The Ancients - Young Caesar vs Marc Antony

Episode Date: March 20, 2022

What happened after the Ides of March? How did the Romans go from co-ordinated assassinations to the Pax Romana? From Tyranny to prosperity? In this third episode of our Ides of March series, Tristan is joined by Dr Hannah Cornwell to discuss the turbulent relations that erupted between Marc Antony and Octavian (Young Caesar), following Julius Caesar's assassination. Secluded meetings, arranged marriages, reconciliations, dissensions, and a love affair for the ages - what really happened between the Young Caesar and Marc Antony?If you'd like to learn more about this really interesting period, you might like to listen to one of our following episodes:Death of the Roman Republic: The Battles of Philippi, with Steele Brand - Octavian and Marc Antony vs Marcus Brutus and CassiusCicero's Fight for the Roman Republic, with Steele Brand - Octavian vs Marc Antony in northern Italy at MutinaAgrippa: Rome's Forgotten Hero, with Lindsay Powell - Agrippa and Octavian in the 30s BC.The Birth of the Roman Empire, with Dr Hannah Cornwell - Augustus and peace at the dawn of the Imperial Period post Marc Antony.Augustus and Agrippa: The Golden Age, with Lindsay Powell - What followed Marc Antony's defeat at Actium.As for Actium itself, and the demise of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, we aim to cover all in detail in a future podcast episode.A quick note from Hannah, Caligula was assassinated in 41 AD / CE.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download, go to Android or Apple store.

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. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, we are continuing our extremely popular Ides of March miniseries this March. Our first episode, we had the assassination of Julius Caesar,

that explainer. We followed it up last weekend with Steel Brand coming back on the podcast to talk all about the rise and fall of Caesar's most well-known, shall we say, most infamous assassin, Marcus Junius Brutus. And today, for the penultimate episode in our series, we're going to be talking about the early turbulent years, the relations, the hostile relations, shall we say, the topsy-turvy relations that existed between Mark Antony and Octavian, the young Caesar, in the immediate years that followed Caesar's assassination. Now to talk through all of this, I was delighted to get back on the podcast Dr. Hannah Cornwell from the University of Birmingham. Hannah, she's a bit of an ancient star at the moment because her previous podcast on the ancients,

which was The Birth of the Roman Empire, is currently our most popular ancients podcast ever. In that one, she focused in on how Octavian, who later became Augustus when he was emperor, he monopolised this idea of peace. With Hannah, one of her strong points really is peace in the late Republic and the early imperial period. So he really wants to dive into that area. And it is really interesting when you focus in on these huge figures like Mark Antony and Octavian, the young Caesar. So without further ado, to talk all about Mark Antony versus the young Caesar in the immediate years following Caesar's assassination, here's Hannah.

Hannah, it is great to have you back on the podcast. Tristan, thank you very much for inviting me back. You're very welcome. It's lovely to do this in person. It's great to do it in person, exactly. And for a great topic as well, Mark Antony versus the young Caesar or Octavian. I mean, this is quite a story, isn't it? One point you've got wars, next point you've got peace, one point there's reconciliation, next point you've got dissension.

It's a topsy-turvy twists and turns tale, isn't it? Absolutely. It is a decade fraught with large-scale armies and combats of Roman fighting Roman, and yet a real sense and desire amongst those very soldiers that they don't want to fight each other and that they want reconciliation. But you're right, it's a very, as you say, topsy-turvy, confusing period and it must have been for those living through it, not knowing do we have lasting peace now and stability or are we about to enter another conflict where we're fighting our fellow citizens, brothers fighting brothers, fathers fighting son-in-laws and so on. A period and decade characterised by

continual civil strife following the assassination of Julius Caesar that was meant to liberate the state from tyranny and effectively brought more civil war. Absolutely, absolutely. And before we really delve into this narrative, this decade, first of all we've said the name the young Caesar, we might more often think of the name Octavian, but can you explain to us why the young Caesar and maybe should we say not Octavian? Absolutely. He was in fact born Gaius Octavius and it is only following Julius Caesar, the dictator's assassination, that he takes on the name Gaius Julius Caesar himself. Very confusing, two men, the same name. This is because he was named as Caesar's heir in his will and effectively legally became Caesar's son and

therefore took on Caesar's name. And so actually all our sources from this point onwards refer to him as Caesar or official documentation does. There are some contemporaries who are a little hesitant about having another Caesar, particularly as the previous one was perceived to be a tyrant and had been assassinated. Cicero, the Roman orator and politician, in letters following the assassination of Julius Caesar on the 15th of March, initially refers to him as Octavius and says his followers are calling him Caesar, but good people aren't and I'm not going to do that because we don't want another Caesar. But a few months later he is

