Stolengood

Banned
Oops, that's embarrassing :eek: I've gone through and fixed those typos now.
Oh, sorry! :eek: I actually thought it might've been a stylistic reason to do with the POD -- although I did split-secondly keep reading it as "Antinous" and wondering what Hadrian's paramour had to do with everything... ;)
 
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[43 BC] – Dolabella had taken a long time before going to his province of Syria, and the delay allowed Cassius to get there first and rally support. On the way there, the Liberator made many enemies among the local populations of the east in his efforts to raise funds for his army; when they defied him, citing any lack of instruction by the Senate to obey him, ruthless retribution followed. The city of Rhodes, for example, was invaded and plundered following a sea battle with Cassius' navy; when some communities in Judea refused to give him the money he demanded, he had their populations sold into slavery.

Cleopatra of Egypt did not give Cassius the aid he demanded, and instead sent the Roman troops stationed in her kingdom, led by Aulus Alllienus, to join forces with Dolabella, who had requested them. It was at this time that Cassius arrived in Syria; there he discovered that fighting had already broken out following a mutiny of some of the legions, which two of Caesar's governors has struggled suppress. Both sides now buried their differences and joined Cassius. Allienus and his Egyptian reinforcements, meanwhile, had not heard of any of these developments as they entered the province; taken unawares, and faced with eight legions to his own four, Allienus surrendered his troops and defected to Cassius. There seems to have been very little enthusiasm for serving under Dolabella, as well as a desire to be on the strongest side, even if it was led by one of the conspirators. When he finally arrived, Dolabella was besieged in Laodicia, but could not hold out and committed suicide before the garrison surrendered.

When word arrived in Rome of these developments, Hirtius must have quietly praised the gods, since, from the perspective of his personal political self interest, it was about the best news which could be hoped for. In the first place, this meant that Dolabella, who had been a problematic actor in the Caesrian faction, dividing opinion among the moderates and the autocrats, was now conveniently taken care of by a figure all Caesar's supporters could unite in hating. In the second place, Cassius' actions had further embarassed Cicero, who by now was the leader of the opposition in the Senate to the consul's policies -- the great orator had tried to rally the senators against Dolabella only months earlier, imploring them to strip the Caesarian of his title and give it to Cassius, only to lose the motion; now, the man he had spoken up for had acted in open defiance of the body's decision. And third, with the duly chosen Governor of Syria dead, a position was now open; furthermore, as Cassius had acted against orders of the Seante, it meant that whoever was given Dolabella's old position would be in a position to lead an army of his own against one of the chief architects of Caesar's assassination, which held the promise of lots of political capital among Caesar's supporters.

Hirtius seized the intiative, and had the Senate appoint him to the governorships of Syria and Cicilia upon the completion of his year as Consul. Now possessing the needed legal authority, Hirtius turned to raising the army he would need to stand up to Cassius' 12 legions. Most of these men came from the army Lepidus was leaving in Gaul; as these forces were full of men who were devoted to the memory of Caesar, the opportunity to cross the world to kill one of his lead assassins aided significantly with recruitment. Vegence however was not enough; to begin with, if the outgoing consul wanted to gain and keep the support of the needed legions, he would need to raise the funds to pay them. While was able to get some starting money from the state treasury, it soon became clear that he would need to find more resources when his army arrived in the east if he was to have any hope of keeping his legions loyal.

Raising the funds needed for these legions would have been challenging enough; but Hirtius and his moderate Caesarian allies knew that their consolidation of power wouldn't last a year unless they could find a way to make good on the promises of land and pay they had made the loyal troops. Cassius' plundering in the east, coupled with Brutus' lack of cooperation in Greece, had denied the Republic a great deal of wealth from the provinces. After the legions going to Syria had been raised, the treasury had been greatly depleted. And funding was only part of the challenge to securing the needed land; one of the largest hurdles to finding land in Italia for the veterans was the same challenge that had been plauging the republic for over a century, that of land and grain markets being consolidated into giant estates by the economic and political elite.

To the end of overcoming this challenge, Hirtius pushed through possibly the most politically risky law of his consulship -- the Lex Octavia placed a limit on how much land in Italia a member of the Senate could hold. Even though the law exempted former consuls (a loophole that did not go unnoticed by Cicero at the time), it was asking the senators to make a massive concession for their own economic interests. The fresher Caesarian senators, who had not amassed as much wealth as the old school statesmen by this point, provided the needed votes to pass the measure; however, even they were limiting their future economic prospects. It was this that led Cicero at the time to predict that the reform “would last three years at most”; as it happened, neither he nor Hirtius could have predicted events that would lead to the subsequent legislation that would allow this law to last as long as it did. In the short term, however, the law had the desired effect of forcing rich landowners to “sell” portions of their estates to the Republic for what was effectively an early form of government IOU.

