Page 29 of Agrippa

Observing all this from the ramparts of the town, Lucius’s men made repeated and desperate attempts to interrupt our work. The hand-to-hand combat was savage. But they were becoming weak and ragged with hunger, and every sortie was driven off. At the end of January, Lucius himself led a determined attempt to breach our wall at several points using iron tools and scaling ladders. When that also failed, he was finally forced to sue for peace.

As a condition of surrender, he demanded a pardon for himself and his men. Caesar would dearly have loved to put him to death, but he was mindful of his status as Antony’s brother, and to my surprise, he agreed.

On a dismal cold day in February, the gates of the town were opened and Lucius led out his defeated army, each man handing over his weapons as they emerged. Many were veterans, and soon they were mingling with our legionaries like the old comrades they were. I confess I wept to see it, and hoped this would be the last time Roman fought Roman. The great combined force cheered Caesar as he rode through their ranks and hailed him imperator in the field.

He was less disposed to be merciful to the rest of the besieged survivors. All the Roman senators and knights who had followed Lucius, along with the town’s magistrates, had their arms pinioned behind them and were pushed and dragged out to the field to be executed. To their pitiful pleas for mercy, Caesar gave only one answer: ‘You must die.’ The beheadings went on for hours. I could hardly bear to watch. When one old fellow begged at least to be given a proper burial, Caesar replied that the birds would soon settle that question.

When the killings were over, our men were given permission to enter the town to take away whatever they could carry. Then, on Caesar’s orders, Perusia was burned to the ground, and from its ashes my star began to rise.

XI

I returned with Caesar to Rome at the beginning of March.

Later that month, on my twenty-third birthday, he summoned me to see him. As a reward for my services in the Perusian campaign, he said he had decided to appoint me urban praetor, the third most powerful magistrate in the Republic after the two consuls.

– And as the consuls are both nonentities, you are now my effective deputy.

Such was my surprise, I forgot to even thank him.

– May I ask why you are appointing me now?

– Calenus has died in Gaul – of natural causes, apparently: a rare event these days. I am taking the opportunity to go and finally take control of those eleven legions of Antony’s. While I am away, you will be in charge of Italy.

– Lepidus will not like that.

– Lepidus is going overseas to govern Africa.

– And Antony will like it even less, especially when he hears you have taken his legions.

– He can feel whatever he likes. I owe him nothing. He sat back and watched his brother and his wife start a civil war, and never lifted a finger to help me. Besides, he is occupied in Egypt with Cleopatra. Wouldn’t you love to see the catfight between the queen and Fulvia when she arrives? He will have his hands full there!

Fulvia had recently escaped from Brundisium in a fleet of five ships to join her husband in the east. Caesar was angry not to have captured her, but imagining their reunion provided an amusing consolation.

I started to say that while I was honoured by his faith in me, I was a soldier not a politician. He cut me off with a wave of his hand.

– These days you cannot be one and not the other. Politics is warfare in civilian clothes. You will not refuse me, Agrippa. You have been at my side from the start. It was you who first encouraged me to seize my destiny. We either rise together or we shall fall together.

There was more in the same vein. I listened quietly, trying to absorb this dramatic change in my fortunes. He was right, of course. He could not stop now. Ten or twenty years earlier, when the laws of the Republic were still functioning, a man would hold power for a limited period, sharing it with others, and then be obliged to surrender it or face prosecution. But those laws were no longer operative. Force ruled all. Once Caesar accepted his inheritance from his great-uncle, he condemned himself to a perpetual struggle. He had to keep pressing forward, otherwise he would be killed – and I most likely with him.

When he had finished, I accepted the appointment.

He left soon afterwards for Gaul.

I did not see him again until the autumn. Not since the Munda campaign had we been so long apart. I missed his cunning and his force of character. But away from his shadow, I discovered I had an aptitude for civilian rule. I was also at last able to live with Caecilia.

We spent the evenings quietly in our house on the Palatine. Atticus came often to dine, and sometimes brought his friends. After the rough comradeship of the army camp, it was a welcome change to have such civilised company, with their talk of philosophy and poetry, although much of it went over my head. Most nights we went to bed early. Soon after sunrise, I dealt with clients and petitioners. In the middle of the morning, I walked down to the Forum to preside over the court of the urban praetor, hearing cases and dispensing judgements. In the afternoons, I attended the Senate, although I rarely spoke, except to read out dispatches from Caesar. In between all this, I dealt with correspondence and oversaw preparations for the Games of Apollo, which it was my duty as urban praetor to arrange.

Indispensable to me throughout was Maecenas. He had built up a network of informants, not just in Rome but across the empire. His advice was shrewd, his intelligence reliable. It was he who warned me that Sextus Pompey was said to be planning fresh raids on our southern coast while I would be stuck in Rome, presiding over the Apollo games. I immediately issued orders for the garrisons in Brundisium and other harbours to be strengthened.

I wrote each week to Caesar to keep him abreast of developments. Mostly my reports were terse accounts of political and military matters. But in May, I had to inform him that his sister, Octavia, had been widowed, following the death of the ex-consul G. Claudius Marcellus. She already had two young children by him and was several months pregnant with a third. Caecilia befriended her, and she too became a regular visitor to our house, as gracious in her widowhood as she had been when I first met her six years earlier.

Caesar was indifferent to the news of his brother-in-law’s death. In his reply he said that he had never much cared for the fellow, but he asked me to take his beloved Octavia and her children under my protection.

Despite the threat from Sextus, the Games of Apollo went ahead as usual during the annual public holiday in the first week of July.

On the opening day I sacrificed a bull to Apollo in the Circus Maximus. Then, in front of a seated crowd of two hundred and fifty thousand, I gave the signal to start the first of the chariot races. In the following days there were excellent wild beast hunts and theatrical performances. At first, I sensed a definite hostility towards me. Who was I, after all – an absurdly young, unknown and unelected plebeian – to preside over some of the most sacred games in the Roman calendar? But as the week went on and the people began to enjoy the various spectacles, the applause whenever I appeared became louder, and I briefly experienced the intoxicating sensation of popularity – almost as heady as winning a battle.

On the final afternoon, I noticed Maecenas approaching my seat in the president’s box. Slipping in next to me, he cautioned me not to show any emotion at what he was about to tell me, as many eyes were upon us, then whispered that Sextus had launched his expected series of attacks and was rampaging through the south. But that was not the worst of it. Sextus had made an alliance with Antony, who was even now at sea, heading towards Italy with an invasion force to settle scores with Caesar.