ears stuffed with wadding. This is the end of my road, the end of my time on this awful, tormented globe. I was never cut out to be a warrior, it isn't in my blood. I do not even know how the military mind works. If I did, I might have understood Cassius better. He was so dedicated and aggressive. That's why Mama always preferred him to me. For she is the most aggressive person I have ever known. Prouder than the towers of Ilium, stronger than Hercules, harder than adamas. She's doomed to outlive all of us Cato, Caesar, Silanus, Porcia, Cassius, and me. She will outlive all save perhaps that serpent Octavianus. It was he who forced Antonius to persecute the Liberators. Had it not been for Octavianus, we would all be living in Rome, and be consuls in our proper year. This year! Octavianus owns the guile of a man four times his age. Caesar's heir! The roll of Fortuna's dice we none of us took into consideration. Caesar, who started it all when he seduced Mama shamed me tore my Julia away to marry her to an old man. Caesar the self-server. Shuddering, he thought of a line from the Medea of Euripides, cried it aloud: " 'Almighty Zeus, remember who is the cause of so much pain!' " "What was that?" asked Volumnius, trying to store everything up until he could next make an entry in his diary. Brutus didn't answer, so Volumnius had to wrestle with the quotation until Strato of Epirus enlightened him. But Volumnius assumed Brutus referred to Antonius, didn't even think of Caesar. Rhascupolis came back with the water; everyone save Brutus drank greedily, parched. After that they ate. Somewhat later a noise in the distance made them stamp out the fire; they sat rigid while Volumnius and Dardanus went off to investigate. A false alarm, said the pair on their return. Suddenly Statyllus leaped to his feet, clapping his hands around himself to generate a little warmth. "I can't stand it!" he cried. "I'm going back to Philippi to see what's happening. If I find the hill inside the camp deserted, I'll light the big beacon fire. From this height, you should see it well after all, it was designed to warn the guards in both passes if the Triumvirs outflanked Neapolis. What is it, five miles? You should see it in about an hour if I hurry. Then you'll know whether Antonius's men are doing more sleeping than hunting." Off he went, while those left behind huddled together to ward off the cold. Only Brutus remained aloof, sunk in thought. This is the end of my road, and it was all for nothing. I was so sure that if Caesar died, the Republic would return. But it didn't. All his death accomplished was the unleashing of worse enemies. My heart's strings are the binding of the Republic, it is fitting that I die. "Who," he asked suddenly, "died today?" "Hemicillus," Rhascupolis said into the darkness. "Young Marcus Porcius Cato, fighting very gallantly. Pacuvius Labeo, by his own hand, I believe." "Livius Drusus Nero," said Volumnius. Brutus burst into tears, wept into the silence while the rest stayed very still, wishing they were elsewhere. How long he wept, Brutus didn't know, only that when the tears dried, he felt as if he had emerged from a dream into a far wilder, more beautiful and fascinating dream. On his feet now, he walked to the middle of the clearing and lifted his head to the sky, where the clouds had dissipated and the stars shone in their myriads. Only Homer had the words to describe what his eyes and his dazzled mind took in, awestruck. " There are nights, " he said, " 'when the upper air is windless and the stars in heaven stand out in their full splendor around the bright moon; when every mountain top and headland and ravine starts into sight, as the infinite depths of the sky are torn open to the very firmament.' "3 It marked a transition, all of them knew it, stiffening and pricking as their round eyes, long adjusted to the inky gloom, followed the shadow of Brutus walking back to them. He went to the bundles of belongings, picked up his sword and pulled it from its scabbard. He extended it to Volumnius. "Do the deed, old friend," he said. Sobbing, Volumnius shook his head and backed away. Brutus held out the sword to each of them in turn, and each of them refused to take it. Last was Strato of Epirus. "Will you?" asked Brutus. It was over in an instant. Strato of Epirus took the weapon in a blur of movement, seemed to prolong the gesture in a sudden lunge that saw the blade go in up to its eagle hilt under Brutus's rib cage on the left side. A perfect thrust. Brutus was dead before his knees hit the leafy ground. "I'm for home," said Rhascupolis. "Who's with me?" No one, it seemed. The Thracian shrugged, found his horse, mounted it and disappeared. When the wound had done bleeding a very little only there was a leap of flame in the west; Statyllus had kindled the camp beacon. So they waited as the constellations wheeled overhead and Brutus lay very peacefully on the pungent carpet, his eyes closed, the coin in his mouth a gold denarius with his own profile on its obverse side. Finally Dardanus the shield bearer stirred. "Statyllus is not coming back," he said. "Let us take Marcus Brutus to Marcus Antonius. He would wish it so." They loaded the limp body across Brutus's own horse and, as dawn broke faintly in the east, commenced the plod back to the battlefield of Philippi.

