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Vicki wrote: "Netflix has an interesting History Channel documentary about Alesia, Battlefield Detectives: Alesia.http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/701...
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Very cool. Thanks!
Watched this last night. Very interesting. A great statue of Vercingetorix. I also didn't realize Caesar had strewn spike like objects near the gap in his lines to make it difficult to breech. Amazing military mind. They also pointed out how Caesars groups had a perfect line of sight for their communications. Thanks for the recommendation.
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The Rubicon (Latin: Rubicū, Italian: Rubicone) is a shallow river in northeastern Italy, about 80 kilometres long, running from the Apennine Mountains to the Adriatic Sea through the southern Emilia-Romagna region, between the towns of Rimini and Cesena. The Latin word rubico comes from the adjective "rubeus", meaning "red". The river was so named because its waters are colored red by mud deposits. It was key to protecting Rome from Civil War.
The idiom "Crossing the Rubicon" means to pass a point of no return, and refers to Julius Caesar's army's crossing of the river in 49 BC, which was considered an act of insurrection. Because the course of the river has changed much since then, it is impossible to confirm exactly where the Rubicon flowed when Caesar and his legions crossed it. The river is perhaps most known as the place where Julius Caesar uttered the famous phrase "alea iacta est" - the die is cast.
History
During the Roman republic, the river Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north-east and Italy proper (controlled directly by Rome and its socii (allies)) to the south. On the north-western side, the border was marked by the river Arno, a much wider and more important waterway, which flows westward from the Apennine Mountains (its source is not far from Rubicon's source) into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Governors of Roman provinces were appointed promagistrates with imperium (roughly, "right to command") in their province(s). The governor would then serve as the general of the Roman army within the territory of his province(s). Roman law specified that only the elected magistrates (consuls and praetors) could hold imperium within Italy. Any promagistrate who entered Italy at the head of his troops forfeited his imperium and was therefore no longer legally allowed to command troops.
Exercising imperium when forbidden by the law was a capital offence, punishable by death. Furthermore, obeying the commands of a general who did not legally possess imperium was also a capital offence. If a general entered Italy whilst exercising command of an army, both the general and his soldiers became outlaws and were automatically condemned to death. Generals were thus obliged to disband their armies before entering Italy. In 49 BC, supposedly on January 10 of the Roman calendar, G. Julius Caesar led one legion, the Legio XIII Gemina, south over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy to make his way to Rome. In doing so, he (deliberately) broke the law on imperium and made armed conflict inevitable. According to the historian Suetonius, Caesar uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est ("the die has been cast"). Caesar's decision for swift action forced Pompey, the lawful consuls (G. Claudius Marcellus and L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus), and a large part of the Roman Senate to flee Rome in fear. Caesar's subsequent victory in Caesar's civil war ensured that punishment for the infraction would never be rendered.
Suetonius's account depicts Caesar as undecided as he approached the river, and attributes the crossing to a supernatural apparition. The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" has survived to refer to any individual or group committing itself irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary course of action, similar to the modern phrase "passing the point of no return".
After Caesar's crossing, the Rubicon was a geographical feature of note until Emperor Augustus abolished the Province of Gallia Cisalpina (today’s northern Italy) and the river ceased to be the extreme border line of Italy. The decision robbed the Rubicon of its importance, and the name gradually disappeared from the local toponymy.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubicon
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I just found some You Tube videos about Rome (not necessarily about the period covered by our current reading). Many of them appear to be copies of old History Channel programs; most are about 45 minutes, a couple are 90 minutes. Each one brings up links to related videos, as is usual with You Tube. Here are a few.
Cicero's defense of Sextius Roscius - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUcDdU...
Engineering the Roman Empire - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZPTvv...
The History of Rome - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDgznF...
Rome Revealed (a series of videos) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A06LUl... - (this contains all the ones mentioned above, plus more)
Please post here if you find any that are particularly good.
If someone would like to see how was Rome during the Imperial Ages we have a great three-dimensional model of the city in one of our Roman Museum (I am living in Rome). Here Youtube links showing this model. You can fly over Imperial Rome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSMMgi...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7kHQG...
If you would like to find some pictures of this model you can use the following italian words in yours google: plastico roma antica
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Gaius Scribonius Curio (d. 49 BC), was a friend to Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Cicero. He was known as a distinguished orator. Curio's character was very conspicuous and profligate. Despite his faults, Cicero assisted him in every way and evidently wrote several letters to him.
Curio built Rome’s first amphitheatre, with seating built on a pivot that could move the entire audience, in his father’s memory and celebrated games there. About 52 BC, he married Fulvia, a granddaughter of Gaius Gracchus. He had a stepdaughter, Clodia Pulchra, but no natural children.
During his term as tribune in 50 BC, he became a supporter of Caesar. In return for his support, Caesar paid off his debt. According to Tacitus, Caesar bribed him for his oratory. Before the Civil War, Curio was one of the last politicians to call on Pompey and Caesar to make peace.
Curio was praetor in 49 BC. While fighting under Caesar, he was sent to Africa to stop King Juba I of Numidia (a supporter of Pompey). Although he won the Battle of Utica (49 BC), he was eventually defeated by Juba, along with aid from Attius Varus, at the Second Battle of the Bagradas River and fought to his death, along with his army, rather than attempting to flee to his camp.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Sc...
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The Battle of the Bagradas River (49 BC) occurred on August 24 and was fought between Julius Caesar's general Gaius Scribonius Curio and the Pompeian Republicans under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia. The result was a crushing defeat for the Caesarean forces and the death of Curio.
More details at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o...
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Here's what Strabo, the ancient Greek historian and geographer had to say about them.
The tamest animal, however, is the ibis; it resembles a stork in shape and size. There are two kinds, which differ in color; one is like a stork, the other is entirely black. Every street in Alexandria is full of them. In some respects they are useful; in others troublesome. They are useful, because they pick up all sorts of small animals and the offal thrown out of the butchers- and cooks-shops. They are troublesome because they devour everything, are dirty, and with difficulty prevented from polluting in every way what is clean and what is not given to them.
Source: http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/b...
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National Geographic has a nice look at what Alexandria looked like in Cleopatra's time, with close-ups of some features, like the Pharos lighthouse.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/201...
Vicki wrote: "Cleopatra's AlexandriaNational Geographic has a nice look at what Alexandria looked like in Cleopatra's time, with close-ups of some features, like the Pharos lighthouse.
http://ngm.nationalgeog..."
Is this the March 2013 issue? My Zinio copy hasn't arrived yet . . . I'll be looking forward to reading this edition. Thanks for the headsup, Vicki
Vicki wrote: "Cleopatra's AlexandriaNational Geographic has a nice look at what Alexandria looked like in Cleopatra's time, with close-ups of some features, like the Pharos lighthouse.
http://ngm.nationalgeog..."
This is a very interesting article. It looks as if the submerged portions of Alexandria are very shallow - 20 to 30 ft, so maybe they will find her tomb. I think the article is a few years old.
G wrote: "Vicki wrote: "Cleopatra's AlexandriaNational Geographic has a nice look at what Alexandria looked like in Cleopatra's time, with close-ups of some features, like the Pharos lighthouse.
http://ng..."
I searched a little . . . this is in the July 2011 edition . . . I have the upgrade for 2010 and 2011 but I haven't loaded it into my database yet . . I guess I get it loaded and take a look.
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Pothinus or Potheinos (early 1st century BC to 48 or 47 BC), a eunuch, was regent for Pharaoh Ptolemy VIII of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Ancient Egypt. He is most remembered for turning Ptolemy against his sister and co-ruler Cleopatra VII, thus starting a civil war, and for having Pompey decapitated and presenting the severed head to Julius Caesar.
When Ptolemy XII died in 51 BC his will stated that Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII were to become co-rulers of Egypt, with the Roman Republic as their guardians. Ptolemy XIII was underage and Pothinus was appointed as his regent. The general Achillas and the rhetorician Theodotus of Chios were also guardians of the Egyptian king. When Ptolemy and Cleopatra were elevated to the status of senior rulers, Pothinus was maintained as the former's regent. Most Egyptologists believed that Pothinus used his influence to turn Ptolemy against Cleopatra, and in spring of 48 BC Ptolemy, under Pothinus's guidance, attempted to depose Cleopatra in order to become sole ruler, while Pothinus planned to act as the power behind the throne. They gained control of Alexandria, then the capital of Egypt, and forced Cleopatra out of the city. She soon organized her own army and a civil war began in Egypt, while Arsinoe IV also started to claim the throne for herself.
Rome was also enveloped in civil war, and after his defeat in the Battle of Pharsalus Pompey sought asylum in Egypt. Initially Pothinus pretended to have accepted his request but on September 29, 48 BC, Pothinus had the general beheaded—hoping to win favor with Julius Caesar, who had defeated Pompey. When Caesar arrived he was presented with the head of Pompey, but he responded with grief and disgust and ordered that Pompey's body be located and given a proper Roman funeral. Pothinus had neglected to note that Caesar had been granting amnesty to his enemies, including Cassius, Cicero, and Brutus. Cleopatra used Pothinus's mistake to gain favor with Caesar and eventually became his lover.
Caesar then arranged for the execution of Pothinus and the marriage of Cleopatra to Ptolemy. In the very last chapter of Commentarii de Bello Civili, however, it is described that Pothinus arranged for Achillas to attack Alexandria and upon sending a message not to hesitate but to fulfill the plan, the messengers were exposed, whereupon Caesar had Pothinus imprisoned and killed, likely with a knife. His death was shortly followed by the ten-month siege of Alexandria.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pothinus
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Mithridates I of the Bosporus sometimes known as Mithridates II of the Bosporan and Mithridates of Pergamon (flourished 1st century BC), was a nobleman from Anatolia. Mithridates was one of the sons born to King Mithridates VI of Pontus from his mistress, the Galatian Celtic Princess Adobogiona. He also had a full blooded sister called Adobogiona. The Pontic Prince was of Persian, Macedonian and Celtic ancestry.
His father sent Mithridates to Pergamon to be educated, where he became a leading citizen of that city. Mithridates was a tetrarch over the Trocmi tribe. In the winter of 48/47 BC, Roman dictator Julius Caesar became trapped in Alexandria, Egypt. Caesar was besieged in Alexandria by the armies of Achillas, guardian and general for King Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator. Mithridates raised an army and came to Caesar’s relief. In the aftermath of the Battle of Zela, Caesar made him king of the Bosporan Kingdom, by commanding Mithridates to declare war on his niece Dynamis and her husband Asander (who were then the ruling monarchs) to keep the kingship for himself. Dynamis and Asander were defeated by Mithridates and his army, and Mithridates became King of the Bosporan. However after Caesar’s death in 44 BC, the Bosporan Kingdom was restored to Dynamis and Asander by Caesar’s great nephew and heir, Octavian (future Roman Emperor Augustus). Sometime after Mithridates abdicated his throne from the Bosporan Kingdom, he died.
Mithridates was portrayed by Furio Meniconi in the 1963 film Cleopatra.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithrida...
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Achillas (Greek Αχιλλας) was one of the guardians of the Egyptian king Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator, and commander of the king's troops, when Pompey fled to Egypt in 48 BC. He was called by Julius Caesar a man of extraordinary daring, and it was he and Lucius Septimius who killed Pompey at the suggestion of the eunuch Pothinus and Theodotus of Chios.
He subsequently joined Pothinus in resisting Caesar, and having had the command of the whole army entrusted to him by Pothinus, he marched against Alexandria with 20,000 on foot and 2,000 cavalry. Caesar, who was at Alexandria, did not have sufficient forces to oppose him, and sent ambassadors to negotiate with him. However, Achillas murdered the ambassadors to remove all hopes of reconciliation. He then marched into Alexandria and occupied most of the city (Siege of Alexandria (47 BC)). Meanwhile, Arsinoe, the younger sister of Ptolemy, escaped from Caesar and joined Achillas. However, in 47 BC, dissension broke out between them, so Arsinoe had Achillas put to death by Ganymedes, a eunuch to whom she then entrusted the command of the forces.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achillas
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Ganymedes was the tutor of Cleopatra's half-sister and rival, Arsinoë. When civil war broke out between Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra, Arsinoë sided with Ptolemy, escaping the palace in Ganymedes's company to take command of the army. She executed Achillas, who was the general of the army and Pothinus's co-conspirator in the murder of Pompey, and appointed Ganymedes in his stead.
While Achillas besieged Alexandria, Ganymedes' army was in possession of the sources of the river, which gave him control of the canals that provided Alexandria with water, and, by extension, Caesar's water supply. With this in mind, he separated his portion of the river from Caesar's, and engineered machines to fill up Caesar's canals and cisterns with salt water. Several days of increasingly brackish water panicked Caesar's legionaries to the point where Caesar had to personally deal with the situation. Aware that Alexandria was built on limestone, and that limestone was porous, Caesar ordered wells built, restoring the water supply and calming his soldiers.
Two days after Caesar frustrated Ganymedes' ploy, the Thirty-Seventh Legion, traveling by sea and also desperately short of water, arrived in Egypt but was unable to land at Alexandria due to contrary winds. Caesar went out with his fleet to personally attend to the matter but several of his sailors, sent ashore to find water, were captured by Ganymedes' cavalry who then informed their general of Caesar's location.
Marshalling every ship at his disposal, Ganymedes then engaged Caesar in a naval battle. But Caesar prevailed, whereupon the disheartened Alexandrians almost gave up the fight; however Ganymedes succeeded in rallying them once again, and prepared a larger fleet for another engagement which this time he was sure he could win. This battle however, against Caesar's admiral Euphranor, resulted in an even more devastating defeat for Ganymedes.
