War and Peace ...and War (35 to 32 B.C.E.)

0:05 The year was 35 B.C.E., and with the defeat of Sextus Pompeius,

0:11 Octavian was finally unrivaled as the first man in Rome.

0:15 As a reward for saving Rome from the son of Pompey,

0:19 the Roman Senate bestowed a lifetime honour

0:21 upon Octavian by declaring his body sacrosanct

0:24 under Roman law and Roman religion as if he were a Tribune of the Plebs.

0:29 This meant that physically harming Octavian in any way

0:32 was a religious violation and a death penalty offense.

0:36 Realheads will remember that Octavian’s adoptive father Julius

0:40 Caesar had received the same honour, and well,

0:42 in that case it didn’t really work out,

0:44 but it was supposed to be a vote of confidence from the Senate.

0:50 Octavian did not spend much time savoring his victory over Sextus.

0:56 The province of Illyricum was on fire, and the situation was getting so bad

1:01 that it now required Octavian’s personal attention.

1:07 Caesar should have intervened in Illyricum 20 years ago-

1:10 it had been his province back in the day-

1:13 but he completely neglected the administration of the province

1:16 in favour of his 10 year crusade against the Gauls.

1:19 He had always intended to deal with Illyricum after Gaul,

1:23 but then the Civil War happened, and then he had to go to Egypt,

1:26 and then North Africa, and then Spain, and then he was killed.

1:29 Illyricum was always next on the list, but Caesar never got around to it.

1:34 Under 20 years of neglect, a lot had happened.

1:38 By this time, the northern border was basically nonexistent,

1:41 just a line on the map.

1:44 Invaders came and went as they pleased.

1:46 The locals had more in common with the invaders than they did with the Romans,

1:50 and so they routinely rose up in rebellion alongside the invasions.

1:53 Apart from a handful of isolated Roman garrisons,

1:57 Rome really lost the ability to impose their will upon the province.

2:02 And again, this was all Caesar’s fault.

2:06 Things had deteriorated on his watch,

2:08 and not only did he not do anything to help, but during their time of need,

2:13 he actually pulled legions from Illyricum for the Gallic Campaigns.

2:17 So in 35 B.C.E., Octavian finally got around to addressing these problems.

2:23 Just like with the campaign against the Boat King Sextus Pompeius,

2:26 his friend Agrippa was at his side,

2:28 and just like with the campaign against the Boat King Sextus Pompeius,

2:32 his friend Agrippa would do most of the work.

2:36 Agrippa’s Illyricum campaign began with a three pronged offensive.

2:40 An army that had gathered along Illyricum’s Italian border would be split,

2:44 one half under Octavian would strike northeast into the mountainous interior,

2:49 and the other half under Agrippa would attack southeast along the coast.

2:52 Simultaneously, the Roman fleet would support Agrippa’s advance

2:53 by systematically attacking naval ports up and down the coast,

2:55 which with the recent instability had mostly become the home to pirates.

3:00 It is my belief that Agrippa assigned for himself the most important job.

3:04 If Octavian faced setbacks in the north, that was fine,

3:08 he could slow down, pull back, or wait for reinforcements.

3:11 But the coast had to be made secure so that supplies could get in.

3:16 Future success depended upon projecting power inland from the coast.

3:20 If anything, Octavian’s northern invasion was mostly

3:23 a distraction to buy Agrippa some time.

3:29 Agrippa’s plan for the Illyricum campaign is what

3:32 we would call today a combined land-sea assault, and what’s special about it is

3:37 that the Romans ordinarily did not think like this.

3:40 Think about Antony’s campaign against Parthia.

3:43 His plan was to march into Parthia and win a battle.

3:47 Literally a one dimensional strategy.

3:49 Agrippa was different.

3:51 His plan called for 3 separate

3:53 but simultaneous operations across both land and sea,

3:57 with each operation being broken up into smaller

4:00 component parts that all supported each other.

4:03 This is a good representation of how Agrippa thought.

4:06 He conceived of military campaigns as being living

4:10 systems that were constantly changing due to outside stimuli.

4:14 These systems were too big and too complex

4:17 to be controlled or even understood by one person.

4:20 Under Agrippa, each part of a campaign independently had its own

4:25 limited objectives that were designed to complement the rest of the system.

4:30 Limited success in one area was never truly limited,

4:33 because the benefits would ripple throughout the rest of the campaign.

4:38 This was not how men of Agrippa’s generation thought.

4:42 Agrippa had a modern military mind.

4:52 Octavian operated in the north, and immediately faced some setbacks.

