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The one thing the plotters could not understand was the strange loyalty of Octavian's Praetorian. They were hard-faced
men, determined, dangerous, and possibly even valiant, in the right circumstances. They couldn't be threatened, because they
couldn't be scared, and they couldn't be bribed, damn Octavian and his ability to pay them an excessive wage that they couldn't
afford to match.
Beyond that, there was the problem where there was a good chance that neither tactic would work because
of aforementioned strange loyalty. If Octavian were a fighting man, it would at least make sense, but his great victories
were all Antony or Agrippa's doing. Some of the men might be loyal to Agrippa, who was, his blind spot concerning his great
friend excepted, a good man and fit to inspire said loyalty. Conspiracies before theirs had tried to convince him to stand
up to Octavian and claim the Consulship. The conspirators were normally told, politely, no, and were then arrested before
they could arrive home. They had decided not to approach Agrippa.
But for some of the others, the Rome-born men, it
wasn't Agrippa they stayed loyal to Octavian for, but the legend of the last true man of the Thirteenth Legion. While he watched
Octavian's palace, he sometimes saw a man, twisted with age, a snowy white head atop gnarling limbs; he visited Octavian about
once a fortnight. This was the famous Titus Pullo, dictator of the Aventine, controller of the Collegia and for reason unknown
to this particular plotter (being as he was from Barium and not this degenerate whore-house of a city), it's his patronage
of Octavian and not the other way round (people don't notice the plebeians, so they certainly don't notice a half-broken old
man who comes to the backdoor of the house) that keeps Octavian's guards so loyal. He asked the Roman patricians that he worked
for once, who this Titus Pullo was. They shrugged and asked their other sources, who did their work well. Son of a slave,
he crossed the Rubicon with Caesar, dashed about on various campaigns and became, through a series of violent and not entirely
clear events, leader of the Aventine Collegia. Not bad for a man who'd been due to die by gladiatorial combat.
Exactly
why Rome's excessively moral leader would have anything to do with a convicted murderer was a matter entirely unknown to anyone,
but the second half of this particular story about Pullo (it was only one of many, and if even half were true, then the Gods
must have loved him) made it clear why the Praetorian Guard loved him. To accept your death at the hands of gladiators without
a fight was either ignoble cowardice or bravery of the highest measure, but to fight to defend the name of your legion and
for a fellow Legionnaire, a centurion no less, to come to his aid, well it spoke of loyalty and devotion and all the other
things that the Guard were supposed to believe in. They believed in a twenty year old story and they kept Octavian’s
peace for him.
Which was all well and good, and obviously Pullo was a great man, but it made him another obstacle that
would have to be gone through.
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