referring to him as Caesar or Octavianus Caesar and he's certainly very keen to present himself as Caesar on his coins, on his inscriptions to Caesar's veterans. There's a real currency in this name particularly amongst the soldiers, who he wants to have on his side so that he can mobilize them for his own political advantage. He will go on following his conflict with Marcus Antonius, or Marc Antony as we prefer to call him, to become Augustus, but that's another story. It is, which we've done another podcast on, kind of, you said the birth of the Roman Empire. But let's just say, so Julius Caesar has been assassinated. We've got the young Caesar, he's now in Italy. I mean, do we know when he first

comes into contact, perhaps even conflict with Mark Antony? Absolutely. So when Caesar was assassinated, Octavius, as he was then, was actually in Greece. He's 19 years old. He's effectively not on a gap year, but he's out there to study, work hard. But on the news of Caesar's death, he comes back to Italy. So in mid-44, he's back in Italy. And in fact, he and Mark Antony are, although they're both perceived of as being what we might call Caesareans, so followers or supporters of Caesar, they are in conflict because they both, in a sense, see themselves as being the heir of Caesar and only one of them can really monopolise that position.

Although in mid-44, the tribunes, who are officers of the Roman state to protect the interests of the people, attempt a reconciliation between the two so nothing escalates. So whilst in 44 they've made contact there's nothing extreme or potentially damaging to the state about their relationship however by the end of 44 in the beginning of 43 things start to radically change. And what is that radical change which happens? Well, so in 44, Antony is actually consul. So he's one of the two leaders of the Roman state. And the following year, 43, he's meant to go out to govern the province of Macedonia in northern Greece. But he's decided that he would rather perhaps be closer to Rome, closer to Italy. And he decides that he will

exchange Macedonia for Cisalpine Gaul, so effectively northern Italy. And this brings him into conflict with the current governor, a man called Decimus Brutus. It's confusing, we've got a couple of Bruti, which lots of people with similar names. Effectively, Mark Antony takes his army and besieges the current governor at a place called Mutina which is modern-day Moderna and in 43 this brings the two consuls of that year together with young Caesar who has you know now rallied Caesar's veterans to besiege Antony and so we have Antony and Octavian in conflict. It is perhaps convenient that those two consuls or 43, Hirtius and Panza both die in the conflict which allows young Caesar who is only by this point about

20 years old to become consul which is really problematic because there are Roman laws stating that you have to be at least 42 years old in order to stand for consul but he has managed through chance and also clever tactics and military support to get himself appointed as head of state and Anthony is currently sort of defeated in April 43. But a couple of months later in October beginning of November Anthony, young Caesar and another provincial governor, someone called Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, meet on an island in a river in northern Italy and negotiate an agreement whereby all three of them will come together in an alliance and effectively control the state. So let's delve into that meeting now. It seems, first of all, the whole location, a centre of an island. Why did they pick this location for this incredibly important event? Well, an island in a river is perhaps from a

both security point of view and a point of view of it being a place of neutrality, is a good place to negotiate. And in fact, the approach to this space is that each of the three men arrive with five legions. That's a lot of men, a lot of soldiers. And then they proceed to the bridge which connects the island to the mainland, as it were, with 300 soldiers. And then just the three of them come to the island to actually negotiate Lepidus, who seems to be potentially in the role of a mediator here, he's been allied with Antony previously, but he isn't necessarily in conflict with young Caesar ostensibly. So he enters the island first, effectively does a security sweep and then brings the other two together. We're told by our sources that because young Caesar is at this point consul, even though he's only 20 years old, he gets a sort of the big seat at the table in recognition of his official position, but that this is a negotiation between these three men whereby they

decide how they're going to control the state and how they're going to deal with their enemies. And it is subsequently following this meeting on this island that at the end of November a a law is passed in Rome, which effectively legalises their position and makes them what in Latin is referred to as triumviri republicae constituendi. So three men appointed for the restoration of the Roman Commonwealth. It seems really important to stress, I know you've done a lot of work around this too, like the events of the meeting itself and the language used between, particularly I think it's the young Caesar and Mark Antony, these are the two people needed to reconcile more than Lepidus isn't it? So what's the language used and how are they able to reach this agreement so that they go from

enemies to allies? Well our sources, and I suppose it's important to stress that most of our sources are actually later than the events themselves but they frame this meeting this negotiation in terms of friendship and reconciliation and there seems to be a strong emphasis on again the soldiers when previously mentioned wanting reconciliation not wanting to fight this is already after effectively almost a decade of civil war between Caesar and Pompey. And we have to remember that the soldiers now fighting for Antony and young Caesar are already veterans of that conflict.

