The Ancients - Cicero’s Fight for the Roman Republic

Episode Date: April 25, 2021

Caesar Octavian, Mark Antony, Decimus Brutus and Cicero: the Battle of Mutina, April 43 BC, was a clash of giants. It also became the beginning of the end for one of Ancient Rome’s greatest orators, Cicero. For this episode, Steele Brand came back to take Tristan through the battle, and to explain how this event featured in Cicero's fall and represents the renowned orator's last great gamble. Steele is Assistant Professor of History at The King’s College in New York City. He has written about the Battle of Mutina in his book, ‘Killing for the Republic: Citizen-Soldiers and the Roman Way of War’.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program,

they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, we're going back to Roman battles. We're going to the late Roman Republic, we're going to 43 BC and late April 43 BC, fought around this time of year. We're going to Northern Italy and a battle which can be

really said as Cicero's last stand, his last hurrah, his last attempt really to build a coalition to try and save the republic from figures such as mark antony now this was the battle of mutinies a fantastic story and joining me to talk through the background the clash itself and its aftermath we've got back on the show dr steel brand steel from king's college in new york he's been on the show, Dr. Steele Brand. Steele from King's College in New York. He's been on the show twice before to talk about the Roman Republican soldiers, their way of life, but also to talk about the Battle of Philippi. And now we're completing the trilogy with the Battle of Mutina. So without further ado, here's Steele.

Steele, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Thank you for having me back. It's great to talk to you as well. The Battle of Mutina and the final years, the final months of Cicero, I mean, because Steele, when we do think of these titanic clashes, these big events in the end of the Roman Republic, we do sometimes think of Pharsalus, Caesar, Pompey, or Cassius and Brutus and Augustus and Mark Antony, but Cicero and the events around Mutina, they're equally, if not more, fascinating. They are. If you look at cinematic history and when they capture Rome in the movies, Cicero is one of the characters that usually doesn't get a feature spot. I think we can blame Shakespeare to a certain extent on that. He's like a bit player, right? And his part is overlooked in Julius Caesar. But no, the Battle of Mutina is remarkable for all the reasons that we're going to go into. And the man behind all the action, who's not actually in the thick of the action, is Cicero.

into Mutiner and the campaign, let's go to the background. We've got to go to the Ides of March and the assassination of Julius Caesar. And Cicero at that time, what do we know about Cicero then? Where is he and what's his status at the time of Caesar's assassination? You know, we know more about Cicero than we probably do most people in antiquity. Someone like Augustine we know more about, but Cicero's writings are voluminous. And that's fortunate because we can reconstruct a lot of his life, not only from accounts that we have of him, but also from his own writings. We know he's from Arpinum. So he's a new man. He rises through the ranks in Roman society. Having not been in Roman society, he does this as a lawyer. They would call it an advocate. He takes on several really significant trials.

And all of a sudden, people think, this guy's got, he's great at oratory. And then he starts climbing the Cursus Anorum. This is the path of honor. He becomes quaestor in Sicily. And then he takes on a couple more trials related to that. And then he becomes a praetor. And he's consul in the year 63. That means the first time a Roman could become a consul.

He's consul. And he's really significant in that year because he uncovers this conspiracy against the Republic. And then he falls out of power. And this shows you a little bit about Cicero. He falls out of power because he gets on the wrong side of these rising players, Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. And he has to go to exile. In fact, they confiscate all his property. They threaten to take his own life. And he just becomes a wimp. And he's whining and he's pathetic. And there's nothing inspiring about this guy.

But what's cool is, in the years leading from that exile, it's around the 50s, when he comes back from that exile and then up to the assassination of Caesar, he starts recovering. What does it mean to be a Roman statesman? And he does this through writing. statesman. And he does this through writing. And it's through this writing and through reading political philosophy, reading Plato, reading Aristotle, reading the thinkers that have come before him, reading all the cynics, the skeptics, he starts to recover a sense of what should I be doing? And so he initially falls to this position as being a lackey of what's called the first triumvirate, but Varro called it the three-headed monster of Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar. But he's not comfortable there. And he sort of ends up hating himself, but he gains a sense of

humor. And then all of a sudden, these guys start falling one by one. Crassus dies at Parthia. Pompey's killed in the Civil War. Caesar is all powerful. And then Caesar's assassinated. And the assassins themselves did not include Cicero in the plot. And it's kind of a snub, right? Like it's the biggest event of the day, but they also know Cicero is this incredible orator who is the best speaker that Rome probably has ever seen. And so right at the assassination, as soon as it has happened, one account says that Brutus raises his dagger and says, and the name of the Republican, Cicero. And you have to imagine what Cicero thinking is he think should get up and bow?

Should he run away like that? He didn't know anything about this. And all of a sudden he's back in the thick of it. I mean, do we know why the conspirators decided not to include him in the plot? They just think, oh, he wouldn't be a useful asset for the assassination itself. Well, I think they feared that he wouldn't be a useful asset for the assassination itself. Well, I think they feared that he couldn't hold his tongue. They also knew that he had been friends with Pompey and he'd had ties with Caesar. He'd gotten on the wrong side of Caesar. This had really irked Mark Antony. That's going to be important for what we'll probably talk about later. But I think they

thought he might leak the information and they thought the guy doesn't have courage. And they'd seen how he kind of became a lackey of the so-called first triumvirate. And he had not opposed Caesar as much as he could have. They might have had good reasons to think that way. Right. So in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, aside from Cicero, who are the prominent players in the capital? Well, you basically have three groups. There's the liberators or the tyrannicides or the assassins, depending on what your political views happen to be. These are guys like Cassius and Brutus, people who are well known to have deep-seated Republican sympathies. They both fought against Caesar in the initial phases of the Pompeian Civil War. They're the ones that we most likely think of when we think about the assassins. There are others too as well.

There's Decimus Brutus, and he's the one who pulls Caesar out of his house to come attend the Senate meeting on the 15th of March. And then there's Casca and Tullius Kimber. And these guys are the first ones who strike the blows or distract and then strike the blows against Caesar. So those are the liberators, if you're or distract and then strike the blows against Caesar. So those are the liberators, if you're a Republican, or they're the assassins, if you really like Julius Caesar. But they're not the most powerful men in Rome. They kind of are for the moment because they've done this deed and shocked everyone. But really the only person with power, legitimate power, is Mark Antony. And he is a consular. He's got a really strange background. Maybe not strange,

but he's got a lackluster background. His father was dishonored. He, as a young man who's lost his father in disgrace, is known for drinking binges, being indebted. He doesn't have a good outlook on life until he, like some of these other people on the scene at the time, he starts working for Caesar when Caesar's conquering Gaul. And this is where his true qualities show themselves. He's a soldier's soldier, a man's man. He's not very good at politics, but he's really good at being in a crisis and military matters. The second most powerful man is probably Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.

