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Title: Augustus - The Life and Times of the Founder of the Roman Empire
Author: Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. (Evelyn Shirley)
Language: English
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AUGUSTUS
Works on Roman History, etc.
ROMAN LIFE UNDER THE CÆSARS.
By ÉMILE THOMAS. With Numerous Illustrations. Small demy 8vo,
cloth, 7s. 6d.
ROME AND POMPEII.
By GASTON BOISSIER. Translated by D. HAVELOCK FISHER. With Maps
and Plans. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL.
By GASTON BOISSIER. Translated by D. HAVELOCK FISHER. Large
crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
ROME: FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE END OF THE REPUBLIC.
By ARTHUR GILMAN, M.A. 3rd Edition. With a Map and Numerous
Illustrations. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. (“The Story of the
Nations.”)
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
[Illustration: AUGUSTUS
With _Corona Civica_
Photographed from the Bust in the Vatican Museum
Edⁿᵉ Alinari]
AUGUSTUS
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE
FOUNDER OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
(B.C. 63-A.D. 14)
BY
E. S. SHUCKBURGH, LITT.D.
LATE FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE · 1903
(_All rights reserved._)
Preface
Augustus has been much less attractive to biographers than Iulius;
perhaps because the soldier is more interesting than the statesman;
perhaps because the note of genius conspicuous in the Uncle was wanting
in the Nephew. Yet Augustus was the most successful ruler known to us.
He found his world, as it seemed, on the verge of complete collapse. He
evoked order out of chaos; got rid one after the other of every element
of opposition; established what was practically a new form of government
without too violent a breach with the past; breathed fresh meaning into
old names and institutions, and could stand forth as a reformer rather
than an innovator, while even those who lost most by the change were
soothed into submission without glaring loss of self-respect. He worked
ceaselessly to maintain the order thus established, and nearly every part
of his great empire had reason to be grateful for increased security,
expanding prosperity, and added amenity of life. Nor can it be said
that he reaped the credit due in truth to ministers. He had excellent
ministers and agents, with abilities in this or that direction superior
to his own; but none who could take his place as a whole. He was the
centre from which their activities radiated: he was the inspirer, the
careful organiser, the unwearied manipulator of details, to whom all
looked, and seldom in vain, for support and guidance. We may add this to
a dignity never forgotten, enhanced by a physical beauty and grace which
helped to secure reverence for his person and office, and established
a sentiment which the unworthiness of some of his successors could not
wholly destroy. He and not Iulius was the founder of the Empire, and it
was to him that succeeding emperors looked back as the origin of their
power.
Yet his achievements have interested men less than the conquest of
Gaul and the victories in the civil war won by the marvellous rapidity
and splendid boldness of Iulius. Consequently modern estimates of the
character and aims of Augustus have been comparatively few. An exhaustive
treatise is now appearing in Germany by V. Gardthausen, which will
be a most complete storehouse of facts. Without any pretence to such
elaboration of detail, I have tried in these pages to do something to
correct the balance, and to give a picture of the man as I have formed
it in my own mind. The only modest merit which I would claim for my
book is that it is founded on a study as complete as I could make it of
the ancient authorities and sources of information without conscious
imitation of any modern writer. These authorities are better for the
earlier period to about B.C. 24, while they had the Emperor’s own Memoirs
on which to rely. The multiform activities of his later life are chiefly
to be gathered from inscriptions and monuments, which record the care
which neglected no part however remote of the Empire. In these later
years such histories as we have are more concerned with wars and military
movements than with administration. Suetonius is full of good things,
but is without chronological or systematic order, and is wanting in
the critical spirit to discriminate between irresponsible rumours and
historical facts. Dio Cassius, plain and honest always, grows less and
less full as the reign goes on. Velleius, who might at least have given
us full details of the later German wars, is seldom definite or precise,
and is tiresome from devotion to a single hero in Tiberius, and by an
irritating style.
It has been my object to illustrate the policy of Augustus by constant
reference to the Court view as represented by the poets. But in his
later years Ovid is a poor substitute for Horace in this point of view.
The Emperor’s own catalogue of his achievements, preserved on the walls
of the temple at Ancyra, is the best possible summary; but a summary
it is after all, and requires to be made to live by careful study and
comparison.
The constitutional history of the reign is that which has generally
engaged most attention. I have striven to state the facts clearly. Of
their exact significance opinions will differ. I have given my own for
what it is worth, and can only say that it has been formed independently
by study of our authorities.
I have not tried to represent my hero as faultless or to make black
white. Nothing can clear Augustus of the charge of cruelty up to B.C.
31. But in judging him regard must be had to his age and circumstances.
We must not, at any rate, allow our judgment of his later statesmanship
to be controlled by the memory of his conduct in a time of civil war
and confusion. He succeeded in re-constituting a society shaken to its
centre. We must acknowledge that and accept the bad with the good. But it
is false criticism to deny or blink the one from admiration of the other.
I have to thank the authorities of the British Museum for casts of coins
reproduced in this book: also the Syndics of the Pitt Press, Cambridge,
for the loan of certain other casts.
Contents
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, B.C. 63-44 1
CHAPTER II.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT THE DEATH OF IULIUS CÆSAR 17
CHAPTER III.
THE INHERITANCE 34
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONSULSHIP AND TRIUMVIRATE 53
CHAPTER V.
PHILIPPI 79
CHAPTER VI.
PERUSIA AND SICILY 89
CHAPTER VII.
ACTIUM 109
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NEW CONSTITUTION, B.C. 30-23 131
CHAPTER IX.
THE FIRST PRINCIPATUS, B.C. 27-23 151
CHAPTER X.
THE IMPERIAL AND MILITARY POLICY OF AUGUSTUS 171
CHAPTER XI.
AUGUSTUS AND HIS WORSHIPPERS 194
CHAPTER XII.
THE REFORMER AND LEGISLATOR 212
CHAPTER XIII.
LATER LIFE AND FAMILY TROUBLES 233
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LAST DAYS 247
CHAPTER XV.
THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS, HIS CHARACTER AND AIMS, HIS WORK AND
FRIENDS 265
AUGUSTUS’S ACCOUNT OF HIS REIGN 293
(_From the Inscription in the Temple of Rome and Augustus
at Angora_)
INDEX 303
List of Illustrations
AUGUSTUS WITH _CORONA CIVICA_. (From the Bust in the
Vatican Museum) _Frontispiece_
THE YOUNG OCTAVIUS. (From the Bust in the Vatican
Museum) _Facing p._ 10
COIN.—_Obv._ M. Brutus. _Rev._ Two Daggers and Cap
of Liberty ” 16
” _Obv._ Head of Augustus bearded as sign of
Mourning. _Rev._ Divus Iulius ” 16
” _Obv._ Head of Agrippa. Cos. III. _i.e._ B.C.
27. _Rev._ Emblematical Figure ” 16
” _Obv._ Head of Augustus with Official Titles.
_Rev._ Head of same with Radiated Crown and
the Iulian Star ” 16
” _Obv._ Head of Sext. Pompeius. _Rev._ The same
with titles, _Præfectus Classis et oræ.
Maritimæ_ ” 16
AUGUSTUS ADDRESSING TROOPS. (From the Statue in
the Vatican) ” 108
COIN.—_Obv._ Head of Augustus. _Rev._ The Sphinx ” 130
” _Obv._ Heads of Augustus and Agrippa. _Rev._
Crocodile and Palm—_Colonia Nemausi_ (Nismes) ” 130
” _Obv._ Head of Augustus. _Rev._ Triumphal Arch
celebrating the Reconstruction of the Roads ” 130
” _Obv._ Head of Drusus. _Rev._ Trophy of Arms
taken from the Germans ” 130
” _Obv._ Head of Livia. _Rev._ Head of Iulia ” 130
ALTAR DEDICATED TO LARES OF AUGUSTUS IN B.C. 2 BY
A _MAGISTER VICI_. (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) ” 196
AUGUSTUS AS SENATOR. (From the Statue in the Uffizi
Gallery, Florence) ” 212
IULIA, DAUGHTER OF AUGUSTUS. (From the Bust in the
Uffizi Gallery, Florence) ” 234
LIVIA, WIFE OF AUGUSTUS. (From the Bust in the Uffizi
Gallery, Florence) (Page 274) ” 234
MÆCENAS. (From the Head in the Palazzo dei
Conservatori, Rome) ” 279
P. VERGILIUS MARO. (From the Bust in the Capitoline
Museum, Rome) (Page 284) ” 279
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, B.C. 63-44
_Iam nova progenies_
_cœlo demittitur alto._
[Sidenote: Birth of Augustus, Sept. 23, B.C. 63.]
In a house at the eastern corner of the Palatine, called “At the
Oxheads,”[1] on the 23rd of September, B.C. 63—some nine weeks before
the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators by Cicero’s order—a child
was born destined to close the era of civil wars thus inaugurated, to
organise the Roman Empire, and to be its master for forty-four years.
The father of the child was Gaius Octavius, of the plebeian _gens
Octavia_, and of a family that had long occupied a high position in the
old Volscian town of Velitræ. Two branches of the Octavii were descended
from C. Octavius Rufus, quæstor in B.C. 230. The elder branch had
produced five consuls and other Roman magistrates, but of the younger
branch Gaius Octavius, the father of Augustus, was the first to hold
curule office. According to the inscription, afterwards placed by his
son in the _sacrarium_ of the palace,[2] he had twice served as military
tribune, had been quæstor, plebeian ædile, iudex quæstionum, and prætor.
After the prætorship (B.C. 61) he governed Macedonia with conspicuous
ability and justice. He is quoted by Cicero as a model administrator
of a province; and he was sufficiently successful against the Bessi
and other Thracian tribes—constant scourges of Macedonia—to be hailed
as “imperator” by his soldiers. He returned to Italy late in B.C. 59,
intending next year to be a candidate for the consulship, but early in
B.C. 58 he died suddenly in his villa at Nola, in the same chamber as
that in which his son, seventy-two years later, breathed his last.[3]
[Sidenote: The mother of Augustus.]
The mother of the young Gaius Octavius was Atia, daughter of M. Atius
Balbus,[4] of Velitræ, and Iulia, sister of Gaius Iulius Cæsar. This
connection with Cæsar—already rising in political importance—may have
made his birth of some social interest, but the ominous circumstances
said to have accompanied it are doubtless due to the curiosity or
credulity of the next generation. The people of Velitræ, it is reported,
had been told by an oracle that a master of the Empire was to be born
there. Rumours, it is said, were current in Rome shortly before his
birth that a “king of the Roman people” was about to be born. His mother
dreamed strange dreams, and the learned Publius Nigidius prophesied the
birth of a lord of the world; while Catullus and Cicero had visions.[5]
But there was, in fact, nothing mysterious or unusual in his infancy,
which was passed with his foster-nurse at Velitræ. When he was two years
old his father, on his way to his province, carried out successfully an
order of the Senate to destroy a band of brigands near Thurii, survivors,
it is said, of the followers of Spartacus and Catiline. In memory of this
success his parents gave the boy the cognomen Thurinus. He never seems
to have used the name, though Suetonius says that he once possessed a
bust of the child with this name inscribed on it in letters that had
become almost illegible. He presented it to Hadrian, who placed it in his
private _sacrarium_.[6]
[Sidenote: The stepfather of Augustus.]
[Sidenote: The great-uncle of Augustus.]
[Sidenote: The first Triumvirate and its results.]
About B.C. 57 or 56[7] his mother Atia re-married. Her husband was L.
Marcius Philippus (prætor B.C. 60, governor of Syria B.C. 59-7, Consul
B.C. 56); and when in his ninth year Octavius lost his foster-mother he
became a regular member of his stepfather’s household. Philippus was
not a man of much force, but he belonged to the highest society, and
though opposed to Cæsar in politics, appears to have managed to keep
on good terms with him.[8] But during his great-nephew’s boyhood Cæsar
was little at Rome. Prætor in B.C. 62, he had gone the following year
to Spain. He returned in B.C. 60 to stand for the consulship, and soon
after the consulship, early in B.C. 58, he started for Gaul, from which
he did not return to Rome till he came in arms in B.C. 49. But though
occupied during the summers in his famous campaigns beyond the Alps, he
spent most of his winters in Northern Italy—at Ravenna or Lucca—where he
received his partisans and was kept in touch with home politics, and was
probably visited by his relatives. Just before entering on his consulship
he had formed with Pompey and Crassus the agreement for mutual support
known as the First Triumvirate. The series of events which broke up this
combination and made civil war inevitable must have been well known to
the boy. He must have been aware that the laurelled despatches of his
great-uncle announcing victory after victory were viewed with secret
alarm by many of the nobles who visited Philippus; and that these men
were seeking to secure in Pompey a leader capable of outshining Cæsar in
the popular imagination by victories and triumphs of his own. He was old
enough to understand the meaning of the riots of the rival law-breakers,
Milo and Clodius, which drenched Rome in blood. Election after election
was interrupted, and, finally, after the murder of Clodius (January,
B.C. 52), all eyes were fixed on Pompey as the sole hope of peace and
order. There was much talk of naming him dictator, but finally he was
created sole consul (apparently by a decree of the Senate) and remained
sole consul till August, when he held an election and returned his
father-in-law, Metellus Scipio, as his colleague.
[Sidenote: Pompey’s position after B.C. 52.]
The upshot of these disorders, therefore, was to give Pompey a very
strong position. He was, in fact, dictator (_seditionis sedandæ causa_)
under another name; and the Optimates hastened to secure him as their
champion. A law had been passed in B.C. 56, by agreement with Cæsar,
giving Pompey the whole of Spain as a province for five years after his
consulship of B.C. 55. As Cæsar’s government of Gaul terminated at the
end of B.C. 49, Pompey would have imperium and an army when Cæsar left
his province. He would naturally indeed be in Spain; but the Senate now
passed a resolution that it was for the good of the State that Pompey
should remain near Rome. He accordingly governed Spain by three legati,
and remained outside the walls of the city with imperium. The great
object of the Optimates was that Cæsar should return to Rome a _privatus_
while Pompey was still there in this unprecedented position. Cæsar wished
to be consul for B.C. 48. The Optimates did not openly oppose that wish,
but contended that he should lay down his provincial government and
military command first, and come to Rome to make his _professio_, or
formal announcement of his being a candidate, in the usual way.[9]
But Cæsar declined to walk into this trap. He knew that if he came home
as a _privatus_ there were many ready to prosecute him for his actions
in Gaul, and with Pompey there in command of legions he felt certain
that a verdict inflicting political ruin on him could be obtained. He
therefore stood by the right—secured by a law of B.C. 55, and reinforced
by Pompey’s own law in B.C. 52—of standing for the consulship without
coming to Rome, and without giving up his province and army before the
time originally fixed by the law. He would thus not be without imperium
for a single day, but would come to Rome as consul.
Here was a direct issue. Pompey professed to believe that it could be
settled by a decree of the Senate, either forbidding the holder of the
election to receive votes for Cæsar in his absence, or appointing a
successor in his province. Cæsar, he argued, would of course obey a
_Senatus-consultum_. But Cæsar was on firm ground in refusing to admit
a successor till the term fixed by the law had expired, and also in
claiming that his candidature should be admitted in his absence—for that
too had been granted by a law. If neither side would yield the only
possible solution was war.[10]
[Sidenote: Provocation to Cæsar.]
Cæsar hesitated for some time. He saw no hope of mollifying his enemies
or separating Pompey from them. His daughter Iulia’s death in B.C. 54
after a few years’ marriage to Pompey had severed a strong tie between
them. The death of Crassus in B.C. 53 had removed, not indeed a man of
much strength of character, but one whose enormous wealth had given him
such a hold on the senators that any strong act on their part, against
his wishes, was difficult. After his death the actual provocations to
Cæsar had certainly increased. The depriving him, under the pretext of
an impending Parthian war, of two legions which were being kept under
arms in Italy; the insult inflicted upon him by Marcellus (Consul B.C.
51) in flogging a magistrate of his new colony at Comum, who if the
colony were regarded as legally established would be exempt from such
punishment;—these and similar things shewed Cæsar what he had to expect
if he gave up office and army. He elected therefore to stand on his legal
rights.
[Sidenote: Civil war.]
Legality was on his side, but long prescription was in favour of the
Senate’s claim to the obedience of a magistrate, especially of the
governor of a province. There was therefore a deadlock. Cæsar made one
attempt—not perhaps a very sincere one—to remove it. He had won over
Gaius Curio, tribune in B.C. 50, by helping him to discharge his immense
debts. Curio therefore, instead of opposing Cæsar, as had been expected,
vetoed every proposal for his recall. His tribuneship ended on the 9th of
December, B.C. 50, and he immediately started to visit Cæsar at Ravenna.
He told him of the inveteracy of his opponents, and urged him to march
at once upon Rome. But Cæsar determined to justify himself by offering a
peaceful solution—“he was willing to hand over his province and army to
a successor, if Pompey would also give up Spain and dismiss his armies.”
Curio returned to Rome in time for the meeting of the Senate on the 1st
of January, B.C. 49, bringing this despatch from Cæsar.
The majority of the Senate affected to regard it as an act of rebellion.
After a debate, lasting five days, a decree was passed on January
the 7th, ordering Cæsar to give up his province and army on a fixed
day, on pain of being declared guilty of treason. This was vetoed by
two tribunes, M. Antonius and Q. Cassius. Refusing, after the usual
“remonstrance,” to withdraw their veto, they were finally expelled and
fled to Ariminum, on their way to join Cæsar at Ravenna. The Senate
then passed the _Senatus-consultum ultimum_, ordering the magistrates
and pro-magistrates “to see that the state took no harm,” and a levy of
soldiers—already begun by Pompey—was ordered to be held in all parts of
Italy.
[Sidenote: Cæsar crosses the Rubicon.]
Cæsar, informed of this, addressed the single legion which was with him
at Ravenna, urging it to support the violated tribunes. Satisfied with
the response to his appeal, he took the final step of passing the Rubicon
and marching to Ariminum, outside his province.
Both sides were now in the wrong, the Senate by forcibly interfering
with the action of the tribunes, Cæsar by entering Italy. An attempt,
therefore, was made to effect a compromise. Lucius Cæsar—a distant
connection of Iulius—visited him at Ariminum, bringing some general
professions of moderation from Pompey, though it seems without any
definite suggestion. Cæsar, however, so far modified his former offer
as to propose a conference, with the understanding that the levy of
troops in Italy was to be stopped and Pompey was to go to his Spanish
province. On receiving this communication at Capua Pompey and the consuls
declined all terms until Cæsar had withdrawn from Ariminum into Gaul;
though they intimated, without mentioning any date, that Pompey would
in that case go to Spain. But the levy of troops was not interrupted;
and Cæsar’s answer to this was the triumphant march through Picenum and
to Brundisium. Town after town surrendered, and the garrisons placed in
them by Pompey generally joined the advancing army, till finally a large
force, embracing many men of high rank, surrendered at Corfinium. Cæsar
had entered Italy with only one legion, but others were summoned from
winter quarters in Cisalpine Gaul, and by the time he reached Brundisium
Pompey had given up all idea of resisting him in Italy, and within
the walls of that town was preparing to cross to Epirus, whither the
consuls with the main body of his troops had already gone. Cæsar had no
ships with which to follow him. He was content to hasten his flight by
threatening to block up the harbour. Pompey safely out of Italy, he went
to Rome to arrange for his regular election into the consulship. Meeting
with opposition there[11]—one of the tribunes, L. Cæcilius Metellus,
vetoing all proposals in the Senate—he hastened to Spain to attack the
legates of Pompey, stopping on his way to arrange the siege of Marseilles
(which had admitted Ahenobarbus, named successor of Cæsar in Gaul),
and sending legati to secure Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. Of these the
only failure was in Africa, where Curio was defeated and killed. This
province therefore remained in the hands of the Pompeians; but Cæsar’s
own successes in Spain, the fall of Marseilles, and the hold gained upon
the corn supplies of Sicily and Sardinia placed him in a strong position.
The constitutional difficulty was surmounted; he was named Dictator to
hold the elections, returned himself as consul, and, after eleven days in
Rome for the Latin games, embarked at Brundisium on January 3, B.C. 48,
to attack Pompey in Epirus.
[Sidenote: Iulius Cæsar master of the Roman world, B.C. 47.]
It is not necessary to follow the events of the next six months. Cæsar
had to struggle with great difficulties, for Pompey as master of the
sea had a secure base of supplies; and therefore, though Cæsar drew
vast lines round his camp, he could not starve him out. Pompey, in
fact, actually pierced Cæsar’s lines and defeated him in more than one
engagement. Eventually, however, Cæsar drew him into Thessaly; and the
great victory of Pharsalia (August 9th) made up for everything. Pompey
fled to Egypt, to meet his death on the beach by order of the treacherous
young king; and though Cæsar still had weary work to do before Egypt
was reduced to obedience, and then had to traverse Asia Minor to crush
Pharnaces of Pontus at Zela, when he set foot once more in Italy in
September, B.C. 47, he had already been created Dictator, and was
practically master of the Roman world.
[Sidenote: Octavius takes the _toga virilis_ and is made a pontifex, B.C.
48.]
In these momentous events the young Octavius had taken no part. At the
beginning of B.C. 49 he had been sent away to one of his ancestral
estates in the country. But we cannot suppose him incapable of
understanding their importance or being an uninterested spectator. His
stepfather Philippus was Pompeian in sympathy, but his close connection
with Cæsar kept him from taking an active part in the war, and he was
allowed to remain in Italy, probably for the most part in his Campanian
villa. From time to time, however, he came to Rome; and Octavius, who now
lived entirely with him, began to be treated with a distinction natural
to the near relative of the victorious dictator. Soon after the news of
Pharsalia he took the _toga virilis_, and about the same time was elected
into the college of pontifices in the place of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus,
who had fallen in the battle. This was an office desired by the highest
in the land, and the election of so young a boy, just entering upon his
sixteenth year, put him in a position something like that of a prince of
the blood; just as afterwards Augustus caused his two grandsons to be
designated to the consulship, and declared capable of official employment
as soon as they had taken the _toga virilis_.[12]
[Sidenote: Octavius’s relations with his parents and his great-uncle.]
The boy, who three years before had made a great impression by his
delivery of the _laudatio_ at his grandmother Iulia’s funeral, again
attracted much attention by his good looks and modesty. He became the
fashion; and when (as was customary for the pontifices) he presided
in a prætorian court during the _feriæ Latinæ_, it was observed to be
more crowded by suitors and their friends than any of the others. It
seems that the rarity of his appearance at Rome added to the interest
roused by his great-uncle’s successes. For his mother did not relax
her watchfulness. Though legally a man he was still carefully guarded.
He was required to sleep in the same simple chamber, to visit the same
houses, and to follow the same way of life as before. Even his religious
duties were performed before daylight, to escape the languishing looks of
intriguing beauties. These precautions were seconded by his own cool and
cautious temperament, and the result seems to have been that he passed
through the dangerous stage of adolescence—doubly dangerous to one now
practically a prince—uncontaminated by the grosser vices of Rome. Stories
to the contrary, afterwards spread abroad by his enemies, are of the most
unsubstantial and untrustworthy kind.
[Illustration: THE YOUNG OCTAVIUS.
_Photographed from the Bust in the Vatican by Edne. Alinari._
_To face page 10._]
[Sidenote: Wishes to go to Africa with Cæsar.]
But though he seems to have quietly submitted to this tutelage, he soon
conceived an ardent desire to share in the activities of his great-uncle.
Cæsar had been very little at Rome since the beginning of the civil war.
A few days in March, B.C. 49, thirteen days in December of the same
year, were all that he had spent in the city. He was absent during the
whole of his consulship (B.C. 48) till September, B.C. 47. On his return
from Alexandria in that month, he stayed barely three months at Rome. On
the 19th of December he was at Lilybæum, on his way to Africa to attack
the surviving Pompeians. Octavius longed to go with him, and Cæsar was
willing to take him. But his health was not good, and his mother set
herself against it. The Dictator might no doubt have insisted, but he saw
that the boy was not fit to face the fatigues of a campaign. Octavius
submitted, quietly biding his time. He was rewarded by finding himself
high in his great-uncle’s favour when he returned in B.C. 46 after
the victory of Thapsus. He was admitted to share his triple triumph,
riding in a chariot immediately behind that of the imperator, dressed
in military uniform as though he had actually been engaged. He found,
moreover, that he had sufficient interest with Cæsar to obtain pardon for
the brother of his friend Agrippa, taken prisoner in the Pompeian army in
Africa. This first use of his influence made a good impression, without
weakening his great-uncle’s affection for him. Though Cæsar did not
formally adopt him,[13] he treated him openly as his nearest relation
and heir. Octavius rode near him in his triumph, stood by his side at the
sacrifice, took precedence of all the staff or court that surrounded him,
and accompanied him to theatres and banquets. He was soon besieged by
petitions to be laid before Cæsar, and shewed both tact and good nature
in dealing with them. This close connection with the wise and magnanimous
Dictator, inspired him with warm admiration and affection, which help
to explain and excuse the severity with which he afterwards pursued his
murderers.
[Sidenote: Octavius employed in civil duties, B.C. 46.]
In order to give him experience of civic duties, one of the theatres was
now put under his charge. But his assiduous attention to this duty in
the hot season brought on a dangerous illness, one of the many which he
encountered during his long life. There was a general feeling of regret
at the prospect of a career of such promise being cut short. Cæsar
visited him daily or sent friends to him, insisted on the physicians
remaining constantly at his side, and being informed while at dinner
that the boy had fainted and was in imminent danger, he sprang up from
his couch, and without waiting to change his dining slippers, hurried to
his chamber, besought the physicians in moving terms to do their utmost,
and sitting down by the bed shewed the liveliest joy when the patient
recovered from his swoon.
[Sidenote: Octavius follows Cæsar to Spain, B.C. 45.]
Octavius was too weak to accompany the Dictator when starting for
Spain against Pompey’s sons in December B.C. 46. But as soon as he was
sufficiently recovered he determined to follow him. He refused all
company except that of a few select friends and the most active of his
slaves. He would not admit his mother’s wish to go with him. He had
yielded to her before, but he was now resolved to take part in a man’s
work alone. His voyage, early in B.C. 45, proved long and dangerous;
and when at length he landed at Tarraco he found his uncle already at
the extreme south of Spain, somewhere between Cadiz and Gibraltar. The
roads were rendered dangerous by scattered parties of hostile natives, or
outposts of the enemy, and his escort was small. Still, he pushed on with
energy and reached Cæsar’s quarters near Calpe, to which he had advanced
after the victory at Munda (March 17th). Gnæus Pompeius had fled on board
a ship, but was killed when landing for water on the 11th of April, and
it was apparently just about that time that Octavius reached the camp.
Warmly received and highly praised for his energy by the Dictator, he
was at once admitted to his table and close intimacy, during which Cæsar
learned still more to appreciate the quickness of his intelligence and
the careful control which he kept over his tongue.
[Sidenote: Octavius accompanies his great-uncle to Carthage.]
Affairs in Southern Spain having been apparently settled (though as it
proved the danger was by no means over), Octavius accompanied Cæsar to
Carthage, to settle questions which had arisen as to the assignment of
land in his new colony. The Dictator was visited there by deputations
from various Greek states, alleging grievances or asking favours.
Octavius was applied to by more than one of them to plead their cause,
and had therefore again an opportunity of acquiring practical experience
in the business of imperial government, and in the very best school.
He preceded Cæsar on his return to Rome, and on his arrival had once more
occasion to shew his caution and prudence. Among those who met him in the
usual complimentary procession was a young man who had somehow managed to
make himself a popular hero by pretending to be a grandson of the great
Marius. His real name was Amatius or Herophilus, a veterinary surgeon
according to some, but certainly of humble origin. As Marius had married
Cæsar’s aunt Iulia, this man was anxious to be recognised as a cousin by
the Dictator. He had in vain applied to Cicero to undertake his cause,
and to Atia and her half-sister to recognise him. The difficulty for
Octavius was that the man was a favourite of the populace, of whose cause
Cæsar was the professed champion; yet his recognition would be offensive
to the nobles and a mere concession to clamour. Octavius avoided the
snare by referring the case to Cæsar as head of the state and family, and
refusing to receive the would-be Marius till he had decided.[14]
[Sidenote: Octavius at Apollonia, B.C. 45-44.]
He did not remain long at Rome however. Cæsar returned in September,
and was assassinated in the following March. And during that interval,
though he found time for many schemes of legislation, and of restoration
or improvement in the city, he was much employed in preparing for two
expeditions—calculated to last three years—first against the Daci or Getæ
on the Danube, and secondly against the Parthians in Mesopotamia. These
were the two points of active danger in the Empire, and Cæsar desired
to crown his public services by securing their peace and safety. For
this purpose six legions were quartered in Macedonia for the winter, in
readiness to march along the Via Egnatia to the eastern coast of Greece.
Returning from Spain Dictator for life, Cæsar was to have two “Masters
of the Horse.” One was to be Octavius, who had meanwhile been created
a patrician by the Senate.[15] But for the present he was sent to pass
the winter at Apollonia, the Greek colony at the beginning of the Via
Egnatia, where he might continue his studies in quiet with the rhetors
and other teachers whom he took with him or found there,[16] and at the
same time might get some military training with the legions that were
not far off. He was accompanied by some of the young men with whom he
habitually associated. Among them were Agrippa and Mæcenas, who remained
his friends and ministers to the end of their lives, and Salvidienus
Rufus, who almost alone of his early friends proved unfaithful.[17]
He seems to have led a quiet life at Apollonia, winning golden opinions
in the town and from his teachers for his studious and regular habits.
The admiration and loyalty of his friends were confirmed; and many of the
officers of the legions seem to have made up their minds to regard him as
the best possible successor to the Dictator.
[Sidenote: News of Cæsar’s assassination brought to Apollonia.]
In the sixth month of his residence at Apollonia, in the afternoon of
a March day, a freedman of his mother arrived with every sign of rapid
travel and agitation. He delivered a letter from Atia, dated the 15th of
March. It briefly stated that the Dictator had just been assassinated
in the Senate House. She added that she “did not know what would happen
next; but it was time now for him to play the man, and to think and act
for the best at this terrible crisis.”[18] The bearer of the letter could
tell him nothing else, for he had been despatched immediately after
the murder, and had loitered nowhere on the way; only he felt sure that
as the conspirators were numerous and powerful, all the kinsfolk of the
Dictator would be in danger.
This was the last day of Octavius’s youth. From that hour he had to play
a dangerous game with desperate players. He did not yet know that by
the Dictator’s will he had been adopted as his son, and was heir to the
greater part of his vast wealth; but a passionate desire to avenge him
sprang up in his breast, a desire strengthened with increasing knowledge,
and of which he never lost sight in all the political complications of
the next ten years.
[Illustration: Obv.: M. Brutus. Rev.: Two daggers and cap of liberty.
Obv.: Head of Augustus bearded as sign of mourning. Rev.: Divus Julius.
Obv.: Head of Agrippa. Cos III., _i.e._, B.C. 27. Rev.: Emblematical
figure and S. C. (_Senatus Consulto_).
Obv.: Head of Augustus with official titles. Rev.: Head of same with
radiated crown and the Julian star.
Obv.: Head of Sext. Pompeius. Rev.: The same with titles, Præfectus
classis et oræ maritime.
_To face page 16._]
CHAPTER II
THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT THE DEATH OF IULIUS CÆSAR
_Vicinæ ruptis inter se legibus_
_urbes Arma ferunt; sævit toto_
_Mars impius orbe._
[Sidenote: Natural boundaries of the Roman Empire.]
At the death of Cæsar the Roman Empire had been for the most part won.
Egypt was indeed annexed by Augustus, though on a peculiar tenure, but
subsequent additions were in a manner consequential, the inevitable
rectifications of a long frontier. Such were the provinces of the Rhine,
the Alps, and the Danube as far east as Mœsia; and to a certain extent
the province of Galatia and Lycaonia (B.C. 25). The Rhine, the Danube,
and the Euphrates seemed already the natural boundaries of the Empire
on the north and east, the Atlantic Ocean on the west, and the African
and Arabian deserts on the south. And these boundaries, with occasional
modifications, and for the most part temporary extensions, continued to
the end.
[Sidenote: Its dangers.]
But though the greater part of this wide Empire was already won, it was
not all equally well organised and secured. Thus, in Northern Gaul,
there were still Germans and other enemies to be conquered or repelled;
in Southern Spain a son of the great Pompey was in arms; Macedonia was
continually subject to invasion by Getæ, Bessi, and other barbarians; the
Dalmatians and neighbouring tribes made Illyricum an uncertain member of
the Empire; in Syria, Cæcilius Bassus—an old officer of Pompey’s—was
defying Roman armies, and inviting the aid of the Parthians always ready
to cross the Euphrates into the Roman province.
[Sidenote: Cæsar’s precautions and preparations.]
