Eager for Glory

by Philip Lindsay Powell

  Beginning in September 22 BCE, Augustus embarked on a tour of the eastern provinces. Tiberius accompanied him and it is almost certain that Livia joined him on this trip. The 16-year old Drusus may have stayed in Rome, but again it seems unlikely, since the trip was to last three years. Among the group was P. Quinctilius Varus, a contemporary of Tiberius from Cremona, setting out on the first rung of the political career ladder, and hopeful of someday attaining the consulship and restoring some shine to his impoverished family name.60The party first travelled to Sicily and sojourned there over the winter until Agrippa could be recalled to Rome to take over affairs of state. In the spring of 21 BCE they departed for Greece, visiting Athens, Delphi, probably Sparta, and Samos where they remained for the winter. The following year they set off for Asia Minor, with stops in Pergamum, Illium and Bithynia. Then the entourage moved to Syria, possibly stopping at Sidon and Tyre. Livia may have met Hordos (Herodes, Herod the Great) of Iudaea and his sister Salome there. Meanwhile, 21-year old Tiberius completed a successful diplomatic mission, backed up by military force in case any was needed, in which he installed the pro-Roman Tigranes on the Armenian throne and placed the crown on his head with his own hands. He also ably assisted Augustus in securing the return of the legionary standards lost to the Parthians by Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE. On the banks of the River Euphrates the signa, along with the surviving Roman prisoners, were handed over to Tiberius by Frahâta (Phraates).61For the rest of Augustus’ reign the eastern frontier would be peaceful.

  The jubilant party now embarked on their return journey. In the winter of 20–19 BCE they rested in Samos. There they were visited by embassies from lands outside the empire, notably a queen from Ethiopia and an ambassador from India. The Indian emissary brought with him gifts of tigers, which no Roman had ever seen before, and other exotic beasts, including a man born without arms (which Strabo confirms he saw for himself), a partridge that was as large as a vulture, a huge tortoise and enormous snakes.62In July 19 BCE they removed to Athens where, by chance, they met Vergil. He had travel plans of his own, but was persuaded to return to Italia with the imperial family. While well intentioned, it was a grave mistake. Unexpectedly he fell ill in Megara and when the group reached Brundisium, tragically the poet died on 21 September.63It was a melancholy note on which to end what had been a fantastically triumphant tour.

  On reaching Rome, in gratitude for his achievements Augustus honoured Tiberius with “praetorian ornaments”, presumably meaning the dignity of the office of praetor rather than the actual position, which he did not assume until 16 BCE.64Drusus was not overlooked either. He was permitted to stand for every political office five years below the statutory age.65

  Frustratingly the ancient sources neither specify the office his career began with, nor when, but we know enough about the Roman career ladder to make an informed guess. In the Roman political hierarchy, the first step a young man took on the journey to becoming a consul, the cursus honorum, was to take on a minor judicial or administrative post. Each year twenty-six young men (vigintisexviri) were selected to enter public office and these were positions of some responsibility. Three of them were in charge of cases that involved capital punishment.66Three were the mint masters or moneyers, appointed to oversee production of coins and decide which images appeared on them: they bore the official title tresviri aere argento auro flando feriundo, literally meaning ‘three men for striking (and) casting bronze, silver (and) copper (coins)’. Four of the magistrates dealt with matters concerning the city’s extensive network of streets and two supervised the roads outside the city’s walls. Four young men were sent to work in Campania. Ten, appointed by lot, worked for the prosecution or defence in one of the courts of the centumviri (literally ‘one hundred men’). As one of these advocates Drusus would have had the opportunity to use the rhetorical skills he had learned from his grammaticus. In that rôle his brother had successfully defended a Jewish king in a case before Augustus, who sat as presiding judge at the trial held in private; and he had spoken in the senate on behalf of the citizens of several distressed communities imploring Rome for help following an earthquake.67Some sixty years later, G. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Younger) represented clients at the Centumviral courts, which specialized in inheritance cases, and was so successful that soon after he became one of the ten magistrates on the board that oversaw these courts.68

