Our way was hindered by the cavalry of Brutus and Cassius, and we suffered severe losses on our journey, arriving at Amphipolis with our troops weary and demoralized. When it became clear that the armies of Brutus and Cassius were securely entrenched upon the high ground at Philippi, protected on the north by mountains and on the south by a marsh that stretched from the camp to the sea, I resolved to send an urgent message to Caesar Augustus; for our task seemed hopeless to our soldiers, and I knew that their failing spirits must be revived.
And so, though gravely ill, Augustus forced his way across the country to reinforce us, and went among his men on a litter, being too weak to walk; and though his face was that of a corpse, his eyes were fierce and hard, and his voice was strong, so that the men took heart and resolve from his presence.
We determined to strike boldly and at once, for each day of waiting cost us supplies, while Brutus and Cassius had all the lanes of the sea for their support. So while three of the legions of Augustus, under my command, pretended to be intent upon constructing a causeway across the great marsh that protected the enemy's southern flank, thus diverting a large number of Republican troops to attack us, the legions of Marcus Antonius struck boldly and broke through the weakened line of Cassius, and pillaged the camp before Cassius could recover from his surprise. And Cassius, on a slight hill with a few of his officers, looked (it is said) to the north, and there saw the troops of Brutus in what he took to be full flight; knowing that his own army was defeated, and thinking that all was lost, he despaired; and fell upon his sword, ending his life there in the dust and blood at Philippi, taking revenge upon himself, it seemed, for the murder of the divine Julius, two years and seven months before.
What Cassius did not know was that the army of Brutus was not in flight. Divining our plan, and knowing that the army of Augustus was dispersed in its diversionary tactic, he made haste to invest our camp, and overran it, capturing many soldiers and killing many more. Augustus himself, half-conscious in his illness and unable to move, was carried from his tent by his doctor and hidden in the marsh until the battle was over and night fell, and he could be carried stealthily to where the remnants of the army had retreated and had joined with the troops of Marcus Antonius. The doctor swore that he had had a dream telling him to remove the ill Augustus, so that his life might be spared…
IV. Letter: Quintus Homtius Flaccus to His Father, from west of Philippi (42 B. c.)
My dear father, if you receive this letter, you will know that your Horace, a day ago a proud soldier in the army of Marcus Junius Brutus, at this moment, on this cold autumn night, sits in his tent, writing these words by the flickering light of a lantern, in disgrace with himself, if not with his friends. Yet he feels curiously free from the obsession that has gripped him these last several months; and if he is not happy, he is at least beginning to know who he is… Today I was in my first battle; and I must tell you at once that at the first moment of serious danger to myself I dropped my shield and sword, and I ran.
Why I ever embarked upon this venture, I do not know; and surely you are too intelligent to know either. When, out ofthat kindness of yours to which I have grown so used that I sometimes do not think of it, you sent me to study in Athens year before last, I had no thought of engaging myself in anything so foolish as politics. Did I align myself with Brutus and accept a tribuneship in his army in a contemptible effort to rise above my station into the aristocracy? Was Horace ashamed of being the son of a mere freedman? I cannot believe that that is true; even in my youth and arrogance, I have known that you are the best of men, and I could not wish for a more noble and generous and loving father.
It was, I believe, because in my studies I had forgotten the world, and had begun almost to believe that philosophy was true. Liberty. I joined the cause of Brutus for a word; and I do not know what the word means. A man may live like a fool for a year, and become wise in a day.
I must tell you now that I did not drop my shield and run from the battle out of mere cowardice-though that was no doubt part of it. But when I suddenly saw one of Octavius Caesar's soldiers (or maybe Antonius's, I do not know) advancing toward me with naked steel flashing in his hands and in his eyes, it was as if time suddenly stood still; and I remembered you, and all the hopes you had of my future. I remembered that you had been born a slave, and had managed to buy your freedom; that your labor and your life were early turned to your son, so that he might live in an ease and comfort and security that you never had. And I saw that son uselessly slaughtered on an earth he had no love for, for a cause he did not understand- and I had a sense of what your years might have been with the knowledge of your son's discarded life-and I ran. I ran over bodies of fallen soldiers, and saw their empty eyes staring at the sky which they would never see again; and it did not matter to me whether they were friend or foe. I ran.
If the fates are kind to me, I shall return to you in Italy. I shall fight no more. Tomorrow, I shall post this letter to you and make my preparations. If we are not attacked, I shall be in no danger; if we are, I shall run again. In any event, I shall not linger at this massacre that leads to an end I cannot see.
I do not know who will be victorious-the Party of Caesar or the Party of the Republic. I do not know the future of our country, or my own future. Perhaps I shall have to disappoint you, and become a tax collector like yourself. It is a position, however lowly in your eyes, to which you lend dignity and honor by your presence. I am your son, Horace, and proud to be so.
V. The Memoirs of Marcus Agrippa: Fragments (13 B. c.)
And Brutus withdrew once more to the high ground and entrenchments at Philippi, whence, it became clear, he did not propose to retreat. We knew, perhaps better than Brutus, that each day of waiting cost us dearly, for our supplies were running low; nothing could be transported over the sea controlled by Brutus's navy; behind us were the flat and barren plains of Macedonia, and before us the hostile and barren hills of Greece. Thus we made to be copied sheets of reproaches to the officers of Brutus's army, taunting them with their timidity and cowardice; and at night we shouted challenges across the campfires, so that the soldiers could not even sleep in honor, but dozed fitfully in their shame.
For three weeks Brutus waited, until at last his men, chafing beneath the burden of their inaction, would wait no longer; and Brutus, fearful that his army would be depleted by desertions, ordered his men to descend from the entrenchments that might have saved them, and to attack our camp.
In the late afternoon they came down from the hill like a northern storm; no cries or shouts escaped their lips, and we heard only the clump of hooves and the pad of feet in the dust that came with them like a cloud. I ordered our line to give way before the initial attack; and as the enemy streamed into us, we closed the lines on either side, so that he had to fight on two flanks at once. And we broke the army in two, and each of those parts into two again, so that he could not re-form himself to withstand our attacks. By nightfall, the battle was over; and the stars heard the moans of the wounded, and watched impassively the bodies that did not move.
Brutus escaped with what remained of his legions, and made his way to the wilderness beyond the entrenchments at Philippi, which we had invested. He would have attacked again with what remained of his army, but his officers refused to risk themselves; and in the early dawn, the day after the Ides of November, on a lonely hillock overlooking the carnage of his will and resolve, with a few of his faithful officers, he fell upon his sword; and the army of the Republic was no more.