To confront two of these dangers Cæsar had collected a large army in
Macedonia in the autumn of B.C. 45 to crush the Getæ, and then crossing
to Syria to force the Parthian to respect the frontier of the Euphrates,
or even to attack them in Mesopotamia. The former of these projects
was no doubt important for the safety of the Empire, and was in after
years successfully secured by Augustus and his legates. The latter was
more visionary and theatrical, meant perhaps to strike the imagination
of the Romans rather than to secure great practical advantage. After
Cæsar’s death Antony lost more than he gained by similar enterprises, and
Augustus always avoided coming into actual contact with the Parthians,
or attempting to extend his rule beyond the Euphrates. But there were
dangers within the Empire no less formidable than from without. Its
integrity had rested, and generally securely rested, on the loyalty
of its provincial governors to the central authority as represented
by the Senate, or, in the last resort, by the order of the people
expressed in a _lex_ or _plebiscitum_. It was the beginning of the
end when these governors used the forces under their command, or the
wealth and influence secured abroad, to defy or coerce the authorities
at home. Sertorius, Sulla, and Cæsar himself, had shewn that this was
not an impossible contingency. It was against this danger that, among
other reforms in the government of the Provinces, Cæsar’s own law had
provided that the tenure of a proprætor should be confined to one, and
of a proconsul to two years. But now that he was going on a distant
expedition, calculated as likely to occupy three years, he took other
precautions. Having provided for the chief offices at home,[19] he was
careful to see that the provinces should be held by men whom he believed
to be loyal to himself, and likely from their character and ability to
maintain their peace and security. Being Consul and Dictator, and his
_acta_ being confirmed beforehand by Senate and people, he could make
what nominations he pleased. A decree of the Senate was still taken
as a matter of form, but the old practice (often a farce) of drawing
lots for the provinces was abandoned;[20] Pompey’s law ordaining a five
years’ interval between curule office and a province was neglected, and
Cæsar practically nominated the governors. But it raises a doubt as to
the unfettered power or the insight of the Dictator that five of those
thus nominated were among the assassins on the Ides of March.[21] Nor
in other respects did his choice prove happy. The state of open war or
dangerous unrest which shewed itself in almost all parts of the Empire
after his death must be learnt by a review of the provinces, if we are to
understand the problem presented to Augustus and his colleagues in the
triumvirate, and the relief felt by the Roman world when Augustus finally
took the administration into his own hands, and shewed himself capable of
restoring law and order.
[Sidenote: (1) THE GAULS.]
The GAULS now included three districts, the status of which was somewhat
unsettled. (1) _Cisalpine Gaul_, that is, Italy between Etruria and the
Alps, was still nominally a province, though Cæsar’s law of B.C. 48
had granted full _civitas_ to the transpadane, as that of B.C. 89 had
to the cispadane, towns. It had formed part of Cæsar’s province from
B.C. 58 to B.C. 48, and he seems to have retained it until after the
battle of Pharsalia, when he appointed first Marcus Brutus and then C.
Vibius Pansa to it. Though part of Italy, and generally peaceful, it had
great military importance in case of an invasion from the north. After
March B.C. 44 it was to be in the hands of Decimus Brutus, who had long
served under Cæsar, and was regarded by him with special confidence and
affection. Antony’s attempt to wrest it from Decimus Brutus brought on
the first civil war after Cæsar’s death.
[Sidenote: (2) TRANSALPINE GAUL.]
(2) _Transalpine Gaul_ technically consisted of “the Province,” that is,
South-eastern France, from the Cevennes on the west to Italy, and from
the Lake of Geneva on the north to the sea. But since Cæsar’s conquests
there had to be added to this the rest of France, Belgium, and Holland
as far as the Rhine. No formal division into distinct provinces had yet
been made. In B.C. 49 Decimus Brutus, after driving out Ahenobarbus,
the governor named by the Senate, remained in command of the whole
till B.C. 45, when he returned in Cæsar’s train to Italy. But in the
course of these four years, or on his return, (3) Belgica was separated
from the rest and assigned to Hirtius, who, however, governed it by a
legate named Aurelius, without going there himself.[22] In the course of
the next year a farther division was made: Aurelius retained Belgica;
Lepidus, with four legions, was appointed to “the Province” (afterwards
called Gallia Narbonensis) together with Hispania Citerior; while L.
Munatius Plancus governed the rest, consisting of what was afterwards
two provinces—Aquitania and Lugdunensis. Plancus and Decimus Brutus were
named consuls for B.C. 42, and therefore their governorships necessarily
terminated at the end of B.C. 43, and might do so earlier. In the course
of B.C. 43 Plancus founded Lugdunum[23] (Lyon), which was afterwards
the capital of the central province of the four organised by Augustus.
But though the organisation of this country was not complete, Cæsar’s
conquest had been so decisive that no advantage was taken of the civil
war by the natives to attempt a rising.[24] There seem to have been some
insignificant movements in B.C. 42, but it was not for some years later
that any danger of importance arose there. The Belgæ had been expected
to rise on Cæsar’s assassination, but their chiefs hastened to assure
Hirtius’s legate of their adhesion to the Roman government.[25]
[Sidenote: (3) ILLYRICUM.]
The province of ILLYRICUM had been formed about the same time as that
of Macedonia (B.C. 146), but its limits had fluctuated, and it had
not received much continuous attention. It included places, such as
Dyrrachium, Corcyra, Issa, Pharus, which had been declared free after
the contest with Queen Teuta in B.C. 228, but were practically under
Roman control. Yet some of the most powerful tribes not only did not
acknowledge Roman authority, but made frequent incursions upon Roman
Illyricum. The most dangerous of these were the Dalmatians, with whom
several wars are recorded. In B.C. 117 L. Cælius Metellus occupied
Salonæ;[26] in B.C. 87-5 Sulla won a victory over them;[27] in B.C. 78-77
C. Cosconius, after a two years’ campaign, took Salonæ by storm.[28] But
little was really effected in securing the province against its enemies.
It was let much alone so long as its tribute was paid, and was put under
the governor sometimes of Macedonia, sometimes of Cisalpine Gaul. In
Cæsar’s case (B.C. 58) it was specially assigned, like the rest of his
province, and he seems at first to have intended to go there in force
and subdue the hostile barbarians. But the Gallic campaigns drew him
away, and he only once actually entered Illyricum (B.C. 54) to overawe
the invading Pirustæ. In the last year of his proconsulship (B.C. 50)
some troops which he sent against the Dalmatians were cut to pieces.
The result of this was that the barbarians, fearing his vengeance,
adhered to Pompey in the civil war, whose legate, M. Octavius, with a
considerable fleet, maintained himself there,[29] and in B.C. 49 defeated
and captured Gaius Antonius, whom Cæsar sent against him.[30] At the
beginning of the next year Aulus Gabinius, while trying to lead a force
round the head of the Adriatic to join Cæsar, lost nearly all his men
in a battle with the Dalmatians.[31] After Pharsalia Gabinius was sent
back to assist Cornificius, who had been despatched to Illyricum as
proprætor after the mishap of Gaius Antonius; but he was again defeated
and shut up in Salonæ, where he died suddenly.[32] In B.C. 47, however,
P. Vatinius, having joined Cornificius, defeated and drove Octavius out
of the country.[33] After serving also in the African campaign of B.C.
46, Vatinius was sent back to Illyricum with three legions (B.C. 45)
expressly to reduce the still independent tribes. At first he gained
sufficient success to be honoured by a _supplicatio_,[34] but after
Cæsar’s death he was defeated by the Dalmatians with the loss of five
cohorts, and was driven to take refuge in Dyrrachium.[35] Early in B.C.
43 he was forced to surrender his legions to M. Brutus, who, however, in
the year and a half which preceded his death at Philippi, was too busy
elsewhere to attend to Illyricum.[36] Hence the expeditions of Pollio in
B.C. 39,[37] and of Augustus in B.C. 35 were rendered necessary, and they
for a time secured the pacification of the country and the extension of
Roman provinces to the Danube.
[Sidenote: (4) SPAIN.]
At the death of Iulius SPAIN was also a source of great danger
and difficulty. Since B.C. 197 it had been divided into two
provinces—Citerior and Ulterior—separated by the Saltus Castulonensis
(_Sierra Morena_), each governed by a prætor or proprætor. In B.C. 54
Pompey introduced a triple division. Of his three legates Afranius held
Hispania Citerior; but the farther province was divided between Petreius,
who held the district as far west as the Anas (_Guadiana_), afterwards
called Bætica, while Terentius Varro governed the country west of that
river with Lusitania. Having forced Pompey’s legates to surrender the
country (B.C. 49), Cæsar seems not to have continued the triple division.
Q. Cassius was sent to Hispania Ulterior, M. Lepidus to Hispania
Citerior. But Cassius offended his own soldiers as well as the natives,
and had to escape by sea, being drowned on his way home. Nor did his
successor Trebonius do much better in B.C. 47; for many of his soldiers
deserted to Gnæus Pompeius when he came to Spain after the defeat at
Thapsus in the spring of B.C. 46.[38] And though Gnæus Pompeius perished
soon after the battle of Munda (B.C. 45) his younger brother Sextus
survived. At Cæsar’s death he was already at the head of a considerable
fleet which enabled him to control Sicily and re-occupy Bætica, when
its last Cæsarean governor—the famous C. Asinius Pollio—left it to join
Antony in Gallia Narbonensis in the summer of B.C. 43. The upper province
had meanwhile been governed by the legates of Metellus, who was about to
return to it and Gallia Narbonensis with four legions when Cæsar’s death
introduced new complications.[39]
[Sidenote: (5) SICILY.]
SICILY for eight years after Cæsar’s death was practically separated from
the Empire. In B.C. 49 it had been easily won over to Cæsar’s authority
by C. Curio, and after his success in Spain against Pompey’s legates
Cæsar had nominated Aulus Allienus[40] as its proprætor. In B.C. 46
Allienus was succeeded by M. Acilius[41] (afterwards sent to Achaia), who
in his turn was succeeded by T. Furfanius Postumus (B.C. 45). Finally,
among Cæsar’s arrangements for B.C. 44 was the appointment of Pompeius
Bithynicus to Sicily. His father had served under Pompey and had perished
with him in Egypt; and Bithynicus seems to have feared retaliation from
the Pompeians if they returned to power; for on the death of Cæsar we
find him writing to Cicero in evident anxiety as to his position.[42]
He failed to hold the island against Sext. Pompeius, who landed in B.C.
43, and after sustaining a slight reverse at Messene forced Bithynicus
to yield him a share in the government, and shortly afterwards put him
to death because he believed him to be plotting against him.[43] Sicily
therefore had to be restored to the Empire by the triumvirs, a task which
fell chiefly to Augustus.
[Sidenote: (6) SARDINIA.]
SARDINIA was important for its supply of corn. In B.C. 49 Cæsar’s
legate Q. Valerius Orca occupied it without difficulty, its governor,
M. Aurelius Cotta, escaping to Africa. In B.C. 48 Orca was succeeded by
Sext. Peducæus.[44] But the arrangements made between that date and B.C.
44 are not known, for Peducæus appears to have been in Rome from the end
of B.C. 45.[45] In the first division of the provinces by the triumvirs
(November, B.C. 43) it fell to Octavian’s share,[46] though Suetonius
remarks that Africa and Sardinia were the only two provinces never
visited by him.[47] Meanwhile Sext. Pompeius occupied it,[48] and it was
not recovered till B.C. 38.
[Sidenote: (7) AFRICA. NUMIDIA.]
The province of AFRICA—the ancient territory of Carthage—may be taken
with this western part of the Empire. It had long been a peaceful
province, but in B.C. 46 it was the scene of the great rally of the
Pompeians after the disaster at Pharsalia. Since their final defeat at
Thapsus it had been farther secured by Cæsar’s colony at Carthage (B.C.
46-5), and had been governed by a fervent Cæsarean, C. Calvisius Sabinus.
At the end of B.C. 45 Sabinus returned to Rome, and Q. Cornificius (once
Cæsar’s quæstor) was named to succeed him. But affairs in Africa had
been complicated by the formation of a new province from the dominions
of Iuba, called sometimes New Africa, sometimes Numidia (B.C. 46).
Of this new province the first proprætor was the historian Sallust,
succeeded in B.C. 45 by T. Sextius with three legions. On Cæsar’s
death, therefore, there were two men in Africa who might possibly
take different views of the situation. Cornificius indeed—friend and
correspondent of Cicero—shewed at once that he meant to stand by the
Senate. A few months later he was confirmed in this resolution by the
fact of his continuance in office depending on the senatorial decree
of the 20th of December,[49] whereas Antony had commissioned Calvisius
Sabinus (who had never withdrawn his legates from Africa) to go back to
the province.[50] Accordingly, after Antony’s defeat at Mutina (April,
B.C. 43), the Senate felt strong enough to order Sextius to transfer
his three legions to Cornificius, who was himself under orders to send
two of them to Rome.[51] This was done, and with the remaining legion
Cornificius maintained his position in Old Africa, when the Triumvirate
was formed in November, and was able to offer protection to many of the
proscribed. But Sextius now claimed both provinces, as having fallen to
Octavian’s share. He enrolled troops in his own province and obtained the
help of Arabion, of the royal family of Numidia and chief of the robber
tribe of Sittians; and though Cornificius had the stronger force, he was
presently defeated and killed. Octavian, however, looked upon Sextius
as a partisan of Antony rather than of himself, and presently sent C.
Fuficius Fango to supersede him. Sextius seems to have foreseen that
differences would occur between Antony and Octavian likely to give him a
chance of recovering his province. Therefore under pretence of wishing to
winter in a genial climate he stayed on in Africa. His opportunity came
with the new distribution of provinces after Philippi (October-November,
B.C. 42). Old or “Prætorian” Africa fell to Antony, New Africa or Numidia
to Octavian. But upon the quarrel between Octavian and Fulvia (supported
by Lucius Antonius) in B.C. 41, Sextius was urged by Fulvia to demand
the prætorian province from Fango as properly belonging to Antony. After
several battles, in which he met with various fortunes, Fango was at last
driven to take refuge in the mountains, and there killed himself. Sextius
then held both provinces till, in B.C. 40, the triumvir Lepidus took
possession of them as his share of the Empire.[52]
Thus the Western Provinces, in spite of Cæsar’s precautions, were all in
a condition to cause difficulty to his successors in the government. The
Eastern Provinces were for the most part in a state of similar disorder.
Illyricum has already been discussed, as most conveniently taken with
the Gauls. For those farther east Cæsar’s arrangements were no more
successful in securing peace than in the West.
[Sidenote: (8) MACEDONIA.]
The victory at Pharsalia put MACEDONIA under Cæsar’s control, and he
apparently continued to govern it till B.C. 45 by his legates. While in
Egypt (B.C. 48-7), fearing, it seems, that it might be made a centre of
resistance,[53] he directed Gabinius to go there with his legions, if the
state of Illyricum allowed of it.[54] We have no farther information
as to its government till the autumn of B.C. 45, when a large military
force was stationed there; and in that, or the following year, Q.
Hortensius—son of the famous orator—was made governor. Marcus Brutus was
named by Cæsar to succeed him in B.C. 43, and Hortensius did, in fact,
hand over the province to him at Thessalonica at the beginning of that
year. But meanwhile Antony had induced the Senate to nominate himself
(June, B.C. 44). He withdrew five of the legions and then managed to get
the province transferred to his brother Gaius. When Antony was declared
a _hostis_, the Senate revoked the nomination of Gaius and restored the
province, along with Illyricum, to M. Brutus, who was in fact already in
possession, having defeated and captured Gaius Antonius.
[Sidenote: (9) GREECE.]
Closely connected with Macedonia was GREECE, which had been left, since
B.C. 146, in a somewhat anomalous position. Thessaly indeed, was, to
a great extent, incorporated with Macedonia; but the towns in Bœotia,
as well as Athens and Sparta, were nominally free, though connected
with Rome in such a way as to be sometimes spoken of separately as
“provinces.” So with the towns in the Peloponnese once forming the Achæan
League. The League was dissolved and each town had a separate _fœdus_
or charter.[55] But with all this local autonomy Greece was practically
governed by Rome, and in certain cases the proprætor of Macedonia
exercised jurisdiction in it. But as yet there was no “province” of
Greece or even of Achaia, with a separate proconsul or proprætor. Cæsar,
as in other cases, made temporary arrangements which afterwards became
permanent under Augustus. In B.C. 48, Q. Fufius Calenus, one of his
legates, was sent to take possession of Greek cities in Cæsar’s interest,
and remained at Patræ with troops till B.C. 47, exercising authority
over the whole of the Peloponnese.[56] In the autumn he went home and
was rewarded by the consulship for the rest of the year. But in B.C.
46, Cæsar appointed Serv. Sulpicius Rufus governor of Greece, and his
authority seems to have extended throughout the Peloponnese and as far
north as Thessaly.[57] Sulpicius returned to Rome at the end of B.C.
45, or beginning of B.C. 44, and does not seem to have had a successor.
Greece appears to have been tacitly allowed to revert to its old position
of nominal freedom and real attachment to Macedonia. M. Brutus at any
rate, as governor of Macedonia, assumed that he had authority in Greece.
After the re-arrangement at Philippi (B.C. 42), it fell to Antony’s
share, who, for a time at least, yielded Achaia to Sext. Pompeius.[58]
[Sidenote: The Asiatic Provinces.]
[Sidenote: (10) BITHYNIA AND PONTUS.]
As Cæsar was meditating a settlement of Syria, it was important that the
Asiatic provinces should be in safe hands. To BITHYNIA and PONTUS—among
the newest of Roman provinces—L. Tillius Cimber had been nominated.
We know nothing of his antecedents except that we find him among the
influential friends of Cæsar in B.C. 46; but his provincial appointment
was readily confirmed by the Senate after his share in Cæsar’s death.[59]
He devoted himself to the collection of a fleet, with which he aided the
pursuit of Dolabella, and afterwards assisted Brutus and Cassius.
[Sidenote: (11) ASIA.]
The province of ASIA was quiet and wealthy. For financial and strategic
reasons it was specially necessary at this time to have it in safe hands.
Cæsar had nominated C. Trebonius, who had been his legate in Gaul and
Britain, and had often been intrusted with important commands. He had
stuck to his old general in the civil war and had been rewarded by the
prætorship of B.C. 48, and the province of Farther Spain in the next
year. Though he was not successful in Spain Cæsar continued to trust
him sufficiently to send him to Asia. He did not actually strike a blow
in the assassination, but he aided it by withdrawing Antony from the
Senate on a treacherous pretence of business. His appointment was readily
confirmed by the Senate, and he went to Asia purposing to fortify towns
and collect troops to aid the party of the assassins. It was this—not
alone his participation in the murder—which caused Dolabella, probably at
the instigation and certainly with the approval of Antony,[60] to put him
to death when refused admittance by him into Smyrna or Pergamus. At the
end of the year the Senate had arranged that he was to be succeeded by
one of the Consuls, Hirtius or Pansa. But after his murder the province
remained in the hands of his quæstor,[61] and on the death of Hirtius and
Pansa at Mutina it was transferred by the Senate to M. Brutus (to be held
with Macedonia), who in the course of B.C. 42 made a progress through it
to hold the _conventus_, to collect men and money, and to meet Cassius.
It was, no doubt, heavily taxed; and after the battle of Philippi Antony
took possession of it and again unmercifully drained its resources.
[Sidenote: (12) CILICIA.]
On quitting the province of CILICIA in July, B.C. 50, Cicero left it in
charge of his quæstor, C. Cælius Caldus. Whether, in the confusion of the
first years of civil war, any successor was appointed we do not know.
The province needed some resettlement, for in B.C. 47 Cæsar stopped at
Tarsus, on his way to Pontus, for some days, to meet the chief men and
make certain regulations, of which he does not tell us the nature.[62]
But it seems that then, or shortly afterwards, it was considerably
reduced in extent. The Phrygian “dioceses”—Laodicea, Apamea, and
Synnada—were assigned to Asia, as well as most of Pisidia and Pamphylia.
The remainder—Cilicia Aspera, and Campestris, with Cyprus—seem to have
been held somewhat irregularly by Cæsar’s own legates. It was afterwards
treated by Antony as though at his own disposal, Cyprus and Cilicia
Aspera being presented to Cleopatra, part of Phrygia with Lycaonia,
Isaurica, and Pisidia to Amyntas, king of Galatia. The province, in
fact, as known to Cicero, was almost separated from the Empire until
reorganised by Augustus.
[Sidenote: (13) SYRIA.]
The province of SYRIA was extremely important in view of the danger from
the Parthians. Bounded on the north by Mount Amanus it included Phœnicia
and Cœle-Syria as far south as the head of the Red Sea and the eastern
mouth of the Nile. On the east it was bounded by the Euphrates and the
deserts of Arabia. After the organisation of Pompey in B.C. 63 it had
been administered by proconsuls and the usual staff. In B.C. 57-6 it was
held by Gabinius, who employed his forces for the restoration of Ptolemy
Auletes to the throne of Egypt. In B.C. 54-3 it was held by Crassus; and
after his fall at Carrhæ it was successfully defended and administered
by C. Cassius as _quæstor_ and _proquæstor_. In B.C. 51-50, while Cicero
was in Cilicia, it was ruled by Bibulus; and in B.C. 49 Pompey secured
it for his father-in-law, Q. Cæcilius Metellus Scipio, who collected
troops and went to the aid of Pompey in Thessaly, and after Pharsalia
escaped to Africa. It was then put in the hands of the quæstor, Sextus
Iulius, a connection of the Dictator, with some legions, one of which
had been left there by Cæsar in anticipation of the coming Parthian war.
But a new complication had been introduced by Q. Cæcilius Bassus. This
man had been with Pompey at Pharsalia and had escaped to Syria, where
for a time he lived obscurely. But after a while, by tampering with
the soldiers of Sextus Iulius, who was both incompetent and vicious,
he induced them to assassinate their commander and transfer their
allegiance to himself.[63] Professing to be lawful proconsul of Syria
he fortified himself in Apamea, and there repulsed forces sent by Cæsar
under Antistius Vetus and L. Statius Murcus successively. He made some
agreement with the Parthians which secured their aid;[64] and though
Murcus was reinforced by Crispus governor of Bithynia, Bassus was still
unsubdued at the time of Cæsar’s death. There had been, therefore,
a double need for a strong man in Syria, and Cæsar had nominated C.
Cassius, the former defender of it against the Parthians. After Cæsar’s
death, however, Dolabella secured the passing of a law transferring Syria
to himself with the command against the Parthians. But some irregularity
in the auguries taken at the comitia gave Cassius a plausible excuse
for ignoring this law. Consequently when Dolabella entered the province
from the north, Cassius did so from the south. After some successful
movements in Palestine, Cassius induced Murcus and Crispus, and finally
Bassus himself, to hand over their legions to him, as well as Trebonius’s
legate, Allienus, who was bringing some legions from Egypt.[65] Thus
reinforced he shut up Dolabella in Laodicea and frightened him into
committing suicide. Syria therefore remained in the hands of Cassius; and
when he fell at Philippi it was vacant. In accordance with the agreement
made with Octavian after that battle it fell to the lot of Antony, who
retained it personally, or by his legates, till his death.
[Sidenote: (14) EGYPT.]
EGYPT was still an independent kingdom, ruled since B.C. 47 by Cleopatra.
Nevertheless, there was a considerable Roman force stationed in it,
partly left by Gabinius, when he restored Ptolemy Auletes in B.C. 57-6,
partly stationed there by Cæsar himself. They must have been somewhat
in the position of the English troops supporting the authority of the
Khedive, but prepared to resist all outside interference. So in this case
the Romans retained a preponderating influence, though with no legal
authority or right of raising revenue. These troops appear to have been
in a very disorderly state, and in B.C. 50 murdered two of the sons of
Bibulus who were among their officers.[66]
[Sidenote: (15) CYRENE AND CRETE.]
The district between Egypt and Roman Africa, called CYRENE, was once
joined to Egypt and then governed by a king of its own (B.C. 117). This
king (Ptolemy Apion), dying in B.C. 96 without issue, left his dominions
to the Romans. The Roman government took over the royal estates, and
placed a tax on the principal product of the country—silphium (valuable
for its medicinal qualities)—but did not organise it as a province.
The five principal cities[67] were allowed to retain a pretty complete
autonomy. But upon disagreements between these states breaking out, the
whole country in B.C. 74 was reduced to the form of a province governed
by a _quæstor pro prætore_.[68] Six years later (B.C. 68-7) complaints
as to the harbouring of pirates caused Q. Cæcilius Metellus to reduce
CRETE also.[69] When Pompey superseded Metellus in B.C. 67, he introduced
certain changes in the administration of both provinces, though there
is no proof that he combined them as was done at a later date. In B.C.
44 indeed, they were assigned separately—Crete to Brutus and Cyrene to
Cassius[70]—while Antony produced a memorandum of Cæsar’s directing that
Crete should be restored to liberty,[71] that is, should cease to pay
_tributum_. At the division of the provinces after Philippi both were
assigned to Antony, and he assumed the right some years later of forming
out of them a kingdom for his daughter by Cleopatra.
[Sidenote: The general disorders in the Empire.]
It will be seen therefore that at Cæsar’s death there was hardly any
part of the Empire in which there were not elements of mischief more or
less active. The most peaceful district was perhaps Greece, though it
managed to put itself under the frown of the triumvirs by sympathising
with Brutus, and later on under that of Octavian by sympathising with
Antony. The disturbances which most affected the actual residents in Rome
and Italy were those in Sicily and Sardinia, Gaul and Illyricum. The
man who should put an end to these would seem a saviour of society. The
struggles in the far East, though from a financial point of view they
were of considerable importance, would not loom so large in the eyes of
the Italians. We have now to trace the steps by which Augustus was able
to satisfy the needs of the state; to restore peace and plenty to Italy;
to organise and safeguard the provinces; and thus to be almost worshipped
as the visible guarantee of order and tranquillity.
CHAPTER III
THE INHERITANCE
_Cui dabit partes scelus_
_expiandi Iuppiter?_
[Sidenote: News of Cæsar’s murder brought to Apollonia, March, B.C. 44.]
The news of his great-uncle’s death reached Octavius at Apollonia in the
afternoon, just as he and his suite were going to dinner. A vague rumour
of some great misfortune quickly spread through the town, and many of
the leading inhabitants hastened to the house with zealous friendliness
to ascertain its truth. After a hasty consultation with his friends,
Octavius decided to get rid of most of them while inviting a few of the
highest rank to discuss with him what should be done. This being effected
with some difficulty, an anxious debate was carried on into the night.
Opinions were divided. One party urged Octavius to go to the army in
Macedonia, appeal to its attachment to Cæsar, and call on the legions
to follow him to Rome to avenge the murdered Dictator.[72] Those who
thus advised trusted to the impression likely to be made by Octavius’s
personal charm and the pity which his position would excite. Others
thought this too great an undertaking for so young a man. They argued
that the many friends whom Cæsar had raised to positions of honour and
profit might be trusted to avenge his murder. They did not yet know that
theirs were the very hands which had struck him down. After listening to
the various opinions Octavius resolved to take no decisive step until
he had reached Italy, had consulted his friends there, and had seen the
state of affairs with his own eyes.
[Sidenote: Octavius prepares to go to Italy, April, B.C. 44.]
Preparations for crossing were begun at once, and in the few days before
the start farther details of the assassination reached Apollonia. The
citizens begged Octavius to stay, putting all the resources of the town
at his disposal; and a number of officers and soldiers came from the
army with tenders of service, whether to guard his person or to avenge
the Dictator. But for the present he declined all offers. He thanked the
Apolloniates and promised the town immunities and privileges—a promise
which in after years he did not forget. He told the officers and soldiers
that he would claim their services at some future time. For the present
he did not need them: “only let them be ready when the time came.” The
conduct of the Martia and Quarta a few months later shewed that these
feelings were genuine and lasting.
Octavius had a poor vessel and a stormy crossing, but landed in safety,
probably at Hydruntum (_Otranto_), the nearest point in Calabria, and in
fair weather only a five hours’ voyage.[73] That fact and the state of
the wind may have influenced the choice of the port. But he was also too
much in the dark as to affairs in Italy to venture upon such a frequented
landing-place as Brundisium, where he might have found himself in the
midst of political enemies or hostile troops. From Hydruntum he went by
land to Lupiæ, rather more than half way to Brundisium. There he first
met some who had witnessed Cæsar’s funeral, had heard the recitation of
his will, and could tell him that he was adopted as Cæsar’s son, and
(with a deduction of a liberal legacy to the citizens) was heir to
three-quarters of his property,[74] the remaining fourth being divided
between Cæsar’s two other grand-nephews Q. Pedius and Lucius Pinarius.
He learnt also that the Dictator’s funeral, which by his will was to be
conducted by Atia, had been performed in the Forum amidst great popular
excitement, caused partly by the sight of his wounded body,[75] partly by
Antony’s speech, and had been followed by attacks on the houses of the
chief assassins, who, after barricading themselves for three days on the
Capitol, had found it necessary to retire from Rome, first to the villa
of Brutus at Lanuvium, and then to Antium,[76] in spite of the amnesty
voted in the Senate on the 17th of March.
[Sidenote: Octavian accepts the inheritance and name, May, B.C. 44.]
Though deeply moved by this story Octavian did not allow his feelings
to betray him into taking any false or hasty step. _Satis celeriter
quod satis bene_ was his motto now as in after life.[77] He went on to
Brundisium, having ascertained that it was not occupied by enemies, and
there received letters from his mother and stepfather confirming what he
had already heard. His mother begged him to join her at once, to avoid
the jealousies roused by his adoption. Philippus advised him to accept
neither inheritance nor name, and to hold aloof from public business.
The advice was, no doubt, prompted by affection, and was natural in
the circumstances. But though Octavian never blustered, neither did he
easily turn aside: he wrote back declaring his determination to accept.
His own friends henceforth addressed him as “Cæsar,” his full name now
being Gaius Iulius Cæsar Octavianus.[78] The adoption indeed was not
complete without the formal passing of a _lex curiata_; but though that
was delayed for more than a year, the new name was assumed at once. He
complied with his mother’s wish that he should visit her first, and he
soon had the satisfaction of feeling that though Philippus was still
opposed, her heart was with him in the manly resolve to sustain the great
part which Cæsar’s affection had assigned to him. Cicero mentions in a
letter of April 11th that Octavius had arrived in Italy, and on the 18th
that he had reached Naples. On the 19th Balbus—the Dictator’s friend and
agent—called on him and learned from his own lips his resolve to accept
the inheritance. On the 22nd Cicero met him at his stepfather’s villa
near Puteoli, and anxiously watched for any indication of his political
aims. He was only partly satisfied.
“Octavius here treats me with great respect and friendliness.
His own people addressed him as ‘Cæsar,’ but as Philippus did
not do so, I did not do it either. I declare it is impossible
for him to be a good citizen! He is surrounded by such a number
of people who actually threaten our friends with death. He says
the present state of things is intolerable.”[79]
It was not Octavian’s cue as yet to break openly with the aristocrats.
The first struggles for his rights were likely to be with Antony, in
which the aid of Cicero and his party would be useful. At the same time
he was too cautious and self-controlled to commit himself or betray his
real intentions, which remained an enigma to the emotional orator, who
hardly ever spoke without doing so. Cicero consoled himself by the
reflection that at any rate Octavian’s claims must cause a quarrel with
Antony. Yet he was indignant that this stripling could go to Rome without
risk, while Brutus and Cassius and the other “heroes” of the dagger could
not. Octavian’s journey to Rome was for the twofold purpose of giving
formal notice to the prætor urbanus that he accepted the inheritance, and
of making a statement of his intentions as administrator of the will at a
public assembly. For the latter he needed to be introduced to the meeting
by a tribune. For this service he relied on Lucius Antonius. All three
brothers were in office this year—Marcus consul, Gaius prætor, Lucius
tribune; and as supporters of the late Cæsar they could not in decency
refuse him this opportunity of declaring his sentiments.
[Sidenote: Octavian and M. Antonius.]
Octavian reached Rome in the first week of May, duly accepted the
inheritance, and was introduced to a _contio_ by Lucius Antonius about
the 10th of that month.[80] The speech was not satisfactory to the
Ciceronian party. He declared his intention to carry out his “father’s”
will as to the legacy to the people, and to celebrate the games at the
dedication of the temple of Venus promised by Cæsar. Preparations for
them were begun at once, two of the Dictator’s friends, Matius and
Postumius, being selected to superintend them.[81] But though confining
himself to expressions of veneration for his “father’s” memory, and
uttering no threats against any one, Octavian had not given up for a
moment his resolve to punish the murderers. The amnesty voted in the
Senate he regarded as a temporary expedient. All that was needed was an
accuser, and he did not mean that such a person should be long wanting.
But meanwhile his first business was to secure his own position and the
possession of Cæsar’s property. This at once brought him into collision
with Antony.
[Sidenote: The money at the temple of Ops.]
The financial arrangements of the late Dictator were to a great degree to
blame for this. He seems to have introduced the system of the _fiscus_,
though without the name known in later times: that is, large sums of
money were deposited in the temple of Ops to his order, separate from the
public _ærarium_ of the temple of Saturnus, and not clearly distinguished
from his own private property. It was as though a Chancellor of the
Exchequer paid portions of the revenue to his private banking account,
and were to die suddenly without leaving any means of distinguishing
between public and private property.[82] Cicero says that this money
(700,000,000 sesterces, or about five and a half millions sterling) was
the proceeds of the sale of confiscated properties,[83] and there was, it
seems, much other property in lands and houses from the same source. The
claim by an heir of Cæsar would be met by a double opposition—from the
government, which would regard the whole as public; and from the owners
or their representatives, who might have hopes of recovering parts of it.
