From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68

by H. H. Scullard

  When Herod died in 4 B.C. his kingdom was divided between his three sons. Philip received outlying parts in the north-east (Batanea, Gaulonitis, etc.) which he ruled for 37 years; Herod Antipas (‘that fox’) got Galilee and Peraea, which he held until A.D. 39; and Archelaus was given Judaea itself and Idumaea. Archelaus, however, ruled so badly that the Jews and Samaritans for once united in a request to Rome that the monarchy should be abolished. In A.D. 6 therefore Archelaus was banished and Judaea was made into a Roman province, governed by an imperial procurator with judicial authority (ius gladii); he commanded a small body of local troops and resided at Caesarea, not in Jerusalem. This last arrangement was typical of the tact that Augustus showed to the Jews, to all of whom (those in Palestine and the Dispersion) he continued the privileges already granted by Julius Caesar: freedom of worship, exemption from military service, the right to send their annual temple-tax to Jerusalem, and money coined without the emperor’s head or any ‘image’. Though the Jews were not very popular in Roman eyes, their importance (and potential restlessness) in the eastern provinces was very considerable. Augustus must therefore choose between protecting or suppressing them: he chose the more generous policy.

  One other area in the East claimed the attention of Augustus: Arabia. Deviating from his general policy of non-aggression in the East, Augustus ordered Aelius Gallus, who had been Prefect of Egypt, to lead an expedition against the Sabaean kingdom (Sheba) in Arabia Felix, the south-west corner of the Arabian peninsula (the Yemen, behind Aden).11 His purpose may have been mainly economic: the district exported frankincense, myrrh, gold and gems, but even more important the Sabaeans acted as intermediaries in the trade between India and the Mediterranean, with a centre at Eudaemon Arabia (Aden) whence merchandise from the East could be transshipped up the Red Sea, either to the African coast and Egypt or to Leuke Kome on the Arabian coast and then on by the caravan routes to Syria, Egypt and the Mediterranean. The expedition was launched in 26 B.C. and amounted to some 10,000 men, but too little was understood about climatic and geographical conditions. After reaching Leuke Kome, the men suffered much from scurvy and palsy, and in the next year endured a gruelling march through the desert, only to have to turn back at a place called Mariba, which possibly is the Sabaean capital Mariba (modern Marib). Despite this failure the Sabaeans had been impressed with the might of Rome; they appear to have accepted amicitia and to have abandoned their monopolistic control of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Further, interest in trade with India (see p. 278 f.) led Augustus to receive at least two embassies from Indian rajahs (26 and 20 B.C.).

  4. AFRICA, SPAIN AND GAUL

  When Augustus annexed Egypt after the death of Cleopatra, it became something between a normal province and his personal domain.12 It was administered for him by a Prefect of equestrian, not senatorial, rank who commanded a legionary army; and no senator was allowed to enter the country without the emperor’s express permission. It was an area of such potential value that he determined to allow no loophole for the ambitions of others. Further, his own position there was unique. As the successor of the Pharoahs and Ptolemies he received divine honours, and to his Egyptian subjects he was an absolute monarch. The Prefect, who represented him, was therefore a viceroy and was given royal honours: no wonder that the head of the unfortunate first Prefect, Cornelius Gallus, was turned (p. 197). How Augustus took over and adapted the complicated bureaucratic and monopolistic system of administration that the Ptolemies had developed, cannot be described here, but Egypt was made to continue to produce corn and wealth for her new ruler. Throughout the countryside the peasants toiled in semi-serfdom, while the Greek cities, as Alexandria, flourished as centres of commerce and intellectual life.

  Geographical conditions made the defence of Egypt relatively simple: protected by the sea in the north and by desert each side of the Nile valley, it was thus exposed only in the south, where it was subject to raids from the Ethiopian realm centred on Meroe. Cornelius Gallus advanced the southern frontier to the First Cataract, and agreed with the Ethiopians to leave the area between it and the Second Cataract as a buffer state. An Ethiopian raid, however, in 25 B.C. led the Prefect C. Petronius to launch a punitive expedition into Ethiopia against the Queen (Candace: a title perhaps, rather than a personal name). This was successful and after a little further trouble the Ethiopians sent an embassy which received terms from Augustus (21/20 B.C.).13 For the defence of Egypt the Prefect had under his command at first three legions and a corresponding force of auxilia, but one legion was withdrawn after c. A.D. 7. The remaining legions were based one in the suburbs of Alexandria and the other probably at Thebes or Coptos, but small detachments of troops were established at posts throughout the country and a river patrol was kept on the Nile.