Now, this is the master of horse for Caesar, who had been dictator. Now, this is the master of horse for Caesar, who had been dictator. And on the 16th of March, he's the one who arrives with troops to sort of settle everything down in Rome. There had been disturbances. There had been an attempt to host a meeting, and the liberators had to retreat up to the capital line. And Lepidus comes in and sort of restores order. And you've got this really, really weird situation where Cicero and Antony sort of come together and form a

compromise. And they go up to the liberators who are hiding out in the Capitol. And they say, let's all make nice. Let's host a meeting in the Senate. And let's say that you killing Caesar was okay. And that everything that Caesar did was okay too. So it looks like things may return to normal. And then you've even got them having dinner that night. Lepidus and Antony respectively host the liberators, Cassius and Brutus, or the other way around. And it looks like everything is just going to be peaceful. And the big question is, what are the moderates going to do?

This is this third group. A lot of these guys, I'll just mention a few of them. There's Cornificius. There is Trebonius, who had been a moderate, and then he comes in on the side of the conspirators. But the most important moderates are Vibius Panza and Alice Hertius. These are the guys designated to be the consuls for 43. And the big question is, where are they going to fall on this? Do they want to avenge Caesar's

assassination? Or do they want the Republic to kind of come back into being after Caesar has potentially wrecked it, and so they can come into power in the old Republican system? And that's a very open question when the funeral is held on the 20th of March. And the funeral, does this become quite a political event? Absolutely. Like everything in Rome, everything's political. And the funeral, well, it's debated in the first that Cassius says, we cannot have a public funeral and a reading of the will. And Antony says, oh, but we absolutely need to. Remember, they're all playing nice with each other right now. And Cassius had initially wanted to kill Antony. So it's no surprise that those two disagree. But then Brutus, who doesn't always have the best political judgment, says, well, in the spirit

of compromise, we'll allow it. And all hell breaks loose because they bring out the body. And when the people see the body of Caesar that's just been wrecked by 23 stab wounds. They just break into wailing. And then they read the will. And the will stirs up the mob in particular because Caesar has given huge benefices to everyone in the Roman mob and really every citizen of Rome in the area. The mob responds by making an effigy of the body that shows all the stab wounds. And then they build a pyre, an impromptu fire, using all sorts of furniture and whatnot in the forum. And they light this fire, and it ends up burning down the Senate House in the process.

So things are not going well. All of a sudden, we have chaos again. And the liberators, they've got to get out of town, which is really odd because at the time, Cassius and Brutus are the most important priters. And as the urban priter, Brutus is supposed to stay in the city, but now he has to have a special dispensation to leave the city. And there's an open question, is this whole thing going to fall apart? And just before we go on to whether it does fall apart or not, and I know there's the arrival of a particular figure, you mentioned earlier the other Brutus, Decimus Brutus, who seems to be so important in the

successful assassination of Caesar. I mean, still, do we know much about Decimus Brutus in the immediate aftermath of Caesar's death? Is he still in Rome? He's the guy who had pulled Caesar out of his house. He is supposedly not at the assassination itself. There are different accounts as to what Decimus Brutus is doing. He stays for a little bit in Rome, but then he's going to head out into his command. Now, we'll just call him Decimus to distinguish him from the other Brutus, Marcus Brutus, one of the leading assassins. But Decimus, he had fought for Caesar in Gaul, like a number of the Caesarian commanders, moderates and radical Caesarians. He'd won some decisive victories. He'd command the Caesarian fleet in the Pompeian Civil

War. So it seems like he should have been, he's known to be a close family friend of Caesar. He was named as an heir in the will. And so it was shocking that Decimus participated in this. But I think when we cut through all of these sort of extraneous details and we look at the life of Decimus himself, he seems to be a deep-seated Republican. He did not merely take up the part of being in the conspiracy because he was ambitious. It's because he actually believed in Republican government. And he did not like seeing Caesar hold on to power or accumulate more power. And this is what prompts him to partake in the conspiracy. And by April, when it seems like things have settled down, he's going to head out

to his province in Cisalpine Gaul. So you mentioned April then. So obviously that seems a bit of time after the funeral. So in the immediate aftermath of the funeral, there's this outrage, but do things at first seem to peter down, but then something else happens? They do. And again, it's Cicero working with Antony. And this is a big debate. What is Antony doing? And Shakespeare plays up in this beautiful, beautiful writing. He plays up the speech of Antony. We don't actually know if that speech took place at that time. It probably didn't actually. We know the funeral becomes outrageous. We know that all these things happen, like they're killing a guy named Senna because he shared the same name as an assassin. But it's more likely that Antony did not want the funeral to become so chaotic. Why? Because that made him look bad. He's the consul. He can't have chaos breaking out in Rome. And so what Antony does is it's

through Cicero and working with Monatius Plancus and a couple of other moderate Caesareans, they actually put together a legislative package in late March that's passed in April that's really, really reasonable. And again, the spirit of compromise takes over. The liberators are back out of the city, but they abolish the office of dictator. They assign a few more pro-consular provinces. And it seems like all of Caesar's acts are going to be upheld. And it may be that everything is just going to sort of settle in, despite the fact that the liberators didn't really plan for anything. Cicero's happy. He says, Brutus, Cassius, what were you guys thinking? You needed to put a plan into place. But I'm pretty happy with Antony

because that guy right now seems to be more concerned about the composition of his menus than about planning any real mischief. It's almost as if Cassius and Brutus, they didn't really have a plan for what was going to happen after Caesar's assassination. But Cicero, he almost picks up the gauntlet. He almost tries to steady the ship in the aftermath and through his knowledge of Antony and his character? He can, and he does. And at first he's sort of pleading he's an old man. He seems that he's kind of been pushed aside in politics, but he can play a small role. He wants the Republic to come back into being, and he's writing like crazy in 45 and 44. So he's spending a lot of time writing, but when he sees an opportunity, he steps up and he helps bring the Republic to a sort of brief tranquility with Antony. He hasn't really emerged on the scene yet. He's very reluctant to do so. But then other matters are going to force his hand.