  Having gained some basic work experience, Drusus was then appointed to the ancient office of quaestor on 5 December 19 BCE.69Dating back to when kings ruled Rome, by Augustus’ time quaestor had become an elected magisterial position responsible for managing public finances and auditing financial records. The job might involve service overseas as a financial assistant to the governor of a province, such as Varus had done, or a posting in an outlying part of Italy, but in Drusus’ case this was likely to have been in Rome itself.70One of the aims of the process was to expose the up-and-coming generation of senators to a wide variety of real world issues. His brother had started his posting supervising a department dealing with the problems of the corn supply (annona), which crossed from Egypt and North Africa to the port of Ostia before being taken by barge up the Tiber to warehouses in the city. Keeping the flow of corn uninterrupted was a critical job to ensure the people of the city had bread each day. The other part of Tiberius’ department’s remit was investigating the houses of correction across Italy. There were allegations that some of the men running these institutions had kidnapped innocent travellers as well as “those whom the fear of being obliged to serve in the army had driven to seek refuge in such places”.71A candidate for the office would normally have been expected to serve with the army before taking the office, as Tiberius did as a tribune in Hispania. There is no evidence that Drusus served in the military before his twentieth birthday.

  We do not know how he felt as he arrived on his first day at the office. For Drusus, who had experienced his entire life as a privileged citizen, working with people of all levels of Roman society, it would be an opportunity to learn first hand about life in the real world. At about the same age, Pliny had, as one of his first official jobs, the task of auditing the records of auxiliary cavalry and infantry. He applied himself to his job with dedication and thoroughness. He was surprised to uncover evidence of deliberate falsification of accounts, while others were maintained with scrupulous care.72Knowing where the proverbial bodies were buried would make Drusus a more effective senior administrator in government later in life.

  Affair of the Heart

  In 19 BCE Drusus was just 19-years old and still single. As a member of Rome’s leading family, Drusus was a very desirable bachelor and a good-looking one too. “As for his personal beauty (pulchriduto corporis)”, writes Velleius Paterculus, “it was second only to his brother”.73Surviving portraits from marble statue busts and coins show a clean-shaven young man with a pleasantly inverted triangular shaped face, a mop of thick hair in a fashionable feathered cut falling over a full forehead and worn long at the back of the neck, and long sideburns; large clear eyes, a prominent nose and small lips, supported by a muscular neck that was characteristic of the Claudians (plate 5). In Augustus’ extended family few married for love. What mattered was that every marriage served a political end, either rewarding Augustus’ new allies or reinforcing long-standing connections. In Tiberius’ case, he had married Vispania Agrippina, the daughter of Agrippa in 20 BCE, presumably while travelling in the East. The marriage served to bind Agrippa’s family closer to the family of Augustus. The question everyone was asking was who was a suitable match to marry Drusus?

  There were several eligible brides available in Rome, but the young woman chosen for Drusus was the daughter of Augustus’ erstwhile ally turned enemy. Born in Athens on 31 January 36 BCE, Antonia minor (Antonia the Younger) was M. Antonius’ daughter by marriage to Octavia, the sister of Augustus.74When Antonius divorced her in 32 BCE, 4-year old Antonia returned to live with her mother, but she was also raised by her
uncle, Augustus, and aunt, Livia. For a young woman of 19 she had amassed considerable wealth through inheritances, owning property in Egypt, Greece and Italy. She was reputed to be a woman of moral virtue and charm, like her mother, and portrait busts of the period identified as her (plate 6) attest to her delicate beauty.75As a member of Octavia’s household she would certainly have known Drusus, probably from an early age, as she was only two years younger than him, and they may even have been childhood friends. They could have been betrothed as early as 22 BCE before Drusus set off with the imperial party for the East.76She was marrying at an older age than her peers, most of whom would have been in their young teens when they tied the knot, however, she may have been waiting for Drusus to return from his travels.77The ceremony was a simple affair in which the consent of the fathers was normally secured before relatives and friends. Since Augustus was both stepfather of Drusus and uncle of Antonia, there were no objections. Drusus offered his fiancée a number of gifts and an engagement ring (either a ring of a circle of iron set in gold or a circle of gold), which Antonia immediately put on.78