  The province of Africa was another of the chief granaries of Rome. Its defence was important and therefore, although it was a senatorial province, its governor (a proconsul of consular rank) was allowed an army; after A.D. 6 the one legion was stationed probably at Ammaedara near Theveste. The province itself was peaceful enough, with Carthage, restored as a colony, as its chief city; Roman civilization continued to spread through an area already permeated with Berber and Punic influences. But its frontiers needed watching. On the east and south there was much intermittent fighting. L. Cornelius Balbus (a nephew of Julius Caesar’s agent) campaigned in 19 B.C. against the Garamantes in Fezzan south of Tripolitania, and perhaps a little later P. Sulpicius Quirinius dealt with the Marmaridae to the south of the province of Cyrene. In A.D. 5–6 Cossus Cornelius Lentulus defeated the Gaetulians in the west, south of Mauretania. Thus raiding tribes were kept well back from the provincial frontiers. Mauretania itself was entrusted in 25 B.C. to a native ruler Juba (son of Juba, the last king of Numidia), who had been brought up in Italy and had married Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra.

  Spain was one of Rome’s oldest provinces, but the wilder tribes of the north-west, the Gallaeci, Astures and Cantabri, were far from pacified, and the mountainous nature of the country made their subjection difficult. Augustus himself took the field against the Cantabrians in 26 B.C., but illness forced him to leave the reduction of Asturia and Gallaecia to Antistius and Carisius the following year.14 The war, however, soon flared up again and was only brought to an end by the ruthless methods of Agrippa in 19 B.C. Conquest was followed as usual by settlement: hill-tribes were moved down from their mountain strongholds to the valleys; new towns were developed in the north-west at Bracaraugusta (Braga), Lucus Asturum (Lugo) and Asturica Augusta (Astorga), and veterans were settled at Emerita (Merida) and Caesaraugusta (Saragossa). The permanent garrison of Spain was gradually reduced to three legions, stationed in the north and west. Further Spain was divided into two provinces (perhaps in 16–13, or possibly in 27): the more civilized Baetica in the south was handed over to senatorial administration, while Lusitania in the west became an imperial province; some time later Asturia and Gallaecia were transferred to Nearer Spain (Tarraconensis) which was also imperial. This reorganization was adapted to the varying levels of Spanish civilization. Urbanization, new roads, the spread of trade, all helped the Romanization of the peninsula, which provided valuable minerals, corn, oil and not least fighting men for the Auxilia.

  Gaul had been conquered by Julius Caesar, but complete pacification was not attained without a few risings even as late as 12 B.C. The basic task of Augustus here, however, was organization.15 Gallia Narbonensis, the most urbanized and Romanized area which had been a province for nearly a century, was handed over to the Senate. Here there were five military colonies, and many native towns enjoyed Latin rights. The rest of Gaul was divided into three districts, Aquitania, Lugdunensis and Belgica, which during Augustus’ reign were administered by one governor with a subordinate legate in each of these Tres Galliae. Here the existing cantonal system was preserved and sixty-four civitates were recognized. Each of these had its chief village which might develop into a town, but tribal sentiment remained
so strong that it is the names of the tribes rather than of the towns that tended to survive: thus Lutetia, the centre of the Parisii, is now called Paris. As early as 27 B.C. Augustus went to Gaul to superintend the taking of a census, which would form the basis of the assessment of tribute. A great road-system, centred on Lugdunum (Lyons), was developed by Agrippa. This city, at the junction of the Rhone and Saône, became the commercial and political capital of the Three Gauls, and here in 12 B.C. was erected an Ara Romae et Augusti, built by the sixty-four tribes as a cult centre and administered by a Concilium Galliarum. The future defence of this now tranquil land was entrusted to the legions which, as will be described, were stationed along the Rhine. Gaul might be threatened from the east, but Augustus judged that no serious danger would arise from the British chiefs across the Channel. When he was in Gaul in 27 B.C. rumour attributed to him the intention of invading Britain, but he probably harboured no such thought. Nor did he change his policy when later two British princes fled to him. Though trade across the Channel increased and Londinium began to develop as a port, Augustus was content to leave Britain outside the Empire.