A prowling cavalry squadron conducted them to Mark Antony's tent, where the victor of Philippi was already up and about, his robust health more than equal to the feast of last night. "Put him there," said Antony, pointing to a couch. Two German troopers carried the very small bundle to the couch and laid it down gently, straightened its limbs until once more it assumed the form of a man. "My paludamentum, Marsyas," said Antony to his body servant. The scarlet cape of the general was brought; Antony shook it out and let it flutter to cover all but Brutus's face, stark and white, the scars of those decades of acne pitting its skin, the lank black curls crowning his scalp like silky feathers. "Have you money to go home?" he asked Volumnius. "Yes, Gaius Antonius, but we would like to take Statyllus and Lucilius too." "Statyllus is dead. Some guards caught him in Brutus's camp and thought he was there to loot. I've seen his corpse. As for the false Brutus I've a mind to keep Lucilius in my own service. Loyalty is hard to find." Antony turned to his body servant. "Marsyas, arrange passes for any of Brutus's people who wish to go to Neapolis." Which left him alone with Brutus, mute company. Brutus and Cassius dead. Aquila, Trebonius, Decimus Brutus, Cimber, Basilus, Ligarius, Labeo, the Casca brothers, a few more of the assassins. That it should have come to this, when it all might have blown over and Rome gone on in its same old slipshod, imperfect way! But no, that hadn't satisfied Octavianus the arch-manipulator, the nightmare Caesar had conjured up out of nowhere to exact a full and bloody revenge. As if the thought were father to the reality, Antony looked up to see Octavian standing in the light-filled triangle of the tent flap, with his impassive, stunningly handsome coeval Agrippa right behind him. Wrapped in a grey cloak, that hair glittering in the lamp flames like the tumbled surface of a pile of gold coins. "I heard the news," Octavian said, coming to stand beside the couch and gaze down at Brutus; a finger came out, touched the waxen cheek as if to assess its substance, then withdrew to be wiped fastidiously on the grey cloak. "He's a wisp." "Death shrinks us all, Octavianus." "Not Caesar. Death has enhanced him." "Unfortunately that's true." "Whose paludamentum is that? His?" "No, it's mine." The slight frame went rigid, the big grey eyes narrowed and blazed cold fire. "You do the cur too much honor, Antonius." "He's a Roman nobleman, the commander of a Roman army. I'll do him even greater honor at his funeral later today." "Funeral? He deserves no funeral!" "My word rules here, Octavianus. He'll be burned with full military honors." "Your word does not rule! He's Caesar's assassin!" Octavian hissed. "Feed him to the dogs, as Neoptolemus did Priam!" "I don't care if you howl, whine, screech, whimper or mew," Antony said, little teeth bared, "Brutus will be burned with full military honors, and I expect your legions to be present!" The smooth, beautiful young face turned to stone, suddenly so much the face of Caesar in a temper that Antony took an involuntary step backward, appalled. "My legions can do as they please. And if you insist upon your honorable funeral, then conduct it. But not the head. The head is mine. Give it to me! To me!" Antony looked on Caesar at the height of his power, saw a will incapable of bending. Thrown completely off balance, he found himself unable to tower, to roar, to bully. "You're mad," he said. "Brutus murdered my father. Brutus led my father's assassins. Brutus is my prize, not yours. I will ship his head to Rome, where I will impale it on a spear and fix it at the base of Divus Julius's statue in the Forum," said Octavian. "Give me the head." "Do you want Cassius's head too? You're too late, it's not here. I can offer you a few others who died yesterday." "Just the head of Brutus," Octavian said, voice steel. The advantage lost, he didn't honestly know how, Antony was reduced to pleading, then to begging, then to exhortations in his best oratory, then to tears. He ran the gamut of the softer emotions, for if there was one thing this joint expedition had shown him, it was that Octavianus the weakling, the sickly ninny, was impossible to cow, dominate, overwhelm. And with that shadow Agrippa always just behind him, unkillable