So there's a great desire for reconciliation for what the Romans called concordia, so harmony, agreement. And this is achieved not just by the physical shaking of hands, which is an action we recognise as a form of friendship and agreement and in fact will appear on the coinage that is produced in this decade as well to emphasise this message of agreement between Mark Antony and Octavian even if it's perhaps not the reality but also by the betrothal of young Caesar to Anthony's stepdaughter, Clodia. So marriage alliance is a way of transforming the relationship from one of

friendship to one of kinship. Now immediately in my mind you think as well I actually know I immediately goes like Philip II and Alexander the Great but that's a different story and the marriage alliance is there but you think perhaps of like Caesar, is it Caesar's daughter and Pompey and the marriage alliance there now how much of an influence is there for Mark Antony and the young Caesar for previous events and I'm thinking the forbidden word the first triumvirate and the likes of Pompey Caesar and Crassus how much of an influence and inspiration is there with these three well first I say it's not a forbidden forbidden word and term but I should stress that yes we often refer to the alliance between Caesar Pompey and Crassus as the first

triumvirate to distinguish it from the second triumvirate in inverted commas of Mark Antony, young Caesar and Lepidus and the reason why Tristan was sort of implying that it's a forbidden word is because I sometimes tell students that it's perhaps best not to conceptualise this alliance between Caesar Pompey and Crassus as the first round of capital letters because it wasn't a formal legally recognised position within the Roman state it's a term that we apply to them because there are three of them and because of how they used friendship and exactly as you said Tristan marriage of Caesar's daughter Julia to Pompey to formalize and strengthen that relationship in order to achieve their own personal goals within

the state. So how much inspiration is that? Absolutely so marriage alliance is as a tool as a political tool in the Roman Republic is quite a common practice. So what Caesar is doing with Pompey is not unique, but certainly it proves a model for another two Roman politicians and military leaders to negotiate. So there is certainly an awareness that how Pompey and Caesar have reconciled through becoming father-in-law and son-in-law is also being replicated between Mark Antony and young Caesar. It's probably worth stressing that the marriage actually is never consummated and Clodagh is sent back which also suggests the sort of the rocky nature of that relationship but at the time using marriage and betrothal was a way of outwardly

confirming particularly to the soldiers who were very concerned about reconciliation, that this was in fact a concrete action that could be seen through marriage. So Mark Antony and the young Caesar have made this alliance, this friendship alongside Lepidus. As you say, I'm guessing they portray it very quickly. They try and promote this friendship across the empire, even if there are actually cracks in it. Do they want to show to everyone else that, you know, we are now together? Absolutely. I mentioned previously that coinage is used to promote the symbol of joined hands.

So Roman coinage, particularly of this period, seems to contain a lot of contemporary political concerns and sort of social concerns. Unlike our coinage where we tend to see the same image and perhaps don't pay so much attention to it, there are lots of different images being produced in this period that perhaps give us an insight into the concerns of those responsible for making the coinage. So promotion of unity through symbols such as joined hands, which for a Roman audience would mean concord and loyalty, but also through the minting of coins that on one side of the coin will have Mark Antony, on the other side of the coin will have young Caesar, or indeed a coin which has Lepidus on one side and Antonin on the other. And there's a show of unity

in their equality, that they are on either side of the coin, that their titles are the same, that their coins are being produced which disseminate the same images of unity. But this unity, cracks start to appear, don't they? Do we start to see disharmony and dissension emerging, erupting quite quickly? Yes actually very quickly. I mean even in the agreements on this island which is near Bologna in northern Italy, one of the things they negotiate are prescriptions of their political and personal opponents. So these are lists drawn up of people whose lives are forfeit and they each sort of

put on the table individuals who they personally want to get rid of and this is an episode where Cicero's life famously becomes forfeit even though he has been someone who has promoted young Caesar quite a lot and there's tension in the sources about how much effort young Caesar puts in to try and save Cicero. But ultimately, Cicero's life is forfeit. But we can see even there that there's a tension between who gets what they want. But following the formation of the triumvirate, they effectively divide up the Mediterranean world between them in terms of management. And this is where the cracks start to show. of management and this is where the cracks start to show and in fact even though we have had this

alliance friendship and indeed kinship relationship established at the end of 43 throughout the following decade there are a number of times when particularly mark anthony and young caesar have to come together again to renegotiate their alliance and re-establish peace particularly in 39 for example at brundisium where anthony has come from the eastern mediterranean to renegotiate with anthony and it's at that meeting that we have another marriage alliance used to once again reaffirm this relationship the previous alliance from 43 hadn't actually resulted in a productive marriage but in 39 Mark Antony's wife Fulvia is perhaps fortunately dead which means that Mark Antony is without a wife and that means that when they reconcile at Brindisium in southern Italy young Caesar can marry his sister Octavia to Antony and indeed on Antony's coinage in the Eastern Mediterranean following this date,

