Civilization #16: Julius Caesar's Will and Octavian's Birth of Empire

In 44 BCE, Julius Caesar has just been assassinated. There were 60 senators involved in the conspiracy, but the three main conspirators were Marcus Brutus, considered the leader; Cassius; and Decimus Brutus. After they assassinated Caesar, Rome was in turmoil. Mark Antony, who was currently the consul, or the head of state in Rome, reached an agreement with these conspirators. The agreement was this: Mark Antony, a staunch ally of Julius Caesar, would not seek retribution. In return, the conspirators would declare that Caesar was not a tyrant and did not want to become king. A peace settlement was reached to avoid a civil war.

The problem is that Mark Antony was working behind the scenes to work up the Roman people against the conspirators. Eventually, public sentiment was so much against the conspirators that they had to flee to the provinces.

The Three Surprises of Caesar's Will

Mark Antony then read the will of Caesar. Remember that there's private property in Rome, so when a man dies, he has a will that stipulates how this private property will be distributed. There were three really surprising things about the will.

The first thing is that Caesar, the wealthiest man in Rome, stipulated that upon his death, every Roman citizen would get three months of a soldier's wage. That's a lot of money—an extreme generosity. He also stipulated that a lot of his private property would be turned into public parks for the benefit of the Roman people. This will demonstrated Caesar's love for his people.

The second thing was actually more surprising. Mark Antony believed that he would be named the heir to Caesar's legacy and wealth. But in fact, Caesar named a complete stranger to be his heir. His name was Octavius. Caesar named Octavius to be his adopted son. Octavius's name was actually Gaius Octavius, and upon his adoption, he was now named Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. This is much too complicated, so historians use the shorthand Octavian.

The third big surprise is this: Caesar named secondary heirs. These are individuals who would inherit Caesar's property and legacy if Octavian were to die. Mark Antony was a secondary heir, but so was Decimus Brutus, one of the men who conspired to kill Caesar.

This will of Caesar's was shocking. It showed the people that Caesar really loved them and that Caesar loved everyone, including the people who conspired to kill him.

Mark Antony was very upset about this will. When Octavian, who was only 18 years old, returned to claim his legacy, Mark Antony was so upset that he refused to meet with him and refused to give Caesar's property and wealth to him. Remember the first stipulation of the will: every Roman citizen would be given three months of wages. To honor Caesar's will, Octavian borrowed a lot of money to ensure that every citizen got their three months of wages.

A Game of Thrones

A few months after Caesar's death, the situation became a volatile Game of Thrones.

• Mark Antony considered himself the legitimate heir of Caesar and refused to acknowledge Octavian.
• Octavian had returned and demanded to be acknowledged as the heir.
• The three conspirators—Decimus Brutus, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius—were not in Rome but in the provinces with huge armies. Decimus Brutus was in Gaul. Marcus Brutus and Cassius were in the Roman East (Anatolia and Syria), extremely wealthy provinces where they had many loyal soldiers. Understanding that a conflict was coming, they raised a huge army of about 100,000 soldiers, the largest army ever assembled in Roman history.
• Lepidus, a very competent administrator, had his own army and wanted to avenge Caesar, but Mark Antony stopped him.
• In the center was Cicero, considered one of the greatest orators in Roman history. Cicero was the last remaining optimate—the conservatives who believed in the primacy of the Senate. Cicero was in charge of the Senate, and his main motivation was to maintain its supremacy. He wanted a balance of power, so he would play everyone off against each other to maintain his authority.

Everyone in this Game of Thrones had a different motivation. Octavian wanted to be the heir of Caesar, but so did Mark Antony and Lepidus. On the other side were Decimus Brutus, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius, who were fighting for their own legacy.

You would expect the one who would most likely lose this game of thrones would be Octavian. He was 18 years old, had no army, and had no allies in Rome. What happened over the next 15 years is that, one by one, Octavian destroyed all his enemies.

First, Mark Antony went to war with Decimus Brutus, who was in charge of Gaul. Mark Antony wanted his armies. To maintain the balance of power, Cicero authorized Octavian to raise his own army to challenge Mark Antony. Eventually, Mark Antony lost and then basically stole Lepidus's army to march against Decimus Brutus again.

At this point, something very strange happened. The three of them—Lepidus, Octavian, and Mark Antony—sat down together and agreed to share power and form their own dictatorship. This is what we call the Second Triumvirate.