Switching tactics, Ganymedes then focused on bombarding Caesar's forces. This failed to impress Caesar's veterans, although it did result in a stalemate. Afterward, a delegation of Alexandrians petitioned Caesar to return Ptolemy XIII to them, in exchange for Arsinoë, as they had grown weary of Arsinoë and Ganymedes, and wished for their King to lead them. Soon however, Caesar received reinforcements and won the decisive battle.
Ganymedes subsequently perished in flight (47 BC).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede...
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Ancient silver coin from Cyrene depicting a stalk of Silphium
Silphium (also known as silphion or laser) was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant. The valuable product was the plant's resin (laser, laserpicium, or lasarpicium).
Silphium was an important species in prehistory, as evidenced by the Egyptians and Knossos Minoans developing a specific glyph to represent the silphium plant. It was used widely by most ancient Mediterranean cultures; the Romans considered it "worth its weight in denarii" (silver coins). Legend said that it was a gift from the god Apollo.
The exact identity of silphium is unclear. It is commonly believed to be a now-extinct plant of the genus Ferula, perhaps a variety of "giant fennel". The still-extant plant Ferula tingitana has been suggested as another possibility. Another plant, asafoetida, was used as a cheaper substitute for silphium, and had similar enough qualities that Romans, including the geographer Strabo, used the same word to describe both.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium
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The Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The library was conceived and opened either during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (323–283 BC), or during the reign of his son Ptolemy II (283–246 BC).
During Plutarch's (AD 46–120) visit to Alexandria in 48 BC, he wrote that Julius Caesar had accidentally burned the library down when he set fire to his own ships to frustrate Achillas', and attempt to limit his ability to communicate by sea. After its destruction, scholars used a "daughter library" in a temple known as the Serapeum, located in another part of the city. However, it has been noted in Florus and Lucan's writings that the flames Caesar set only burned the fleet and some "houses near the sea," with no mention of the library. Furthermore, years after Caesar's campaign in Alexandria, the Greek geographer Strabo worked in the two buildings which composed the Alexandrian library, both of which he described as "perfectly intact."
Ancient and modern sources identify four possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Julius Caesar's fire in the Alexandrian War, in 48 BC; the attack of Aurelian in AD 270 – 275; the decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in AD 391; and the Muslim conquest in AD 642 or thereafter.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_...
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Lucius Marcius Philippus (flourished 1st century BC) was a member of a Roman senatorial family. He was a descendant of Roman King Ancus Marcius and the son of the consul and censor Lucius Marcius Philippus. He was a praetor in 60 BC, and became propraetor of Syria in 59 BC, although Appian (Syrian Wars 8.51) records that he was propraetor of Syria in 61 BC. That same year he married Atia Balba Caesonia, niece of Julius Caesar. Philippus had a son and a daughter Marcia (later the wife of Cato the Younger) from a previous marriage which had ended with his wife's death. Atia's previous husband, Gaius Octavius, had died on his return to Rome, leaving her with two children: Octavia Minor and Gaius Octavius (future Roman Emperor Augustus). Philippus cherished his stepchildren as if they were his own. He was consul of 56 BC with Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus.
Despite his marriage ties with Caesar, Philippus did not take his side in Caesar's civil war with Pompey, passing anti-Caesar legislation in the Senate. Because of this, Philippus was not given a province to govern for the year. Sensing the threat implicit in this snub, Philippus requested that Caesar allow him to sit out the war, to remain in Italy for the duration. Caesar obliged, thankful that he had not gained an enemy, even if he had not gained a supporter. Philippus became a close friend of Cicero, also waiting out the war.
The desire of Philippus to avoid conflict is evident at all times of his life. When his stepson Octavius was named Caesar's heir, Philippus attempted to dissuade him from accepting his inheritance because of the danger from Antony. He enlisted Atia to try her hand at convincing the young man to decline, but it was no use. Although he opposed Marcus Antonius, Philippus took part in the delegation sent to him at Mutina, and returned his demands to the senate. Cicero chided Philippus for this.
Atia died during August/September 43 BC and according to Ovid, Philippus later married one of Atia's sisters. He lived to old age and Augustus rewarded him for his continued loyalty. He had at least one son, Lucius Marcius Philippus.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_M...
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Atia Balba Caesonia (85 BC – 43 BC), sometimes referred to as Atia Balba Secunda to differentiate her from her two sisters, was a Roman noblewoman. She was the daughter of Julius Caesar's sister Julia Caesaris, mother of the Emperor Augustus, step-grandmother of the Emperor Tiberius, great-grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, great-great grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, and great-great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero. The name Atia Balba was also borne by the other two daughters[citation needed] of Julia Caesaris and her husband praetor Marcus Atius Balbus. They were Atia’s older sister Atia Balba Prima, and her younger sister was Atia Balba Tertia. In former portrayals of the ancient history the mother of Augustus, Atia, was still described as the elder one from two sisters.
Atia married Gaius Octavius, the Roman governor of Macedonia. Their children were Octavia Minor and Gaius Octavius Thurinus (later known as Augustus). In 59 BC, Atia's husband Gaius Octavius died on his way to Rome to stand for the consulship and Atia married Lucius Marcius Philippus, a consul of 56 BC and a supporter of Julius Caesar. He raised Atia's children alongside his own son and daughter from a previous marriage and arranged Octavia's first marriage, to the consul and senator Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor. Atia and Philippus carefully tutored and educated their children.
In his Dialogus de oratoribus, Tacitus notes her to be exceptionally religious and moral, and one of the most admired matrons in the history of the Republic:
"In her presence no base word could be uttered without grave offence, and no wrong deed done. Religiously and with the utmost delicacy she regulated not only the serious tasks of her youthful charges, but also their recreations and their games."
Suetonius' account of Augustus mentions the divine omens she experienced before and after his birth:
"When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colours like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo. Atia too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the whole extent of land and sea, while Octavius dreamed that the sun rose from Atia's womb.
The day he was born the conspiracy of Catiline was before the House, and Octavius came late because of his wife's confinement; then Publius Nigidius, as everyone knows, learning the reason for his tardiness and being informed also of the hour of the birth, declared that the ruler of the world had been born."
Atia was so fearful for her son's safety that she and Philippus urged him to renounce his rights as Caesar's heir. She died during her son's first consulship, in August or September 43 BC. Octavian honored her memory with a public funeral. Philippus later married one of her sisters.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atia_Bal...
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Publius Cornelius Dolabella (70 BC – 43 BC) was a Roman general, by far the most important of the Dolabellae. He arranged for himself to be adopted by a plebeian so that he could become a Tribune. He married Cicero's daughter Tullia Ciceronis. Throughout his life he was an extreme profligate, something that Plutarch wrote reflected ill upon his patron Julius Caesar.
In the Civil Wars (49-45 BC) Dolabella at first took the side of Pompey, but afterwards went over to Julius Caesar, and was present when Caesar prevailed at the Battle of Pharsalus (48 BC).
As a Tribune for 47 BC, Dolabella had tried to bring about constitutional changes, one of which (to escape the urgent demands of his creditors) was a bill proposing that all debts should be canceled. He tried to enlist the support of Mark Antony, but his fellow tribunes Gaius Asinius Pollio and Lucius Trebellius Fides advised Antony not to support the measure. Antony, who also suspected he had been cuckolded by Dolabella, took up arms against him when Dolabella occupied the Forum in an attempt to use force to pass the bill. The Senate voted to support this, and a clash ensued in which both sides took losses. Caesar, on his return from Alexandria, seeing the expediency of removing Dolabella from Rome, pardoned him and took him as one of his generals in the expedition to Africa and Spain.
After Caesar had returned to Rome and been elected consul for the fifth time, he proposed to the Senate that his consulship be transferred to Dolabella. Antony protested, causing a huge disruption that made Caesar withdraw the motion out of shame. Later, Caesar exercised his role as dictator and directly proclaimed Dolabella consul. This time Antony called out that the omens were unfavorable and Caesar again backed down and abandoned Dolabella.
On Caesar's death (44 BC), Dolabella seized the insignia of the consulship (which had already been conditionally promised him), and, by making friends with Marcus Junius Brutus and the other assassins, was confirmed in his office. When, however, Mark Antony offered him the command of the expedition against the Parthians and the province of Syria, he changed sides at once. His journey to the province was marked by plundering, extortion, and the murder of Gaius Trebonius, proconsul of Asia, who refused to allow him to enter Smyrna.
Dolabella was thereupon declared a public enemy and superseded by Cassius (the murderer of Caesar), who attacked him in Laodicea. When Cassius's troops captured the place (43 BC), Dolabella ordered one of his soldiers to kill him.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_...
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Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (86 BC – c. 35 BC) was a Roman historian, politician, and novus homo from a provincial plebeian family. Sallust was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines and was a popularis, opposer of the old Roman aristocracy throughout his career, and later a partisan of Julius Caesar. Sallust is the earliest known Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which we have Catiline's War (about the conspiracy in 63 BC of L. Sergius Catilina), The Jugurthine War (about Rome's war against the Numidians from 111 to 105 BC), and the Histories (of which only fragments survive). Sallust was primarily influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides and amassed great (and ill-gotten) wealth from his governorship of Africa.
There is no information about Sallust's parents. The only exception is Tacitus' mention of his sister. Sallustii was a provincial noble family of Sabine origin. They belonged to the equestrian order and had a full Roman citizenship. During the Social War Gaius' parents could hide in the capital, because Amiternum was under threat of siege by rebelled Italic tribes. Due to this Sallust could have been raised in Rome The historian received very good education.
After an ill-spent youth, Sallust entered public life and may have won election as quaestor in 55 BC. However, there is no strict evidence about this, and some scholars suppose that Sallust hadn't been a quaestor — the practice of violating cursus honorum was common in the last years of the Republic. He became a Tribune of the Plebs in 52 BC, the year in which the followers of Milo killed Clodius in a street brawl. Sallust then supported the prosecution of Milo. Sallust, Titus Munatius Plancus and Quintus Pompeius Rufus also tried to blame Cicero, one of the leaders of senators' opposition to triumvirate, for his support of Milo.
From the beginning of his public career, Sallust operated as a decided partisan of Julius Caesar, to whom he owed such political advancement as he attained. In 50 BC, the censor Appius Claudius Pulcher removed him from the Senate on the grounds of gross immorality (probably really because of his opposition to Milo and Cicero). In the following year, perhaps through Caesar's influence, he was reinstated.
During the Civil War of 49–45 BC Sallust acted as Caesar's partisan, but his role wasn't significant, so his name isn't mentioned in dictator's Commentarii de Bello Civili. In 49 BC Sallust was moved to Illyricum and probably commanded at least one legion there against Publius Dolabella and Gaius Antonius. In the late summer 47 BC a group of soldiers rebelled near Rome, demanding for previously promised rewards and discharging. Sallust as praetor designatus was sent to persuade soldiers with several other senators, but the rebels killed two senators, while Sallust narrowly escaped death. In 46 BC, he served as a praetor and accompanied Caesar in his African campaign, which ended in the decisive defeat of the remains of the Pompeian war party at Thapsus. Sallust didn't participate in military operations directly, but he commanded several ships and organized supply through Kerkennah islands. As a reward for his services, Sallust gained appointment as governor of the province of Africa Nova. The reason of his designation is unclear: Sallust wasn't a skilled general, while the province was military significant with three legions deployed there. Moreover, governors after him were experienced military. However, Sallust successfully managed with organizing of supply and transportation, and these qualities could determine Caesar's choice. In the capacity of governor he committed such oppression and extortion that only the influence of Caesar enabled him to escape condemnation. On his return to Rome he purchased and began laying out in great splendour the famous gardens on the Quirinal known as the Horti Sallustiani or Gardens of Sallust. These gardens would later belong to the emperors.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallust
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Childhood (63 BC - 48 BC)
Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus in Rome on September 23, 63 BC. He was a member of the respectable, but undistinguished, Octavii family through his father, also named Gaius Octavius, and was the great-nephew of Julius Caesar through his mother Atia Balba Caesonia. The young Octavius had two older siblings: a half sister, from his father’s first marriage, named Octavia Major and a full sister named Octavia Minor. The Octavii were wealthy through their banking business in Velletri (in the Alban Hills), where the family was part of the local aristocracy. Through the works of Gaius Octavius senior, however, the family entered into the senatorial ranks with Octavius senior as the family’s novus homo. Octavius senior’s entrance into the Senate came when he was appointed Quaestor in 70 BC.
In 61 BC Octavius senior was elected Praetor. Since Octavius lacked a direct male presence, he looked to others for that presence. One person who provided such an influence was one of Atia's slaves, named Sphaerus. Sphaerus likely accompanied Octavian to the schools Octavian attended (in either Rome or Velitrae). Sphaerus was such a positive influence on Octavian that he was eventually given his freedom. When Sphaerus died, he was given a public funeral.
Following his praetorship, the elder Octavius would serve for two years as governor of Macedonia. There, he proved himself a capable administrator. Upon returning to Italy in 59 BC, before he could stand for the Consulship, he suddenly died in Nola. This left the young Octavius, then four years old, without a father.
Octavius' mother Atia took over his education in the absence of his father. He was taught as the average Roman aristocratic boy was, learning both Latin and Greek while being trained as an orator. It wasn’t until Octavius was six years old that Atia remarried, this time to Lucius Marcius Philippus, a supporter of Julius Caesar and a former governor of Syria. Philippus cherished his new stepchildren as if they were his own. He was consul of 56 BC with Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus.
At this time, the First Triumvirate between Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus was starting to collapse. By the time Octavius was ten in 53 BC, the alliance completely broke down with the death of Crassus in Parthia. Soon thereafter, Octavius made his first public appearance in 52 BC when he delivered the funeral oration for his grandmother Julia Caesaris, sister of Julius Caesar. It was at this time that the young Octavius captured the attention of his great-uncle.
