The Ancients - The Battle of Philippi: Death of the Roman Republic

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

In October 42 BC the Roman Republic committed suicide. Near the town of Philippi in northern Greece the forces of Brutus and Cassius, the famous assassins of Julius Caesar and the last surviving cheerleaders of the Roman Republic, faced off against the armies of Marc Antony and young Octavian. Two separate battles were fought, the results of which decided the future direction of Rome. I was delighted to get the brilliant Steele Brand (@steele_brand) back on the podcast to talk me through these all-important battles. From the background to Brutus’ pitiful demise Steele guided me through the final Roman attempts to restore the Republic and how they were ultimately squashed by a combination of political brilliance, suicidal blunders and outrageous luck.Steele is the author of ‘Killing for the Republic: Citizen Soldiers and the Roman Way of War’.Steele's Twitter: @steele_brandTristan's Twitter: @ancientstristanSteele's previous appearance on The Ancients: https://play.acast.com/s/the-ancients/killingfortheromanrepublicQuick note:Lycia was a region in southwest Anatolia that bordered the Mediterranean Sea.

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. In October 42 BC, one of the most important set of battles in Roman history occurred near the town of Philippi in northern Greece. On the one side, you had the forces of a young Octavian, the man who would later become Augustus, and the forces of Marc Antony, the veteran general of Julius Caesar.

And opposing them on the other side, you had the forces of Brutony, the veteran general of Julius Caesar. And opposing them on the other side, you had the forces of Brutus and Cassius, two of the most famous assassins of Julius Caesar. These battles would decide the future of Rome, the future of the Roman Republic. And to talk through these battles, the background, the battles themselves, and their significance, I was delighted to be rejoined by Dr. Steele Brand. Steele has been on the podcast once before to talk about citizen soldiers during the Roman Republican period, and that podcast is called Killing for the Roman Republic, and it was brilliant to get him back on the show to talk through the battles of Philippi.

Here's Steele. Here's Steele. Steele, it is great to have you back on the show. How have you been? I have been doing okay, given the circumstances, and it's fantastic to be back. Another great topic we're talking about today, we are talking about the battles of Philippi. I guess it's right to say battles, right? Correct, yes. And this is a defining moment in Roman history. This is when the Roman Republic, can we say it dies? I think we have to be a little more dramatic in our phraseology there. It commits suicide.

Ironically, we can use that term as we'll see probably near the end of the podcast, but this is a mass suicide on the part of the Roman Republic itself, and particularly its citizen soldiers. So let's start with the background, first of all, and one of the most significant or one of the biggest events in ancient history, the assassination of Julius Caesar. Is this the spark for civil war to erupt once more? Right. So we've had a century of troubles. Appian starts off this with thinking of the Cracky, that we have a number of problems that pop up between Marius and Sulla. We've got another generation. And then you've got a climbing set of issues that seem like they're

going to culminate in civil war, which does break out between Caesar and Pompey. Well, Caesar really against all the odds. The guy just does not seem to understand the possibility of defeat. Caesar ends up beating Pompey. And this is remarkable. And so now he's a tyrant in Rome. He's a really interesting tyrant because he's clearly overthrowing the constitution. He's passing laws, basically himself. And he's behaving in such a way that he's acting like a king. However, and what gets the sense he's surprised at the event, there are still enough Republicans, especially the younger group of Republicans who are inspired by people such as Cato and to a certain extent by Pompey. But this idea of standing up to a tyrant, this group of people gather together and they assassinate Caesar.

It's a really, really well-hidden conspiracy, despite the fact that Plutarch plays out their lost importance. But I do think Caesar has this sense that he's almost kind of invincible or he's so confident in himself that this couldn't happen. And of course it does.

And then the question is, well, what comes next? And at the moment, chaos breaks out and people aren't really sure exactly as he's breathing his last, what's going to happen. And who are these young men who have been inspired by these earlier Republican figures? Who are these men who assassinate Caesar? So we've got three factions that emerge with the death or the assassination of Caesar. And the two leading figures are Brutus and Cassius. And when I teach my class on the Roman Republic, I actually have them, I assign them a statesman. I give them a personality test. They are assigned a statesman that they have to live with and die with because they all die in the end. And it's interesting how people really get into the personalities of Brutus and Cassius. And what's pretty great is the sources. We've got three main sources for the Battle of Philippi. We've got Cassius Dio, we've got Appian, and then we've got Plutarch. They paint a pretty similar picture of all of them. And Brutus, he's mild. He's mild-tempered. He is very philosophically minded. He seems to get along with people, but he more importantly inspires people because he has an upright character, Cato being one of them, possibly Cicero, although Cicero knows how to do politics and knows how to do it in a dirty fashion in a way that Brutus doesn't seem to be able to do. And he is possibly, this is what some people think, he's possibly the illegitimate son of

Caesar. Probably not, almost certainly not. But Plutarch mentions this, and he's a foil to his friend who's the instigator for Brutus. And that's Cassius. And Cassius, poor Cassius. And this is what I'm always telling my students. Don't get Cassius from Shakespeare because Cassius, he's a lot more than that. And Shakespeare, kind of playing off Plutarch, but not fully, wants to set these two up as two very different people. Temperamentally, they are different. Cassius has a remarkable background. He is the

guy who's constantly rescuing the Republic from defeat. So when the disastrous Battle of Karai happens and Crassus gets himself isolated and then murdered with most of his army destroyed by the Parthians, you've got Cassius saving the day and keeping disaster from occurring back in Syria and basically holding the line against repeated offensives of the Parthians. And then in the phases of the civil war, he is successful at sea against the forces of Caesar, whereas Pompey is unsuccessful. So he's the stellar subordinate, but he's always fighting for lost causes. And there's even a story that as a young boy, he'd shown his temperament for always hating tyranny personally by getting in basically a fistfight with the son of Sulla.