The Second Triumvirate was brutal. The first thing they decided to do was kill all their enemies—anyone who could challenge them, including Cicero, who was previously the patron of Octavian. They killed about a third of the Senate and replaced them with their allies.

Then, Mark Antony and Octavian marched against Marcus Brutus and Cassius. In 42 BCE, they fought the Battle of Philippi in Macedonia. In this battle, the largest in history at that time, Mark Antony and Octavian triumphed. After Marcus Brutus and Cassius were killed, Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus agreed to share the world. Octavian would get Rome, Lepidus would get Northern Africa, and Mark Antony would get Egypt and the Near East (Anatolia, Syria). Mark Antony basically got the lion's share of the Roman world.

Then, Lepidus came into conflict with Octavian. Octavian gave a speech to Lepidus's soldiers, who all defected over to him. Then Octavian came in conflict with Mark Antony. In 31 BCE, at the Battle of Actium in Greece, it was a huge battle where Antony's forces were aligned with Cleopatra's forces against Octavian. In this battle, Mark Antony and Cleopatra ran away, returned to Alexandria, and then Octavian hunted them down. They both committed suicide before they were captured.

This ended in 27 BCE when Octavian returned to the Roman Senate in triumph, and they declared him Augustus Caesar. His name changed to Augustus Caesar, and he is considered the first emperor of Rome.

How Did an 18-Year-Old Triumph?

How did Octavian, who in 44 BCE was only 18 years old with no army and very few allies, triumph over everyone? There are different explanations.

1. He got lucky. You don't become emperor by being lucky. That doesn't suffice.
2. He was brilliant. Julius Caesar was brilliant. King Philip and Alexander were brilliant. Very few people say Octavian was a brilliant person. He didn't have the charisma of Julius Caesar. His oration was good, but nowhere near as good as Mark Antony's. It's generally agreed upon that he was a terrible military leader and strategist; he lost a lot of battles during this conflict. He was brilliant politically, but not in the traditional sense.
3. He was ruthless. He would do anything for power. This is true, but in the Roman world, everyone was ruthless. Mark Antony was especially ruthless; he killed his own wife.
4. The legions were loyal to Caesar's memory. The army remembered Julius Caesar, and now that Octavian was considered his son, the legions swore loyalty to him. That is true, but they also swore loyalty to Mark Antony, and you can argue Mark Antony had a stronger claim to Caesar's legacy.
5. Marcus Agrippa. Marcus Agrippa was Octavian's partner and a great general. It was actually Marcus Agrippa who was responsible for all of Octavian's major military victories, especially the Battle of Actium. This is true, but so were Cassius and Decimus. There were other brilliant military leaders. The other issue is, in this ruthless world of Roman politics, how could Octavian trust Marcus Agrippa, and why did Marcus Agrippa stay loyal to Octavian?

There is some truth to all of these explanations. But I want to offer another explanation: the death of Caesar allowed Octavian to become emperor.

Remember, Caesar's greatness was in his myth-making genius. He created a myth of himself that he was a man of destiny who would save the Republic. But his myth was counter to other myths that were more dominant in Rome, especially the myth of Lucius Brutus, the man who created the Republic and killed the king.

When Caesar was killed, it made his myth the dominant myth of Rome. In fact, it turned his myth into reality. It was this new reality that propelled Octavian into power. A simpler way of saying this is that it was the love of the Roman people that propelled Octavian into power.

We see this in history all the time. For example, in Canada, there's a man named Justin Trudeau, but he's prime minister because his father is Pierre Trudeau, who is considered one of the most popular prime ministers in Canadian history. It was basically people transferring their love of Pierre Trudeau onto the son. The other example, of course, in America is George W. Bush, whose father was George H.W. Bush, who was considered a very good president.

Political change is really about myths. If you want to create political change, you have to change the myths, and new governments will create new myths.

The Psychology of the Assassins

Let's go back to the assassination of Julius Caesar. The three major assassins—Decimus Brutus, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius—were just the leaders of a huge conspiracy that involved 60 senators, about 7% of the Roman Senate. Each of these individuals had a different reason for wanting Caesar dead.