  5. THE NORTHERN FRONTIER

  In the north Roman occupation stopped at the Alps. In order to secure Cisalpine Gaul Augustus decided that it was necessary to conquer the whole Alpine range and by reducing the districts of Raetia and Noricum (roughly eastern Switzerland, the Tyrol and Austria) to advance the frontier to the Danube from Lake Constance to Vienna. He further judged that the southern Balkans would never be secure unless the Romans advanced northwards there also to the Danube. He thus planned a large-scale advance to the whole length of the Danube from Lake Constance to the Black Sea, with the establishment of new provinces in the conquered land of Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia and Moesia. The northern frontier of the Empire could thus be guarded by the Rhine and Danube. But communications would be shortened and the awkward re-entrant angle between the sources of the Rhine and Danube (in the Black Forest area) would be eliminated if the frontier was advanced eastwards over the Rhine to another river such as the Elbe and if this new frontier was joined to the Danube frontier near Vienna. This great plan would involve the conquest of western Germany and the reduction of the Marcomanni who lived in what is now Bohemia. We must now see in more detail how this vast scheme to advance to the Danube was successfully carried out and how various events induced Augustus to abandon his policy of advancing beyond the Rhine after it had been initiated with considerable success.

  Communications over the Alps between North Italy and Transalpine Gaul required safeguarding, especially in the neighbourhood of the Great and Little St. Bernard Passes which were subject to raids by the tribe of the Salassi. Earlier indecisive campaigns (35–34 B.C.) were followed by more drastic action in 25 B.C. when Terentius Varro ruthlessly crushed the Salassi, while M. Vinicius was probably defeating the tribes further north in the Vallis Poenina (modern Valais). To guard the roads over the St. Bernard Passes a military colony was established at Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta). Further south the Cottian Alps and the Pass of Mont Genèvre were left in the hands of a native ruler M. Julius Cottius with the rank of a Roman prefect; a few Roman troops were posted at Segusio (modern Susa). Still further south the Ligurian tribes were checked by the establishment in 14 B.C. of a small province called Alpes Maritimae, governed by a military prefect. When P. Silius Nerva had cleared the valleys from Como to Lake Garda and the Upper Adige (17/16), Augustus entrusted the great advance to the Danube to his two stepsons. Tiberius, advancing from Gaul, defeated the Vindelici near Lake Constance, while his brother Drusus moved up from the south over the Resia and Brenner Passes to the valley of the Inn; together they swept forward to the Danube (15 B.C.). These victories were commemorated by Horace, who renewed his earlier songs of triumph, and by the erection of the Trophy of Augustus, naming forty-six subdued Alpine and Raetian tribes, which still survives at La Turbie, above Monaco.16

  The conquered area south of the Danube comprised two districts, Raetia and Noricum. The former was established as a new imperial province, administered at first by the governor of Gaul and subsequently by an equestrian prefect or procurator. At first two legions were kept near Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), but after A.D. 9 it remained without legions until the reign of M. Aurelius; the commander of the armies of the Rhine was responsible for peace in Raetia and little attempt was made to Romanize the province. Noricum (roughly Austria) was incorporated in the Empire about 16 B.C., but it was not organized as a province until later (probably under Claudius); the governor of Pannonia to the east was responsible for its security.16a

