Octavius, the son of the daughter of Cæsar's sister, had been
appointed master of Cæsar's horse for one year, for
Cæsar at times made this a yearly office, passing it around among
his friends. Being still a young man, he had been sent by Cæsar to
Apollonia on the Adriatic to be educated and trained in the art of war, so
that he might accompany Cæsar on his expeditions. Troops of horse
from Macedonia were sent to him by turns for the purpose of drill, and
certain army officers visited him frequently as a relative of
Cæsar. As he received all with kindness, an acquaintance and good
feeling grew up by means of them between himself and the army. At the end of
a six months' sojourn in Apollonia, it was announced to him one evening that
Cæsar had been killed in the senate-house by those who were
dearest to him, and were then the most powerful ones under him. As the rest
of the story was untold he was overcome by fear, not knowing whether the
deed had been committed by the Senate as a whole or was confined to the
immediate actors; nor whether they had already been punished by the people,
or would be,
Thereupon his Roman friends advised him to take refuge with the army in Macedonia to insure his personal safety, and that when he should learn that the murder was only a private transaction he should take courage and avenge Cæsar of his enemies; and there were high officers who promised to protect him if he would come. But his mother and his stepfather, Philippus, wrote to him from Rome not to be too confident and not to attempt anything rash, but to bear in mind what Cæsar, after conquering every enemy, had suffered at the hands of his closest friends; that it would be safer under present circumstances to choose a private life and hasten to them at Rome, but with caution. Octavius yielded to them because he did not know what had happened after Cæsar's death. He took leave of the army officers and crossed the Adriatic, not to Brundusium (for as he had made no test of the army at that place he avoided all risk), but to another town not far from it and out of the direct route, named Lupiæ. There he took lodgings and remained for a while.
When more accurate information about the murder and the public grief had reached him, together with copies of Cæsar's will and the decrees of the Senate, his relatives still cautioned him to beware of the enemies of Cæsar, as he was the latter's adopted son and heir. They even advised him to renounce the adoption, together with the inheritance. But he thought that to do so, and not to avenge Cæsar, would be disgraceful. So he went to Brundusium, first sending in advance to see that none of the murderers had laid any trap for him. When the army there advanced to meet him, and received him as Cæsar's son, he took courage, offered sacrifice, and immediately assumed the name of Cæsar; for it is customary among the Romans for the adopted son to take the name of the adoptive father. He not only assumed it, but he changed his own name and his patronymic completely, calling himself Cæsar the son of Cæsar, instead of Octavius the son of Octavius, and he continued to do so ever after. Directly multitudes of men from all sides flocked to him as Cæsar's son, some from friendship to Cæsar, others his freedmen and slaves, and with them other soldiers, who were either engaged in conveying supplies and money to the army in Macedonia, or bringing other money and tribute from other countries to Brundusium.
Encouraged by the numbers who were joining him, and by the glory of
Cæsar, and by the good-will of all toward himself, he journeyed to
Rome with a notable crowd which, like a torrent, grew larger and larger each
day. Although he was safe from any open attacks by reason of the multitude
surrounding him, he was all the more on his guard against secret ones,
because almost all of those accompanying him were new acquaintances. Some of
the towns were not altogether favorable to him, but Cæsar's
veterans, who had been distributed in colonies, flocked from their
settlements to greet the young man. They bewailed Cæsar, and
cursed Antony for not proceeding against the monstrous crime, and said that
they would avenge it if anybody would lead them. Octavius praised them, but
postponed the matter for the present and sent them away. When he had arrived
at Tarracina, about 400 stades from Rome, he received news that Cassius and
Brutus had been deprived of Syria and Macedonia by the consuls, and had
received the smaller provinces of Cyrenaica and Crete by way of
compensation; that certain exiles had returned; that Sextus Pompey had been
recalled; that some new members had been added to the Senate in accordance
with Cæsar's memoranda, and that many other things were
happening.