So what's the next all-important other matter? Well, that is this young man by the name of Gaius Octavius. We call him Octavian. He has a number of different names. He will eventually become known as Augustus. We could also call him the young Caesar. He is one of the three potential male heirs to Caesar. Born around 63 to a sort of insignificant family. Significant in terms of politics, but not some of the major players in Roman politics. He had accompanied

Caesar on a Spanish campaign. Caesar's sort of looking for a legitimate Roman heir. There's some things going on with Cleopatra, but he needs a good Roman boy to take over. And Octavian probably, or Gaius, I should call him at this point, probably inspires Julius Caesar on that Spanish campaign. And he's sort of shocked, Octavius and his parents are, when they discover that Caesar's been assassinated. Oh, and by the way, they read the will, you're the primary heir, and he's adopted you as his son.

And both of Gaius' parents say, do not take this. It is surely your death. And this is something that's interesting about little Gaius' parents say, do not take this. It is surely your death. And this is something that's interesting about little Gaius. He's just a young man. He realizes he has incredible courage in terms of politics. And so he says, no, I'm going to go. And so he breaks the advice of his stepfather and his mother. And he goes and he lands at Brundisium in southern Italy.

And then all of a sudden, just because he has the name, now he can call himself the young Caesar. Just because he has this name, legionaries are drawn to him like moths to a flame. And he makes his way up north to Rome and he arrives in Rome to basically formally accept the determination of the will and the adoption. There's still some formalities that have to take place, but everyone's sort of assuming, okay, he's embraced this.

The problem is Antony's like, what? No, no. I may not be the named heir, the legal heir, but I am the political heir of what Caesar was doing. And I want to be the main man right now. And he seems that Antony has confiscated all of Julius Caesar's papers. He is not willing to give over the wealth to the people that was designated in the will or to Octavian. Octavian has to use a lot of his own funds. And Octavian, by the end of May, is looking for other allies. He wants to find rivals of Antony so he can clash with this guy and take over what he sees as the mantle of Caesar. I think I know the answer to this one already then, but then who does Octavian therefore turn to? Well, he's looking for lots of different people, but he begins reaching out to Cicero. Why? Because Cicero is silver-tongued. He's the man who can sway popular opinion. He still has a lot

of dignity and authority and prestige before the eyes of the people. And Cicero is very reluctant to do anything about this. We have this in his letters. He does not immediately think, oh, this is a good deal. He thinks there are too many bad people around him. He's too young. He's unpredictable. We don't really know. And so he's thinking about this. But while Cicero is thinking about how do we treat this young man, which I'll just call Octavian, that would be sort of the adoptive agnome and it's added to the end of his name. Octavian begins what I think we could call a war. Here's what I mean by that. He starts clashing with Antony in the summer of 44. And Antony has given everyone reason to be concerned because he started

shifting around those older compromises in June using violence and against procedure. He starts rearranging some of the provincial assignments. He also does some other things that tweak the Roman constitution to favor him. And it looks like he's setting himself up to do the same sorts of things that Julius Caesar had done. But then we sort of have this period of calm over the summer, but Octavian is not content with that. He's trying to build up support. And by the time we get to October, he has already tried to get himself, Octavian it is, illegally elected to an office called the Tribune of the Plebs. And everyone's very nervous about this. And then there's word that he even attempts to assassinate Mark Antony. We don't know if it's true. It's possible.

But clearly by October, we have their frustration with each other. It looks like it's going to break out into a conflict. And by November, the conflict arises. Early November, we have two invasions of Rome. Antony has gone down to Brindisium to get more legions so he can take his legions up north and basically have an extended command in Gaul, just like Caesar had before. Well, Octavian decides that he's going to take all these legions that have rallied to the name with no legitimacy and march on Rome. What's he going

to do in Rome? Well, he can't do anything because when he gets there, the legionaries are thinking there's no legitimacy here. We don't want to fight against other Caesareans. And then now it's Antony's turn. So he marches on Rome, but the armies refuse to fight each other. Why? Because the armies are mostly armies that have fought these legionaries that have fought under Caesar. And they're saying, why in the world would we fight against one another? And then there are defections, there are desertions back and forth. It's this comedic non-war where these armies are moving about, but no one can actually push anything forward into an outright battle. So what is Cicero thinking when he's watching this from the sidelines? How does this affect his opinion and his next steps? Well, a really strange thing happens in the midst of this war. And he's just sort of sitting and

watching and everyone's hoping, everyone, meaning the liberators and Cicero, are hoping, great, Antony's behaving tyrannically, just like Caesar. Octavian, man, what's this kid doing? They're going to kill each other off. And then they will take care of each other. And then the Republic will just sort of magically spring back into being. At least that had been what Cassius and Brutus had hoped would happen. Cicero thinks, I've got to be a little more proactive. And so he's just sort of monitoring the situation. And then something odd happens. He initially had planned to go to Athens and this had been in the summer. And then what happens is Antony decides that he's already started to break some of those compromise agreements he had with Brutus and Cassius.

Antony decides he's going to heap honors on Caesar on the 1st of September. And Cicero had been turned back by adverse weather, and it's still in Italy. And all of a sudden he discovers Antony has proclaimed these honors, and then he's targeted Cicero as being insulting the memory of Caesar, as being one of the assassins, which is absurd. Everyone knew he was not one of the assassins. And he wants to hire slaves to go tear down his house or burn it to the ground. And it's only through the intervention of friends of Cicero that that doesn't happen. And so what Antony says is sort of thrown down the verbal gauntlet. This is a bad move because this is Cicero. You're playing Cicero on his ball field and you're not going to win. So he comes up

the next day with a speech. It gets later called the First Philippic. And it's relatively conservative, but he basically outlines, look, Antony's doing the sorts of things that we've already seen before, and we all need to watch out for this. And this guy could be the greatest threat the Republic has seen since Caesar himself. And he's laying the groundwork for setting Antony up as the tyrant that's going to destroy the Republic. Now, you mentioned First Philippic there. So it sounds as if this rhetorical battle, which Mark Antony launches against Cicero, it goes on for some time and it gets, in the rhetorical sphere, it gets pretty nasty. It does. And what ends up happening between September and December, this is when you have all these

armies moving around. Cicero, he's searching his soul quite deeply. And this is why he's been writing. Some of his most important philosophical treatises occur in 45 and 44. And why is he writing philosophy? And this is exactly what a liberal arts teacher needs to be thinking about, because he's reading philosophy and writing these philosophical treatises because he wants to understand what is the ideal statesman? What are we looking for? What can save the republic? And he decides, I can't just write about these

things. I'm writing about them so I know what to do in the real world. And that's what he does. He writes these philosophical treatises and even complains in letters. I'm writing these things and it's no fair match because it's my words against their very real weapons. But then he also writes the honest men, the good men, all the people in Rome who still want a republic. They have no leader. And the Tyrannicides are by this point in time, they fled over to the east like Sulla and Pompey before them.