too. Besides, the legions wouldn't condone it. "If you want it, then you take it!" he said in the end. "Thank you. Agrippa?" It was done in the time it took lightning to strike. Agrippa drew his sword, stepped forward, swung it and chopped through the neck clear to the cushions beneath, which parted and spat a shower of goose down. Then Octavian's coeval caught the black curls in his fingers and let the head hang by his side. His face never changed. "It will rot before it reaches Athens, let alone Rome," said Antony, nauseated and disgusted. "I commandeered a jar of pickling brine from the butchers," Octavian said coolly, walking to the tent flap. "It doesn't matter if the brain melts to a runny mess, as long as the face is recognizable. Rome must know that Caesar's son has avenged his chief murderer." Agrippa and the head disappeared, Octavian lingered. "I know who's dead, but who has been taken prisoner?" he asked. "Just two. Quintus Hortensius and Marcus Favonius. The rest chose to fall on their swords it's not hard to see why," Antony said, flicking one hand at Brutus's headless body. "What do you intend to do with the captives?" "Hortensius gave the governorship of Macedonia to Brutus, so he dies on my brother Gaius's tomb. Favonius can go home he's completely harmless." "I insist that Favonius be executed immediately!" "In the name of all our gods, Octavianus, why? What has he ever done to you?" Antony cried, clutching at his hair. "He was Cato's best friend. That's reason enough, Antonius. He dies today." "No, he goes home." "Execution, Antonius. You need me, my friend. You can't do without me. And I insist." "Any more orders?" "Who got away?" "Messala Corvinus. Gaius Clodius, who murdered my brother. Cicero's son. And all the fleet admirals, of course." "So there are still a few assassins to bring to justice." "You won't rest until they're all dead, eh?" "Correct." The flap parted; Octavian was gone. "Marsyas!" Antony bellowed. "Yes, domine!" Antony plucked at the scarlet cape to twitch a fold over the grisly neck, oozing fluid. "Find the senior tribune on duty and tell him to have a funeral pyre prepared. We burn Marcus Brutus today with full military honors and don't let anyone know that Marcus Brutus no longer has his head. Find a pumpkin or something that will do, and send ten of my Germans to me now. They can put him on his bier inside this tent, put the pumpkin where the head ought to be, and pin the cape down firmly. Understood?" "Yes, domine," said the ashen Marsyas. While the Germans and the shivering body servant dealt with the corpse of Marcus Brutus, Antony sat turned away, nor said a word. Only after Brutus was gone did he stir, blink away sudden, inexplicable tears. The army would eat until it got home, there was so much food in the two Liberator camps, and more by far in Neapolis; the admirals had sailed the moment they heard the result of Second Philippi, leaving everything behind. A house full of silver one-talent sows, stuffed granaries, smokehouses of bacon, barrels of pickled pork, a warehouse of chickpea and lentil. The haul would amount to at least a hundred thousand talents in coin and sows, so the promised bonuses could be paid. Twenty-five thousand of the Liberator troops had volunteered to join Octavianus's legions. No one wanted to join Antonius's, though it was Antonius had won the two battles. Calm down, Marcus Antonius! Don't let that cold-blooded cobra Octavianus sink his fangs into you. He's right, and he knows it. I need him, I can't do without him. I've an army to get back to Italy, where the three Triumvirs have it all to do again. A new pact, an extended commission to set Rome in order. And it will give me great pleasure to dump all the dirty work on Octavianus. Let him find land for a hundred thousand veterans and feed three million Roman citizens with Sextus Pompeius owning Sicily and the seas. A year ago I would have said he couldn't do it. Now, I'm not so sure. Agents, for pity's sake! He's hatched a small army of snakelets to whisper, and spy, and promulgate his causes, from the worship of Caesar to securing his own position. But I can't live in the same city with him. I'm going to find a more congenial place to live, more congenial things to do than wrestle with an empty Treasury, hordes of veterans, and the grain supply.