4:57 It’s possible that Octavian’s initial objective was

4:59 to make it as far as the river Danube,

5:02 but the fighting was so tough that he never made it further than the river Sava.

5:06 The good news was that due to Agrippa’s careful planning,

5:10 none of these setbacks were catastrophic.

5:12 Once Agrippa secured the coast, he quickly marched north to Octavian’s aid.

5:16 The problem that both Octavian and Agrippa he ran

5:19 into was that once you get a little bit inland,

5:22 Illyricum turns into a maze of mountains and hills and valleys.

5:27 The Romans had never bothered to properly map this area.

5:30 It was not uncommon for the Romans to march into a valley,

5:34 only to find every known mountain pass held by the enemy.

5:38 Of course there were hidden mountain passes,

5:40 but the Romans didn’t know where these were, only the enemy did.

5:44 Meaning that the Romans couldn’t keep their supply lines open,

5:47 but the enemy could.

5:49 Each time this happened, Octavian or Agrippa were forced into a costly

5:53 engagement in order to fight their way free.

5:56 Agrippa’s innovation was that he started to send large scouting parties

6:01 to the left and right of the army as it advanced.

6:05 The scouts would leapfrog over each other and hold open

6:08 mountain passes so that the Romans could always retreat if necessary.

6:13 This almost mathematical caution forced the pace

6:16 of the campaign to slow to a crawl.

6:20 What was supposed to be a one year campaign

6:23 dragged into its second year, and then its third.

6:27 Many of the details of the Illyrican campaign are lost,

6:31 perhaps deliberately by people who didn’t want us to know how bad it really got,

6:36 but two incidents really stand out.

6:38 The first was during an assault on a city.

6:41 We’re told that during the final assault,

6:43 the bridge that Octavian was standing on collapsed.

6:46 He ended up in a heap of rubble just outside the enemy wall,

6:50 and had to be rescued by his soldiers.

6:53 One leg and both arms were badly injured.

6:57 The second happened a year later,

7:00 when a stone slung by a sling hit Octavian directly in the knee,

7:04 rendering him unable to walk for a time.

7:06 It was so bad that he could not be moved, not even in a wagon.

7:10 The entire army just had to sit there and wait for him to recover.

7:14 These wounds probably stayed with Octavian for the rest of his life,

7:18 and they provide clues as to what is missing from the official story.

7:23 In both accounts, Octavian is painted in a sympathetic light,

7:27 but it’s noteworthy that the only good things they had

7:30 to say about him is that he had two near death experiences.

7:34 It hints at a troubled campaign.

7:36 Perhaps the whole damn thing was a near death experience.

7:43 The campaign was only supposed to last for one year,

7:46 but it dragged on for three.

7:48 It involved way more bloodshed than anybody was expecting,

7:52 and in the end it involved negotiating more than

7:56 30 separate peaces with more than 30 separate groups,

7:59 each of whom had unique grievances

8:02 and unique demands that Octavian had to accommodate.

8:07 In 33 B.C.E, Octavian and Agrippa declared victory and returned to Rome.

8:20 The Senate awarded Octavian with a Triumph for the campaign in Illyricum,

8:26 but for political reasons he decided to defer it to a later date.

8:30 Another hint that it was a troubled campaign.

8:35 Per a pre-arranged deal with Antony,

8:41 that year Octavian was also elected consul for the second time.

8:48 He resigned after one day, which may seem like an unusual decision,

8:52 but it was the beginning of a trend that was slowly poisoning Roman politics.

8:56 Octavian was what’s known as a Consul Ordinarius, an Ordinary Consul,

9:01 a consul who had been elected through the normal process.

9:05 Upon his resignation, a special election was called in order to select

9:09 a replacement consul known as a Consul Suffectus, a Suffect Consul.

9:14 Elections for Suffect Consuls were only supposed to be

9:17 called upon the untimely death of the Ordinary Consul,

9:21 but now, just like everything else, that power was being abused.

9:25 Not only were the Ordinary Consuls resigning early,

9:28 but so were their replacements, and even the replacements of the replacements.

9:32 In a normal year, there were only supposed to be two consuls.

9:36 In the year 33, there were eight.

9:38 And this wasn’t just a one-off, this was a trend.

9:43 There were two benefits to appointing extra consuls.

9:47 The first was that it was an easy way to reward political loyalists.

9:53 The prestige that came with being elected consul was immense,

9:58 people who had served as consul were

10:00 treated differently for the rest of their lives.

10:03 If a young upcoming politician was closely related to a former consul,

10:07 that fact alone was often enough to get them elected to a lower office.