When he arrived at the city his mother and Philippus and the others who were
interested in him were anxious about the estrangement of the Senate from
Cæsar, and the decree that his murderers should not be punished,
and the contempt shown him by Antony, who was then all-powerful, and had
neither gone to meet Cæsar's son when he was coming nor sent
anybody to him. Octavius quieted their fears, saying that he would call on
Antony, as the younger man on the older and the private citizen on the
consul, and that he would show proper respect for the Senate. As for the
decree, he said that it had been passed because nobody had prosecuted the
murderers; whenever anybody should have courage to prosecute, the people and
the Senate would lend their aid to him as one enforcing the law, the gods
would do so for the justice of his cause, and perhaps Antony himself would
help. If he (Octavius) should reject the inheritance and the adoption, he
would be false to Cæsar and would wrong the people who had a share
in the will. As he was finishing his remarks he burst out that he ought not
only to incur danger, but even to die, after he had been preferred before
all others in this way by Cæsar, if he would show himself worthy
of one who had himself braved every danger. Then turning to his mother, he
repeated the words of Achilles to Thetis, which were then fresh in his mind:
-- "Then quickly let me die since fate denied That I should aid my
friend against the foes That slew him."
After saying this he added that these words of Achilles, and especially the deed that followed, had of all things given him immortal renown; and he invoked Cæsar not as a friend, but a father; not as a fellow-soldier, but a commander-in-chief; not as one who had fallen by the law of war, but as the victim of sacrilegious murder in the senate-house.
Thereupon his mother's anxiety was changed to joy, and she embraced him as the only one worthy of Cæsar. She checked his speaking and urged him to prosecute his designs with the favor of fortune. She advised him, however, to use art and patience rather than open boldness. Octavius approved of this policy and promised to adopt it in action, and forthwith sent around to his friends the same evening, asking them to come to the forum early in the morning and bring a crowd with them. There presenting himself to Gaius Antonius, the brother of Antony, who was the city prætor, he said that he accepted the adoption of Cæsar; for it is a Roman custom that adoptions are confirmed by witnesses before the prætors. When the public scribes had taken down his declaration, Octavius went from the forum straightway to Antony. The latter was in the gardens that Cæsar had given to him, that had formerly been Pompey's. As Octavius was kept waiting at the vestibule for some time, he interpreted the fact as a sign of Antony's displeasure. When he was admitted there were greetings and mutual questionings proper to the occasion. When the time came to speak of the business in hand, Octavius said: --
"Father Antony (for the benefits that Cæsar conferred upon you and
your gratitude toward him warrant me in giving you that title), for some of
the things that you have done since his death I praise you and owe you
thanks; for others I blame you. I shall speak freely of what my sorrow
prompts me to speak. When Cæsar was killed you were not present,
as the murderers detained you at the door; otherwise you would have saved
him or incurred the danger of sharing the same fate with him. If the latter
would have befallen you, then it is well that you were not present. When
certain senators proposed rewards to the murderers as tyrannicides you
strongly opposed them. For this I give you hearty thanks, although you knew
that they intended to kill you also;
"The pseudo-Marius was put to death by your order in the plenitude of your authority, but you connived at the escape of the murderers, some of whom have passed on to the provinces which they nefariously hold as gifts at the hands of him whom they slew. These things were no sooner done than you and Dolabella, the consuls, proceeded, very properly, to strip them and possess yourselves of Syria and Macedonia. I should have owed you thanks for this also, had you not immediately voted them Cyrenaica ana Crete; had you not preferred these fugitives for governorships, where they can always defend themselves against me, and had you not tolerated Decimus Brutus in the command of Hither Gaul, although he, like the rest, was one of my father's slayers. It may be said that these were decrees of the Senate. But you put the vote and you presided over the Senate -- you who ought most of all to have opposed them on your own account. To grant amnesty to the murderers was merely to insure their personal safety as a matter of favor, but to vote them provinces and rewards forthwith was to insult Cæsar and annul your own opinion. Grief has compelled me to speak these words, against the rules of decorum perhaps, considering my youth and the respect I owe you. They have been spoken, however, to the firmest friend of Cæsar, to one who was invested by him with the greatest honor and power, and who would have been adopted by him no doubt if he had known that you would accept kinship with the family of Æneas in exchange for that of Hercules; for this created doubt in his mind when he was thinking strongly of designating you as his successor.
