haticesultanas

HISTORY MEME | seven relationships: the second triumvirate

Invested with new powers [as consul], the young Caesar canceled the dispositions that had declared Antony and Lepidus public enemies and continued on the path of unity of the Caesarian party. The strategy he had set up immediately after the events in Modena gave excellent results. Already in the spring of 43, he had made use of Antonian soldiers dispersed in the battle of Modena and of officers of his adversary such as Publius Ventidius to send to Antony veiled proposals for reconciliation. The dictator’s heir had then written to both Asinius Pollio and Lepidus and the governor of Gallia Narbonensis had played an effective role of mediation with Antony. Between June and July Antony and Lepidus undertook to guarantee the young Caesar their willingness to make an agreement. In the autumn of 43 the pact was formalized. In September Octavian left Rome to meet his future colleagues on a peninsula at the confluence of the Reno and Lavinio rivers, between Modena and Bologna. The discussion, which lasted for two days, led to important decisions. It was decided that a new five-year institution would be established, which would appoint magistrates and reorganize the State devastated by long civil wars: the three would become triumviri rei publicae constituendae. The provinces were subject to a redistribution: Antony received Cisalpine and Comata Gaul, with sixteen legions; Lepidus Narbonensis Gaul and Hispania, with ten legions; the young Caesar Africa, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, with seventeen legions; Italy would remain common territory. […] Octavian and Antony with part of Lepidus’ army would then wage war in the East against the Caesaricides. — Cristofoli, Galimberti, Rohr Vio, Dalla repubblica al principato: politica e potere in Roma antica