With Crassus dead, Caesar and Pompey began to fight each other for supremacy. In 50 BC, the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to return to Rome from Gaul and to disband his army. The Senate had forbidden Caesar to stand for a second consulship in absentia. Without the consulship, Caesar would be without legal immunity and without the power of his army. Left with no other options, on January 10, 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon (the frontier boundary of Italy) with only one legion and ignited civil war.
The Senate and Pompey fled to Greece. Despite outnumbering Caesar, who only had his Thirteenth Legion with him, Pompey had no intention of fighting in Italy. Leaving Marcus Lepidus as prefect of Rome, and the rest of Italy under Mark Antony as tribune, Caesar made an astonishing 27-day route-march to Hispania, rejoining two of his Gallic legions, where he defeated Pompey's lieutenants. He then returned east, to challenge Pompey in Greece where, on July 10, 48 BC at the Battle of Dyrrhachium, Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat when the line of fortification was broken. He decisively defeated Pompey, despite Pompey's numerical advantage (nearly twice the number of infantry and considerably more cavalry), at the Battle of Pharsalus in an exceedingly short engagement in 48 BC.
Early Career (48 BC - 44 BC)
The same year as Caesar’s ultimate victory against Pompey, Octavius turned 15 and donned the toga virillis on October 18. Shortly after assuming the toga virillis, Octavius began his first official business upon being elected a pontiff in the College of Pontiffs. It was Caesar who had nominated Octavius for this position, the first of many to come from Caesar. While it is unknown if Caesar took the time to explain the current military or political situation, Caesar did take an interest in Octavius. While celebrating the Festival of the Latins, Caesar appointed Octavius the Praefectus urbi until his return. While the position was solely honorary and possessed no authority, it allowed Octavius a place in the public eye.
From 46 BC on, Octavius was very close to Caesar. He attended theaters, banquets, and other social gatherings with him and even received military decorations and rode with Caesar during his triumph for his African campaign despite never serving in combat. Soon, Octavius had built up considerable influence with Caesar to such a point that others would ask him to intercede with him on their behalf.
Following in the normal path of young Romans, Octavius needed experience with military affairs and Caesar recognized this. Caesar proposed that Octavius join him in Africa even though Octavius had fallen ill. Though he was now legally a man, his mother Atia was still a dominating figure in his life. According to Nicolaus of Damascus, Atia protested Octavius joining Caesar and Caesar recognized the necessity of protecting Octavius’ health. Though she consented for him to join Caesar in Hispania, where he planned to fight the remaining forces under Pompey’s lieutenants, but Octavius again fell ill and was unable to travel.
As soon as he was well, Octavius, accompanied by a few friends (including Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa), sailed to Hispania. Unfortunately, he became shipwrecked and, after coming ashore with his companions, was forced to make it across hostile territory to reach Caesar's camp. Octavius’ actions greatly impressed his great-uncle, who proceeded to teach Octavius the ways of provincial administration. The two stayed in Hispania until June 45 BC, after which they returned to Rome. Velleius Paterculus reports that Caesar and Octavius shared the same carriage. When back in Rome, Caesar deposited a new will with the Vestal Virgins in which he secretly named Octavius as the prime beneficiary.
Upon returning to Rome, Caesar increasingly amassed more authority and control over the Roman state. He was made Consul for 10 years and Dictator for the same period. He was allowed to name half of the magistrates each year and even allowed to name new patricians. Among others, Caesar used this new power to elevate Octavius.
Hoping to continue Octavius’ education, at the end of 45 BC Caesar sent him, along with his friends Agrippa, Gaius Maecenas, and Salvidienus Rufus, to Apollonia in Macedonia. There, Octavius learned not only academics and self-control but military doctrine and tactics as well. Caesar, however, had more than just education in mind for Octavius. Macedonia was home of five legions and he hoped to use it as a launching ground for an upcoming war with Parthia in the Middle East. In preparation, Caesar had nominated Octavius to serve as Master of the Horse (Caesar’s chief lieutenant) for the year 43 BC, thus making Octavius the number two man in the state at the young age of 19.
However, the war with the Parthians never came nor Octavius’ promotion. While still in Apollonia, word reached Octavius that Caesar had been assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC. It was then made public that Caesar had adopted Octavius as his son and main heir. In response, Octavius changed his named to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. Though modern scholars to avoid confusion commonly refer to him at this point as Octavian, he called himself “Caesar", which is the name his contemporaries also used.
Rejecting the advice of some army officers to take refuge with his troops in Macedonia, Octavian sailed to Italy to claim his inheritance.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_li...
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The Julian calendar was a reform of the Roman calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC (708 AUC, Ab urbe condita, from the founding of the City). It took effect in 45 BC (709 AUC). It was the predominant calendar in most of Europe, and in European settlements in the Americas and elsewhere, until it was superseded by the Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months, as listed in Table of months. A leap day is added to February every four years. The Julian year is, therefore, on average 365.25 days long. It was intended to approximate the tropical (solar) year. Although Greek astronomers had known, at least since Hipparchus, that the tropical year was a few minutes shorter than 365.25 days, the calendar did not compensate for this difference. As a result, the calendar year gained about three days every four centuries compared to observed equinox times and the seasons. This discrepancy was corrected by the Gregorian reform of 1582.
The ordinary year in the previous Roman calendar consisted of 12 months, for a total of 355 days. In addition, a 27-day intercalary month, the Mensis Intercalaris, was sometimes inserted between February and March. This intercalary month was formed by inserting 22 days after the first 23 or 24 days of February; the last five days of February, which counted down toward the start of March, became the last five days of Intercalaris. The net effect was to add 22 or 23 days to the year, forming an intercalary year of 377 or 378 days.
According to the later writers Censorinus and Macrobius, the ideal intercalary cycle consisted of ordinary years of 355 days alternating with intercalary years, alternately 377 and 378 days long. On this system, the average Roman year would have had 366¼ days over four years, giving it an average drift of one day per year relative to any solstice or equinox. Macrobius describes a further refinement wherein, for 8 years out of 24, there were only three intercalary years, each of 377 days. This refinement averages the length of the year to 365.5 days over 24 years.
In practice, intercalations did not occur schematically according to these ideal systems, but were determined by the pontifices. So far as can be determined from the historical evidence, they were much less regular than these ideal schemes suggest. They usually occurred every second or third year, but were sometimes omitted for much longer, and occasionally occurred in two consecutive years.
If managed correctly this system allowed the Roman year, on average, to stay roughly aligned to a tropical year. However, since the Pontifices were often politicians, and because a Roman magistrate's term of office corresponded with a calendar year, this power was prone to abuse: a Pontifex could lengthen a year in which he or one of his political allies was in office, or refuse to lengthen one in which his opponents were in power.
If too many intercalations were omitted, as happened after the Second Punic War and during the Civil Wars, the calendar would drift rapidly out of alignment with the tropical year. Moreover, because intercalations were often determined quite late, the average Roman citizen often did not know the date, particularly if he were some distance from the city. For these reasons, the last years of the pre-Julian calendar were later known as "years of confusion". The problems became particularly acute during the years of Julius Caesar's pontificate before the reform, 63–46 BC, when there were only five intercalary months, whereas there should have been eight, and none at all during the five Roman years before 46 BC.
The reform was intended to correct this problem permanently, by creating a calendar that remained aligned to the sun without any human intervention. This feature proved useful very soon after the new calendar came into effect. Varro used it in 37 BC to fix calendar dates for the start of the four seasons, which would have been impossible only 8 years earlier. A century later, when Pliny dated the winter solstice to 25 December because the sun entered the 8th degree of Capricorn on that date, this stability had become an ordinary fact of life.
The approximation of 365¼ days for the tropical year had been known for a long time but was not used directly since ancient calendars were not solar (except in Egypt). It was the mean length of the year in the octaeteris, a cycle of 8 lunar years popularized by Cleostratus (and also commonly attributed to Eudoxus) which was used in some early Greek calendars, notably in Athens. The same value was the basis of the 76 years cycle devised by Callippus (a student under Eudoxus) to improve the Metonic cycle. The length of the year in the cycle of Meton was less accurate: about 30 minutes too long (1 day in 48 years).
In Egypt, a fixed year of 365 days was in use, drifting by one day against the sun in four years. An unsuccessful attempt to add an extra day every fourth year was made in 238 BC (Decree of Canopus). Caesar probably experienced the solar calendar in that country. He landed in the Nile delta in October 48 BC and soon became embroiled in the Ptolemaic dynastic war, especially after Cleopatra managed to be "introduced" to him in Alexandria.
Caesar imposed a peace, and a banquet was held to celebrate the event. Lucan depicted Caesar talking to a wise man called Acoreus during the feast, stating his intention to create a calendar more perfect than that of Eudoxus (Eudoxus was popularly credited with having determined the length of the year to be 365¼ days). But the war soon resumed and Caesar was attacked by the Egyptian army for several months until he achieved victory. He then enjoyed a long cruise on the Nile with Cleopatra before leaving the country in June 47 BC.
Caesar returned to Rome in 46 BC and, according to Plutarch, called in the best philosophers and mathematicians of his time to solve the problem of the calendar. Pliny says that Caesar was aided in his reform by the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria who is generally considered the principal designer of the reform. Sosigenes may also have been the author of the astronomical almanac published by Caesar to facilitate the reform. Eventually, it was decided to establish a calendar that would be a combination between the old Roman months, the fixed length of the Egyptian calendar, and the 365¼ days of the Greek astronomy. According to Macrobius, Caesar was assisted in this by a certain Marcus Flavius.
The first step of the reform was to realign the start of the calendar year (1 January) to the tropical year by making 46 BC (708 AUC) 445 days long, compensating for the intercalations which had been missed during Caesar's pontificate. This year had already been extended from 355 to 378 days by the insertion of a regular intercalary month in February. When Caesar decreed the reform, probably shortly after his return from the African campaign in late Quintilis (July), he added 67 more days by inserting two extraordinary intercalary months between November and December.
These months are called Intercalaris Prior and Intercalaris Posterior in letters of Cicero written at the time; there is no basis for the statement sometimes seen that they were called "Undecimber" and "Duodecimber". Their individual lengths are unknown, as is the position of the Nones and Ides within them.
Because 46 BC was the last of a series of irregular years, this extra-long year was, and is, referred to as the "last year of confusion". The new calendar began operation after the realignment had been completed, in 45 BC.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_c...
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The Roman triumph (triumphus) was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican tradition, only the Senate could grant a triumph. The origins and development of this honour were obscure: Roman historians placed the first triumph in the mythical past.
On the day of his triumph, the general wore regalia that identified him as near-divine or near-kingly, and a laurel wreath was held above his head. He rode in a chariot through the streets of Rome in unarmed procession with his army and the spoils of his war. At Jupiter's temple on the Capitoline Hill he offered sacrifice and the tokens of his victory to the god. Thereafter he had the right to be described as vir triumphalis ("man of triumph", later known as triumphator) for the rest of his life. After death, he was represented at his own funeral, and those of his later descendants, by a hired actor who wore his death mask (imago) and was clad in the all-purple, gold-embroidered triumphal toga picta ("painted" toga).
Republican morality required that despite these extraordinary honours, the triumphator conduct himself with dignified humility, as a mortal citizen who triumphed on behalf of Rome's Senate, people and gods. Inevitably, besides its religious and military dimensions, the triumph offered extraordinary opportunities for self-publicity. As Roman territories expanded during the early and middle Republican eras, foreign wars increased the opportunities for self-promotion. While most Roman festivals were calendar fixtures, the tradition and law that reserved a triumph to extraordinary victory ensured that its celebration, procession and attendant feasting and public games promoted the status, achievements and person of the triumphator. These could be further celebrated and commemorated by his personal issue of triumphal coinage, and his funding of monumental public works and temples. By the Late Republican era, increasing competition among the military-political adventurers who ran Rome's nascent empire ensured that triumphs became more frequent, drawn out and extravagant, prolonged in some cases by several days of public games and entertainments. From the Principate onwards, the Triumph reflected the Imperial order and the pre-eminence of the Imperial family.
Most Roman accounts of triumphs were written to provide their readers with a moral lesson, rather than to provide an accurate description of the triumphal process, procession, rites and their meaning. This scarcity allows for only the most tentative and generalised, and possibly misleading reconstruction of triumphal ceremony, based on the combination of various incomplete accounts from different periods of Roman history. Nevertheless, the triumph is considered a characteristically Roman ceremony which represented Roman wealth, power and grandeur, and has been consciously imitated by medieval and later states in the royal entry and other ceremonial events.
In the Republic, the triumph was the highest honour. In order to receive a triumph, the Leader must:
1. Win a significant victory over a foreign enemy, killing at least 5,000 enemy troops, and earn the title imperator.
2. Be an elected magistrate with the power of imperium, i.e. a dictator, consul, or a praetor.
3. Bring the army home, signifying that the war was over and that the army was no longer needed. This only applied with a citizen army. By the imperial period the proper triumph was reserved for the emperor and his family. If a general was awarded a triumph by the emperor, he would march with a token number of his troops.
4. In the Republican period, the senate had to give approval for a triumph based on the above mentioned requirements.
Internal conflicts (civil wars) did not, at least in theory, merit triumphs. The defeated enemy had to be of equal status, so defeating a slave revolt could therefore not earn a triumph.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_tr...
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(Not to be confused with his father, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known as "Pompey the Great.")
Gnaeus Pompeius (ca. 75 BC – April 12, 45 BC), also known as Pompey the Younger (sometimes spelled Cneius, Gneius), was a Roman politician and general from the late Republic (1st century BC).