• Decimus Brutus was considered Julius Caesar's most competent general, and he wanted to be acknowledged as such. You could say he was driven by jealousy or maybe thwarted ambition. He wanted to prove that he was better than Julius Caesar.
• Cassius fought for Pompey the Great. Because Cassius was such a great general, Julius Caesar showed mercy to him, forgave him, and made him his own general. This was Caesar demonstrating his benevolence, clemency, and mercy. The problem is that in the Roman world, mercy is not considered a good. By showing mercy on Cassius, Cassius could have interpreted this as Caesar showing contempt for him, that Caesar didn't really see him as a threat. Cassius might have been motivated by a desire for vengeance.
• Marcus Brutus is the most interesting person here. Shakespeare wrote a play about him called Julius Caesar, but it was really about Marcus Brutus, trying to explain his psychology and motivations. Marcus Brutus fought for Pompey the Great, but he was also the son of Julius Caesar's favorite mistress. Julius Caesar made a point of telling his soldiers not to kill this guy in battle. Marcus Brutus was captured, and Julius Caesar basically adopted him as a son and fast-tracked his career. Marcus Brutus had every reason to thank Julius Caesar, but instead, he became the main conspirator.

In Shakespeare's play, the argument is that Marcus Brutus is driven by his own sense of virtue—basically, vanity. He believes, or is told, that he's named after Lucius Brutus, the founder of the Republic, and therefore has a responsibility to save the Republic from wannabe tyrants like Caesar. What Shakespeare doesn't mention, though, is what Romans believed: that Marcus Brutus was the biological son of Julius Caesar. So maybe there was that interpersonal dynamic where Marcus Brutus despised Caesar.

It's a very complicated situation, but what unites everyone is a feeling that Rome was changing too fast. Julius Caesar did what he did to save and restore the Republic. When he obtained power, he was making changes that were necessary but which changed the Roman sense of themselves. For example, he brought in senators from the provinces. These were aristocrats who spoke perfect Latin, but because they were from the provinces, they were foreigners, and the Roman people were very upset by this.

Second, Caesar ended corruption in the provinces, which went against the interests of the nobility because one way for a noble person to become rich was to go to the provinces and steal a lot of money. Caesar was doing a lot of things that were good for the Empire and for the Republic in the long term but which hurt the interests of the senators and nobility in the short term. This is what caused the conflict.

Because Caesar was so fast and effective in his reforms, it not only disturbed the nobility but also the people, because Romans are very conservative. They were not used to all these changes happening so fast. This is what compelled the conspirators to act against Caesar.

The Unimaginable Crime

This raises a very interesting question: Caesar was a genius, brilliant. How could he not see this coming? The answer is that it was unimaginable that they would conspire to kill Caesar in the Senate.

There are lots of taboos in Rome. One major taboo is the idea of the pomerium, which is the boundary of Rome. The idea here is that the city of Rome, the physical geographic space, is sacred and divine. It is protected by the gods, and therefore you are not allowed to bring weapons into Rome. You are not allowed to commit acts of violence within the pomerium; otherwise, the gods will take vengeance against you.

A second taboo is this: the Senate is considered the most sacred and divine space in all of Rome. No one is allowed to bring weapons or commit violence in the Senate. Also, the Senate's laws are basically the laws of the gods. The Senate declared the body of Julius Caesar to be sacrosanct, meaning divine and sacred. You were not allowed to touch the body of Julius Caesar.

The third thing is that everyone in the Senate was personally appointed by Julius Caesar. Everyone owed their good fortune to his generosity. It was just unimaginable for Julius Caesar to think that his friends could be conspiring against him.

If this is true, then something else is true: Julius Caesar did not want to become king, because being king was the ultimate taboo in Rome. Julius Caesar could not imagine that Brutus would kill him because he, like all Romans, believed in these taboos. The ultimate taboo was that Rome could never have a king. He was behaving very arrogantly, like a king, but he would not become king himself because it would go against the Roman Republic.

Before Caesar, there was another dictator named Sulla. He was a man who came into power, killed all his enemies, and then retired. He could have become king but chose not to because to become king would mean the death of the Republic. That's a taboo, a Rubicon he refused to cross. We can imagine that Caesar saw himself as a better Sulla, a more merciful Sulla. He would not kill his enemies; he would show generosity and restore the Republic to its greatness. He would make the necessary reforms, then he would retire and lead the Republic as it was.

It was unimaginable for Caesar to think that he would be killed. What's interesting is what happened to these three individuals after they killed Caesar. They killed him because they feared he would become king, but after they killed him, they recognized they could only kill Caesar because he did not want to become king. Otherwise, Caesar would have surrounded himself with bodyguards.