For at Rome confiscation did not bar claims under marriage settlements,
or for debts secured on properties. The large sum at the temple of Ops
had been taken over entirely by Antony the Consul, nominally as being
public money, really—as Cicero affirms—to liquidate his own enormous
debts. It is very likely that Antony shared the spoil with others,
perhaps with his colleague Dolabella, and they may have satisfied their
consciences with some partial use of it for public purposes.[84] At
any rate it was not forthcoming when Octavian put in his claim. Even
in regard to such property as was handed over to him he was constantly
harassed by lawsuits. Claimants were instigated, as he believed, by one
or other of the Antonies; while Gaius Antonius, acting _prætor urbanus_
for Brutus, would often preside in the court. He was resolved, however,
to carry out Cæsar’s will, even if he had to sell his own paternal estate
and draw upon his mother’s resources. But it seems, after all, that the
property of Cæsar which he did manage to get, or his own wealth, was so
ample, that he was able to do this without crippling himself. Pinarius
and Pedius got their shares, but handed them over to him, perhaps as
being too heavily weighted with legacies to be of much value to them, or
thinking that his great future made it a good investment. At any rate
the legacies were paid, the games given, and when some months later he
proceeded to enroll two legions of veterans he was able to pay each man
a bounty amounting to something like £20 of our money.[85] At no time in
his career does he seem to have had serious money difficulties. No doubt
his resources were always large, but he must also have had the valuable
faculty of husbanding them in small matters, while always having enough
for large outlays.
[Sidenote: Difficulties about Octavian’s adoption.]
But it was not only in regard to money that Octavian found himself
thwarted by Antony and his brothers. A tribune, probably Lucius Antonius
himself, prevented the formal passing of the _lex curiata_ for his
adoption, with a view of weakening his claims upon the inheritance. When
he wished to be elected tribune in the place of Cinna, who had fallen
a victim to the mob in mistake for L. Cinna, a prætor who had spoken
against Cæsar, he was prevented by the partisans of Antony.[86] There
was indeed a legal obstacle in the fact that he was now a patrician,[87]
was under age, and had not held the quæstorship, though this last was
a breach of custom rather than of law. Lastly, Antony treated him with
studied disrespect, keeping him waiting in his ante-room; while Lucius
Antonius and the other tribunes forbade him to place Cæsar’s gilded chair
in the Circus at his games.[88]
[Sidenote: Octavian and the Optimates. After the meeting of the Senate in
June.]
It was clear that a breach between the two was imminent. The younger man
was not abashed by the years or high office of the other; and though some
formal reconciliation was brought about by common friends or by military
officers, Octavian seems to have allowed the Ciceronians to believe that
he intended to join them in opposing Antony. His attentions to them
became more marked after the meeting of the Senate of the 1st of June. To
this meeting the Constitutionalists had been looking forward as likely
to bring the uncertainty to an end. At it the question of the provinces
was to be settled; the two consuls, with the aid of a committee, were to
report on what were the genuine _acta_ of Cæsar; and some means were to
be found to enable Brutus and Cassius to carry on their duties as prætors
in Rome with safety.
[Sidenote: Antony and Cæsar’s _acta_ and veterans.]
Meanwhile Antony had been availing himself of the papers of Cæsar as
though the committee had already reported. He had also been securing
himself—as he thought—by visiting the colonies of Cæsar’s veterans in
Campania[89] and by gradually collecting a bodyguard. This had now
assumed sufficiently formidable proportions to overawe the Senate.[90] It
is true that he had experienced difficulties at Capua, where the existing
coloni resented his attempt to plant others in the same territory; but,
on the whole, he seems to have improved his position by his tour in April
and May. Then again Lepidus had visited Sext. Pompeius in Spain, and was
reported to have induced him, on condition of recovering his father’s
property, to return to Rome and place his naval and military forces
(amounting to more than six legions) at the disposal of the consuls.[91]
This, thinks Cicero, would make Antony irresistible; and so no doubt
thought Octavian also.
[Sidenote: The position of Brutus and Cassius. The change of provinces.]
Nor did the meetings of the Senate in June effect anything to dissipate
these fears. What was done for Brutus and Cassius satisfied neither
party. They were offered the _cura annonæ_, superintendence of the
corn supply—Cassius in Sicily, Brutus in Asia—which would give them a
decent pretext for being absent from Rome for the rest of the year.
They, however, regarded this offer as an insult.[92] So also in regard
to the provinces: Brutus and Cassius were deprived of Macedonia and
Syria, which Cæsar had assigned to them respectively, and were offered
the unimportant governorships of Crete and Cyrene. But Antony in the
same meetings secured still greater military strength for himself by an
arrangement with Dolabella. The latter was appointed to Syria and the
command against the Parthians by a _lex_; and he then induced the Senate
to give Macedonia to himself, with the command of the legions stationed
there, one of which he had bargained with Dolabella to hand over to him.
These decrees having been passed,[93] he sent his brother Gaius over at
once to announce the fact to the legions in Macedonia and to give them
notice that they might at any time be summoned to Italy. For Antony
himself had no intention of going to Macedonia. His private resolve was
to hold Gallia Cisalpina with the largest force possible, as giving him
most hold on Italy. He had only accepted Macedonia in order to get these
legions into his hands. At the same time he carried a repeal of Cæsar’s
law confining the tenure of a province for a proprætor to one, and for a
proconsul to two, years.
[Sidenote: Antony gets himself nominated to Cisalpina Gaul.]
Though this increasing power of Antony was naturally calculated to alarm
Octavius, he was, on the other hand, opposed to Decimus Brutus—one of
the assassins—retaining Gallia Cisalpina. He therefore supported Antony
in carrying a law conferring that province on him at the end of his
consulship.[94] The Senators now saw that they had been tricked. They had
given Antony the Macedonian legions without conditions, and he would now
use them in another province given him by a _lex_—over which they had no
control. Suggestions were made to remove Gallia Cisalpina from the list
of provinces, and incorporate it (as was afterwards done by Augustus) in
Italy, thus doing away with any pretext for a proconsul residing there
with legions. But for the present the law stood which assigned it to
Antony for B.C. 43. It appears to have been passed by the beginning of
July, and he at once sent word to his brother to bring the legions over.
They were expected in July,[95] but did not actually arrive till nearly
three months later. Meanwhile a war of recriminations was maintained
between Antony the consul and Brutus and Cassius the prætors by letters
or edicts. Antony accused the prætors of collecting forces hostile to
the government, the prætors accused Antony of making it impossible for
them to come to Rome by denouncing them in speeches and edicts, in breach
of his promise. On the 1st of August L. Calpurnius Piso—father-in-law
of the late Cæsar—inveighed against Antony in the Senate, ending with
a hostile motion, of the exact nature of which we are not informed.
But he could get no one to speak or vote with him, so completely cowed
were the Senators by Antony’s military forces.[96] On the other hand,
Antony was uneasy at the growing popularity of Octavian, especially
among the veterans. He had himself made a bid for their favour by two
commissions for assigning land to them both in Italy and the provinces.
But the veterans were suspicious; they had expected some signal act of
vengeance for the murder of Cæsar; and at the same time Antony’s lavish
grants of public land to unworthy favourites impoverished the exchequer
and diminished the amount available for distribution. They lowered his
popularity with the veterans as much as they annoyed the Senators, who
yet did not venture to oppose him.
[Sidenote: Attempted assassination of Antony.]
The friction between the two men—varied by occasional
reconciliations—became more and more acute, until about the end of
September it was rumoured that Octavian had suborned men to assassinate
Antony. Of course Octavian disclaimed it, and upon Antony giving out that
certain men had been found in his house with daggers, he went openly
with an offer to serve along with his friends among his bodyguards. The
popular belief was that Antony had invented the whole story to discredit
him; but Cicero and others of his party both believed and approved, and
subsequent writers are divided in opinion. Nicolas of Damascus probably
gives Octavian’s own version, according to which Antony was unable to
produce the pretended assassins to a council of his friends, or to
induce them to advise active retaliation upon Octavian. Appian points
out that it was not to Octavian’s interest just then that Antony should
disappear, for it would have been a great encouragement to the party of
the Assassins, of whose real sentiments towards himself he was no doubt
aware.[97]
For with this party his alliance was a matter of great doubt. In June
Cicero had said of him:
[Sidenote: Octavian and the Optimates.]
“In Octavian, as I have perceived, there is no little ability
and spirit; and he seems likely to be as well disposed to our
heroes as I could wish. But what confidence one can feel in a
man of his age, name, inheritance, and upbringing may well give
us pause. His stepfather, whom I saw at Antium, thinks none at
all. However, we must foster him, and, if nothing else, keep
him estranged from Antony. Marcellus will be doing admirable
service if he gives him good advice. Octavian seems devoted to
him, but has no great confidence in Pansa and Hirtius.”[98]
Philippus was not a man for whom Cicero had a great respect.[99] But
Marcellus, the husband of Octavia (Cos. B.C. 50), was a sound aristocrat
and a trustworthy man. Still Octavian had done nothing since to identify
himself with the conservative party, in spite of his differences with
Antony. With Cicero himself he kept up friendly communications; yet at
the final breach between Cicero and Antony in September, it does not seem
to have occurred to Cicero to put forward Octavian as Antony’s opponent;
nor does he mention him in the first two Philippics. It was Octavian’s
own independent action which first shewed that he was ready and able to
assume that position, and Cicero viewed this at first with anxiety and
almost dismay.
[Sidenote: Octavian enrolls veterans.]
Antony left Rome on the 9th of October to meet the Macedonian legions
at Brundisium. Octavian no longer hesitated. Sending agents to tamper
with the loyalty of the newly arrived legions, he himself went a round
of the veterans in Campania, offering them a bounty of 500 denarii
(about £20), if they would enlist again. In doing this he acted wholly
on his own initiative and without authority from Senate or people, and
without holding any office giving him military command.[100] In after
years Augustus regarded this as the first step in his public career,
the first service rendered to the State: “When nineteen years old I
raised an army on my own initiative and at my own expense, with which
I restored to liberty the republic which had been crushed under the
tyranny of a faction.” And not only did he reckon this his first public
service; the wording of this statement is a declaration that he thereby
adopted the policy and was continuing the work of his “father,” for he
uses the very phrase which Cæsar had used in justifying himself.[101]
This phrase illustrates another point also. Ostensibly the enrolment of
veterans was to protect himself against Antony. Perhaps he did not yet
see how it was to be done, but at the bottom of his heart was the purpose
of checkmating, if not destroying, the clique which had caused Cæsar’s
murder, though for the moment he was with them in opposition to Antony,
and was eager to have Cicero’s support and approval. Yet how doubtful and
uneasy the orator felt is shewn by two letters in which he tells what
Octavian was doing.
“Puteoli, 2 November. On the evening of the 1st I got a letter
from Octavian. He is entering upon a serious undertaking.
He has won over to his views all the veterans at Casilinum
and Calatia. And no wonder: he gives a bounty of 500 denarii
apiece. Clearly his view is a war with Antony under his own
leadership. So I perceive that before many days are over we
shall be in arms. But whom are we to follow? Consider his name,
consider his age! Again, he demands to begin with a secret
interview with me at Capua of all places! It is really quite
childish to suppose that it can be kept quiet. I have written
to explain to him that it is neither necessary nor practicable.
He sent a certain Cæcina of Volaterræ to me, an intimate friend
of his own, who brought me news that Antony was on his way to
the city with the _Alaudæ_, was imposing money contribution
on the municipal towns, and was marching at the head of the
legion with colours flying. He wanted my opinion, whether he
should start for Rome with his legion of 3,000 veterans, or
should hold Capua, and so intercept Antony’s advance, or should
join the three Macedonian legions now sailing by the Mare
Superum, which he hopes are devoted to himself. They refused
to accept a bounty offered them by Antony, as my informant at
least asserts. They even used grossly insulting language to
him and moved off when he attempted to address them. In short,
Octavian offers himself as our military leader, and thinks
that our right policy is to stand by him. On my part I advised
his making for Rome. For I think he will have, not only the
city mob, but, if he can impress them with confidence, the
loyalists also on his side. Oh, Brutus! Where are you! What an
opportunity you are losing! I did not actually foresee this,
but I thought that something of the sort would happen.”
“Puteoli [3] November. Two letters on the same day from
Octavian! His present view is that I should come to Rome at
once, and that he wishes to act through the Senate. I told him
that a meeting of the Senate was impossible before the 1st of
January, and I believe it is so. But he adds also, ‘and by your
advice.’ In short he insists, while I suspend judgment. I don’t
trust his youth, I am in the dark as to his disposition, I am
not able to do anything without your friend Pansa. I am afraid
of Antony succeeding, and I don’t like moving far from the sea.
At the same time I fear some great _coup_ being struck without
my being there. Varro for his part dislikes the youth’s plan.
I don’t agree with him. He has forces on which he can depend.
He can count on Decimus Brutus, and is making no secret of his
intentions. He is organising his men in companies at Capua, he
is paying them their bounty money. War seems to be ever coming
nearer and nearer.”[102]
[Sidenote: Antony’s breach with the Senate, November-December, B.C. 44.]
In spite of these half-hearted and doubtful expressions of Cicero, the
Senate at his own suggestion was presently glad to approve Octavian’s
action, and to accept his aid. For events now followed quickly.
When Antony met the legions at Brundisium, sent over by his brother
Gaius,[103] he seems at first to have found them ready to obey him. But
difficulties were presently promoted by the agents of Octavian, who
offered the men liberal bounties, or scattered _libelli_ among them
denouncing Antony’s tyranny and neglect of Cæsar’s memory, and urging
Octavian’s claim on their allegiance. Signs of mutiny soon shewed
themselves, and after a stormy meeting at which some officers and men
used insubordinate language, Antony arrested and put to death several of
the officers as ringleaders, and about 300 men.[104] These severities,
followed by more liberal offers and some conciliatory language, seemed
for the time to put an end to the mutiny. Selecting therefore a
“prætorian cohort” from the legions, Antony started for Rome, ordering
the rest to march in detachments up the coast road to Ariminum, where the
_via Æmilia_ through the valley of the Po begins. In Cicero’s letters
of the 8th, 11th, and 12th of November are recorded the various rumours
of his approach, and the anxieties as to what he intended to do at
Rome.[105] He arrived about the 20th in full military array, and entered
the city with a strong bodyguard, the rest of his men being encamped
outside the walls. He did not stay long however. Having summoned the
Senate for the 25th, in an edict, in which he denounced the character and
aims of Octavian,[106] he went to Tibur, where he had ordered his new
levies to muster. Here he delivered a speech, which Cicero afterwards
described as “pestilent.”[107] On the 25th, however, he did not appear
in the Senate. A second edict postponed the meeting to the 29th. Cicero
insinuates that his non-appearance on the 25th was caused by some extra
debauch. But, in fact, the reason may have been the news about the _legio
Martia_, which, instead of going to Ariminum, had turned off from the
coast road and reached Alba Fucensis. It might be of course that the
legion was on its way to join Antony at Tibur, to which there was a good
road from Alba Fucensis (_via Valeria_). Antony therefore went to Alba,
but found the gates closed, and was greeted by a shower of arrows from
the walls. It was clear that this legion at least did not mean to serve
him. He came to Rome for the meeting of the Senate on the 29th, but was
informed just before it that the Quarta had followed the example of the
Martia, and was at Alba Fucensis. He understood that these legions meant
to join Octavian, and he no longer thought it possible to get Octavian
declared a _hostis_, though one of his partisans was ready to propose it.
Having therefore transacted some formal business—chiefly the allotment
of provinces, in which his brother Gaius obtained Macedonia, and a
supplicatio in honour of Lepidus, he hurriedly returned to Tibur. His
friends and supporters visited him in great numbers; but within a few
days he was on his march to Ariminum to join what remained of the five
Macedonian legions.[108]
[Sidenote: Cicero’s doubts as to Octavian’s intentions.]
Antony’s object was to attack Decimus Brutus, whose forces were
concentrated at Mutina. But at any rate, he was gone from Rome, and
Octavian had won the first trick in the game. Cicero attributes Antony’s
lowered tone in the Senate, and his hurried departure, to Octavian’s
promptness and success in raising the veterans, and inducing the Martia
and Quarta to desert him. At first, however, he had not felt easy as to
the young man’s intentions. Writing from Puteoli on the 5th of November
he tells Atticus that he gets a letter from Octavian every day, begging
him to come to Capua and once more to save the republic, or, if not, at
least to go to Rome. Cicero is “shamed to refuse and yet afraid to take”;
but owns that Octavian is acting with vigour, and will probably enter
Rome in great force. But he doubts whether the young man understands
the situation, or the terrorism established by Antony in the Senate. He
had better wait, he thinks, till the new consulate begins on January
1st.[109] About the 12th of November, he tells Atticus that if Octavian
wins now, the fear is that he will confirm Cæsar’s _acta_ more completely
than ever, which will be against the interests of Brutus, while, if he is
beaten, Antony will become more despotic still.[110] Early in December
(or the end of November), he mentions with alarm the possibility of
Octavian being elected for a chance vacancy in the Tribunate[111]; and
assents to a remark made by Atticus, that though Octavian had given
Antony a notable check, “they must wait to see the end.” Again he says to
Oppius, “I cannot be warmly on his side without having some security that
he will cordially embrace the friendship of Brutus and Cassius and the
other tyrannicides.”[112]
[Sidenote: Octavian begins his march.]
On the 9th of December, however, when he came to Rome after Antony’s
departure, Cicero made up his mind that for the present all distrust was
to be dismissed or at least concealed. Octavian had mustered his forces
at Alba Fucensis, and after some communications with the Senate—which
warmly welcomed his offer of aid—had started with his legions on the
track of Antony; who before the end of the year began the investment of
Mutina, upon the refusal of Decimus Brutus to quit the province.
[Sidenote: Octavian is recognised by the Senate, and obtains imperium,
Jan. B.C. 43.]
Accordingly, on the 20th of December, Cicero himself proposed a
resolution in the Senate authorising the Consuls-designate to provide for
the safe meeting of the Senate on the 1st of January; approving of an
edict of Decimus Brutus, just arrived, in which he forbade any one with
imperium entering his province to succeed him; directing all provincial
governors to retain their provinces till successors were named by the
Senate; and, lastly, approving the action of “Gaius Cæsar” in enrolling
the veterans, and of the Martia and Quarta in having joined him. These
resolutions were to be formally put to the Senate on the 1st of January
by the new consuls.[113] Accordingly on that and the following days,
after somewhat stormy debates, these decrees were passed, as well as one
which acknowledged the services of Octavian, and gave him the rank of
proprætor with imperium. It was also enacted that in regard to elections
to office he should be considered to have held the quæstorship. He
thus became a member of the Senate, with a right of speaking among the
_prætorii_, and consequently with a plausible claim to stand for the
consulship, in spite of his youth. A second decree—after the battles at
Mutina—gave him _consularia ornamenta_.[114]
Octavian was now fully launched on his public career. He had shown both
Antony and the Senate that he was no negligible quantity. Though the
Senate neither liked nor trusted him, he had played his cards with such
skill that it was forced to treat him as its champion; while Antony had
contrived to put himself in such clear opposition to the constitutional
claims of the Senate, that Octavian could attack him without thereby
committing himself to the support of the Assassins, and had made himself
so strong that (if he proved successful against Antony) he would
hereafter be able to dictate his own terms. Cicero saw this clearly
enough, but he hoped that the defeat of Antony would secure to the side
of the Senate the governors of Gaul and Spain with their legions,[115]
and that thus supported they would be able to discard their youthful
champion. “He was,” he said later on, “to be complimented, distinguished,
and—extinguished.”[116] We shall now see how the hopes of the sanguine
orator were once more blasted, and how all these intrigues were baffled
by the wary policy and cool persistence of “the boy.”
CHAPTER IV
THE CONSULSHIP AND TRIUMVIRATE
_Gravesque_
_principum amicitias._
[Sidenote: Octavian’s position at the beginning of B.C. 43.]
The campaign of Mutina, in which Octavian had now embarked, was ended by
two battles—one at Forum Gallorum on the 15th, and another at Antony’s
camp on the 21st of April. After the latter date there were military
movements of some interest and importance, but no actual conflict. Before
these battles Octavian’s position had been difficult and delicate; and
though it was much improved after them, it was not in the way expected
by the Senate. The change was due to his own prudence and energy. Since
his start from Alba to follow Antony the aspect of affairs at Rome had
been much modified, and he had had good reason to doubt the favour of
the party over whom Cicero was now exercising a predominant influence.
Cicero appears indeed to have kept up a constant correspondence with
Octavian, in which he did his best by flattery and argument to retain
his aid and lull his suspicions. But there were facts which it must
have been difficult for him to explain to Octavian’s satisfaction. It
is true that besides the honours voted to him in the Senate in the
first week of B.C. 43, he had been joined with the other magistrate
in the _Senatus-consultum ultimum_, empowering them to “see that
the state took no harm.”[117] But though the decrees also gave him a
constitutional right to command soldiers,[118] yet the despatch of the
two consuls to the seat of war deprived him of the chief command; while
the more moderate party had carried over Cicero’s head a resolution to
send three commissioners to negotiate with Antony. Cicero asserts that
they were only authorised to convey to Antony the Senate’s order that
he was to quit the Gallic province. That was not, however, the view of
the commissioners themselves. One of them—Serv. Sulpicius Rufus—died
on the journey; but the other two—L. Calpurnius Piso and L. Marcius
Philippus—brought back some proposals from Antony in February, which, had
they been accepted, might perhaps have secured the safety of Brutus and
Cassius, but would certainly have left Octavian out in the cold, without
any pretext for keeping up his military force.
[Sidenote: Antony’s proposals.]
Antony proposed to give up the Cisalpine province, on condition of
receiving Transalpine Gaul—exclusive of Narbonensis—with the six legions
already under him, supplemented by those at present commanded by Dec.
Brutus, for five years, or for such time as Brutus and Cassius should
be consuls or proconsuls. Secondly, on condition that the _acta_ of his
consulship—including the use of the money from the temple of Ops and
his grants of lands—should be left intact; and that those serving with
him should have complete indemnity.[119] The envoys were against the
extreme measure of declaring a state of war (rather than a _tumultus_)
and proclaiming Antony a _hostis_, and the majority of the Senate
agreed with them and voted for further negotiations. It was a strange
position. Octavian had been authorised by the Senate to drive Antony
from Cisalpine Gaul. One of the consuls—Aulus Hirtius—had left Rome with
two legions, and had, in fact, come into contact with the enemy in a
cavalry skirmish at Claterna; the other consul, Pansa, was also preparing
to follow. Yet the Senate was negotiating with Antony as though he were
not a _hostis_, but a citizen with a grievance. The time was soon to come
when Octavian, too, would find it convenient to make terms with Antony;
but nothing could have been more against his interests than the present
action of the Senate. It would seem to him a cynical disregard of their
mutual obligations. Nor was this the worst. Antony’s offer as to Brutus
and Cassius was only an offer to recognise an accomplished fact. These
two leaders in the assassination had been already nominated by the Senate
to Macedonia and Syria. Cicero was in constant correspondence with them,
addressing them as the chief hope of the constitution, and suggesting
that their armies might be used to maintain the hold of the party on
Italy. Trebonius, moreover, had been sent to Asia with the express
understanding that he was to fortify that province and collect money to
support Brutus and Cassius. When news came that Trebonius had been put to
death by Dolabella, the latter was declared a _hostis_ by the Senate, and
his punishment entrusted to Cassius.
[Sidenote: Antony’s letter to Octavian.]
These facts must have gradually made it quite clear to Octavian that
the complete triumph of the Ciceronian party would be no less damaging
to him than that of Antony. But though skilful use was made of them by
Antony himself in a letter addressed to Hirtius and Octavian,[120] the
young Cæsar was not to be induced to take any premature step. The Senate
might be dealt with hereafter: for the present the first necessity was to
prevent Antony from becoming strong enough to dictate terms to himself as
well as to the Senate. He therefore quietly continued to take his part in
the campaign.
[Sidenote: The military situation in the spring of B.C. 43.]
The Senatorial armies commanded the district round Mutina, except
Bononia, Regium Lepidi, and Parma. Of these towns, the first was
twenty-three miles east of Mutina along the Æmilian road; the other two
about the same distance west of it. They were in the hands of Antony,
affording him bases of operation on either side of Mutina. In the middle
of February Cicero was daily expecting to hear of Dec. Brutus ending
the war by a sally from Mutina. At that time Antony’s headquarters
were at Bononia, only a part of his troops actually investing Mutina.
Hirtius was at Claterna, eleven miles east of Bononia; Octavian at Forum
Cornelii (Imola), nine miles farther east. Bad weather had prevented
serious operations, but some time in March Antony evacuated Bononia to
push on the siege of Mutina with his full force. Hirtius and Octavian at
once occupied Bononia, and gradually pushed out fortified posts towards
Mutina;[121] for Dec. Brutus was hard pressed for food, and they feared
that he would have to surrender. But not being on an equality with
Antony, especially in cavalry, they were anxious to wait for the fresh
legions from Rome under Pansa. Some minor skirmishes took place from time
to time,[122] but as the days dragged on and Mutina was not relieved, the
anxiety at Rome grew greater and greater. “I am restlessly waiting for
news,” writes Cicero on the 11th of April; “the decisive hour is upon us;
for our whole hope depends on relieving Dec. Brutus.”[123] On the 15th
and 16th there was a panic in the city caused by the prætor Ventidius
Bassus. He had enrolled two legions of veterans, and was believed to be
about to enter Rome. He, however, marched off to Potentia to watch the
result of the struggle in Gallia Cisalpina; and a few days later came the
news of the victory of Forum Gallorum, which changed this unreasonable
panic into an exultation almost as unreasonable.[124]
[Sidenote: Battle of Forum Gallorum, April 15th, B.C. 43.]
Pansa was expected to reach the seat of war about the 16th of April.
A detachment, consisting of the Martia and two prætorian cohorts, was
sent out to conduct him and his four new legions into camp. In order to
intercept this force Antony concealed two legions in Forum Gallorum,
only allowing his cavalry and light armed to be seen. On the 14th Pansa
encamped near Bononia, and next morning started to join Hirtius in his
camp near Mutina, along with the troops sent out to meet him. The main
force marched over the open country; the two prætorian cohorts kept to
the _via Æmilia_. Near Forum Gallorum there was some marshy and difficult
ground. The Martia got through this first, and suddenly sighted Antony’s
cavalry. The men could not be held back: enraged at the recollection of
their comrades executed at Brundisium, they broke into a charge. Pansa,
unable to stop them, tried to bring up two new legions to their support.
But Antony was too quick for him. He suddenly led out his legions from
the village, and Pansa, in danger of being surrounded, had to retire upon
his camp of the previous night, having himself received two wounds,
while the prætorian cohorts on the Æmilian road were cut to pieces.
Antony seemed to have won the day. But he attempted too much. He pushed
on towards Bononia, hoping to storm the camp, but was beaten off and
forced to retire to his own quarters near Mutina. He was, however, many
hours’ march from them. His men were tired, and when they reached Forum
Gallorum again they were met by Hirtius, who, having heard of Pansa’s
disaster, had come out with twenty veteran cohorts. Antony’s wearied men
were utterly routed almost on the ground of their morning’s victory, and
he had to escape with his cavalry to his camp near Mutina, which he did
not reach till long after sunset. Hirtius had no cavalry to pursue him,
and accordingly went on to visit the wounded Pansa.
Though the prætorian cohorts which had suffered so severely on the road
were Octavian’s, he was not leading them, nor does he seem to have been
engaged in either of the battles. But it appears that some of Antony’s
men had threatened the camp in charge of which he had been left, and that
his success in repelling this attack was sufficiently marked for his
soldiers to greet him with the title of Imperator as well as Hirtius and
Pansa.[125]
[Sidenote: Antony’s second defeat at Mutina, 21 April.]
The news of this victory reached Rome on the 20th, and the extravagant
exultation of the Ciceronians may be gathered from the Fourteenth
Philippic. But Antony was still investing Mutina, and though he had lost
heavily, so also had his opponents, especially the Martia and Octavian’s
prætorian cohorts. Pansa, disabled by his wounds, had been carried to
Bononia, and for some days nothing of importance was attempted. But on
the 21st Hirtius and Octavian moved to the west of Mutina, where the
lines of investment were less complete, with the hope of relieving the
town on that side. Antony sent out his cavalry to intercept them, and,
after some skirmishing, two legions to support it. Octavian attacked
and drove them back to their camp, into which Hirtius forced his way,
but was killed within the vallum. Octavian got possession of the body,
but had presently to evacuate the camp. Still Antony’s losses in these
two battles had been so severe that he feared being himself invested by
Octavian, who would in that case, he felt sure, be joined by Lepidus and
Plancus. Whatever might then be the fate of Decimus Brutus, he at any
rate would be paralysed. He resolved to make a dash for the Transalpine
province, hoping there to be joined not only by Pollio, Lepidus, and
Plancus, but by Ventidius also. He accordingly raised the siege, and with
a strong body of cavalry marched along the _via Æmilia_. At Dertona he
left the road, and made the difficult pass of Aquæ Statiellæ, leading
to the coast at Vada Sabatia. There he was joined by Ventidius, and
proceeded along the Riviera into the province. Decimus Brutus did not
start in pursuit till the third day, partly owing to the exhausted state
of his men after their long investment, partly because he wished to
induce Octavian to join him.
[Sidenote: The exultant Ciceronians slight Octavian.]
The news of Antony’s retirement reached Rome on the 26th. The exultant
Ciceronians regarded the war as at an end, and next day, under Cicero’s
influence, Antony and his adherents were declared _hostes_ in the
Senate.[126] He was believed to be utterly ruined, and the Senate was
regarded as once more supreme. Decimus Brutus would of course cut to
pieces the poor remains of Antony’s troops; Lepidus and Plancus would
hold their provinces in obedience to the Senate. Octavian was no longer
necessary, and was immediately made to feel it. Not only were scandalous
rumours spread abroad, charging him with causing the death of Hirtius,
and suborning his physician to poison the wounds of Pansa,[127] but
in the vote of thanks to the army no mention was made of him. The vote
also was so framed as to introduce divisions in the army itself by
naming certain cohorts for honour and passing over others; while the
legates conveying these thanks and honours were instructed to communicate
directly with the men, not through Octavian as their commander. The
legions of Pansa were transferred to Decimus Brutus, even the Martia and
Quarta, formerly commended for joining Octavian. At the same time, all
those most likely to be hostile to him were promoted. Sext. Pompeius was
declared head of the naval forces of the republic; Brutus and Cassius
were confirmed in their provinces and given special powers in all other
provinces east of the Adriatic; a commission of ten was appointed to
revise the _acta_ of Antony’s consulship, in which Octavian had no
place.[128] Lastly, his claim to a triumph and to be a candidate for one
of the vacant consulships was rejected, though as a kind of sop he was
granted _consularia ornamenta_,[129] and Cicero appears to have proposed
his having an ovation.[130] But it was about the same time that Cicero’s
unlucky epigram as to “distinguishing and extinguishing” him was reported
to Octavian.[131] If Cicero, who was in constant correspondence with
him, and was even discussing the possibilities of their holding the
consulship as colleagues,[132] could thus speak, what was he to think of
the rest? No doubt all these circumstances contributed to fix Octavian’s
resolve. He at once declined to co-operate with Decimus Brutus, or to
surrender his legions to him. Although those under Hirtius and Pansa
had been assigned bodily by the Senate to Brutus, the Martia and Quarta
refused to obey the order, and declared their loyalty to Octavian. Their
example was followed by the other veterans, who refused to serve under
an assassin of their old imperator. Thus fortified, Octavian adopted
a line of conduct which partly alarmed and partly puzzled the other
commanders of troops. He established secret communications with Antony,
releasing prisoners taken from his army, and allowing certain officers
to rejoin him; while he himself, remaining inactive for some months, was
privately preparing to enforce his claim on the consulship. The departure
of Decimus Brutus left him in undisturbed command of the greater part of
Cisalpine Gaul, and there were no military forces between him and Rome,
now that Ventidius had accomplished his rapid march from Potentia to the
western coast at Vada.
[Sidenote: Revulsion of feeling at Rome.]
The gradual disillusionment of the Ciceronians as to the victory over
Antony; the perplexity caused by the inactivity of Octavian; the delays
and helplessness of Decimus Brutus—all these are faithfully reflected
in the Cicero correspondence of this period. At first everything is
_couleur-de-rose_. On the 21st of April, on the receipt of the news of
the battle of Forum Gallorum, he writes:—
“In the youthful Cæsar there is a wonderful natural strain of
virtue. Pray heaven we may govern him in the flush of honours
and popularity as easily as we have held him up to this time!
