Augustus

by Anthony Everitt

  B. Temple of Concord.

  C. Temple of Saturn, where the Treasury was based.

  D. Basilica Julia, a shopping and conference center.

  E. The Rostra, or speakers’ platform.

  F. Temple of Castor and Pollux.

  G. Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar, built on the site of his cremation.

  H. Temple of Vesta, where the Vestal Virgins tended an eternal flame. Here leading Romans could deposit their wills.

  I. The Regia, headquarters of the Pontifex Maximus.

  J. Basilica Aemilia, a shopping and conference center.

  K. Curia Julia, the new Senate House commissioned by Julius Caesar.

  L. Forum of Julius Caesar, completed in the dictator’s lifetime.

  M. Temple of Venus Genetrix (Venus, the Mother or Ancestress of the Julian clan; here Caesar placed a gold statue of Cleopatra).

  N. Forum of Augustus, which the princeps dedicated together with the

  O. Temple of Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger) in 2 B.C.

  The Palatine Hill today, where ruins mingle with trees, as seen from the Roman Forum. This was where the rich and the fashionable lived in the first century B.C. Augustus and Livia both had houses there and offices for their staff. Under the empire, the hill became a government quarter and the official residence of the emperors (from Palatine comes the word palace).

  Julius Caesar’s intelligence and quickness of mind are well conveyed in this green basanite bust with inlaid marble eyes, carved about fifty years after his assassination in 44 B.C.

  A fine bust of Mark Antony in green basalt. Found at Canopus, a suburb of ancient Alexandria, it offers not the bluff, hard-drinking soldier, but a reflective and high-minded ruler—the kind of man that Cleopatra would perhaps have preferred him to be rather than the one he actually was.

  Sextus Pompeius, Pompey the Great’s younger son, posed a serious threat to Octavian. His melancholy expression and his beard and mustache, which Romans only grew to mark some tragic event or personal misfortune, suggest that this portrait in bronze was completed after Sextus’ defeat at Naulochus in 36 B.C. and subsequent death.

  A Roman warship with soldiers on board. This marble relief dates from the 30s B.C., and the crocodile by the prow suggests a reference to the sea campaign against Cleopatra that culminated in Actium.

  Alexandria as it appeared in ancient times. The view is of Canopic Way, one of the city’s main avenues. In the foreground is the crossroads near which stood the tomb of Alexander the Great. In the distance the Heptastadion can be seen, the great causeway that led to the island of Pharos and created the city’s two harbors.

  Cleopatra, a portrait in marble probably made in Italy when she was a young woman. It conveys something of the charm of her personality, which captivated Julius Caesar.

  Augustus’ much-loved sister Octavia. A kindly woman, she brought up Mark Antony’s children, including those he had by Cleopatra. She never recovered from the death of her twenty-year-old son, Marcellus, in 23 B.C. The marble bust dates from about 40 B.C.

  Augustus’ wife, Livia, in middle age. This study, made in her lifetime, evokes an efficient woman of affairs, discreet but decisive.

  Augustus and Agrippa at the height of their powers. These marble busts were carved in the 20s B.C. They are realistic character studies that illustrate the two men’s different personalities—the one astute and calculating and the other energetic and determined.

  The tall man in the center of this relief has been identified as Agrippa. His head is veiled in his capacity as a priest attending a ritual sacrifice. In front of him walk two religious officials, the flamines diales, with their pointed hats, and a lictor, or ceremonial guard, carrying the fasces, an ax inside a bundle of rods. The little boy holding onto his toga may be either his son Gaius or Lucius. The boy is looking back toward his mother, Julia. The man walking behind her is probably Mark Antony’s son Iullus Antonius, later to become Julia’s lover. The stone carving comes from the Ara Pacis Augustae, or Altar of Augustan Peace. Inspired by the friezes on the Parthenon, it was dedicated in 9 B.C.

  A contemporary portrait of Tiberius as a young man setting out on a distinguished career as soldier and public servant.