Upon the death of Caesar, all his enemies—Decimus, Marcus, and Cassius—realized they were in the wrong. Not only that, but the very attitude of the people of Rome changed. While Caesar was alive, the Roman people were very skeptical towards him because they feared he would become king. They loved Caesar, but they were afraid he was too ambitious. Upon his death, the Roman people felt tremendous guilt for doubting him. It was their doubt that allowed the conspirators to kill Caesar. If they had just believed in Caesar's myth—that he was here as a man of destiny to restore the Republic—then Caesar would still be alive. To compound the guilt, Caesar showered the people with generosity upon his death.

The death of Caesar created this new reality where people now recognized Caesar did not want to become king; all he wanted to do was save the Republic. People were paralyzed by their guilt.

The evidence for this is that while Decimus Brutus was being attacked by Mark Antony and later by Octavian, Cassius told Marcus Brutus, "Hey, maybe we should come to this guy's aid. He's our ally. If he falls, they're going to come after us next." Marcus Brutus did nothing. He refused to act. The reason why is he could not act. He killed Julius Caesar because Julius Caesar was too ambitious. But if Marcus Brutus were to move his army against Rome, then Marcus Brutus would be the ambitious one. He would be the one who wanted to become king. Therefore, Marcus Brutus and Cassius could only wait for their deaths.

Mark Antony's Self-Destruction

Mark Antony had a different problem. He loved Caesar so much he wanted to continue Caesar's legacy. He felt betrayed by Caesar when Caesar named Octavian to be the heir and not him. So what did Mark Antony want to do? He wanted to prove that Caesar was wrong. He wanted to prove that he was the rightful heir of Caesar, and to do so, he would continue his legacy.

Mark Antony started to do things that were against his own personal self-interest and which ultimately led to his self-destruction.

1. He marched against the Parthians. The Parthians were Rome's last great enemy. Roman generals had failed to make inroads against Parthia. In fact, Julius Caesar wanted to end his life by invading Parthia. His plan before his death was to attack Parthia, conquer it, then sweep back to Europe and conquer Germany—basically, conquer the whole world to prove he was better than Alexander the Great. Mark Antony decided this is how he would prove he was Caesar's rightful heir. The problem is Romans are not good at war against the Parthians and the Persians because the Romans are infantry-focused, and the Parthians and Persians are cavalry-focused. Mark Antony went over to Parthia and got his ass kicked. He was not Julius Caesar. He fell into a major depression and basically became a drunk.
2. He fell in love with Cleopatra. Cleopatra was the queen of Egypt, but more importantly, she was the mistress of Julius Caesar. Rumors were that upon his retirement, Julius Caesar would bring Cleopatra to Rome and live happily ever after. So Mark Antony went over to Egypt and became the lover of Cleopatra because he was trying to be Julius Caesar. This was a problem because to marry Cleopatra, he had to divorce his wife, who happened to be the sister of Octavian. This caused a personal rift between them.
3. He named his children with Cleopatra as heirs. In his will, he named his children with Cleopatra to be the heirs to the Roman East. All the property and land that Mark Antony controlled would be given to his children, who were foreign citizens. Also, Mark Antony did not have the authority to give that land out; only the Senate had that authority. Octavian used the will as a pretext to attack Mark Antony and was heavily supported by the Roman people.

Because Mark Antony was trying so hard to escape the shadow of Julius Caesar, because he was trying so hard to prove he was the legitimate heir, he basically self-destructed.

Lepidus was an extremely effective administrator, but he was not as charismatic and brilliant as Julius Caesar. Lepidus basically shied away. He didn't have the confidence to challenge Octavian for ultimate power. Seeing this lack of confidence and insecurity, his soldiers basically went off to join Octavian. A lot of soldiers did that; soldiers fighting for the enemy side would just jump ship because Octavian was the heir of Julius Caesar. He was the new Julius Caesar. They all worshipped Julius Caesar.

Octavian's Path to Power

Why did Octavian succeed so much? He became partners with Marcus Agrippa, who was a much better general than him. But Octavian was not a brilliant man, not charismatic, not a great general. But he believed himself to be the heir to Julius Caesar. For whatever reason, Julius Caesar believed in him, and therefore he had a responsibility to finish the legacy of his father, which was to restore the Roman Republic. That meant he had to do whatever sacrifice was necessary.