When Sulla's son Faustus had said, my father's awesome and my father is all powerful. And Cassius said, absolutely not. And he beats the boy and he even offers to do it twice when he almost gets in trouble with Sulla. So you've got these two really different personalities. One who is fiery. He knows how to lead men. He's pretty good in a crisis. The other who's softer, but he's inspiring because of his sense of virtue. And these two men get together and get a cabal, pretty substantial cabal of others to lead this first faction. They're the liberators, if you are a Republican, or they're conspirators if you like julius caesar and they're

the ones who end up affecting the assassination and these liberators cassius brutus and the rest who are in their circle as it were do they stay in rome long following the assassination or is it very quickly that they decide to up sticks and move as it were all right well cicero makes the point that you guys planned the assassination really well but you didn't plan what was going to happen next i think they just thought the republic was spontaneously going to resurrect itself that isn't what happened the senators in the senate when they're actually in the theater of pompeii or they're in a building attached to it they are panic when they see caesar being assassinated the mob dearlyly loves Caesar for a whole host of reasons.

They're a little uncomfortable, a little uncertain about what Caesar had intended for himself. Nobody knows what Caesar had intended for himself. So the people are confused. The senators are scared. The conspirators actually have to go run up and hide out on the Capitol line. The Capitol is basically almost in a state of siege. There are people who want to even burn down the conspirators or the assassins' houses, and you don't have the reemergence of the Republic. However, what's really interesting is you've got two other factions. So we've got the liberators. You've got Mark Antony. He's the highest legitimate authority in the Roman Republic at the time. And you've got the master of horse of Caesar, Marcus Lepidus, the guys who have the most legitimate power. They basically affect a truce.

You even have Brutus and Cassius dining with Lepidus and Antony right after the assassination. And it looks like maybe the heirs of Caesar, the ones closest to him, the Caesareans, are going to affect a peace. You've got this group of fence-sitters who've done well under Caesar. They have positions that they're going to inherit from Caesar, and they're the moderate Caesareans. So it looks like at the end of March, you may actually have a peace breakout between these various factions. And then of course, the whole thing is upset by the entrance of the nephew of

Caesar. And then this, or the grand nephew, I should say, of Caesar. And this is going to cause all of this to start breaking down very fast. And who is this grand nephew of Caesar? Oh, well, we Republicans, we have to stick with calling him Octavian. Of course, you could call him Augustus, but probably the most accurate term for the day would be the young caesar if i have a slip of the tongue and call him octavian that's simply because i'm looking at the fact that you know as this background that uh is it's relatively obscure it's a well-to-do family but not one of the most famous he's the like i said the uh i think it's his is the son of his niece and atia, and he's adopted by Caesar.

And he's a bit of a sickly child. He's always going to be plagued with a kind of weak constitution, but he plays the man. His mother says, play the man. And as an upper teenager, he's 19 at the time, he comes into Italy and assumes the mantle of his adoptive father, Caesar. And adoption in Rome is a very serious matter. If you're adopted, you become a member of that family. You inherit that legitimacy.

And Octavian does an amazing job. And he steps into that role. He even begins raising legions from his father's old veterans. So you can see there are people who are dedicated to Caesar's legacy, and they do not want to see Caesar's legacy to disappear. And they want to see the liberators punished. And they are attracted to Octavian. And Octavian can use that against Antony, who has seized Caesar's papers, a lot of the wealth of Caesar, and is starting to do some dodgy things with them. It looks like the war that's going to break out is

going to be between these two presumptive heirs of the legacy of Caesar, his legal heir, and then his lieutenant, Mark Antony. But that's not what ends up happening. Octavian is this wrecking ball that just goes smashing in between these two factions in the aftermath of Caesar's death, which ultimately leads to Brutus and Cassius and Mark Antony, well, their relations falling apart. That's right. And one has to wonder how long could that peace have held between Antony and Brutus and Cassius? It's one of these questions

we'll never have answered, but Octavian ensures this does not occur. What is happening is Cassius and Brutus have got to get out of Rome and then eventually out of Italy, which is an embarrassment because Brutus is the urban praetor. He's supposed to be there in the city. He's not allowed to leave. So they sort of have to make special exceptions for this. And then they're given small appointments out in the east.

