L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers,  "Be- ware the Ides of March" a soothsayer warned Julius Caesar (100-44 BC), but the greatest of all Caesars, Roma states- man and General, it is said, just laughed at the warning, did nothing to beef out security and a successful plot for his assassination did indeed take place on March 15th, and in- cluded the hand of his trusted, adopted son Brutus and is consid- ered the modest famous of classical betrayals. On the morning of March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by a bank of Roman sena- tors who objected to the military dictatorship he had imposed on their republican government. After the assassination a series of civil wars convulsed the Roman Empire. Various political factions battled for Caesar's wealth and power. Two of the strongest leaders to emerge from the chaos were Oc- tavian Thurinus and Mark Antony. They had strikingly dif- ferent personalities, and they dis- liked each other intensely, but they rose to power together by forming an alliance against all rivals. Octavian, a great-nephew of Julius Caesar, had inherited the dictator's wealth. Octavian was a privileged aristocrat, eighteen years old, small-statured, intelligent and scholarly. Prim and moralistic he looked down on all kinds of phys- ical excess, and physical danger he tried to avoid. Mark Antony was an experi- enced thirty-eight-year-old gen- eral who commanded a personal bodyguard of six thousand Roman soldiers. A tall, handsome man, Antony was a congenial and popu- lar general who was known to drink himself into a stupor and had trou- ble keeping track of money. Despite their mutual antago- nism, Octavian and Antony were soon forced into alliance. The re- publican senators Brutus and Cas- sius, who had led the plot to murder Julius Caesar, now threatened both Octavian and Antony. Octavian spent part of his huge inheritance to hire a private army; then, in al- liance with Antony, he drove the assassins out of the city. Brutus and Cassius fled to the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, where they began raising their own armies. Octavian did not pretend to be a charismatic military hero like Antony. He told the soldiers that they were expert fighters, and he was a banker whose job was to see they were all well paid for their services. This attitude made Octa- vian popular with the soldiers. *** Antony and Octavian made a public reconciliation of their dif- ferences, but privately each mis- trusted the other, in winter of 44 B.C., both rivals left Rome to re- cruit armies in the countryside. Their armies clashed in northern Italy in April or 43 B.C. In the meanwhile, Octavian learned that Brutus and Cassius were raising their own armies in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Calling themselves "the Liberators," the two assassins were threatening to march back to Rome to restore the republic. Octavian then abruptly made peace with Antony, and the two rivals be- came allies again. Again allies, Octavian and Ant ony sailed with a large army across the Adriatic Sea to Macedonia. Oc- tober 23, 42 B.C., Mark Antony successfully led their combined forces against Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, Macedonia. Octavian, who was ill, watched fro a distance. Octavian and Antony agreed to divide the Roman empire.Octa- vian will rule the west, Antony would rule the east, Marcus Lepidus the north coast of Africa. Antony stayed in Greece with part to the army, and Octavian returned to Rome. Octavian and Antony worked together to eliminate all rivals to their shared command of the Ro- man Empire, beginning with Lep- idus, who was accused of treason and banished. Antagonism between Octavian and Antony flared up often, but was always set aside in the interest of defeating common enemies. To strengthen his alliance with Antony, Octavian arranged for his twenty- four-year-old sister, Octavia, to marry the forty-two-year-old gen- eral in 40 B.C. In 34 B.C., Octavian learned that Mark Antony had abandoned Oc- tavia and their children in Athens and had moved to Egypt, to live with the seductive and powerful Queen Cleopatra. Two years later Antony divorced Oc- tavia, married Cleopatra, and de- clared that the eastern provinces of Rome belonged to the Egyptian queen and her children. Enraged at Antony's betrayal, Octavian de- nounced his ex-brother-in-law and declared war on Cleopatra. The two rivals prepared for their coming clash. Antony took personal command of his own and Cleopa- tra's forces, Octavian hired an ex- pert admiral and general to do his fighting. Octavian raised large amounts of money to recruit sol- diers, and launch a propaganda campaign against Antony. Octavian claimed that Antony had fallen under the spell of a for- eign enchantress. He charged that Antony had betrayed every family in Rome by promising to hadn't over the empire to his immoral Egyptian queen and her children.  This use a propaganda as a weapon baffled Antony. He sent an obscene message advising Octavian to mind his own business. *** Octavian was more successful than Antony in recruiting Roman soldiers to his cause and his naval fleet and army met the forces of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium (western coast of Greece), on Sep- tember 2, 31 B.C. The Roman ships, under the command of an admiral hired by Octavian, surprised and attached the Egyptian fleet in a shallow bay near the shore, while the land armies were still preparing for bat- tle. According to the Greek histo- rian Plutarch: Cleopatra's ships suddenly took to flight through the midst of the combatants, throwing their own fleet into confusion.  No sooner did Antony see her ships hoisting sail that, forgetting everything else, he took a small gal- ley and followed her. Some Roman ships pursued Antony and Cleopatra, but hey managed to escape, while the rest of Octavian's fleet de- stroyed their remaining warships by setting them on fire. On learning of Antony's flight, his land forces sur- rounded and joined Octavian's army. The following summer Octavian led an army to Egypt, where he de- feated Antony's few remaining forces near Alexandria. *** After the fall of Alexandria, Egypt was Octavian's personal property, but under Roman domi- nation. Coins in circulation, after Actium, read Aegypto capta "Egypt has been taken". Antony and Cleopatra commit- ted suicide and Octavian became the sole ruler of Rome and its provinces in 30 B.C. at the age of Thirty. After Cleopatra's death, Octa- vian became Egypt's new Pharaoh recognized by the priesthood as the living god. He also became the first Ro- man leader to be called emperor ("imperator") of Rome. Octavian changed his name to Au- gustus, "the great one".

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