Cicero's Finest Hour (44 to 43 B.C.E.)

0:02 It took about 10 days for Octavius to learn of his great-uncle Caesar's death.

0:07 In those 10 days, the world had changed.

0:11 Caesar had been laid to rest in a fiery funeral,

0:14 riots had erupted on the streets of Rome,

0:16 and the contents of Caesar's will had been revealed to the public.

0:20 But Octavius didn't know any of this.

0:23 All he knew was that Caesar was dead.

0:29 Octavius was in Illyricum overseeing

0:33 preparations for Caesar's eastern campaigns.

0:37 Those campaigns were probably off now, but what did that mean?

0:41 The people around Octavius advised him to take

0:44 up the nearby legions and avenge his great-uncle's death,

0:48 but Octavius hesitated.

0:50 He didn't know what the political situation was like back in Rome.

0:53 If he started moving legions around,

0:55 he ran the risk of being declared an Enemy of the People by the Senate.

1:00 Octavius decided to return to Rome as a private citizen.

1:05 This was perhaps risky, but he didn't see a better option.

1:08 Once he properly understood the political situation,

1:11 he could decide what to do next.

1:14 On the road to Rome, he began receiving a flood of letters.

1:18 Caesar's will had been opened.

1:21 Octavius was pretty much the last person

1:23 to learn that he had been named Caesar's heir,

1:26 giving him the rights to most of Caesar's Scrooge McDuck sized fortune.

1:31 As an expression of this passing of the torch,

1:34 Caesar posthumously adopted Octavius as his son.

1:38 When he got the news, we're told that Octavius broke down and cried.

1:45 Octavius's mother wrote him a letter advising him to return to Rome immediately,

1:49 but to take the side roads, hide is identity,

1:52 and be on the look out for assassins.

1:55 His step-father separately advised him to renounce his adoption, take the money,

2:01 and to retire from public life as a monstrously wealthy man.

2:05 With a lot of conflicting advice coming his way,

2:09 Octavius came up with his own plan.

2:11 He would accept the adoption.

2:14 From this moment forward, he would go by the name of Gaius Julius Caesar,

2:17 the same as his adoptive father.

2:20 This is hella confusing, and so historians have over the years decided

2:24 to assign this new Caesar with the name Octavianus, or Octavian for short,

2:29 which is just the past tense version of the name Octavius.

2:33 But it's important to remember

2:35 that this is solely a convention among historians,

2:38 and as far as his contemporaries were concerned, he was a second Caesar.

2:43 When Octavian landed in Italy, he appeared in public under his new name.

2:48 The crowds hailed him as his father's son.

2:52 The Senate and the people were put on notice.

2:54 The heir to Caesar was returning to Rome.

3:03 Back in the capitol, things were moving quickly.

3:05 Antony and Lepidus had already pressured many

3:08 of Caesar's assassins into leaving the city,

3:10 which was good for them, but now they needed to look inward.

3:14 If the Caesarian faction was to survive,

3:17 the Antony-Lepidus alliance had to remain strong.

3:20 As a first step, Antony's daughter was engaged to marry Lepidus's son,

3:23 both of whom were young children.

3:26 That was a good start, but it was all symbolic.

3:27 What else could they do?

3:30 There was the matter of the Pontifex Maximus.

3:33 The position of Rome's chief priest was a lifetime appointment,

3:37 previously held by Caesar.

3:38 But here's the thing.

3:40 Some time within the last year or so,

3:42 the Senate passed some minor piece of legislation that said

3:45 that Caesar's son would succeed him as Pontifex Maximus.

3:49 Octavian.

3:50 This was a problem.

3:52 Antony did some quick thinking and argued that since Octavian

3:55 hadn't physically come to Rome and made his adoption official yet,

4:00 legally speaking, Caesar had no son.

4:02 At least for the next few days.

4:05 Antony hastily called an election and made sure

4:08 that his partner Lepidus took Caesar's place as Pontifex Maximus.

4:13 The fact that it was Lepidus, and not Antony,

4:16 offers us an insight that maybe Antony

4:18 considered himself a junior partner in this alliance.

4:23 The riots and the killing and the political uncertainty had everybody on edge.

4:27 Violent mobs were sometimes known to target specific

4:30 politicians or threaten to burn the entire city down.

4:34 There were already whispers of another Civil War.

4:37 Shops closed, foot traffic dried up, and a vast number Romans went into hiding.