And that means that the most important figures of the Republican cause have now left with a republic that isn't actually restored not yet and so when brutus and cassius they head east what do they start doing what is their aim well initially they seem to be waiting but cassius of course moves a lot faster he will start gaining control of the forces out in the east this happens over late 44 into early 43. They're given, like I said, small assignments, but they basically forget what these small assignments are. And they begin taking over the control of the resources. What do they need? They need men and they need money. And there are some allies who had been at least a part of the cause and not the friends of Caesar,

or at least they've been part of the conspiracy. And they will join with Cassius, who's operating in Asia. Brutus comes into Athens and he starts teaching philosophy. This is what he does. Cassius arrives and he gets to the middle of a crisis. There are a number of legions trying to gain control of Syria and he swoops in and everyone rallies to his cause. It's stirring. Whereas, you know, back in Athens, Brutus is teaching philosophy. But what Plutarch says that what Brutus is also doing is he's taking the lay of the land and he's seeing where can he get support. And he starts gathering forces to his side. And as soon as he can declare himself, he gathers a number of young men to him.

They join the army, including the poet Horace, who maybe will have cause to mention him in the end. But Marcus Cicero, the son of the elder Cicero, will also join Brutus' cause. And then he will end up in 43, defeating the brother of Mark Antony. Mark Antony, by this point in time, back in Italy, looks like he's making himself out to be kind of like another Caesar. And Brutus is going to have a pretty good campaign where he defeats Antony's brother. He captures him and you've got the liberators out of Italy, but basically in control of all the resources of the East, which is what Sulla had done. And this is what Pompey had done before them. Absolutely. When you think of that time

period, these Eastern provinces, the Roman Empire, this is where the wealth is. This is where all the money is. And Brutus in Athens in Greece, Cassius in Asia, where he's been before, he knows the place very well. And he's this charismatic leader too. It sounds very good at this point for them. It does. When you get to 43, and we haven't mentioned what's going on in the West, you have the forces of Mark Antony defeated. You have legitimate commands now bestowed on Cassius and Brutus up to this point. Are they warlords? Do they actually deserve to have these positions? But no, legitimacy is conferred on them. It looks like as spring 43 is moving into summer, the Republicans have absolutely won this whole thing. And certainly Brutus and Cassius are in a really, really good

position in control of so much money and so many troops with the virtue of Brutus on the one hand, the generalship of Cassius on the other hand. You mentioned the events in the West that are happening at this time. Let's go into that now, because as these things have been happening in the East, we see this other hero of the Republic back in Rome making his own progress. Yeah. And I mean, the story of Cicero is, I mean, it's fascinating up to 44, 43, but it's even more fascinating, the decisions that the old man makes in 43. So Cicero had always been on the fence about what to do throughout the phases of the civil war, but Pompey or Caesar, he's often seen as a vacillator.

I don't think that's actually the case. I think Cicero has a really high ideal of what the ideal statesman should be. And so he's not included in the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar. One source, Nicolaus, has the Brutus hailing Cicero for Cicero and the Republic the moment after they've killed Caesar. And Cicero is sort of thinking, am I supposed to stand up? What do I do? Should I have applause? Am I a part of this? But no one includes him in it because they thought, yeah, he's an old man. And that's a good critique because unlike so many other old men like Quintus Fabius Maximus or Aemilius Paulus, men in their 60s, 70s, even 80s of the

Republic who can fight. Cicero has always been very timid. He's a little more like Brutus in this way, physically timid. And what he does is he starts writing letters to them. And throughout 44, he sees in the West the breakdown of order. And he sees Mark Antony start forging papers. He witnesses a number of things that Caesar had done in the fifties with Crassus and with Pompey. He sees commands extended for long periods into other provinces, such as Gaul, which gosh, that's just like what Caesar had done. Would this have happened without Octavian? We don't know, but he sees Octavian out there wandering on the loose and he thinks he can mold Octavian. He always wonders, is this the right thing to do? He doesn't trust him. He writes this to his friends

in his letters, but he's trying to pull Octavian away from Mark Antony. And how does he do this? He does it through the old Republican way by writing letters and by giving speeches. And here's what's great about Cicero. We have all these speeches. He's giving a really, really great speeches to the Senate, but also to the people. And this is, they're usually alternate if you read the Philippics. And he doesn't actually open the big verbal tirade between Antony and Cicero. Iticero is not willing to do it as Antony looks like he's grasping at power. And so when Antony kind of throws down the gauntlet, Cicero says, okay, I'll pick it up. And this is a really big moment for Cicero. He actually had thought about leaving, get away from the whole thing. I think a huge part of this is his wife for most of his life has, he divorced her, a lot of reasons why, but he'd also lost his daughter in 45. And I think what Cicero is realizing is, what else do I have to live for if not for doing something truly noble? And he's

writing lots and lots of philosophy. And he writes to his friends and he says, how can I fight this battle with these young men? He says, words will be my weapons. That's what I'll use. And he's thinking philosophically, but he's also thinking of letters that he's writing to those who have the armies and speeches that he's giving to confer legitimacy. And so he engages in this rhetorical battle and it's long. I mean, it lasts from really November, December for certain into April. And there are lots of opponents. They usually have the floor before he does. He's responding, but he convinces people through his words to declare Antony illegitimate, to declare Antony's opponents legitimate. The next legitimate consuls, Hirtius and Panza, are convinced to take up arms and go take out Mark Antony up in the north. And this is the last great rhetorical gasp of the Republic.