10:12 The second benefit was that former consuls got

10:14 to speak first during debates in the Senate.

10:17 If it was a lively debate,

10:19 former consuls were often the only people who got to speak which

10:23 meant that the nature of the debate

10:25 between former consuls could determine votes.

10:28 By having a bunch of loyalists elected,

10:31 Octavian was “stacking the bench” so to speak,

10:33 making it so that his people could

10:36 dominate Senate debates and drown out any dissent.

10:40 The trend of passing around consulships like they

10:44 were nothing would continue for hundreds of years.

10:48 Make no mistake, the Roman political system had been crumbling for a long time,

10:52 but this finally broke it beyond repair.

10:55 The Consul would become a mostly toothless administrative role,

10:59 and the real power within the Roman political system would flow elsewhere.

11:08 With the conclusion of the war in Illyricum,

11:14 Octavian and Agrippa turned their focus to the situation in Rome.

11:18 By 33 B.C.E, the vibes in Rome were abysmal.

11:22 There had just been a recession, a famine, and civil unrest.

11:26 People were miserable.

11:27 The two agreed that Agrippa should run for Aedile for the year 33,

11:31 the officer responsible for public works and festivals.

11:34 He ran on a platform of cleaning up the city,

11:38 both literally and metaphorically, and naturally,

11:41 with Octavian’s backing, he won.

11:44 The problem facing the city was that for at least 30 years,

11:48 Rome had been dominated by charismatic politicians who liked to run

11:51 on big flashy promises at the expense of all the boring stuff.

11:55 Now, Agrippa was going to inject some life

11:58 into the city by tackling the boring stuff.

12:01 The first on the list was the construction

12:03 of a new aqueduct to bring additional water into the city,

12:06 which he named the Aqua Julia in honour of his boss.

12:10 Remember, Octavian officially went by the name

12:13 of his adoptive father, Julius Caesar.

12:15 The new aqueduct ran 22 kilometers up into the mountains.

12:19 What did he do with all this water?

12:21 First, he flushed Rome’s sewer system,

12:23 which was not functioning properly and leaking and making the whole city stink.

12:28 Disgusting.

12:29 Once it was empty, he began some long needed structural repairs.

12:32 He then had the whole thing scrubbed clean,

12:35 and put on a little publicity stunt where he took a row

12:38 boat through the sewers of Rome to prove how clean it now was.

12:42 What else did he do with the water?

12:44 He built 700 cisterns and 150 water towers to further improve water security,

12:48 because, you know, even aqueducts were susceptible to droughts and whatnot.

12:52 He also built 500 public fountains that were unnecessarily beautiful,

12:57 decorated in a unique way with bronze and marble,

13:01 so that everybody knew who was responsible for building them.

13:05 When this project was done, virtually every household in Rome was only

13:09 a short walk away from clean drinking water,

13:12 which is a benchmark that most big industrial cities

13:15 were still struggling to hit up into the 20th century.

13:20 Agrippa expanded upon this theme of “cleaning up the city”

13:24 by beginning construction of a massive public bath complex,

13:27 and announced that all public baths would be free to use

13:30 on basically every other day during his term as Aedile.

13:33 He even introduced a thing where the government would

13:36 provide citizens with a free shave on public holidays.

13:39 His whole program was aimed at pulling Rome out

13:42 of its funk and making the city more beautiful,

13:45 and we are told that he was remarkably successful.

13:48 Agrippa’s term as Aedile was considered the greatest in living memory,

13:52 possibly the greatest ever.

13:54 In one year as a lowly Aedile,

13:57 he accomplished more than many of the consuls had over the preceding 30 years.

14:01 And the people never forgot it.

14:07 While all of this was going on, Octavian was turning his eye to the east.

14:17 He set about deliberately and publicly worsening relations with Antony.

14:22 He criticized Antony over the Donations of Alexandria business,

14:26 which was Antony’s plan for a re-structured Roman east,

14:29 claiming that Antony had gone a little

14:31 too Egyptian living over there with Cleopatra.

14:35 Octavian publicly teased Antony over his failed campaign against Parthia,

14:40 which was a little close to home.

14:42 Antony publicly mused about Octavian’s betrayal of their “partner” Lepidus,

14:46 which was also a little close to home.

14:50 Octavian then commissioned and distributed a pamphlet

14:53 that claimed to prove with 100% certainty that Caesarian,

14:57 Caesar’s child by Cleopatra, was not his true son.

15:01 Antony responded by saying that he had seen Caesar

15:04 acknowledge the boy as his son with his own eyes.

15:07 Then things got personal.