4:44 The Senator Cicero observed that "even the mice are leaving."

4:49 Many of Cicero's political allies had already fled the city,

4:52 and urged him to do the same.

4:55 Cicero agonized over this decision,

4:57 seeking advice from many of his friends abroad.

5:01 In the end he decided to stay in Rome and put his own life

5:04 at risk so that he could fight in the Senate to avert another Civil War.

5:09 Friendly Neighbourhood Historian Tom Holland calls this "the most

5:12 courageous decision of his life." By April, Octavian arrived in Rome.

5:19 The Antony-Lepidus alliance had a legitimate claim

5:22 to the leadership of the Caesarian faction, but so did Octavian.

5:25 They immediately began butting heads.

5:28 Cicero writes that Antony started producing old decrees from Caesar

5:32 that happened to back up whatever he was pushing at the moment.

5:36 Cicero suspected that they were all forgeries, but he couldn't prove it.

5:40 He also noticed that Antony was really dragging

5:43 his feet when it came to handing over Caesar's fortune.

5:47 It was Octavian's job as Caesar's primary

5:49 heir to fulfill the terms of Caesar's will,

5:52 which included the approximately 3 months' wages

5:55 promised to every adult male Roman citizen.

5:57 So long as Antony controlled Caesar's money, Octavian couldn't do this.

6:02 So instead, he ignored Antony.

6:04 He made the rounds to many of Caesar's old allies,

6:07 asking for favours and taking out personal loans.

6:11 He couldn't raise the total amount this way,

6:13 but he raised enough to get the ball rolling.

6:15 People began receiving their money.

6:17 But the most important aspect of this is that he let the public know that he was

6:21 putting his own credibility on the line so

6:24 that he could fulfill Caesar's commitment to the people.

6:27 This made him wildly popular virtually overnight.

6:30 If Antony's goal in dragging his feet was to damage Octavian's reputation,

6:35 his plan backfired badly.

6:38 He would eventually release Caesar's fortune,

6:40 making Octavian one of the richest people on Earth.

6:45 By the summer of the year 44, Roman politics had completely realigned.

6:51 Antony was still technically running things as Consul,

6:53 but Cicero was now the leader of a vocal anti-Antonian faction in the Senate.

6:59 As Antony attempted to assert his dominance, Cicero fought him tooth and nail.

7:04 The big debate over the summer was over

7:07 what to do with the province of Cisalpine Gaul.

7:11 Next year, Antony was due to take over as the governor of Macedonia.

7:15 This was a great province, it came with six legions attached to it.

7:18 But it wasn't the best province.

7:21 The best province, given Rome's recent history, was Cisalpine Gaul.

7:26 It came with a couple legions, a vibrant tax base,

7:29 and most importantly it was close to Rome.

7:33 The threat of crossing the Rubicon was everything now.

7:36 Whoever was the governor of Cisalpine Gaul had

7:39 the opportunity to dominate Roman politics from a distance.

7:43 But here's the thing.

7:44 Decimus, one of Caesar's assassins,

7:46 was going to be the governor of Cisalpine Gaul.

7:49 In fact, he'd been handpicked for this job by Caesar shortly before his death.

7:55 But Antony didn't care about that.

7:57 He wanted Decimus gone.

7:59 He wanted that province.

8:01 He proposed a swap in the Senate.

8:04 Macedonia for Cisalpine Gaul.

8:06 But he had some conditions.

8:07 First, Antony wanted to bring over the six legions

8:11 from Macedonia and keep the two in Cisalpine Gaul, giving him a massive army.

8:16 Second, he wanted his brother Gaius Antonius

8:19 to take his place as the governor of Macedonia,

8:22 leaving Decimus with just his toga in his hands.

8:25 It's pretty clear what was going on here.

8:28 It's exactly the kind of thing that Cicero feared.

8:31 Antony wanted to be another Caesar.

8:34 Another Civil War.

8:42 Cicero fought this request in the Senate, but people were exhausted,

8:45 and nobody was prepared to go nuclear over a request to transfer provinces.

8:50 He lost.

8:52 The Senate sided with Antony.

8:55 But Decimus didn't take this lying down.

8:57 He said that Caesar had personally hand-picked him as governor,

9:00 and he seemed to remember the Senate passing a resolution saying

9:05 that all of Caesar's legislation and appointments were locked in place.

9:09 Was Antony interested in tearing up that agreement?