last great rhetorical gasp of the Republic. It's when you have words being used to persuade the Senate and the people to make decisions in terms of policy. Of course, lives are on the line, but lives are always on the line at war. And Cicero is successful. And the consuls defeat Mark Antony outside Mutina. And then a really strange ironic twist of fate. Both consuls die and the defeated Anthony survives. And you've got a power vacuum. And this is the opportunity for Octavian, who basically at this point in time had been subsumed under the Republican cause, to break through with Cicero and the Senate. and the Senate. And eventually, over the summer and the fall, through negotiations, he's going to, in November, form a pact with the master of Horus Lepidus, with the ex-consul Mark Antony, and that's the formation of that triumvirate. You feel so sorry for Cicero hearing that, because it sounds like he played every card right,

but the fortunes of war, the misfortune of battle, that these two key allies, these two consuls, they both die, and then his opponent ultimately becomes the victor. Yes, it is absolutely ironic. A Polybius, perhaps even a Cicero would say, it's not mere fortune, because you can use fortune this way, but it also could be fortune in a sense of providence, a sort of moving things in a direction, but it unravels fast for Cicero. And what has he just done? Well, he's written all these speeches against Mark Antony, and Mark Antony is furious with them because, of course, Mark Antony lost that rhetorical battle. And they're going to issue another round of proscriptions.

Proscription is basically a list for people that are deemed enemies of the state. And who of course is at the top of Antony's list? Well, it is Cicero. Supposedly Octavian, the young Caesar argues for a couple of days saying, well, he doesn't want his old friend Cicero to suffer this fate, but in the end, Antony wins out. And so this is the start of the forming of the second triumvirate. That's right. And this one, at least in terms of law, is actually a triumvirate. And although they pushed through the triumvirate through dubious means, Octavian gets the consulship by sending an embassy of centurions to demand the consulship in the summer of 43. But by November, we clearly have the triumvirs as the power, the warlords, if you will, in the West.

I really think they have just a little bit less legitimacy than what you've got going on in the East between Brutus and Cassius. At this point in time, because a civil war is clearly going on, legitimacy is less the question. The ideas behind the forces are what's in question. And I think everyone understands that Lepidus, Antony, and Octavian, they are friends for the moment. They're allies for a kind of autocratic regime that it seems like Caesar was going to set up. Whereas out in the East, Brutus and Cassius are holding onto this idea that we need the restoration of the Republic. And they're warlords, they're accumulating a lot of money, getting a lot of soldiers, but they have very different ideas of what the victors should do with their power. And that is going to have to be decided by some

sort of battle. I mean, indeed, it sounds like with the removal of Cicero from Rome, with his death, there's this clear line in the sand that's been drawn between these two bodies, these powerful bodies, but also this line in the sand, this division between the two ideologies of them as well. That's right. And we see this as we approach Philippi. There's some really good speeches put in the mouths of particularly Cassius. And I think to what extent can we believe that the speeches are word for word there? Well, this is a big topic that a lot of historians discuss. I think we can discount a lot of the particulars, but it's possible that some of what was recorded was actually spoken at the moment.

It's possible we do have family records and things of that nature. spoken at the moment. It's possible we do have family records and things of that nature. But I think the sense that Appian provides us of what Cassius is telling the men, and also this is verified by their coins. We have coins by the triumvirs. Now this is hard physical evidence. And the coins of the triumvirs, they are of themselves. And what's really interesting is the coins that are minted by Brutus and Cassius. Cassius does something very traditional. He's got a symbol of liberty and Brutus puts his own. Cassius does something very traditional. He's got a symbol of liberty. And Brutus puts his own head on it, which is really ironic because that's not traditional. But the other side of Brutus is the freedman's cap and daggers that, hey, what we're fighting

for here is the republic and liberty. And what Cassius is saying in the most conservative and traditional way is what we're fighting for here is what Rome has always been. That's in the coins. And the speeches make this even clearer. And this is where this famous line is from Cassius before they march over back into the depths of Europe. Cassius tells his men, the best cause in war is the justice of your cause. And he believes that they are more just. He believes that they're fighting for the Republic, for liberty. He believes the autocrats are not fighting for that. And the autocrat speeches leading up to the battle throughout 43 and 42 are, we'll give you plunder. We'll give you power. You will legitimate us.

We will reward you with colonies. It's a very different set of values. So on one side, it's you're fighting for me and I can give you rich rewards. On the other side, you're fighting for this really just and noble cause. That's the idea. Yes, that's the idea. Now, did Brutus and Cassius embody that? Well, I mean, the Republic's been in a mess for decades, but essentially, yes, I think you do have two very different ideas of what the future is supposed to look like and what the Roman way of life, specifically the Roman political way of life, is supposed to be. And so war is coming.