15:09 Octavian called Antony a drunk.

15:12 Antony called Octavian a gambling addict.

15:15 Both accusations were true, by the way.

15:17 Octavian shot back that the only reason Antony didn’t like

15:21 gambling was that he was cursed with an unlucky spirit,

15:25 which honestly is a hilarious way to insult somebody.

15:28 It was also a little more subtle than it might seem.

15:31 One of the stories that Julius Caesar liked to tell

15:34 about himself was that he was almost supernaturally lucky.

15:36 Octavian was saying “I have my father’s luck,

15:39 and you don’t.” Antony shot back making fun of Octaian for marrying

15:45 his wife Livia when she was pregnant with another man’s child.

15:49 Okay that one’s just straight up mean.

15:57 At this point, Antony wrote to Octavian privately.

16:01 In a miraculous turn of events, this letter was preserved in the Roman archives,

16:06 and later Roman historians were able to reference

16:09 it and pass its contents along to us.

16:12 Disclaimer: I looked into it, and Antony’s letter is written using the vulgar

16:17 and low class version of certain words,

16:19 and so any faithful translation should also be vulgar and low class.

16:24 A lot of translations don’t do this, they use poetic or flowery language,

16:29 but those translations are misleading,

16:31 and the reason that they are misleading is that academics are a bunch of prudes.

16:35 In the interest of accuracy I’m going to use a few naughty words,

16:38 and then in the interest of my own prudishness I’m going to bleep them.

16:42 This is Antony writing to Octavian.

16:46 “What’s come over you?

16:47 Is it that I am ****ing the Queen?

16:49 But she isn’t my wife, is she?

16:51 It isn’t as if it’s something new, is it?

16:54 Or has it actually been going on for nine years now?

16:58 What about you then?

16:59 Is Livia the only woman you****?

17:01 Good luck to you if, when you read this letter,

17:05 you haven’t also ****ed Tertulla or Terentilla

17:08 or Rufilla or Salvia Titsenia, or all of them.

17:11 Does it really matter where and in whom you stick

17:16 your****?” I don’t recall that part being included in the movie.

17:23 By the end of the year 33 B.C.E, the well had been sufficiently poisoned.

17:29 Octavian and Antony were no longer on speaking terms.

17:33 They were in uncharted waters now.

17:43 In 32 B.C.E, as part of a pre-arranged agreement,

17:47 the two new consuls were to be Antony’s men.

17:49 But this deal had been worked out in a much happier time.

17:53 By 32, people were after each other’s throats.

17:57 One of the first things introduced by the new consuls

18:01 was legislation censuring Octavian for trying to provoke a war.

18:04 A friendly Tribune of the Plebs vetoed the bill, but the message was sent.

18:08 Antony’s political allies were coming for Octavian.

18:12 At the next Senate meeting,

18:14 Octavian showed up flanked by veterans from the Illyricum campaign,

18:18 who, observers noted,

18:19 were doing a poor job at concealing the daggers hidden in their clothing.

18:24 The assassination of Julius Caesar was still

18:26 fresh in the minds of Rome’s political elite, even after all these years.

18:31 That evening, the two newly elected consuls fled the city of Rome,

18:35 and joined Antony out east.

18:37 Approximately 1/3rd of the Senate went with them.

18:41 This was probably an unexpected setback for Octavian.

18:44 Many have guessed that he would not have made such an open

18:48 threat if he had known that he would split the Senate.

18:52 Perhaps he was not as popular as he thought.

18:55 New elections were called to replace the consuls that had fled,

18:59 and surprise surprise, Octavian’s candidates won.

19:02 The new consuls and the remaining Senators then agreed

19:05 to strip Antony of all of his formal powers,

19:08 including his scheduled term as consul that was to begin next year.

19:18 Somewhere around this time, Antony divorced Octavian’s sister Octavia.

19:25 It’s unclear whether this was direct retaliation against Octavian

19:29 or simply something that was a long time coming,

19:32 but either way the divorce came as a shock to Octavia.

19:36 Antony apparently ordered her and their two

19:39 children removed from their home with no warning.

19:42 Octavia was pretty upset by this, and rightfully so.

19:45 She moved in with her brother, where she assumed responsibility for raising

19:49 her two children from the marriage with Antony,

19:51 and also, somehow, two of Antony’s children from previous marriages.

19:56 Octavian was pleased by the divorce.

19:59 It suited his purposes.

20:00 He made it known to the public that Antony

20:03 had abandoned his wife and four of his children.

20:07 In his eyes, the divorce meant that his plan was working.