Who's the only one there? It's Cicero. And by the time you get to De Cimbro, Cicero has realized, I'm an old man. I've been scared off by things in the past. My dear daughter has died. He's lost. He's had a series of family problems, but he's realized, I have nothing to lose. I need to fight for something. And there's no ideal statesman that I've been writing about. So despite the fact that I don't think I can do this, I have to do this. And he says that I am protected by the proof armor of philosophy. And so he begins this series of oratorical campaigns. And it really is two campaigns. One is correspondence. He starts writing letters to all the key men, those guys that have

armies out in the field. Brutus and Cassius, of course, but also Trebonius, who is a liberator, Plankus, Polio, and Lepidus, who seem potentially to be moderates. He's writing them. He's telling them, you need to use these armies for the sake of the Republic. And he's writing to other senators and he's telling them, we need to gather together. We need to host feasts. We need to meet. And we can't go on diets at this time in our lives. Instead, we need to be meeting and living together and talking together, talking about how we can serve the Republic. But then, of course, the most famous aspect of Cicero's battle that uses words against weapons or words as weapons are the Philippics. And these Philippics, they're technically began the way we look at it now with that first one that had begun on 2nd December, but really it's not until 20 December that he unloads into a series of Philippics.

And from 20 December until April, he's going to deliver the other of the 14 Philippics, the third through the 14th. And they are incredible. Now they're oratory. This is not, he's not a historian. So sometimes he exaggerates and sometimes he tweaks the truth,, they're oratory. He's not a historian, so sometimes he exaggerates, sometimes he tweaks the truth, but they're really, really interesting for a number of reasons. His goal is he wants to restore the republic with his words, and also his strategy is he wants to win over everyone, the allies, the moderates, the citizens in Rome, the mob, but also the senators. And so the Philippics oftentimes alternate. So one Philippic will be targeted at the mob, but also the senators. And so the Philippics oftentimes alternate. So one Philippic will be targeted at the Senate, and then another Philippic will target the assembly. What is he

doing? He's saying, this oratory, my persuasion, it needs to bind together everyone. And his tactics are very clear. What Anthony's doing is illegal. The provincial assignments, the laws that he's pushed through through violence, they're wrong. And what we need to is we need to make those technically illegal because they're morally illegal. And now we need to actually recognize that people like Decimus Brutus up in the North, they're the legitimate commander. The illegitimate commander is Mark Anthony, but he doesn't use violence to do this. Like everyone else has been doing. He uses his words and he's oftentimes opposed in the Senate by people who are speaking against what he says. And he oftentimes has to respond and he can't lead the attack. And slowly he does this. And the one thing I think

that he would regret doing, but he thinks he has to do at the time, is he's got to figure out what to do with Octavian. Because Octavian has all of these troops, all of these Caesarian veterans, and someone has got to pull these Caesarian veterans into the Republican camp. And so reluctantly, and it is indeed reluctant, we have letters that prove this, he starts heaping praise on Octavian. He says, we need to legitimize Octavian's use of troops and his authority over these armies. And he ends up doing that that but it's a very dangerous game that he's playing it's this incredible sort of coalition that you mentioned there steel as you say he's not just reaching out to a few senators and reaching out on that level as you say he understands he needs to approach all these important levels of various aspects of like the

roman regime i mean just keeping on the name philippics just briefly because as you might know i do like that period of history which this relates to. Cicero, he seems to be influenced to going to Athens, that famous orator Demosthenes. And he launches this series of attacks on the expansionist Macedonian King Philip II, obviously Alexander the Great's father. And does Cicero, does he envision himself as a new Demosthenes and that Mark Antony is this new threat of King Philip II in the north? Absolutely. And the sort of intellectual elite would understand that. There's debate among scholars today to what extent the term philippic is actually used. It seems to be applied at some point, but we're not entirely certain how much,

but it's very clear that yes, he's hearkening back to Demosthenes. And something that's really interesting, and this shows you how crafty he is. So yeah, he appeals to Demosthenes, but Cicero also is very, very careful not to insult Caesar. In fact, sometimes he even praises Caesar. So he can't compare what Antony's doing, even though he thinks this is true to what Caesar's doing. So what he does is he can hearken back to someone like Philip II, for example, but what's an even better example? Tarquinius Superbus, the tyrant, the last king of Rome that launches the Roman Republic. And this is really, really shrewd. There's nothing sloppy about what Cicero's doing. And when people hear Mark Antony is like Caesar, that would make them think, well, we love Caesar. Caesar did good things to us. Caesarian veterans would say we

want to fight for him. But when people hear Mark Antony is like Tarquinius Superbus, this like the last horrible king of Rome, then people think, well, that's not Roman. It's not merely not Republican. It's not Roman. We don't have kings. I mean, even Octavian later in history, he's not going to take the title of rex. He's not going to become king. And that's just one example of the kinds of subtleties that he uses. Mark Anthony tries to respond and he's just, he's outmatched. He's outgunned by the verbal armory that Cicero brings to bear against him. Now, you mentioned earlier that Decimus Brutus is in the north and Mark Anthony's in the north too. So are we now closing in on this period where we are starting to get to an actual war,

an actual clash? We are. This is why Cicero has been a little criticized, I think with reason, that he brings on the war. However, I think it's probably best to see that Cicero is recognizing that Antony is set to put himself in the same position as Caesar had been. So the war is coming one way or the other. In fact, he says the war's already begun. We saw these armies moving around with Octavian and Antony. It's our job to finish a war that other people started and to finish it on behalf of the Republic. So what he does is he takes another bit of a risk and he writes letters up to Decimus Brutus. And he says, technically, because of legislation passed by Antony in June, and then again in November, what you're doing is

illegal, but you need to hold onto your armies. You need to hold out, and Decimus Brutus moves into Mutina, modern day Modena, and he takes all of his legions in there, and he pulls up there as Antony moves north and besieges the area, and Decimus is holding out. And Cicero says, do this, and you know what? I will make what you're doing legitimate. And he does that. It takes some time, but he has to persuade the Senate that the enemy is Antony. The legitimate provincial governor is Decimus. And like I said, it's a little risky. But if you see, I think correctly, that what Antony has done in the latter half of 44 as unconstitutional, illegitimate. Cicero's ability to turn the tables and make what's constitutional properly legitimate is the right move. Whether you're in your running era,

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Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Catastrophic warfare, bloody revolutions, and violent ideological battles. I'm James Rogers, and over on the Warfare podcast, we're exploring the vast history of ferocious global conflict. We've got the classics. Understandably, when we see it from hindsight, the great revelation in Potsdam was really Stalin saying, yeah, tell me something I don't know. The unexpected.

