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On January 1st of 42 B.C.E., the Senate and People of Rome declared Julius Caesar a god. A temple was to be built on the site of his funeral pyre, which was now sacred ground, and Marc Antony was to serve as that temple's chief priest. The legislation was introduced by Lepidus on his first day as consul. This year, 42, would be a pivotal year for Rome. It would finally resolve split between the Triumvirs and the Conspirators, and that resolution would serve as a launching pad for a complete political realignment in Rome. The Triumvirs consisted of Caesar's new chief priest Antony, Caesar's former second-in-command and consul for that year Lepidus, and Caesar's adopted son Octavian.
The Conspirators, lead by Brutus, Cassius, and the remaining members of the successful conspiracy to assassinate Caesar, were off in the east, in command of a truly massive army that was growing by the day. A showdown seemed inevitable. After the death of Cicero, Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian stood unopposed in Italy, but now they were faced with a new, grim reality. After years of civil war, the Roman treasury was empty. Even worse, there was no new money coming in, because Rome's most profitable provinces were in the hands of the Conspirators.
The financial situation was in a tailspin. The Triumvirs had no choice but to introduce a series of new taxes on Roman citizens. The fact that they were "on Roman citizens" is significant, because Romans were accustomed to paying virtually no taxes. The provinces were so lucrative that they alone usually generated enough income to support Rome's growing Empire. But now, under Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian, that had to change.
One of these new taxes was a one time levy on the 1,400 wealthiest women in Rome. The Triumvirs cited some vague historical precedent for this, pointing back to some time during the Punic Wars when wealthy women helped raise a new army by donating their valuables. Historically, don't know any of the details regarding this incident so we kinda just have to take their word for it. The wealthy women of Rome found the comparison to the Punic Wars outrageous. This was nothing like the Punic Wars! Rome was not under threat of being conquered!
The Triumvirs were the ones pushing for an open conflict! Now suddenly they needed the people of Rome to bail them out? This was a political movement in the making, and it coalesced behind a charismatic leader named Hortensia, the daughter of one of Rome's greatest orators. Under Hortensia, the wealthy women of Rome went behind the backs of the Triumvirs, and began to undermine their political support. They approached Octavian's sister Octavia, and convinced her to join their cause. They approached Antony's mother Julia, and won her over as well.
They approached Antony's wife Fulvia, and she. was extremely abrasive, and turned them away at the door! How rude! Hortensia then lead a group of women down to the Forum to protest and disrupt a public meeting. Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian were all in attendance. As the women pushed their way into the crowd, their presence caused a small commotion. Their leader Hortensia raised her voice and addressed the crowd. She began by referencing the Proscriptions, which was when the Triumvirs ordered the deaths of thousands of their political enemies and confiscated their property.
"You have already deprived us of our fathers, our sons, our husbands, and our brothers, whom you accused of having wronged you. [.] If we have done you wrong, as you say our husbands have, proscribe us as you do them. But if we women have not voted you any public enemies, have not torn down your houses, destroyed your army, or led another against you [.] why do we share the penalty when we do not share the guilt?" "Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in the honours, the commands, the state-craft,
for which you contend against each other with such harmful results? 'Because this is a time of war,' do you say? When have there not been wars, and when have taxes ever been imposed on women? [.] Our mothers did once [make] contributions when you were in danger of losing the whole Empire and the city itself through the conflict with the Carthaginians. But then they contributed voluntarily, not from their landed property, [.] but from their own jewellery, [.] not by force and violence, but what they themselves were willing to give. What alarm is there now for the Empire or for the country?
Let war with the Gauls or the Parthians come, and we shall protect the public as our mothers did; but we will never contribute to your civil wars." It was a powerful speech, and there were some really interesting ideas in there. "Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in state-craft." Hortensia was hinting at women entering politics! Revolutionary stuff! Somebody ordered the lictors to move in and remove the women from the Forum.
They resisted, and all of a sudden there was screaming, and shoving, and violence. Onlookers cried out in support, and many of them rushed in to join the fight. Within moments there was a full-on brawl in the Forum. The next day, the Triumvirs backed down. A nominal tax would stay in place, but the amount of money levied would be reduced by over 70%. Hortensia and her supporters had won. But the Triumvirs still needed revenue if they were going to raise additional legions.
They imposed a sweeping new wealth tax on Roman citizens, but even that wasn't enough. They would have to look beyond Rome, and squeeze even harder. They announced that going forward, Italian farmers would be required to give half of their harvest to the state. Farmers weren't that rich to begin with, and so many were faced with a choice between operating at a loss, or simply walking away from their farms. Agricultural yields plummeted, the price of food went through the roof. The entire region fell into an economic depression.