This is certainly a more difficult thing, but nevertheless I
have no mistrust. For the young man has been convinced, and
chiefly by my arguments, that our safety is his work, and that,
at any rate, if he had not diverted Antony from the city, all
would have been lost.”[133]
On the 27th (after hearing of the fight at the camp) he thinks Octavian
is with Decimus Brutus in pursuit of Antony or, as he says, “of the
remnant of the enemy.”[134]
But presently he is informed that Octavian is not thus acting, or serving
the interests of the Senate. Decimus Brutus writes from Dertona on the
5th of May:—
“If Cæsar had hearkened to me and crossed the Apennines, I
should have reduced Antony to such straits that he would have
been ruined by failure of provisions rather than the sword. But
neither can any one control Cæsar, nor can Cæsar control his
own army—both most disastrous facts.”[135]
Decimus Brutus was inaccurately informed as to the relations between
Octavian and his troops,[136] but was quite right in concluding that
he had no help to expect from him. He wrote again on the 12th of May,
attributing his delay in beginning the pursuit to the fact that “he could
not put any confidence in Cæsar without visiting and conversing with
him.”[137] He had, however, gained nothing by the interview, and had
been specially dismayed to find that the Martia and Quarta refused to
join him.[138] On the 24th of May he writes again, warning Cicero that
Octavian has heard of his epigram; that the veterans are indignant at
the proceedings in Rome; and that Octavian had secured all the troops
lately commanded by Pansa.[139] Later in the same month he appears to
have suggested the recall of M. Brutus, and that meanwhile the defence of
Italy should be intrusted to Octavian.[140]
This last suggestion shows how far he had failed to penetrate the policy
of Octavian. The mistake was shared by L. Munatius Plancus, governor
of Celtic Gaul, who was moving down towards the province expecting to
be joined by Octavian in opposing Antony, or, at any rate, supposing
that Octavian’s army was at the disposal of the Senate. “Let Cæsar,”
he says, on the 6th of June, “come with the best troops he has, or, if
anything prevents him from coming in person, let his army be sent.”[141]
Some weeks later he too had learnt that Cæsar’s real purpose had been
misunderstood. He writes on the 28th of July:—
“I have never ceased importuning him by letter, and he has
uniformly replied that he is coming without delay, while all
the time I perceive that he has given up that idea, and has
taken up some other scheme. Nevertheless, I have sent our
friend Furnius to him with a message and a letter, in case he
may be able to do some good.”[142]
While the generals in Gaul were thus being gradually brought to see that
Octavian had an independent policy of his own, the hopes of support
entertained by Cicero at home were one by one disappearing. By the middle
of May he knew that Antony’s retreat was not the disorganised flight
supposed, nor the end of the war.
“The news which reached Rome,” he says, about the 15th of May,
“and what everybody believed, was that Antony had fled with
a small body of men, who were without arms, panic stricken,
and utterly demoralised. But if he is in such a position (as
Græceius tells us) that he cannot be offered battle without
risk, he appears to me not to have fled from Mutina, but merely
to have changed the seat of war. Accordingly there is a general
revulsion of feeling.”[143]
In these circumstances Cicero could do nothing but try to keep Decimus
Brutus, Lepidus, and Plancus loyal to the Senate, and urge them to act
with vigour.
“Be your own Senate,” he writes to Plancus about the 27th of
May, “and follow wherever the interests of the public service
shall lead you. Let it be your object that we hear of some
brilliant operation by you before we thought that it was going
to happen. I pledge you my word that whatever you achieve the
Senate will accept as having been done not only with loyal
intention, but with wisdom also.”[144]
But on the 29th of May Lepidus joined Antony.[145] On the 3rd of June
Decimus Brutus writes for the last time in despairing tones to Cicero
from near Grenoble,[146] and though a subsequent junction with Plancus
kept him from destruction for a few weeks longer, he was never able to
do anything of any account again. The only hope remaining to Cicero was
to induce M. Brutus or C. Cassius, or both, to come to Italy with their
armies. He had not, indeed, quite given up hope of Octavian’s loyalty,
but his old doubts were recurring, and though he still used flattering
words to him, he must have been conscious that Octavian had gauged their
value. Late in June, writing to urge M. Brutus to come to Italy, he says:
“The protecting force of the young Cæsar I regard as trustworthy; but so
many are trying to sap his loyalty that at times I am mortally afraid of
his giving in.”[147]
[Sidenote: Octavian, after some vain negotiations, at length moves on
Rome. Aug., B.C. 43.]
It does not seem true that Octavian yielded to the influence of others in
the steps which he now took. As at other times in his life he may have
listened to advice, but the final decision was always his own, adopted
from passing sentiment or passion, but with the cool determination of
settled policy. He had decided that to be able to treat with Antony on
equal terms he must obtain one of the vacant consulships. This would
make him legally head of the State, and add to his military strength
the prestige and authority of that position. If possible he would be
elected without any show of force, and therefore began negotiations
with the Senate soon after the battles of Mutina through Cicero. But
the Senate suspected Cicero of wishing for the consulship himself, and
would not listen to the suggestion. The constitutional difficulty
about the election gave the Senate a decent excuse for postponement.
Both consuls were dead, and the prætor was unable to “create” a higher
imperium than his own. There was no one to name a dictator, and as
magistrates with imperium still existed the _auspicia_ had not reverted
to the _patres_, therefore they could not name _interreges_. On the 1st
of January, when the curule offices would all be vacant, the _auspicia_
would revert to the Senate. Accordingly, after some discussion, Cicero
tells a correspondent at the end of June, it had been held to be best,
“in the interests of the constitution, to put off the elections till
January.”[148] But Octavian had no intention of being thwarted by this
technical difficulty. He had no wish for the present to farther weaken
Antony, and bring the whole weight of the Ciceronians upon himself, but
he was resolved that the consulship was necessary in order to be on
an equal footing with him.[149] He therefore allowed a deputation of
four hundred of his soldiers to go to Rome to demand the payment of the
bounties voted to them, with the understanding that they were also to
ask for the consulship for Octavian. There would be some show of reason
in combining these two demands, for they needed his protection against
the decemvirs, who were likely to interfere in the allotment of lands
made both by Iulius and Antony. But the deputation, though admitted to
the curia, received an unfavourable answer. We are told that the Senate
insisted on their appearing unarmed, but that one of them left the Senate
house and returned with a sword and the remark, “If you do not give Cæsar
the consulship this will do so.” Whereupon Cicero exclaimed, “If that is
your way of pressing his suit, he will get it.” The same story is told
of Iulius, and one is always suspicious of such dramatic scenes.[150] At
any rate, Octavian regarded the attitude of the Senate as hostile, and
determined to march on Rome with his eight legions,[151] a corresponding
force of cavalry, and some auxiliary troops.
[Sidenote: Octavian enters Rome and obtains the consulship. August, B.C.
43.]
He moved in two columns, the first consisting of his swiftest and most
active men, led by himself; for among other causes of anxiety was a
fear that his mother and sister might meet with ill-treatment in Rome.
The Senate had no troops to oppose to this formidable army, and in its
terror sent legates with the money promised to the men, but lately
refused to the deputation. Octavian however refused them entrance into
the camp, and pushed on without stopping. The panic in the city grew
daily more acute, and Cicero, who had pledged his credit for Octavian’s
loyalty,[152] found himself an object of suspicion and retired from Rome.
Then every concession was made in the Senate: the bounty promised to some
of the troops was doubled, and extended to all the troops alike, though
the exchequer was exhausted by the payment of only two legions.[153]
Octavian was to have the distribution of lands and rewards instead of the
decemvirs, and was allowed to be a candidate for the consulship in his
absence. Messengers were sent to announce these concessions to him; but
he had scarcely heard them when he was informed of a change of sentiment
in Rome. The legions, summoned by the Senate from Africa, had arrived;
Cicero had reappeared; the decrees were rescinded; and measures were
being taken to defend the city. The two legions from Africa were to be
supported by a levy _en masse_ and by a legion enrolled by Pansa but not
taken with him. The city prætor M. Cornutus was to be commander-in-chief.
At the same time boats and other means of transport were being prepared
in the Tiber for the escape of the chief citizens, their families and
property, in case of defeat; while a vigorous search was being made for
Octavian’s mother and sister as hostages. Octavian felt that no time
was to be lost. Sending forward messengers to assure the people that
they would not be harmed,[154] he continued his advance on Rome. A day’s
march from the city he was met by a large number of real or pretended
sympathisers; and felt it safe to leave his troops and enter Rome with
a strong bodyguard. Enthusiastic crowds greeted his entrance, and as he
approached the temple of Vesta he had the happiness of seeing his mother
and sister, who had taken sanctuary with the Vestals, and now came out to
embrace him. The three legions in Rome, in spite of some opposition from
their officers, declared for him; and the prætor Cornutus killed himself
in despair. It was all over, and Octavian was master of the situation.
For a moment indeed there seemed a gleam of hope. A rumour reached the
city that the Martia and Quarta had refused to follow Octavian to Rome.
Cicero hastily gathered some partisans into the Senate house in the
evening to discuss the possibility of further resistance. But while they
were in conference they learnt that the rumour was false. There was
nothing for it but to disperse, and Cicero was fain to seek out Octavian
and offer a tardy congratulation—received with ironical courtesy.
[Sidenote: The consulship and other honours.]
The constitutional difficulty as to the election was at once surmounted
by the investment of two men with proconsular powers to hold it. The rest
was a mere form, and on the 19th of August Octavian, with his cousin
Q. Pedius, entered upon their consulship. The now obsequious Senate
proceeded to heap honours upon him. He was to have money to pay the
promised bounties; to enjoy an imperium, when with an army, superior to
the consuls; to do whatever he thought necessary for the protection of
the city; and to take over the army lately assigned to Decimus Brutus.
The _lex curiata_ for his adoption under Cæsar’s will was at once
passed, and he was now by right as well as by courtesy a Cæsar. His
colleague, Q. Pedius, at the same time carried a law for the trial of all
concerned in the murder of Iulius, and the _quæstio_ seems at once to
have been instituted. All were condemned in their absence and lost their
citizenship and the protection of the laws.[155] Brutus and Cassius, with
the rest of the assassins, were thus put at a great disadvantage. It was
an act of war on their part, as condemned men, to hold their provinces or
command troops. That the Senate, in which the majority were doubtless in
favour of Brutus and Cassius, should have practically sanctioned these
measures,[156] shews how completely it was cowed. Octavian’s position
was, in fact, a very strong one. It was not possible for M. Brutus to
transport a sufficient force from Macedonia to crush him, much less for
Cassius from Syria. The two combined would no doubt hope some day to be
able to attack him; but meanwhile he had time to fortify himself by new
coalitions.
[Sidenote: Octavian goes to meet Antony.]
Cæsar—as we should now call him—only stayed in Rome to see these measures
secured. He then left the city under the care of Pedius, and marched
once more into Cisalpine Gaul. His nominal object was to destroy Decimus
Brutus—now a condemned man—but his real purpose was to come to an
understanding with Antony and Lepidus. Letters had already passed between
them, and some plan of action had been agreed upon. Antony was to crush
Decimus Brutus and Plancus, while the Senate was persuaded by Pedius to
rescind the decrees declaring Antony and Lepidus _hostes_. This news
was sent to Cæsar while on his leisurely march, and passed on by him to
Antony; who thereupon proceeded to fulfil his part of the bargain. He was
by this time, or shortly afterwards, reinforced by Asinius Pollio[157]
with two legions from Spain, who at once succeeded in securing the
cohesion of Plancus. The greater part of the troops under Decimus Brutus
also insisted on following Plancus; and Brutus was obliged to fly with a
small force.
[Sidenote: Death of Decimus Brutus.]
[Sidenote: The triumvirate arranged, Nov., B.C. 43.]
This settled the fate of Decimus Brutus, and left Northern Italy open to
Antony, unless Cæsar still chose to oppose him. After various fruitless
attempts to escape, Brutus was put to death by a Sequanian Gaul, under
orders from Antony,[158] who then with Pollio and Lepidus[159] marched
into Cispadane Gaul with a large part of their forces, the rest being
left to guard the province. The invading army marched along the Æmilian
road as though to attack Cæsar. But the real intention on both sides
was to come to terms. On an islet in a tributary of the Po, between
Mutina and Bononia, the three leaders, Antony, Lepidus, and Cæsar met
for conference, though not till elaborate precautions had been taken
against treachery. For two days they sat from morning till night in
earnest debate, in full view of their respective armies. On the third the
soldiers of both sides were summoned to a _contio_, and informed of the
articles which had been agreed upon, though the last and most terrible
of them—the proscription—was not communicated. The terms announced were:
(1) Cæsar agreed to abdicate the consulship, which was to be held for
the remainder of the year by Ventidius Bassus; (2) Lepidus and Plancus
were to be consuls for B.C. 42; (3) Lepidus, Cæsar, and Antony were to be
appointed by a _lex_ for the remainder of the year, and for five years
from the next 1st of January, _triumviri reipublicæ constituendæ_—a board
of three for settling the constitution.
[Sidenote: Powers of the Triumvirate.]
The Triumvirate was practically a dictatorship in commission. The word
was avoided owing to its prohibition in Antony’s law. But the triumvirs
were to exercise all the powers of a dictator; their _acta_ were to be
authoritative; they were to be independent of the Senate; superior to
all magistrates; to have the right of proposing laws to the _Comitia_;
to regulate the appointment of magistrates and provincial governors. The
colleagueship was an apparent concession to the fundamental principle of
the constitution; but from the first it was practically a duumvirate
rather than a triumvirate, Lepidus being treated almost at once as
inferior. The Empire east of the Adriatic was for the moment separated
from this home government, being held by Brutus and Cassius; but the
western part was to be divided among the three—Cæsar taking Africa,
Sardinia, and Sicily; Antony, Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpina, with the
exception of Narbonensis; Lepidus, Gallia Narbonensis and Upper Spain. In
these districts each would be supreme and govern personally or by their
legates. But the greater part of Cæsar’s share was still in the hands
of Sextus Pompeius, and would have to be won back. It was accordingly
arranged that in the following year Lepidus, as consul, should be
responsible for the order of Italy, while Cæsar undertook to put down
Sextus, and Antony to confront M. Brutus and Cassius.
The soldiers of both armies, having no desire to fight each other,
received the announcement with enthusiasm. Their devotion to Iulius
Cæsar’s memory was warmed by the belief that the anti-Cæsarean clique at
Rome meant to deprive them of the money and lands assigned to them. The
Triumvirs, on the other hand, promised them allotments in the choicest
parts of Italy—Capua, Rhegium, Venusia, Vibo, Beneventum, Ariminum,
Nuceria. There was land at most of these places which from one cause or
another had become _ager publicus_; and when that failed there would
always be owners, whose part in the war just over, and that about to
take place, would give opportunity for confiscation. This combination of
military chiefs therefore suited the views and wishes of the soldiers,
and some of them urged that the bond should be drawn still closer by
Cæsar’s marriage with Antony’s stepdaughter Clodia.[160] Cæsar assented
to the betrothal, but as Clodia was still quite young, he prudently
deferred the marriage. He doubtless foresaw possible inconveniences in
being too closely allied with Antony.
[Sidenote: The Proscription.]
The next step was for the three to enter Rome and obtain a legal
confirmation of their appointment. But they did not wait till their
arrival in the city to begin the vengeance. They had agreed to follow the
precedent of Sulla by publishing lists of men declared to be out of the
pale of the law. The larger list was reserved for further consideration;
but a preliminary list of seventeen names was drawn up at once, and
soldiers were sent with orders to put the men to death wherever found.
Among these were Cicero, his brother, and nephew. Plutarch tells us that
Cicero’s name was put upon the list as a compromise. Octavian bargained
for Lucius Cæsar, Antony’s uncle, and in return conceded to Antony the
inclusion of Cicero, while Lepidus consented to his brother, L. Paulus,
being entered.[161] Four of the seventeen were found at once and put to
death. Cicero escaped till the arrival of the triumvirs in Rome, but was
killed near Formiæ on the 7th of December, his brother and nephew having
already been put to death in Rome. Cæsar was the first to arrive in the
city, and was quickly followed by Antony and Lepidus, each with a strong
prætorian guard. Their appointment was duly confirmed in the _Comitia_
on the proposal of the tribune Titus Titius, and on the 27th of November
they entered upon their office.[162]
Naturally the sudden execution of three of the seventeen who were
found in Rome had created great alarm in the city, where no one knew
whose turn was to come next. The panic was somewhat lessened by Pedius
publishing the list of the seventeen, with the assurance that no more
executions were intended. He appears to have honestly believed this, but
the agitation of the night of horror was too much for him, and he died
within the next twenty-four hours. On the day after the installation
of the triumvirs (November 28th) the citizens were horrified to see an
edict fixed up in the Forum, detailing the causes of the executions
which were to follow, and offering a reward for the head of any one of
those named below—25,000 sesterces to a freeman, 10,000 and freedom to a
slave. All who aided or concealed a proscribed man were to suffer death
themselves. Below were two tablets, one for Senators and one for equites.
They contained 130 names, besides the original seventeen, to which were
shortly added 150 more. Additions were continually being made during the
following days, either from private malice or covetousness. In some cases
men were first killed and then their names inserted in the lists. The
edict made it the interest of slaves to betray their masters, against
whom perhaps in many cases these unfortunate men had a long list of
injuries to avenge. They had now the fierce gratification of seeing their
oppressors grovelling at their feet. But it also placed a severe strain
on the affection of the nearest kinsmen whose lives were forfeited if
they concealed or aided the proscribed. The sale of confiscated property
at low rates gave opportunities for the covetous, and many a man perished
because he possessed house or land desired by Fulvia or some friend of
Antony. But though the terror revealed much meanness and treachery, it
also brought to light many instances of courage and devotion. Wives and
sons risked death for husbands and fathers; and there were slaves who
assumed the dress of their masters and died for them.
The massacre began with Salvius, though holding the sacrosanct office
of tribune. Two prætors—Minucius and L. Velleius—were cut down while
engaged in their courts. To shew how no connections, however high, were
to save any man, at the head of the list was a brother of Lepidus, an
uncle of Antony, a brother of Plancus, and the father-in-law of Asinius
Pollio. But as usual in times of such horror, many perished who from
their humble position or their youth could have had no share in politics.
The total number eventually proscribed, according to Appian, was “three
hundred Senators and about two thousand equites.” Livy says that there
were 130 names of Senators on the lists, and a large number (_plurimi_)
of equites. Livy is probably giving the number of Senators who actually
perished.[163] In Rome itself the terror was probably brief. It would not
take long to find those who stayed in the city; the gates and roads were
strictly guarded, and it was difficult to evade military vigilance. But
many were hiding in the country, and the search for them went on into
the first months of the next year, and all through Italy soldiers were
scouring towns, villages, woods, and marshes in search of the proscribed.
Probably the exact number of those executed was never known. But it seems
likely that about half escaped, some of whom in happier times rose to
high office. There were three possible places of refuge, the camp of M.
Brutus in Macedonia, of Cassius in Syria, and the fleet of Sext. Pompeius
in Sicily. Pompeius sent vessels to cruise round the southern coasts of
Italy and pick up refugees; and tried to counteract the edict by offering
those who saved any one of them double the sum set upon their heads by
the triumvirs. He was liberal in relieving their necessities, and found
commands or other employments for those of high rank.[164] At length,
early in B.C. 42 Lepidus informed the Senate that the proscriptions were
at an end. He seems to have meant by this that no new list was to be
issued, not that those already proscribed were to be pardoned; and Cæsar,
who was present, entered a protest against being bound even by this
declaration.[165]
[Sidenote: Protest of Ladies.]
In fact another list was published, but this time it was of properties to
be confiscated, not of lives to be taken. In spite of the already large
confiscations the triumviral government was in financial difficulties.
Confiscated properties were liable to reductions for the dowries of
widows, 10 per cent. to sons, and 5 per cent. to daughters.[166] These
claims were not always paid perhaps, but they sometimes were. Again,
besides the natural fall of prices caused by so much property coming
into the market at once, much of it was sold to friends and partisans at
great reductions, few venturing to bid against men in power or soldiers.
The treasury, therefore, was not enriched as much as might have been
expected; and as the triumvirs had two wars in the immediate future to
face, they were in great need of money. The tributum and tax on slaves
were reimposed, but failed to produce a surplus. A device therefore was
hit upon something like the fines on “Malignants” in England, under the
Commonwealth. Lists of persons more or less suspect were put up, who were
ordered to contribute a tenth of their property. Each man had to value
his own estate, and this gave rise to frequent accusations of fraud,
generally resulting in the confiscation of the whole. Others found it
impossible to raise the money without selling property, which could only
be done just then at a ruinous sacrifice. An alternative was offered to
such men which proved equally ruinous. They might surrender their whole
estate and apply for the restoration of a third. The treasury was not
likely to be prompt in completing the transaction, for it had first to
sell and satisfy charges on the estate, nor to take a liberal view of
the amount due to the owner. It was an encumbered estates act, under
which the margin of salvage was always small, and tended to disappear
altogether.[167] Among those thus proscribed were about fourteen hundred
ladies. They did not silently submit, but applied to Octavia, as well
as to Antony’s mother Iulia, and his wife Fulvia. By Octavia and Iulia
they were kindly received, but were driven from Fulvia’s door. Undismayed
they appeared before the tribunal of the triumvirs, where Hortensia,
daughter of the orator Hortensius, pleaded their cause with something
of her father’s eloquence. “If they were guilty,” she argued, “they
ought to have shared the fate of their relations. If not it was as
unjust to injure their property as their persons. They had no share in
political rights, and therefore were not liable to taxation. Women had
of old voluntarily contributed their personal ornaments to the defences
of the country; but they had never contributed, and, she hoped, never
would contribute to a civil war, or shew sympathy on either side.” The
triumvirs received the protest with anger, and ordered their lictors to
drive the ladies away. But they were struck by marks of disapproval among
the crowd; and next day a new edict was substituted, which contained
only four hundred names of women, and, instead of naming individual
men, imposed on all properties above 100,000 sesterces (about £800) an
immediate tax of 2 per cent. of the capital, and one year’s income for
the expenses of the war.[168]
[Sidenote: Responsibility of Augustus for the proscriptions.]
For a just view of the character of Augustus, it is important to decide
how far he acquiesced in the cruelties of the proscription. With the
general policy he seems to have been in full accord; and as far as a
complete vengeance on those implicated in the murder of Iulius was
concerned, he was no doubt inexorable. But his administration as sole
head of the state was so equitable and clement, that many found it
difficult to believe that he did more than tacitly acquiesce in the rest
of the proscriptions. Augustus himself, in the memoir left to be engraved
after his death, omits all mention of them, and conveniently passes
from the legal condemnation of the assassins to the assertion that he
spared the survivors of Philippi. Paterculus only alludes to them in a
sentence, which contains a skilful insinuation that Augustus only joined
in them under compulsion. Appian makes no distinction between the three.
He tells us, indeed, some stories of mercy shown by Augustus, and of his
expressing approbation of acts of fidelity on the part of friends or
slaves. But he also credits Antony with at least one act of a similar
kind. Plutarch says that most blame was thought to attach to Antony, as
being older than Cæsar and more influential than Lepidus. Dio goes more
fully into the question. He affirms that Antony and Lepidus were chiefly
responsible for the proscriptions, pointing out that Octavian by his own
nature, as well as his association with Iulius, was inclined to clemency;
and moreover, that he had not been long enough engaged in politics to
have conceived many enmities, while his chief wish was to be esteemed and
popular; and lastly, that when he got rid of these associates, and was in
sole power, he was never guilty of such crimes. The strongest of these
arguments is that which claims for Cæsar’s youth immunity from widespread
animosities; and it does seem probable that outside the actual assassins
and their immediate supporters, Augustus would not personally have cared
to extend the use of the executioner’s sword. But he cannot be acquitted
of a somewhat cynical indifference to the cruelties perpetrated under
the joint name and authority of the triumvirs. None of them have been
directly attributed to him, except perhaps in the case of his (apparently
unfaithful) guardian Toranius; but neither is there any record of his
having interfered to prevent them. Suetonius seems to give the truer
account, that he resisted the proscription at first, but, when it was
once decided upon, insisted that it should be carried out relentlessly.
The proscription was an odious crime; but a proscription that did not
fulfil its purpose would have been a monstrous blunder also. I do not,
however, admit Seneca’s criticism that his subsequent clemency was merely
“cruelty worn out.”[169] The change was one of time and circumstance.
Youth is apt to be hard-hearted. With happier surroundings and lengthened
experience his character and judgment ripened and mellowed.
[Sidenote: Death of Atia.]
While these horrors were just beginning Cæsar lost his mother Atia,
the tender and careful guide of his childhood and youth, the first of
his near kin to recognise and approve his high destiny. She died while
he was still consul, that is, between the 19th of August and the 27th
of November, B.C. 43. Devoted to her in her life Cæsar now obtained for
her the honours of a public funeral. During the campaign of Mutina she
was, it seems, at Rome; and when his estrangement from the Senate made
her position unpleasant or dangerous, she had taken sanctuary with the
Vestal Virgins accompanied by Octavia, and was ready to greet him when
he returned to Rome. Nicolas of Damascus gives an attractive picture
of Octavian’s relations with his mother; and even the uncomplimentary
Suetonius owns that his dutiful conduct to her had been exemplary.
She had brought up her son with strictness, and the author of the
_de oratoribus_ classes her with the mother of the Gracchi. But her
strictness had not forfeited her son’s affection, nor failed to impress
upon him a high sense of duty. Her second husband Philippus survived her
several years.[170]
CHAPTER V
PHILIPPI
_Cum fracta virtus, et minaces_
_turpe solum tetigere mento._
[Sidenote: M. Brutus and C. Cassius in the East.]
The first task of the Triumvirs, after securing their power at Rome, was
the restoration of unity and peace to the Empire, which was threatened
at two points: Brutus and Cassius were in arms in the East, Sext.
Pompeius in the West. The opposition of Brutus and Cassius seemed the
more formidable of the two. Brutus, indeed, after holding Macedonia
throughout B.C. 43, after capturing and eventually putting to death Gaius
Antonius, and after winning some laurels in contests with surrounding
barbarians, had towards the end of the year practically abandoned the
province and removed to Asia, in which a decree of the Senate had given
him proprætorial authority along with Cassius. But at Cyzicus and on
the coast of Bithynia he had collected a considerable fleet, and having
thus strengthened himself and levied large sums of money, he sent urgent
messages to Cassius to join him in the defence of the republic.
Meanwhile Cassius had done much towards securing the rest of the East to
their cause. At the end of B.C. 44 he had entered Palestine, and been
joined successively by the forces of L. Statius Murcus, proconsul of
Syria; of M. Crispus, proconsul of Bithynia; of Cæcilius Bassus, the old
Pompeian officer who had seduced the troops of Sextius Iulius from their
allegiance; and by four legions from Egypt under Aulus Allienus, whom
Dolabella had sent to bring them to himself. With twelve legions he had
shut up Dolabella at Laodicea-ad-Mare, aided by a fleet raised in part by
Lentulus, the proquæstor of Asia, and had eventually terrified him into
suicide. He had himself also, or by his legates, collected a fleet strong
enough to prevent Cleopatra sending aid to Antony and Octavian, while
part of it, under Statius Murcus and Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was to
watch the harbour of Brundisium and prevent the despatch of troops from
Italy.
In the spring of B.C. 42, therefore, when Brutus and Cassius met at
Smyrna they were both in possession of formidable forces, naval and
military, and Cassius at any rate was also well supplied with money. They
did not, however, at once push on to Macedonia, for they believed that
the danger threatened by Sext. Pompeius would delay the advance of the
Triumvirs. They therefore spent some months in farther securing the East.
Brutus proceeded to reduce the cities in Lycia, Cassius sailed against
Rhodes, while one of his legates invaded Cappadocia, and defeated and
killed King Ariobarzanes. Both encountered some resistance, but when they
met again in the summer at Sardis they had successfully carried out their
objects; and Cassius had refilled his exchequer by the taxes of Asia, the
towns in which had been compelled to pay nearly ten years’ revenue in
advance.
Having told off a portion of his fleet to keep up the watch over
Cleopatra and at Brundisium, the two proconsuls set out together for
Abydos, and thence crossed to Europe. They marched along the coast road,
formerly traversed by Persian invaders, their fleet also, like that of
the Persian king of old, coasting along parallel with their march, till
they came to the part of the Pangæan range which covers the ten miles
between Philippi and its harbour Neapolis (Datum). There they found the
road blocked by Gaius Norbanus and Decidius Saxa, with eight legions,
sent in advance by Antony. When they left the main road and attempted
to pass nearer Philippi they found the heights immediately south of the
town also guarded. They drove off the enemy and encamped on two hills
which they connected by a trench and stockade; and eventually farther
secured their position by occupying a line of hills commanding the road
to the sea. They thus kept up communication with the fleet at Thasos as a
base of supplies. Norbanus and Saxa did not venture to attack them, but
retired upon Amphipolis, and thence sent intelligence to Rome, meanwhile
keeping the enemy in check by skirmishing parties of cavalry. Brutus and
Cassius were in no hurry to advance, for they had an excellent position,
and were sure of supplies while in touch with their fleet; whereas their
opponents depended on the country, which was neither rich nor well
stocked. The fleet of Murcus and Domitius might also delay, and perhaps
prevent Antony and Cæsar from bringing reinforcements, while the fleet at
Thasos could stop supplies being conveyed by sea.
[Sidenote: The difficulties of Antony and Cæsar with Sextus Pompeius.]
Nor were these the only difficulties in the way of the Triumvirs. Ever
since the battle of Munda (B.C. 45) Sextus Pompeius had been leading
a piratical life in the Western Mediterranean. His forces had been
continually increased by fugitive Pompeians and by natives from Africa,
until he had become possessed of a formidable power against which the
successive governors of Southern Spain had been able to effect little.
After the death of Iulius Cæsar an attempt was made through Lepidus to
come to terms with him, and he had agreed to submit to the government on
condition of a _restitutio in integrum_, including the restoration of
his father’s property. But though Antony obtained a confirmation from
the Senate the arrangement was never carried out. Probably the immense
sum named as the value of the property—about five millions sterling—made
it impossible, especially when the money in the temple of Ops had been
squandered. Moreover Pompeius seems to have demanded the actual house
and estates of his father, and these were in Antony’s hands, who would
not easily surrender them. Sextus therefore stayed in Spain or with his
fleet. When the Senate broke with Antony it renewed negotiations with
Sextus, promised him the satisfaction of his claims, passed a vote of
thanks to him for services, and confirmed him in his command of all
Roman ships on active service.[171] The Triumvirs deposed him from this
command, and put his name on the proscription list. His answer was to
sail to Sicily, force Pompeius Bithynicus to surrender Messana, and take
possession of the island. Here he was joined by numerous refugees of the
proscribed and many skilful seamen from Africa and elsewhere. By thus
holding Sicily and Sardinia he could do much towards starving out Italy,
upon the southern shores of which he also made frequent descents. He
acted as an independent ruler, and presently put Bithynicus to death on a
charge of plotting against him.[172]
[Sidenote: The campaign of Philippi.]
Cæsar and Antony suspected Lepidus of keeping up communication with
Pompeius, and consequently he was practically shelved. He was to remain
at Rome to keep order and carry out formal duties, while Antony was to
transport his legions from Brundisium to attack Brutus and Cassius, and
Cæsar was to conduct the war against Sextus Pompeius. But the strength
of Pompeius seems not to have been fully realised. Cæsar despatched a
fleet under Q. Salvidienus to Sicily, while he himself went by land
to Rhegium. But Salvidienus was badly defeated by Pompeius and had to
retire to the Italian shore to refit,[173] and before Cæsar had time
to do anything more he was called to the aid of Antony, who was in
difficulties at Brundisium, the exit of the harbour being blocked by the
ships of Statius Murcus, presently reinforced by those of Ahenobarbus.
The arrival of Cæsar and his fleet enabled the transports to cross,
and Antony marched along the Egnatian Way to join his advanced army at
Amphipolis. Cæsar was once more attacked by illness and obliged to stay
at Dyrrachium; but hearing that Antony, on his arrival, had suffered
some reverses in cavalry skirmishes, he resolved to join him at all
hazards. It was indeed a crisis of the utmost importance to him. He was
leaving Italy exposed to a double danger, on the east from Murcus and
Ahenobarbus, on the south from Sextus Pompeius. If Antony were defeated
Cæsar would be in a most alarming position; if Antony won without him,
his own prestige would be damaged and he might have to take a second
place in the joint government. As before in the Spanish journey his
resolution conquered physical weakness, and he reached the seat of war
before any general engagement had taken place. He found the army somewhat
discouraged. Antony had left his heavy baggage at Amphipolis, which had
been secured by Decidius and Norbanus, and had advanced over the wide
plain (about sixty miles) to within a mile of the high ground on which
Brutus and Cassius were entrenched. But they were too strongly posted to
be attacked, and he had suffered some losses in his attempts to draw them
down. His men were getting demoralised by the evidently superior position
of the enemy, who were protected on the right by mountains, and on their
left by a marsh stretching between them and the sea, so that it was
impossible to turn their position on either side. Delay was all in favour
of Brutus and Cassius, whose fleet afforded abundant provisions, while
Antony would have great difficulty in feeding his army during the winter,
and the season was already advanced. In mere numbers there was not much
difference. Both had nineteen legions; and, though those of Brutus were
not at their full strength, he and Cassius had 20,000 cavalry, as against
13,000 of Antony and Cæsar.
