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 Ravenna was to be.  In that affair we find Ravenna already established as a naval port apparently subsidiary, on that coast, to Brundusium, as Misenum was upon the Tyrrhene sea to Puteoli; and there Octavianus built ships.

It was not, however, till Octavianus, his enemies one and all disposed of, had made himself emperor at last, that, on the establishment and general regulation of his great government, he chose Ravenna as the major naval port of Italy upon the east, even as he chose Misenum upon the west.

Octavianus had learned two things, certainly, in the wars he had fought to establish himself in the monarchy his great-uncle had founded.  He had learned the necessity and the value of sea power, and he had understood the unique position of Ravenna in relation to the East and the West.  That he had been able to appreciate both these facts is enough to mark him as the great man he was.