The concept of economics had not been invented yet, and it shows! But the Triumvirs were destroying the Roman economy for a reason. Brutus and Cassius were still in the east, in command of one of the largest armies ever fielded by Rome. But this was also expensive! Brutus and Cassius imposed their own extreme demands on their occupied territory, and when the locals refused their cities were stormed and looted, and the inhabitants were enslaved.
This happened at least thrice, in Judea, in Lycia, and on the island of Rhodes. They were building alliances, as well. A bunch of independent kingdoms agreed to support the Conspirators and send cavalry, which was sorely needed. Brutus and Cassius sent the son of Caesar's old right hand man Labienus all the way to Parthia, where an agreement was reached. The Parthians sent archers, and the son of Labienus stayed to continue negotiations. By June of the year 42, Brutus and Cassius felt that they were ready.
Together, they had 17 legions under their command. For comparison, when Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus, it was Caesar's 7 legions against Pompey's 8. Brutus and Cassius had 17. If all the legions were at full strength, it would have worked out to 85,000 infantry, plus 20,000 allied cavalry, plus some Parthian archers. They moved this massive army into the Roman province of Macedonia, and waited. The scale of Brutus and Cassius's army freaked out the Triumvirs, which is why they took those unprecedented steps to raise money. And it worked.
By the summer of 42, Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian were sitting on 19 legions, 95,000 soldiers if they were at full strength, plus 13,000 allied cavalry. By the way, it's impossible to know the actual size of these armies. It was quite normal for older and more experienced legions to operate at half strength for years at a time. Some people do the work of tracking the age and estimated losses of each individual legion, but even these numbers are deceptive, since an experienced legion at half strength could easily defeat inexperienced legion at full strength.
So even if you had the raw numbers, you would still be missing vital information. People love to fight over this, but honestly don't worry about it. Antony and Octavian assumed a joint command and moved east. Lepidus would remain behind to oversee Rome as consul. They would need two trips to transport their entire army across the Adriatic. Antony went first, and Octavian followed. Of the four generals converging on Macedonia Antony and Cassius were the most experienced.
Antony had served under Caesar in Gaul, and Cassius had served against the Parthians in the east. Brutus and Octavian were pretty much rookies. And it showed. On the trip across the Adriatic, Octavian fell seriously ill. We do not know the nature of this illness, and honestly I'm not even sure it was real. Octavian did not like being on campaign, and he had a history of falling ill at convenient times. A similar thing happened once when he accompanied Caesar to Spain. Octavian would spend the rest of the campaign either in his tent or being carried on a litter.
His subordinates commanded the legions for him. And honestly it might have been for the best, since he had no military experience anyway. As the two sides converged near the city of Philippi, Brutus and Cassius's fleet implemented a blockade. For Antony and Octavian, resupply or reinforcements were now out of the question. They would need to attack before they ran out of food. There was now a ticking clock. Brutus and Cassius had the high ground, and were encamped in a strong position. They were protected by mountains to the north, by marshes to the south, were well-supplied
from the sea, and had a line of fortifications in front of them. Brutus and Cassius were each in command of a group of legions that were completely independent from each other, as if they were two separate armies. This was probably a mistake, but they didn't know any better. Legions were Rome's largest military unit, and were supposed to act semi-autonomously. How could one general possibly keep track of what 17 independent units were doing at once? Very difficult, especially in the heat of battle.
The Romans had never done this before, so instead creating legion-groups, which is how modern militaries would have solved this problem, their solution was to split things down the middle and create two parallel commands that were more manageable in size. As I said, this was probably a mistake. But it was a mistake made by both sides. Antony and Octavian split their commands as well. Antony's legions arrived first, and Octavian's followed. For 10 days there were minor skirmishes, but neither side wanted to initiate battle.
Antony was positioned next to the marshes, and he decided to try to use them to his advantage. While everybody was distracted, he sent construction crews out into the marshes to build a line of fortifications behind the tall grass. If he could get around Cassius and Brutus without them noticing, he might be able to threaten their access to the sea. After several days, Cassius discovered what Antony was doing. He began building his own line of defenses down into the marshes to cut him off. On October 3rd, Antony realized that Cassius knew what he was doing. That day, when both sides deployed for battle, Antony tried to distract Cassius by deploying
a little closer and a little more aggressively than usual. It's hard to tell exactly what happened next, but let's just say that there were lots of inexperienced commanders and inexperienced legions on the field, and somehow both sides ended up attacking without orders. In response, everybody ordered their legions to advance, and within minutes a full-on battle had begun. A battle that nobody had wanted. The First Battle of Philippi. Brutus didn't really know what he was doing, and so his legions were spread way too thin and extended way further than they were supposed to.