[Sidenote: First battle at Philippi.]
The first battle (late in October) was brought on by an attempt of
Antony’s to get across the marsh by a causeway which he had himself
constructed, and storm an earthwork which Cassius had thrown up to
prevent him. Repulsing a flank attack made by the division of Brutus, he
carried the earthwork and even took the camp of Cassius, who with his
main body retired to the heights nearer Philippi with heavy loss. But
Antony had also suffered severely, and the fate of the day could not be
considered decided until it was known how Brutus had fared, who after
the unsuccessful attack on Antony’s flank, had attacked Cæsar’s division
which was opposite him. In this last movement he had been entirely
successful. Cæsar’s camp had been stormed and his men driven into flight,
he himself being absent through illness. The result of this cross victory
was that both armies returned to their original positions. Antony,
finding that the left wing was defeated, did not venture to remain in the
camp of Cassius. Cassius might have returned to it, but for a mistake
which cost him his life. He was wrongly informed that Brutus had been
defeated, and being short-sighted he mistook a squadron of cavalry that
was riding up to announce Brutus’s success for enemies, and anticipated
what he supposed to be inevitable capture by suicide. Brutus, informed
of this, withdrew his men from the attack on Cæsar’s camp, and retired
behind their lines, occupying again Cassius’s abandoned quarters.
[Sidenote: Second battle at Philippi, November.]
Nearly at the same time as this indecisive battle the cause of the
triumvirs had suffered a disaster nearer home. A fleet of transports
conveying the Martia, another legion, and some cavalry was destroyed by
Murcus and Ahenobarbus, and the greater part of the men had been lost at
sea or forced to surrender. Though Brutus did not yet know this he held
his position for about a fortnight longer. But the tidings when they
came made it more than ever necessary for Antony and Cæsar to strike a
blow; for they were still more isolated than before and more entirely
cut off from supplies. On the other hand, the officers and men in the
army of Brutus were inspired by it with an eager desire to follow up
the good news by fighting a decisive battle. Brutus yielded against his
better judgment and drew out his men. Antony and Cæsar did the same. But
it was not until the afternoon was well advanced that the real fighting
began. After spending more time than usual in hurling volleys of pila
and stones, they drew their swords and grappled in a furious struggle at
close quarters. Both Antony and Cæsar were active in bringing up fresh
companies to fill up gaps made by the fallen. At last the part of the
line against which Cæsar was engaged began to give way, retiring step by
step, and fighting desperately all the while. But the order grew looser
and looser, until at length it broke into downright flight. The camp
of Brutus was stormed and his whole army scattered. Cæsar was left to
guard the captured camp, while Antony (as at Pharsalia) led the cavalry
in pursuit. He ordered his men to single out officers for slaughter or
capture, lest they should rally their men and make a farther stand. He
was particularly anxious to capture Brutus, perhaps as hoping to avenge
his brother. But in this his men were foiled by a certain Lucilius, who
threw himself in their way professing to be Brutus, and the mistake
was not discovered till he was brought to Antony. Brutus had, in fact,
escaped to high ground with four legions. He hoped with this force to
recapture his camp and continue the policy of wearing out the enemy by
delay. But a good look-out was maintained by Antony during the night, and
the next morning his officers told Brutus that they would fight no more,
but were resolved to try to save their lives by making terms with the
victors. Exclaiming that he was then of no farther use to his country,
Brutus called on his freedman Strato to kill him, which he immediately
did.
[Sidenote: Conduct of Cæsar after the victory.]
There is some conflict of testimony as to the severitie inflicted after
the victory. The bulk of the survivors with their officers submitted
and were divided between the armies of the two triumvirs. A certain
number who had been connected with the assassination and included in
the proscription lists felt that they had no mercy to expect, and saved
farther trouble by putting an end to their own lives. But some also, as
Favonius the Stoic, imitator of Cato, were executed. Suetonius attributes
to Cæsar not only special severity, but cruel and heartless insults to
those whom he condemned. To one man begging for burial he answered that
“that would be business of the birds.” A father and son begging their
lives he bade play at _morra_ for the privilege of surviving. And he
ordered the head of Brutus to be sent home that it might be placed at
the foot of Iulius Cæsar’s statue. As usual there remain some doubts as
to these stories. That of the father and son, for instance, is related
by Dio, but placed after Actium.[174] And the story as to the head of
Brutus is somewhat inconsistent with the honourable treatment of the
body attributed to Antony.[175] The refusal of funeral rites is contrary
to his own assertion in his autobiography; and, in the _Monumentum
Ancyranum_, he declares that he “spared all citizens.”[176] But it must
be conceded that until the assassins and their supporters were finally
disposed of he shewed himself relentless. The milder sentiments are those
of a later time. The plea of a duty to avenge his “father’s” murder may
mitigate, but cannot annul, his condemnation.
[Sidenote: Second division of the Empire, B.C. 42.]
The victory of Philippi reunited the eastern and western parts of the
Empire, and therefore necessitated a fresh distribution of spheres of
influence among the triumvirs. The new agreement was reduced to writing
and properly attested, partly that Cæsar might silence opposition at
Rome, but partly also because the two men had already begun to feel some
of their old distrust of each other. During the late campaign, when there
seemed some chance of defeat, Antony had expressed regret at having
embarrassed himself with Cæsar instead of making terms with Brutus and
Cassius, and such words, however hasty or petulant, would be sure to
reach Cæsar’s ears. The respect also shewn by Antony to the remains of
Brutus, and the evident tendency of the defeated party to prefer union
with him rather than with Cæsar, as well as the more generous terms which
he was willing to grant, must all have suggested to Cæsar the precarious
nature of the tie between them. It was necessary therefore to put the
arrangement now made beyond dispute.
The division did not, as two years later, distinguish between East and
West. It was still only the western half of the Empire which was to be
divided. Italy was to be treated as the centre of government, open to all
the triumvirs alike for recruiting and other purposes. The provinces were
to be administered in the usual way by governors approved of by them,
except that Antony was to have Gaul and Africa, Cæsar Spain and Numidia,
thus securing to each a government in the west and south roughly equal
in extent and in importance, now that Sicily and Sardinia were in the
hands of Sextus Pompeius and thus actually hostile to Italy. But the last
article in the agreement, though intended to provide only for a passing
state of affairs, did in fact foreshadow the division of the Empire into
East and West. By it Antony undertook to go at once to Asia to crush
the fragments of the republican party still in arms in the East, and to
collect money sufficient for the payment of the promised rewards to the
veterans. Cæsar, on the other hand, was to return to Italy to carry on
the war against Sextus Pompeius and arrange the assignation of lands.
Lepidus was still consul as well as triumvir, but if the suspicion of his
being in correspondence with Pompeius was confirmed he was to have no
province and was to be suppressed by Cæsar. If it did not turn out to
be true Antony undertook to hand over Africa to him. He was throughout
treated as subordinate—
“a slight, unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands.”
The real governors of the Empire were to be Antony and Cæsar. The force
of circumstances ordained that for the next ten years Antony was to
govern the East and Cæsar the West. And as yet the heart and life of
the Empire was in the west. It was this, as much as the difference of
his character, which eventually secured to Cæsar the advantage over his
colleague and made him master of the whole.
CHAPTER VI
PERUSIA AND SICILY
_actus cum freto Neptunius_
_dux fugit ustis navibus._
[Sidenote: Augustus returns to Rome after Philippi, early in B.C. 41.]
The campaign which ended with the second battle at Philippi and the
death of Brutus had been won at the cost of much physical suffering to
Cæsar, who only completed his twenty-first year some days after it. He
had been in bad health throughout, barely able to endure the journey
across Macedonia, and only performing his military duties with the utmost
difficulty and with frequent interruptions. On his return journey he had
to halt so often from the same cause that reports of his death reached
Rome. The slowness with which he travelled also gave time for all kinds
of rumours to spread abroad as to farther severities to be exercised upon
the republican party on his return, and many of those who felt that they
were open to suspicion sought places of concealment for themselves or
their property.
[Sidenote: B.C. 41 Consuls L. Antonius Pietas, Serv. Vatia Isauricus II.
Allotting lands for the veterans.]
Cæsar sent reassuring messages to Rome, but he did not arrive in the city
till the beginning of the next year (B.C. 41). He found Lucius Antonius
consul, who had celebrated a triumph on the first day of the year for
some trifling successes in Gaul. The real control of affairs, however,
was being exercised by Fulvia, the masculine wife of Marcus Antonius,
widow successively of Clodius and Curio, against whom Lepidus had been
afraid or unable to act. Fulvia and Lucius professed to be safeguarding
the interests of Marcus and fulfilling his wishes, and Lucius adopted the
cognomen _Pietas_ as a sign of his fraternal devotion. But the moving
spirit throughout was Fulvia. Cæsar’s first business in Rome was the
allotment of land to the veterans. This had been begun a year before in
Transpadane Gaul, on the establishment of the Triumvirate, by Asinius
Pollio, left in command of that district; and Vergil has given us some
insight into the bitterness of feeling which it often roused:
“Shall some rude soldier hold these new ploughed lands?
Some alien reap the labours of our hands?
Ah, civil strife, what fruit your jangling yields!
Poor toilsome souls—for these we sowed our fields!”
When there was public land available for the purpose, the allotment could
generally be made without much friction; but as there was not enough of
it, the old precedent of “colonisation” was followed. A number of Italian
towns (nineteen in all) were selected, in the territories of which the
veterans of a particular legion were to be settled as _coloni_, with a
third of the land assigned for their support. No doubt in each case the
lands held by men who had served in the opposite camp were first taken as
being lawfully confiscated; but it must often have happened that there
was not enough of such lands, and that those of persons not implicated
in the civil wars were seized wholly or in part. In such cases it was
understood that the owners were to be compensated by money arising from
the sale of other confiscations. But this money was either insufficient
or long in coming. Petitions and deputations remonstrating against the
injustice poured in upon Cæsar, who, on the other hand, had to listen to
many complaints from the veterans of inadequate provision made for them
and of promises still unfulfilled.
[Sidenote: L. Antonius and Fulvia take advantage of the discontent.]
This was a sufficiently thorny task in itself. But it was made still
more irksome by L. Antonius and Fulvia. Their pretext was that the
veterans in Antony’s legions were less liberally treated than those
in Cæsar’s own; and Lucius claimed, as consul and as representing his
brother, the right of settling the allotments of Antony’s veterans. Cæsar
retorted by complaining that the two legions to which he was entitled
by his written agreement with Antony had not been handed over to him.
Starting from these counter charges they were soon at open enmity,
embittered by the frequent collision between the constitutional authority
of the consul and the extra-constitutional _imperium_ of the triumvir.
Lucius and Fulvia made capital out of this, maintaining that Marcus was
ready to lay down his extraordinary powers as triumvir, and to return to
Rome as consul. Fulvia was credited with a more personal motive. Antony’s
infatuation for Cleopatra was becoming known in Rome, and it was believed
that Fulvia designedly promoted civil troubles in the hope of inducing
her husband to return.[177] At any rate she and Lucius took advantage
of the ill-feeling against Cæsar caused by the confiscation of land.
They feigned to plead for the dispossessed owners, maintaining that the
confiscations had already produced enough for the payment of all claims,
and that, if it were found that this was not so, Marcus would bring home
from Asia what would cover the balance. They thus made Cæsar unpopular
with both sides—with the veterans who thought that he might have
satisfied their claims in full; with the dispossessed owners, who, over
and above the natural irritation at their loss, thought that his measure
had not been even necessary, and that he might have paid the veterans
without mulcting them, or might have waited for the money from Asia.
Specially formidable was the anger of landowners who were in the Senate.
The discontent was increased by the hardness of the times; for corn
was at famine price owing to Sextus Pompeius and Domitius Ahenobarbus
infesting the Sicilian and Ionian seas. Cæsar was therefore in a serious
difficulty. Unable to satisfy veterans and Senators at the same time, he
found how powerless is mere military force against widespread and just
resentment. His one answer to senatorial remonstrance had been, “But how
am I to pay the veterans?” Now, however, he found it necessary to let
alone the properties of Senators, the dowries of women, and all holdings
less than the share of a single veteran. This again led to mutinies
among the troops, who murdered some of their tribunes, and were within
a little of assassinating Cæsar himself. They were only quieted by the
promise that all their relations, and all fathers and sons of those who
had fallen in the war, should retain lands assigned to them. This again
enraged a number of the losers, and fatal encounters between owners and
intruding “colonists” became frequent. The soldiers had the advantage of
training, but the inhabitants were more numerous, and attacked them with
stones and tiles from the housetops, both in Rome and the country towns.
The burning of houses became so common that it was found necessary to
remit a whole year’s rent of houses let for 500 denarii (£20) and under
in the city, and a fourth part in the rest of Italy.
[Sidenote: Other provocations offered to Augustus. He takes steps to
protect himself.]
Cæsar was also made to feel that attachment to Antony meant hostility to
himself; for two legions despatched by him to Spain were refused passage
through the province by Q. Fufius Calenus and Ventidius Bassus, Antony’s
legates in Gallia Transalpina.[178] Alarmed by the aspect of affairs,
he tried to come to some understanding with Lucius and Fulvia, but
found them resolutely hostile. The mediation of officers in the army,
of private friends and Senators proved of no avail; though he produced
the agreement drawn up between Marcus and himself, and offered to allow
the Senate to arbitrate on their disputes. Satisfied that by the refusal
of this offer Lucius and Fulvia had put themselves in the wrong, he
determined to rely upon his army. For Lucius had been collecting men
among those offended by Cæsar, and Fulvia, accompanied by many Senators
and equites, had occupied Præneste with a body of troops, to which she
regularly gave the watchword as their commander, appeared among them
wearing a sword, and frequently harangued the men.
The men of Cæsar’s army, no doubt acting on a hint from himself, now
took the matter into their own hands. They suddenly entered Rome,
affirming that they wished to consult the Senate and people. Assembling
on the Capitol, with such citizens as ventured to come, they ordered the
agreement between Cæsar and Antony to be read, voted its confirmation,
constituted themselves judges between the disputants, and named a day
on which Fulvia, Lucius, and Cæsar were to appear before them at Gabii.
Having ordered these resolutions to be written out and deposited with
the Vestals, they peaceably dispersed. Cæsar was present and of course
consented to appear; but Lucius and Fulvia, though at first promising
to attend at Gabii, did not do so. They scoffed at the idea of a mob
of soldiers, a _senatus caligatus_[179] (a “Tommy-Atkins-parliament”),
presuming to speak for Senate and people. They were therefore voted in
their absence to be in the wrong, and Cæsar’s _acta_ were confirmed.
The show of legality thus gained for him was used by his officers to
justify the collection of money in all directions. Temples were stripped
of silver ornaments to be coined into money, and troops were summoned
from Cisalpine Gaul, which in spite of the claims of Marcus Antonius,
was now made a part of Italy without a provincial governor having a
right to maintain troops.[180] Lucius also, as consul, enrolled men
wherever his authority was acknowledged, and once more there was civil
war in Italy. It was in many respects a recrudescence of the republican
opposition lately headed by Brutus and Cassius. For Sextus Pompeius had
been joined by Murcus with vessels carrying two legions and 500 archers,
and was reinforced with the remains of the armies of Brutus and Cassius,
which had taken refuge in Cephallenia. In Africa Antony’s legate, Titus
Sextius, though he had surrendered the province to Cæsar’s legate
Lurco, had resumed possession and put Lurco to death. Lastly, Domitius
Ahenobarbus was threatening Brundisium with seventy ships. It was not
clear how far these movements were known or approved by Antony; but the
old republican party hoped that their upshot would be the dissolution of
the triumvirate, the downfall of Cæsar, and the restoration of the old
constitution.
[Sidenote: Open war between Augustus and L. Antonius B.C. 41-40.]
For the present Cæsar left Sextus Pompeius alone. But he sent a legion
to Brundisium and summoned Salvidienus with his six legions from his
march into Spain. Salvidienus had been opposed by Antony’s legates
Pollio and Ventidius, and was now harassed in his rear by them when he
turned homeward along the _via Cassia_. Open hostilities, however, began
elsewhere. Some legions at Alba Fucensis showed signs of mutiny, and both
Cæsar and Antonius started for Alba, hoping to secure their adhesion.
But Antonius got there first, and by lavish promises won them to his
side. Cæsar only came in time to skirmish with Antonius’s rearguard under
C. Furnius, and then moved northward to renew his attack on Furnius,
who had retreated to Sentinum in Umbria. On his way he unsuccessfully
attacked Nursia, where Antonius had a garrison, and while he was thus
engaged Antonius himself led his main army to Rome. Such troops as Cæsar
had left in or near the city surrendered to him; while Lepidus, without
attempting resistance, fled to Cæsar,[181] and the other consul made no
opposition. Lucius summoned a _contio_, declared that he meant to depose
Cæsar and Lepidus from their unconstitutional office, and to re-establish
the just authority of the consulship, with which his brother Marcus would
be fully satisfied. His speech was received with applause; he was hailed
_imperator_; and the command in a war was voted to him, though without
the enemy being named. Reinforced by veterans of his brother’s army he
started along the _via Cassia_ to intercept the returning Salvidienus.
Informed of these transactions Cæsar hurried to Rome, leaving Sentinum
still besieged. But it was Agrippa who struck the decisive blow. With
such forces as he could collect he, too, marched on the heels of Antonius
along the _via Cassia_, and occupied Sutrium, about thirty miles from
the city. This cut off L. Antonius’s communications with Rome, who,
with Salvidienus in front of him and Agrippa in his rear, could neither
advance or retire along the _Cassia_ without fighting. With an enemy
on both sides of him he did not venture to give battle, but turned off
the road to Perusia. At first he encamped outside the town expecting to
be soon relieved by Pollio and Ventidius. But finding that they were
moving slowly, and that three hostile armies—under Cæsar, Agrippa, and
Salvidienus—were threatening him, he retired within the walls; where he
thought he might safely winter. Cæsar at once began throwing up lines of
circumvallation, and cut him off from all chance of supply. Perusia is on
a hill overlooking the Tiber and the Trasimene lake. But its position,
almost impregnable to assault, made it also somewhat easy to blockade.
Fulvia was active in urging the legates of Antony in Gaul and North
Italy to come to the relief of Lucius. But Pollio and Ventidius hesitated
and doubted, not feeling certain of the wishes of Marcus; and though
Plancus cut up one legion on its march to join Cæsar, neither he nor any
of the others ventured to engage him when he and Agrippa threw themselves
in their way. Pollio retired to Ravenna, Ventidius to Ariminum, Plancus
to Spoletium, leaving Lucius to his fate; while Fufius Calenus remained
in the Alpine region without stirring. Meanwhile Salvidienus proceeded to
Sentinum, which he took, and shortly afterwards received the surrender of
Nursia.
[Sidenote: B.C. 40 Cos, C. Asinius Pollio, Cn. Domitius Calvinus. Fall of
Perusia.]
[Sidenote: Livia.]
Cæsar was thus able to use his whole force against Perusia. The blockade
lasted till March, B.C. 40, when L. Antonius was compelled to surrender
by hunger. Cæsar had taken an active share in the siege throughout, and
had run serious risks, at one time being nearly captured in a sally of
gladiators while engaged in sacrifice; at another being in danger from
a mutiny in his own army. On the fall of Perusia the townsmen suffered
severely from the victorious soldiery, apparently without the order, and
perhaps against the wish, of Cæsar; and in the course of the sack the
town itself was accidentally set on fire and in great part destroyed.
There is again a conflict of testimony as to Cæsar’s severities.
Suetonius says that he executed a great number, answering all appeals
with a stern “Death!” (_moriendum est_): and his enemies asserted that
he deliberately enticed L. Antonius into the war to have an excuse for
thus ridding himself of his opponents. Some also reported that he caused
300 to be put to death on the Ides of March, at an altar dedicated to
Iulius. On the other hand, it is certain that L. Antonius was allowed to
go away in safety; and Livy says that Cæsar pardoned him and “all his
soldiers.” Appian attributes the death of such leading men as fell to the
vindictiveness of the soldiers. Velleius, of course, takes the same view;
while Dio, equally of course, agrees rather with Suetonius. The first
writer to mention the _Perusinæ aræ_ is Seneca; but as his object was to
contrast the clemency of Nero with the cruelty of Augustus, it is fair
to suspect that he was not very particular as to the historical basis
for his allegations. If there were some executions and also some altar
dedicated to Iulius—both of which are more than probable—it would be easy
for popular imagination to connect the two. No doubt all in Perusia who
were implicated in the assassination, or had been on the proscription
lists, would have short shrift.[182] The altar story is unlike the usual
good sense of Augustus; but it seems that in this siege he desired to
emphasise the fact that he was the avenger of his “father,” some at least
of the leaden bullets used by the slingers bearing the words _Divom
Iulium_.[183] At any rate, whether during the siege or by executions
after it, there seems no doubt that at Perusia a blow was struck at the
old republican party—already decimated by civil war and proscription—from
which it never recovered. The victory, moreover, left Cæsar supreme in
Italy. The legates of M. Antonius for the most part abandoned their
legions and went to join him, or to Sicily to join Sextus Pompeius, who
was already negotiating with Antony. Fufius Calenus, indeed, refused to
surrender his eleven legions; but he died shortly afterwards, and his
son handed them over to Cæsar. Plancus, abandoned by his two legions,
escaped to Antony. Ventidius seems to have done the same; while Pollio,
though not leaving Italy, hung about the east coast in expectation of
Antony’s arrival. Among others, Tiberius Nero abandoned a garrison which
he was commanding, and, with his wife Livia (soon to be the wife of
Augustus) and his infant son (afterwards the Emperor Tiberius), fled to
Sextus Pompeius. Thither also went Antony’s mother Iulia, whom Pompeius
received with respect and employed as envoy to her son; while Fulvia
embarked at Brundisium and sailed to Athens to meet her husband. In Italy
there was no one to rival Cæsar, who by these surrenders and desertions
had now a formidable army. What he had still to fear was a combination of
Antony and Sextus Pompeius and an invasion of Italy by their joint forces.
[Sidenote: Fresh terms with M. Antonius.]
[Sidenote: Marriage with Scribonia, B.C. 40.]
Such an invasion was, in fact, contemplated. Antony was in Asia when
he heard of the fall of Perusia. Crossing to Athens he met Fulvia and
his mother Iulia, the latter bringing an offer from Sextus Pompeius of
support against Cæsar. Antony was in no good humour with his wife or
his agents, whom he must have regarded as having blundered. Nor was he
prepared to begin hostilities at once. But he promised that if Sextus did
so he would accept his aid; and that, even if he did not, he would do
his best to include him in any terms made with Cæsar. Meanwhile, though
the veterans were shy of enlisting against Antony, Cæsar found himself
at the head of more than forty legions, and with such an army had no
fear of not holding his own on land. But his opponents were strong at
sea, and, if they joined with Sextus Pompeius, would have the coasts
of Italy at their mercy. He therefore tried on his own account to come
to an understanding with Pompeius. With this view he caused Mæcenas to
negotiate his marriage with Scribonia, sister of Scribonius Libo, and
aunt to the wife of Pompeius. He had been betrothed in early life to a
daughter of his great-uncle’s colleague, P. Servilius Isauricus, and in
B.C. 43 to Antony’s stepdaughter, Clodia. But neither marriage had been
completed, and at the beginning of Fulvia’s opposition, in B.C. 41, he
had repudiated Clodia. The present union was one of political convenience
only. Scribonia had been twice married, and by her second husband had a
son only a few years younger than Cæsar himself. She was therefore much
the older, and seems also to have been of difficult temper. That at
least was the reason he gave for the divorce which followed a year later,
on the day on which she gave birth to her daughter Iulia. But a truer
reason (besides his passion for Livia) was the fact that by that time
circumstances were changed, and it was not necessary, or even convenient,
to have such a connection with Sextus Pompeius any longer.
[Sidenote: First reconciliation of Brundisium, and new division of the
Empire.]
Antony arrived off Brundisium in the summer of B.C. 40, and was joined
by Sextus and Domitius Ahenobarbus. The three made some descents upon
the coast and threatened Brundisium with a blockade. But before much
damage had been done the interference of common friends brought about
a reconciliation. Antony consented to order Sextus Pompeius to return
to Sicily, and to send away Ahenobarbus as proprætor of Bithynia. A
conference was held at Brundisium, at which Pollio represented Antony,
Mæcenas Cæsar, while M. Cocceius Nerva (great-grandfather of the Emperor)
attended as a common friend of both. The reconciliation here effected
was to be confirmed by the marriage of Antony (whose wife Fulvia had
just died at Sicyon) to Cæsar’s sister Octavia, widow of C. Claudius
Marcellus, the consul of B.C. 50. The two triumvirs accordingly embraced,
and agreed to a new division of the Empire. An imaginary line was to be
drawn through Scodra (_Scutari_) on the Illyrian coast. All west of this
line, up to the Ocean, was to be under the care of Cæsar, except Africa,
which was already in the hands of Lepidus; all east of it, up to the
Euphrates, was to go to Antony. The war against Sextus Pompeius (unless
he came to terms) was to be the common care of both, in spite of Antony’s
recent negotiations with him. Cæsar, on his part, agreed to amnesty all
who had joined Antony from the armies of Brutus and Cassius, in some
cases even though they had been among the assassins.[184] Lastly, both
were to have the right to enlist an equal number of soldiers in Italy.
This agreement was followed by an interchange of hospitalities, in which
Antony displayed the luxury and splendour learnt at the Egyptian court,
while Cæsar affected the simplicity of a Roman and a soldier.[185]
[Sidenote: A new agreement with Sext. Pompeius, B.C. 39.]
But Sextus did not tamely submit to be thus thrown over. He resumed
his old plan of starving out Italy. His freedman, Menodorus, wrested
Sardinia from the governor sent by Cæsar, and his ships, cruising off
Sicily, intercepted the corn-ships from Africa. The people of Rome
were threatened with famine, and on the arrival of Cæsar and Antony to
celebrate the marriage, though an ovation was decreed to both, there
were serious riots in which Cæsar’s life was in danger, and which had to
be suppressed by Antony’s soldiers. They were forced by the outcry to
renew negotiations with Sextus, whose brother-in-law Libo—in spite of the
advice of Menodorus—arranged a meeting between him and the triumvirs at
Misenum, early in B.C. 39. Every precaution was taken against treachery
at the hands of Pompeius. And not without reason. The execution of
Bithynicus three years before had been followed and surpassed by the
treacherous murder of Statius Murcus, followed by the cruel crucifixion
of his slaves on the pretence that the crime had been theirs. The
conference was therefore held on temporary platforms erected at the
end of the mole at Puteoli, with a space of water between them. But an
agreement having been reached, Antony and Cæsar accepted a banquet on
board his ship; and when Menodorus suggested to Pompeius that he should
cut the cables and sail away with them as prisoners, he answered that
Menodorus should have done it without asking, but that he himself was
bound by his oath. The terms made between them were that Sextus Pompeius
was to remain governor of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, with his
fleet, as well as in Peloponnesus, but was to remove all garrisons from
Italian towns and undertake not to hinder commerce or receive runaway
slaves,[186] and should at once allow the corn which he had impounded to
reach Italy. On the other hand, all men of rank who had taken refuge with
him were to have restitution of civil rights and property. If they had
been on the proscription lists, they were to recover only a fourth; and
if they had been condemned for the assassination, they were to be allowed
a safe place of exile. Those—not coming under these three classes—who had
served in his army or navy, were to have the same claim to pensions as
those in the armies of the triumvirs.
Pompeius then returned to Sicily, the triumvirs to Rome. Thence they went
different ways: Antony and Octavia to Athens; Cæsar to Gaul, where the
disturbed state of the country required his presence. Now, therefore,
begins the separate administration of East and West, and the different
principles on which it was carried on contributed largely to the final
rupture between the two men. Antony’s was the otiose policy of setting
up client kings who would take the trouble of government off his hands
and yet be ready to pay him court and do him service, because their
dignity and power depended upon his supremacy. Thus Darius, grandson
of Mithradates, was appointed to Pontus; Herod to Idumæa and Samaria;
Amyntas to Pisidia; Polemon to a part of Cilicia. To Cæsar, on the other
hand, fell the task of preserving order and establishing Roman rule in
countries nearer home, peace and good government in which were essential
to the comfort of the city. Above all, he was bound to prevent Sextus
Pompeius from again interrupting the commerce and corn supply of Italy.
The only service of any of Antony’s partisans near enough to be of active
interest to Rome was the victory of Pollio over the Parthini, for which
he was awarded a triumph.[187]
[Sidenote: B.C. 38, renewed war with Sextus Pompeius.]
But the war with Sextus Pompeius soon became Cæsar’s chief task, and
its renewal was with some justice laid at Antony’s door. For being as
he thought unfairly treated by Antony as to the Peloponnese, which the
latter had declined to hand over till he had collected the year’s taxes,
Pompeius once more began harassing the Italian shores and intercepting
corn-ships. Cæsar answered this by bringing troops from Gaul and building
ships. He established two depôts—at Brundisium and Puteoli—and invited
Antony’s presence at Brundisium to discuss the question of war. Antony
doubtless found it inconvenient to be closely pressed on this matter,
for he was greatly responsible for the difficulty. Though he came to
Brundisium, therefore, he left again immediately, without waiting for
Cæsar, who had been delayed. He gave out that he was opposed to any
breach of the treaty with Pompeius, ignoring the fact that Pompeius
had already broken it. He even threatened to reclaim Menodorus as his
slave, on the ground that he had been the slave of Cn. Pompeius, and had
therefore passed to him as the purchaser of Pompey’s confiscated estate.
Unable, therefore, to reckon on help from Antony, Cæsar undertook the
business himself. He strengthened assailable points on the Italian
coasts; collected ships at Rome and Ravenna; and took over Corsica and
Sardinia from Menodorus, who deserted to him and was made joint admiral
with Calvisius. He set sail himself from Tarentum, Calvisius from Cosa
in Etruria; while a large army was stationed at Rhegium. Pompeius was
almost taken by surprise, but yet managed to reach Cumæ and all but
defeat his enemy’s fleet. This was followed by a violent storm in which
Cæsar’s fleet suffered severely, off the Skyllæan promontory, and by a
second battle in which it only escaped destruction by nightfall. A second
terrible storm, which Pompeius’s more experienced mariners managed to
avoid, still further reduced Cæsar’s sea forces. Pompeius, elated by
these successes, assumed the title of son of Neptune, and wore sea-green
robes as a sign of his origin.[188]
[Sidenote: Activity of Agrippa, B.C. 37-6. Second reconciliation with
Antony.]
Cæsar did not give in, but he changed his generals. Agrippa was summoned
from Gaul, where he had been very successful, and for the first time
since the expedition of Iulius Cæsar, had led an army across the Rhine.
The construction and command of a new fleet were entrusted to him.
With characteristic energy he not only built and manned a large number
of ships, but began the formation of a new harbour (_portus Iulius_)
for their safety and convenience, by piercing the causeway between the
sea and the Lucrine Lake, deepening the lake itself, and connecting it
with the lake Avernus. Here he practised his ships and men during the
winter, and by the summer of B.C. 36 was ready for action. Meanwhile
fresh negotiations with Antony were conducted by Mæcenas, and in the
spring of B.C. 37 a reconciliation was arranged at Tarentum, with the
help of Octavia. The two triumvirs met on the river Taras, and after an
interchange of hospitalities they agreed: First, that the triumvirate
should be renewed for a second period of five years, that is, to the last
day of B.C. 33.[189] Secondly, that Antony should supply Cæsar with 120
ships for the war against Sextus, and Cæsar give Antony 20,000 men for
the Parthian war, which was now becoming serious. Some farther mutual
presents were made through Octavia, and Antony started for Syria leaving
her and their child with her brother.
[Sidenote: Continued war with Sextus Pompeius, B.C. 37-36.]
Cæsar’s plan of campaign for B.C. 37 was that on the 1st of July a
combined attack should be made on Sicily, from three points—from Africa
by Lepidus, from Tarentum by Statilius Taurus, and from Puteoli by
himself. Another violent storm baffled this plan; Cæsar had to take
refuge at Elea; Taurus had to put back to Tarentum; while, though
he reached Sicily, Lepidus returned without effecting anything of
importance. Another winter and spring had to be spent on preparations,
and it was not till the autumn of B.C. 36 that the final engagements
took place. At that time Pompeius’s fleet was stationed along the
Sicilian coast from Messana to Tyndaris, with headquarters at Mylæ.
After reconnoitring the position from the Æolian islands, Cæsar left the
main attack to Agrippa, while he himself joined Taurus at Leucopetra.