And it was at that moment that he just handed her all these documents that he'd discovered sewn into the cushion of the armchair. And the never ending. So arguably every state that has tested nuclear weapons has created some sort of effect to local communities. Subscribe to Warfare from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Join us on the front line of military history. So if they've now officially recognised Decimus, what happens next? Well, there's a big question about what is Antony?

Is he an enemy? And there's a lot of debate over this. And it's not until very late in the Mutina campaign that Cicero is able to have Antony declared an enemy. But slowly but surely, he starts ratifying all of the actions of Cassius and Brutus, who are out in the east, as I said before. Brutus and other commanders. At the same time, he's writing all these letters to Plankus, who's up in Gaul, to Polio, the commander in Spain. Again, the guys with the armies, to Lepidus, who's basically in southern France. He's writing to these guys and saying, are you going to pledge everything for the Republic? Are you with us? We're building a coalition. Now, they know there's a debate going on, but they also know the way the tide is turning. So Cicero is giving it everything he's got,

short of actually taking up arms and going up to Moutina itself. But as this is occurring, the big event is when the new consuls take power, because now we've got legitimate consuls, Hertius and Pansa. Cicero in the spring of 43 has brought them over into the idea that we need to at least march against Antony, okay, even if he's not an enemy. And so we also need to attach Octavian to one of the consuls, Hirtius. And so Hirtius and Octavian, one of the consuls and the young Caesar move up north to set up camp near Antony. So you've got Brutus in Mutina, besieged by Antony. And then you've got Hirtius and Octavian that are sort of shadowing what Antony's doing. Meanwhile, what's Panza doing?

He's doing what the Roman Republic has done since day one. He's raising citizen soldiers. They're raising new levies. They're not going to be the best fighters, but they're going to be the citizen soldiers. They're going to fight this last republican war in the north and so as he's doing that the big question for antony is can i finish the siege because he outnumbers or at least he's got better troops than decimus brutus and mutina he's a master of siege warfare having seen what julius caesar did at places like alia. He's got lines surrounding the city and then protecting his own troops.

And he's watching Hirtius and Octavian. But he's very concerned about when Pantum finally does move north with the rest of those legions, because he's just going to be hopelessly outnumbered. So everything is clearly moving toward some sort of big conflict. It's very interesting, just keeping on the soldiers there, because I know we've talked in a previous podcast, let's say, about the Pyrrhic War almost 200 years earlier, and the citizen-soldiers then. I know the equipment will be different at this time, but still, in regards to the soldiers that Panza is raising at the moment, you can see similarities there,

for I'm guessing with, let's say, the citizen-soldiers that were fighting alongside Livenus or Decius Mus against Pyrrhus 200 years earlier? Sure, there would be. By this point in time, there'd been some subtle shifts. So they've moved from the older checkerboard pattern of the manipular legion. They've also gotten rid of the old spearmen. Now you've got the best army really in the Mediterranean. And by this point in time, by the time we're getting to the middle of the first century, the Romans have defeated just about every enemy in the Mediterranean. They are the best soldiers. They've got a legion that's about the same size as the legions that have existed from the beginning of the Republic.

But they're very, very nicely divided into 10 cohorts. And these are independent tactical units. And that's going to feature prominently in both of the battles that follow. But these independent units, most of the soldiers are armed very similarly. They've got the famous scutum. They've got the gladius. They'll hurl their javelins, their heavy javelins at the opponents. But what you have here is Roman legionaries fighting Roman legionaries, the best kind of soldiers fighting the best kind of soldiers. And what's really important is that the best soldiers at the moment are the ones who were victorious in Gaul in the 50s, victorious against Pompey in the 40s. Those are the ones

most devoted to Caesar. So Cicero's goal is we've got to win and then reincorporate these soldiers into the Republic, but we've got to win. And so that's why it's so important to get all those men devoted to Octavian to fight on behalf of the Republic with the legitimate consuls. All right. So battle number one, I believe the 14th of April or thereabouts. Steele, talk me through this battle. Well, as I said, we've got Antony, who having pushed through that legislation, sees himself as the legitimate governor of Gaul. And so he's going to, he wants to besiege Decimus. And he also, at this point, to please a lot of the legionaries, would be justified in his own mind of dispatching with one of the conspirators against Caesar.

So these kinds of ideas are already on the rise. But as I said, he's got this army that's moving north under Panza. And then he's sort of shadowed by an encampment as early as February into March of Heretius and Octavian. Fortunately for Antony, he's got superiority in cavalry. And so there's some skirmishes that break out. Everyone's sort of feeling each other out. What's going to end up happening? Decemus Brutus, he's running out of food. He needs some help. And Hercules and Octavian are basically waiting for Pantor to arrive. But Antony, what is he in? He's in the middle of a crisis. And this is the last place you want Antony to be because he's great in a crisis, unless he's got Cleopatra.

That's a problem that happens later, but he's great in a crisis without Cleopatra. And he realizes, I've got to tackle these armies piecemeal, or I'm going to be hopelessly outnumbered between three armies. And so what he does is he sends his brother to engage in another skirmish against Hirtius and Octavian. And then he surreptitiously marches on the other side of the Via Emilia, and he moves down to intercept the army of Panza. Now, what he does, he designs a perfect ambush. We could call it a textbook ambush. That's the way that the historians write about what Antony has done. There are three different accounts. One is very generic,

and then there's an account by the letter writer Galba, and then there's an account by Appian. They only have some specific differences in terms of the details, but the broad outline is this. He sets up an ambush either in the marshes just southeast of the city or as soon as the opposing army would march through the marshes. So we've got an ambush that's going to be sprung. If we follow Appian, he's going to lure the approaching army of Panta into this ambush, either in the marshes or just on the other side of the marshes.

Now, what Antony doesn't know, he's laid a perfect trap. It's a really good use of simple terrain. He really knows what he's doing. He's already sort of outwitted his opponent before the battle even begins. But what he doesn't know is that Panta has already received the most important legion. This is the so-called Martian legion that has been fighting under Hirtius. And this goes down and reinforces Panta has already received the most important legion. This is the so-called Martian legion that has been fighting under Hirtius. And this goes down and reinforces Panta. They're veterans.

They take a lot of pride in who they are. And so this is going to be very important in the battle to come. And then we also have the Praetorian cohort down that's been sent to aid Panta as well. So it seems like, again, we've got slightly different accounts, but it seems like what happens is Pza, and then the Martian Legion move through that defile into the marshes.