As Brutus advanced, the far end of his line accidentally flanked Octavian's. It's unclear why Octavian's legions didn't reposition when they saw Brutus's hyper-extended line coming their way, but maybe that's a consequence of having an absentee general. There was incompetence on both sides, but this time it happened to work out in Brutus's favour. Octavian's legions were almost immediately overwhelmed and collapsed. Brutus's legions surged forward, but they got so distracted looting Octavian's camp that they neglected to pursue the retreating army.
Meanwhile, down in the marshes, Antony's soldiers were up and out of their defenses, and before they knew it they were behind enemy lines. When Cassius's soldiers at the front learned that there was an enemy coming up behind them, they assumed that the battle was lost and lost hope. The historical accounts spend a lot of time talking about how bad visibility was that day due to the clouds of dust kicked up by the armies. They had no idea that Antony only had a small number of soldiers behind their lines, nor did they know that way off in the distance, Brutus had Octavian on the run.
Cassius was in the middle of this madness trying to stave off defeat and rally his legions, when a messenger informed him that the enemy cavalry had broken through, and were coming his way. If the cavalry had broken through, then the battle had been lost. Cassius called his attendants to his side, and instructed one of them to end his life. They obliged. It was his birthday. Cassius's death was a tragedy. The approaching cavalry did not belong to the enemy. They belonged to Brutus. They had heard that Cassius needed help, and were coming to the rescue.
The parallel command structure left Cassius totally blind to what was happening on the other end of the battlefield, and it cost him his life. But on the whole, the battle was a draw. Antony stormed Cassius's camp, Brutus stormed Octavian's camp, but casualties were not high, and apart from Cassius's death the battle was not decisive. Brutus wept over his colleague's body, and told those present that Cassius had been "the last of the Romans." He sent the body away to be buried, and kept the death of Cassius secret for several days.
There was a reason for this. As I mentioned before, Brutus and Cassius held two parallel commands. Cassius's legions didn't owe Brutus anything. With their general dead, the legions might just walk away, or even worse defect to Antony. By the time Brutus informed the legions of their general's death, he had come up with an offer. If they would agree to stick around and fight under Brutus, he would reward them with a cash payout equivalent to several years pay. Plus, as an extra incentive, he would allow them to loot two cities on the march back to Rome. To be clear, that is two cities under ROMAN protection.
Brutus was buying the loyalty of the army by letting them plunder allied cities which is pretty repugnant if you ask me. With a deal struck, Brutus was in command of 17 legions. But he was in over his head, and he knew it. He had very little military experience, and no real strategy for victory. The one thing going for him was that he was still well-positioned, so for the time being he would stay put and wait for his enemy to make a mistake. In the days that followed, Antony continued to extend his defenses down in the marshes. For whatever reason, maybe inexperience, or ignorance, or both, Brutus moved some soldiers away from the hill that was overlooking the marsh.
The grass was quite tall, he might not have even known anybody was down there. Somebody probably should have told him, because this was clearly a mistake. Antony took the hill, and quickly reinforced his new position. Days passed, weeks passed, and Brutus became increasingly frustrated. From this new position Antony could threaten Brutus's supply lines, and there wasn't much he could do about it. Brutus held out hope for reinforcements, but they never came. When he learned that the ships carrying fresh legions had been intercepted and destroyed, he fell into despair. With no viable options left, and with his tactical advantages dwindling by the day,
Brutus gave the order to attack. It was October 23rd, 20 days after the initial clash. This is known as The Second Battle of Philippi because it was the second battle and because it was near Philippi. Both sides were pretty inexperienced when it came to warfare on this scale, and so there were no complicated maneuvers. Just brute force. Two sides pushing against each other like their lives depended on it. The legions under Brutus broke first. It turned into a total route.
Brutus retreated, and considered raising new legions and continuing the fight, but then thought better of it. He escaped into the nearby hills with some friends, where they spent several days together drinking and reciting Greek poetry. At the end of the final day he told his friends that Antony and Octavian would be remembered for their unjustness and wickedness, while he would be remembered for his virtue. He told them that while he blamed his current predicament on bad luck, he would nevertheless die a happy man. With that he took his own life.
Back on the battlefield, the victorious legions hailed Antony as Imperator. Not Octavian, just Antony. All Octavian got was insults and mockery for hiding in his tent. Which is. fair. Philippi resulted in a crushing victory for the Triumvirs. Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian now stood atop the Roman state completely unopposed. Mostly unopposed. A little bit opposed, but we can't get into it now. It's hard to imagine how they could possibly screw this up, unless they turned on each other or something. But why would they do a stupid thing like that?
Octavian sent Brutus's head sent back to Rome on a ship, but when the weather turned bad, the superstitious sailors chucked it overboard as an offering to the god of the sea. I guess it worked.