9:13 Because that would open a whole can of worms.

9:16 As an act of defiance,

9:17 Decimus took his legions and marched on some Gallic tribes in the Alps,

9:22 winning a minor victory.

9:24 The legions hailed him as Imperator.

9:26 He wrote to Cicero asking if there was enough support

9:29 in the Senate to get him a Triumph for his victory.

9:32 Some people just don't have an instinct for politics,

9:35 because there definitely wasn't,

9:36 the Senate had just voted to take away his province.

9:39 But Cicero told a polite lie and said he'd look into it.

9:45 So the Senate under Antony had voted to take away Decimus's province.

9:50 Decimus responded by saying that they didn't have that authority.

9:53 Things were at a bit of a stand-off.

9:58 In June, all of the major anti-Antonians got

10:01 together in central Italy for a big, important meeting.

10:05 The following people were in attendance: Cicero, Brutus, Brutus's wife Porcia,

10:09 Brutus's mother Servilia, Cassius, Cassius's wife Tertulla,

10:13 and a Conservative senator named Favonius.

10:16 Decimus would have been invited, but he was obviously busy.

10:19 Cassius and his wife Tertulla were running late,

10:22 so the meeting got started without them.

10:24 Together, they considered an offer from the Senate

10:27 that would put Brutus and Cassius

10:29 in charge of grain collection in the provinces of Sicily and Asia Minor.

10:34 This was basically a way to give Brutus and Cassius

10:37 an excuse to stay away from Rome for a couple of years.

10:41 Cicero told Brutus that they should take the offer.

10:44 If they were going to continue avoiding Rome,

10:47 they might as well make themselves useful.

10:49 He could hold things down in the Senate.

10:52 Brutus was indecisive.

10:54 He told Cicero that it was always his plan

10:57 to return to Rome as soon as possible.

10:59 Cicero responded by saying that it was not safe

11:02 for Caesar's assassins to show their faces in the city.

11:06 He told Brutus that his survival was paramount, since he,

11:10 as the leader of the assassins, was the Republic's only defense against tyranny.

11:16 This was blatant flattery, and who knows if Cicero even meant a word of it,

11:20 but it seemed to be effective on Brutus.

11:23 Cassius and his wife then rolled in there like a couple of tornadoes.

11:27 Cassius got right to the point,

11:29 "supervising grain collection is a slap in the face!" He then launched

11:33 into a litany of all of their squandered opportunities since the assassination,

11:38 and in particular he criticized Decimus

11:40 for not being aggressive enough in Cisalpine Gaul.

11:43 Cassius informed the group that he would

11:46 be turning down the grain collection job.

11:48 Instead, he would be heading to the province of Syria,

11:51 where he was supposed to take over as governor next year.

11:54 If the Senate wanted to take his province away, let 'em try.

11:58 Brutus was like fine.

12:00 If Cassius was doing that, he would head

12:03 to Asia Minor to help out another prominent Conspirator, Trebonius.

12:07 Brutus's mother Servilia spoke up and said that if that was their decision,

12:10 she would persuade some friendly Senators to get the offer rescinded.

12:15 With their decision made, Cassius continued to hammer away at the absent

12:19 Decimus for letting Antony get the better of him.

12:22 Cicero tried to cool things down,

12:24 telling everybody that it was useless to dwell on the past.

12:27 He then began to, with no self-awareness,

12:30 point fingers at everybody else in the room,

12:33 asking each of them why they were not more

12:35 decisive in the days following the Ides of March.

12:39 Why on Earth did they barricade themselves

12:41 on the Capitoline Hill and hand the initiative to Antony?

12:44 What was the purpose of that?

12:47 Servilia cut him off and shut down the debate.

12:50 Nobody was really happy, but at least now they had a plan.

12:53 Cicero would continue to work the Senate in Rome,

12:56 Brutus would head to Asia Minor, and Cassius would head to Syria.

13:01 From these powerful positions,

13:03 they would have the strength to support Decimus against Antony.

13:07 In the days following the meeting,

13:10 Cicero privately railed against his allies for being

13:14 completely useless ever since the Ides of March.

13:18 He wrote in one letter that "in good truth

13:21 I found a ship with timbers all gone to pieces.

13:24 No plan, no system, no method!" By the autumn of 44 B.C.E.,

13:34 Cicero had switched to a much more aggressive posture.

13:37 He made a series of speeches and distributed a series

13:41 of pamphlets that directly denounced Antony as a tyrant.

