Gaeta is not usually part of the reference destinations when one is thinking of taking a trip to Italy. However, those who prefer to discover less frequented corners may be attracted by this municipality located in the homonymous gulf of Lazio, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea on a high cliff and possessing a considerable monumental heritage of which, apart from a medieval quarter, numerous churches period (cathedral included) and an Aragonese-Angevin castle, highlights the recently restored mausoleum of a unique historical character:Lucio Munacio Planco.
He would not be the only character buried there, since the legend says that Aeneas was also buried there or, in another version, his son Ascanius. In fact, Gaeta is especially well-known among Spanish history buffs for having been captured by the Great Captain in 1503, after his victory at the Battle of Garellano, since it was considered the key to Naples. Others surely know it better for being the probable birthplace of Giovanni Caboto and for the elaboration of a local gastronomic delicacy called tiella , a kind of empanada of potato, onion, rice and mussels.
However, going back to Antiquity, we also have the testimony of Cicero, who recorded that this city was the favorite place of the well-to-do ancient Romans to build their recreational villas, as shown by the one that Tiberius built in neighboring Sperlonga, for instance. They traveled from the capital via the Appian Way and its branch, the Via Flacca (or Valeria), taking a diverticulum secondary (way). So a visit would be curious, in the sense of emulating what others did twenty-one centuries ago, when the city was called Caieta.
A hundred kilometers inland, also in Lazio, is Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, where the aforementioned Lucio Munacio Planco was born in 87 or 89 BC. Not much is known about his youth, except that his father had the same name and that, as legate of a legion, he was part of Julius Caesar's army in the Gallic War, between 54 and 53 BC. , to later continue in the Civil War against Pompey. During the latter he held command -along with Cayo Fabio- in the battle of Ilerda, which was fought in Hispania in 49 BC.
Three years later he was still at Caesar's side in his African campaign and it is recorded that he participated in the siege of Hadrumetum (in present-day Tunisia), whose defender, Gaius Considio Longus, managed to resist with a single legion. In From Beautiful Africa (a book that, together with De Bello Alexandrino and De Bello Hispaniensi , continues De Bello Galico and De Bello Civilli , although César is not the author) narrates how Munacio sends a captive with a letter to negotiate the surrender on behalf of the imperator Caesar and Considio replies that the only Roman emperor was Scipio, returning the letter unopened.
Between that same year and the next, Munacio was appointed prefect of Rome, but in 44 B.C. Caesar appointed him governor of Transalpine Gaul. However, the famous general died in March and Munacio, who according to his correspondence with Cicero adopted an ambiguous position (he declared himself in favor of an amnesty for the guilty), got out of the way assuming the governorship as proconsul of Gaul Comata ( which means Melenuda, alluding to the long hair worn by its inhabitants), more extensive than the others because it encompassed present-day France, Belgium, part of Holland and western Switzerland.
It was a little Romanized territory, since its people remained very attached to their traditions and avoided contact, living in oppida (fortified towns) and, although they were not particularly warlike, in case of war they proved to be fearsome. That is why urban centers were needed and Munacio founded two:the city of Augusta Raurica (in Augst, near the Swiss Basel, where its ruins are today an open-air museum) and the Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, later renamed Colonia Copia Claudia Augusta Lugdunum (capital of Gaul Lugdunum and germ of present-day Lyon).
Meanwhile, a period of dispute arose to fill the enormous power vacuum left by a figure of Caesar's size. It was a de facto civil war , the third suffered by the Roman Republic, in which Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, who had been naive enough not to also kill Caesar's aides or try to gain favor with the army beforehand, had to leave the Italian peninsula. The loyal Caesarians marched against them, from Octavian to Lucius Cornelius Barbus, passing through Cayo Vibio Pansa Cetroniano, while Marco Antonio was in charge of not losing control of the Balkan legions.
In this context, Cicero tried to expand that side by attracting the consuls Pansa and Aulus Hircio (a personal friend of Caesar and possible author of De Bello Alexandrino ), as well as the governors of Hispania Citerior, Hispania Ulterior, Gaul Narbonense and Gaul Comata. The latter, as we saw, was Munacio, who must have sensed that the Cesareans would soon quarrel with each other because he tried to stay out of the way again. Indeed, in March of the year 43 B.C. a Marco Antonio offended by the agreement reached by Octavian and Brutus besieged Mutina. Thus, a conflict was opened within another:the War of Modena (current name of the old Mutina).
He pitted the senatorial army of Cicero and Octavian against that of the consul Mark Antony and his magister equitum , Marco Aemilius Lepidus, who had tried to mediate unsuccessfully because Cicero took it upon himself to incite the contrary. The senatorial legions prevailed over the Antonian legions in the battle of the Forum of the Gauls and a few days later they did it again in Mutina. The two consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, perished, clearing the way for the others, and Antony had to retreat to the Narbonense.
Despite the fact that he stood in profile, alleging that Lepidus's forces would block his path, Munatius declared himself faithful to the Senate and ended up giving in to Cicero's pressure, mobilizing his troops; yes, with anomalous slowness and dilating the advance, waiting to see how events evolved. That's why he didn't get to intervene; Crossing the territory of the allobroges (a Gallic tribe), before reaching the Alps, came the news of the defeat of Marco Antonio. Then he was joined by Brutus' ten legions to strike together, in superiority, the final blow.
That didn't happen either. Lepidus had joined Antony and received reinforcements from Publius Ventidius Basus, outnumbering the combined Munacio-Brutus. So the first, in a display of realpolitik , decided to imitate what his friend Gaius Asidio Pollio had done with three legions (Pollion was another who tried to navigate between two waters) and left Brutus abandoned, whose forces deserted and soon fell at the hands of a Gallic chief. However, there was no war; to avoid it, Octavian, Antony and Lepidus agreed to share power by forming the Second Triumvirate (the first had been made up, in similar circumstances, by Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great and Marcus Licinius Crassus), each with consular powers.
