1.1.7 to 1.1.8

Octavian soon reached an agreement with Antony and with another of Caesar's principal supporters, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who had succeeded him as chief priest. On November 27, 43 BC, the three men were formally given a five-year dictatorial appointment as triumvirs for the reconstitution of the state (the Second Triumvirate—the first having been the informal compact between Pompey, Crassus, and Julius Caesar). The east was occupied by Brutus and Cassius, but the triumvirs divided the west among themselves. They drew up a list of "proscribed" political enemies, and the consequent executions included 300 senators (one of whom was Antony's enemy Cicero) and 2,000 members of the class below the senators, the equites or knights. Julius Caesar's recognition as a god of the Roman state in January 42 BC enhanced Octavian's prestige as son of a god. He and Antony crossed the Adriatic and, under Antony's leadership (Octavian being ill), won the two battles of Philippi against Brutus and Cassius, both of whom committed suicide. Antony, the senior partner, was allotted the east (and Gaul); and Octavian returned to Italy, where difficulties caused by the settlement of his veterans involved him in the Perusine War (decided in his favour at Perusia, the modern Perugia) against Antony's brother and wife. In order to appease another potential enemy, Sextus Pompeius (Pompey the Great's son), who had seized Sicily and the sea routes, Octavian married Sextus's relative Scribonia (though before long he divorced her for personal incompatibility). These ties of kinship did not deter Sextus, after the Perusine War, from making overtures to Antony; but Antony rejected them and reached a fresh understanding with Octavian at the treaty of Brundisium, under the terms of which Octavian was to have the whole west (except for Africa, which Lepidus was allowed to keep) and Italy, which, though supposedly neutral ground, was in fact controlled by Octavian. The east was again to go to Antony, and it was arranged that Antony, who had spent the previous winter with Queen Cleopatra in Egypt, should marry Octavian's sister Octavia. The peoples of the empire were overjoyed by the treaty, which seemed to promise an end to so many years of civil war. In 38 BC Octavian formed a significant new link with the aristocracy by his marriage to Livia Drusilla.