we see Octavia appearing alongside her husband on the coinage. So again, this promotion of that marriage as being important to Antony's image and to ostensibly demonstrate the peace and alliance between him and young Caesar. And you mentioned this whole Brindisium episode. I'd love us to go into some more detail about this. I mean, I think we'd love to know what causes Mark Antony and the young Caesar in these years between Benonia and Brindisium to go to such bad terms that Mark Antony has to come back to Italy and that they have to reconcile again. Has conflict erupted between them in the meantime, I'm guessing, or via their subordinates? You're absolutely right, Tristan. So Antony is out in the east and preoccupied with actually

trying to invade Parthia. But at the same time in Italy, his brother Lucius Antonius is consul in 41. And he comes into conflict with young Caesar and this is to do with once again the soldiers actually we come back to the veterans we come back to the promises that have been made to them following Caesar's death and their desire for retirement for settlement for land in Italy and what's happening in 41 is Octavian young, needs to provide land for these soldiers but he can only do that by confiscating land from other people in Italy and this brings him into conflict with Lucius Antonius and indeed Mark Antony's wife Fulvia and we effectively then get a civil war conflict in Italy at Perugia which culminates in young Caesar besieging Lucius Antonius at Perugia,

which involves those inside the city being starved out. We have sling bullets from the conflict, which give us a really fascinating insight into the insults that are literally being hurled between sides and how the soldiers, perhaps, who are manufacturing these bullets are being induced to think about their Roman opponents and it's really quite violent graphic sexual language to attack both Lucius Antonius and Fulvia and young Caesar himself so both sides are insulting each other and it's interesting on the sling bullets being thrown by the Antonines against young Caesar that they explicitly don't call him Caesar.

His bullets refer to him as Imperator Caesar, a victorious general Caesar, but the ones that they throw against him refer to him as Octavian, as a way of belittling his status as Caesar. They're referring to his original name and that he's not Caesar. They also tell him to do various things, which I'm not sure I can repeat on this podcast, and the same in the other direction. Fair enough. I mean, and therefore it sounds as if Mark Antony, he's got to come back from the East to kind of deal with the problems of his brother and his wife, you know, conflict again. This is the reason, it's the need to bring the big man in and for them to renegotiate following this conflict. At the same time,

we have the surviving son of Pompey the Great, Sextus Pompeius, in the western Mediterranean, who has naval command, has command of Rome's fleet. And he is busy operating around Sicily and in Spain and causing further conflict with young Caesar. And so, in effect, young Caesar has to reconcile with Antony in order to get Antony's support and ships and troops to deal with Sextus Pompeius. It's not just about young

Caesar versus Antony. You're absolutely right, Tristan, that we've got Antony's subordinates and supporters in Italy, but we've also got another independent or separate player altogether in the figure of Sextus Pompeius in the West that young Caesar is also having to deal with. And so how do I'm guessing like they did with Bononi after that do they want to therefore stress once they've reached this agreement at Brundisium unity in the face I guess of Sextus Pompeius do they want to kind of promote that new reconciliation that unity again? Yes there's certainly a promotion of the unity between Mark Antony and young Caesar they celebrate an o a mini triumph, because they made peace with each other. And this is really striking because we have a long list of Rome's triumphs.

And this is the only instance where a victory celebration is awarded because two Romans made peace with each other as opposed to conquering someone else. But yes, there's a need to, in a sense, neutralise their hostilities to deal with sexist Pompeius. Although young Caesar will also negotiate and reconcile, in inverted commas, with sexist Pompeius in 37. And again, as with the episode of the formation of the triumvirate at Bononia, this use of space to aid in the negotiation. At Bononia, there was an island which provided a space of neutrality with the three parties coming onto the island from the outside. A negotiation between Sextus Pompeius and young Caesar takes place on the coast with actually platforms erected

so that they are sort of divided by the waters and yet able to negotiate in vaguely sort of not neutral territory but from their own their own sides. But that alliance really is not successful at all and culminates in the defeat of Sextus Pompeius by Agrippa in Sicily which then allows young Caesar to celebrate a victory over Sicily and claim to have put an end to civil war. And he will later go on to present and characterize Sextus Pompeius as a pirate. Although on Sextus Pompeius' own coinage, he presents himself as being the prefect of Rome's fleet. So people's status is being played within this period,