"Is the head snugged down for its passage home?" Octavian asked Agrippa when he entered his tent. "Perfectly, Caesar." "Tell Cornelius Callus to take it to Amphipolis and hire a seaworthy ship. I don't want it traveling with the legions." "Yes, Caesar," said Agrippa, turning to leave. "Agrippa?" "Yes, Caesar?" "You did superbly at the head of the Fourth." He smiled, his breathing light and easy, his pose relaxed. "Brave Diomedes to my Ulysses. So may it always be." "So will it always be, Caesar." And today I too won a victory. I faced Antonius down, I beat him. Within a year he'll have no choice but to call me Caesar to the whole Roman world. I will take the West and give Antonius the East wherein to ruin himself. Lepidus can have Africa and the Domus Publica, he's no threat to either of us. Yes, I have a stout little band of adherents Agrippa, Statilius Taurus, Maecenas, Salvidienus, Lucius Cornificius, Titius, Cornelius Gallus, the Coccei, Sosius . . . The nucleus of an expanding new nobility. That was my father's great mistake. He wanted to preserve the old nobility, wanted his faction adorned by all the great old names. He couldn't establish his autocracy within an ostensibly democratic framework. But I won't make that mistake. My health and my tastes don't run to splendor, I can never rival his magnificence as he stalked through the Forum in the garb of the Pontifex Maximus with his valorous crown upon his head and that inimitable aura of invincibility around him. Women looked on him, and swooned. Men looked on him, and their inadequacies gnawed at them, their impotence drove them to hate him. Whereas I will be their paterfamilias their kind, steady, warm and smiling daddy. I will let them think they rule themselves, and monitor their every word and action. Turn the brick of Rome into marble. Fill Rome's temples with great works of art, re-pave her streets, deck her squares, plant trees and build public baths, give the Head Count full bellies and all the entertainment they could wish for. Wage war only when necessary, but garrison the peripheries of our world. Take the gold of Egypt to revitalize Rome's economy. I am so young, I have the time to do it all. But first, find a way to eliminate Marcus Antonius without murdering him, or going to war against him. It can be done: the answer lies in the mists of time, just waiting to manifest itself. When no ship's captain in Amphipolis could be prevailed upon to take a fat fee and put out into winter seas bound for Rome, Cornelius Callus brought the big, swilling jar back to the camp at Philippi to find the army still mopping up. "Then," said Octavian, sighing, "take it all the way across to Dyrrachium and find a ship there. Go now, Gallus. I don't want it traveling with the army. Soldiers are superstitious." Cornelius Gallus and his squadron of German cavalry arrived in Dyrrachium at the end of that momentous year; there he found his ship, its master willing to make the voyage across the Adriatic to Ancona. Brundisium was no longer under blockade, but there were many fleets roaming, their Liberator admirals rudderless as they debated what to do. Mostly, join Sextus Pompey. It was no part of Callus's orders to accompany the jar; he handed it over to the captain and rode back to Octavian. But someone in his party whispered what the cargo was before he left, for it had generated much interest. A whole ship, hired at great expense, just to ferry a big ceramic jar to Italy? It hadn't made any sense until the whisper surfaced. The head of Marcus Junius Brutus, murderer of Divus Julius! Oh, the Lares Permarini protect us from this evil cargo! In the middle of the sea the merchantman encountered a storm worse than any the crew had ever experienced. The head! It was the head! When the stout hull sprang a bad leak, the crew was sure that the head was determined to kill them too. So the oarsmen and sailors wrested the jar from the captain's custody and threw it overboard. The moment it vanished, the storm blew into nothing. And the jar containing the head of Marcus Junius Brutus sank like the heavy stone it was, down, down, down, to lie forever on the muddy bottom of the Adriatic Sea somewhere between Dyrrachium and Ancona.

FINIS