  The date of the wedding is not known but the year 18 BCE seems likely.79In keeping with tradition, the collegium pontificum was consulted to find an auspicious day. The Kalends, Ides and Nones were considered bad days. May (the month of the Lemuria) was considered an ill-omened month, while the first half of June was the most propitious until the Temple of Vesta had been scoured on the fifteenth day.80The contemporary Greek poet Krinagoras on the palace staff hints at a date between mid-winter and the onset of spring, perhaps shortly after Antonia’s birthday.81

  As members of the patrician class Drusus and his bride married according to the sacred rite of confarreatio.82The ceremony took its name from the spelt wheat cake (libum farreum), which the couple shared during the proceedings. It was a blend of solemn ritual and ribald spectacle. To invoke the good will of the gods the door and doorposts of the house in which the ceremony took place were decorated with wreaths of flowers, branches of myrtle and laurel and tied with coloured ribbons and carpets were laid at the entrance. The spirits of the departed members of the family too were invited to attend. The doors of the cupboards containing the wax death masks were thrown open so that the ancestors could also watch the happy event. All family members, dead or alive, were part of the occasion.

  On the eve of the day of the wedding, Antonia would have dedicated her childhood toys to the Lares and Penates, the household gods. In the evening, she put on her wedding dress, a plain white tunic without a hem reaching to her feet (tunica recta) tied at the waist by a girdle of wool in a double knot (nodus Herculeus).83Then she retired to bed. Having risen early next morning, she was attended by her maidservants who dressed her and fussed over her appearance to make her perfect for Drusus. She draped a saffron coloured cloak (palla) over her tunica and on her feet she put on sandals of the same shade. Her hair was dressed into six plaits (sex crines) using the point of a spear (hasta caelibaris) for this specific purpose and tied with ribbons (vittae) for the first time. Over this she donned an orange veil (flammeum) that covered the upper part of her face. Upon this headdress was placed a wreath of sweet majoram and verbena. When she, and her mother Octavia, were satisfied with her appearance she went out to mingle with the guests in the high-ceilinged atrium of the house and welcomed the bridegroom, resplendent in his crisp white tunic and toga pura, and his family.

  The ceremony began with the sacrifice of an animal – usually a pig, but sometimes a ewe.84The auspices were taken, and having been found propitious, the auspex declared the marriage ceremony proper could begin. Drusus and his bride signed a formal marriage contract (tabulae nuptialis) in the presence of ten witnesses who affixed their seals by pressing their engraved rings into hot wax. A matron (pronuba), who was required to have been married only once, accompanied Antonia throughout the ceremony. The pronuba then took Drusus’ and Antonia’s right hands and placed them in each others. In this most solemn moment of the ceremony (dextrarum junctio) the young couple silently exchanged vows to live together and Antonia uttered the words “ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia!” This concluded the ceremony. The guests burst into applause, shouting their congratulations – “feliciter!” – as Drusus tenderly kissed the nova nupta, probably for the first time in public.