Agrippa repulsed the enemy’s ships, but not decisively enough to enable
him to pursue them to their moorings. It was sufficient, however, to
enable Cæsar to cross to Tauromenium, leaving his main body of men on
the Italian shore under the command of Valerius Messalla. Here he soon
found himself in the greatest danger. Pompeius’s fleet was not held up
by Agrippa, as Cæsar thought, but appeared off Tauromenium in force.
Messalla was unable to cross to his relief, and a body of Pompeian
cavalry attacked him while his men were making their camp. Cæsar himself
managed to get back to Italy, but he left three legions, 500 cavalry, and
2,000 veterans, under Cornificius, encamped near Tauromenium, surrounded
by enemies, and without means of supply. He himself landed in a forlorn
condition, with only one attendant, and with great difficulty found his
way to the camp of Messalla. Thence he sent urgent orders to Agrippa to
despatch a force to the relief of Cornificius; commanded Messalla to send
for reinforcements from Puteoli; while Mæcenas was sent to Rome with full
powers to suppress the disorders likely to occur when the ill-success
against Pompeius was known.
The force despatched by Agrippa found Cornificius and his men in a
state of desperate suffering in the difficult district of Mount Ætna,
and conveyed them to the fleet off Mylæ. So far, though Pompeius had
maintained his reputation at sea, he had not shown himself able to follow
up a success on land. And now the tide turned against him. Agrippa seized
Tyndaris, in which Pompeius had large stores, and Cæsar landed twenty-one
legions there, with 2,000 cavalry and 5,000 light-armed troops. His plan
was to assault Messana while Agrippa engaged the fleet. There was a good
road from Tyndaris to Messana (_via Valeria_), but Pompeius still held
Mylæ and other places along the coast with the defiles leading to them.
He was misled, however, by a report of an immediate attack by Agrippa,
and, withdrawing his men from these defiles and strong posts, allowed
Cæsar to occupy them. Finding the report to be false, he again attempted
to intercept Cæsar as he was marching with some difficulty over the
district of Mount Myconium. But his general (Tisienus) failed to take
advantage of Cæsar’s unfavourable position, who, having meanwhile been
joined by Lepidus, encamped under the walls of Messana. He was now strong
enough on land to send detachments to occupy the various towns from which
Pompeius drew supplies; and therefore it was necessary for the latter
to abandon Sicily, or to scatter the fleet of Agrippa and so open the
sea to his transports. In a second battle off Mylæ, however, the fleet
of Pompeius was nearly annihilated, and though he escaped himself into
Messana, his land forces under Tisienus surrendered to Cæsar. When he
discovered this Pompeius, without waiting for the eight legions which
he still had at Lilybæum, collected seventeen ships which had survived
the battle and fled to Asia, hoping that Antony in gratitude for former
services would save and possibly employ him.
[Sidenote: Deposition of Lepidus.]
The danger which for so many years had hung like a cloud about the shores
of Italy was thus at an end. But there was one more danger still to be
surmounted before Cæsar’s authority was fully established in Sicily. The
eight Pompeian legions from Lilybæum under Plennius presently arrived at
Messana. Finding Pompeius fled, as Cæsar happened to be absent, Plennius
handed them over to Lepidus, who was on the spot. Lepidus added them
to his own forces, and being thus strengthened, conceived the idea of
adding Sicily to his province of Africa. It had not been definitely
included in any of the triumviral agreements; he had been the first to
land there, and had in the course of his march forced or persuaded many
cities to submit,—why should he have less authority to deal with it than
Cæsar, whose office was the same as his own? He had originally bargained
for Narbonensis and Spain: he had been shifted to Africa without being
consulted, and his provinces had been taken over by Cæsar. He was now
at the head of twenty-two legions, and would no longer be treated as a
subordinate. His arguments were sound; but they needed to be backed by
a determination as fixed as that of his rival, and, above all, by the
loyalty of his army. Neither of these advantages were his. In a stormy
interview with Cæsar he shewed that he could scold as loudly as another.
But when they had parted, he failed from indolence or blindness to detect
that Cæsar’s agents were undermining the fidelity of his men, especially
in the Pompeian legions, by informing them that without Cæsar’s assent
the promises made them by Lepidus would not be held valid. On his next
visit to the camp of Lepidus with a small bodyguard, Cæsar was mobbed by
the soldiers, and even had some of his guard killed, but when in revenge
for this he invested Lepidus with his main army, the forces of the latter
began quickly to melt away, and before many days he was compelled to
throw himself at Cæsar’s feet. He was forced to abdicate the triumvirate,
and sent to reside in Italy, where he remained till his death (B.C. 13),
in a private capacity and subject to constant mortifications. He retained
indeed the office of Pontifex Maximus, because of certain religious
difficulties as to its abdication, but he was never allowed to exercise
any but the most formal functions. This treatment of a colleague was not
generous; but the whole career of Lepidus since the beginning of the
civil war had been weak and shifty. He was “the greatest weathercock in
the world” (_ventosissimus_),[190] as Decimus Brutus told Cicero, and he
certainly presents the most pitiful figure of all the leading men of the
day.
[Sidenote: The fate of Sextus Pompeius, B.C. 35.]
The old policy of Philippi and Perusia was followed as regards the
forces of Pompeius. Senators and equites were, it is to be feared, in
many cases put to the sword; while the rank and file were admitted into
Cæsar’s army, and an amnesty was granted to those Sicilian towns which
had submitted either to Pompeius or Lepidus. Africa and Sicily Cæsar
took over as his part of the Empire and appointed proprætors to each.
He did not attempt to pursue Sextus Pompeius; he preferred that Antony
should have the responsibility and perhaps the odium of dealing with him.
In fact, he did some years afterwards make his execution a ground of
complaint against Antony. Yet Antony seems to have had little choice in
the matter. For Pompeius acted in Asia much as he had acted in Sicily
and Italy, capturing towns and plundering ships, while sending peaceful
embassies to Antony, offering to serve him against Cæsar. Being at last
compelled to surrender to Amyntas (made king of Pisidia by Antony), and
being by him delivered to Antony’s legate Titius, he was taken to Miletus
and there put to death. But it was, and still remains, uncertain whether
this was done by Antony’s order.
He was just forty, and had led a strange life since he witnessed his
father’s death from the ship off the coast of Egypt. He seems to have
had some generous qualities which attached men to him. But the times
were out of joint, and he was compelled to live the life of a pirate
and freebooter, having a grievance against every successive party that
gained power at Rome, trusting none, and feeling no obligation to treat
them as fellow citizens or even as noble enemies. He seems to have missed
more than one chance of crushing Cæsar; but his troops, though numerous,
were fitted neither by spirit nor by discipline to encounter regularly
trained legions in open fight. We cannot withhold a certain admiration
for the courage and energy which maintained him as virtual ruler of no
inconsiderable portion of the Roman Empire for nearly twelve years.
[Illustration: AUGUSTUS ADDRESSING TROOPS.
_Photographed from the Statue in the Vatican by Edne. Alinari._
_To face page 108._]
CHAPTER VII
ACTIUM
_Altera iam teritur bellis civilibus aetas._
_Sævis Liburnis, scilicet invidens,_
_privata deduci superbo_
_non humilis mulier triumpho._
[Sidenote: The early manhood of Augustus and its fruits.]
When Sextus fled from Sicily Cæsar was about to complete his 27th year.
It was nearly nine years since, while little more than a boy, he had
first boldly asserted himself in opposition to men more than twice his
own age, and had forced those who had been statesmen before he was born
to regard him as their champion or respect him as their master. Since
that time he had had little rest from grave anxieties or war. At Mutina,
Philippi, Perusia, and in Sicily, he had tasted danger and disaster as
well as victory; and had more than once been in imminent hazard. These
fatigues had been made more trying by frequent illness, apparently
arising from a sluggish liver, to which he had been subject from boyhood.
Through all he had been supported by an indomitable persistence and a
passionate resolve to avenge his adoptive father, all the more formidable
perhaps in a character naturally cold and self-contained. As he went on
there gradually awoke in him a nobler ambition, that of restoring and
directing the distracted state. Neither now nor afterwards do the more
vulgar attributes of supreme power—wealth, luxury, and adulation—seem to
have had charms for him. He felt the governing power in him, he believed
in his “genius,” what we might call his “mission,” and the difficulties
of a divided rule became more and more clear to him. From this time,
therefore, he used every means which wise statesmanship or crafty policy
could suggest to rid himself of the remaining partner in the Triumvirate,
and to gain a free hand in the work of restoration which he had already
begun.
[Sidenote: Marriage with Livia, B.C. 38.]
In private life he had taken a step which was the source of a lifelong
happiness to him. The political marriage with Scribonia in B.C. 40,
contracted with the idea of conciliating Sextus Pompeius, had been ended
by divorce on the very day of the birth of his only daughter Iulia.
The reason alleged was her disagreeable disposition; but, besides the
change in the political situation, there was another reason of a more
personal nature. The peace of Misenum had permitted many partisans of
Brutus, Cassius, or Lucius Antonius, who had fled to Sextus Pompeius,
to return to Rome. Among others came Tiberius Nero,[191] with his young
wife, Livia Drusilla. Unless statues and coins are more than usually
false, she was possessed of rare beauty. In B.C. 38 she was twenty years
old, and had one son (the future Emperor Tiberius) now in his fourth
year, and was within three months of the birth of her second son Drusus.
Even to the lax notions of divorce and re-marriage then current this
seemed somewhat scandalous. A year was held to be the necessary interval
for a woman between one marriage and another. But the object of this
convention was to prevent ambiguity as to the paternity of children; and
when Cæsar consulted the pontifices, they told him that, if there was no
doubt as to the paternity of the child with which Livia was pregnant,
the marriage might lawfully take place at once. No opposition seems to
have been made by Livia’s husband, who was at least twenty years her
senior.[192] He acted as a father in giving her to her new husband, and
entertained the bridal pair at a banquet. The marriage was so prompt
that a favourite page of Livia’s, seeing her take her place on the same
dinner couch as Cæsar, whispered to his mistress that she had made a
mistake, for her husband was on the other couch. On the birth of Drusus,
Cæsar sent the infant to its father, thus complying with the conditions
of the pontifices. That the two men should have been on good terms
is not incredible in view of the prevailing sentiment as to divorce.
We find Cicero, for instance, writing effusively to Dolabella almost
directly after he had compelled his daughter to divorce him for gross
misconduct, and there are other instances. At any rate Tiberius Nero, on
his death-bed in B.C. 33, left the guardianship of his sons to Cæsar; and
in spite of such a beginning the marriage proved permanently happy. Cæsar
was devoted to Livia to the day of his death; his last conscious act was
to kiss her lips.[193]
[Sidenote: Honours voted to Cæsar.]
The victory in Sicily left him supreme in the West, and he at once
devoted himself to the re-establishment of order and prosperity. The
relief to Italy and Rome was immense; for with Pompeius master of the
sea the city was always in danger of famine, and the Italian coast of
devastation. This feeling of relief found expression in the proceedings
of the Senate, which now began those votes of special honours and powers
to Cæsar, which in the course of the next ten or twelve years gradually
clothed him with every attribute of supremacy in the state. On his return
from Sicily he was decreed an ovation, as after Philippi,[194] as well
as statues and a triumphal arch. On the day of the victory over Pompeius
(2nd of September), there were to be _feriæ_ and _supplicationes_ for
ever; he and his wife and family were to be feasted on the Capitol;
and he was to have the perpetual right of wearing the laurel wreath of
victory. He refused the office of Pontifex Maximus, as long as Lepidus
lived, but he accepted the privileges of the tribuneship—the personal
sanctity which put any one injuring or molesting him under a curse, and
the right of sitting with the tribunes in the Senate. This it seems
gave him practically the full _tribunicia potestas_ within the city.
But it was a novel measure, and its full consequences were not perhaps
foreseen.[195] He had twice before wished to be elected tribune, but his
“patriciate” stood in his way. This was meant as a kind of compromise,
and it furnishes the keynote to his later plans for absorbing the powers
of the republican offices.
[Sidenote: Measures of conciliation and restoration.]
[Sidenote: The wars for security of frontiers.]
Cæsar’s chief difficulties now came from the large military forces of
which he found himself possessed, either by his own enlistment or from
that of the various defeated leaders. To disband them was neither safe in
view of possible complications with Antony, nor possible without finding
large sums of money or great tracts of unoccupied land with which to
reward the men; whereas his object now was to put an end to confiscation,
fines, and unusual imposts, and to bring back confidence and security.
After suppressing more than one incipient mutiny, he contrived to secure
enough land for those who had served their full time, partly by purchases
from Capua, where there was still a good deal of unassigned land. He
repaid the colony by granting it revenues from lands at Cnossus in
Crete, which had become _ager publicus_ on the defeat of the pirates, and
on some of which a Roman colony was not long afterwards established.[196]
Some of the men, again, who had been most clamorous and mutinous he sent
to Gaul as a _supplementum_ to colonies already existing, or to found
new colonies.[197] He was thus able to make remission of taxation, as
well as of arrears due from the lists of forfeiture published by the
triumvirs. His enemies said that his object was to throw the odium of
their original imposition upon Antony and Lepidus; or to make a merit of
necessity, since in most cases it would have been impossible to collect
the money. These motives may have had a share in his policy, but he
doubtless also wished to restore confidence and cause an oblivion of
the miseries of the civil wars. For the soldiers who remained various
other employments were found. The weakness of the central government had
long been shewn by the existence of marauding bands in various parts
of Italy. The civil wars had aggravated the evil, till travelling had
become dangerous almost everywhere, and even the streets of Rome were
unsafe. Cæsar now organised a police force of soldiers under Sabinus
Cotta to patrol the city and Italy, and within a few months the evil
was much mitigated.[198] Besides this, Statilius Taurus was sent with
an army to restore order in the two African provinces—Proconsularis and
Numidia.[199] Another expedition was sent against the Salassi, inhabiting
the modern Val d’Aosta, who had for two years been holding out against
Antistius Vetus. He had driven them into their mountain fastnesses; but
when he left the district they once more descended and expelled the Roman
garrisons. The war was entrusted to Valerius Messalla, who reduced them
at least to temporary submission (B.C. 35-34).[200] Another similar war
was that against the Iapydes, living in what is now Croatia, who in their
marauding expeditions had come as far as Aquileia and plundered Roman
colonies. To this Cæsar went in person. He destroyed their capital,
Metulum, on the Colapis (mod. _Kolpa_), after a desperate resistance, in
the course of which he was somewhat severely injured by the fall of a
bridge. The rest of the country then submitted.[201] The Iapydes had no
doubt provoked the attack. But that does not seem to be the case with the
Pannonians, whom Cæsar proceeded to invade. They were a mixed Illyrian
and Celtic tribe, dwelling in forests and detached villages without great
towns, and appear to have lived peaceably. But Cæsar resolved to take
their one important town, Siscia, at the junction of the Kolpa and Save,
partly as a convenient magazine in wars against the Daci, and partly for
the mere object of keeping his army employed and paid at the expense
of a conquered country. The siege of the town lasted thirty days, and
after its fall he returned to Rome, leaving Fufius Geminus to continue
the campaign. So again in the spring of B.C. 34 Agrippa was sent against
the Dalmatians, and when later in the season he was joined by Cæsar
in person, their chief towns were taken and burnt; and this people,
who since their defeat of Gabinius in B.C. 44-43, had been practically
independent, had again to submit and pay tribute, with ten years’
arrears, and restore the standards taken from Gabinius. Their submission
was followed by that of other tribes, and by the middle of B.C. 33, the
whole of Illyricum was restored to obedience.
These were the sort of successes to make a man popular at Rome; for they
were not costly in blood or treasure, and they affected the interests
of a large number of merchants and men of business. Nor was this all.
One of his legates, Statilius Taurus, was so successful in Africa, and
another, C. Norbanus, in Spain, that both were decreed triumphs in B.C.
34, and in the same year Mauretania was made a Roman province. Cæsar had
declined a triumph after the Pannonian war, but accepted honours for
Octavia and Livia, who were exempted from the _tutela_, to which all
women were subject; and during these two years his name was becoming
associated with success and with the expansion of the Empire and of trade.
[Sidenote: Improvements in the city.]
This was accompanied by restorations and improvements in the city
calculated to appeal still more strongly to popular imagination. In B.C.
33 Agrippa as ædile reformed the water supply of Rome, constructing 700
basins, 500 fountains, and repairing the aqueducts.[202] He also cleansed
the cloacæ, adorned the circus, distributed oil and salt free, and opened
the baths gratis throughout his year of office, besides throwing among
the spectators at the theatre _tesseræ_ (tickets) entitling the holders
to valuable presents. Cæsar himself, who was consul for a few months at
the beginning of B.C. 33, erected the Porticus Octaviæ, named in honour
of his sister, with the spoils of the Illyrian and Pannonian wars,[203]
and began the building of the temple of Apollo and the two libraries, on
the site bought for a house on the Palatine before B.C. 36, when that of
Hortensius had been granted to him by the Senate,[204] and while he was
still living in the house of Calvus near the Forum.
[Sidenote: The contrast of Antony’s career.]
[Sidenote: The Parthians.]
These successes in the Western provinces, combined with such costly
improvements in the city, impressed (as it was intended that they should)
the minds of the people in Rome with the feeling that Cæsar’s name was
the best guarantee for the era of peace and prosperity which seemed
at last to be succeeding the ruin and horror of civil war. In strong
contrast—carefully emphasized by Cæsar and his friends—were the military
expeditions in the East, and the extravagance of Antony’s infatuation for
Cleopatra in Egypt. In B.C. 40 he had been roused from the intoxication
of love and revelry in Alexandria to find Syria in the hands of the
Parthian Pacorus, son of Orodes, and of Labienus, son of the old legate
of Iulius, who had joined the enemy after the battle of Philippi. They
had defeated and killed his legate, Decidius Saxa, and taken possession
of the province. It is true that next year, B.C. 39, P. Ventidius drove
away Labienus, and in B.C. 38 defeated the Parthians and killed Pacorus.
But Antony was jealous of Ventidius, deposed him from his command, and
went in person to besiege the remains of the Parthian army in Samosata,
where they had been received by Antiochus, king of Commagene. He failed
to take the town, and though in his despatch he took all the credit of
previous successes, the truth was well known in Rome. After his failure
at Samosata he made somewhat inglorious terms with Antiochus, and going
off to meet Cæsar at Tarentum left C. Sosius in charge of Syria. Sosius
put down an insurrection in Judæa and established Herod as king (B.C.
38-7). But in B.C. 36 Antony suffered severe reverses in an expedition
against Phraates, who had just succeeded his father Orodes as king of
Parthia. One success, however, in the course of an inglorious campaign
enabled him to send home laurelled despatches, the real value of which
Cæsar and his friends took care should be known. In B.C. 35 he began
carving out a kingdom for his elder son by Cleopatra, and making
preparations for an expedition against the king of Armenia, whom he
accused of failing in his duty of supporting him in the previous year.
Having first made a treaty of friendship with the king of Media, in B.C.
34 he invaded Armenia, and getting possession of the person of the king
by an act of treachery which shocked Roman sentiment—not very scrupulous
in such matters—he brought him in silver chains to Alexandria.
[Sidenote: Cleopatra.]
Thus Antony’s career as an administrator and defender of the Empire
was rightly or wrongly looked upon as comparing unfavourably with that
of Cæsar. But still more shocking to Roman feeling was his position in
Cleopatra’s court. Though the moral standard at Rome was far from high,
it was rigid in regard to certain details. Just as a valid marriage
could only be contracted with a woman who was a _civis_, so for a man
in high position to live openly with a foreign mistress, however high
her rank, was peculiarly scandalous. The beloved Emperor Titus, a
hundred years later, had to give way to this sentiment and dismiss his
Idumæan mistress. But that a Roman imperator should not only have such a
connection with a “barbarous” queen, but should act as her officer and
courtier; that she should have a bodyguard of Roman soldiers; should give
the watchword to them as their sovereign; and should even employ them to
deal with what in one sense or another was Roman territory—this seemed an
outrage of the worst kind. In a poem written it seems while the campaign
at Actium was still undecided, but when rumours of Antony’s defeat were
reaching Rome, Horace well expresses the disgust with which the position
conceded to Cleopatra by Antony’s fondness was regarded:
False, false the tale our grandsons will declare—
That Romans to a woman fealty sware;
Shouldered their pikes; presented arms; and did
Whate’er her wrinkled eunuchs deigned to bid:
Or that among our Roman flags were seen
The gauzy curtains of her palanquin.”[205]
Antony himself made no concealment as to the queen’s connection with
the army. After his disastrous expedition of B.C. 36-5, Cleopatra
supplied him with money, and he told his men when paying them that
they were receiving it from her. The connection also involved a breach
with Cæsar. Their friendship—always doubtful—had been patched up from
time to time by formal reconciliations; in B.C. 43 after Mutina; in
B.C. 40 at Brundisium; and in B.C. 37 at Tarentum. For a time Antony
had found great pleasure in the society of Octavia, with whom he lived
for a time at Athens. But after the meeting at Tarentum he left Octavia
with her brother on his return to the East, and soon fell again under
Cleopatra’s spell, who, though not beautiful, fascinated him by her art
and infinite variety. When in B.C. 35 Octavia, trying to effect another
reconciliation, went to Athens, taking money and soldiers for him from
her brother, Antony accepted the gifts, but sent her word that she was
to return to Rome. Cæsar would have had her repudiate him at once, but
she seems to have been sincerely attached to him, and to have shrunk
from the idea of an insult to herself being made an occasion of civil
war. She persisted in living in his town house, and in bringing up with
liberality, not only her own children by him, but also Antony’s children
by Fulvia.
[Sidenote: Final breach between Cæsar and Antony.]
But after his return from the Armenian expedition (B.C. 34) Antony became
still more infatuated with Cleopatra. He publicly gave her the title of
“Queen of Queens,” and her eldest son the name of Cæsarion and “King
of Kings”; while to his two sons and daughter by Cleopatra he assigned
kingdoms in Syria, Armenia, Libya, and Cyrene. He had the assurance to
write to the Senate asking for the confirmation of these _acta_. When
his two friends, C. Sosius and Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus entered on their
consulship (1st of January, B.C. 32), they resolved to suppress this
despatch, in spite of Cæsar’s wishes; but they communicated to the Senate
his message that the second period of the Triumvirate having expired
(on the last day of B.C. 33), he had no desire for its renewal. He did
not, however, lay down his imperium, and the object of this declaration
was to embroil Cæsar with the Senate, should he wish to retain his
extraordinary powers. Ahenobarbus, indeed, had had enough of civil war
and wished to take no step likely to bring it about. But Sosius made
an elaborate speech in praise of Antony, and attacking, or at least
depreciating, Cæsar; and was only prevented from bringing in a motion
in Antony’s favour by the intervention of a tribune. A few days after
this Cæsar (who had not been present on the 1st of January) summoned the
Senate, and delivered a speech from the consular bench, which though
studiously moderate as regards himself, was very outspoken as regards
Sosius and Antony. No one ventured to reply, and the Senate was dismissed
with the assurance that Cæsar would produce proofs of what he had said
about Antony. The two consuls, without taking any farther step, left
Rome privately and joined Antony in Alexandria. They were followed by a
considerable number of Senators, Cæsar giving out that they went with his
full consent, and declaring that others might go if they chose.
[Sidenote: The grievances of either side.]
[Sidenote: War proclaimed against Cleopatra, B.C. 32.]
This was a division of the governing body similar to that of B.C. 49-8,
and it was evident that a civil war was imminent. Sentiment was by no
means all on one side at Rome, as is proved by the numbers of the Senate
who crossed to Antony. Party feeling, in fact, was so keen that the very
boys in the streets divided themselves into Cæsarians and Antonians;[206]
and both leaders shewed great eagerness by arguments and declarations to
put themselves in the right. Antony’s grievances against Cæsar were:
(1) that he deprived Lepidus of Africa without consulting him; (2) that
he had not shared with him the countries formerly controlled by Sextus
Pompeius; (3) that he enrolled soldiers in Italy without sending him
the contingents due by their agreement. Cæsar’s against Antony were
that he was occupying Egypt (not a Roman province) without authority;
had executed Sextus Pompeius, whom he (Cæsar) had wished to spare; had
disgraced the Roman name by his conduct to the king of Armenia, by his
connection with Cleopatra, and by bestowing kingdoms on his children by
her; and, lastly, had wronged him by acknowledging Cæsarion as a son of
Iulius Cæsar. Letters and messages were interchanged for some months on
these and other points, both trying to justify themselves. Antony, in
one letter at least, preserved by Suetonius, ridicules in the coarsest
terms what he regards as Cæsar’s hypocritical or prudish objection to his
connection with the queen. But at length Cæsar found means to discredit
Antony in the eyes of the Senators, and to convince them that they must
prevent an invasion of Italy by a proclamation of war against Cleopatra,
which would be understood to be against Antony. He did this by using two
of Antony’s officers who had quarrelled with him and returned to Rome—M.
Titius and L. Munatius Plancus. The latter, Cicero’s correspondent,
the governor of Celtic Gaul in B.C. 44, and consul in B.C. 42, had
joined Antony in Alexandria as his _legatus_, and had been much in his
confidence. He is held up to scorn by contemporary writers as a monster
of fickleness and an ingrained traitor, and his thus turning upon Antony
was regarded with much contempt even by the Cæsarians. The story he and
his companion had to tell, however, served Cæsar’s turn. They brought
word that, on hearing of his speech in the Senate, Antony had publicly
divorced Octavia in the presence of the Senators, and had announced that
he intended to undertake a war against him. They also told how Antony
styled Cleopatra his queen and sovereign, gave her a bodyguard of Roman
soldiers, with her name on their shields; how he escorted her to the
forum and sat by her side on the seat of justice; how, when she rode
in her chair he walked on foot by her side among the eunuchs; how he
called the general’s quarters or prætorium “the Palace,” wore an Egyptian
scimitar and a robe embroidered with gold, and sat on a gilded chair;
and how some religious mummeries had been played, in which he took the
part of Osiris, she of the Moon and Isis. The Roman world believed that
Antony was bewitched by Cleopatra; and the serious consequences likely to
ensue were made more manifest by his will, of which Augustus got either
a copy or an account of its contents from Plancus, and read it publicly
from the Rostra. In it Antony affirmed the legitimacy of Cæsarion, gave
enormous legacies to his children by Cleopatra, and ordered his body to
be buried with that of the queen’s in the royal mausoleum. Altogether
people began to believe the report that he meant to hand over the Empire,
even Rome itself, to Cleopatra, and to transfer the seat of government to
Alexandria. There was one of those outbursts of feeling which carries all
before it. Even those who had been neutral, or inclined to be suspicious
of Cæsar, turned violently against Antony. He was deposed from the
consulship for B.C. 31, to which he had been elected, and declared to be
divested of imperium. It seems probable that he was not at first declared
a _hostis_,[207] but war was voted against Cleopatra. It was enough
for his enemies that he should be found fighting with the Egyptians
against Rome; and the vote was well understood to include him. Cæsar was
appointed to proclaim the war with all the _Fetial_ ceremonies, and the
Senate assumed the _sagum_.[208]
Both sides were now making preparations in earnest. Cæsar could draw
forces from Italy, Gaul, Spain, Illyricum, Sardinia, Sicily, and other
islands. Antony relied on Asia, the parts about Thrace, Greece and
Macedonia, Egypt, Cyrene, and the islands of the Ægean, besides a large
number of client kings who had owed their position to him.[209] He
silenced their scruples, when gathered at Samos, by pointing out that
they would not be formally at war with Rome, and promising that within
two months of the victory he would lay down his imperium and remit all
power to the Senate and people. Nor did he confine his exertions to
the East. Agents were sent to cities in Italy carrying money, though
Cæsar—who kept himself well informed—frustrated this attempt for the most
part.
[Sidenote: Antony approaches Italy.]
From Samos Antony removed his headquarters to Athens, whence in the
winter of B.C. 32 he started to invade Italy. But at Corcyra he
got intelligence of an advanced squadron of Cæsar’s fleet near the
Acroceraunian promontory, and thinking that Cæsar was there in full
force, he decided to put off hostilities till the spring, by which time
he expected to be joined by the forces of the client kings. He himself
wintered at Patræ, distributing his forces so as to guard various points
in Greece. He scornfully rejected Cæsar’s proposal for an interview, on
the ground that there was no one to decide between them, if either broke
the terms upon which they might agree. The proposal was probably not
seriously meant. It was only another means of putting Antony in the wrong.
[Sidenote: B.C. 31, Con., C. Octavius Cæsar, Val. Messala. The beginning
of hostilities.]
Nothing, however, was done before the end of the year, a storm having
frustrated an attempt of Cæsar’s to surprise some of the enemy’s ships
at Corcyra. In the early spring the first move was made by Agrippa,
who swooped down upon Methone in Messenia, killed Bogovas, late king
of Mauretania, and harassed the shores of Greece by other descents, in
order to divert Antony’s attention; who was now with his main fleet in
the Ambracian gulf, having secured the narrow entrance to it by towers
on either side, and with ships stationed between. His camp was close to
the temple of Apollo, on the south side of the strait. The successes of
Agrippa encouraged Cæsar to move. He landed troops in Ceraunia, making
his own headquarters at the “Sweet Haven,” at the mouth of the Cocytus,
and sent a detachment by land round the Ambracian sea to threaten
Antony’s camp. Having failed to entice the fleet from the Ambracian
gulf, or to tempt the men to abandon Antony, he seized the high ground
overlooking the strait, and opposite Actium, where he entrenched himself,
on the ground on which he afterwards built Nicopolis. The summer months,
however, were wearing away without any decisive blow being struck by
either side, and the delay was irksome to both. Rome was in a state of
simmering revolt owing to distress and heavy taxes, a discontent which
found expression in the conspiracy of Lepidus, son of the ex-triumvir.
It was promptly suppressed, indeed, and Lepidus was sent over to Cæsar
to receive his condemnation; but, nevertheless, Mæcenas, who was in
charge of Rome, found that he had no sinecure. To Antony, again, delay
meant discontent among his Eastern followers, tottering loyalty, and
probable abandonment. Above all, Cleopatra was in a highly nervous state,
and was urging a return to Egypt. At last on the 31st of August, a
cavalry engagement going against Antony, she became clamorous; and after
long deliberation, Antony determined to follow her advice. He ordered
his ships to be prepared for battle, but with the secret intention of
avoiding a fight and sailing away to Alexandria.[210]
[Sidenote: Battle of Actium, Sept. 3, B.C. 31.]
Cæsar was kept informed of this, and resolved to prevent it. His idea
was to allow the Antonian fleet to issue out and begin their course,
and then to fall upon their rear. But Agrippa thought that the superior
sailing powers of the Antonian fleet would render this impossible, and
urged an attack as soon as the ships cleared the straits. There had
been rough weather for four days, but on the 3rd of September there was
a calm,[211] or only some surf from the preceding storms; and when the
trumpet rang out for the start Antony’s huge vessels, furnished with
towers and filled with armed men, began streaming out of the straits.
They did not at first show any signs of standing out to sea. The ships
took up a close order and waited to be attacked. There was a brief pause
on Cæsar’s side. He or Agrippa hesitated to attack these great galleons
with their smaller craft. But before long an order was issued to the
vessels on the extremities of Cæsar’s fleet to exert their utmost powers
in rowing in order to get round Antony’s two wings. To avoid this danger
Antony was forced against his will to order an attack.
The battle raged all the afternoon without decisive result; though the
smallness of Cæsar’s vessels proved in many points a decided advantage.
They could be rowed close up to bigger ships and be rowed away again
when a shower of javelins had been poured in upon the enemy. Antony’s
men returned the volleys and used grappling irons of great weight. If
these irons caught one of the smaller ships they were doubtless very
effective; but if the cast missed they either seriously damaged their own
ship, or caused so much confusion and delay that an opportunity was given
to the enemy to pour in fresh volleys of darts. At length Cleopatra,
whose ships were on the southern fringe of the fleet, could bear the
suspense no longer. She gave the signal for retreat, and a favourable
breeze springing up, the Egyptian ships were soon fading out of sight.
Antony thinking that this was the result of a panic, and that the day
was lost, hastened after the retiring squadron. The example of their
leader was followed by many of the crews, who lightening their ships by
throwing overboard the wooden towers and war tackle, fled with sails full
spread. But others still maintained the struggle, and it was not until
Cæsar’s men began throwing lighted brands upon the enemy’s ships that the
rout became general. Even then the work was not over, for Cæsar spent
the whole night on board endeavouring to rescue men from the burning
ships.[212]
[Sidenote: The finale of the civil war in Egypt, B.C. 31-30.]
Antony got clear off from pursuit, but his camp on land was easily taken,
and his army was intercepted while trying to retreat into Macedonia. For
the most part the men took service in Cæsar’s legions, the veterans being
disbanded without pensions. Antony, however, was followed to Egypt by
many of his adherents of rank, and still thought himself strong enough
to make terms with Cæsar. But he could no longer hope for aid from the
client kings. They all hastened to make their peace with Cæsar, or were
captured and punished. Even Cleopatra was secretly prepared to betray him.