13:44 These are known as The Philippics, and they survive to this day.

13:49 Another one of Cicero's political innovations was

13:52 that he begun to publicly praise Octavian.

13:55 If he could split the Caesarian faction between Antony and Octavian,

13:58 he might be able to oust Antony in a moment of weakness.

14:03 Octavian welcomed the support of Cicero,

14:05 and used the opportunity to ramp up his own criticism of Antony.

14:09 Over this period, Cicero and Octavian got really close.

14:13 Octavian began calling the older man "father" as a sign of respect.

14:18 The opportunity to split the Caesarian

14:20 faction came sooner than anybody expected.

14:22 In October of 44, when Antony left Rome to inspect some legions,

14:27 Octavian used his newfound wealth to raise a private army and march on Rome.

14:33 It wasn't a very big army, only 3,000 retired soldiers,

14:35 but it was enough to occupy the city.

14:39 And just like that, a Civil War had begun.

14:41 It was incredibly sudden, and...

14:44 strange.

14:44 Nobody had bothered to make any official declarations or anything, it just...

14:50 happened.

14:50 Antony approached from the south with those legions he was inspecting,

14:54 six in total, 30,000 soldiers if they were at full strength.

14:58 By November, Octavian had abandoned Rome and fled north,

15:01 and Antony had re-occupied the capitol.

15:04 But Octavian quickly learned that two of those six legions under

15:07 Antony were unhappy to be marching against the son of Caesar.

15:11 At their first opportunity,

15:13 they abandoned Antony and came over to Octavian's side.

15:16 Antony's first instinct was to have Octavian declared an Enemy of the People,

15:20 but with several of his legions defecting,

15:23 and Cicero leading a vocal anti-Antonian faction in the Senate,

15:27 he wasn't sure if such a thing would pass.

15:30 Both sides now appealed to Decimus for support.

15:33 With his two legions, he could easily tip the balance in either direction.

15:38 But there was never any doubt.

15:40 Decimus sided with Octavian.

15:43 Cicero ramped up his attacks in the Senate.

15:45 All of the pieces were falling into place.

15:48 But then Antony surprised everybody.

15:50 He marched north around Octavian's legions,

15:53 and headed straight for Decimus in Cisalpine Gaul.

15:57 Antony's legions outnumbered Decimus's by 2 to 1,

15:59 but honestly half of those under Decimus were straight up rookies,

16:03 so really it was more like 4 to 1.

16:06 Cicero urgently wrote to Brutus, who was currently in Greece,

16:09 urging him to bring all available legions to Decimus's aid.

16:14 Brutus was kinda baffled by this.

16:15 Had they all lost their minds?

16:17 Had they really thrown in their lot with the son of Caesar?

16:20 If the Caesarian faction was fighting amongst themselves, that was GOOD!

16:25 Just sit back and wait for the dust to settle!

16:27 What were they thinking?

16:29 Brutus was horribly out of touch with how quickly things were changing in Rome.

16:34 Whether he meant to do it or not, he had just stabbed Decimus in the back.

16:40 In Cisalpine Gaul, Antony demanded Decimus's surrender.

16:48 Decimus refused.

16:50 Within a matter of days, Cicero worked his magic in the Senate

16:54 and passed two pivotal pieces of legislation.

16:56 First, he got Octavian appointed pro-Praetor,

16:58 which meant that he had the right to command

17:01 an army while still being answerable to the Consuls.

17:04 It legitimized his illegal actions up to this point.

17:08 Second, all governors, including Decimus,

17:10 were to keep their current provinces for the foreseeable future.

17:15 Anybody trying to take away anybody else's province,

17:17 for any reason, would be in violation of the law.

17:21 Cicero and the Senate sent a stern

17:23 letter to Antony instructing him to stand down.

17:25 He refused.

17:26 At the beginning of the new year,

17:29 Antony's term as Consul expired and two new Consuls took office,

17:33 former Caesarians who were now loyal to Cicero.

17:36 The two new Consuls took command of four

17:39 legions and joined up with Octavian in central Italy.

17:42 Together, they all marched north to Decimus's aid.

17:46 Cicero instructed one of the Consuls to assume overall command,

17:50 and the other to split off and raise additional legions.

17:53 The Consuls followed Cicero's orders, which tells you a lot.

17:58 Decimus didn't mess around, and quickly moved to occupy the city of Mutina.