  The ensuing banquet (cena nuptialis) lasted until the onset of night. Fine food and wines were served and the ribald remarks were exchanged. In a tradition echoing the rape of the Sabines, Drusus then attempted to snatch away his bride while she feigned terror and resisted him from the protective arms of Octavia. Having overcome the play-acted resistance Drusus then took his bride by the arm and walked to her new home. Living within the palace complex as they likely did, the couple did not have far to go. Flute players led a procession (deductio) to the bedroom followed by five torchbearers. The guests followed singing cheerful and bawdy songs. Three boys, whose parents were required to be still alive, accompanied the bride. One carried a firebrand of tightly twisted hawthorn twigs (spina alba), the charred remains of which were considered to be lucky and given to the guests as keepsakes. The other two boys, patrimi and matrimi, led Antonia by the hands. Reaching the room, Antonia decorated the doorway with strips of wool and anointed them with pig’s fat and oil whereupon Drusus picked her up and carried her through the doorway, treading upon a fine white cloth, which was strewn with green leaves and petals. Three bridesmaids carried her distaff and a second her spindle, symbols of her virtue and motherhood into the room. In exchange Drusus offered her water and fire and the pronuba led Antonia to the marriage bed (lectus genialis) where he invited his bride to recline facing the door. Prayers were offered to the Lares and Penates of the couple’s home. As the wedding guests were shooed from the room and the door closed behind them, the couple were left to enjoy their own company for the first time. Drusus lifted off her flammeum and removed her palla. He carefully untied the nodus Herculeus and slipped off the tunica recta to share the first of many nights of intimacy with the beautiful daughter of M. Antonius.

  The next morning, Antonia made an offering to the Lares and Penates and received gifts from Drusus. Then the couple joined Augustus, Livia and Octavia for a private banquet (repotia). The parents could happily reflect that both of Livia’s boys were now married. With Drusus’ marriage to Antonia a second generation of gens Claudia and Iulia were bound in matrimony.

  The couple tried for their first child but it apparently did not survive.85

  Chapter 2

  Drusus the Soldier

  17–15 BCE

  Disastrous News from Gallia Belgica

  In the late summer of 17 BCE news arrived from Gallia Belgica of a military disaster. Augustus’ gubernatorial representative there was M. Lollius. He had a reputation as a man of avarice rather than honest hard work, and for corruption despite his strenuous efforts to conceal it.1He had taken over the Gallic territories from Agrippa and was to prove a much less sure pair of hands, a fact the people across the Rhine River seem to have quickly recognised. An alliance of the Germanic tribes on the right bank had crossed the river and raided deep into the Roman province. The historian Florus describes an event that would have sent a chill down the spine of any Roman hearing the news. “The three powerful tribes of the Cherusci, Suebi and Sugambri”, he wrote,

  had commenced the war by burning twenty of our centurions, regarding this proceeding as a bond of union, and entertaining such confident hopes of victory, that they divided the spoil by agreement beforehand”.2

  In this dark deal, the Cherusci chose the horses, the Suebi opted for the precious metals gold and silver, while the Sugambri picked the captives.3The geographer Strabo unequivocally asserts in his account of these events that “it was the Sugambri, who live near the Rhenus, that began the war”.4He specifically identifies Melo – spelled Maelo in Augustus’ own account of his achievements – as their leader, and the culprit.5The Sugambri were joined by the Tencteri and Usipetes. They were two Germanic nations that h
ad been looking for new homelands even in Caesar’s day, having lost their native homelands to the much-feared Suebi advancing from east of the Elbe River.6It was while trying to find these marauders that Legio V Alaudae (‘The Larks’) under Lollius’ command was attacked. Roman cavalry raced to intercept the invaders, but in the chase they were themselves ambushed. While hunting down their Roman fugitives, the German alliance ran straight into the path of Lollius’ legion. In the ensuing battle, which likely took place somewhere in Flanders, the Alaudae lost its prized aquila standard.7Romans could accept tactical defeats, but the loss of the legionary eagle standard was considered graves ignominias cladesque – “a grave and severe disaster” – leaving the nation feeling a profound sense of shame or humilation (infamia) and creating a stain on the national psyche that had to be expunged.8Having only recently recovered the eagles from the defeat at Carrhae, it was a personal embarrassment to Augustus to see one lost by his own hand picked lieutenant. The invaders dug in for the winter.9Worrying to Augustus on a practical level was what the setback might do by way of upsetting the confidence of the Gauls, who could interpret the Romans’ military loss as a sign of weakness, or use it as a pretence for rebellion.