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and we're waiting for you to join us. You mentioned Sextus Pompeius, let's kind of focus on that as well because I know we were focusing more on like Mark Antony and the young Caesar. No but all of these like figures at the moment whether it's Lepidus or Sextus Pompeius, Mark Antony or the young Caesar, is it interesting to look at them at this period and how they try to depict themselves as, I use the infamous term at the moment, peacekeepers, as it were? Yes, no, absolutely. And I suppose in the Roman world, the concept of peacekeeping will become particularly sort of perhaps more prominent and characteristic of the empire and when we use the term yes peacekeepers it has a sort of ominous tone to it when we think about how do you keep peace you keep peace with a military a military

force but yes in this period peace has has moved from something that the Romans used to explain their dominant relationship over external opponents to being aware of trying to express relations between Romans, but it perhaps conceals the problematic nature of those relationships, that you're having to use a concept of peace, which is normally seen as the opposition to war and conflict, to talk about relations between Romans. It's taking a concept of external conflict and applying it to internal relations, which suggests that, well, it doesn't even suggest that, it sort of underlines the fact that they are at war with each other and that peace is meant to be the end point of this. But as you've rightly stressed, Tristan, this is, there's a peace and

then there's conflict and then there's peace and then there's conflict, and then there's peace, and then there's conflict, and then there's peace and conflict. It's this sort of cycle of attempting to reconcile and putting on a big show of unity, but it ultimately being a facade for the negotiation of power between these men who ultimately don't want to work together, who ultimately want to take control of the state themselves, or indeed want to have the other removed from it. Well then let's continue this cycle of, you know, peace, reconciliation, hostility, reconciliation, hostility. We've left off Brondisium, and you mentioned all these talks with Sextus Pompeius. As we go into the 30s BC, relations between Mark

Antony and the young Caesar, I think 37 BC in particular, they break down again, do they? Yes, their relationship has from the very beginning been incredibly fraught. They evidently don't get on. Their friendship and their alliances are made purely out of necessity. But we have a final sort of agreement between them in 37. And in fact, this is the point at which this triumvirate, this official position of these three men charged and given basically dictatorial powers to restore the state, they have to renew it because the first iteration

at the end of 43 was only for five years. So this is renewed and their territories are in a sense renegotiated. At this point Antony is very heavily involved in the eastern Mediterranean but it's also a point at which she's suffering defeat at the hands of the Parthians in the east and therefore becomes increasingly dependent on a network of alliance with eastern kings including Cleopatra VII of Egypt whereas Octavian is very involved in what's happening in Italy and also in Dalmatia in eastern Europe and is able to present himself as being invested in Rome in Italy coming back victorious from Dalmatia and Illyria, whereas

Antony is absent. And unfortunately for him, his opponent, young Caesar, is someone who is a master of spin, a master of propaganda, and is able to present Antony as effectively a foreigner or someone who is so involved with the East and with someone like Cleopatra that he's not Roman anymore. He's able to other him in a way that, at least in the poetry and literature that come afterwards, Antony is the barbarian other. So what happens next? How do they therefore reconcile from this? This is quite harsh language being thrown at Mark Antony from the young Caesar. There's a breakdown, actually, in the marriage of Octavia Mark Antony from the young Caesar? There's a breakdown actually in

the marriage of Octavia and Antony. Whilst this is being maintained, Antony famously or infamously is also believed to have had, you know, a long-standing relationship with Cleopatra. Indeed, we know it produced offspring and the reasons for that you know it could be numerous but from Cleopatra's side she's certainly interested in creating a lasting dynasty of Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt so the political tensions between young Caesar and Antony also are personal because it involves marriage it involves Octavia the sister of young Caesar and Octavian effectively is pretty pissed off with how Antony's behaving so much so that he writes a letter to him saying what are you doing Antony responds saying what does it matter if I'm with the queen I know I've been with her for nine

years and who's to say that when you get this letter you know you're not faithful to your wife you've been involved with and lists a whole number of other women. So, I mean, and really in the second half of the 30s, they're not in ostensible conflict with each other. They have their own spheres of operation, Antony in the East, Octavian in the West. It's only really at the very end of the 30s that they come into conflict with Antony ostensibly giving large parts of the east to Cleopatra as a gift and giving territories for her children including his children to rule over that there seems to be increased concern from Rome and in fact in 32 BC Antony the two consuls of that year and a large percentage of the Senate go to the east with Mark Antony and

young Caesar ostensibly declares war on Cleopatra as the foreign opponent but Mark Antony through not reneging on his alliance with her or his relationship with her is effectively declaring himself an opponent to Rome which leads to this sort of split of the Roman Senate, part of the Senate and the consuls of Antony, the other part with young Caesar. And this is the culmination of this decade of conflict, which will end with, well, two conflicts, one at Actium in 31 and one at Alexandria in Egypt in 30. And in this short period of time, between 32 and 31, quite a lot of the Roman supporters of Antony defect to young Caesar, which again enables him to monopolise on that support.

And through this whole period, therefore, Hannah, we've seen these several attempts at reconciliation. It does seem like after a certain point, you mentioned Octavia there, but there's no attempt at reconciliation anymore. It's like the line has been drawn. It's too late to once again try and reconcile. Yeah, I think so. And I think it's difficult to come back from Anthony's effectively rejection of the marriage.