And depending on who we follow what then happens is Anthony either lures them into the marshes or through the marshes, or as soon as they get into the marshes, he springs his trap, and Afian's got this really great description because he's got the advanced units of Panza's army coming in and they sort of look into the swamps because there are these marshes and they're along the road and they see glints of metal. It's almost like a horror movie, like, oh gosh, the monsters

are about to come out and get us. And that's exactly what happens. All of a sudden they are engaged and the ambush is perfectly executed. The trap is sprung. Panda has just fallen right into it. And the Martian Legion is ecstatic. Oh, great.

We now get to fight despite the fact that we've been ambushed. All accounts have three separate battles breaking out. You've got the Praetorians of Antony fighting against the Praetorians of Octavian. And that's in the middle of the engagement. And then on the left and the right wing, either outside the marshes or inside the marshes, you've got the Martian legions and possibly Panza fighting, and they're overwhelmed. They're outnumbered by two of Antony's legions. So one battle on one side of the road, another battle on another side of the road, and the road

hotly contested itself between the two Praetorians. And the motives of the men, I think, are really, really important. Because Antony had had to institute a decimation where you kill every 10th man down in Brandisium when there had been some desertions. And the Martians in particular hated Antony for this. And this is part of why they were fighting for Octavian. You had a number of desertions that had occurred. So by this point in time, the legions have grown to really hate some of their own fellow soldiers.

And they also really want to prove who they are and how good of fighters they are. And so these three battles are, there's almost this sort of icy coldness that develops. The fighters are really competitive. They really want to demonstrate how great they are. The Martians, so the four legions that Panta has in the rear, remember, they're just the advance guard. Don't even come

up. You're going to mess up what we're doing. You're going to distract us and cause confusion. And they put up a really good fight on one of the wings. But let me read for you the way Appian describes the kind of fighting between the best soldiers the Mediterranean has. This is what he says. They raised no battle cry, since they could not expect to terrify each other, nor in the engagement did they utter a sound, either as victors or vanquished. No blow missed its mark. There were wounds and slaughter, but no cries, only groans. And when one fell, he was instantly borne away and another took his place. They neither needed admonition nor encouragement since experience made each one his own general. And it just, it sounds

kind of haunting. There's not all the normal war cries because everyone knows those tricks won't work. What ends up happening is the tipping point is numbers for Antony. He's got the initiative and then his cavalry, he's got that superior cavalry and they seem to envelop an outflank and the forces of Panza start breaking. One of the commanders, the guy who wrote the letter, Galba, is able to get back and he escapes. He sees Antony amidst the cavalry and Antony's brilliant out there commanding all of his troops, making sure they're making the most of the terrain. And Galba is able to get back to Panza. his troops, making sure they're making the most of the terrain. And Galba was able to get back to Panza. Panza, who's either already there or he has now moved up to reinforce, is badly wounded in the side by a javelin. And they've got to get him back into the camp or back to Bannonia. As this is

occurring, as Panza is carried off, the numbers of Panza's forces have been annihilated. And they start retreating back into the levees. Well, the levees, these are these fresh recruits the Pandas had raised. They see the experts coming back, the veterans, and they fall back. And Antony Nail follows up and the sun is setting. And so he's not able to absolutely annihilate the forces or take possession of the camp, but he is clearly the victor. And all of his men, as the sun is setting, start moving back up to his camp outside mutina and that's when he gets ambushed and we have this incredible reversal in the battle because hertius staying on top of the situation is heard there's an engagement going on and he sends his forces all freshmen and they come down and they pounce on antony Antony's men. They are singing victory hymns,

hymns of triumph as they're moving up the Via Aemilia as there's this twilight battle. It's confused, but sharp. And the fresh forces of Hirtius just annihilate Antony's forces. And it's a bloodbath. Antony gets back. He's been horribly destroyed

or a lot of his forces have been destroyed. They talk about those two armies that had fought on the road. There's not a single Praetorian cohort legionary that's left. Every single one of those guys had died. So there's no one to retreat. There's only people to bury. It's been a remarkably bloody encounter. And it looked like Antony had won. And then Hirtius swoops in, saves his co-consul, and he rescues the day. And now instead, Antony is going to be on the defensive for the rest of the campaign. You mentioned that Panzer was taken off the field, seemed pretty badly wounded. What follows in the immediate days following this initial big clash?

Well, Hirtius does, he's already done really well. He has a lot to be proud of because he's rescued his co-consul and he does something else really well. And then he does something really foolish, but let's talk about what he does. That's very good. Hirtius maintains the initiative. He knows he's got Antony on the defensive. He wants to keep putting pressure on him. He also needs to relieve that siege. So he maintains the focus. He knows what the objective is. It's to relieve the siege and if possible to destroy Antony. Antony's goal at this point is just to stay alive but hopefully be able to besiege or to finish the siege of Mutina but that looks really unlikely. He's still got superior in cavalry so Hirtius decides what we've got to do is we've got to

find a weak point in those walls of Antony's around Mutina and so what he does is he moves around to the northwest side of the city and he's moving his armies up to that northwest side where there aren't the rivers blocking the position. And so Antony hasn't fortified it as well. And Antony realizes, yeah, they're going to be able to reinforce Decimus, and then there's nothing I can do about it. So they sort of force Antony's hand. This is a really good move by Hirtius. It's solid operations. You've got to have superior positioning.

But what happens is Hirtius all of a sudden realizes, now I've got a chance to destroy Antony. Now that's the secondary goal is get rid of Antony's army. And so this is fine. And Antony pulls two legions and you've got a general engagement that breaks out at Mutina. And this is what Hirtius and Octavian have wanted. And they prosecute this new battle with great vigor. In fact, they put both those legions to flight. Those two legions fall back on Antony's. Other legions, which are trying to reinforce them, confusion breaks out.

Hirtius and possibly Octavian are doing so well, they enter into the camp of Antony. And this is where Hirtius makes a major blunder. This is something that Polybius writes about, about generalship. A general has to know when he needs to take the appropriate risk. And Hirtius does not need to take the risk. He wants to be the guy that kills Antony himself. And so he actually gets to the tent of Antony, which of course is where the fiercest fighting occurs. And Hirtius himself is killed in action. And the tent of Antony, which of course is where the fiercest fighting occurs. And Hirtius himself is killed in action in the midst of the fighting just outside Antony's tent,

when it looks like he's on the cusp of total victory. And Octavian is probably there. Octavian is able to hold the camp for a little, but eventually, having lost Hirtius, the forces of the Republicans have to leave the camp for a little, but eventually having lost Hirtius, the forces of the Republicans have to leave the camp. And that night, both armies are going to spend the night under arms. Antony then realizes, I've got to get out of here. His men advise, we've got to stay. We've got to keep fighting. Antony, I think wisely says, no, no, we've been licked. We've got to leave. And there's a question, where's Octavian? What's Octavian been doing? Well,

the sources disagree. It's possible, according to later sources, that Octavian actually carries the body of Hirtius out. Well, that would have been quite a scene, right? Or some even have it that he picks up the standard, the eagle, for one of the legionaries when he falls, when the standard bearer falls. But other sources don't really mention what he does. And we know he'd been hanging out in the camp of the Battle of Forum Galorum. And he gains a very early reputation for being a coward in battle.