Gnaeus Pompeius was the elder son of Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) by his third wife, Mucia Tertia. Both he and his younger brother Sextus Pompey grew up in the shadow of their father, one of Rome's best generals and not originally a conservative politician who drifted to the more traditional faction when Julius Caesar became a threat. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, thus starting a civil war, Gnaeus followed his father in their escape to the East, as did most of the conservative senators. Pompey's army lost the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, and Pompey himself had to run for his life, only to be murdered in Egypt on September 29 of the same year.
After the murder, Gnaeus and his brother Sextus joined the resistance against Caesar in the Africa Province. Together with Metellus Scipio, Cato the Younger and other senators, they prepared to oppose Caesar and his army to the end. Caesar defeated Metellus Scipio and Cato, who subsequently committed suicide, at the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC. Gnaeus escaped once again, this time to the Balearic Islands, where he joined Sextus. Together with Titus Labienus, former general in Caesar's army, the Pompey brothers crossed over to Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal), where they raised yet another army.
Caesar soon followed and, on March 17, 45 BC, the armies met in the Battle of Munda. Both armies were large and led by able generals. The battle was closely fought, but eventually a cavalry charge by Caesar turned events to his side. In the battle and the panicked escape that followed, Titus Labienus and an estimated 30,000 men of the Pompeian side died. Gnaeus and Sextus managed to escape once again. However, this time, supporters were difficult to find because it was by now clear Caesar had won the civil war. Within a few weeks, Gnaeus Pompeius was caught and executed by Lucius Caesennius Lento for treason. Sextus Pompeius was able to keep one step ahead of his enemies, and survived his brother for yet another decade.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnaeus_P...
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Sextus Pompeius was the youngest son of Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) by his third wife, Mucia Tertia. His older brother was Gnaeus Pompeius, from the same mother. Both boys grew up in the shadow of their father, one of Rome's best generals and an originally non-conservative politician who drifted to the more traditional faction when Julius Caesar became a threat.
When Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, thus starting a civil war, Sextus' older brother Gnaeus followed their father in his escape to the East, as did most of the conservative senators. Sextus stayed in Rome in the care of his stepmother, Cornelia Metella. Pompey's army lost the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC and Pompey himself had to run for his life. Cornelia and Sextus met him in the island of Lesbos and together they fled to Egypt. On the arrival, Sextus watched his father being killed by treachery on September 29 of the same year. After the murder, Cornelia returned to Rome, but in the following years Sextus joined the resistance against Caesar in the African provinces. Together with Metellus Scipio, Cato the Younger, his brother Gnaeus and other senators, they prepared to oppose Caesar and his army to the end.
Caesar won the first battle at Thapsus in 46 BC against Metellus Scipio and Cato, who committed suicide. In 45 BC, Caesar managed to defeat the Pompeius brothers in the Battle of Munda, in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal). Gnaeus Pompeius was executed, but young Sextus escaped once more, this time to Sicily.
Back in Rome, Julius Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March (March 15) 44 BC by a group of senators led by Cassius and Brutus. This incident did not lead to a return to normality, but provoked yet another civil war between Caesar's political heirs and his assassins. The Second Triumvirate was formed by Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus, with the intention of avenging Caesar and subduing all opposition. Sextus Pompeius in Sicily was certainly a rebellious man, but the Cassius and Brutus faction was the second triumvirate's first priority. Thus, with the whole island as his base, Sextus had the time and resources to develop an army and, even more importantly, a strong navy operated by Sicilian marines.
Brutus and Cassius lost the twin battles of Philippi and committed suicide in 42 BC. After this, the triumvirs turned their attentions to Sicily and Sextus.
But by this time, Sextus was prepared for strong resistance. In the following years, military confrontations failed to return a conclusive victory for either side, although in 40 BC Sextus' admiral, the freedman Menas, seized Sardinia from Octavian's governor Marcus Lurius. In 39 BC, Sextus and the triumvirs signed for peace in the Pact of Misenum. The reason for this peace treaty was the anticipated campaign against the Parthian Empire. Antony, the leader, needed all the legions he could get so it was useful to secure an armistice on the Sicilian front.
The peace did not last for long. Octavian and Antony's frequent quarrels were a strong political motivation for resuming the war against Sextus. Octavian tried again to conquer Sicily, but he was defeated in the naval battle of Messina (37 BC) and again in August 36 BC. But Octavian had Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a very talented general, on his side. In addition, the third triumvir, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, raised 14 legions in his African provinces to help defeat Pompey. Only a month afterwards, Agrippa destroyed Sextus' navy off Naulochus cape. Sextus escaped to Asia Minor and, by abandoning Sicily, lost his only base of support.
Sextus Pompeius was caught in Miletus in 35 BC and executed without trial (an illegal act since Sextus was a Roman citizen) by order of Marcus Titius, Antony's minion. His violent death would be one of the weapons used by Octavian against Antony several years later, when the situation between the two reached a boiling point.
Sextus had married Scribonia, a distant relative of his. Scribonia was the daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo, consul of 34 BC. Sextus and Scribonia had a daughter and only child called Pompeia Magna.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextus_P...
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Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (c. 23 October or November 64/63 BC – 12 BC) was a Roman statesman and general. He was a close friend, son-in-law, lieutenant and defence minister to Octavian, the future Emperor Caesar Augustus and father-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, maternal grandfather of the Emperor Caligula, and maternal great-grandfather of the Emperor Nero. He was responsible for most of Octavian’s military victories, most notably winning the naval Battle of Actium against the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII of Egypt.
Early life
Agrippa was born between 23 October and 23 November in 64–62 BC, in an uncertain location. His father was perhaps called Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa. He had an elder brother whose name was also Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa, and a sister named Vipsania Polla. The family had not been prominent in Roman public life. However, Agrippa was about the same age as Octavian (the future emperor Augustus), and the two were educated together and became close friends. Despite Agrippa's association with the family of Julius Caesar, his elder brother chose another side in the civil wars of the 40s BC, fighting under Cato against Caesar in Africa. When Cato's forces were defeated, Agrippa's brother was taken prisoner but freed after Octavian interceded on his behalf.
It is not known whether Agrippa fought against his brother in Africa, but he probably served in Caesar's campaign of 46–45 BC against Gnaeus Pompeius, which culminated in the Battle of Munda. Caesar regarded him highly enough to send him with Octavius in 45 BC to study in Apollonia with the Macedonian legions, while Caesar consolidated his power in Rome. It was in the fourth month of their stay in Apollonia that the news of Julius Caesar's assassination in March 44 BC reached them. Agrippa and another friend, Quintus Salvidienus Rufus, advised Octavius to march on Rome with the troops from Macedonia, but Octavius decided to sail to Italy with a small retinue. After his arrival, he learnt that Caesar had adopted him as his legal heir. Octavius at this time took Caesar's name, but is referred to by modern historians as "Octavian" during this period.
Rise in power
After Octavian's return to Rome, he and his supporters realised they needed the support of legions. Agrippa helped Octavian to levy troops in Campania. Once Octavian had his legions, he made a pact with Mark Antony and Lepidus, legally established in 43 BC as the Second Triumvirate. Octavian and his consular colleague Quintus Pedius arranged for Caesar's assassins to be prosecuted in their absence, and Agrippa was entrusted with the case against Gaius Cassius Longinus. It may have been in the same year that Agrippa began his political career, holding the position of Tribune of the Plebs, which granted him entry to the Senate.
In 42 BC, Agrippa probably fought alongside Octavian and Antony in the Battle of Philippi. After their return to Rome, he played a major role in Octavian's war against Lucius Antonius and Fulvia Antonia, respectively the brother and wife of Mark Antony, which began in 41 BC and ended in the capture of Perusia in 40 BC. However, Salvidienus remained Octavian's main general at this time. After the Perusine war, Octavian departed for Gaul, leaving Agrippa as urban praetor in Rome with instructions to defend Italy against Sextus Pompeius, an opponent of the Triumvirate who was now occupying Sicily. In July 40, while Agrippa was occupied with the Ludi Apollinares that were the praetor's responsibility, Sextus began a raid in southern Italy. Agrippa advanced on him, forcing him to withdraw. However, the Triumvirate proved unstable, and in August 40 both Sextus and Antony invaded Italy (but not in an organized alliance). Agrippa's success in retaking Sipontum from Antony helped bring an end to the conflict. Agrippa was among the intermediaries through whom Antony and Octavian agreed once more upon peace. During the discussions Octavian learned that Salvidienus had offered to betray him to Antony, with the result that Salvidienus was prosecuted and either executed or committed suicide. Agrippa was now Octavian's leading general.
In 39 or 38 BC, Octavian appointed Agrippa governor of Transalpine Gaul, where in 38 he put down a rising of the Aquitanians. He also fought the Germanic tribes, becoming the next Roman general to cross the Rhine after Julius Caesar. He was summoned back to Rome by Octavian to assume the consulship for 37 BC. He was well below the usual minimum age of 43, but Octavian had suffered a humiliating naval defeat against Sextus Pompey and needed his friend to oversee the preparations for further warfare. Agrippa refused the offer of a triumph for his exploits in Gaul – on the grounds, says Dio, that he thought it improper to celebrate during a time of trouble for Octavian. Since Sextus Pompeius had command of the sea on the coasts of Italy, Agrippa's first care was to provide a safe harbour for his ships. He accomplished this by cutting through the strips of land which separated the Lacus Lucrinus from the sea, thus forming an outer harbour, while joining the lake Avernus to the Lucrinus to serve as an inner harbor. The new harbor-complex was named Portus Julius in Octavian's honour. Agrippa was also responsible for technological improvements, including larger ships and an improved form of grappling hook. About this time, he married Caecilia Pomponia Attica, daughter of Cicero's friend Titus Pomponius Atticus.
In 36 BC, Octavian and Agrippa set sail against Sextus. The fleet was badly damaged by storms and had to withdraw; Agrippa was left in charge of the second attempt. Thanks to superior technology and training, Agrippa and his men won decisive victories at Mylae and Naulochus, destroying all but seventeen of Sextus' ships and compelling most of his forces to surrender. Octavian, with his power increased, forced the triumvir Lepidus into retirement and entered Rome in triumph. Agrippa received the unprecedented honour of a naval crown decorated with the beaks of ships; as Dio remarks, this was "a decoration given to nobody before or since".
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_V...
(there's more on his later life in this article)
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The Battle of Munda took place on March 17, 45 BC in the plains of Munda, modern southern Spain. This was the last battle of Julius Caesar's civil war against the republican armies of the Optimate leaders. After this victory, and the deaths of Titus Labienus and Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey's oldest son), Caesar was free to return to Rome and govern as dictator.
His subsequent assassination began the process that eventually led to the end of the Roman Republic with the reign of his great-nephew and adopted heir, Augustus (Octavius), as the first Roman Emperor.
Prelude
The conservative republicans had initially been led by Pompey, until the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC and Pompey's death soon afterwards. However, in April 46 BC, Caesar's forces destroyed the Pompeian army at the Battle of Thapsus.
After this, military opposition to Caesar was confined to Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal). During the Spring of 46 BC two legions in Hispania Ulterior, largely formed by former Pompeian veterans enrolled in Caesar’s army, had declared themselves for Gnaeus Pompeius (son of Pompey the Great) and driven out Caesar’s proconsul. Soon they were joined by the remains of the Pompeian army. These forces were commanded by the brothers Gnaeus Pompeius and Sextus (sons of Pompey) and by the talented general Titus Labienus, who had been one of the most trusted of Caesar’s generals during the Gallic wars. Using the resources of the province they were able to raise an army of three legions. These were the two original veteran legions, and one additional legion recruited from Roman citizens and local inhabitants in Hispania. They took control of almost all Hispania Ulterior, including the important Roman colonies of Italica and Corduba (the capital of the province). Caesar’s generals Quintus Fabius Maximus and Quintus Pedius did not risk a battle and remained encamped at Oculbo, about 35 miles (56 km) east of Corduba, requesting help from Caesar.
Thus, Caesar was forced to move from Rome to Hispania to deal with the Pompeius brothers. He brought two trusted veteran legions (X Equestris and V Alaudae) and some newer legions (including III Gallica and VI Ferrata), but in the main was forced to rely on the recruits already present in Hispania. Caesar covered the 1,500 miles (2,400 km) from Rome to Obulco in less than one month, arriving in early December (he immediately wrote a short poem, Iter, describing this journey). Caesar had called for his great-nephew Octavian to join him, but due to his health Octavian was only able to reach him after the conclusion of the campaign. Capitalizing on his surprise arrival Caesar was able to relieve the stronghold of Ulipia (a town which had remained loyal to him and had been unsuccessfully besieged by Gnaeus Pompeius) but was unable to take Corduba, which was defended by Sextus Pompeius. Under Labienus’ advice, Gnaeus Pompeius decided to avoid an open battle, and Caesar was forced to wage a winter campaign, while procuring food and shelter for his army. After a short siege, Caesar took the fortified city of Ategua; this was an important blow to the Pompeian confidence and morale, and some of the native allies started to desert to Caesar. Another skirmish near Soricaria on March 7 went in Caesar's favor; many Romans in the Pompeian camp began planning to defect and Gnaeus Pompeius was forced to abandon his delaying tactics and offer battle.
Battle
The two armies met in the plains of Munda in southern Spain. The Pompeian army was situated on a gentle hill, less than one mile (1.6 km) from the walls of Munda, in a defensible position. Caesar led a total of eight legions (80 cohorts), with 8,000 horsemen, while Pompeius commanded thirteen legions, 6,000 light-infantrymen and about 6,000 horsemen. Many of the Republican soldiers had already surrendered to Caesar in previous campaigns and had then deserted his army to rejoin Pompeius: they would fight with desperation, fearing that they would not be pardoned a second time (indeed Caesar had executed prisoners at his last major victory, at Thapsus). After an unsuccessful ploy designed to lure the Pompeians down the hill, Caesar ordered a frontal attack (with the watchword "Venus", the goddess reputed to be his ancestor).