18:02 He mobilized the entire population in preparation for a siege,

18:06 and before too long he had several years of food in storage,

18:10 and was training a new legion made up of locals.

18:14 It was a smart strategic move.

18:17 Antony was way out on a limb, and Decimus had Cicero and the Senate on his side.

18:22 All he had to do was drag things out until friendly legions arrived.

18:27 Antony must have finally realized that he was in a sticky situation,

18:30 because his next move was to send a peace offer to Cicero.

18:34 He would withdraw from Cisalpine Gaul, he said,

18:36 if the Senate would agree to grant him the province of Transalpine Gaul,

18:40 which was all the territory north of here,

18:43 basically all of Caesar's conquests from the Gallic Wars.

18:47 Obviously Cicero said no.

18:50 The 1-year anniversary of Caesar's assassination

18:53 came and went with very little fanfare.

18:56 In April, Octavian and one of the Consuls arrived in Cisalpine Gaul.

19:01 They outnumbered Antony 7 legions to 4,

19:03 but since many of their legions were new and inexperienced,

19:07 and Antony's were not,

19:08 they judged that the two sides were basically equally matched.

19:12 They decided to wait for the other

19:14 Consul to show up with four additional legions.

19:17 But Antony surprised everybody for a second time.

19:19 He abandoned the Siege of Mutina and marched south,

19:23 back around Octavian and the one Consul, and set up between the two armies.

19:28 Antony set an ambush,

19:30 and tricked the Consul to the south into attacking through some wetlands.

19:34 The fighting was exhausting,

19:36 but by the end of the day Antony's legions had stormed the enemy camp.

19:40 The Consul was killed in the fighting.

19:44 Octavian and the other Consul sent help, but they arrived too late.

19:47 There was another minor clash,

19:49 but Antony and his exhausted legions withdrew back to the north.

19:54 Octavian and the only remaining Consul decided not to delay any longer.

19:58 They marched to relieve the Siege of Mutina.

20:01 Antony's exhausted legions put up a fight,

20:03 but when Decimus opened the city gates and attacked

20:06 from the other direction he was forced to retreat.

20:10 This battle happened on Decimus's birthday,

20:14 which is not important, but it is funny.

20:20 Speaking of our collective unceasing march toward death,

20:23 that other Consul died during the battle.

20:25 That means that both Roman Consuls had died in battle,

20:28 something that had not happened in two centuries, not since the Punic Wars.

20:34 With news of the victory,

20:35 Cicero had the Senate name Antony an Enemy of the People.

20:39 Can we just pause for a moment to appreciate what Cicero had accomplished here?

20:45 A year ago, it looked like Antony was about to become a second Caesar.

20:49 Instead, Cicero implemented a political

20:51 strategy that split the Caesarian faction

20:54 and ended with Antony being declared an Enemy of the Republic.

20:58 What an achievement!

21:01 Antony retreated north across the Alps and joined up with Lepidus.

21:05 Decimus followed close behind.

21:08 Meanwhile, Brutus was in Greece.

21:10 Through diplomacy, he had used this time to gather

21:13 the support of all the provincial governors from Illyricum to Syria.

21:18 This was all highly illegal of course,

21:20 but Cicero eventually secured for him an actual command,

21:23 which gave the whole thing some legitimacy.

21:25 Through this process, Brutus captured Antony's brother, Gaius Antonius.

21:30 Cassius was still in Syria, in command of 8 legions.

21:35 Some clever thinking allowed him to intercept

21:37 a Roman army headed from Egypt to Italy, bringing his total up to 12 legions.

21:42 Cassius pressed Brutus to go on the attack, but Brutus remained cautious.

21:46 He argued that since they had broad support across the Empire,

21:50 there was no need to force one decisive battle.

21:54 Much better to just let the Caesarians bleed each other dry.

21:57 I do my best to be generous

22:00 to these historical figures who were acting with imperfect information,

22:03 but I will point out that during this crisis,

22:06 Brutus's first instinct always seemed to be

22:09 "do nothing." That's an alarming trait.

22:11 I wonder how different things would have been

22:15 if Cassius had been the one put in charge.

22:18 By the summer of 43,

22:20 Octavian began to complain to Cicero about the empty Consulships.

22:24 He said that it was impossible to prosecute a war without leadership at the top.

22:29 He said that, wait for it, *he* should be named a replacement Consul.

22:35 It's not actually clear that this was necessary at all.