They've got these armies emerging in the east and the west. And what is the road to Philippi, as it were? How do these two armies end up fighting at this place in the central Mediterranean? So what you've got is, in some some ways a parallel again with Pompey. Plutarch plays this up a lot between Pompey and Caesar, and you can't push that too far. But the Republicans for the most part control the seas. And some of the forces that Cassius had defeated in Asia, particularly the commander Mercus, He had put in charge of the Navy. And they're trying to block the maneuvers of Antony and Octavian to get out of Italy and

basically attack them out in the East. What's been going on in the East? Well, both Brutus and Cassius have been remarkably successful. They meet a couple of times, once at Smyrna and then at Sardis once in 43, and then again before the last campaign in 42. And Cassius has consolidated all of Asia. And he's actually about to go settle affairs with Cleopatra, not the kind of affair that Mark Antony and Caesar had had. He's thinking in terms of military matters, although you never know with Cleopatra, she has talents. But he's not able to do this because Brutus says, no, no, we need to get back together. What has Brutus been doing? Well, he's defeated Mark Antony's brother. Eventually, when they hear that Cicero has been assassinated, when they hear that people have been prescribed by the Triumvirs,

he ends up allowing his men to dispatch Antony's brother. So by killing the hostages, they're saying there will be no mercy, certainly for the leaders. And Brutus has to subdue Lycia. And he has a pretty decent campaign in Lycia. And he has to use brutality, but he also tries as much as possible to use clemency, whereas Cassius seems a little more no-nonsense. They're able to amass a substantial force of troops. We're talking maybe around 90,000 or so for the Liberators, and the Triumvirs are going to have around 110,000. We're talking enormous forces. But I think something else that you see by the time the forces finally meet is the commanders are absolutely reconciled for the Liberators.

is the commanders are absolutely reconciled for the liberators. Several times Cassius and Brutus had heard rumors about the other. And there were accusations. There had been atrocities, as always happens in war. Brutus had been more strict. Cassius had been more lenient. And there's one moment where they actually lock themselves into a room. And they're arguing.

They're shouting at each other. The subordinates on the outside are frustrated. It says they're even brought to the point of tears, but in the end, they make amends with each other and they make peace with each other. And they remind themselves that what we're doing here is for a higher cause. And Cassius, against the opposition of his subordinates, gives a lot of his war chest, about a third of it, over to Brutus to be able to use so they can pool their resources together. Whereas Antony and Octavian, Antony is like this little kid. He always underestimates Octavian, which is not a good thing to do. But he's thinking, I'm going to strike out ahead.

He actually is able to cross the Adriatic through some good luck. They're able to evade the Republican Navy. They make their way across into Europe, across the Adriatic, into Macedonia. And Octavian will then eventually follow. They're able to get most of their forces across and they can start making their way up to Philippi. Cassius has reduced Rhodes. Brutus has reduced Lycia. They will meet the first advance guard of the Triumvirs. and through a bit of good maneuvering on the part of both Brutus and Cassius. And Brutus is, through parts of this campaign, is ill. And yet they're able to make their way to a really, really advantageous position outside

the town of Philippi. They have access to the sea. They have a really well fortified position, a little smaller numbers than the Triumbers, but the resupply is going to be endless because they have access to the sea down to the south, just south of Philippi. The Triumbers, on the other hand, have to occupy a space of ground across from the Liberators, and they do not have as much provisions. The Triumbers are having to constantly say, we're going to give you money. We're going to give you money. Brutus and Cassius are constantly giving money and giving money.

So that tells the troops they're honoring their word. Whereas the forces of Octavian and Antony, not so much. But Antony is fast. He gets there fast and everyone's surprised. They entrench their positions. Octavian follows after. He's ill, of course, as always. trench their positions. Octavian follows after. He's ill, of course, as always. But Antony,

he's already shown before either of the battles is fought that he is going to be the most active. He's going to be the one that's going to take the offensive. And for the liberators, the question is, can we hold them at bay? I mean, it does sound from what you've said there that I know there's Brutus and there's Octavian as well, but for the Bast of the Philippi, does it really feel like that this is going to be a clash between the skill of Mark Antony and the skill of Cassius? One certainly gets the sense. The sources are confused about Octavian, which is no surprise. In the Mutina campaign, that campaign in in 43 it's quite likely he's sort of hiding out uh for part of it although sutonius is a sort of like a it's like a court biographer

he says oh no he carries the standard we don't really know but he seems to survive when everyone else dies so he has this ability to do that which is you know a skill but octavia he's constantly sick he has no battlefield experience. If he does, it certainly isn't impressive. Whereas Antony, I mean, he has been fighting with Caesar all the way back to 54 in Gaul. He distinguished himself during the civil wars. He has no administrative talents whatsoever. But in a crisis, Antony's the man you want, even better than Cassius. And Cassius, he's always been a great subordinate. But the question is, can he be a great overall commander? And I think that only time will tell, and the month of October would determine that for the rest of history.

