Battle of Philippi (42 BC): The End of Brutus and Cassius

The Battle of Philippi was fought in two engagements, on 3 and 23 October 42 BC, on the plain west of Philippi in eastern Macedonia. The triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian defeated the armies of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, the leading assassins of Julius Caesar. Both Cassius and Brutus took their own lives, and the battle ended the last serious attempt to restore the old Roman Republic.

Background: the Liberators in the East

After Caesar’s assassination on 15 March 44 BC, Brutus and Cassius, who called themselves the Liberators, found little support in Rome and left Italy. They took control of the eastern provinces, Brutus in Macedonia and Cassius in Syria, and raised large armies and fleets.

To pay their troops they squeezed the cities of the East for money. Cassius stormed the island of Rhodes, and Brutus besieged the Lycian city of Xanthos, many of whose inhabitants died rather than surrender. In 42 BC the two joined forces at Sardis and marched through Thrace towards Macedonia.

In Rome, Antony, Octavian and Lepidus had formed the Second Triumvirate in November 43 BC, with the declared aim of avenging Caesar. While Lepidus held Italy, Antony and Octavian crossed the Adriatic with their legions in 42 BC.

The armies and positions

Each side fielded about nineteen legions, along with large numbers of cavalry, making Philippi one of the largest battles of the Roman civil wars. The triumvirs’ legions were closer to full strength and contained many of Caesar’s veterans; the republican army was richer and better supplied.

Brutus and Cassius took up a strong position astride the Via Egnatia, the main Roman road across the Balkans, west of the city of Philippi. Brutus camped on a hill north of the road and Cassius on another to the south, with a fortified line joining them. Marshes protected Cassius’ southern flank, and the republicans were supplied by sea through the port of Neapolis (modern Kavala) and the island of Thasos.

The triumvirs camped on the open plain below, where supplies were scarce. Their position worsened because the republican fleet controlled the Adriatic and threatened their communications with Italy. Time was on the side of Brutus and Cassius, and they planned to avoid battle and let hunger weaken the enemy.

The first battle, 3 October

Antony tried to break the deadlock by secretly building a causeway through the marshes to get round Cassius’ flank and cut him off from the sea. When Cassius discovered the work, he attacked it, and on 3 October a general battle broke out.

The fighting produced two separate results. On the southern part of the field Antony led a bold assault that captured Cassius’ camp. In the north, Brutus’ troops attacked Octavian’s legions without waiting for orders, broke them and overran Octavian’s camp. Octavian himself was not there; he was ill and, according to ancient writers, had left the camp after his doctor dreamed of danger.

Cassius withdrew to a hill, but in the dust and confusion he could not see what had happened in the north. Seeing horsemen approaching, he took them for enemies, though they had been sent by Brutus. Believing all was lost, he ordered his freedman Pindarus to kill him. Brutus mourned him as “the last of the Romans”, according to Plutarch.

On the same day, unknown to either army, the republican fleet in the Adriatic destroyed a convoy carrying reinforcements for the triumvirs, including the Martian Legion, under Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus. Plutarch says that Brutus did not learn of this victory in time.

The second battle, 23 October

After Cassius’ death, Brutus took command of both armies. He still had the advantage of supplies and wanted to wait, but his officers and soldiers were restless, and desertions to the triumvirs grew. Antony extended his lines to the south, threatening to cut Brutus off from the sea.

Under this pressure Brutus offered battle on 23 October. The fighting was hard and at close quarters, with little room for manoeuvre. Eventually the triumvirs’ legions pushed back Brutus’ line, which broke, and Octavian’s troops seized the republican camp.

Brutus escaped to the hills with several thousand men, but when it became clear that his soldiers would not fight again, he took his own life during the night, with the help of a companion. Plutarch says Antony covered Brutus’ body with his own purple cloak and arranged for his ashes to be sent to his mother, Servilia.

Key people and stories

• Mark Antony (83–30 BC): the real victor of Philippi, whose generalship in both battles won him prestige across the Roman world.
• Octavian (63 BC – AD 14): Caesar’s heir, ill during the campaign, later blamed for cruelty to prisoners after the battle.
• Marcus Junius Brutus (c. 85–42 BC): the most admired of the assassins, a philosopher-politician who believed he had defended liberty.
• Gaius Cassius Longinus (died 42 BC): an experienced soldier and the organiser of the conspiracy.

Philippi also gathered famous stories. Plutarch tells how a ghostly figure appeared to Brutus in his tent before the campaign and told him that he would see him again at Philippi, a scene Shakespeare later used in Julius Caesar. The young poet Horace, then a military tribune in Brutus’ army, later wrote with self-mocking humour of leaving his shield behind in the rout.

Consequences

Many of the surviving republican soldiers were enrolled in the triumvirs’ legions. Several prominent nobles who had fought for Brutus, among them Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, surrendered and were pardoned; Messalla later became one of Octavian’s leading generals. Others were less fortunate. Suetonius records that Octavian treated distinguished prisoners with great harshness, which made him hated by the captives, while Antony was remembered for treating them more generously.

Ancient casualty figures for the two battles vary and are unreliable. What is clear is that the losses on both sides were heavy and that the republican army ceased to exist. Some of the survivors and the republican fleet joined Sextus Pompey in Sicily or Domitius Ahenobarbus at sea.

The victors divided the Roman world. Antony took charge of the rich eastern provinces and of Gaul, while Octavian returned to Italy with the difficult task of settling tens of thousands of veterans on confiscated land, which led to the Perusine War of 41–40 BC. Lepidus, suspected of dealings with Sextus Pompey, was sidelined.

Philippi was refounded as a Roman colony for veterans. Later it became famous in Christian history as the first city in Europe where the apostle Paul founded a church, around AD 49 or 50.

The partnership of Antony and Octavian did not last. Their rivalry ended in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and Octavian’s rise as Augustus, the first Roman emperor.

Timeline

• 44 BC, 15 March: Caesar is assassinated by Brutus, Cassius and others.
• 43 BC, 27 November: The Second Triumvirate is established by law.
• 42 BC, early: Brutus and Cassius unite their forces at Sardis.
• 42 BC, 3 October: First battle of Philippi; Cassius takes his own life.
• 42 BC, 3 October: The republican fleet destroys the triumvirs’ reinforcement convoy in the Adriatic.
• 42 BC, 23 October: Second battle of Philippi; Brutus is defeated and dies that night.
• 41–40 BC: The Perusine War in Italy.

Why it matters

Philippi destroyed the party of Caesar’s assassins and with it the hope of restoring the Republic as it had been. From then on, the contest for power in Rome was between Caesar’s heirs, and its outcome would be the rule of a single emperor.