The fighting lasted for some time without a clear advantage for either side, causing the generals to leave their commanding positions and join the ranks. As Caesar himself later said he had fought many times for victory, but at Munda he had to fight for his life. Caesar took command of his right wing, where his favorite Legio X Equestris was involved in heavy fighting. With Caesar’s inspiration the tenth legion began to push back Pompeius' forces. Aware of the danger, Gnaeus Pompeius removed a legion from his own right wing to reinforce the threatened left wing. However, as soon as the Pompeian right wing was thus weakened, Caesar's cavalry launched a decisive attack which turned the course of the battle. King Bogud of Mauritania and his cavalry, Caesar's allies, attacked the rear of the Pompeian camp. Titus Labienus, commander of the Pompeian cavalry, saw this maneuver and moved to intercept them. Unfortunately for Pompeius, his legionaries misinterpreted the situation. Already under heavy pressure on both the left (from Legio X) and right wings (the cavalry charge), they thought Labienus was retreating. The Pompeian legions broke their lines and fled in disorder. Although some were able to find refuge within the walls of Munda, many more were killed in the rout. At the end of the battle there were about 30,000 Pompeians dead on the field; losses on Caesar’s side were much lighter, only about 1,000. All thirteen standards of the Pompeian legions were captured, a sign of complete disbandment. Titus Labienus died on the field and was granted a burial by Caesar, while Gnaeus and Sextus Pompeius managed to escape from the battlefield.
What is clear is that the Munda conflict was no mop-up operation. Tens of thousands of Romans died at Munda, where Caesar fought for his life among the ranks. About one month after defeat, Gnaeus was captured and executed. His brother Sextus survived to initiate another rebellion, on Sicily, where he was finally defeated by Marcus Agrippa and executed in Asia in 35 BC by Mark Antony, ten years after Munda.
Aftermath
Caesar left his legate Quintus Fabius Maximus to besiege Munda and moved to pacify the province. Corduba surrendered: men in arms present in the town (mostly armed slaves) were executed and the city was forced to pay a heavy indemnity. The city of Munda held out for some time, but, after an unsuccessful attempt to break the siege, surrendered, with 14,000 prisoners taken. Gaius Didius, a naval commander loyal to Caesar, hunted down most of the Pompeian ships. Gnaeus Pompeius looked for refuge on land, but was soon taken and executed.
Although Sextus Pompeius remained at large, after Munda there were no more conservative armies challenging Caesar’s dominion. Upon his return to Rome, according to Plutarch, the "triumph which he celebrated for this victory displeased the Romans beyond any thing. For he had not defeated foreign generals, or barbarian kings, but had destroyed the children and family of one of the greatest men of Rome." Caesar was made dictator for life, though his success was short-lived; Caesar was murdered on March 15 of the following year (44 BC) by the next generation of statesmen, led by Brutus and Cassius.
Localization
The exact location of Munda has remained a mystery for a long time. Some Spanish historians asserted that Munda was the Roman name for modern-day Ronda, where the battle of Munda may have been fought. Other early researchers localized the battle in various other places, e.g. near Monda or Montilla, the latter having been proposed on the basis of on an earlier localization attempt that was only meant to honor a member of the French royal house, who was born in Montilla. Other experts asserted that Munda was fought just outside of Osuna, in the province of Seville. This was corroborated by ancient slingshot bullets from the battle that were excavated near La Lantejuela, halfway between Osuna and Écija. The theory is further supported by ancient inscriptions found in Écija and Osuna that honor the town of Astigi (Écija) for standing firmly on Caesar's side during the battle. Therefore the Battle of Munda probably took place on the Cerro de las Balas and the Llanos del Aguila near La Lantejuela. However, the exact location of the battle still remains controversial among archaeologists.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o...
(There's a map in this article, but I wasn't able to copy it into this posting.)
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Quintus Salvidienus Rufus was a Roman general and one of the closest advisors of Octavian during the early years of his political activity.
Despite his humble origin he was one of Octavian’s best friends, together with Marcus Agrippa. Salvidienus and Agrippa were with Octavian at Apollonia at the time of the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. He became one of the most trusted of Octavian’s generals during the civil wars following Caesar’s death. In 42 BC he commanded the fleet of Octavian against Sextus Pompeius, who had taken control of Sicily and was harassing the coasts of Italy. However, Salvidienus was defeated in a naval battle fought off Rhegium, largely because of the inexperience of his crews. On Octavian's return from Greece after the Battle of Philippi, Salvidienus was sent to Spain with six legions, but he hastily retreated to Italy to oppose Lucius Antonius and Fulvia (Antony's wife), who had taken up arms against Octavian, starting the so-called Perusian War. Salvidienus captured and destroyed the city of Sentinum and then, with Agrippa, surrounded Lucius Antonius's forces in Perusia. The other Antonine generals, who had no clear orders from Antony, remained out of the struggle and Lucius Antonius was forced to surrender after a few months of siege (Winter 40 BC). After the end of the Perusian War Octavian sent Salvidienus to Gallia as a governor, with a large army of eleven legions. He was also designated as consul for 39 BC, although he had not reached senatorial rank. Despite all these honours, when Antony came from the East with large forces to confront Octavian, Salvidienus offered to desert to Antony with his legions. Apparently this proposal came after Antony had already made an agreement with Octavian (the Pact of Brundisium). Antony revealed to Octavian the treachery of Salvidienus, who was accused of high treason in the senate and condemned to death in the Fall 40 BC. He was either executed or committed suicide, as reported by Livy.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvidi...
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Quintus Pedius (died late 43 BC) was a Roman who lived during the late Roman Republic. He was the son of a Marcus or Quintus Pedius and nephew or great nephew of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar.
Pedius in 57 BC served as a general during Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. In 55 BC, he lost an election for the office of aedile.
During the Roman Civil War between Caesar and Pompey in 49 BC, Pedius allied himself with Caesar. In 48 BC, Pedius was promoted to the praetorship in Rome. In that same year, he commanded a legion and successfully quelled an anti-Caesarean uprising at Compsa, resulting in the deaths of both Marcus Caelius Rufus and Titus Annius Milo, who had been leading the ill-fated revolt. In early 45 BC, Pedius served as a legatus against Sextus Pompeius in Spain. Pedius claimed victory against Sextus Pompeius and returned to Rome with Caesar. Caesar honored him with a triumph parade and gave him the title of proconsul.
Caesar was assassinated in Rome of March 44 BC. In Caesar’s will, Pedius was named as one of his heirs. Like his cousin Lucius Pinarius, he was to receive one eighth of Caesar’s legacy, but he renounced the inheritance in favor of Caesar’s main heir, Pedius’ cousin Octavian (future Roman Emperor Augustus). In August 43 BC, Octavian with Pedius were elected as consuls after marching on Rome with an army.
During the consulship, Pedius created a law called the Lex Pedia or Pedian Law, which punished all the murderers of Caesar or those who called for Caesar’s death. Pedius was left in charge of Rome, while his colleague and cousin left for Northern Italy to join Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, in forming the Second Triumvirate.
The Senate approved of his law. Not so long afterwards at Bononia, the Second Triumvirate was formed. When news reached Rome of the new power pact between Octavian, Antony and Lepidus and their lists of people whom they would put to death, Pedius became very concerned. Pedius was unable to stop the events from occurring and recommended only seventeen people to be put to death. Out of concern, he pledged to protect the citizens of Rome. Not so long after, Pedius had suffered so much political fatigue he died.
Pedius married a Roman noblewoman called Valeria, who was related (perhaps a sister) to the Roman consul, senator and orator Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Pedius and Valeria had at least one child, a son named Quintus Pedius Publicola. Publicola became a Roman senator, who distinguished himself with his oratory.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_...
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Lucius Pinarius Scarpus (flourished 1st century BC) was a Roman that lived in the late Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire.
According to Suetonius, Pinarius was a great nephew of dictator Gaius Julius Caesar through one his sisters (sororum nepotes). His cousins were consul Quintus Pedius, Octavia Minor (the fourth wife of Triumvir Mark Antony) and Octavian (future first Roman Emperor Augustus).
His father was a member of the gens Pinaria, an ancient, distinguished family of patrician status. The family can be traced to the foundations of Rome. Various members of the gens served as priests and were among the first to serve as consuls in the republic.
Little is known on Scarpus' early life. He is first mentioned in the ancient sources when Caesar was assassinated in Rome in March 44 BC. In the will of Caesar, Scarpus received one eighth of the property of the dictator, the same amount as Pedius. The main heir of Caesar was Octavian, who received three quarters of the property of his great uncle. But Scarpus and Pedius also assigned their inheritance to Octavian.
Scarpus became an ally to Mark Antony and commanded for him in the war against the murderers of Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. In the years leading up to the Final War of the Roman Republic, in Actium Greece 31 BC, Antony appointed Scarpus to the military command of Cyrenaica. Scarpus had with him four legions to command. During his time in Cyrenaica Scarpus had control of the currency mint in Cyrene, as he became a moneyer. Scarpus had issued various coins bearing Antony’s name and Scarpus’ name was inscripted as an issuer of these coins.
After Antony and his lover, the Ptolemaic Greek Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, were defeated by Octavian at Actium (September 2, 31 BC), they sailed back to North Africa. Antony sent messengers to Scarpus for help. But Scarpus refused to see Antony’s messengers and put them to death. Instead he changed sides. He gave his legions to Gaius Cornelius Gallus, Octavian’s lieutenant, to command. While Octavian marched from the East through Asia, Syria and Judea against Egypt, Cornelius Gallus advanced with Scarpus’ legions from the west against Alexandria.
When Antony and Cleopatra died, Octavian became the new Roman master and then emperor. Augustus had appointed his cousin as the Roman governor of Cyrenaica. Scarpus as he did for Antony, became a moneyer and had issued various coins bearing Augustus’ name. On these coins, Scarpus had his name inscripted as an issuer of the coins. Beyond this, nothing is known on Scarpus.
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Porcia Catonis (c.70 BC – June 43 BC (or October 42 BC), (Porcia "of Cato", in full Porcia Catonis filia, "Porcia the daughter of Cato") also known simply as Porcia, occasionally spelt "Portia" especially in 18th-century English literature, was a Roman woman who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticencis and his first wife Atilia. She is best known for being the second wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Julius Caesar's assassins, and for her suicide, reputedly by swallowing live coals.
Early life
Porcia was born between 73 BC and 64 BC. She had an affectionate nature, was addicted to philosophy and was full of an understanding courage. Plutarch describes her as being prime of youth and beauty. When she was still very young, her father divorced her mother for adultery.
At a young age she was married first to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, her father's political ally. This marriage occurred between 58 BC and 53 BC. With him she may have had a son, Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus, although modern historians believe Porcia was too young to have mothered Lucius, and that he was Bibulus' son by his previous marriage, as he was old enough to fight in the battle of Philippi in 42 BC. He died in 32 BC.
A few years later, Quintus Hortensius desired to make an alliance with Cato and asked for Porcia's hand in marriage. However, Bibulus, who was infatuated with his wife, was unwilling to let her go. Hortensius offered to marry her and then return her to Bibulus once she had given birth to an heir. Such an arrangement was not uncommon at the time. He argued that it was against natural law to keep a girl of Porcia's youth and beauty from producing children for his allies and impractical for her to overproduce for Bibulus. Nonetheless Bibulus refused to divorce her and Cato disliked the idea of marrying his daughter to a man who was four times her age. Instead, Cato divorced his wife, Porcia's stepmother Marcia, and gave her to Hortensius; he re-married her after Hortensius died.
In 52 BC, Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars came to an end, but he refused to return to Rome, despite the Senate's demands that he lay down his arms. Cato personally detested Caesar, and was his greatest enemy in the Senate; Cato's political faction, the Optimates (also known as the Boni), believed that Caesar should return to Rome, in order for the Optimates to strip him of his property and dignitas, and permanently exile Caesar. In 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army, thus declaring war, beginning the Great Roman Civil War. Both Cato and Bibulus allied with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus against Caesar. Though both Boni hated Pompey, he did not pose the threat to their faction that Caesar did. Bibulus commanded Pompey's navy in the Adriatic Sea. He captured a part of Caesar's fleet, although this was a generally insignificant as Caesar went on to decisively defeat Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus. Bibulus died in 48 BC following Pompey's defeat, leaving Porcia a widow.
In 46 BC, Cato committed suicide following his defeat in the battle of Thapsus while Marcus Cato, Porcia's brother, was pardoned by Caesar and returned to Rome.
Marriage to Brutus
Following her father's death in June 45 BC, Brutus, Porcia's first cousin, divorced his wife Claudia Pulchra and married Porcia when she was still very young. The marriage was scandalous as Brutus did not state any reasons for divorce despite having been married to Claudia for many years. Claudia was very popular for being a woman of great virtue, and was the daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, who had been Brutus' ally for many years. She was also related to Pompey by marriage through her younger sister. The divorce was not well received by some including Brutus' mother, Servilia Caepionis who despised her half-brother, and appears to have been jealous of Brutus' affection for Porcia. Therefore, Servilia supported Claudia's interests against those of Porcia.
On the other hand, Porcia was highly favoured with the followers of both Pompey and Cato, so the marriage was favoured by people such as Marcus Tullius Cicero and Titus Pomponius Atticus. The marriage was Brutus' way of honouring his uncle. Nonetheless, it appears that Porcia deeply loved Brutus and was utterly devoted to him. She resolved not to inquire into Brutus' secrets before she had made a trial of herself and that she would bid defiance to pain. She and Brutus had a son, who died in 43 BC.