"For the future, Antony, I conjure you by the gods who preside over friendship, and by Cæsar himself, to change somewhat the measures that have been adopted, for you can change them if you wish to; if not, that you will hereafter aid and cooperate with me in punishing the murderers, with the help of the people and of those who are still my father's faithful friends. If you still have regard for the conspirators and the Senate, do not be hard on us. So much for that. You know about my private affairs and the expense I must incur for the legacy which my father directed to be given to the people, and the haste involved in it lest I may seem churlish by reason of delay, and lest those who have been assigned to colonies be compelled to remain in the city and waste their time on my account. Of Cæsar's movables, that were brought immediately after the murder from his house to yours as a safer place, I beg you to take keepsakes and anything else by way of ornament and whatever you like to retain from us. But in order that I may pay the legacy to the people, please give me the gold coin that Cæsar had collected for his intended wars. That will suffice for the distribution to 300,000 men now. For the rest of my expenses I may perhaps borrow from you, if I may be so bold, or from the public treasury on your security, if you will give it, and I will offer my own property for sale at once."
While Octavius was speaking in this fashion Antony was astonished at his freedom of speech and his boldness, which seemed much beyond the bounds of propriety and of his years. He was offended by the words because they were wanting in the respect due to him, and still more by the demand for money, and, accordingly, he replied in the severe terms following: "Young man, if Cæsar left you the government, together with the inheritance and his name, it is proper for you to ask and for me to give the reasons for my public acts. But if the Roman people never surrendered the government to anybody to dispose of in succession, not even when they had kings, whom they expelled and swore never to have any more (this was the very charge that the murderers brought against your father, saying that they killed him because he was no longer leading but reigning), then there is no need of my answering you as to my public acts. For the same reason I release you from any indebtedness to me in the way of gratitude for those acts. They were performed not as a favor to you, but to the people, except in one particular, which was of the greatest importance to Cæsar and to yourself. For if, to secure my own safety and to shield myself from enmity, I had allowed honors to be voted to the murderers as tyrannicides, Cæsar would have been declared a tyrant, to whom neither glory, nor any kind of honor, nor confirmation of his acts would have been possible; who could make no valid will, have no son, nor any burial of his body, even as a private citizen. The laws provide that the bodies of tyrants shall be cast out unburied, their memory stigmatized, and their property confiscated.
"Apprehending all of these consequences, I entered the lists for Cæsar, for his immortal honor, and his public funeral, not without danger, not without incurring hatred to myself, contending against hot-headed, blood-thirsty men, who, as you know, had already conspired to kill me; and against the Senate, which was displeased with your father on account of his usurped authority. But I willingly chose to incur these dangers and to suffer anything rather than allow Cæsar to remain unburied and dishonored -- the most valiant man of his time, the most fortunate in every respect, and the one to whom the highest honors were due from me. It is by reason of the dangers I incurred that you enjoy your present distinction as the successor of Cæsar, his family, his name, his dignity, his wealth. It was more becoming in you to testify your gratitude to me for these things than to reproach me for concessions made to soothe the Senate, or in compensation for what I demanded of it, or in pursuance of other needs or reasons -- you a younger man addressing an older one. But enough of that. You hint that I am ambitious of the leadership. I am not ambitious of it, although I do not consider myself unworthy of it. You think that I am distressed because I was not mentioned in Cæsar's will, though you agree with me that the family of the Heraclidæ is enough to content one.
"As to your pecuniary needs and your wishing to borrow from the public funds,
I should think you must be joking, unless we might believe that you are
still ignorant of the fact that the public treasury was left empty by your
father. After he assumed the government the public revenues were brought to
him instead of to the treasury, and they will presently be found among
Cæsar's assets when we vote an investigation into these matters.
This will not be unjust to Cæsar now that he is dead, nor would he
say that it was unjust if he were living and were asked for the accounts.
And as there will be many private persons to dispute with you concerning
single pieces of property, you may assume that this portion will not be
uncontested. The money transferred to my house was not so large a sum as you
conjecture, nor is any part of it in my custody now. The men in power and
authority, except Dolabella and my brothers, divided up the whole of it
straightway as the property of a tyrant, but were brought around by me to
support the decrees in favor of Cæsar,