22:38 Elections were already ramping up for next year,

22:41 the Senate was functioning property,

22:42 the armies in the field were winning, what was the big emergency?

22:46 Cicero and the Senate denied Octavian's request.

22:50 And then, just like that, Octavian marched on Rome.

22:53 Again.

22:54 Things are getting pretty wacky, so let's take a second to recap.

22:59 Decimus was attacking Antony.

23:01 Cicero and the Senate were supporting Decimus and attacking Antony.

23:05 Brutus and Cassius were *supposed* to be attacking Antony,

23:08 but since they distrusted Octavian, they were keeping their powder dry.

23:12 Octavian *had* been attacking Antony,

23:14 but now he was attacking Cicero and the Senate.

23:17 It was starting to look like a five-sided Civil War.

23:22 Cicero and the Senate called upon four

23:24 legions in North Africa to defend the capitol,

23:26 but all four went over to son of Caesar.

23:30 Octavian sent some centurions into the city of Rome to negotiate.

23:34 According to one account, maybe embellishing a bit for dramatic effect,

23:38 the lead centurion approached a group of Senators,

23:41 rested his hand on the hilt of his sword,

23:44 and said, "if the Senate does not make Octavian a Consul,

23:48 this will." The Senate called special elections,

23:51 but every knew the results in advance.

23:54 Octavian and one of his cousins were elected Consuls,

23:58 and took office immediately.

23:59 One of Octavian's first acts was to condemn Caesar's assassins,

24:04 officially ending the grand compromise that was

24:07 set up immediately after Caesar's assassination.

24:10 If you remember, the assassins were granted amnesty

24:13 in exchange for ratification of Caesar's political acts.

24:17 That was all over now.

24:19 Octavian had altered the deal.

24:22 Cicero was distraught.

24:24 He bitterly wrote to Decimus,

24:25 telling him that "the Senate was my weapon and it has fallen

24:29 to pieces in my hand." He also wrote to Brutus in Greece,

24:34 telling him to Rome as soon a humanly possible.

24:38 Incredibly, Brutus refused.

24:39 He seemed to believe that he and Cicero

24:42 were having some minor disagreement over tactics.

24:45 He was mistaken.

24:47 What Cicero was actually saying was that he had lost the war.

24:51 His attempt to split the Caesarian faction had failed.

24:59 In defeat, Cicero left the city in Octavian's

25:03 hands and retired to the Italian countryside.

25:06 As Consul, Octavian opened up negotiations with Antony.

25:10 In doing so, he stabbed Cicero, Decimus, Cassius,

25:13 Brutus, and the entire Roman Senate in the back.

25:18 Antony and Lepidus spent all summer recruiting soldiers,

25:21 and by the autumn they re-entered Cisalpine Gaul with 18 legions.

25:27 Decimus had no choice but to pull back.

25:30 On his difficult trek back through the Alps, most of his army deserted him.

25:34 His initial plan was to head east and join forces with Brutus and Cassius,

25:38 but without an army there was very little point in doing that.

25:42 Instead, he decided to head north.

25:45 Decimus had spent the better part of a decade campaigning with Caesar in Gaul,

25:49 he had plenty of allies up there, he was fluent in the language,

25:52 perhaps he could pull some strings and raise an army.

25:55 But apparently when Decimus reached the Rhine river,

25:59 everybody, even his bodyguards, abandoned him.

26:03 Without protection, it wasn't safe for Decimus to be in Gaul,

26:06 and so he changed plans once more,

26:08 disguised himself as a local, and started making his way east to Brutus.

26:13 But Decimus's string of bad luck would not end.

26:16 While going through a totally routine checkpoint in Cisalpine Gaul,

26:21 a Roman soldier recognized his face.

26:24 Decimus was captured, and Antony demanded his head.

26:27 Within a few days, he got it.

26:34 Late in the year, Octavian, Antony,

26:36 and Lepidus met near the border of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy to negotiate a deal.

26:42 This deal would become known to historians as the Second Triumvirate.

26:46 Unlike the First Triumvirate between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus,

26:50 this was official, backed up by the full force of the law.

26:55 All three Triumvirs would be awarded Dictatorial powers for 5 years.

27:00 In addition to this, each would be responsible for governing

27:03 a portion of the Western half of Rome's Empire.

27:06 Remember, Brutus and Cassius still controlled the east.

27:10 Antony would control Gaul,

27:11 which is exactly what he had wanted since the beginning.