Brutus, along with many other co-conspirators, murdered Caesar in 44 BC. He confided in Porcia of the plot to assassinate Caesar, and some credit her as being the only woman aware of the plot. Some historians believe Porcia might have been involved in the conspiracy itself. Plutarch claims that she happened upon Brutus while he was pondering over what to do about Caesar and asked him what was wrong. When he didn't answer, she suspected that he distrusted her on account of her being a woman, for fear she might reveal something, however unwillingly, under torture. In order to prove herself to him, she secretly inflicted a wound upon her own thigh with a barber's knife to see if she could endure the pain. As a result of the wound, she suffered from violent pains, chills and fever. Some believe that she endured the pain of her untreated wound for at least a day. As soon as she overcame her pain, she returned to Brutus and said: "You, my husband, though you trusted my spirit that it would not betray you, nevertheless were distrustful of my body, and your feeling was but human. But I found that my body also can keep silence... Therefore fear not, but tell me all you are concealing from me, for neither fire, nor lashes, nor goads will force me to divulge a word; I was not born to that extent a woman. Hence, if you still distrust me, it is better for me to die than to live; otherwise let no one think me longer the daughter of Cato or your wife." Brutus marveled when he saw the gash on her thigh and after hearing this he no longer hid anything from her, but felt strengthened himself and related to her the whole plot. Lifting his hands above him, he is said to have prayed that he might succeed in his undertaking and thus show himself a worthy husband. On the day of Caesar's assassination, Porcia was extremely disturbed with anxiety and sent messengers to the Senate to check that Brutus was still alive. She worked herself up to the point whereupon her fainting, her maids feared that she was dying.
When Brutus and the other assassins fled Rome to Athens, it was agreed that Porcia should stay in Italy. Porcia was overcome with grief to part from Brutus, but tried hard to conceal it. However, when she came across a painting depicting the parting of Hector from Andromache in the Iliad, she burst into tears. Brutus' friend Acilius heard of this, and quoted Homer where Andromache speaks to Hector:
'"But Hector, you to me are father and are mother too, my brother, and my loving husband true." Brutus smiled, saying he would never say to Porcia what Hector said to Andromache in return (Ply loom and distaff and give orders to thy maids), saying of Porcia: "...Though the natural weakness of her body hinders her from doing what only the strength of men can perform, she has a mind as valiant and as active for the good of her country as the best of us."'
Death
Porcia's death has been a fixation for many historians and writers. It was believed by a majority of the contemporary historians that Porcia committed suicide in 42 BC, reputedly by swallowing live coals. However modern historians find this tale implausible. (One popular speculation has Porcia taking her life by burning charcoal in an unventilated room and thus succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning.)
The exact timing of her death is also a problem. Most contemporary historians (Cassius Dio, Valerius Maximus, and Appian) claim that she killed herself after hearing that Brutus had died following the second battle of Philippi. However, Nicolaus says it happened before Brutus' death, saying she died following the first battle of Philippi, claiming that she only thought he was dead, and that Brutus wrote a letter to their friends in Rome, blaming them for Porcia's suicide. However, Plutarch dismisses Nicolaus' claims of a letter stating that too much was disclosed in the letter for it to be genuine. Plutarch also repeats the story of swallowing charcoal, but disbelieves it:
"As for Porcia, the wife of Brutus, Nicolaüs the philosopher, as well as Valerius Maximus, relates that she now desired to die, but was opposed by all her friends, who kept strict watch upon her; whereupon she snatched up live coals from the fire, swallowed them, kept her mouth fast closed, and thus made away with herself. And yet there is extant a letter of Brutus to his friends in which he chides them with regard to Porcia and laments her fate, because she was neglected by them and therefore driven by illness to prefer death to life. It would seem, then, that Nicolaüs was mistaken in the time of her death, since her distemper, her love for Brutus, and the manner of her death, are also indicated in the letter, if, indeed, it is a genuine one."
According to the political journalist and classicist Garry Wills, although Shakespeare has Porcia die by the method Plutarch repeats, but rejects, "the historical Porcia died of illness (possibly of plague) a year before the battle of Philippi"...“but Valerius Maximus [mistakenly] wrote that she killed herself at news of Brutus’s death in that battle. This was the version of the story celebrated in works like Martial's Epigram 1.42." The claim that Porcia's death occurred before that of Brutus is backed up by a letter sent by Cicero. This letter would have been sent in late June or early July 43 BC, before either battle of Philippi. It further suggests that Porcia did not commit suicide, but died of some lingering illness. As Plutarch states, if the letter was genuine Brutus lamented her death and blamed their friends for not looking after her. There is also an earlier letter from Brutus to Atticus, which hints at Porcia's illness and compliments him for taking care of her. Cicero later wrote his surviving letter to Brutus, consoling him in his grief. This is probably the most accurate account of Porcia's death.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porcia_C...
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In the Roman Republic, the dictator (“one who dictates”), was an extraordinary magistrate (magistratus extraordinarius) with the absolute authority to perform tasks beyond the authority of the ordinary magistrate (magistratus ordinarius). The office of dictator was a legal innovation originally named Magister Populi (Master of the People), i.e., Master of the Citizen Army.
The Roman Senate passed a senatus consultum authorizing the consuls to nominate a dictator — the sole exception to the Roman legal principles of collegiality (multiple tenants in the same office) and responsibility (legal liability for official actions) — only one man was appointed, and, as the highest magistrate, he was not legally liable for official actions; 24 lictors attended him. Only a single dictator was allowed, because of the imperium magnum, the great, extraordinary power with which he could over-rule, or depose from office, or put to death other curule magistrates, also possessed of imperium.
There were several forms of dictator, distinguished by their causa, or reason for their creation. The most common form, and the one most associated with the Roman dictator, was rei gerundae causa, "for the matter to be done," which almost always involved leading an army in the field and specified the enemy to be combated. At least one dictator (and possibly more) was designated seditionis sedandae et rei gerundae causa, "for the putting down of rebellion and the matter to be done." Dictators were also appointed to serve administrative or religious functions, such as holding elections (comitiorum habendorum causa, the second most common form of dictatorship) or driving a nail into the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus to end a pestilence (clavi figendi causa).
Rome ceased to appoint dictators around the time of the Second Punic War. The office was revived during the Roman Civil War by Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, who was appointed dictator legibus faciendis et rei publicae constituendae causa (dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution). Julius Caesar was also named dictator on several occasions. The Roman emperors eschewed use of the title to avoid the opprobrium it attracted as the result of these last two dictators.
Powers and abilities
As soon as the Dictator was appointed, he became the chief executive and supreme military commander of the Republic. The regular magistrates - with the exception of the Tribune of the Plebs - became subject to the higher imperium of the Dictator. They continued to discharge the duties of their various offices under the Dictator, but they were no longer independent officers and were obliged to obey his orders in every circumstance. Failure to do so could result in the dictator forcing the magistrate out of office.
The superiority of the Dictator's power to that of the consuls consisted chiefly of greater independence from the Senate, more extensive power of punishment without a trial by the people, and complete immunity from being held accountable for his actions. However, what gave the dictator such great control over Rome was his lack of a colleague to counter him. Unlike the Consuls, who were required to cooperate with the Senate, the Dictator could act on his own authority without the Senate, though the Dictator would usually act in unison with the Senate all the same. There was no appeal from the sentence of the Dictator (unless the dictator changed his mind), and accordingly the lictors bore the axes in the fasces before them even in the city, as a symbol of their absolute power over the lives of the citizens.
The Dictator's imperium granted him the powers to rule by decree and to change any Roman law as he saw fit, and these changes lasted as long as the Dictator remained in power. He could introduce new laws into the Roman constitution which did not require ratification by any of the Roman assemblies, but were often put to a vote all the same. An example would be Sulla's introduction of the dreaded proscription. Likewise, a dictator could act as a supreme judge, with no appeal for his decisions. These judicial powers made the Dictator the supreme authority in both military and civil affairs.
The relationship between the Dictator and the Tribunes of the Plebs is not entirely certain. The Tribune was the only magistrate to continue his independence of office during a dictatorship while the other magistrates served the dictator as officers. However, there is no reason to believe that they had any control over a dictator, or could hamper his proceedings by their power to veto, as they could in the case of the Consuls. This is believed to be explained by the fact that the law that created the dictatorship was passed before the institution of the Tribune of the Plebs, and consequently made no mention of it.
Any magistrate owning imperium was not accountable for his actions as long as he continued to serve in an office that owned imperium. However, once a magistrate left office, he could face trial for his illegal deeds after the imperium had expired. This was not the case with the Dictator. The Dictator was untouchable during his time in office, but was also not liable to be called to account for any of his official acts, illegal or otherwise, after his abdication of office. The dictator's actions were treated as though they never occurred (at least legally).
Magister Equitum
Along with the Dictator there was always a Magister Equitum ("Master of the Horse"), to serve as the Dictator's most senior official. The appointment of the Magister Equitum was left to the choice of the Dictator, unless the senatus consultum specified, as was sometimes the case, the name of the person who was to be appointed. The Dictator could not be without a Magister Equitum to assist him, and, consequently, if the first Magister Equitum died during the six months of the dictatorship, another had to be nominated in his stead. The Magister Equitum was granted Praetorian imperium, thus was subject to the imperium of the Dictator, but in the Dictator’s absence, he became his representative, and exercised the same powers as the Dictator.
The imperium of the Magister Equitum was not regarded as superior to that of a Consul, but rather a par with a Praetor. It was usually considered necessary that the person who was to be nominated Magister Equitum should previously have been Praetor, but this was not regularly followed. Accordingly, the Magister Equitum had the insignia of a praetor: the toga praetexta and an escort of six lictors. The Magister Equitum was originally, as his name implies, the commander of the cavalry, while the Dictator was at the head of the legions: the infantry. When the Dictator left office, the office of master of the horse immediately ceased to exist.
Replacement of the dictatorate
Dictators were only appointed so long as the Romans had to carry on wars in Italy. A solitary instance occurs in the First Punic War of the nomination of a dictator (Aulus Atilius Calatinus), for the purpose of carrying on war out of Italy; but this was never repeated, because it was feared that so great a power might become dangerous at a distance from Rome. But after the Battle of Trasimene in 217 BC, when Rome itself was threatened by Hannibal, a Dictator was again needed, and Fabius Maximus was appointed to the office.
In the next year, 216 BC, after the battle of Cannae, Marcus Junius Pera was also nominated Dictator, but this was the last time of the appointment of a Dictator rei gerundae causa. From 202 BC on, the dictatorship disappears altogether. It was replaced by the Senatus consultum ultimum, an emergency act of the Senate that authorized the two consuls to take whatever actions were needed to defend the Republic. The best known dictatores rei gerundae causa were Fabius Maximus (during the Second Punic War) and Cincinnatus.
A new dictatorate and abolition
In 82 BC, after a 120-year lapse, and the end of the civil war between the forces of Marius and Sulla, the latter was appointed by the Senate to an entirely new office, dictator legibus faciendis et rei publicae constituendae ("dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution"). This new office was functionally identical to the dictatorate rei gerundae causa except that it lacked any set time limit. Sulla held this office for about a year before he abdicated and retired from public life.
Gaius Julius Caesar subsequently resurrected the dictatorate rei gerundae causa in his first dictatorship, then modified it to a full year term. He was appointed dictator rei gerundae causa for a full year in 46 BC and then designated for nine consecutive one-year terms in that office thereafter, functionally becoming dictator for ten years. A year later, this pretense was discarded altogether and the Senate voted to make him Dictator perpetuo (usually rendered in English as "dictator for life", but properly meaning "dictator in perpetuity"). Neither the magistrate who nominated Sulla, nor the time for which he was appointed, nor the extent or the exercise of his power was in accordance with the ancient laws and precedents, as is the case with the dictatorship of Caesar.
After Caesar's murder on the Ides of March, his consular colleague Mark Antony introduced the lex Antonia which abolished the dictatorship. The office was later offered to Augustus, who declined it, and opted instead for tribunician power and consular imperium without holding any magisterial office other than imperator and princeps Senatus — a politic arrangement which left him as functional dictator without having to hold the controversial title. This novel - though not unconstitutional - arrangement of offices and powers would in time evolve into the office of Roman Emperor. Thus, dictatorship, as defined by the republican institution, was not a feature of the principate or dominate.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_di...
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Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (pron.: /maɪˈsiːnəs/; 29 April 70 BC – ? October 8 BC) was an ally, friend and political advisor to Octavian (who was to become the first Emperor of Rome as Caesar Augustus) as well as an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets. During the reign of Augustus, Maecenas served as a quasi-culture minister to the Emperor.
His name has become a byword for a wealthy, generous and enlightened patron of the arts.
He prided himself on his ancient Etruscan lineage, and claimed descent from the princely house of the Cilnii, who excited the jealousy of their townsmen by their preponderant wealth and influence at Arretium in the 4th century BC. Horace makes reference to this in his address to Maecenas at the opening of his first books of Odes with the expression "atavis edite regibus" (descendant of kings). Tacitus refers to him as "Cilnius Maecenas".
His great wealth may have been in part hereditary, but he owed his position and influence to his close connection with the Emperor Augustus. He first appears in history in 40 BC, when he was employed by Octavian in arranging his marriage with Scribonia, and afterwards in assisting to negotiate the treaty of Brundisium and the reconciliation with Mark Antony. As a close friend and advisor he acted even as deputy for Augustus when he was abroad.
Opinions were much divided in ancient times as to his personal character; but the testimony as to his administrative and diplomatic ability was unanimous. He enjoyed the credit of sharing largely in the establishment of the new order of things, of reconciling parties, and of carrying the new empire safely through many dangers. To his influence especially was attributed the more humane policy of Octavian after his first alliance with Antony and Lepidus. The best summary of his character as a man and a statesman, by Marcus Velleius Paterculus, describes him as "of sleepless vigilance in critical emergencies, far-seeing and knowing how to act, but in his relaxation from business more luxurious and effeminate than a woman." Expressions in the Odes of Horace seem to imply that Maecenas was deficient in the robustness of fibre which Romans liked to imagine was characteristic of their city.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maecenas
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Adlect (Verb) - To choose or elect, especially to promote someone to higher office before he has served in a lower capacity.