  Thus Rome had gained control of the territory up to the Danube from Vienna westwards. With the Alps and Spain now pacified, Augustus could turn to the crucial question of the northern frontier of the Balkans. In his earlier Illyrian campaigns (35–33) he had penetrated to Siscia on the Save in Pannonia and had defeated the Iapudes, Pannonii and Dalmatians (p. 140). Thus in 27 it had been possible to make Illyricum a senatorial province; at the same time further south Achaea was detached from Macedonia, as a separate province, both being entrusted to senatorial administration. But the Pannonians were not really subdued. Fighting started again in 13, and this time Augustus determined that it should be decisive: first Agrippa (in 13) and then Tiberius conducted a series of campaigns (12–9) by which all Pannonia up to the Danube was brought under Roman rule: it was added to Illyricum, which since c. 12 had again become imperial. Further to the east other tribes were turbulent. In 29 Licinius Crassus, the governor of Macedonia, had ejected the Bastarnae from Thrace, reduced the Moesi and captured Serdica (modern Sofia). The Moesians were incorporated in Macedonia, but the Thracian tribes were left under their own rulers. Intermittent disturbances were followed by a general rising in Thrace which was crushed by L. Calpurnius Piso only after three years of hard fighting (c. 11–9); the loyal kingdom of the Odrysian Thracians was extended. Some time later, probably in A.D. 6, Moesia was established as a province, though Thrace to its south remained under native rulers. Thus Roman control was established up to the Danube along its whole length from Switzerland to the Black Sea.17

  Before this frontier was finally settled it had to endure what may reasonably be called the Great Rebellion. In A.D. 6, while Tiberius was engaged on critical operations in Germany (see below), Dalmatia and Pannonia both rose in revolt, each led by a chief called Bato; Roman residents were massacred and if the enemy had united they might even have threatened the frontier of Italy itself. But Sirmium, a key position on the Save, was held by the legate of Moesia, and the Dalmatians wasted time attacking coastal cities; thus Tiberius was enabled to fight his way to Siscia which he held with five legions. The efficiency of the whole Augustan military system was now at stake, and the absence of a strong central reserve of troops nearly proved fatal: Augustus had reduced the forces of the Empire to a dangerously low level. When at last, however, some legions from the East reached Tiberius, he was able with an army of some 100,000 men to take the offensive and to crush the Pannonians in two campaigns (A.D. 7–8). The Pannonian Bato turned traitor, but was soon killed by his namesake who fought on. The following year (9) Tiberius planned a converging attack on Dalmatia, in which his nephew Germanicus won his spurs. The revolt was thus crushed. Pannonia was established as a separate imperial province, under a legatus Augusti pro praetore, and Illyricum was soon renamed Dalmatia. Tiberius had shown great military ability, but he could not rest on his laurels: news came of an overwhelming disaster to Roman forces in Germany.

  The Rhine frontier had remained fairly quiet. German tribes had launched raids across it in 29 and 17 B.C., but these were not in themselves sufficient to lead Augustus to change his policy, though they would afford him an excuse if he so decided. However, the general pacification that had been attained by about 13 B.C. enabled him, as already has been seen, to think of further advance. Thus when in 12 B.C. he ordered a move over the Rhine which led Roman arms to the Elbe, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he had
decided upon the permanent conquest of western Germany and the substitution of an Elbe-Danube frontier for one based upon the Rhine and Danube. This task was entrusted to his stepson Drusus, who made annual thrusts eastwards beyond the Rhine and brought a fleet from the Rhine to the North Sea through a canal which he made through the lakes of Holland; he thus secured the support of the Batavians and won that of the Frisii, who in return for supplying auxiliary troops became Rome’s allies. In 11 B.C. Drusus advanced from Vetera (Xanthen) to the Visurgis (Weser), subduing the Usipetes, north of the Lippe; the next year he attacked the Chatti from his base at Moguntiacum (Mainz); in 9 B.C. he attacked the Marcomanni, advanced through the territory of the Cherusci and reached the Elbe, but he died as the result of an accident. His elder brother Tiberius was given proconsular authority and was put in control of the Tres Galliae and the Rhine armies; he carried on the task of pacification until recalled in 7. Other commanders continued to operate in the area, though on a lesser scale: for instance L. Domitius Ahenobarbus advanced from the Danube to the Elbe along the river Saale, a tributary of the Elbe; he also built a causeway (pontes longi) over marshy land between the Rhine and Ems.