Not Just Octavian – Caesar’s Other Heirs

Upon the reading of Julius Caesar’s will in the house of Mark Antony on 19 March 44BC, a new heir to the Caesarian name and fortune was revealed in the slain dictator’s grand-nephew, Gaius Octavius. However, the terms of Caesar’s will were not so simple as giving everything over to his adopted son. There were other bequests and requests made to individuals and the citizenry. Caesar gave his gardens by the Tiber over to the city of Rome itself, while each Roman citizen was to receive 120 (or 300) sesterces (Dio XLIV.35.2; Suetonius, Julius 83.2). Mark Antony himself and even some of those who had partaken in Caesar’s assassination, such as Decimus Brutus, were named as guardians of the young Octavius, while Antony and Decimus were also named as secondary heirs to Caesar’s property should his primary heir not be able to take it up. Suetonius also has it that “He named several of his assassins among the guardians of his son, in case one should be born to him” (Suetonius, Julius 83.2), a caveat that will have interested Cleopatra and Caesarion, although it is likely that this is meant to refer to the newly-adopted Octavius [Of course, if Caesarion was the offspring of Julius Caesar, he would not be considered legitimate, and in there is no mention of Caesarion in the will].

There are two other interesting matters that arise from the recording of the contents of Caesar’s will, both from the same short section of Suetonius, Julius 83 and both involve the heirs of Caesar’s estate. Before he updated his will on 13 September 45BC, upon returning to Italy in the aftermath of his victory at Munda, a campaign that had seen Gaius Octavius impress him by suffering illness, shipwreck and enemy-infested roads to make it to Caesar’s camp (Suetonius, Augustus 8.1), Suetonius reports that “that from his first consulship (59BC) until the beginning of the civil war, it was [Caesar’s] wont to write down Gnaeus Pompeius as his heir, and to read this to the assembled soldiers” (Suetonius, Julius 83.1).

Perhaps more surprising is that when Caesar did update his will to make Gaius Octavius his adopted son, Suetonius has it that while Octavius was the primary heir to Caesar’s estate, he was not the sole heir. Instead, Octavius was to receive 75% of the estate, with the remaining 25% to be shared between two other grandnephews of Caesar – Lucius Pinarius Scarpus and Quintus Pedius (Suetonius, Julius 83; Appian, Civil War III.22)

While the gens Pinaria was an ancient patrician family, this mention in connection with Caesar’s will over a century later by Suetonius is the first record of Lucius Pinarius Scarpus. The career of Quintus Pedius is more illuminated as he served as a general under Caesar early in his Gallic campaign, suggesting that he was much older that his cousins, Scarpus, Octavia Minor and Octavian. Unsurprisingly, he sided with Caesar during the civil war, serving as praetor and a legionary commander, and quelling an Italian revolt against Caesar. By 45BC, he was serving as a Caesarian legate in Spain during the Munda campaign, his success in which saw him celebrate a triumph on 13 December 45BC and be appointed proconsul.

Being named as Caesarian heirs made Scarpus and Pedius liable for the many of lawsuits regarding previous confiscations and proscriptions that Antony’s machinations allowed (and encouraged) against Caesar’s estate in order to hobble Octavian.

“Great wrongs were done [Octavian] in these judgments, and the losses in consequence thereof were going on without end, until Pedius and Pinarius, who had a certain portion of the inheritance under Caesar's will, complained to Antony, both for himself and for Octavian, that they were suffering injustice in violation of the Senate's decree. They thought that he ought to annul only the things done to insult Caesar, and to ratify all that had been done by him.” (Appian, Civil War III.22)

Antony agreed that his actions may have been contrary to the senatorial decree and allowed the two to extract their 25% portion of the Caesarian estate from that of Octavian. He might have thought that he had kept up the pressure on Octavian and gained the good will of two Caesarian heirs, but Antony is likely to have been annoyed with what Scarpus and Pedius did with their 25%... In dire financial straits in dealing with these lawsuits and Caesar’s bequest of 125/300 sesterces to every Roman citizen, Octavian approached Scarpus and Pedius begging them for financial help. Annoyed at Antony’s attack on the Caesarian estate (and likely promised a reward), both Scarpus and Pedius gave their inheritance to Octavian (Appian, Civil War III.22, 23; cf. Dio XLIV.35.2).