This is the first time I've ever seen this word, and it doesn't show up much in Google searches. Here's one of the few citations, all referring to ancient Rome.
"1950, Edward Togo Salmon, A History of the Roman World from 30 B.C. to A.D. 138 (2nd ed., Methuen), page 43
The Emperor’s control over a man’s senatorial career did not consist merely in starting men of obscure origin on their way by adlecting them into the Senatorial Order; it could be exercised at every step of the way both for those who were senatorials by birth and for those who were such by adlection."
Edward Togo SalmonSources:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/adlect
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citatio...
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Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus (died April 23, 43 BC) was consul of the Roman Republic in 43 BC. Although supporting Gaius Julius Caesar during the Civil War, he pushed for the restoration of the Republic upon Caesar’s death. He died of injuries sustained at the Battle of Forum Gallorum.
Early career
One of the first members of the gens Vibius to achieve political success, Pansa was a Novus homo who rose through the cursus honorum as a result of his friendship with Julius Caesar, under whom he served in Gaul. Originally of Etruscan descent and hailing from Perusia (modern Perugia), and possibly from a family which had been proscribed under Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Pansa was elected Plebeian Tribune in 51 BC where he vetoed a number of anti-Caesarean resolutions of the Senate. During the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, he actively supported the cause of the Caesareans. In 48 BC it is believed he was elected either as an aedile or as a praetor.
In 47 BC Pansa was appointed governor of Bithynia et Pontus, and returned to Rome sometime during 46 BC. In that same year, Caesar appointed Pansa as governor of Cisalpine Gaul to replace Marcus Junius Brutus, a post he took up in March 15, 45 BC. Around this time, he was also elected to the post of augur, one of the priests of Ancient Rome. In early 44 BC, Caesar designated him as the consul for the upcoming year (43 BC) and sometime before April 21, 44 BC, Pansa had returned from Cisalpine Gaul, and was based at Campania, waiting for the situation at Rome to settle down after the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC.
Recognised as a moderate man and a supporter of peaceful compromise, upon his return to Rome, Pansa became the leader of the moderate Caesareans and one of the leading proponents for the return of the Republic, which put him on a collision course with Marcus Antonius, whom Pansa began to oppose by late 44 BC. He had also begun entering into discussions with Octavianus, Julius Caesar’s adopted son, who was also in Campania at the same time as Pansa. Nevertheless, Pansa was not totally hostile to Marcus Antonius, and while he wanted to limit Antonius’s power, he did not want to destroy him totally, nor was he willing to embrace the anti-Caesarean faction in the Senate and begin a new round of civil wars. Added to this was the fact that Pansa was married to Fulfia, the daughter of Quintus Fufius Calenus, who was a key supporter of Antonius.
Consulship and death
On January 1, 43 BC, Pansa became consul along with Aulus Hirtius. They opened the debate in the Senate about what course of action was to be taken, if any, against Marcus Antonius. The discussion lasted four days; Pansa’s preference was to unite the Caesarean factions and restore harmony to the Republic, but to no avail. Octavianus refused to co-operate with Antonius, while Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Munatius Plancus continued to support Antonius. The end result was the Senate legitimised the army of Octavianus, and assigned him to work alongside Pansa and Hirtius in their upcoming fight against Antonius. The Senate, rejecting Antonius’s compromises, directed the consuls to do whatever was necessary to preserve the security of the Republic and relieve Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus at Mutina. Although Pansa, along with Lucius Julius Caesar successfully prevented Antonius being declared an Enemy of the state, a state of war was declared.
When discussing the state of affairs in the east under Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, Pansa supported the motion to declare the Caesarean Publius Cornelius Dolabella a public enemy, but managed to deny Cicero’s proposal to grant Cassius extraordinary powers in the east to deal with Dolabella. He also legitimised Marcus Junius Brutus’s command in Macedonia, and gave official recognition to Sextus Pompey in Sicily. With the Senate revoking much of the Lex Antonia, especially the contentious Lex Antonia Agraria, Pansa was forced to push through measures which confirmed the colonies for Caesar’s veterans, as well as confirming many of Caesar’s acts and the abolition of the office of Dictator.
All this time Pansa was also responsible for raising fresh levies in order to deal with Antonius. By March 19, 43 BC, Pansa was marching north with four legions of recruits, seeking to join up with Octavianus and Hirtius who were attempting to pin Antonius at Mutina. Antonius, hearing of Pansa’a approach, intercepted him on April 14, 43 BC at the Forum Gallorum, some seven miles south-east of Mutina. Antonius crushed Pansa’s army, and Pansa was wounded during the battle. He only managed to escape when Hirtius’s army surprised Antonius on the battlefield, forcing Antonius to flee. For his actions, Pansa (along with Octavianus and Hirtius) was proclaimed imperator by the Senate.
It was soon clear that Pansa was dying. He lived long enough to hear of Antonius’s second defeat at Mutina on April 21, and the death of his consular colleague Hirtius during the battle. In his last hours he advised Octavianus not to trust Cicero and the rest of the Senate, and that they would turn on him at the first available opportunity. Pansa transferred command of his troops over to his quaestor, Manlius Torquatus, who arrested Pansa’s doctor, Glyco, on suspicion of having poisoned Pansa. Pansa died on April 23, 43 BC, and received a magnificent public burial.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Vi...
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Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (Latin: M·AEMILIVS·M·F·Q·N·LEPIDVS), (born c. 89 or 88 BC, died late 13 or early 12 BC) was a Roman patrician who rose to become a member of the Second Triumvirate and Pontifex Maximus. His father, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, had been involved in a rebellion against the Roman Republic.
Lepidus was among Julius Caesar's greatest supporters. He started his cursus honorum as a praetor in 49 BC, was placed in charge of Rome while Caesar defeated Pompey in Greece, and was rewarded with the consulship in 46 BC after the defeat of the Pompeians in the East. When in February 44 BC Caesar was elected dictator for life by the senate, he made Lepidus "Master of the Horse", effectively deputy in the dictatorship.
Their brief alliance in power came to a sudden end when Caesar was assassinated on March 15 44 BC (the Ides of March). One of the ringleaders of the conspiracy, Gaius Cassius Longinus, had argued for the killing of Lepidus and Mark Antony as well, but Marcus Junius Brutus had overruled him, saying the action was an execution and not a political coup.
After Caesar's murder, Lepidus, despite assuring the Senate of his loyalty, allied himself with Mark Antony in a joint bid for power. But Caesar had left an heir: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, his great-nephew and adopted son in Caesar's will. Octavian, Antony and Lepidus met on an island in a river near Mutina (modern Modena), their armies lined along opposite banks, and formed the Second Triumvirate, legalized with the name of Triumvirs for Confirming the Republic with Consular Power (Triumviri Rei Publicae Constituendae Consulari Potestate) by the Lex Titia of 43 BC.
Unlike the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, this one was formally constituted. In effect, it sidelined the consuls and the senate and signalled the death of the Republic. The triumvirate's legal life span of five years was renewed in 37 BC by the treaty of Tarentum for an equal period of time.
After the pacification of the east and the defeat of the assassins' faction in the Battle of Philippi, during which he remained in Rome, Lepidus assumed rule of the western provinces of Hispania and Africa. During the Sicilian revolt Lepidus raised a large army of 14 legions to help subdue Sextus Pompey. For a while he managed to distance himself from the frequent quarrels between his colleagues Antony and Octavian; however, in 36 BC an ill-judged political move gave Octavian the excuse he needed: Lepidus was accused of usurping power in Sicily and of attempted rebellion and was forced into exile in Circeii. He was stripped of all his offices except that of Pontifex Maximus. Spending the rest of his life in obscurity, he died peacefully in late 13 BC or early 12 BC.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_A...
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Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus (born April 27, ca. 85–81 BC, died 43 BC) was a Roman politician and general of the 1st century BC and one of the leading instigators of Julius Caesar's assassination. Decimus Brutus is not to be confused with the more famous Brutus among the conspirators, Marcus Brutus.
Early life
Decimus Brutus was a distant cousin of Julius Caesar, and on several occasions Caesar expressed how he loved Brutus like a son. Ronald Syme argued that if a Brutus was the natural son of Caesar, Decimus was more likely than Marcus (another distant cousin).
Decimus Brutus spent his youth mainly in the company of Publius Clodius, Gaius Curio and Mark Antony. His mother was Sempronia Tuditani, wife of Decimus Junius Brutus who was consul in 77 BC. He was adopted by Aulus Postumius Albinus, but kept his own family name, only adding his adoptive father's cognomen Albinus.
During the Wars
He was a legate in Caesar's army during the Gallic wars and was given the command of the fleet in the war against the Veneti. In a decisive sea battle Decimus Brutus succeeded in destroying the Veneti fleet. Using sickle-like hooks fitted on long poles, Decimus Brutus attacked the enemy's sails, leaving them immobilized and easy prey to Roman boarding parties.
When the Republican Civil War broke out, Decimus Brutus sided with his commander, Caesar, and was entrusted once again with fleet operations.
The Greek city of Massilia (present-day Marseille) sided with Pompey the Great, and Caesar, in a hurry to reach Spain and cut Pompey off from his legions, left Decimus Brutus in charge of the naval blockade of Massilia. Within thirty days, Decimus Brutus built a fleet from scratch and secured the capitulation of Massilia.
Ides of March
When Caesar returned to Rome as dictator after the final defeat of the Republican faction in the Battle of Munda (45 BC), Marcus Brutus joined the conspiracy against Caesar, after being convinced by Cassius and Decimus Brutus. In 44 BC, he (Decimus) was made praetor peregrinus by personal appointment of Caesar and was destined to be the governor of Cisalpine Gaul in the following year.
On the Ides of March (March 15), when Caesar decided not to attend the Senate meeting due to the concerns of his wife, he was persuaded to attend by Decimus Brutus, who escorted him to the senate house, and neatly evaded Mark Antony, who wished to tell Caesar of the assassination plot. After Caesar was attacked by the first assassin, Decimus and the rest of the conspirators attacked and assassinated him. According to Nicolaus of Damascus, Decimus Brutus was the third to strike Caesar, stabbing him in the side.
Consequences and Death
The assassins received an amnesty the next day, issued by the senate at the instigation of Mark Antony, Caesar's fellow consul. But the situation was not peaceful, Rome's population and Caesar's legionaries wanted to see the conspirators punished. The group decided to lie low and Decimus used his office of Praetor Peregrinus to stay away from Rome. The climate of reconciliation soon passed and slowly the conspirators were starting to feel the strain of the assassination. Thus, at the beginning of 43 BC, Decimus Brutus hurried to Gallia Cisalpina, the province assigned to him as pro-praetor, and started to levy his own troops. He was ordered by the Senate to surrender his province to Antony but refused. This was the act of provocation to which Antony was only too happy to respond. With his own political situation on the verge of disaster and himself declared public enemy, defeating Decimus Brutus was a way for Antony to regain his ascendancy and get control of the strategically important Italian Gaul.
In 43 BC Decimus Brutus occupied Mutina, laying in provisions for a protracted siege. Antony obliged him, and blockaded Decimus Brutus' forces, intent on starving them out.
Nevertheless, the consuls of the year, Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus, marched northward to raise the siege. Guided by Cicero, the Senate was inclined to view Mark Antony as an enemy. Octavian, the nineteen-year-old heir of Caesar, and already raised to the rank of Propraetor, accompanied Gaius Pansa north. The first confrontation occurred on April 14 at the battle of Forum Gallorum, where Antony hoped to deal with his opponents piecemeal. Antony defeated the forces of Gaius Pansa and Octavian, which resulted in Pansa suffering mortal wounds; however, Antony was then defeated by a surprise attack from Hirtius. A second battle on 21 April at Mutina resulted in a further defeat for Antony and Hirtius' death. Antony withdrew, unwilling to become the subject of a double circumvallation as Caesar had done to Vercingetorix at Alesia.
With the siege raised, Decimus Brutus cautiously thanked Octavian, now commander of the legions that had rescued him, from the other side of the river. Octavian coldly indicated he had come to oppose Antony, not aid Caesar's murderers. Decimus Brutus was given the command to wage war against Antony, but many of his soldiers deserted to Octavian. His position deteriorating by the day, Decimus Brutus fled Italy, abandoning his legions. He attempted to reach Macedonia, where Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus had stationed themselves but was executed en route by a Gallic chief loyal to Mark Antony, becoming the first of Caesar's assassins to be killed.
Several letters written by Decimus Brutus during the last two years of his life are preserved among Cicero's collected correspondence.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimus_...)
More:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/...
http://www.attalus.org/names/b/brutus... (a list of Brutuses, ours is entry 17)
http://archive.org/details/decimusjun... (this is an online book about Decimus)
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Marcus Tullius Cicero
by James S. Ruebel (no photo)
by
Julius Caesar
by
Stephen Dando-Collins
by
Ronald Syme
by Erich S. Gruen (no photo)
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The Battle of Mutina was fought on April 21, 43 BC between the forces of Mark Antony and the forces of Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus and Aulus Hirtius, who were providing aid to Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus.
Prelude
Around one year after Julius Caesar's murder, negotiations between the Roman Senate and Antony broke off. Antony gathered his legions and marched against one of the assassins Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, who was governor of Cisalpine Gaul.