It was time to rule and to receive the rewards for the loyalty shown, even if it had been so calculated. Munatius was not only granted the celebration of a triumph in Rome (it is not known exactly why; perhaps for defeating some Gallic tribe in the Alpine region of Rhetia, where he had assumed the title of imperator ), but was also appointed consul in 42 B.C. together with Lépido, replacing the self-appointed Octavio and Quinto Pedio, unconditional of this one; In exchange, he had to accept that his brother, Lucius Plautius Plancus, was banished for not being considered trustworthy.
In 41 BC, the Perusian War broke out, in which Marco Antonio and his younger brother, Lucio, took up arms against the other two members of the triumvirate, especially against Octavio, since little by little he was showing greater prominence and ambition. Antonio's wife, Fulvia, was the instigator; she was an unusual woman in her time, interested in politics and power. Cicero harshly criticized her in her Philippics , for which she earned her hatred and, when she died, she displayed her tough character by displaying her head in the Forum.
Fulvia contributed a considerable fortune to her third husband, and she gave her daughter, Claudia Pulcra, to Octavio in marriage. But it was not enough to calm the rivalry and after he divorced to marry the wealthy Scribonia, her mother decided to add revenge to her desire for power. Marcus and Lucius Antony mustered eight legions and entrenched themselves at Perugia (now Perugia). Theoretically, the command of the Antonian forces in the Italian peninsula fell to Munacio who, once again, tried to abstain.
Octavian's army took the city that winter, after starving it into submission and massacring its inhabitants; on the other hand, those responsible got away reasonably well:Fulvia went into exile in Greece, although a sudden illness ended her life in a few months; Lucio was assigned to Hispania; and Antony, once a widower, reconciled with Octavian by marrying Octavian's sister, Octavia, and remained part of the triumvirate. On the other hand, Munatius, who did not see his fate at all, fled with Fulvia and settled in Athens.
There Marco Antonio picked him up in 40 B.C. to accompany him on his campaign through Armenia and Partia, which was intended to avenge the death of the aforementioned Marco Licinius Crassus seventeen years earlier. At the end of it, he appointed him proconsul of Syria. In that exotic destination an unexpected problem arose that had a Roman name:Fifth Labienus Pártico Máximo. He was a general, son of the famous Titus Labienus (Caesar's lieutenant during the Gallic War), placed in the service of the Parthian king Orodes after serving in his court as ambassador of Brutus and Cassius, Caesar's assassins.
Aided by Pacoro, the new monarch, Labienus undertook the invasion of the region and defeated both Lucio Decididio Saxa (a loyal supporter of Marco Antonio) and Munacio himself, who had to flee by sea. The already mentioned Publio Ventidius Baso solved the danger in 39 BC, defeating and executing Labienus. That did not mean, at least apparently, a discredit for Munacio, who recovered his position and remained there for about four years, according to numismatics. Now, this was going to bring him another problem. And decisive.
It was the execution of Sextus Pompey, little son of Pompey the Great , who had taken refuge in Asia when he was declared an accomplice in the assassination of Caesar and had just surrendered to Marco Ticio, supreme commander of the army and new governor of Asia from 35 B.C. Ticio, who was also Munacio's brother-in-law, ordered his life to be taken, and everyone assumed that Munacio was following instructions from Munacio and Munacio, in turn, from Marco Antonio. That crime (Pompey was a Roman citizen and had the right to trial) was used propagandistically by Octavio to denigrate his fellow triumvirate, tightening the rope even more.
Interestingly, when Munatius returned to Alexandria in 32 B.C. he was received by Antony coldly, due to the plunder to which he had subjected Syria. Then, seeing that he had lost favor with him, the former governor went to Rome and, together with Ticio, initiated an approach to Octavio, to whom he provided as much information as he had about his rival in order to accuse him. It is not clear how a second consulship, probably exercised as an (interim) suffect, in 36 BC fits into this chain of events.
The fact is that Munacio became a fervent follower of Octavio and, according to Suetonius, it was he who proposed that he adopt the title of Augustus -which added to the Princeps -, replacing Second founder of Rome , that the budding emperor had conceived evoking Romulus. That was in 27 BC, four years after the Second Triumvirate had finally exploded and Octavian had disposed of Mark Antony and his ally Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. Munacio and Paulo Emilio Lépido (nephew of the third triumvir, deposed on charges of treason) were appointed censors.
In this new post, the former built a temple dedicated to Saturn, following the Augustinian policy of monumentalizing Rome. For the rest, he had constant clashes with his fellow judge, despite the fact that they were in-laws. And it is that their respective offspring had married. They gave him a granddaughter, Plancina, who in turn married Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso; both would be accused of poisoning Germanicus, the popular brother of Claudius and father of Caligula, for which they would end up committing suicide.
Actually, Munacio went down in history for another reason:being the last man to exercise censorship, since Augustus abolished it to personally assume his powers. Beforehand, it is worth adding a curious anecdote in which, according to Suetonius, Munatius was once forced to give way in the street to the superb aedile Lucius Domitius Enobarbus, grandfather of the future emperor Nero, thus making clear the «lack of strength» that Veleyo Patérculo blamed on him.
Lucio Munacio Planco died around the year 15 AD. in Gaeta. As his depredations in Syria had enriched him, he was able to afford the construction of the spectacular mausoleum that we reviewed at the beginning:a cylindrical building (29.50 meters in diameter by 13.20 in height), made of travertine marble, which stands on top from the coastal Mount Orlando and was later consecrated to the Virgin Mary in the 19th century... which did not prevent his mortal remains from being lost. Getting out of the way even after death.