20:11 It meant that relations with Antony were destabilizing.

20:13 It was time to take things to the next level.

20:23 In the summer of 32, Octavian got a tip from one of Antony’s former allies

20:30 that he might find the contents of Antony’s will interesting.

20:35 The man claimed to have served as witness the last time Antony had it updated.

20:40 Wealthy Romans kept their wills in the Temple to Vesta in the center of Rome.

20:45 Vesta was the goddess of the hearth,

20:48 and the priestesses sworn to Vesta, known as the Vestal Virgins,

20:51 were entrusted with tending to the sacred fire in the center of Rome,

20:55 which could never be allowed to go out.

20:57 The Vestal Virgins were considered some of the highest

21:01 status and most trustworthy religious figures in Rome.

21:04 Simply laying eyes on a Vestal Virgins was considered good luck.

21:08 Harming one meant instant death This reputation was enough

21:11 for wealthy Romans to entrust them with their wills,

21:15 which were to be kept closely guarded,

21:17 and only opened upon that wealthy Roman’s death.

21:20 When Octavian learned that there was something interesting in Antony’s will,

21:24 he marched into the Temple of Vesta and demanded to see it.

21:28 The Vestal Virgins were honourbound to protect the will, and so they refused.

21:33 Octavian responded by ordering his goons into the temple,

21:36 who overpowered the Vestal Virgins, and took Antony’s will by force.

21:41 This was sacreligious in the extreme,

21:44 and if the Roman legal system was functioning properly at all,

21:47 Octavian would have been put to death.

21:50 Under the Roman religion, the sacred fire was the heart of the city.

21:54 The mystical essence of the city.

21:56 And now Octavian was in there roughing people up for political gain.

22:00 The symbolism is so strong that I don’t even know what to do with it.

22:04 People were appropriately outraged,

22:07 but that outrage quickly evaporated when Octavian read

22:10 Antony’s will aloud at the next Senate meeting.

22:16 According to Octavian,

22:17 Antony left instructions for his body to be taken to Alexandria after his death,

22:22 so that he could be buried alongside Cleopatra.

22:25 This was considered a shocking revelation, a betrayal of Antony’s ancestors

22:30 and a symbolic renouncement of his Roman citizenship.

22:34 Antony also recognized Caesarian as the son of Julius Caesar,

22:39 and recognized his children by Cleopatra as his legitimate heirs.

22:43 Antony had just thrown his own Roman children out onto the street,

22:47 and now he was disinheriting them in favour of a bunch of foreigners.

22:51 This was not only a betrayal, but it was strictly illegal to do under Roman law.

22:57 Octavian summarized the contents of the will

23:01 by saying that Antony had basically betrayed Rome.

23:04 He framed Antony as an other, as a foreigner, as an existential threat to Rome.

23:10 He also played up the idea that Cleopatra had ambitions to conquer Rome,

23:15 and was using Antony as a tool to realize these ambitions.

23:20 We know that Cleopatra had no such ambitions,

23:23 and Octavian knew this too, but he said it anyway.

23:27 Octavian could not go to the Roman people

23:31 and ask them to support another Civil War.

23:34 There had been too much of that already, people were exhausted.

23:37 He had to frame Cleopatra as an existential

23:40 threat that endangered the survival of the Roman state.

23:43 Octavian’s little bit of propaganda, with truth and lies all mixed together,

23:48 was remarkably effective at winning over public opinion.

23:52 In time, the Senate got behind Octavian and formally declared war.

23:56 But they didn’t declare war on Antony, and they didn’t declare war on Egypt.

24:02 They declared war on Cleopatra, personally.

24:05 The irony of course was that they would have to go

24:08 through Antony and his Roman legions to get to her.

24:13 If you count Caesar, and then Caesar’s assassins,

24:18 and then the thing with the Boat King,

24:20 this was the fourth major civil war in only 17 years.

24:25 Many in the legions could not remember a time

24:28 when Rome was not at war with itself.

24:30 And what did they have to show for it?

24:33 The average standard of living was lower than it had been 17 years ago.

24:38 Roman politics were a shadow of what they had once been.

24:41 The capital city of the most powerful Empire in the Mediterranean

24:45 could not reliably keep its citizens fed or housed.

24:48 To the average person, it felt like Rome was on the decline,

24:52 and that the entire system was just one wrong step away from complete collapse.

24:58 Octavian was reckless to provoke this conflict with Antony.

25:02 If things tipped a certain direction,

25:04 it could have been the end of the whole experiment.

25:07 But things didn’t tip in that direction, and we’ll see why in a future video.