He sends Octavia back to Italy, so effectively divorcing her. Although she is held up as the model of Roman womanhood, sort of effectively she's, to use an anachronistic language, she's deemed to be a saint because she looks after children from Antony's previous marriage, from their marriage. After the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, we'll look after their children. This again enables young Caesar to make a massive show of, you know, how virtuous his sister is and how terrible Antony is. But yes, effectively this seems to be, as as you say a line in the sand from which there is no coming back from even though there are a couple of years where again they're preoccupied with their own sort of spheres of

operation but yes it's sort of the effectiveness of marriage alliance that as we previously mentioned was used between Caesar and Pompey, and also as a number of instances in relations between Antony and young Caesar has effectively stopped being an effective mechanism, because that avenue of unity has been broken. And so it really begs the question, and especially as we've done a previous podcast on, know the importance of the concept of peace for Augustus following the demise of Mark Antony and Cleopatra how important is therefore this concept of peace during that preceding decade during this triumviral period? So peace has been a concept that is growing and gaining traction over over the 40s Prior to that it was a concept that was important for the Romans in relation to external conflicts but from the conflict between Caesar and Pompey onwards it

sort of gained traction as I said and we see this most notably through Cicero's letters and also his speeches and it becomes a tool not just for sort of asserting unity and stability, and we've reconciled from this and it's great, but also a way of positioning internal opponents. So for example, at the beginning of the period we've been talking about, before Mark Antony and young Caesar come together in alliance at the end of 43, as we previously mentioned, they were in conflict with each other. And Antony at Moderna has been fighting against the previous Roman governor. And the Roman Senate is trying to figure out what to do because we've got Romans fighting Romans and a state of instability. So how can we how can we resolve this?

And their solution, which seems quite sensible, is to send ambassadors to negotiate with Antony. is to send ambassadors to negotiate with Antony. And so they send a first set of ambassadors, and Antony's demands, at least presented by Cicero, as being vastly unreasonable. We take that perhaps with a pinch of salt, but those negotiations come to nothing. And then they decide, well, we're still at war with Antony, or we're still in conflict with Antony.

What can we do? Well, we'll send another embassy. But at this point, Cicero is pushing back very hard, saying, you know, we don't want peace with Antony, what can we do? Well we'll send another embassy. But at this point Cicero is pushing back very hard saying you know we don't want peace with Antony you know and this would bring slavery to the Roman state. It's a fluid complex concept in this period because we've got people in the Roman senate saying we need to make peace with Antony and peace is the only way to achieve stability, we need to negotiate, we need to reconcile and obviously this is a mechanism that is used in

this period, as we've previously mentioned, as we've seen with young Caesar and Mark Antony, although it's not necessarily a successful one, because we've seen this sort of constant alliance and conflict, alliance and conflict. But it's clearly, there's a large number of people at Rome who want peace, who desire it, and want to try and achieve it by any means possible. There are others in this initial conflict with Mark Antony who's saying well we can't have peace we're in a state of emergency we need to declare a state of emergency which for the Romans was something called a tumultus it's not an all-out war but it's going things are really bad and we need someone to step up to the plate whereas Cicero at the time is going no we need to declare war in Antony there's only one way that we can achieve peace, which is by destroying him, which again, seems

not very peaceful. But it goes back to what we were saying about peacekeeping and there sort of being military undertones to it. But again, there's clearly a great value to this concept of peace in terms of presenting these alliances and negotiations as successful. As I mentioned, young Caesar and Mark Antony celebrate a military triumph or a military ovation in Rome because they made peace with each other. And it seems very strange, perhaps from a modern Christianized concept of peace, that it would be militaristic. But indeed, for the Romans, it was. But the fact that you've got two Romans making peace with each other,

and that is a cause for military celebration, is strange. As I mentioned, on coinage, they are constantly seem to be pushing the show of unity, that this is something that they feel is palatable to their audience. And we should think about these coins being minted in the first instance to pay soldiers, and in the second instance to circulate widely in Italy and beyond, and that these messages are being disseminated, that we have unity, we are friends, we have reconciled, we have made peace. Don't worry, the state's in good hands. You can trust us. Can we? Can we really? but these messages also seem to be picked up by communities so there's a community in Italy which appears to be a newly founded

colony actually very recently in the 40s called Cassinum where they in fact set up a statue and an altar to Concordia so not peace but Concordia is harmony and agreement as we previously mentioned and this is in the aftermath of Brundisium in 40 and the reconciliation of young Caesar and Antony and indeed the marriage of Mark Antony and Octavia and the images of the joining of hands on coins a symbol of loyalty and Concordia is also something that we can associate with marriage alliance, you know, that a man and a wife joining hands and becoming a married couple. So there's clearly an awareness by these leaders that there is political capital in the concept of peace, that this is something that particularly the soldiers want, and they keep re-emphasising this. And yet at the same time, they are constantly requiring their armies to fight against each other.