With the exception of one visit to Brundisium of seven days, to suppress
the mutiny of some discontented veterans, Cæsar spent the winter at
Samos and Athens, collecting an army and navy destined to deprive Egypt
permanently of its independence. Cleopatra had indeed tried to brave it
out. She returned to Alexandria with her prows decked with flowers and
her pipers playing a triumphant tune. The people are not likely to have
been deceived, but there was no sign of revolt. She was able to seize
the property of those whose fidelity she suspected, and even put to
death the captive king of Armenia to gratify her ally the king of Media.
Messages were sent to the kings who had been allied with Antony, and for
some gladiators whom he had in training at Trapezus. The gladiators
started but were intercepted, and no help came from the client kings.
A still worse disappointment awaited him in Cyrene, over which he had
placed L. Pinarius Scarpus with four legions. When, leaving Cleopatra
at Parætonium, he went to take over these legions, Pinarius refused to
receive him and even put his messengers to death, and shortly afterwards
handed over his province and army to Cæsar’s legate, Cornelius Gallus.
This was an unmistakable sign that Antony’s day of influence was over.
Cleopatra returned to Alexandria and made secret preparations for
retiring into Asia, as far as Iberia (_Georgia_) if necessary, though
still keeping up appearances and sending in every direction for aid.
Cleopatra’s son Cæsarion and Antony’s son by Fulvia (Antyllus) were
declared of man’s estate and capable of governing, and messages were
despatched to Cæsar proposing that Antony should retire to Athens as a
_privatus_, and that Cleopatra should abdicate in favour of Cæsarion.
The queen also, without Antony’s knowledge, sent Cæsar a gold sceptre
and crown. He made no reply to Antony, but answered in threatening terms
to Cleopatra, while sending his freedman Thyrsus to give her privately a
reassuring message. Antony suspected the purport of Thyrsus’s mission,
and with a last ebullition of his old swaggering humour had him flogged,
and sent back with the message, that if Cæsar felt aggrieved he might
put his freedman Hipparchus (who had joined Cæsar) to the torture in
revenge. But things went from bad to worse with him. News came that
the gladiators had been impounded, that his own legatus in Syria (Q.
Didius) had bidden the Arabs burn the ships which he had prepared for his
flight in the Red Sea, and that the only two client kings who had seemed
inclined to stand by him—those of Cilicia and Galatia—had fallen off. He
therefore tried once more to open communications with Cæsar. He sent him
as a prisoner one of the assassins of Iulius, whom he had protected and
employed, P. Turullius, and a considerable sum of money by the hands
of his son Antyllus. Cæsar put Turullius to death and took the money,
but returned no answer to Antony, though he again sent a private message
to Cleopatra. Presently Antony was informed that Gallus had arrived at
Parætonium with the four legions taken over from Pinarius; and believing
that even now his personal influence was sufficient to win back the men,
he hurried thither, accompanied by the remains of his fleet coasting
along to guard him. But this only led to farther disaster. The soldiers
refused to listen to him; and when his ships entered the harbour the
chains were made fast across the mouth and they were trapped. On land he
now found himself between two hostile forces; for Cæsar with Cleopatra’s
connivance had landed at Pelusium and was marching on Alexandria, and
Gallus was attacking him from Parætonium. He once more executed one
of those rapid movements for which he was famous. Hastening back to
Alexandria he flung his cavalry upon Cæsar’s vanguard when tired with its
march. But the success of this movement encouraged him to make a general
attack, in which he was decisively beaten. His last resource, the ships
still remaining in the harbour of Alexandria, failed him. Acting under
Cleopatra’s orders the captains refused to receive him. The queen, it is
said, had shut herself up in the Tomb-house or Ptolemæum, hoping to drive
Antony to despair and suicide, as the only solution of the difficulty. If
that was indeed her motive, she was both successful and repentant. Antony
stabbed himself, and begged to be carried to the Tomb-house, where he
died in her arms.
[Sidenote: Death of Cleopatra.]
Cæsar was now eager to secure Cleopatra’s person. He sent Gallus to her
with soothing messages, which he delivered to her at the porch. But while
he was speaking with her C. Proculeius entered by a window, seized the
queen, and conveyed her to the Palace, where she was allowed her usual
attendants and all the paraphernalia of royalty. Of the two accounts of
Cæsar’s interview with her the more picturesque one is given by the
usually prosaic Dio. He found her looking charming in her mourning,
surrounded by likenesses of various kinds of the great Iulius, and in
the bosom of her dress a packet of letters received from him. On his
entrance she rose with a blush and greeted him as her lord and master.
She pleaded that Iulius had always honoured her and acknowledged her as
queen. She read affectionate passages from his letters, which she kissed
passionately with tears streaming from her eyes, being at the same time
careful to put respectful admiration and affection for Cæsar himself into
her looks and the tone of her voice. Cæsar quite appreciated the drama
thus played for his behoof, but feigned unconsciousness, keeping his
eyes fixed on the ground and saying nothing but: “Courage, madam! Do not
be alarmed, for no harm will happen to you.” He said no word, however,
as to her retention of royal power, nor did his voice betray the least
tenderness. In an agony of disappointment she flung herself at his feet
and besought him by the memory of his father to allow her to die and
share Antony’s tomb. Cæsar made no reply except once more to bid her not
be alarmed; but he gave orders that though allowed her usual attendants
she was to be closely watched. Cleopatra understood only too well that
the intention was to take her to Rome that she might adorn the victor’s
triumph. But in order to secure greater freedom she feigned submission
and to be busied in collecting presents to take to Livia. Having thus
diminished the vigilance of Epaphroditus and her other guards, she some
days afterwards made a parade of writing a letter to Cæsar, which she
induced Epaphroditus to convey. When he returned, however, he found
the queen, decked in royal robes, lying dead with two of her waiting
women dead or dying by her side. “No one knows for certain,” says Dio,
“how she died. Some say that a venomous snake was conveyed to her in a
water-vessel or in some flowers. Others that the long pin with which
she fastened her hair had a poisoned point, with which she pricked her
arm.” Plutarch, with a like expression of doubt, says that the snake was
conveyed in a basket of figs; and that on receiving the letter brought
by Epaphroditus Cæsar understood her purpose and hurried to the Palace
to prevent it, and even summoned some of the mysterious Psylli—snake
charmers and curers—to suck out the poison.[213] But in spite of his
disappointment, he admired her spirit and gave her a royal funeral.
Perhaps after all he felt relieved of a difficulty. According to Plutarch
she had shown him that she was not to be easily managed. At the end of
her conversation with Cæsar, he says, she handed him a schedule of the
royal treasures. But when one of her stewards or treasurers remarked
that she was keeping back certain sums, the enraged queen sprang up,
clutched his hair, and beat his face with her fists. When Cæsar smiled
and tried to pacify her, she exclaimed: “A pretty thing, Cæsar, that you
should visit and address me with honour in my fallen state, and that one
of my own slaves should malign me! If I have set apart certain women’s
ornaments, it was not for myself, but for Octavia and Livia, that they
might soften your heart to me.”
It would be pleasanter if the death of Cleopatra and the confiscation of
her treasury were the end of the story. But the executions of the two
poor boys, Cæsarion and Antyllus, were acts of cold-blooded cruelty.
The former, who could not have been more than sixteen, had been sent by
his mother with a large supply of money to Æthiopia, but was betrayed
by his _pædagogus_, overtaken by Cæsar’s soldiers, and put to death.
The young Antonius (or Antyllus) begged hard for his life, and fled for
safety to the _heroum_ of the divine Iulius, constructed by Cleopatra,
but was dragged away and killed. He could at most have been no more
than fourteen, and had in childhood been betrothed to Cæsar’s infant
daughter, Iulia. Perhaps the pretensions of Cæsarion to the paternity of
Cæsar, and his acknowledgment as heir to the throne of Egypt, made his
death inevitable; but the extreme youth of Antyllus and his helplessness
might have pleaded for him. The rest of Antony’s children were protected
by Octavia, and brought up as became their rank.
It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for Antony, who had thus flung
away fame and life for a woman’s love. But it was doubtless a happy thing
for the world that the direction of affairs fell to the cautious Augustus
rather than to him. He had some attractive qualities, but no virtues.
Boundless self-indulgence in a ruler more than outweighs good-nature or
liberality. It brings more suffering to subjects than the occasional
gratification caused by the latter qualities can compensate. His scheme
for erecting a series of semi-independent kingdoms in the East would
almost certainly have been the cause of endless troubles. He was not more
than fifty-three at his death, but there were signs of a great decay of
energy and activity. The people thought of him—
“As of a Prince whose manhood was all gone,
And molten down in mere uxoriousness.”
And undoubtedly, if instead of spending a winter in Samos in luxury and
riot and part of another at Athens in much the same way, he had begun his
attack on Cæsar a year earlier, the result might have been different. But
he let the occasion slip and found, as others have done, that the head of
Time is bald at the back.
[Illustration: Obv.: Head of Augustus. Rev.: The Sphinx.
Obv.: Heads of Augustus and Agrippa. Rev.: Crocodile and Palm. _Colonia
Nemausi_ (Nismes).
Obv.: Head of Augustus. Rev.: Triumphal Arch, celebrating the
reconstruction of the roads.
Obv.: Head of Drusus. Rev.: The Trophy of Arms taken from the Germans.
Obv.: Head of Livia. Rev.: Head of Julia.
_To face page 130._]
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEW CONSTITUTION, B.C. 30-23
_Hic ames dici pater atque princeps._
[Sidenote: The new constitution.]
The seven years which followed the death of Antony and Cleopatra
witnessed the settlement of the new constitution in its most important
points. It has been called a _dyarchy_, the two parties to it being the
Emperor and the Senate. They were not, however, at any time of equal
power. As far as it was possible Augustus rested his various functions on
the same foundation as those of the Republican magistrates, and treated
the Senate with studious respect. But in spite of all professions,
in spite even of himself, he became a monarch, whose will was only
limited by those forces of circumstance and sentiment to which the most
autocratic of sovereigns have at times been forced to bow. The important
epochs in this reconstruction are the years B.C. 29, 27, 23; but it will
be necessary sometimes to anticipate the course of events and to speak at
once of what often took many years to develop.
[Sidenote: Reduction of the army.]
The reduction of the vast armaments which the various phases of the civil
war had called into existence was made possible by the wealth which the
possession of Egypt put into Cæsar’s hands. Though Egypt became a Roman
province it was from the first in a peculiar position, governed by a
“prefect” appointed by the Emperor, who took as his private property
both the treasures and domain lands of the Ptolemaic kings and the
balance of the revenues over the expenses. This formed the nucleus of
what was afterwards called the _fiscus_,[214] the imperial revenue as
distinguished from the _ærarium_ or public treasury. He was thus enabled
to disband many legions at once, without the dangerous discontent of the
veterans, or the irritation of fresh confiscations. It was imperatively
necessary to do this if he wished to avoid the dangers which had so often
threatened the State from leaders of overgrown military forces. The
number of legions under arms during the preceding ten years was indeed
formidable. In B.C. 36, when Cæsar took over those of Lepidus and Sextus
Pompeius, he had forty-four or forty-five legions under his command.[215]
Between that time and the war with Antony he had reduced the number to
eighteen. But after the victory at Actium and the death of Antony, the
legions taken over from him, along with those newly raised for the war,
again amounted to fifty. Therefore Cæsar had twice to deal with a body of
about 250,000 men. He says himself that in the course of his wars half a
million citizens had taken the military oath to him. The wealth of Egypt
served to purchase lands or compensate towns for such as were taken for
the veterans. From first to last more than 300,000 men were provided for
in this way.[216] An important purpose also served by this measure was
the repeopling of Italy and the renovation of many towns which during
the civil wars, or from other causes, had fallen into decay. Republican
precedent was followed by recalling the ancient practice of settling
“colonies” in the Italian towns, but with this difference, that the new
colonists were usually treated as a _supplementum_ of an already existing
colonia, lands being purchased for them from private owners or from the
communities. Augustus claims twenty-eight of such Italian colonies, of
which thirteen are known to have been in past times “Roman” or “Latin”
colonies. Other towns, besides a money compensation, were rewarded by
being raised to the status of a colony, generally with the addition of
“Iulia” or “Augusta” to their name. This system was presently extended
beyond Italy—to Africa, Spain, Sicily, Illyricum, Macedonia, Achaia,
Gallia Narbonensis, Asia, Syria, and Pisidia. Settlements in these
countries were all colonies of veterans, except Dyrrachium, which was
filled with dispossessed Italians. This was not altogether a novelty:
for extra-Italian colonies had been already established in Cisalpine and
Transalpine Gaul, at Carthage, and at Corinth. Iulius Cæsar is said to
have settled 80,000 citizens in this way outside Italy. The extra-Italic
colonies of Augustus, however, differed from these last in regard to
status. They had what was called _Latinitas_, that is, citizenship
without the right of voting or holding office at Rome. In virtue of this
citizenship they came under the Roman law and belonged to the assize
(_conventus_) of the provincial governors. Some of them, again, had the
special privileges which were summed up in the general term “Italic
right” (_ius Italicum_), and included freedom from the jurisdiction
of the provincial governor (_libertas_), and exemption from tribute
(_immunitas_). The general aim seems to have been to put the extra-Italic
colonies as far as possible in the same position as those in Italy. As
a rule also the veterans settled in a colony had been enlisted in the
province, and had, therefore, already local connections. Augustus took
trouble in fostering and adorning these towns, whether in Italy or the
provinces, and records with pride that many had become populous cities
during his lifetime. In many cases their subsequent importance shewed
that they had been well selected. Thus Carthage had a great mediæval
history; Durazzo and Philippi were long places of consequence; Saragossa,
Merida, Cordova, Aix, Patras, Beyroot, all trace their prosperity to the
colonisation of Augustus.[217]
[Sidenote: Improvements at Rome.]
Nor did he meanwhile forget to encourage restoration at Rome, to which
he had already given a strong impulse. Nothing had damaged Antony in the
eyes of the Romans more than the report of his intention to transfer the
seat of Empire to Alexandria. A similar report as to the establishment
of an imperial city for the East at Ilium caused a like uneasiness a few
years later, which found expression in one of Horace’s most spirited
odes.[218] Cæsar prudently shewed not only that he held firmly by the
Imperial position of Rome, but that he also wished to make it externally
worthy to be the capital of the world. As in all his projects, no one
co-operated more loyally than Agrippa. But others also were pressed
into the service; and those especially who had earned triumphs were
encouraged to use a portion at least of their spoils in public works. In
the next few years there was a great outburst of temple restoration,[219]
and it became the fashion among the immediate friends and followers of
Augustus to signalise their tenure of office or a military success by
undertaking some important building. Horace again has reflected the view
of such matters which the official classes were expected to take, and
perhaps to a certain extent did take. The sufferings of the Romans in the
revolutionary period had undoubtedly been great. The ruinous state of the
temples was doubtless connected with the unsettled times—whether as cause
or consequence, who could exactly say? It was not unnatural to suppose
that among the other _delicta maiorum_ this too had moved the wrath of
the gods. At any rate moral laxity went side by side with scepticism
and neglect of religious observances. Nor need we regard either poet or
emperor as a monster of hypocrisy in supporting such a doctrine. Habit
and tradition are stronger than philosophy. There always remains the
Incalculable after all our reasoning; and many to-day regret the decay
of religious sentiment as a public misfortune, who are yet profoundly
uncertain as to what they in truth believe themselves.
[Sidenote: Honours bestowed on Cæsar, B.C. 30-27.]
On his return from Asia and Greece, where he had spent the winter and
spring of B.C. 30-29, Cæsar was received with enthusiasm by all classes.
Solemn sacrifice was offered by the consul in the name of the people, and
every honour which the Senate could bestow was awaiting his acceptance.
Those voted after Actium were lavishly increased in September B.C.
30, on the news of Antony’s death and the occupation of Alexandria.
Two triumphal arches were to be erected, one at Rome and another at
Brundisium;[220] the temple of the divine Iulius was to be adorned with
the prows of captured ships; his own birthday, the day of the victory at
Actium, and that of the entry into Alexandria were to be for ever sacred;
the Vestal Virgins and the whole people were to meet him on his return in
solemn procession; he was to have the foremost seat at all festivals; and
was to celebrate three triumphs—one for the victory over the Dalmatian
and neighbouring tribes, a second for Actium, and a third for Egypt.
The _tribunicia potestas_ for life had again been voted to him with
the right of exercising it within a mile radius beyond the walls. He
was to have the right to hear all cases on appeal and to have a casting
vote in all courts. His name was to be mentioned in public prayers for
the state. On the 1st of January, B.C. 29, all his _acta_ had been
confirmed; and when it became known that the Parthians had referred a
disputed succession to the throne to his arbitration, some fresh honours
were devised. The disasters under Crassus and Antony had made the Romans
particularly sensitive in regard to the Parthians; and this apparent
acknowledgment by them of a superiority attaching to Augustus, however
indefinite, was represented by the court party and the court poets, not
only as a veritable triumph over the Parthians, but as a step in a career
of Eastern conquest of almost unlimited extent.[221] Accordingly his
name was now to be coupled with those of the gods in hymns; a tribe was
named _Iulia_ in his honour; he was to wear the chaplet of victory in
all assemblies; and to nominate as many members as he chose to all the
sacred colleges. Cæsar accepted most of these honours, but begged to be
excused the procession on his return. This was an honour which he always
avoided if he could, preferring to enter the city quietly by night. It
was no doubt a trying ordeal at the end of a long journey, and he may
have felt like Cromwell that a larger crowd still would have come out to
see him hanged. The three triumphs, however, were now celebrated with the
greatest splendour, especially the third over Egypt, in which a figure of
the dead queen lying upon a couch, with son and daughter beside her, was
a prominent feature.
[Sidenote: The increase of the Patriciate and the Census.]
Cæsar now had ample powers for every purpose of government. The
_tribunicia potestas_ in itself gave him legislative initiative and
control over other departments. It was afterwards regarded as the most
important of his powers. But in his first measures of reform he availed
himself rather of his powers as consul. The consulship was to be really,
as it always remained nominally, the chief state office, combining all
the prerogatives once centred in the _rex_. Thus in holding the Census of
B.C. 28 he acted as Consul with his colleague Agrippa, exercising indeed
a _censoria potestas_, though not one formally bestowed, but as inherent
in the consulship.[222] He concluded it with the solemn _lustrum_, which
had not been performed for forty-two years, the last Censors (B.C. 50)
having apparently been prevented from performing this solemnity by the
outbreak of civil war. The Census was made the occasion of a reform
in the _ordines_ and especially of the Senate. In the first place, he
recruited the dwindling number of patrician _gentes_ by raising certain
plebeian families to the patriciate, as his own family had been raised
by Iulius in B.C. 45 in virtue of a _lex Cassia_. The same power was now
accorded to him by a law proposed by L. Sænius, who was consul during the
last two months of B.C. 30. The object seems to have been to preserve a
kind of nobility, which at the same time should have certain political
disabilities. The patricians, indeed, still had the exclusive right of
being appointed to certain religious offices, but, on the other hand,
they were debarred from the tribuneship and the plebeian ædileship,[223]
the two offices in which a man by legislative proposals or lavish
expenditure might make himself politically conspicuous.
[Sidenote: The lectiones Senatus.]
A similar desire to restore the ancient order of the State prompted his
reformation of the Senate. The powers of this body had always been great
precisely because they were not defined by law; and by associating it
with himself he would gain all the advantages of this indefiniteness and
prestige, while really keeping full control of it. Iulius Cæsar had made
the mistake of treating it with studied disrespect, and his chief enemies
were within its walls. The Triumvirs, though in reality despotic, had
looked to it to give their _acta_ an outward show of legality. Thus on
Octavian’s demand it had condemned Q. Gallius in B.C. 43, and Salvidienus
in B.C. 40, for treason. It had confirmed the triumviral _acta_ en bloc,
giving Antony charge of the Parthian war and ratifying his arrangements
in the East in advance. It had voted triumphs and other honours to the
triumvirs and their agents. It was the Senate that in B.C. 41 voted L.
Antonius an _hostis_, that in B.C. 32 decreed war against Cleopatra,
deposed Antony from consulship and imperium, and in B.C. 31-30 voted the
various honours and powers to the victorious Cæsar. The late civil war
had in a way made the importance of the Senate more prominent. So many
Senators had joined Antony at Alexandria that, like Sertorius in Spain
and Pompey in Epirus, he had professed to have the Senate with him.
The victory of Actium had pricked that bubble, and the Senate at Rome
remained the only Senate of the Empire. Cæsar was wise to put himself
under the ægis of this ancient and still respected body. But it was
necessary to secure its dignity and effectiveness, which had suffered
in various ways during the revolutionary period. Among other things its
numbers had been swollen and often with men of inferior social standing.
Iulius Cesar had filled it with his creatures—provincials from Gaul
and Spain, sons of freedmen, centurions, soldiers, and peregrini—so
that a pasquinade was put up by some wit that “no one was to show a new
Senator the way to the Senate House.”[224] Another batch of Senators was
introduced after Cæsar’s death, chiefly by Antony, in virtue of real or
fictitious entries found in Cæsar’s papers, whom the populace nicknamed
“post-mortem Senators” (_Senatores orcini_),[225] or sometimes even
on their own initiative without any other formality than assuming the
laticlave and senatorial shoe.[226] Many Senators no doubt perished in
the proscriptions, in the subsequent battles of Philippi and Perusia, and
in the contests with Sextus Pompeius, but the Triumvirs appear to have
been lavish in enrolling new members without regard to fortune, origin,
or official position; and so careless were they in this matter that cases
are recorded of unenfranchised slaves having obtained office and seats in
the Senate and being then recognised and claimed by their masters.[227]
The result was that at the time of the battle of Actium there were more
than a thousand Senators.[228] This was too large a number for practical
work, without taking into consideration inferiority of character. No
doubt a good many who had sided with Antony disappeared in various ways;
but in now making a formal _lectio_ Cæsar resolved to reduce the number
still more. Sixty voluntarily resigned and were allowed to retain the
purple and certain social distinctions, but a hundred and forty were
simply omitted from the new list. By this means the roll was reduced
to about six hundred, which continued to be the number in subsequent
lectiones.
To secure their attendance and to prevent interference in the provinces
the regulation was enforced which prohibited any Senator from leaving
Italy (except for Sicily or Gallia Narbonensis) unless he had imperium
or was on a legatio,[229] that is, practically, unless he was serving
the state in some way on Cæsar’s nomination. In the next _lectio_ (B.C.
19) Augustus tried an elaborate system of co-option, by nominating
thirty on the existing roll, each of whom were to name five who were
to draw lots for admission, and so on till the number was made up.
But finding that it was not worked fairly he stopped this and made up
the roll himself. This continued to be the system, but as time went on
the difficulty was not so much to exclude unworthy men as to induce
enough of the right sort to serve. Membership became less attractive
as the imperial power developed, and the holding of profitable offices
depended on the will of the Emperor, who was not bound to select from
the Senate. Moreover, a property qualification was now required. None
had existed under the republic by definite law, though a certain
fortune was regarded as practically necessary; and as the Senate was
recruited from the _ordo equester_, a minimum was in the last century
of the republic automatically secured. Cæsar fixed 800,000 sesterces,
and later on a million sesterces as the Senatorial fortune, though in
cases of special fitness he gave grants to enable men to maintain their
position. Still the honour of membership was not found to make up for
its disabilities—the difficulty of going abroad and the prohibition as
to engaging in commerce. In B.C. 13 Augustus was obliged to compel men
who had the property qualification to serve. Even then the attendance
was so slack that in B.C. 11 the old quorum of four hundred was reduced.
In B.C. 9 various regulations were introduced to facilitate business,
such as the publication of an order of the day (λεύκωμα), fixed days
of meeting, a variation as to the quorum required for different kinds
of business, a scale of fines for non-attendance, the selection by lot
of thirty-five Senators to attend during September and October, and an
extension to the prætors of the power of bringing business before the
house. Towards the end of the life of Augustus, when his age made it
too much of an exertion to meet the full Senate, a committee of sixteen
Senators was selected by lot to confer with him at his own house. The
inevitable consequence was that this small committee practically settled
most questions, which only came formally before the whole body, whose
administrative function was farther lessened by the diminished importance
of the _ærarium_ as compared with the imperial treasury or _fiscus_.
Finally, it lost the right of coining silver, retaining only the bronze.
On the whole, then, the tendency was towards restricting the functions
of the Senate and making membership less attractive. But this does not
appear to have been the original design of Augustus. He habitually
addressed it with respect, referred all his powers to its confirmation,
and took it into his confidence on imperial affairs. He revived the
ancient dignity of _princeps Senatus_—in abeyance since the death of
Cicero—and held that rank himself all his life. Certain of the provinces
were still left to its management, and cases of _majestas_ were referred
to its decision. The publication of the Senate’s _acta_ had originated
with Iulius Cæsar (B.C. 59), who was not likely to have done anything to
enhance its prestige. The prohibition of this publication by Augustus
was perhaps intended partly to protect the proceedings from criticism,
partly to emphasise the fact that the Senate shared with him the intimate
secrets of government which it was not for the public advantage to have
generally known. The effect, however, was not good; what could not be
ascertained with exactness from official sources was often misrepresented
by irresponsible rumour, and one of the early measures of Tiberius was to
reverse this order.[230]
[Sidenote: The end of the anarchy.]
With a Senate purified by his first _lectio_ Cæsar felt that the
constitution might in form, at any rate, be restored. But first the
end of the revolutionary period had to be marked. On January 11, B.C.
29, the temple of Ianus was closed, for the first time since B.C. 235,
for the third time in all Roman history. It was still shut when Cæsar
returned from Asia, and on the 1st of January, B.C. 28, the _augurium
salutis_ was taken. This ceremony—ascertaining by augury whether prayers
for the people should be offered to Salus—could only be performed in
time of complete peace. At the same time a single edict annulled all
the _acta_ of the triumvirs, which were to have no force from his sixth
consulship (B.C. 28).[231] The constitutional significance of this will
be best seen by recalling some facts as to the triumvirs. Whether its
_acta_ were good or bad, the triumvirate was in itself a suspension of
the constitution. Established by a _lex_ on the 27th of November, B.C.
43, to hold office till the 31st of December, B.C. 38, its authority
had been renewed in the course of B.C. 37 to the 31st of December, B.C.
33, whether by another _lex_ or by the will of the triumvirs themselves
is a moot point.[232] But, however appointed, the triumvirs were like
dictators in superseding all other magistrates, and more powerful
than dictators from the length of their tenure of office, and because
the terms of their appointment (_reipublicæ constituendæ causa_) gave
them absolute legislative powers. They could abolish, modify, or grant
dispensation from existing laws. Their edicts had the force of laws, and
such laws as were passed in the regular way during their office either
confirmed their powers, or were passed at their desire to give formal
permanence to their edicts. They had complete control of elections, and
agreed between themselves as to the nomination of magistrates, often
for several years in advance. They controlled the treasury, the domain
lands, the raising or removal of taxation in Rome and Italy. They divided
among themselves the command of the military forces and the government
of the provinces. Each of them, personally or by a legatus, exercised
imperial powers in the provinces assigned to him; set up or put down
client kings; granted immunities or freedom to cities, or abolished
them; bestowed or withdrew the citizenship of individuals; waged war
with surrounding nations; raised or remitted taxation. At Rome also they
had exercised the right of summoning, consulting, and presiding over
the Senate, of vetoing the motion of other Senators, but without being
subject to the tribunician veto themselves. To abolish the _acta_ of
such a despotic body might with reason be regarded a considerable step
towards a restoration of the constitution. Even if some of his own _acta_
were thereby abolished, Cæsar would have no difficulty in re-enacting
them if desirable. The point was to abolish the memory of a period of
unconstitutional government, to prevent its enactments remaining as
precedents or grounds of claim by citizen or subject, and to leave the
field open for the new arrangement which Cæsar wished men to regard as
a restoration of the republic. For he had already conceived a plan, in
virtue of which the people, magistrates, and Senate should resume their
old functions, while he himself should be practically the colleague of
the higher magistrates—endowed with their powers, though not necessarily
with their office—and thereby practically direct the policy of the state.
The key to the policy—as he wished it to be regarded—is contained in
his own comment: “After that time (January 1, 27) I was superior to all
in rank, but of power I had no more than my colleagues in the several
offices.”[233] There were some of his powers difficult to reconcile with
this theory of a restored constitution; but he was careful to rest these
on votes of the people or Senate, to accept them only for fixed periods,
or to profess to share them with his colleagues.[234]
[Sidenote: Inauguration of the new constitution, 1 January, B.C. 27.]
The new constitution was now introduced in a characteristic scene,
apparently designed to make it clear that Cæsar did not seek power,
but undertook it under pressure. In a meeting of the Senate, at the
beginning of his seventh consulship, he delivered from a written copy
a carefully prepared speech, in which he surrendered to the Senate
all the powers which it had bestowed upon him, as well as those which
he had acquired in any other way—the command of troops, the powers of
legislation, the government of the provinces. He based his resolution
on justice, the inherent right of the people to manage its own affairs,
and on his own right to consult for his personal safety, health, and
ease. At the same time, he dwelt on his public services and those of his
adoptive father, the labours they had both endured, the dangers to which
both had been exposed, and justified the exercise up to this time of his
various powers. Finally, he urged them to refrain from innovations, to
give a hearty obedience to the laws, to elect the best men for civil and
military offices without prejudice or favouritism, to deal honestly with
public money, to treat allies and subjects equitably, to seek no wars but
to be prepared for any, and to see that he had no cause to regret his
renunciation of power. The speech was received with loud remonstrances,
some sincere and some perhaps cautious and time-serving, but so general
that he had to consent with real or feigned reluctance to receive back
his autocratic powers. Was he merely playing a part, or had he any real
wish to retire from public life? As in most cases there was probably a
division of feeling in his heart. He was in weak health, and had had
another illness a few months before. For eighteen years—just half his
life—he had been ceaselessly engaged in fatiguing duties, in wars for
which he had no genius, and in civil administration which, though much
better suited to his taste and abilities, had been carried out amidst
constant opposition and difficulty. One side of his mind may well have
been eager for rest. But, on the other hand, no man who has tasted power
and feels that he can wield it quits it without pain. At no time did
he find pleasure in the outward trappings of state, or in the personal
indulgences for which it gives opportunity, but he was ambitious in the
best sense. He loved his country and desired to be remembered as the
restorer of its prosperity and happiness, as the benefactor of the Empire
and the guarantee of its peace and good government. Twenty-four years
later when Valerius Messalla, speaking in the name of people and Senate,
greeted him with the affectionate title of “Father of his country,” he
burst into tears and could only murmur that he had nothing more to pray
for except to retain their affection to the end of his life. But whatever
secret wish he may have had for rest he must have known that it was
impossible. The elements of disorder and oppression were not destroyed.
If the restraining hand were removed they would break out into new
activity. Nor would it be safe for himself after years of steady working
for this end, in the course of which he must have offended countless
interests, to trust himself to a new generation of statesmen without the
experience in the working of a free state possessed by their ancestors,
and yet with the same passions and ambitions. A scheme had, in fact,
been elaborated in conjunction with his faithful friends and ministers,
Agrippa and Mæcenas. Dio represents the former as urging Cæsar to
withdraw from power and frankly to restore the republic. He grounded his
advice on the financial and political difficulties which he would have
to face, on the uncertainty of his own health, on the impossibility of
drawing back hereafter and the evil destiny of all those who in previous
ages had attempted to gain absolute power. Mæcenas, on the other hand,
not only urged him to retain his power, but went into most elaborate
details as to the arrangements which it would be necessary to make. He
did not deny the risks, but maintained that the glory was worth them,
and that a withdrawal was neither safe for himself nor for the people.
It is not clear how far we may regard these two speeches, as well as
that of Augustus in the Senate, as representing what was really said. It
is possible that as they were all written documents they may have been
preserved, and that Dio is translating from them; but at any rate they
represent fairly well the two sides of the question which Augustus must
have considered with care and anxiety.[235]
[Sidenote: Division of the Provinces, B.C. 27.]
The arrangement actually made was of the nature of a compromise. The
provinces were divided, as formerly between Antony and Cæsar, so now
between Cæsar and the Senate. Those that required considerable military
forces were to be under Cæsar, governed by his deputies with the rank
of prætor (_legati pro prætore_), appointed by his sole authority, and
holding office during his pleasure. The rest were to be still governed
by proconsuls, selected as of old by ballot under the superintendence of
the Senate from the ex-prætors or ex-consuls, subject to the existing
laws as to length of tenure and the obligation of furnishing accounts,
and liable with their staff to prosecution _de rebus repetundis_ in the
ordinary courts. The “primacy” of the Emperor, however, was apparent in
this partnership with the Senate, no less than in that with colleagues
in office. In the allotment of Senatorial provinces he retained the
right of nominating the exact number required, so that no one of whom
he disapproved could obtain a province. In both classes of province he
appointed a procurator, with authority over the finances independent
of the proconsul or legatus.[236] In both also the governor received a
salary fixed by himself, and had to conform to certain general principles
laid down by him. In all alike he possessed a _majus imperium_, soon
afterwards, if not at first, defined as a _proconsulare imperium_.[237]
For the rest he retained his right of being yearly elected consul, his
tribunician power, his membership of the sacred colleges, his command of
the army. But freedom of election was ostensibly restored to the people,
and the Senate was still the fountain of honour, and had the control
of the _ærarium_. But this last was no longer managed by two elected
quæstors, but by two men of prætorian rank, nominated by the Emperor.