Well, let's get onto it. The month of October, the lines are drawn near Philippi, over 100,000 men possibly on the field there. What happens? The first battle, what happens? So what we have in this position is we've got the city of Philippi behind Brutus and Cassius line. They have a really, really long line and they've got two separate camps. This is going to be a problem because it's going to work against command and control. This is the principle of warfare. You've got to have commanders who can have command and control of their forces. The Triamvirs have one giant camp together. And Anthony realizes if they don't engage in battle, they're going to suffer because they're not going to be able to get enough supplies. And the men are getting antsy really on both sides, but particularly on the side of the Tramverse because they want to receive the spoils that they've been told that

they will. So he's got to bring a battle about. And Cassius, what he does, he and Brutus are holding the line and they'll bring out their men, but they'll never bring out a general engagement. And so what Antony starts doing is what you've got is these two very long lines to basically the north of Philippi. And Antony starts cutting a perpendicular line through a swamp. And he does this behind a group of reeds. And this is really, it's a marble. It's an engineering marble, which shouldn't surprise us. These are Romans.

They're able to do this. But he cuts this, it's called a causeway, so that he can get around Cassius. What's his plan here? His plan is to cut off their supply and to force them to either act or to isolate them. It's a really, really smart move. And the problem is that Cassius discovers it. And you've got this game of chess going on basically here at Cassius' counters. So he's going to build a wall to cut off the line that Antony is stretching out. And when Antony discovers this, he basically says, oh, we're not playing chess. We're going to play a different game. And this is where you really see Antony rising to a challenge as he's always done in his life.

The forces of Cassius out there, they're digging, they're entrenching tools. And then Antony readies all of his army and he tells them bring your entrenching tools with him and they go and they just start attacking directly in the center of cassius line and cassius is flabbergasted this happens the men who are building the line out to cut off antony uh rush back but they've got like entrenching tools. And Antony's men cut them down. They repulse them back into the swamp. And then they break through. He sort of starts moving his entire army obliquely toward Cassius' line. They break through Cassius' line. They start tearing down the palisade. They fill in the ditch. And they even hit Cassius' camp. Cassius tries to stop this. It's astounding what has just happened it's basically sheer willpower that has pushed uh and taken the

offensive which another principle of war that anthony's using here uh and surprise and they've crushed through into cash's camp he tries to hold a standard up to prevent his men from fleeing but it looks like all's going to be lost well by, by this point in time, Octavian, who's facing Brutus on this, so you've got the line of the Triumvirs on the left and the right line of the Liberators, Brutus men see what's going on. And without Brutus giving them a command, they just rush in to attack Octavian's part of the line on the Triumvirate's left. Well, here the exact opposite occurs. Again, the initiative, the offensive is rewarded. And Brutus' forces totally overwhelm Octavian and Octavian's put to flight. Octavian,

they even break into Octavian's tent. They gash holes in his litter and people are thinking, oh, they've killed him. No one knows what everyone looks like. It's before TV. So it's like maybe they killed a young man. They're not entirely certain, but no, true to his behavior, Octavian has managed to get himself taken away from the battle before it's gotten to its intense parts. And he's out hiding in the swamps. And you've got this really weird thing that happens as night begins to settle. You've got the liberators in possession of the Triumvirate camp to settle you've got the liberators in possession of the triumvirate camp and you've got the triumvirate in possession of cash's camp and the men lose all discipline all discipline and they just start looting the camps and they start

bleeding back across enemy lines carrying all this stuff and there's the remark i think it's by appian or plutarch that they look more like porters than soldiers. They're just carrying all these supplies. The worst event of the entire day, because at this point it's a stalemate. Brutus has won, Cassius has lost, Octavian has lost, Antony has won. The worst event that occurs, and I think this is

the decisive moment in all of October, is when Cassius retreats up to Philippi. It's the heights above Philippi. And he's looking out to try and figure out what has happened. So he'd been put to flight after he tries to raise the standard. He sees his men are in flight, but then dust comes up everywhere. He can't see. And so he sends a soldier out to go find Brutus. So what's happened on that side? Well, he sees a force of Calvary. He can't see who it is. Approach. I think the guy's name is Titanius. They approach Cassius Legate and he can't really see what happens.

It says his eyesight is poor. And Cassius thinks, oh my goodness, they've actually captured my Legate and Brutus has been defeated. I have been defeated. And he makes this momentously horrific decision to have his slave kill him. Okay, well, probably. And this is where the sources disagree with us. Some say Pandarus, his freedman, murdered him. Some say, no, no, Cassius ends up taking his own life or he has Pandarus do it. I think it's almost certain that Cassius commits suicide. It was his birthday. He's an Epicurean. He has an Epicurean view on suicide and he will take his own life. And in doing this, he takes the best hope away from the Republican cause. It seems like a massive mistake, one of those big mistakes in history. You see

this leading commander who's still got a chance of his side winning this clash against Octavian and Mark Antony, but because of false intelligence, because he believes the wrong thing, he's taken his own life. And as you say, this seems to be a huge, a hammer blow for the chances of the Republic. It is. And everyone's devastated. In fact, his legate says when he comes back and sees what's happened, he feels responsible. I stayed out too long. He commits suicide. So, and you've got this idea that all these people are just ready to throw away their life. And if Cassius had not done that, who knows what would have happened? One can only guess. Okay. So that's the end of the first battle. Cassius is dead. Mark Antony and Octavian are

both still alive and Brutus is still alive. We're still a significant portion of the army. So it's not over yet. Is there now a brief interlude? There is. You've got about three weeks. And these three weeks, so the first battle's on the 3rd, the second battle's on the 23rd. These three weeks are devastating for the dithering Brutus. And it's easy to play up too much the portrait that we're given in Plutarch, but I think when

you corroborate that with what we know of Brutus, what we have in the other sources, what we've read about him, I think the picture's probably pretty accurate. Brutus, I think he does a couple of good things. He promises to pay the men, and then he pays them. He takes Cassius' body. He's devastated when he hears about what's happened. He takes Cassius' body, and he sends it to Thassos, the island of Thassos, and they bury it there. They don't want a big public funeral. But after these immediate actions, the forces draw up against one another.