But here's what we do know. Anthony has been the center of the fighting. He's probably injured himself. He's now had to retreat. Panza is dying of that javelin wound. Hirtius is dead. Octavian, he's the only one who miraculously had no injuries and he's in perfect health and he's the only commander in that position

and so you have this all of a sudden freakish reversal of fortunes because anthony is able to extricate himself he goes out and he out maneuvers decimus who's going to try to pursue him and then octavian is now the only commander left on the field in charge of the consular armies. Because right before Panza dies, Panza warns him, watch out for Cicero and what they're trying to do. They may not want you to honor Caesar's memory. And Octavian is going to take that advice to heart. And he's decided he's not going to assist Decimus when Decimus needs that assistance the most with the best troops the Republicans currently have, those old veterans of Caesar's. Let's keep then on Octavian and Decimus for a bit, because you mentioned earlier how Octavian, yes, he is the

primary inheritor of Caesar's will, like obviously he's the first heir. But Decimus, if I remember correctly, he's the second heir, or he's also in Caesar's will. But of course, he's one of the key conspirators in the assassination of Caesar. I mean, still, do Decimus and Octavian, do they meet up after Mutina? If so, it must have been a really quite a hostile atmosphere. Well, it is. And we can tell, and all the sources agree, these two do not get along. In fact, Octavian very early gives him the cold shoulder. Octavian, to a certain extent, it's understandable that he does this. Remember Decimus' background, of course, but as an assassin. But Decimus is immediately given command of the

troops by the Senate. The problem is, this angers Octavian, but that's not a big deal. It angers the veteran troops who identify with the young Caesar. The last person they would identify with is a liberator. They would have identified with a moderate Caesarian consul, but both of those guys are dead. So I think this is a blunder on the part of the Senate. And they make a number of moves to anger Octavian, who is just too powerful at that moment. And we all know, and Cicero even says this, are not sure of his motives. His motives are dicey. He's young, he's ambitious. And you're going to see things rapidly fall apart in the summer in ways that everyone had thought were unthinkable in the wake of this incredible pair of victories

at Forum Glorum and Mutina. Absolutely. With Panzer's passing over that summer, then what does happen with Octavian? That's so significant. So Octavian is going to take over the armies and Decimus is going to take over the responsibility for trying to hunt down Antony. He hopes he has the assistance of a moderate Caesarian, Plankus, who's up in Transalpine Gaul. So he crosses the Alps, he pursues Antony. He hopes he has the assistance of a moderate Caesarian, Plankus, who's up in transalpine Gaul. So he crosses the Alps. He pursues Antony, but what is Antony in the middle of? A crisis. What's that mean? Antony behaves really well. And so he makes a feint up toward Palentia, then moves down south. And when he does this, there's another, more of a radical Caesarian,

Ventidius, who's the praetor. He joins Antony with more legions. And so this guy who's just been defeated, all of a sudden starts seeing his army reconstituted. Meanwhile, Lepidus, who's like I said, in modern Southern day France, he starts sending messages to Antony. And by 29th of May, it is clear to everyone, Lepidus has joined Antony. And Cicero is just beside himself. So the moment back in Rome, they had heard about the victories. The people rushed to his house.

They take him out of his house. They sit him on the roster. They praise him for directing this entire campaign. And then as soon as that's over, it's just one long summer step after another in total despair. I love it. It's even right. Cicero in the center and it says, oh, yeah, well, I really tried to help. But, you know, my troops, they just went over to Antony.

It's just it's one of the most uninspiring letters. And Cicero is writing to Plankus and to Palio. And both of these guys have written these really warm letters. And Plankus had said, Cicero, I view you as a father. I would do anything to assist the Republic. But instead, we know what Plankus is really doing. He stops helping Decimus Brutus. He will not pursue Antony. And Brutus, the loyalty of his troops is already a little dicey. He's worn them out. Starvation in the siege, crossing the Alps, a pursuit that yielded nothing. He ends up coming back down. But by this point in

time, Octavian is in a very different position. So here's what had happened with Octavian. He's basically managed to seize power. In June and July, he moves down to Rome and he asks for a triumph and a consulship. Well, the Senate probably foolishly denies both of these. And so he sends an embassy of centurions and the embassy of centurions say, we're going to take a triumph and a consulship for Octavian. And the Senate says, well, how are you going to do that? And one of the centurions pulls out a sword and says, buy this. And Cicero says, well, if that's how you're going to use it,

I'm sure you will get it. Cicero realizes the game is going to be up soon. And it's not going to be a surprise in July and August when people learn that Polio and Plankus have both defected. They have joined Lepidus and Antony because the moderate Caesareans think these are going to be the winners in this war in the West. And by mid-August, Octavian has followed up with his threat. He's marched on Rome. He's been legally elected consul, although there's nothing legal about it. But he uses this sword point diplomacy to achieve this election as consulship. And then he follows in the footsteps of his adopted father, seizes the treasury, gives

it to the troops. The Senate by this point in time has no power. There's a law that is passed by another relative of Caesar that reverses those who are friendly and those who are enemies. Now the enemies of the Roman Republic are all the assassins. Basically, he just unpicks everything that Cicero had spent those months building up. And all of the friendlies of the Roman Republic are Lepidus, Antony, of the Roman Republic are Lepidus, Antony, Polio, Plancus. And it's no surprise in November when Octavian moves up to take on the reconstituted army of Antony

that Lepidus, Antony, and Octavian are going to meet and decide to form what's called the second triumvirate. It's really the first triumvirate because the first triumvirate is not actually a triumvirate, but they form that triumvirate that has become so famous. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything

you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. With Cicero, as that summer progressed, as he saw Octavian following in the footsteps of Caesar, do you think that's when it really, well, it must have done, it dawns on him that his hope prior to Mutiner, prior to Form Glarum, that Octavian would be someone that, although he's never completely sure about Octavian, someone that they could control, that they could manage. Is this when that thing just crashes to the floor and he just knows that actually perhaps Octavian was always the biggest threat? Yeah, he does have that. And if you want a depressing depressing read you know on a friday night when you don't have

a date get the letters of cicero and just read the letters that follow and the may letters to friends from basically may to the last letters that he writes and he starts off optimistic and then it turns into sort of hope that Antony can finally be finished off. And then eventually it's just letters of despair. And he's writing to Cassius and Brutus saying, we need you, we need you, we need you, and they're not coming. And Brutus is sort of taunting him, well, maybe you shouldn't have helped out with Octavian so much. But I don't buy that argument because Brutus isn't there to do anything. They had sort of blundered by not putting a plan into action. Cicero has put a plan into action,

but he did something that he knew was a risk, but that was also against his better judgment. And we know this. He's wrote a whole book on friendship. It's one of those philosophical treatises. It's called Dea Emicidia. And he says, and he's sort of following Aristotle here, that you have to make friendships with people based on virtue.