A couple more questions. I mean, you mentioned the ovations, how they occurred in Rome between Mark Antony and the young Caesar. But what's been quite striking so far in our chat, you know, we've mentioned these meetings, these negotiations, Bononia, Brundisium, I think there's a Tarentum and Metapontum too, isn't there? Yes, absolutely. But there's never one Rome itself. Why do these negotiations never happen in the capital? Why is it always somewhere else? That's a really good point, because, yes, traditionally the Roman state functions in terms of political business at Rome.

That's where the Senate is. That's where the magistrates operate from. But increasingly in the late Republic, and particularly from the conflict between Caesar and Pompey, or even just before that onwards, we're seeing the main political and military individuals in areas beyond or outside of Rome, and that the sort of the bases for negotiation are moving beyond and outside of that. And as you said, when we were talking about Brindisium in 40, which is in southern Italy, on the east coast, Antony is coming from the east and they're coming to negotiate there. And it's perhaps, again, a desire to, in a sense,

have a space that might be perceived as neutral or that sort of you're not having Rome becoming a space of contention and debate, that that is a space for the populace in the Senate and that these debates are happening outside it, but also in spaces that are perhaps strategically relevant to where the various commanders and armies are. And of course, Hannah, you're joining us on our special Eyes of March miniseries. So we've got to really focus in on the Eyes of March and what

happens next, because almost instantly with Mark Antony, there is this first instance of reconciliation. Absolutely, yes. So the Ides of March, so famous for Caesar being stabbed to death by his peers and falling at the feet of a statue of Pompey. This was an act carried out by a number of senators, including famously Brutus and Cassius in order to save the Roman state from tyranny. This was an act of liberty but immediately afterwards they don't necessarily do anything they expect the people to react and nothing happens and this gives Mark Antony who is consul at the time so it's important to state that Caesar was dictator, Lepidus was his master of

horse, his second in command but there were still two consuls that year and Antony was one of them. And he takes hold of the situation and offers Brutus and Cassius and the conspirators reconciliation, peace, that you know because they find themselves in a precarious situation following this act. And this is a clever move by Antony, actually, in order to sort of consolidate his position. But yes, they negotiate and Antony sort of secures his position publicly by discussing the need for peace to the Roman people. Bruce and Cassius have kind of hurried up to the capital line, not knowing what to do. Antony and Lepidus are down there in the forum with the people saying this terrible thing has happened, but we to stay calm we need to bring peace and stability after what's happened and so they ostensibly

offer an alliance or a peace agreement with Brutus and Cassius and Cicero tells us in one of his speeches that in fact Antony offers his son as a pledge of peace as a hostage of peace, as a hostage of peace. So there's this sending his son as proof of his belief in the ability for the assassins of Caesar and Caesar's supporters to come to an alliance, to come to peace. This is really a way for Mark Antony to, as I say, monopolise in the situation and manoeuvre himself into a position of control, which he already effectively has as consul, but he's using this means of negotiation to further that and actually to potentially weaken the position of the assassins or liberators, depending on how you want to frame them. It sounds like it's a simpler things to come

as it were with what happens, what ensues between the young Caesar and Mark Antony in the years ahead. Yes, absolutely. The use of ostensible reconciliation and negotiation is a way of framing what effectively is a fight for power and control. And we've seen this in the previous decade with Caesar and Pompey. Caesar uses the idea and indeed perhaps the desire amongst many of his contemporaries for there not to be civil war, for there to be reconciliation and peace, to make big statements about I am working hard to reconcile with Pompey and I want peace, I don't want to be another Sulla, I don't want to be a dictator and a tyrant who is seen to have massacred hundreds of Roman citizens. At the

same time Caesar is saying this in 49 he is marching swiftly on Brundisium to besiege Pompey so there's a bit of distinction between his words and his actions but using negotiation we might see it as also a tactic in order to buy yourself more time. You can sort of delay your opponents by bringing them to the negotiating table, but also to strengthen your position, both by a show of your commitment. And in fact, despite on the 17th of March, this reconciliation between Brutus and Cassius and Mark Antony, by the summer, Antony's outmanoeuvred Brutus and Cassius and they find themselves having to go to the east

to take up command there to actually supervise the corn supply. Just before they leave for the east though, they write a joint letter to Mark Antony in which they say, bear in mind not only how long Caesar lived, but how he did not reign for a long time. So there's this sort of veiled threat from them once again

about the dangers of tyranny and that they won't stand for it, which will culminate in the battle between Antony and young Caesar against Brutus and Cassius. So, I mean, there are so many alliances and realignments of alliances going on in this period. We spoke about when young Caesar first arrives in Italy, he is against Antony and he fights against Antony and he defeats Antony with the Consul 43. And yet, you know, six months later, they've made an alliance and they're dividing up the

