Pollio had a dry sense of humor and a reputation for straight talking. When Octavian once wrote some lampoons about him, Pollio only observed: “For my part I am saying nothing in reply; for it is asking for trouble to write against a man who can write you off.”
Some commentators have wondered whether the child could be Pollio’s son, but it is hard to see why Virgil should have imagined such a boy as savior of the world. A more likely candidate would be the predicted offspring of Antony and Octavia, whose union presaged peace after long years of war. Indeed, she was soon pregnant. Some scholars even believe that the poem was written as a wedding hymn.
However, we should not forget that Octavian, too, was a newlywed, albeit somewhat unsuitably. It was known that Scribonia was carrying a child. A detail from the eclogue suggests that the answer to the conundrum may lie here. This is the reference to Apollo “enthroned at last”; just as orientalizing Antony favored the dionysiac Dionysus, so throughout his life Octavian appropriated the logical, severe god of light, Apollo. It is rather more likely that Virgil had Octavian’s unborn child in mind than Antony’s.
In the event, the issue turned out to be academic. In 39 B.C. both women bore daughters, Julia and Antonia.
For all the poet’s fine words, optimism was fading. Before the Treaty of Brundisium, Sextus Pompeius had attempted to help Antony against Octavian, only to be called off at the last moment. He was angry and threatening.
Sextus employed two admirals, ex-slaves and former pirates called Menodorus (or Menas) and Menecrates. Perhaps they had been taken prisoner and enslaved by Pompey the Great during his highly successful campaign in 67 B.C. against the pirate fleets that used to dominate the Mediterranean. Having secured control of Sardinia and Corsica, they maintained the blockade of Italy.
At Rome, the price of goods soared. For once Octavian lost touch with public opinion, which wanted him to restore peace by coming to an understanding with Sextus. He obstinately refused to do this, and to pay his soldiers he levied a new tax on property owners (fifty sesterces per slave, plus a death duty).
For many, this was the final straw. Forced settlements, war, proscription, and famine—these things had all been endured, but now the people lost patience. There were demonstrations and riots. As he had done with the mutinous soldiers, Octavian decided to brave the mob in person and explain why it was wrong to blame him for the situation. He came to the Forum, attended only by some associates and a handful of bodyguards.
As soon as the crowd caught sight of him, they started bombarding him with missiles. They did not stop even when they saw they had injured him. Octavian stood his ground, although this meant that he was, in effect, placing himself in their hands. When Antony was told what was happening, he rushed to the rescue. As he came down the Via Sacra into the Forum, the crowd did not at first throw anything at him, for he was known to favor peace with Sextus, but they warned him to go back. When he refused they began to stone him.
Antony summoned reinforcements. His soldiers quickly surrounded the Forum, broke into small groups, and marched down alleyways into the square. The crowd could not escape and a number of people were killed. Pushing his way through the press, Antony reached Octavian only with the greatest difficulty and escorted him home. There was no doubt that he had saved his colleague’s life, and in spectacular fashion.
This was a most instructive episode. It illustrates the continuing growth of a bloody-minded courage in Octavian. Through the exercise of will, Octavian, now twenty-four years old, was tempering himself in fire.
What kept Antony and Octavian in power was the active support of the people and the legions: this was a lesson they had already learned many bitter times. Octavian eventually realized that he would have to give way on the matter of Sextus. Discreet feelers were put out and soon an entente was in prospect. Menodorus in Sardinia wrote to Sextus, counseling against peace; either he should make war wholeheartedly, he recommended, or he should wait and see if the famine at Rome would enable him to drive a harder bargain.
Sextus rejected this advice and met the opposing leaders at a peace conference in the summer of 39 B.C. Accompanied by many of his Roman supporters, he sailed from Sicily in a huge flagship, with six banks of oars, leading a fine fleet. He anchored off Misenum, a headland at the northern end of the Bay of Naples dotted with the holiday villas of the rich, where the meeting was to be held. Wooden planks had been laid on piles in the sea, to create two platforms. Antony and Octavian went to the one nearer the coast and Sextus to the seaward platform. Enough water lay between them to allow the members of each party to talk among themselves without being overheard; exchanges between them had to be shouted, in a primitive and literal form of megaphone diplomacy.
These cautious arrangements were presumably made at the initiative of Sextus. Perhaps recalling the nightmare scene when he had watched his father go to his death on the Egyptian coast, he was determined not to risk his life by abandoning his ship for the terra firma of his enemies.
Sextus opened the discussions by demanding on behalf of the proscribed the return of all their confiscated property. Antony and Octavian agreed to buy back a quarter of the properties from their new owners. The news was published and immediately welcomed by victims of the proscription.
The final agreement did little more than confirm what everyone knew to be the unstable status quo. Sextus was officially installed as governor of what he had already captured—Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. To these was added the Peloponnese (southern Greece). He was honored by membership of the College of Augurs, the committee of senior statesmen who were charged with taking the auspices at Rome, and he was nominated for the consulship in the following year, 38 B.C. Sextus’ followers in Sicily had their personal positions secured: all the exiles from Italy in his army (excepting, always, Julius Caesar’s assassins) were to have their civil rights restored; the buyback offer to proscribed senators and equites was confirmed; the runaway slaves in Sextus’ force were to be freed; and Sextus’ soldiers were to receive the same demobilization awards as those serving the triumvirs.
Sextus could claim that this was a reasonably good deal for him, in that he was no longer an outlaw. The Treaty of Misenum brought him inside the political fold. Privately, though, he already regretted rejecting Menodorus’ advice to avoid coming to terms with the triumvirs.
By contrast, Antony and Octavian had every right to be pleased with themselves. They had given Sextus nothing essential to their interests, but had won something beyond price. Although they may not have realized it at the time, they had initiated the process of detaching opposition politicians from Sextus. Once it became clear that the triumvirs were not planning a new bloodbath, many began trickling back either to Italy or to join Antony when he returned to the east. To Sextus’ alarm, the Pompeian constituency was set to decline.
The principals celebrated the peace with a series of banquets. They drew lots to decide the order. Sextus acted as host first, on his flagship (“My only ancestral home left to me”). The two sides did not trust each other; the triumvirs had their ships moored nearby, guards were posted and the dinner guests carried daggers underneath their clothes. On the surface all was smiles and friendship. Sextus gave a warm welcome to Antony and Octavian. The atmosphere softened and the conversation became coarse and convivial. Jokes were made about Antony’s passion for the queen of Egypt, a topic that Octavia’s brother and husband would ordinarily have found embarrassing.
As at Brundisium, the bond between the parties was incarnated in a marriage union. At the dinner table, Sextus’ infant daughter was formally engaged to the three-year-old Marcellus, Antony’s stepson and Octavian’s nephew.