‘If you want a secretary present to take the minutes, I have a man,’ Maecenas went on.
‘No, no, we’ll do this alone,’ Pollio said. ‘Nerva will act as secretary and take the minutes. Can you do shorthand, Nerva?’
‘Thanks to Cicero, yes.’ Looking pleased at having something to do, Nerva put a stack of blank Fannian paper under his right hand, chose a pen from among a dozen, and discovered that someone had thoughtfully dissolved a cake of ink.
‘I’ll start by summarizing the situation,’ Pollio said crisply. ‘Number one, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied that Caesar Octavianus is fulfilling his duties as a Triumvir. A, he has not ensured that the people of Italia are well-fed. B, he has not suppressed the piratical activities of Sextus Pompeius. C, he has not settled enough retired veterans on their portions of land. D, Italia’s merchants are suffering through hard times for business. E, Italian landowners are angry at the draconian measures he has adopted to separate them from their land in order to settle the veterans. F, more than a dozen towns throughout Italia have been illegally stripped of their public lands, again in order to settle veterans. G, he has raised taxes to an intolerable height. And H, he is filling the Senate with his own minions.
‘Number two, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied at the way Caesar Octavianus has usurped the governance and legions of one of his provinces, Further Gaul. Both governance and legions are at the command of Marcus Antonius, who should have been notified of the death of Quintus Fufius Calenus and allowed to appoint the new governor, as well as dispose of Calenus’s eleven legions as he sees fit.
‘Number three, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied at the waging of a civil war inside Italia. Why, he asks, did not Caesar Octavianus solve his difference of opinion with the late Lucius Antonius in a peaceful way?
‘Number four, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied at being refused entry to Italia through Brundisium, its major Adriatic port, and doubts that Brundisium defied Italia’s resident Triumvir, Caesar Octavianus. Marcus Antonius believes that Caesar Octavianus issued orders to Brundisium to exclude his colleague, who is not only entitled to enter Italia, but also entitled to bring legions with him. How does Caesar Octavianus know that these legions have been imported for the purposes of war? They might as easily be going to retirement.
‘Number five, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied that Caesar Octavianus is willing to allow him to recruit new troops inside Italia and Italian Gaul, as he is lawfully entitled to do.
‘That is all,’ Pollio concluded, having said every word of that without reference to notes.
Maecenas had listened impassively while Nerva scribbled away – to some effect, apparently, since Nerva didn’t ask Pollio to repeat any of what he had said.
‘Caesar Octavianus has faced untold difficulties in Italia,’ Maecenas said in a quiet, pleasant voice. ‘You will forgive me if I do not tabulate and enumerate in your own succinct style, Gnaeus Pollio. I am not governed by such merciless logic – my style inclines toward storytelling.
‘When Caesar Octavianus became the Triumvir of Italia, the Islands and the Spains, he found the Treasury empty. He had to confiscate or buy sufficient land upon which to settle over one hundred thousand retired veteran soldiers. Two million iugera! So he confiscated the public lands of the eighteen municipia that had supported Divus Julius’s killers – a fair and just decision. And whenever he acquired any money, he bought land from the proprietors of latifundia, on the premise that these individuals were behaving exploitatively by grazing vast areas once under the plough for wheat. No grower of grain was approached, for Caesar Octavianus planned to see a great increase in locally grown grain once these latifundia were split up as allotments for veterans.
‘The relentless depradations of Sextus Pompeius had deprived Italia of wheat grown in Africa, Sicilia and Sardinia. The Senate and People of Rome had grown lazy about the grain supply, assuming that Italia could always be fed on grain grown overseas. Whereas Sextus Pompeius has proved that a country relying on the importation of wheat is vulnerable, can be held to ransom. Caesar Octavianus doesn’t have the money or the ships to drive Sextus Pompeius off the high seas, nor to invade Sicilia, his base. For that reason he concluded a pact with Sextus Pompeius, even going as far as marrying Libo’s sister. If he has taxed, it is because he has no alternative. This year’s wheat is costing thirty sesterces the modius from Sextus Pompeius – wheat already bought and paid for by Rome! From somewhere, Caesar Octavianus has to find forty million sesterces every month – imagine it! Nearly five hundred million sesterces a year! Paid to Sextus Pompeius, a common pirate!’ cried Maecenas so earnestly that his face reflected a rare passion.
‘Over eighteen thousand talents,’ said Pollio thoughtfully. ‘And of course the next thing you’re going to say is that the silver mines of the Spains were just beginning to produce when King Bocchus invaded, so now they’re closed again and the Treasury beggared.’
‘Precisely,’ said Maecenas.
‘Taking that as read, what happens next in your story?’
‘Rome has been dividing up land on which to settle first the poor and then the veterans since the time of Tiberius Gracchus—’
‘I’ve always thought,’ Pollio interrupted, ‘that the worst sin of omission the Senate and People committed was to refuse to give Rome’s retiring veterans a pension over and above what’s banked for them out of their pay. When consulars like Catulus and Scaurus denied Gaius Marius’s propertyless Head Count soldiers a pension, Marius rewarded them with land in his name. That was sixty years ago, and ever since the veterans have looked to their commanders for reward, not to Rome herself. A terrible mistake. It gave the generals power they should never have been allowed to have.’
Maecenas smiled. ‘You’re telling my story for me, Pollio.’
‘I beg your pardon, Maecenas. Continue, please.’
‘Caesar Octavianus cannot free Italia from Sextus without help. He has begged that help from Marcus Antonius many times, but Marcus Antonius is either deaf or illiterate, for he doesn’t answer those letters. Then came internal war, a war that was not provoked in any way by Caesar Octavianus! He believes that the true instigator of Lucius Antonius’s rebellion – for so it seemed to those of us in Rome – was a freedman named Manius, in the clientele of Fulvia. Manius convinced Fulvia that Caesar Octavianus was – er – stealing Marcus Antonius’s birthright. A very strange accusation that she believed. In turn, she persuaded Lucius Antonius to use the legions he was recruiting on Marcus Antonius’s behalf and march on Rome. I don’t think it’s necessary to say anymore on the subject, save to assure Marcus Antonius that his brother was not prosecuted, but allowed to assume his proconsular imperium and go to govern Further Spain.’
Fishing through a number of scrolls near him, Maecenas found one, and flourished it. ‘I have here the letter that Quintus Fufius Calenus’s son wrote, not to Marcus Antonius, as he should have, but to Caesar Octavianus.’ He handed it to Pollio, who read it with the ease of a highly literate man. ‘What Caesar Octavianus saw in it was alarming, for it betrayed Calenus Junior’s weakness and lack of decision. As a veteran of Further Gaul, Pollio, I’m sure I do not have to tell you how volatile the long-haired Gauls are, and how quick they are to scent an uncertain governor. For this reason and this reason alone, Caesar Octavianus acted swiftly. He had to act swiftly. Knowing that Marcus Antonius was a thousand miles farther away, he took it upon himself to travel immediately to Narbo, there to install a temporary governor, Quintus Salvidienus. Calenus’s eleven legions are exactly where they were – four in Narbo, four in Agedincum, and three in Glanum. What did Caesar Octavianus do wrong in acting thus? He acted as a friend, a fellow Triumvir, the man on the spot.’
Maecenas sighed, looked rueful. ‘I daresay that the most truthful charge that can be laid against Caesar Octavianus is that he found himself unable to control Brundisium, which was ordered to allow Marcus Antonius to come ashore together with as many legions as he cared to bring to their homeland, be it for a nice vacation or retirement. Brundisium defied