It's very clear Brutus is not going to take the initiative. And this is where I think the ancient sources are perhaps doing too much character study and actually not doing the right battle analysis. Because what you have happen is, remember that line that Antony had been cutting to cut off Brutus and Cassius' supply route to the sea? Well, now that's been achieved, and there's a danger. Are the Triumvirs actually going to be able to cut us off? Are they going to be the ones who can gain access to supplies and us not? I still think there's a really good argument to be made for Brutus fighting a battle of attrition or a war of attrition and holding out and dragging it out because the triumvirs are in a terrible

position. There are even these heavy rains that fall. And that's when you've got these situation where malaria can creep in, sickness, pestilence, and it spreads. That could have done off the triumvirsirs but the main problem is brutus himself and he gives a speech and it's a lame speech it's like the lamest speech one can imagine and to his troops it's nothing like what cassius had given and he watches his troops slowly become more frustrated at the same time that he's observing antony's forces become more inspired and cassius suicide uh was discovered pretty early by Antony. And he sends men out to taunt Brutus' forces.

He's saying, you know, they're cowards. They're not coming out behind their lines. Why are you hiding from us? And this is a really big deal in the Roman world of honor, really the Greek and Roman world of honor. And Brutus, a good commander, would have said, absolutely not. Hold the line. Do what you're supposed to do. You obey me. Remember the cause we're fighting for. This is not about our own honor. This is about the honor of the Republic. He could have given a speech.

Cassius had done this sort of thing, but he doesn't. Instead, he's swayed and he's moved. And his men slowly start to wear him down. And three weeks is an eternity when you're waiting and when you're not used to being in command of such an enormous amount of forces and the stakes are so high. This is playing into Antony's hand, despite the fact that he's losing resources. And the event that actually prompts the second battle of Philippi is so telling. You've got a seasoned veteran who had fought in the civil wars, who's fighting for Brutus, had fought in the first battle of Philippi. He rides past Brutus when Brutus is, you know, he's sort of talking to his men. He goes out into the battlefield and he publicly defects in front of everyone to the side of Antony. And it's

embarrassing. And Brutus, this is when Brutus, either out of anger, out of a very legitimate fear that there are going to be more defections, that the morale is going to crumble, he launches a general engagement. On the 23rd of October, we've got basically the battle that's going to decide the fate of the Roman Republic. And it looks in some ways kind of like the first one. So what happens? So what we've got is you've got brutus he's taken a position on the right arm of his army and he's had to extend his line out a little thinner remember the numbers are still a little less for the part of the liberators and brutus is successful on the right part of his line and he's going to be facing octavian and octavian is actually in the

battle i think octavian gets the sense i've got to be present Octavian. And Octavian is actually in the battle. I think Octavian gets the sense. I've got to be present for at least a part of this because I cannot let Antony take all the glory. And Antony is hanging over on the right side of the Triumvirate line. Brutus forces, they managed to outflank part of Octavian's. And that army pushes through, and it looks like they may be able to envelop that part of the line.

But in doing so, Brutus separated from his center and the lines already too thin there. And the triumvirate forces were able to exploit that gap, break through the center and then circle around and instead envelop Brutus. And it unravels very, very quickly. Brutus, the men rallied to him. And it unravels very, very quickly. Brutus, the men rally to him. The fighting is already really, really close. And so you've got this panic that can ensue by men who don't have enough space to be able to wield the gladius. It's said that the forces don't even hurl their javelins like they typically would. They just get there and they fight each other face to face as quickly as they can. This is not a COVID approved the way that they're fighting. And so what ends up happening is they get boxed in.

You've got the triumvirate forces totally enveloped Brutus and Brutus is forced to watch all of his closest friends who rallied to his banner, get killed one by one defending him. And the last thing he sees because he flees the battlefield. The last thing he sees are all of his closest friends running away from the battlefield as he escapes up the hill. And Antony, again, taking the initiative, Antony knows this has to be an annihilation. He actually is roving throughout the battlefield looking for all the enemy commanders, the junior officers, and he's massacring as many of them as possible. They actually block the gates to the camp. And when Brutus finally recovers again to the heights of Philippi, the mountains behind

Philippi, he's got less than four legions left. It's a total victory for the triumvirs. And then he's got to make his own decision about what to do. And does it feel like as these soldiers are falling left, right, and center in Brutus's army, and especially those ones higher up who have the idea, very much the idea of restoring the Republic, as they fall, the idea of restoring the Republic, that is also starting to wither away. It is. And there's this sort of cult of suicide that has developed, especially among the Republicans who are saying stoicism, skepticism, and Epicureanism, they all have these different ideas and notions of what is the ethical way to die. And you've got a number of the Republican elite who just flee into the battle. I think Cato's son goes into the battle. He only has a sword. He doesn't have armor. He rushes into the battle. He dies in a heap. Several other

Roman junior officers will do the same. A number of them had died next to Brutus. One gentleman makes it back to his tent after the battle has ended. This Republican settles all his affairs, frees some of his slaves, and then has one slave that's with him kill him right there on the spot. I mean, it's creepy how they just sort of accept this idea that I must kill myself after I have been defeated. It's this sort of sick, suicidal sense of honor. after I have been defeated. It's this sort of sick suicidal sense of honor.