This major political victory achieved, Hirtius gathered his legions and set sail for Syria to seek out the rebel Cassius. On his way over, his ships stopped and made port at Crete and Rhodes, where the outgoing consul built his political networks and bases of popular support. In the case of Rhodes, he promised the people of the island recompsense for their sacking by Cassius if they would aid him in bringing the renegade to justice; in this way, he was able to add to his supplies and to his forces.

Meanwhile back in Rome, the new consuls, Decimus Brutus and Marcus Lepidus, assumed office at the start of the new year.
 
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Stolengood

Banned
I see you've cut the Gordian Knot with regards to Dollabella... however, how does Cleopatra situate with all this, seeing as she sent troops against Cassius who presumably were all slaughtered once they reached Dollabella?
 
I see you've cut the Gordian Knot with regards to Dollabella... however, how does Cleopatra situate with all this, seeing as she sent troops against Cassius who presumably were all slaughtered once they reached Dollabella?
First, bear in mind that the first two paragraphs of that last update are (or are meant to be) as OTL; second, Cleopatra doesn't have the OTL advantage of Cassius marching north to join Brutus, so she does indeed have reason to worry. Fortunately, another former Caesar man is on the way with an army of his own...
 

Stolengood

Banned
First, bear in mind that the first two paragraphs of that last update are (or are meant to be) as OTL; second, Cleopatra doesn't have the OTL advantage of Cassius marching north to join Brutus, so she does indeed have reason to worry. Fortunately, another former Caesar man is on the way with an army of his own...
And... the boy?
 

Deleted member 97083

I'm fairly ignorant of the Late Republic. Is the Lex Octavia in some sense a refutation of the Lex Claudia?
 
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So is the Lex Octavia in some sense a refutation of the Lex Claudia?
It's a blunt attempt to curb the chief sympton (of the Lex Claudia and Roman decline as a whole) without addressing the cause; that's why Cicero is so pessimistic of the law's long term survival and effectiveness. The Lex Claudia itself will be refuted later, however, more or less on accident (you'll see when we get to it), allowing this land reform to have more staying power than anyone was expecting.
 
So, Cleopatra sided with Dolabella? Seeing as he lost, will there be any attempts to "punish" Egypt? How old is Caesarion at the moment? What about the twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene? Were they even born ITTL? (I'm a bit sketchy on dates of the period)
 
So, Cleopatra sided with Dolabella? Seeing as he lost, will there be any attempts to "punish" Egypt? How old is Caesarion at the moment? What about the twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene? Were they even born ITTL? (I'm a bit sketchy on dates of the period)
No.Antony's dead.
 
[42 BC] – Not long into the year of Decimus Brutus and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the policy of settling the veterans of the victorious Roman armies onto Italian land was proving to be an enormous challenge. While the reform of the previous year promised, on paper, to provide a fair amount of available land by breaking up the large estates of the senators, this process was proving to be slow going; the senators were powerful, after all, and plenty of lawmakers (Cicero included) were openly predicting that the policy would not stick. So new land was needed; eighteen towns saw their lands confiscated, with the bulk of reclamations coming not from the rich, but from small and middle farmers who lacked the powerful friends to slow down the confiscations.

This, predictably, led to a large number of disconted and now landless men across the Italian countryside; the very raw materials of revolution. On top of this, the bulk of the the survivors of Antonius' defeated legions had somehow made their way back into Italia, and were now organizing these angry men into fresh legions. Where might they get such a notion? Well, it is at this point that the Antonine faction once again enters the fray, led by the brother of the late Marcus Antonius, Lucius, and his widow, the far better known and infamous Fulvia. The details of their conspiracy are fuzzy, but what is known is that in the later part of Spring, reports were coming into Rome of Fulvia speaking before these gathered legions, by all appearances commanding them, with Lucius "under her command" and the children of Marcus Antonius at her side.

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It has been a matter of some historical contention whether the young Caesar, at the time settling into his position as Governor of Gallia Narbonesis and Hispania Citerior, was party to this growing conspiracy; his close allies of the time, Agrippa and Maecenas, would later claim that he only learned of the rebellion after it had happened, and was earnestly seeking to put it down when he marched into Italia. The lack of Senate authroization for this, they claimed, was seen as a technicality by the young man, who fully expected the Senate to legitimize his decisions after the fact, much as they had done when he raised legions against Marcus Antonius. As evidence against this claim, critics of Ocatavian would point to his marriage mere months before of Fulvia's daughter, Clodia Pulchra.

But these would be concerns for later; at this point in the year, the most pressing concern for the city of Rome were the rebellious Antonine legions. If Octavian's proactive reaction to the crisis was suspicious to those opposed to the Caesarians, the responses of Lepidus was infuriating in their lacklusterness. First, the consul who held fasces at the time, Lepidus, tried to convince the Senate that a policy of non-aggression and reconcilation was still possible; the Senate's reaction to this was so furious that when they gathered the next day, he refused to leave his house. Decimus now presiding as Consul, the brother and widow of Antonius were declared public enemies; an army was to be raised to confront them.