Mediterranean world between them. It's so so interesting you know those shifting alliances as it were that you mentioned Hannah and you know this idea is whether it's between Mark Antony and the young Caesar or perhaps whether it's between the young Caesar or Sextus Pompeius or Lepidus as well whenever there's this shifting of alliances in this really unstable period one of the things which is ever present you know during these last few years of the Roman Republic is this attempt to try and stress reconciliation, peace among Romans, I presume. Yes, absolutely. Because despite the numerous conflicts, there's the desire to be seen to be the one who is bringing what actually everyone needs and wants, which is peace and stability,

which ultimately, it only seems to have been possible or viable by defeating everyone else which is what young Caesar does to become Augustus. So there's this tension and conflict almost sort of confusion in this decade where reconciliation alliance and the language of peace is being constantly used constantly promoted as a mechanism for explaining people's positions, for justifying what they're doing. And yet it's never successful. These are alliances that are short-lived. They're fluid because exactly as you said, Tristan, we've got shifting power dynamics of different people that's having an impact on various relationships. So whilst there's an idea of sort of peace being long-lasting or permanent and

everlasting, it's not. It is a fluid mechanism in this period for power to be negotiated and renegotiated. And as I said, it's ultimately only successful when young Caesar is able to, in his own words, extinguish civil war. And he's only able to do that by defeating everyone else. And this is perhaps something to do with the Roman state in a much sort of longer perspective of its history. It is ostensibly a democratic republic but that also has an aristocracy that has a history steeped in competition amongst its political elites which just seems to increase and increase as Rome is expanding its control of the Mediterranean, but also coming into conflict with other peoples and has a need to have strong military individuals who are given increasing amounts of power. And this ultimately sort of

breaks down its political structures, which leads to conflicts between Caesar and Pompey, and then Mark Antony and young Caesar which all effectively contribute to the creation of what is a monarchy. Well absolutely there you go you know everyone thought Ides have marched, the Republic will return, has been proven absolutely not the case. Absolutely not and actually when Gaius Caligula, one of the emperors, is assassinated in January 42 AD, according to a Jewish author, Josephus, who writes about the event, one of the consuls gives a speech praising the assassins of Gaius Caligula and says they have managed to restore liberty to the Roman state, unlike Brutus and Cassius, who thought they were restoring liberty, but they were just bringing more war. I mean, last question, I promise, but

that just brought to my mind things like Virgil and those people who are promoting young Caesar at this time you know these negotiations these reconciliations with the likes of Mark Antony by having the likes of Virgil with him was he another avenue through which to kind of like celebrate this new peace game between the two? Well certainly Virgil's most famous poem the Aeneid can be seen as a celebration of Rome and what Augustus has achieved in establishing himself as the new founder of Rome although some of Virgil's earlier poetry particularly his Eclogues which was written during this conflict in the 40s actually gives us a really interesting insight into the impact of the

struggle for power between Mark Antony and young Caesar. We mentioned previously Lucius Antonius's conflict with young Caesar concerning land confiscation which culminates in the Battle of Perugia and this seems to make it into Virgil's eclogues, which are pastoral poems, kind of constructing ideal countryside landscapes with singing shepherds who are talking about the land and the animals, but are sort of interrupted by the prospect that this land is going to be taken away and given to soldiers. There's quite a lot of darkness in the poems, although there are ten of them in total, and poem four does seem to relate to the prospect of peace in the poems, although there are 10 of them in total, and poem four does seem to relate to the prospect of peace in 40 BC, which is when we have the peace at Brundisium at the end of the

year. Although the fourth eclogue is addressed to Polyo, who was consul in 14, and Virgil is looking forward to Polyo's consulship that will bring a return of everything that is sort of good and hoped for. At the end of the 40s, there's clearly a great desire for peace, as we've been saying, and yet there's an awareness in Virgil's poetry about how disruptive and damaging this military conflict between Romans is to Italy, to the countryside and to the lives of those living through it. Well, there we go. Hannah, you've been on the podcast before to talk about peace at the time of Augustus. I didn't realise just how interesting and just amazing the use of peace is by these figures at the end of the Roman Republic and how powerful at all it really is isn't it.

It just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me. Well there you go there was Dr Hannah Cornwell explaining all about Mark Antony versus the young Caesar. I hope you enjoyed that episode. We've got one more special Ides of March episode incoming next Sunday. And that will be with Professor Maria Wyke. Well, what's the subject? Well, you'll have to wait and see.

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