  Young Gaius Caesar, Agrippa’s son by Augustus’ daughter Julia, whom the princeps adopted and groomed as his successor. The marble bust dates from about the time of his consulship in 1 B.C. or during his eastern mission.

  Agrippa’s last son, Agrippa Postumus, born after his father’s premature death in 12 B.C. The contemporary sculptor has captured a sense of danger and intensity in his youthful subject.

  This onyx cameo, the Gemma Augustea, is an example of mendacious art at its finest. Made in A.D. 10 the seventy-three-year-old princeps is presented as a half-naked youth. He is seated next to a personification of Rome, beside whom stands Augustus’ grandson Germanicus. On the left Tiberius alights from a chariot. Beneath is a scene of defeated and humbled barbarians. The overall impression is of serenity and success. In fact, the mood at Rome was nervous and gloomy, for Augustus was just recovering from the greatest threat to his authority during his long reign, the loss of three legions destroyed in an ambush in Germany the previous year.

  A fresco of an actor’s mask from a room in Augustus’ house on the Palatine Hill, which may have been his bedroom. The princeps enjoyed theater and, to judge by his last words, saw himself as a performer. He asked the people around his bedside: “Have I played my part in the farce of life well enough?”

  This image of Augustus is a majestic statement in stone of his imperium and auctoritas, his power and authority. Probably made in A.D. 15, the year after his death, it shows him as a beautiful young man, whose ageless features combine aspects of his actual appearance and the classic lineaments of the god Apollo, Augustus’ favorite in the Olympian pantheon. Found at his wife Livia’s villa at Prima Porta outside Rome.

  XXI

  GROWING THE EMPIRE

  17–8 B.C.

  * * *

  As so often, it is as well to look below the surface of what the princeps said to what he exactly did. At bottom, he was an aggressive imperialist. Under his rule, Rome gained more new territory than in any comparable period in its previous history. His real position is set out in his official autobiography, Res Gestae, where he boasts: “I enlarged the territory of all provinces of the Roman People on whose borders were people who were not yet subject to our imperium.”

  Public opinion expected nothing less of Rome’s ruler. Republican law had forbidden the Senate to declare war without provocation, without a casus belli, and indeed Rome (like Great Britain two millennia later) had acquired much of its eastern empire without altogether intending to do so. But now the idea that Rome had an imperial destiny was one of the ways by which the regime justified itself in the public mind.

  Virgil writes of a Caesar “whose empire / shall reach to the Ocean’s limits, whose fame shall end in the stars”; Horace begs the goddess of luck to “guard our young swarm of warriors on the wing now / to spread the fear of Rome / into Arabia and the Red Sea coasts.”

  The phrase “Ocean’s limits” reminds us how small and fuzzy at the edges was the Roman world. Accurate navigational equipment not having been invented, most explorers—usually they were traders—did not travel very far from the Mediterranean.

  The Romans believed that the world’s landmass was a roughly circular disk consisting only of Europe and Asia, and that it was surrounded by a vast expanse of sea, Oceanus. They had no idea that the American and Australasian continents existed, nor that there was land beyond India. The landmass itself surrounded the Mediterranean Sea and Greece and Italy. The island of Britannia perched on its northwestern edge. The Roman empire took up a large part of the world as its inhabitants believed that world to be, and it was very tempting for its ambitious rulers to dream that they might one day conquer it all.

  Maps were rare in the classical time; the first known world maps appeared in fifth-century At
hens. Borrowing from Alexandrian models, the Romans, with their imperial responsibilities, recognized the practical importance of cartography. A world map was commissioned by Julius Caesar, probably as part of a triumphal monument he built on the Capitoline Hill, which showed him in a chariot with the world, in the form of a globe, at his feet.

  Augustus commissioned his deputy, Agrippa, to work on a more detailed map, the orbis terrarum or “globe of the earth.” This showed hundreds of cities linked by Rome’s network of roads; it was based on reports sent in by Roman generals and governors, and by travelers. The result was a broadly recognizable picture, although distances and shapes became less and less accurate the farther places were from Rome.