Cicero could plainly see that Italia was on the verge of another crisis; even though he was not as politically dominant as he had been in the early months of the previous year, he threw himself into a finally slate of oratorical showmanship, seeking to prod the Senate into a series of measures which would prove incredibly consequential in how the crisis of that year was resolved, and arguably for the fate of the Republic. The first measure, passed before the simply sent an envoy to Sextus Pompey, offering good terms for cooperating in returning his legions to Senate control; when the news from this offer was positive, the second measure formally requested him to bring his troops into Italia proper to put down the revolt of the Antonines.

This is where things became tricky, because to this senatorial command Sextus responded that he would need a series of conditions to be met to assure the loyalty of his men, including general amnesty for his forces, land for his veterans, freedom for the escaped slaves under his protection, and the consulship to be awarded to him for the next year. It took several days of not only vigorous debate in the Senate, but relentless manuvering behind the scenes -- including, as Cicero would later recount, hours of convincing Lepidus not to veto the measure -- before the Senate finally agreed to affirming these requests. One of Cicero's supporters would later boast that this was “the last time he saved the Republic”.

The elder statesman's sense of timing must have been impeccable, because days after this final measure was passed, the legions loyal to Antonius' brother and widow began to march on Rome. The leaders of this new rebel army were not subtle about what they had planned for those they considered to be their poltical enemies; to start with, Fulvia boldly proclaimed that the assassins of Caesar remaining in the city when it fell would be executed when her army took it. Interestingly, she went so far as to publish a list of those who would be targeted by this decree... and it included only the optimate liberators, who remained allied to Cicero; those, like the Consul Decimus, who were part of the moderate populist camp and worked with their government seemed to be forgotten about entirely. It is details like this that remind us that political actors of the time were more likely motivated by political expediancy and greed than any kind of pure loyalty or thirst for vengence.

Whatever the motives of this list, those senators who were on it took the message and fled the city; this is how, in the next year, just about all the so-called “unredeemed assassins” found themselves in the company or legions of Marcus Brutus. But that is for another update; suffice to say, for now, that as soon as word of this rebellion reached his provinces (or indeed, as some have claimed, before then) Octavian ordered his legions to march southward into Northern Italia, formerly Cisalpine Gaul. The penultimate phase of the civil war was starting.

Meanwhile in the east, Hirtius arrived in Syria with his legions. Within days of his ships coming to port, ambassadors arrived from the kingdoms of Judea and Cappadocia, full of complaints against the abrasive army of Cassius. Cappadocia had seen their king executed by Cassius' orders for resisting Roman intrusion into their affairs, while Judea had seen towns taxed dry, while others were sacked and enslaved. Speaking on the behalf of the latter was the king's chief advisor and military leader, one called Antipater the Idumean; he now commanded a legion's worth of men, from his own kingdom and others, and offered to join this force to the army of the Republic gathered there.

To this, Hirtius readily agreed; as his army was beginning its march north to confront Cassius, yet another ambassador arrived, this one from Egypt. Queen Cleopatra made a formal request for protection against Cassisus Longinus, who she had by now come to learn, or guess, was planning on marching against her kingdom. The ambassador explained that, if given time, the queen might raise forces and send them to join the Republic's own; Hirtius however, who determined that he could not delay his expedition any longer, politely declined, asking instead for an additional tribute to be paid to him and his soldiers upon their victory (on top of Egypt's usual tax payments to Rome). The ambassador declared these terms to be acceptable, and with that, the legions of the Republic departed.

Before continuing, it should be noted that it was around this time that Hirtius sent an ambassador to the Parthians; when this fellow arrived at the eastern capital, he discovered that one Quintus Labienus, son of Caesar's former right hand man and latter ally of Pompey, was already there, sent there as an emissary from Cassius. Even though the men had been sent by opposing generals in the civil war, and the Parthians sought to play one against the other, they would, in time, come to work together as joint ambassadors to Rome, securing the border between the empires, assuring the eastern king that the Senate had no intention of following Caesar's call for a campaign in his empire. (Likely they managed this after hearing of the results of the confrontation between their commanders.) While the name Hirtius' ambassador is an asterix to history, the son of Labienus would use this accomplishment to bolster his own political career upon returning to Rome, even as the circumstances of his intial deployment would haunt his prospects.
 
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Anyway, I'm liking where this is going. Particularly with the future prospects of Quintus Labienus.
Honestly, I just felt like TTL needed that when I read about his OTL deeds as Parthicus; obviously, he wouldn't be doing those things TTL, and I felt compelled to draw attention to that. As to what he'll do instead, I'm not yet sure; my inclination is for him to make himself known in a, shall we say, less than savory fashion, considering what he was willing to do OTL, circumstances or no.
 
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