Ravenna, A Study | Page 8

go whither
the omens of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us. The die is
cast." And immediately at the head of his troops he crossed the river
and found awaiting him the tribunes of the people who, having fled
from Rome, had come to meet him. There in their presence he called
upon the troops to pledge him their fidelity, with tears in his eyes,
Suetonius assures us, and his garments rent from his bosom. And when
he had received their oath he set out, and with his legion marched so
fast the rest of the way that he reached Ariminum before morning and
took it.
The fall of Ariminum was but a presage, as we know, of Caesar's
triumph. In three months he was master of all Italy. From Ravenna he
had emerged to seize the lordship of the world, and out of a misery of
chaos to create Europe.

III
RAVENNA IN THE TIME OF THE EMPIRE
That great revolutionary act of Julius Caesar's may be said to have
made manifest, and for the first time, the unique position of Ravenna in
relation to Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. In the years which followed, that
position remained always unchanged, and is, indeed, more prominent

than ever in the civil wars between Antony and Octavianus which
followed Caesar's murder; but with the establishment of the empire by
Octavianus and the universal peace, the pax romana, which it ensured,
this position of Ravenna in relation to Italy and to Cisalpine Gaul sank
into insignificance in comparison with her other unique advantage, her
position upon the sea. For Octavianus, as we shall see, established her
as the great naval port of Italy upon the east, and as such she chiefly
appears to us during all the years of the unhampered government of the
empire.
In the civil wars between Antony and Octavianus, however, she
appears still as the key to the narrow pass between Italy and Cisalpine
Gaul. Let us consider this for a moment.
Antony, as we know, after that great scene in the senate house when the
supporters of Pompey and the aristocrats had succeeded in denying
Caesar everything, had fled to Caesar at Ravenna. In the war which
followed he had been Caesar's chief lieutenant and friend. At the
crucial battle of Pharsalus in 48 B.C. he had commanded, and with
great success, the left wing. In 44 B.C. he had been consul with Caesar
and had then offered him the crown at the festival of the Lupercalia.
After Caesar's murder he had attempted, and not without a sort of right,
to succeed to his power. It was he who pronounced the speech over
Caesar's body and read his will to the people. It was he who obtained
Caesar's papers and his private property. It cannot then have been
without resentment and surprise that he found presently a rival in the
young Octavianus, the great-nephew and adopted son of the dictator,
who joined the senate with the express purpose of crushing him.
Now Antony, perhaps remembering his master, had obtained from the
senate the promise of Cisalpine Gaul, then in the hands of Decimus
Brutus, who, encouraged by Octavianus, refused to surrender it to him.
Antony proceeded to Ariminum (Rimini), but Octavianus seized
Ravenna and supplied it both with stores and money.[1] Antony was
beaten and compelled to retreat across the Alps. In these acts we may
see which of the two rivals understood the reality of things, and from
this alone we might perhaps foresee the victor.
[Footnote 1: Appian, III. 42.]
That was in 44 B.C. A reconciliation between the rivals followed and
the government was vested in them and in Lepidus under the title of

Triumviri Reipublicae Constituendae for five years. In 42 B.C. Brutus
and Cassius and the aristocratic party were crushed by Antony and
Octavianus at Philippi; and Antony received Asia as his share of the
Roman world. Proceeding to his government in Cilicia, Antony met
Cleopatra and followed her to Egypt. Meanwhile Fulvia, his wife, and
L. Antonius, his brother, made war upon Octavianus in Italy, for they
like Antony hoped for the lordship of the world. In the war which
followed, Ravenna played a considerable part. In 41 B.C., for instance,
the year in which the war opened, the Antonine party secured
themselves in Ravenna, not only because of its strategical importance
in regard to Italy and Cisalpine Gaul, but also because as a seaport it
allowed of their communication with Antony in Egypt from whom they
expected support. All this exposed and demonstrated more and more
the importance of Ravenna, and we may be sure that the wise and
astute Octavianus marked it.
But it was the war with Sextus Pompeius which clearly showed what
the future of