Mark Antony had Decimus Brutus confined around Mutina (modern Modena), just south of the Padus (Po) River on the Via Aemilia. Pansa was sent north from Rome to link with Hirtius and Octavian in order to provide Brutus with aid. On April 14, Antony marched with his praetorian cohort, the II and the XXXV legions, light-armed troops and a strong body of cavalry to cut off Pansa before he could reach the senatorial armies. Antony assumed Pansa had only four legions of recruits, but the previous night Hirtius had dispatched the Martian legion and Octavian's praetorian cohort to assist Pansa. Antony's legions collided with those of Pansa, in the village of Forum Gallorum. In the ensuing Battle of Forum Gallorum, Pansa's troops were routed and the general mortally wounded. However, instead of gaining a decisive victory, Antony was forced to withdraw when reinforcements under Hirtius crashed into his own exhausted ranks.
The battle
Six days after Forum Gallorum, the two armies met again in the vicinity of Mutina. Octavian's forces were now present and fought on the side of the remaining consul Hirtius. Antony was defeated again, and Hirtius himself was killed in the attack on Antony's camp, leaving the army and republic leaderless. Octavian recovered his body and according to Suetonius, "in the thick of the fight, when the eagle-bearer of his legion was sorely wounded, he shouldered the eagle and carried it for some time." And now with a pro-praetorian imperium, he gained the deceased consul's legions.
Consequences
Mutina is essentially where Octavian turns from an inferior young man to an equal of Antony. After retreating over the Alps with the remains of his army, Antony soon recrossed the Alps having gathered an army of 17 legions and 10,000 cavalry (in addition to six legions left behind with Varius, according to Plutarch). However, soon after the battle, a truce was formed between Antony and Octavian at Bologna leading eventually to the Second Triumvirate with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Octavian and Mark Antony. They would set aside their differences and turn on the Senators involved in Caesar's assassination while assuming a 3-way dictatorship. Eventually in the ensuing power struggles many years later, Octavian would defeat Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC and usher in the Principate, but Mutina was the milestone where Octavian first established himself as a force to be reckoned with. Without this victory, Octavian might never have achieved the prestige necessary to be looked upon as Caesar's successor, and the stability of the Empire might never have been established in the lasting manner which Octavian had decided for it.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o...)
More:
http://octavianchronicles.com/?page_i...
http://www.realmagick.com/battle-of-m...
http://roman-empire.info/roman-empire...
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/t...
by Cassius Dio (no photo)
by Appian (no photo)
by
Ronald Syme
by Erich S. Gruen (no photo)
by
Suetonius
by
Livy
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A philippic is a fiery, damning speech, or tirade, delivered to condemn a particular political actor. The term originates with Demosthenes, who delivered several attacks on Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BC.
Cicero consciously modeled his own series of attacks on Mark Antony, in 44 BC and 43 BC, on Demosthenes's speeches, and if the correspondence between M. Brutus and Cicero is genuine [ad Brut. ii 3.4, ii 4.2], at least the fifth and seventh speeches were referred to as the Philippics in Cicero's time. They were also called the Antonian Orations by Aulus Gellius.
They were named after a series of speeches that failed to effectively warn the Greeks of the danger of Philip of Macedon. (Philip's son was Alexander the Great, one of the greatest conquerors of all time.) After the death of Caesar, Cicero privately expressed his regret that the murderers of Caesar had not included Antony in their plot, and he bent his efforts to the discrediting of Antony. Cicero even promoted illegal action, such as legitimatizing Octavian's private army. In all, Cicero delivered 14 Phillipics in less than two years. Cicero's focus on Antony, however, would contribute to his downfall as he failed to recognize the threat of Octavian to his republican ideal.
Cicero's attacks on Antony were neither forgiven nor forgotten, with the result that he was subsequently proscribed and killed in 43 BC. His head and hands were publicly displayed in the Roman Forum to discourage any who would oppose the new Triumvirate of Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus. Cicero's fate stands in marked contrast to that of Demosthenes, who suffered no punishment for his philippics. Philip and Alexander, as conquerors of Greece, could have had Demosthenes killed - but they were not that vindictive, and did not punish anyone for mere words. However, Demosthenes later committed suicide rather than be captured by Alexander's men, who were not as forgiving, and wanted him dead for his leadership in Athens' rebellion.
According to Tacitus, the well-known Roman historian, this work, together with the Pro Milone, In Catilinam, and In Verrem, made Cicero's name, and much of his political career sprang from the effect of these works. Others would have it that the Pro Ligario, in which Cicero defends Ligarius before Caesar, was the vehicle of his renown.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippic)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippicae
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/t...
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero...
http://www.theaterofpompey.com/pdcs_a...
http://librivox.org/philippics-by-cic...
by
Marcus Tullius Cicero
by
Plutarch
by
Anthony Everitt
by Elizabeth Rawson (no photo)
by Kathryn Tempest (no photo)
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The Battle of Philippi was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian (of the Second Triumvirate) and the forces of Julius Caesar's assassins Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus in 42 BC, at Philippi in Macedonia. The Second Triumvirate declared this civil war to avenge Julius Caesar's murder.
Prelude
After the murder of Caesar, Brutus and Cassius (the two main conspirators, also known as the Liberatores) had left Italy and taken control of all Eastern provinces (from Greece to Syria) and of the allied Eastern kingdoms. In Rome the three main Caesarian leaders (Antony, Octavian and Lepidus), who controlled almost all the Roman army in the west, had crushed the opposition of the senate and established the second triumvirate. One of their first tasks was to destroy the Liberators’ forces, not only to get full control of the Roman world, but also to avenge Caesar’s death.
The triumvirs decided to leave Lepidus in Italy, while the two main partners of the triumvirate (Antony and Octavian) moved to Northern Greece with their best troops (a total of 28 legions). They were able to ferry their army across the Adriatic and sent out a scouting force of eight legions (commanded by Norbanus and Saxa) along the via Egnatia, with the aim of searching for the Liberators' army. Norbanus and Saxa passed the town of Philippi in eastern Macedonia and took a strong defensive position at a narrow mountain pass. Antony was following, while Octavian was delayed at Dyrrachium because of his ill-health (which would accompany him throughout the Philippi campaign). Although the triumvirs had been able to cross the sea with their main force, further communications with Italy were made difficult by the arrival of the Liberatore admiral Ahenobarbus, with a large fleet of 130 ships.
The Liberators did not wish to engage in a decisive battle, but rather to attain a good defensive position and then use their naval superiority to block the triumvirs’ communications with their supply base in Italy. They had spent the previous months plundering Greek cities to swell their war-chest and had gathered in Thrace with the Roman legions from the Eastern provinces and levies from allies. With their superior forces they were able to outflank Norbanus and Saxa, who had to abandon their defensive position and retreat west of Philippi. Thus, Brutus and Cassius could position holding the high ground along both sides of the via Egnatia, about 3.5 km west of the city of Philippi. The south position was anchored to a supposedly impassable marsh, while on the north to impervious hills. They had plenty of time to fortify their position with a rampart and a ditch. Brutus put his camp on the north while Cassius on the south of the via Egnatia. Antony arrived shortly and positioned his army on the south of the via Egnatia, while Octavian put his legions north of the road.
The First Battle of Philippi
Antony offered battle several times, but the Liberators were not lured to leave their defensive stand. Thus, Antony tried to secretly outflank the Liberators' position through the marshes in the south. With great effort he was able to cut a passage through the marshes, throwing up a causeway upon them. This manoeuvre was finally noticed by Cassius who tried a countermove by moving part of his army south into the marshes and making a transverse dam, trying to cut off Antony’s outstretched right wing. This brought about a general battle on October 3, 42 BC.
Antony ordered a charge against Cassius, aiming at the fortifications between Cassius's camp and the marshes. At the same time, Brutus's soldiers, provoked by the triumvir’s army, rushed against Octavian’s army, without waiting for the order of attack (given with the watchword "Liberty"). This surprise assault had complete success: Octavian’s troops were put to flight and pursued up to their camp, which was captured by Brutus’s men, led by Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Three of Octavian’s legionary standards were also taken, a clear sign of disbandment. Octavian was not found in his tent: his couch was pierced and cut to pieces. Most ancient historians say that he had been warned in a dream to beware of that day, as he had himself written in his memoirs. Pliny bluntly reports that Octavian went hiding into a marsh.
However, on the other side of the via Egnatia, Antony was able to storm Cassius’ fortifications, demolishing the palisade and filling up the ditch. Then he easily took Cassius’s camp, which was defended by only a few men. It seems that part of Cassius’s army had advanced south: when these men tried to come back they were easily repulsed by Antony. Apparently the battle had ended in a draw. Cassius had lost 9,000 men, while Octavian had about 18,000 casualties. However, the battlefield was very large and clouds of dust made it impossible to make a clear assessment of the outcome of the battle, so both parts were ignorant of each other's fate. Cassius moved to the top of a hill, but could not see well what was happening on Brutus’s side. Believing that he had suffered a crushing defeat he ordered his freedman Pindarus to kill him. Brutus mourned over Cassius’s body, calling him "the last of the Romans". However, he avoided a public funeral, fearing its negative effects on the army morale.
Alternative sources credit the avarice of Brutus' troops as the factor that undid their definitive victory on October 3. Premature looting and gathering of treasure by Brutus's advancing forces allowed Octavian's troops to re-form their line. In Octavian's future reign as Emperor, a common battle cry became, "Complete the battle once begun!"
The Second Battle
On the same day as the first battle of Philippi, the Republican fleet was able to intercept and destroy the triumvirs' reinforcements (two legions and other troops and supplies led by Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus). Thus, the strategic position of Antony and Octavian became quite serious, since the already depleted regions of Macedonia and Thessaly were unable to supply their army for long, while Brutus could easily receive supplies from the sea. The triumvirs had to send a legion south to Achaia to collect more supplies. The morale of the troops was boosted by the promise of further 5,000 denarii for each soldier and 25,000 for each centurion.
On the other side, however, the Liberators’ army was left without its best strategic mind. Brutus had less military experience than Cassius and, even worse, he could not obtain the same sort of respect from his allies and his soldiers, although after the battle he offered another gift of 1,000 denarii for each soldier.
In the next three weeks, Antony was able to slowly advance his forces south of Brutus’s army, fortifying a hill close to Cassius’s former camp, which had been left unguarded by Brutus.
To avoid being outflanked Brutus was compelled to extend his line to the south, parallel to the via Egnatia, building several fortified posts. Brutus's defensive position was still secure, holding the high ground with a safe line of communication with the sea. He still wanted to keep the original plan of avoiding an open engagement while waiting for his naval superiority to wear out the enemy. Unfortunately, most of his officers and soldiers were tired of the delaying tactics and demanded another attempt at an open battle. Probably both Brutus and his officers feared the risk of having their soldiers deserting to the enemy if they did not keep their ascendancy on the troops. Plutarch also reports that Brutus had not received news of Domitius Calvinus' defeat in the Ionian Sea. Thus, when some of the eastern allies and mercenaries started deserting, Brutus was forced to attack on the afternoon of October 23. As he said "I seem to carry on war like Pompey the Great, not so much commanding now as commanded."
The battle resulted in close combat between two armies of well-trained veterans. Arrows or javelins were largely ignored; instead, the soldiers packed into solid ranks and fought face-to-face with their swords, and the slaughter was terrible. In the end, Brutus’s attack was repulsed, and his soldiers routed in confusion, their ranks broken. Octavian's soldiers were able to capture the gates of Brutus’s camp before the routing army could reach this defensive position. Thus, Brutus’s army could not reform, which made the triumvirs’ victory complete. Brutus was able to retreat into the nearby hills with the equivalent of only 4 legions. Seeing that surrender and capture were inevitable, Brutus committed suicide.
The total casualties for the second battle of Philippi were not reported, but the close quarters fighting likely resulted in heavy losses for both sides.
Aftermath
Plutarch reports that Antony covered Brutus's body with a purple garment as a sign of respect. Although they had not been close friends, he remembered that Brutus had stipulated, as a condition for his joining the plot to assassinate Caesar, that the life of Antony be spared.
Many other young Roman aristocrats lost their lives in the battle or committed suicide after the defeat, including the son of great orator Hortensius, and Marcus Porcius Cato (the son of Cato the Younger), and Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus (the father of Livia, who became Octavian’s wife). Some of the nobles who were able to escape negotiated their surrender to Antony and entered his service (among them Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus and Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus). Apparently, the nobles did not want to deal with the young and merciless Octavian.
The remains of the Liberators’ army were rounded up and roughly 14,000 men were enrolled into the triumvirs' army. Old veterans were discharged back to Italy, but some of the veterans remained in the town of Philippi, which became a Roman colony (Colonia Victrix Philippensium).
Antony remained in the East, while Octavian returned to Italy, with the difficult task of finding sufficient land on which to settle a large number of veterans. Despite the fact that Sextus Pompeius was controlling Sicily and Domitius Ahenobarbus still commanded the republican fleet, the republican resistance had been definitively crushed at Philippi.
The Battle of Philippi marked the highest point of Antony's career: at that time he was the most famous Roman general and the senior partner of the Second Triumvirate.
(Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o...)
More:
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/b...
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hgcC...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_J...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Ca...
by Cassius Dio (no photo)
by Appian (no photo)
by
Ronald Syme
by
Suetonius
by
Livy
by
Anthony Everitt
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Livy XIV: History of Rome, Summaries. Fragments. Julius Obsequens. General Index (other topics)Appian: Roman History, Vol. IV, The Civil Wars, Books 3.27-5 (other topics)
The Roman Revolution (other topics)
Roman History, Volume V: Books 46–50 (other topics)
The Twelve Caesars (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Appian (other topics)Ronald Syme (other topics)
Cassius Dio (other topics)
Suetonius (other topics)
Livy (other topics)
More...
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/701...
It seems to be only available on streaming.
They show the plateau where Alesia stood, and reconstructions of the wall and ditches Caesar's army constructed. Also interesting is a weapons expert who builds a small version of the scorpion, which fired missles into the enemy. Many, many aerial photographs enable historians to map out what the circumvallation looked like.