  The main purpose of the map was as an aid for imperial administrators, provincial governors, and military commanders; as a visual representation of the empire, it was also a powerful metaphor of Roman power. The map was painted or engraved on the wall of the Porticus Vipsania, a colonnade built by Agrippa’s sister, and was on permanent public display. Copies on papyrus or parchment were made for travelers, or information copied down.

  As we have seen, Augustus and Agrippa spent many years abroad in different corners of the empire. Between 27 and 24 B.C., the princeps was in Gaul and Spain; between 22 and 19 B.C. in Greece and Asia; and between 16 and 13 B.C. in Gaul. Meanwhile, Agrippa spent 23 to 21 B.C. in the east, 20 and 19 in Gaul and Spain, and 16 to 13 B.C. in the east again. They spent their time quelling revolts, reforming or reviewing local administrations, and, above all, superintending the consolidation and expansion of the empire.

  It is hard to tell whether the two men reacted to circumstances as they arose or pursued a long-term strategy. The impression is given of an orderly progression in the years that followed Actium from one priority to another. As we have seen, the eastern provinces and client kingdoms were reorganized. The frontier of Egypt was pushed southward and contact was made with the Ethiopians. An attempt was made to conquer the Arabian Peninsula, which failed. The negotiations with the Parthians were brought to a successful conclusion. Gaul and Spain were pacified.

  A glance at the orbis terrarum showed that three great interrelated challenges were yet to be answered. First, the Alps were in the hands of fierce tribes and it was impossible to reach the eastern provinces by land around the top of the Italian peninsula. Second, the frontier of Macedonia was vaguely defined and hard to defend. Third, although the river Rhine, the existing Gallic frontier, ran from the North Sea to the Alps, there was constant westward pressure on it from Germanic tribes.

  The ideal solution would be, first, to win control of the Alps and then move north to establish a defensible frontier lined with legions along the river Danube. In this way, buffer provinces in the north would protect Italy and Macedonia from direct attack. If the Rhine and the Danube were to mark the empire’s permanent boundary, a major strategic weakness would be likely to cause trouble in the future. This was that the heads of the two rivers formed a salient with its apex where the modern city of Basel stands today. The salient would allow hostile German tribes to operate on interior lines, giving them a huge military advantage.

  So the final step would be to invade Germany and create a new frontier at the river Elbe. This would eliminate the salient and create a border roughly in a straight line between the North Sea and the Black Sea. Also, the territory thus gained would helpfully protect Gaul from eastern marauders.

  This three-part plan of action may well have emerged through happenstance over the years, but its intellectual coherence and the fact that its constituent elements are interdependent strongly suggest that it was consciously conceived sometime after 19 B.C. and the final pacification of Spain. It would have been intended as a broad framework to guide future military activity, if not as a precisely worked-out blueprint.

  If this was the case, it is not too fanciful to guess that the plan’s inventor was the man who had won all of Augustus’ wars for him: the indispensable Agrippa.

  Important changes were taking place in the “divine family,” with multiple consequences for its members and for Rome itself. The marriage in 21 B.C. between the daughter of the princeps, Julia, and Agrippa succeeded where Augustus and Livia had conspicuously failed: it produced two sons, “an heir and a spare.” (Two daughters, Julia and Agrippina, quickly followed.) Gaius was born in 20 B.C. and Lucius in 17. With the arrival of the second boy, Augustus adopted them both and brought them up in his house. They were known thereafter as Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar. It was as if they were the offspring of two fathers, with Julia playing only a subordinate role as a human incubator.

  The dynastic intention was patent, but this time instead of one “Marcellus” there were two, doubling the chances of survival. This development has been presented as leaving Livia and her sons, Tiberius and Drusus, out in the cold. Concerned as ever to maintain the continuity of the bloodline, the princeps certainly did not see them as successors. It was widely suspected at the time that Livia would do everything she could to promote their cause, but there is no evidence that she schemed to subvert her husband’s settled intentions. Indeed, she would have been most unwise to allow any disharmony to appear between her and her husband. That Augustus is never recorded to have complained about her and that she remained in high favor throughout his life argue strongly for her loyalty and discretion.