Yeah, it's as if they were so wedded to the idea that they couldn't manage it with the dream was dead, as it were. And that sounds horrible because there are parallels actually throughout history in some cases. Well, Brutus, he's got a pathetic end in a lot of ways. So he retreats up to the hills behind Philippi. He's sort of testing the men. Can we rally the cause? And they basically abandoned him. And he's so frustrated because he says, you made me do what I didn't want to do. And now you're not with me anymore. And that's not the sign of a good commander. And they sort of recover from this. They realize that he's going to take matters into his own hands. The last thing he does is he grasps them each by their hands, and he shakes their hands, and then he goes off into the woods.

And it says that even up to that point in time, the memories of all the friends that had died at the end of the battle just sort of floated around him. It's almost like he's seen ghosts for the hours before his death. And he goes out into the woods, and with the help of his servant, he grasps a sword and he commits suicide. And that's the end of the Republic. It's fitting that both Cassius and Brutus committed suicide because this is basically what Rome's citizen soldiers have done. Is it quite interesting there, the fact that of course, Mark Antony and Octavian,

even Octavian, they've played key roles in this victory in achieving such a total victory. But this whole idea that this is the end of the Republic, it doesn't sound like there's much for Mark Antony and Octavian to do in the aftermath to really affirm that the Republic is dead. It sounds like the actions of those on the losing side at the end of the battle, that really is actually the nail in the coffin for the Republic. It's not what the victors do in the aftermath. Absolutely. And to a certain extent, though, we can credit Octavian and Antony because they have appropriately struck fear into their opponents that either through proscriptions or being brought back in a triumph, which is a sort of military parade, then being paraded in front of others and then executed, that they're going to have a really,

really public, awful end. Or even worse, in some minds, they're going to have to receive the mercy, the clemency of people that they believe to be tyrants. And that had already been done during Caesar. So this idea of all or nothing has really taken everyone. And they get this sense that now it is all over. And if I cannot live in a world that's not Republican, then I cannot live at all. And so you've kind of mentioned it there, but just to wrap it all up, I mean, why is the Battle of Philippi, or the two battles, why are they so significant in Roman history? I think this is the moment when the Republic is certainly dead. I think you can make good arguments that Caesar's crossing the Rubicon, Caesar winning the Civil War, or Caesar's assassination and then the Trium citizen soldiers that are conscripted to fight for the Republic.

You have the triumvirs. They have armies that have fought under Caesar. But had they lost, these armies would have been, I think they could have been tamed. Had Brutus and Cassius won, we don't know what would have happened next. One, we don't know what would have happened next, but I don't think they would have descended, at least not immediately, into an autocratic form of government. Even a soft autocracy like Caesar had been instilling, but that is not what happens. With Philippi, the last two possible people that could have led the Republican cause have died by their own hands.

By dying in this way, they've shown that it's over. And more importantly, from just a logistical standpoint, all the junior commanders, they're dead. You've got an entire generation of aristocrats and their sons who have been killed. They've committed suicide or they're mopped up by Antony on the battlefield at Philippi. Antony knows this, which is why he's so decisive in cutting them down. They'd already done this in the West with those prescriptions. And now it's been affected in a much more rapid fashion on the battlefield. There is no other force that can revive the Republic. It cannot come back into existence. It is dead on 23 October when the sun sets. Wow. 23 October. There you go. Key date in

Roman history for those very reasons. And still, just before we go, HBO Rome, we see the Battle of the Philippi. You mentioned earlier how Cato's son apparently walks into battle. He strips off his armor just with the sword, fights against the soldiers. We see that scene in

the HBO Rome, but it's attributed to Brutus. You you know i always want to be as sympathetic as possible to historical movies and tv shows so you can conflate you know stories in that manner and that's okay however that's not brutus temperament and brutus uh the way that he died is so much more true to the story, to the spirit of the age, the cult of suicide. So that miniseries has a lot of good things about it. But I think you could have done something better with the Battle of Philippi. The Brutus moment of triumph is probably right before Philippi or after the assassination of Caesar.

And I don't think they capture that as well, even though they capture a number of other things quite well indeed. But stick with Plutarch. Plutarch's got the best version of Brutus. And I think he nails the temperament of him better than anyone else. Steele, just before we go,

your book is called? Killing for the Republic, Citizen Soldiers and the Roman Way of War. Fantastic. It's a brilliant read. Steele, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.