Unsurprisingly given the financial and familial connection, Pedius is next seen at the side of Octavian in August 43BC in the aftermath of the defeat of Antony at Mutina, which left Octavian in sole command of the senatorial armies after the death of both consuls.

Octavian demanded the consulship and when that was refused he marched on Rome with 8 legions, meeting no opposition and assuming the consulship on 19 October 43BC, with Quintus Pedius as his colleague.

During his consulship, Pedius promulgated the Lex Pedia, which punished all of Caesar’s murderers, together with those who had called for his death. He was then left in command of Rome when Octavian travelled north to form the Second Triumvirate with Antony and Lepidus.

This meant that Pedius was faced with the growing panic in Rome over the initial stages of bloody proscriptions ordered by the triumvirs. Looking to prevent a frenzied riot, Pedius sent out heralds to calm the situation. The next day he published the names of those already murdered, including Cicero, “as being deemed the sole authors of the civil strife and the only ones condemned. To the rest he pledged the public faith, being ignorant of the determinations of the triumvirs” (Appian, Civil War IV.6). Having essentially acted against the wishes of the triumvirs, whether he knew it or not, the cynic might raise an eyebrow at the fact that Pedius “died in consequence of fatigue the following night” (Appian, Civil War IV.6).

He was survived by at least one child, Quintus Pedius Pubicola, from his marriage to Valeria, a sister of Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Pliny the Elder records that a grandson of Pedius, also called Quintus Pedius, was mute and that it was “recommended he should be brought up as a painter, a proposal which was also approved of by the late Emperor Augustus. He died, however, in his youth, after having made great progress in the art.” (Pliny, NH XXV.7) This Pedius the painter is usually taken to be one of, if not the first deaf person recorded by name in the historical record, although it is to be pointed out that Pliny, the only source for this Pedius, makes no mention of him being deaf, only that he was mute.

After granting his Caesarian inheritance to Octavian, Scarpus does not appear in the historical record again until the Philippi campaign of October 42BC, serving as a legionary commander in the army of Mark Antony and Octavian against Brutus and Cassius. Antony left him and his legion to garrison the city of Amphipolis. It is unknown if he fought in either of the Battles of Philippi.

It does seem that Scarpus came to favour Antony over Octavian as he was appointed governor of Cyrenaica seemingly in the late 30s BC, a region allocated to Antony under the Treaty of Brundisium in 40BC. Scarpus also had command of four legions and from his position in Cyrene, he established himself as a prominent moneyer, minting various coins bearing both his and Antony’s name.

However, following his defeat at Actium, “Antony, for his part, had sailed to Pinarius Scarpus in Africa and to the army under Scarpus' command previously assembled there for the protection of Egypt. But when this general not only refused to receive him but furthermore slew the men sent ahead by Antony, besides executing some of the soldiers under his command who showed displeasure at this act, then Antony, too, proceeded to Alexandria without having accomplished anything” (Dio Cassius LI.5.6)

Scarpus subsequently surrendered his legions to Octavian’s commander, Gaius Cornelius Gallus, who used them to invade Egypt from the west, while Octavian invaded from the east (Dio LI.9.1; Plutarch, Antony 69.2 does not name the Antonian general in Libya who defected to Octavian).

Following his final victory in the civil war, it seems that Octavian reappointed Scarpus as governor of Cyrenaica, from where he continued as a moneyer, minting coins bearing his own name and, this time, that of ‘Caesar Divi Fili’. Nothing else is known about Scarpus and no descendants are mentioned (although there are Pinarii recorded in the imperial period).