  In any case, Tiberius and Drusus had nothing whatever to complain about. Twenty-five and twenty-one years old, respectively, they had already shown signs of talent and ambition and been rewarded for it. The princeps was inventive at making the best use of the human material at hand, and as always was more than willing to nurture and promote youth. He arranged for both his stepsons to be granted a special dispensation to hold office before the permitted minimum age and he gave them various challenging jobs. Tiberius’ marriage to Vipsania was a happy one. Relations with their stepfather were warm. Tiberius could be somewhat dour, but Drusus was universally popular.

  Some undated letters of Augustus survive that speak of his affection for them both. On one occasion he describes to Tiberius how he and Drusus spent all day gambling during a public holiday, playing for high stakes (here, incidentally, he shows himself in an attractive light, for absolute rulers can be poor losers at games):

  Your brother Drusus made fearful complaints about his luck, yet in the long run was not much out of pocket…. I lost twenty thousand sesterces; but that was because, asusual, I behaved with excessive sportsmanship. If I had dunned every player who had forfeited his stakes to me, or not handed over my legitimate winnings when dunned myself, I would have been at least fifty thousand to the good.

  In another letter he replies to Tiberius’ good wishes: “My state of health is of little importance compared with yours. I pray that the gods will always keep you safe and sound for us, if they have not taken an utter aversion to Rome.”

  Both young men showed an aptitude for the military life and generalship, qualities that the princeps had every intention of exploiting.

  Events precipitated, or supplied the pretext for, initiation of the imperial grand strategy. In 17 B.C., Marcus Lollius, a venal, wealth-grabbing new man and a favorite of Augustus, suffered a defeat in Gaul at the hands of some Germanic tribes. The battle was of no real importance and the reverse was quickly avenged, but a legionary standard was lost.

  The princeps decided to treat the setback as a grave emergency and traveled to Gaul to take matters in hand himself, bringing with him Tiberius (whom he seems to have appointed governor of Long-haired Gaul). Once arrived, he found there was nothing for him to do, for, learning that Lollius was preparing a punitive expedition and that Augustus himself was on his way, the tribal horde had vanished back into its own lands. Nevertheless, the princeps remained in Gaul for three years.

  Why so long? The information that survives prevents a confident answer. Some unkind tongues at Rome supposed that he wanted to leave Rome so that he could pursue his affair with Maecenas’ wife, Terentia. This i
s possible—if a little odd, for Livia likely accompanied her husband on this as on his other expeditions. It may have been on this occasion that Augustus turned down her request to grant citizenship to a Gaul, and one source dates a curious (if possibly fictional) incident to this time.

  Apparently a plot against the princeps was discovered while he was in Gaul, implicating among others a grandson of Pompey the Great, a foolish young man called Gnaeus (or possibly Lucius) Cornelius Cinna. Augustus spent sleepless nights and anxious days wondering whether to execute him; according to Dio, Livia persuaded him that clemency would calm his critics and so was more likely than severity to deter future plots.

  Augustus was probably laying the ground for a series of major military offensives. He reorganized the army, demobilizing a large number of time-expired soldiers who had joined up after Actium and settling them in Gaul and Spain. This was presumably accompanied by a recruiting drive. The length of a legionary’s service was extended to sixteen years (and twelve for members of the Praetorian Guard). At about this time Lugdunum (today’s Lyon) seems to have begun to operate as a major mint, coining gold and silver with which to pay legions on campaign in Gaul and Germany.

  In 17 or 16 B.C., hostilities opened when the governor of Illyricum launched an attack on a couple of Alpine tribes, probably inhabitants of the region between Como and Lake Garda. Then in 15 B.C., to avenge some alleged atrocities on Roman citizens, Tiberius and Drusus headed a two-pronged attack into Raetia, an area covering today’s Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and western Austria, and into the lands of the Vindelici, in southern Bavaria. It seems to have been an easy victory, for the young commanders achieved all their aims in a single summer campaign. In the following year, Roman forces conquered and annexed the Maritime Alps.