27:14 Lepidus would control Spain.

27:17 Octavian would control North Africa

27:19 and the Mediterranean Islands like Sicily and Sardinia.

27:23 You can tell from this agreement that Octavian was the junior partner here.

27:27 The Triumvirate also gave the three the ability to make

27:31 law without consulting the Senate or the People of Rome.

27:35 This is, frankly, what Cicero had feared all along.

27:39 Unchecked authoritarian power.

27:41 A Roman monarchy with three heads.

27:46 Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian then ordered a purge of Rome's political class.

27:55 The Romans called these "Proscriptions." This was not without precedent,

28:00 the Dictator Sulla had ordered large proscriptions 40 years earlier.

28:04 But this was regarded as a traumatic event,

28:06 not only to Rome's political class but to Caesar personally,

28:09 who was careful to avoid doing the same thing when he came to power.

28:14 But Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian were young,

28:17 and had no memory of Sulla's purge.

28:20 They didn't care.

28:21 Their enemies had to go.

28:24 The way proscriptions worked is that every day,

28:26 a list would be posted in a public place

28:29 with the names of those who had been proscribed.

28:33 Anybody on the list was instantly stripped of their citizenship

28:36 and was no longer under the protection of Roman law.

28:40 Any citizen who ratted out or murdered a proscribed

28:44 person was entitled to seize a portion of their wealth,

28:47 with the rest going to the state.

28:50 The proscriptions were truly a repugnant practice,

28:53 they turned a whole generation of murderers into millionaires.

28:58 Of course many fled as soon as their names appeared on the proscription lists,

29:01 but the promise of wealth completely

29:04 destroyed friendships and tore families apart.

29:07 It was horrible.

29:09 As much as a third of the Roman Senate was proscribed,

29:12 as well as thousands of other rich citizens.

29:15 In fact, the historian Appian writes that some

29:18 were proscribed simply because they were rich.

29:22 That's bad...

29:23 I...

29:23 think?

29:24 No, yeah that's bad, murder's bad.

29:26 We're anti-murder in this house.

29:28 There was an ongoing negotiation between Antony, Lepidus,

29:32 and Octavian as to who would appear on the proscription lists.

29:37 In the end they were all forced to compromise

29:40 and give up people who they would have preferred to save.

29:44 Antony gave up his uncle.

29:46 Lepidus gave up his brother.

29:48 Octavian gave up Cicero,

29:49 the man that he once called "father." Antony was the one who insisted.

30:02 On December 7th, 43 B.C.E., a small group lead by a military tribune

30:07 and a centurion showed up at Cicero's villa.

30:10 The doors were locked, but they busted in.

30:13 After interrogating some workers,

30:14 they learned that Cicero was on his way to the sea.

30:19 They caught up with him on the road.

30:21 He knew that he was caught.

30:23 He told his entourage to stop.

30:25 They found him in a reclined position, reading.

30:29 He spoke to his killers.

30:31 "I am stopping here." He turned to the lead centurion.

30:34 "Come here, soldier.

30:36 There's nothing proper about what you're doing,

30:38 but at least make sure you cut off my head properly." The centurion hesitated.

30:43 Cicero stuck out his neck and indicated what he wanted done.

30:45 The centurion slit his throat.

30:51 The group of killers then cut the head and the hands off of Cicero's body,

30:56 and sent them to Antony as proof.

31:00 Antony nailed Cicero's hands to the speaking platform outside the Senate House,

31:04 the same hands that wrote all those pamphlets opposing him just one year ago.

31:10 It is...

31:11 so upsetting that Cicero went out this way.

31:14 He deserved better.

31:16 Historian Anthony Everitt calls him the greatest statesman in Roman history.

31:22 I love Cicero, I'm in that camp too.

31:30 Years later, when Octavian was an old man,

31:32 he caught his grandson reading something that Cicero had written.

31:36 His grandson had some vague notion

31:38 that this was some old enemy of his grandfather's,

31:41 and so in a panic he tried to hide the writing under his clothes.

31:46 Octavian saw what he was trying to do, and had him hand it over.

31:50 For a long time, he stood there reading the words of Cicero,

31:55 written in another era.

31:56 In time, he handed the writing back to his grandson,

32:00 saying, "my child, this was a learned man,

32:03 and a lover of his country." If it's any consolation,

32:15 Brutus retaliated by killing Antony's brother.