The difference between Octavian and the others was that he acted. He wasn't always successful, but he was willing to act, whereas Marcus Brutus was not. When you act, sometimes you will succeed, and only a few successes will allow you to become the emperor of Rome. He was driven by the fact that he believed himself to be the son of Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar believed in him; therefore, he had a responsibility to restore the Republic. That's why he trusted Marcus Agrippa, and that's why Marcus Agrippa trusted him. They were all fighting for the legacy of Julius Caesar.

That's why, ultimately, the Roman people allowed Octavian to amass so much power. Remember, Roman people had been taught to fear kings. But over time—Augustus Caesar was in power for 40 years—he became even more powerful than a king. He amassed all powers to himself. After he conquered Egypt, he made it his own personal property. He used all the money from Egypt—the wealthiest country in the world at this time—to have his own army. Before, the Roman army was loyal to the Senate. Now, because it was Octavian himself who personally paid every soldier in the army, which was now a professional army, they were loyal to the emperor. He took Gaul, which was land that Julius Caesar had basically depopulated with genocide, and he gave the land to his veterans. He made the entire army loyal to him personally.

The Roman people allowed him to do that because they believed that, like Julius Caesar, Octavian was driven by his sense of mission, his desire to save and restore the Roman Republic. But ultimately, because they believed him too much, Augustus Caesar would destroy the Republic and concentrate all power in his hands.

Why Did Caesar Choose Octavian Over Mark Antony?

Octavian was the great-nephew of Julius Caesar; he was Julius Caesar's sister's grandson. Octavian grew up with Julius Caesar, so they knew each other very well. But Mark Antony was the man who was most loyal to Caesar, his most trusted lieutenant. Why didn't Caesar trust him?

The answer is that Caesar, as a genius, didn't care about loyalty; he cared about talent and ability. Mark Antony was a notorious hothead. He had a violent temper; he was a drunk. He just had terrible personal qualities. For example, while Caesar was off campaigning against Pompey, he put Mark Antony in charge of Rome, and all Mark Antony did was piss everyone off. He got into fights with the Senate. He was so bad that Caesar had no choice but to replace him with Lepidus. Mark Antony was emotionally unstable and volatile, so Caesar didn't really trust him, even though Mark Antony would give his life for Caesar.

Octavian was considered much more competent and level-headed, and Caesar was correct in his assessment because Octavian was a brilliant political manipulator. Being an emperor is very hard, and he was emperor for 40 years. He had to balance all these different political factions within Rome.

The Problem of Succession

Octavian, Augustus Caesar, was considered the first and the greatest emperor of the Roman Empire. Like Julius Caesar, he did not consider himself an emperor; he considered himself the First Citizen, or the first man in the Senate. His responsibility was to ensure the eternal prosperity and stability of the Roman Republic.

Towards his old age, he had to consider the problem of succession. He was a great emperor, but the second emperor had to be great as well. His solution was this: he would adopt the most competent relative that he had to be emperor. He created this new system where emperors would be adopted, so the best man in Rome would always be adopted into the imperial throne.

Augustus Caesar had the perfect man: his name was Germanicus. Germanicus was very much like Julius Caesar—a brilliant speaker, loved by his soldiers. The problem was that he was too young. So he needed a transition. He appointed his stepson, Tiberius, who was pretty old at this point, to be the transition. Tiberius was not charismatic or very popular, but he was a competent administrator. He'd be emperor for five to ten years, and then when Germanicus came of age, Germanicus would inherit the throne. As a good emperor, he would then be able to find someone else with good talent and appoint him the next emperor. If you had this system, it could go on forever.

The problem was Tiberius. Tiberius didn't like the idea that he could not appoint his successor. So what did he do? He killed Germanicus. But not only did he kill Germanicus, he killed basically all of Germanicus's family. And not only did he kill Germanicus's family, but he killed a lot of people. Then he adopted someone named Caligula, who was Germanicus's youngest son, to be the emperor, and Caligula was a notoriously bad emperor.

This system broke down very quickly, even though Augustus Caesar's intention was to continue the legacy of Julius Caesar and create an eternal prosperity for the Roman Republic. By the time you got to Tiberius, the system collapsed. You could make the argument that Tiberius marked the death of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire would continue for another 300 years, but it was basically dead, racked by all these internal revolts and tensions. It was only because of its size and inertia that it was able to continue for so long.