And you have to have a common sense of values and virtue. And that is not the friendship that he makes with Octavian. The friendship he makes with Octavian is one based on utility. And friendships based on utility are notorious for breaking down. And that's the one risk he took. And that's the one risk he took. It did not pay off through some of his own blunders, through certain blunders of the Senate, and most importantly, through sheer dumb bad luck with both of the consuls being the ones who were killed and not Antony.

Absolutely. You see that throughout history, don't you? Let's keep on Cicero then, the end of Cicero. I mean, the forming of the Second Triumvirate, what does this result in for Cicero? We've got a really fun account of the debates of the triumvirs. I mean, it's really good history writing by the historians, Cassius Dio and Appian, of course, among the best. And they talk about how the triumvirs are trying to decide, how do we get money and

how do we ensure our own legitimacy? Well, they decide that the best way to get money is through prescriptions. This emerged under Sulla several decades before, the idea being you post names of those who are enemies of the state. And this initially emerged because someone had asked the dictator Sulla, well, can you tell us who is going to live? And Sulla basically said, well, I can't tell you who's going to live, but I'll tell you for certain who's going to die. And so he posted all these names of people who all of a sudden realized one day they wake up

and there are assassins at their door or their name has been posted and they need to get out of Dodge or their days are going to be numbered. And so the triumvirs pull out this plan for proscriptions. They deem a number of people enemies of the state. Now, of course, all the liberators are going to be in this, but there'll also be personal enemies. And who do you think Antony's number one personal enemy is going to be? Cicero, of course. And this

is sort of Antony getting the last laugh. Yeah, okay, you're better at oratory, but the sword in the end is what actually matters. And so supposedly Octavian puts up a fight for a couple of days, we were told. He's loyal to Cicero. He doesn't want to see Cicero die. But in the end, he sort of has to capitulate because Antony is the more powerful member of the Triumvirate. But the Triumvirs notoriously sell out their own brothers and family members, et cetera. And Cicero, of course, is at the top of the list. What happens to Cicero? Well, he's realizing by November, everything's gonna get bad.

So he decides he's gonna go join Brutus and Cassius. He'd done this with Pompey, but he boards a ship and the ship is turned back. And his nephew and his brother had also gone with him to board the ship and they thought, we don't have money. So they turned back around and they go back to get their money. And they're overtaken by assassins and they're killed. And Cicero looks like he's got a chance to escape.

And the ship is turned back. And he does something. And I think he does something that's very, very brave. And he says, oh, no, I'm not going to take this ship and flee. I'm going to stay here. We're probably going to lose. The Republic's probably going to be over. And if so, I'm going to die here. And one account has him entertaining going to Rome, either begging Octavian for his life or can make some sort of ancient devotee

where he devotes his own life to the extinction of his enemies. I don't think that's it. I think Livy captures the story properly. Livy is one of the earliest accounts. It's the simplest account. And he says that Cicero gets back off the boat. He goes back to his villa and he says, let me die in the fatherland I've so often saved. And he just stays there. And he stays there until he's out actually in a litter outside the villa being carried by his servants and two men, Herennius and Papilius, one of whom Cicero had gotten acquitted in a prosecution for parasite. And these two men arrive

and Cicero knows what they're there for. And the servants say, we're willing to put up a fight. And Cicero says, no, no, don't do that. Not on my account. My time has come. And so he simply kneels down. And the last words that he has is he says, there's nothing proper about what you are doing,

but at least make sure you cut off my head properly. Witty to the end. And that's the last word of Cicero. And it's remarkable because of all of these statesmen, I think at the very end of the Republic, Cicero has the most honorable end. He doesn't commit suicide. I don't think he really believes in suicide. Why doesn't he? Because he wants to make these evildoers do what he sees as evil themselves. And he's not going to do himself in. He's going to make them do it. And he dies bravely. Even Livy says, you take all of his faults, but he dies really well. And it would take a Eul just as good as Cicero to proclaim the good deeds that Cicero has done. Wow. it is quite an ending to Cicero's life. And to think how different things could have been if Hirtius hadn't been so headstrong

that day at Mutina and gone in the charge towards Antony's tent and ended up being killed. Absolutely. It's remarkable how it unravels. And imagine being Decimus. And Decimus, he has an end almost as bad as Cicero. Certainly, it's more pathetic than Cicero. He sees everyone slowly depart from him. Mass desertions. He's got, at one point, only 300 horsemen that stay with him. And then he tries to escape and get to Brutus and Cassius through what would have been a harrowing journey.

And in the end, he's only got 10 men with him. And he's greeted by an old Gallic chieftain ally. And the Gallic chieftain, you know, greets him amicably, says, why have my men brought you to me in chains? But then he surreptitiously sends a letter to Antony. What do you want me to do with this guy? And Antony says, send me his head. And so the Gallic chieftain sends him his head. And it's just, it's a pathetic ending of a life that didn't need to turn out that way either at least hertius had gone down fighting foolhardy but fighting but it's sad what happens to this figure who'd been at the center of this entire clash and had vacillated at the crucial

moment in a way that he thought would be victorious for himself and for the Republic. Absolutely. Decimus Brutus, we must never forget. He seems one of these super significant figures of the late Roman Republic alongside the other Brutus, alongside Cassius, alongside Cicero and all the others that you've mentioned either in this podcast or ones previous. Now, Steele, that was a brilliant chat. The Basil of Mutina, along with Philippi and others, they form keystones of your book on this period of ancient history. That's right. The book is Killing for the Republic, Citizen-Soldiers and the Roman Way of War. Brilliant. Steele, thanks so much for coming back on the podcast. Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. It's great. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you.

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