It was, moreover, now of minor importance, as the _fiscus_ (to use the
later term) was entirely in the hands of Cæsar, and into it went the
revenues of the imperial provinces, and, above all, of Egypt. The key
of the position was that though the old republican magistrates still
existed, Cæsar in various ways was their colleague, and of course the
predominant partner. The Senate, however, accepted his view of the case,
as afterwards expressed in the _Monumentum_, that he had “transferred
the republic from his power to the authority of the Senate and people
of Rome.” To show their confidence in him the Senators voted him a
bodyguard (the men drawing double pay), and confirmed his authority in
the provinces. The latter, which made him _princeps_ throughout the
Empire, as he already was in Rome, he refused to accept for more than
ten years. But it was always renewed subsequently for periods of five or
ten years; and when in B.C. 23, the _proconsulare imperium_ was declared
to be operative within, as well as beyond, the pomærium, he had, in fact,
supreme control, military and financial, in all parts of the Empire. To
mark his exceptional position without offending the prejudice against
royalty, it was desired to give him a special title of honour. His own
wish was for “Romulus,” as second founder of the state. But objection was
raised to it as recalling the odious position of _rex_, and he eventually
accepted the title of AUGUSTUS, a word connected with religion and the
science of augury, and thereby suggesting the kind of sentiment which
he desired to be attached to his person and genius. This was voted by
the Senate on the Ides (13th) of January, B.C. 27, and confirmed by a
plebiscitum on the 16th. He was now “first” or _princeps_ everywhere,
whether in the Senate, or among his colleagues in the offices, or among
the proconsuls in the provinces.[238] He was, therefore, spoken of as
_princeps_ in ordinary language, and the word gradually hardened into a
title. It exactly suited the view which he himself wished to be taken
of his political position, as giving a primacy of rank among colleagues
of equal _legal_ powers; though, of course, a primacy, supported by the
power of the purse and the sword, made him a master while masquerading
as a colleague. He, however, adopted the word as rightly expressing his
position without giving needless offence, and his successors took it as a
matter of course, though it less frequently occurs in inscriptions than
their other titles.[239]
Closely connected with the bestowal of the title Augustus was another
vote of the Senate, that the front of his house should not only be
adorned with the laurels that told of victory over his enemies, but also
with the oaken or “civic” crown which told of the lives of citizens
preserved. This appears again and again on his coins with the legend—_ob
cives servatos_: and it is mentioned by Augustus himself at the end of
his record of achievements, as though—with the later title of Pater
Patriæ—it indicated the chief glory of his career.
CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST PRINCIPATUS, B.C. 27-23
_Serves iturum Cæsarem in ultimos_
_orbis Britannos et invenum recens_
_examen Eois timendum_
_partibus Oceanoque rubro._
[Sidenote: Gaul and Britain.]
The settlement of his official status at Rome left Augustus free to turn
to other parts of the Empire. He had spent the greater part of two years
after the victory at Actium in organising the East. His face was now
turned northward and westward. In the spring of B.C. 27, he set out for
Gaul to reorganise the provinces won by Iulius in B.C. 58-49, and farther
secured by the operations of Agrippa in B.C. 37 and Messalla in B.C.
29. It was understood that he meant also to cross to Britain, and the
court poets are dutifully anxious as to the dangers he will incur, and
prophetically certain of the victories he will win. A British expedition
had been for some years floating in Roman minds. It is true that Iulius
Cæsar had invaded the island and imposed a tribute on some of the tribes.
But the tribute does not seem to have been paid. The Briton was still
_intactus_, and was classed with the Parthian as a danger to the frontier
of the Empire.[240] He was chiefly known at Rome by the presence of
certain stalwart slaves, and by the determination he displayed not to
admit adventurous Roman merchants.[241] But, after all, Augustus found
enough to do in Gaul, and saw good reason for abstaining from such a
dangerous adventure. The Britons, though they neglected the _tributum_,
yet paid a duty on exports and imports to and from Gaul, principally
ivory ornaments, and the better sorts of glass and pottery; and it was
pointed out that the danger of a British invasion of Gallia was small,
that a military occupation of the island would cost more than the tribute
would bring in, and that the _portoria_ would be rather diminished than
increased by it.[242] Augustus, at any rate, professed to be satisfied by
certain envoys sent to him from Britain. They dedicated some offerings on
the Capitol, and received for their countrymen the title of “Friends of
Rome!”[243]
[Sidenote: Augustus in Gaul, B.C. 27-6.]
Augustus spent the summer and winter of B.C. 27-6 in Narbo, finding
enough to do in holding a census of the rest of Gaul for purposes of
taxation, and regularly organising the country annexed by Iulius to
that ancient province, which had been Roman long before his time. Four
provinces were created with separate legati. The original “province” was
now called Gallia Narbonensis; the south-western district, extending
from the Pyrennees to the Loire, retained its old name of Aquitania;
the central or “Celtic” Gaul was called Lugdunensis, from its capital
Lugdunum, made a _colonia_ in B.C. 43; the northern country up to the
Rhine was Belgica, including the districts on the left bank of the Rhine,
in which Agrippa had settled certain German tribes who had crossed the
river. Augustus was not content with a merely political organisation.
He established schools to spread the use of the Latin language, and
everywhere introduced the principles of Roman law. He took especial
pains to adorn and promote the towns in Narbonensis, where traces of his
buildings are still to be seen. The effect of his work now and ten years
later was that Gaul became rapidly Romanised both in speech and manners,
and that in learning and civilisation it soon rivalled Italy itself.
This was a work thoroughly congenial to Augustus, and in which his
ability was conspicuous. But he now had to engage again in war, for which
his genius was by no means so well suited. Ianus Quirinus was again open.
The surrounding barbarians were again threatening Macedonia; the Salassi
of the _Val d’Aosta_ were again making raids, and there was imminent
danger in Northern Spain. The governor of Macedonia, M. Crassus (grandson
of the triumvir) had been so successful over the Thracians and Getæ, that
he was allowed a triumph in July, B.C. 27, but it appears that their
incursions did not cease in spite of these victories.[244] The war with
the Salassi was entrusted to Terentius Varro Muræna, who, after winning
some victories in the field, sold many thousands of their men of military
age into slavery, and established a colony of 3,000 veterans to overawe
them, called Augusta Prætoria, the modern Aosta.[245]
[Sidenote: Augustus in Spain, B.C. 26-25.]
[Sidenote: The Arabian Expedition.]
From Narbo, Augustus next proceeded to Spain in the early part of B.C.
26, and spent the rest of the year in peaceful reforms and in the
organisation of the province. But in B.C. 25 he was forced to enter
upon a campaign against the Cantabri and Astures, those warlike tribes
in the north-west, who, nominally included in the upper province,
were continually harassing the more obedient peoples, and showing
their dislike of Roman supremacy.[246] The war was tantalising and
difficult. The hardy highlanders knew every forest, mountain, and
valley, and the Roman soldiers could neither provide against sudden
attacks, not get at the enemy in their fastnesses. From fatigue and
anxiety Augustus fell ill and was obliged to retire to Tarraco, leaving
the conduct of the campaign to Gaius Antistius Vetus, who was able to
win several engagements, because after the retirement of Augustus the
natives ventured more frequently to appear in the open. Another of his
legates, Titus Carisius, took Lance (_Sallanco_); and finally Augustus
founded a colony of veterans among the Lusitani, called Augusta Emerita
(_Merida_), and another called Cæsar-Augusta (_Zaragossa_) among the
Editani, on the site of the ancient Salduba, from which all the great
roads to the Pyrennees branch off. The Cantabri were not crushed, but
they were quiet for a time. Ianus was closed, and Augustus returned at
the beginning of B.C. 24; and the courtier Horace is again called on
to celebrate a success, and to welcome the Emperor’s home-coming as of
a victor.[247] The Senate voted him a triumph, partly for the Spanish
campaign and partly for some successes of his legate, M. Vinicius, in
Gaul, who had caused his soldiers to proclaim Augustus imperator for the
eighth time. Augustus refused the triumph, but accepted the acclamation
of imperator—thus assuming as head of the army that what was everywhere
done was, to use the technical expression, done “under his auspices,”
and was to be reckoned to his credit. He also accepted honours for his
young nephew Marcellus, and his stepson Tiberius. The former was admitted
to the Senate with prætorian rank, and with ten years seniority for
office, in virtue of which he was at once elected ædile, though only in
his twentieth year; the latter was allowed five years’ seniority, and
at once elected quæstor in his nineteenth year. A triumphal arch was
also erected in honour of Augustus in the Alpine region.[248] The temple
of Ianus did not remain long closed, however. Soon after Augustus left
Spain the Cantabri and Astures again rose; and in B.C. 24 took place
the ill-judged and unfortunate expedition of Ælius Gallus into Arabia.
A march of six months’ duration, in which large numbers perished from
heat and disease and only seven men in actual fighting, was followed
by a retreat lasting sixty days. Gallus had been misled and duped
by the satrap of the Nabatæans, and all the hopes of splendid booty
were baffled. The expedition had been approved, if not suggested, by
Augustus, partly on the pretext of preventing incursions into Egypt;
but more, it would seem, because Arabia was regarded as an El Dorado,
where vast treasures of gold and jewels were to be found, accumulated
from the export of the rich spices of the country, which the inhabitants
were believed to keep jealously in a country as yet never pillaged by
an invader. As usual, the court poets echo the popular delusions, and
eulogise the certain success of the Emperor; Horace harps on the rich
“treasures of the Arabians,” their “well-stocked houses,” their “virgin
stores.” The Roman arms are to strike terror in the East and the Red Sea,
and are at length being employed on what is their proper and natural
foe.[249] Augustus, says another poet, is now a terror to the “homestead
of the yet unplundered Arabia.”[250] Happily this was an almost solitary
instance of such wild schemes, prompted by greed, and promoted by
ignorance and delusion. Augustus came to see that the frontiers of his
great empire afforded sufficient work for its military resources; but it
was not till near the end of his long life that a great military disaster
gave him a sharp reminder of the impolicy of pushing beyond them.
[Sidenote: New buildings at Rome.]
During these years the process of adorning Rome with splendid buildings
or restorations of old ones had been steadily going on. For the largest
number of these Augustus himself was responsible. In B.C. 28 the temple
of Apollo on the Palatine, with its colonnades and libraries, had been
dedicated. In the same year the restoration of 82 temples was begun on
his initiative, and apparently at his expense. The new temple of Mars
Ultor, vowed at Philippi, with its surrounding forum Augustum, was in
process of erection, as well as another to Iupiter Tonans on the Capitol,
vowed in the course of the Cantabrian expedition to commemorate a narrow
escape from being struck by lightning. He also completed the forum and
basilica partly erected by Iulius, had begun or projected the _porticus
Liviæ et Octaviæ_, and had erected the imposing rotunda intended as the
mortuary of the Iulian _gens_: while Statilius Taurus had built the first
amphitheatre, Plancus a great temple of Saturn, and Cornelius Balbus
was about to begin a new theatre. But most splendid of all were the
benefactions of Agrippa. Baths, bridges, colonnades, gardens, aqueducts,
were all dedicated by him to the use of the public. Above all, by B.C.
25 he had completed the magnificent Pantheon, still in its decline one
of the most striking buildings in the world. It was dedicated to Mars
and Venus, mythical ancestors of the Iulian _gens_, but its name may
be derived either from its numerous statues of the gods, or from the
supposed likeness of its dome to the sky. Its purpose—beyond being a
compliment to Augustus—is still a subject of dispute. Nor have we any
record of its use except as the meeting-place of the Arval brothers.[251]
[Sidenote: The illness and recovery of Augustus, B.C. 23.]
Great way, therefore, was already made towards justifying the boast of
Augustus that he found Rome brick and left it marble. For these buildings
were lined or paved with every kind of precious marble and stone. But
the year following his return from Spain witnessed a crisis in his
life as well as in his political position. He seems to have been in a
feeble state of health all through B.C. 24, the effect probably of his
fatigues and anxieties in Spain. But soon after entering on his eleventh
consulship in B.C. 23, he became so much worse that he believed himself
to be dying. It became necessary, therefore, to make provision for the
continuance of the government. Augustus had no hereditary office, and no
power of transmitting his authority. Still it was supposed that he was
training his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus, or his stepson Tiberius,
to be his successor. The former was curule-ædile, and seems to have
conceived the ambition of succeeding his uncle. But when he thought death
approaching, Augustus did not designate either of these young men. He
handed his seal to Agrippa, and the official records of the army and
revenue to Cn. Calpurnius Piso, his colleague in the consulship. He would
play his part as constitutional magistrate to the last. To speculate
on what might have been is not very profitable. Agrippa had advised a
restoration of the republic in B.C. 30. But every year since then had
made it more difficult; and, if he had wished to do it, he would probably
have found it as impossible as his master had done, and would have had
to choose between supporting Marcellus and taking the direction of
affairs into his own hands. The difficulty, however, did not arise; for
owing either to the goodness of his constitution, or the skill of his
physician, Antonius Musa, Augustus recovered.
[Sidenote: The new constitutional settlement, B.C. 23.]
When he met the Senate once more he offered to read his will to prove
that he had been true to his constitutional obligations, and had named
no successor, but had left the decision in the hands of the Senate and
people. The Senators, however, declined to hear it, but insisted that the
powers which he had been exercising should be more clearly defined and
placed on a better legal footing. Accordingly a _Senatus-consultum_ was
drawn up, to be afterwards submitted to the centuriate assembly, giving
him a variety of powers, and forming a precedent which was followed in
the case of subsequent emperors. It began with a confirmation of the
_tribunicia potestas_, for life and unlimited as to place, with the right
of bringing business of any kind before the Senate (_ius relationis_).
It next gave him the _ius proconsulare_, both within and without the
pomærium, involving a _maius imperium_ in all provinces. Further, it gave
him the right of making treaties; the right of summoning, consulting,
and dismissing the Senate (_ius consulare_); the confirmation of all his
_acta_, “Whatever he shall think to be for the benefit and honour of the
republic in things divine and human, whether public or private”; finally,
exemption from the provisions of certain laws and _plebiscita_. Some
legal difficulty was apparently discovered afterwards as to the right of
proposing laws to the centuriate assembly, which was remedied in B.C.
19 by his receiving the full consular power for life, with the right
of having _lictors_, and sitting on the consular bench. This seems to
have been a concession to legal purists. He doubtless exercised the full
consular powers before; but a distinction was drawn by some between the
_ius consulare_ and the _imperium consulare_, and whatever doubt there
might be was now set at rest.
[Sidenote: The imperial powers.]
As the imperial powers may now be considered as fully developed, future
extensions being merely logical deductions from the constitution as now
established, it will be convenient here once for all to point out their
nature and extent. They may be classed under two headings—(1) _imperium_;
(2) _potestas tribunicia_.
The first—_imperium_—embraces all those powers which Augustus obtained as
representing the curule magistrates, or from special law and senatorial
decrees. As imperator, then, he had supreme command of all forces by
land or sea. The military oath was now taken in his name, no longer to
individual officers raising legions. He alone had the right to enrol
soldiers; he nominated the officers; his procurators paid the men in his
name; from him proceeded all rewards. The Senate, indeed, still awarded
triumphs and _triumphalia ornamenta_, but it was at his suggestion, and
the tendency was to confine the right of triumph to the Emperor himself.
By the same _imperium_ he decided on questions of peace or war; on the
distribution of the _ager publicus_, and the assignation of lands to
veterans and _coloni_ generally.
Finally, the right of conferring the citizenship, complete or partial,
and settling the status of all colonies and _municipia_, and of
interpreting the laws by a _constitutio principis_, expressed in an edict
or decree, which amounted, in fact, to legislative power.
The second—_potestas tribunicia_—was superior to the ordinary powers
of the tribunes, because by it he could veto their proceedings, while
they could not veto his. “It gave him”—to use Dio’s words—“the means of
absolutely putting a stop to any proceeding of which he disapproved;
it rendered his person inviolable, so that the least violence offered
him by word or deed made a man liable to death without trial as being
under a curse.” From the ancient constitution of the office also it
made him president of the _comitia tributa_ (representing the old
_consilia plebis_), gave him the right of interposing in all decisions of
magistrates or Senate affecting the persons or civil status of citizens
(_auxilii latio_), and that of compelling obedience by imprisonment or
other means, as in the republic the tribunes had done even to the consuls
in extreme cases (_coercitio_). Though this power was given the Emperor
for life, it was also in a sense annual; and it was in effect so much
the most important of all his powers, while at the same time in origin
and professed object so much the most popular, that it became the custom
from henceforth to date all documents, inscriptions, and the like, by the
year of the tribunician power from 27th of June this year (B.C. 23). The
_imperium_ was renewed at intervals of ten or five years, the tribunician
power of Augustus went on from year to year without break. It was now
unnecessary any longer to hold the consulship, for the _imperium_ given
him in other ways covered all, and more than all, which the consulship
could give. It was convenient to use it for rewarding others, as it
retained all its outward signs of dignity, and still in theory made
its holder head of the state, though in reality its duties had become
almost wholly ceremonial. He therefore abdicated the consulship, which he
did not hold again till B.C. 5, when he desired to give _éclat_ to his
grandson’s _deductio in forum_.
The clause in the _lex_, quoted above, also gave Augustus supreme control
of all religious matters, and made him able, among other things, to
nominate most of the members of the sacred colleges. He did not become
Pontifex Maximus till the death of Lepidus (B.C. 13). When that took
place he became official, as well as real, head of the Roman religion.
Certain other arrangements in regard to the city of Rome itself followed,
all in the direction of centralisation. Thus Augustus presided at the
review of the equites, which used to be held by the censors. Public
works were mostly entrusted to _curatores_ appointed by him; for the
supply of corn he named a _præfectus annonæ_; and for police a _præfectus
urbi_, under whom were the _cohortes urbanæ_, the night-watch and fire
brigade (_nocturni vigiles_). Each of these bodies had their own
officers or _præfecti_; but Augustus from time to time appointed some
one as _præfectus urbi_, to whom all alike would be subject. Such an
officer, however, did not always assume the name, and really as well as
theoretically the ultimate authority was Augustus himself, who later on,
by dividing Rome into _regiones_ and _vici_, made elaborate arrangements
for the effective policing of the city.
[Sidenote: The succession.]
Augustus might pose as a constitutional magistrate enjoying a life-tenure
of his office, without the right of transmitting it to an heir. This view
was strictly legal, but it was evident that such a power could not safely
be left by its holder without any understanding as to a successor. The
matter was indeed in the hands of Senate and people; but in the minds of
possible heirs, as well as of the Senate and people themselves, it began
to be thought natural and necessary that some arrangement of the sort
should be made. The cases are numerous in all history of rulers, whether
new or hereditary, who have wished to found or continue a dynasty, or
who have thought to prevent confusion and danger after their own death
by naming a successor, or by taking him into present partnership. Such a
scheme was not as yet fully developed, even if it was contemplated. But
Marcellus, who had been adopted by Augustus on his marriage to Iulia,
betrayed his hopes by protesting against the preference shewn by the
apparently dying Emperor to Agrippa; and Augustus yielded so far as to
send Agrippa from Rome as governor of Syria.
[Sidenote: Death of Marcellus.]
A sudden disaster, however, put an end to any intention that may have
been formed in regard to Marcellus. In the summer of B.C. 23, he was
attacked by fever, and Antonius Musa, who had successfully treated
Augustus by a _régime_ of cold baths, tried a similar treatment on the
young man with fatal effect. His death was a great grief to Augustus
and so severe a blow to Octavia, that she lived afterwards in complete
retirement. It produced a sensation in Rome such as has been witnessed
more than once among us at the death of an heir to the throne; and has
been immortalised by a celebrated passage inserted by Vergil in the sixth
book of the _Æneid_, a work in which Augustus was specially interested
as a consecration of the greatness of Rome and the hereditary dignity of
the Iulian _gens_. It is skilfully placed at the end of the catalogue of
Roman heroes whose souls are being reviewed by Anchises in the Elysian
realms, where they are waiting their time for entering the bodies of men
destined to make Roman history. The Marcellus of the Punic war naturally
introduces the younger shade, whose brief tenure of life is even now
foreshadowed by the cloud that hangs about his brow. When Vergil recited
the lines to the Emperor and his sorrowing sister, Octavia fainted from
emotion, and Augustus bestowed a splendid reward upon the poet. It may
help us to realise the scene if we once more read the familiar lines.
Æneas notices the mysterious and melancholy shade and eagerly questions
his father:—
“‘What youth is this of glorious mien
The noblest and the best between,
Cheered to the echo? See, a cloud
(The darkening shadow of the shroud)
Hovers about him even now,
And black night broods upon his brow.
Is he some scion of the race,
Destined our mighty line to grace?’
Thus spake the son, the father sighed,
And thus with rising tears replied:
‘Seek not, my son, to learn the woe,
Your progeny is doomed to know.
The fates will show and then withdraw
The gift men loved but hardly saw.
Too mighty, gods! for so you deemed,
With such a prince Rome’s race had seemed!
What sobs shall thrill the Martian plain!
Ah, Tiber, what dark funeral train
Your waves shall see, as past the Mound
New-built you sweep your waters round!
No scion of the Ilian stock
Shall raise such hopes, such hopes shall mock.
Ah, Romulus, thy land shall see
No son to fire thy pride as he.
Oh loyalty! Oh faith unstained!
Oh strong right hand to yield untrained!
Whether on foot he grasped the sword,
Or charger’s flank with rowel scored,
No foe would e’er have faced his steel
Nor learnt what ’tis the vanquished feel.
Oh child of many tears, if fate
Shall not prevent your living date,
Thou art Marcellus! Lilies fair
Scatter in handfuls on his bier!
Oh let me but his herse bestrew
With flowers bright with purple hue.
Vain gift! but let it still be paid
To grace my far-off grandson’s shade.’”
The death of Marcellus had occurred in an unhealthy season when many
shared the same fate. Yet there were found people who attributed it to
Livia’s jealousy on behalf of her son Tiberius, and her anger at the
preference shown to the Emperor’s nephew. Scarcely any death occurred
in the imperial family that did not give rise to some such idle and
malevolent gossip. But the Emperor soon had cause to regret the absence
of Agrippa, who was living in Lesbos and administering Syria by his
legate. The next year was a year of sickness and scarcity at Rome, and
was also disturbed by more than one outbreak of political unrest, one
of the few conspiracies against the life of Augustus being detected and
punished. We do not know why Muræna and Fannius Cæpio plotted to kill
Augustus, if they really did so. It may be that the change made in the
principate in B.C. 23 seemed to them to be too much in the direction
of autocracy, or that the consulship without Augustus as colleague
suggested some idea that its old supremacy might be recovered. The
violent party strife which occurred later at the election for B.C. 21,
may have had some connection with the same feeling. Muræna had had a
successful career, had been rewarded by an augurship and a consulship
in B.C. 23, and there is nothing known which explains his conduct. It
may be that his offence was chiefly intemperance of language. Dio says
that he had a sharp tongue which spared no one, and Horace perhaps
meant to give him a hint in the ode addressed to him. Velleius tells
us that, unlike his fellow conspirator Fannius Cæpio, he was a man of
high character.[252] At any rate their execution—for both are said
to have been put to death—is one of the few instances of severity on
the part of Augustus since the civil war. This trouble was followed
by others—a renewed outbreak in Spain, riots at the elections, and a
coldness between himself and his devoted friend and minister Mæcenas,
caused, it is said, by his being supposed to have communicated to his
wife Terentia, the sister of Muræna, some secret as to the detection of
the plot. All these things must have caused Augustus much uneasiness. He
had left Rome in the summer of B.C. 22 for Sicily, intending to start
thence on another progress through the Eastern Provinces. There urgent
messages came to him to return and put a stop to the disturbances. He
did not wish to give up his Eastern journey and yet did not venture to
leave the city without some control. His thoughts turned naturally to
the support that had never failed him—to Agrippa. He was summoned home
primarily to take charge of Rome; but he came back to what seemed the
highest possible position next to that of the Emperor, and one that
promised a still greater one in the future. Augustus insisted on his
divorcing Marcella (daughter of Octavia) and marrying his own daughter
Iulia, left a widow by Marcellus. As usual Agrippa did all that was
imposed upon him well and thoroughly (B.C. 21-20). Having restored order
in the city, he next went to Gallia Narbonensis, where he not only put
a stop to some dangerous disturbances, but initiated great public works
in the way of roads and aqueducts. Passing to Spain he finally crushed
the Cantabri and Astures, who were again in arms. He seems indeed to
have suffered reverses in this war, as his master had done before, but
in the end he reduced them to submission. All this good work was done
while Augustus was in the East (B.C. 21-19), and for it he refused the
triumph offered him by the Senate at the instigation of the Emperor.
But his succession, should he survive the Emperor, was now secured by
his being associated with him in the _tribunicia potestas_ and other
prerogatives for five years at the first renewal of his powers in B.C.
17. Agrippa had now two sons by Iulia, Gaius born in B.C. 20, Lucius in
B.C. 17; and Augustus adopted both of them by the ancient process of a
fictitious purchase. He had now legitimate heirs and nothing farther was
done about the succession for some years. Agrippa died in March, B.C.
12, just as his period of tribunician power was expiring. But during
these years the two sons of Livia, Tiberius and Drusus, had begun those
services on the German frontier and among the Rhæti and other powerful
tribes which proved their vigour and ability. These services were
renewed, after a few months’ interval of quiet, in B.C. 13 and following
years. Accordingly Augustus seems to have meditated putting Tiberius in
much the same position as Agrippa had held. In B.C. 11 he compelled him
to divorce his wife Vipsania (a daughter of Agrippa) and marry Agrippa’s
widow Iulia, the Emperor’s only daughter. He thought still farther to
secure a line of descendants to succeed if necessary to his power. But he
made the mistake of neglecting sentiment. Tiberius was devotedly attached
to Vipsania, by whom he had a son, and could feel neither affection nor
respect for Iulia, who fancied that she lowered herself in marrying him.
The only thing that could compensate him for such a marriage was the
chance of succession, and that was barred by the existence of Gaius and
Lucius Cæsar. His only son by Iulia died, and before long her frivolity
and debaucheries disgusted him, and therefore, though associated in
the tribunician power for five years in B.C. 7, he sought and obtained
permission in the next year to retire to Rhodes, where he stayed seven
years in seclusion.
[Sidenote: Gaius and Lucius Cæsar.]
Meanwhile the boys were being brought up with a view to their splendid
future under the eye of Augustus, when he was at home, and often under
his personal instruction, accompanied him as they grew older on his
journeys, in a carriage preceding his own or riding by his side, and in
fact were treated in every way as real and much beloved sons. In the year
in which they assumed the _toga virilis_ (B.C. 5 and B.C. 2) Augustus
again entered upon the consulship, that the _deductio in forum_ should be
as brilliant and dignified as possible. The Senate was not behindhand;
from the day of taking the _toga virilis_ it voted that they should be
capable of taking part in public business, and each of them in turn was
designated consul, Gaius to enter upon his office that time five years.
A new dignity moreover was invented, each in turn being named by the
equites _princeps inventutis_. As Augustus was _princeps senatus_ as well
as _princeps civitatis_, each of these young men was to be the head of
the next _ordo_, the original condition for belonging to which was that
a man must be _iuvenis_. Both were members of the College of Augurs.
They were, in fact, treated as we expect to see princes of the blood and
heirs-apparent treated.[253] But whatever was the intention of Augustus
or the expectation of the people, fate interposed ruthlessly. The
younger—Lucius—died first, on the 20th of August, A.D. 2, at Marseilles,
before he could enter on the consulship to which he had been designated;
the elder Gaius was sent into Asia in B.C. 1, where he entered upon his
consulship of A.D. 1. The object of his mission was to force Phraates
IV., king of the Parthians, to evacuate Armenia which he had invaded.
This was accomplished without fighting and by personal negotiation with
the Parthian king; but when he entered Armenia to take possession and
arrange for its restoration to its recognised king, he was wounded by
an act of treason under the walls of Artagera. Weakened by this wound,
and being in other respects in a feeble state of health and spirits, he
obtained leave from Augustus to lay down his command. He started on his
homeward journey, but died on the way at Limyra in Lycia the 23rd of
February, A.D. 4.
[Sidenote: Tiberius finally fixed upon as successor.]
The succession was once more uncertain. The members of the imperial
family at this time were few. Of the children of Agrippa and Iulia
Agrippa Postumus was barely sixteen, and his two sisters, the younger
Iulia and Agrippina a few years older. Drusus, the younger brother of
Tiberius, had married Antonia, daughter of Marcus Antonius and Octavia,
and had left three children, Germanicus, b. B.C. 15, Livia b. B.C. 12,
and Claudius (afterwards Emperor) b. B.C. 10. Augustus meant to provide
a new line of descendants by marrying Agrippina to Germanicus, but that
did not take place till about A.D. 5. Meanwhile, probably on Livia’s
suggestion, he turned his thoughts to his stepson Tiberius, who had
divorced Iulia and had a son (Drusus) by his former wife Vipsania, who
was married to his cousin Livia. There is no good evidence that Augustus
entertained any but warm feelings for Tiberius, and he certainly had
had good reason to respect his military abilities and energy. He seems
to have been hurt at his prolonged stay at Rhodes and to have regarded
it as a sign that Tiberius cared nothing for him and his family. He
had therefore discouraged his return two years before, though he had
given him the position of legatus as a colourable pretext for staying
abroad without loss of dignity. Upon the death of Lucius, however, he
seems to have wished him to return to Rome. Tiberius did so, partly
on the instigation of his mother, and partly, perhaps, because he had
reason to expect the hostility of Gaius, and yet had judged from the
latter’s visit to him on his way to Syria that he was not likely to be a
formidable rival; for he was at once somewhat arrogant and weak, and was
surrounded by injudicious and dishonest advisers. On his return he for
some time lived in retirement and refrained from all public business.
But when the death of Gaius was announced (A.D. 4) Augustus adopted
Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus, having first arranged that Tiberius
should adopt his nephew Germanicus. The adoption of Agrippa Postumus
was shortly afterwards annulled, and he was banished to an island under
surveillance.[254]
There was now therefore a regular line of succession. Tiberius indeed had
no drop of Iulian blood in his veins, but adoption according to Roman
law and sentiment placed him exactly in the same position as that of a
naturally born son, and by his son’s marriage to Antonia, his adoption of
Germanicus, and the marriage of the latter to Agrippina, it seemed that
there was security that after him must come some one who was collaterally
or directly descended from Augustus. In the same year (A.D. 4) Tiberius
was once more associated with Augustus in the tribunician power for ten
years.[255] There could be no longer any doubt who would succeed. At the
death of Augustus there would be, if Tiberius survived, a man already
possessed of the most important of his functions; and his position
was still farther strengthened in the last year of the Emperor’s life
by being associated also in his _imperium proconsulare_. This gave him
authority in the provinces and the command of all military forces; and
we find him, in fact, upon the death of Augustus giving the watchword at
once to the prætorian guard.
Augustus therefore is responsible for the principate of Tiberius, though
some of its powers had to be formally bestowed by a decree of the
Senate. Did he do ill or well in this? Hardly any emperor left behind
him such an evil reputation as Tiberius. His funeral procession was
greeted with shouts of “Tiberius to the Tiber,” the Senate did not vote
him the usual divine honours, and Tacitus has exerted all his skill to
make his name infamous. A gallant attempt has been made by Mr. Tarver to
plead for a rehearing of the case, and to shew that Tiberius was pure
in private life and admirable as a ruler. I for one agree with him in
rejecting as unproved slander and often as physically impossible the
charges of monstrous immoralities raked up both by Tacitus and Suetonius,
often, no doubt, from the prurient gossip of Rome, which has never been
surpassed for foulness. The same summary rejection cannot, I think, be
applied to the formidable list of his cruelties. But these mainly fell
upon members of the imperial family and their adherents; they did not
affect the Empire at large. Augustus could not foresee these family and
dynastic tragedies; but he judged, and apparently judged rightly, that
he was leaving a successor whose prudence and sagacity, in spite of
what seemed a sullen reserve, would secure the peace and prosperity of
the Empire as a whole. There is nothing to prove that Augustus regarded
him otherwise than affectionately. If he turned out to be the monster
represented by his enemies, Augustus no doubt made a grave mistake. It is
a ridiculous suggestion that he deliberately designated him his successor
in order that people might regret himself. Such recondite snares for
posthumous fame are more like the cunning of a madman than the motives
influencing a reasonable being. Suetonius, who reports the suggestion,
says that after mature reflection he is convinced that a man so careful
and prudent as Augustus must have acted on better motives; must have
weighed the virtues and faults of Tiberius and decided that the former
predominated. As a matter of fact Augustus had little choice. Agrippa
Postumus was impossible; Germanicus might have served, but he could never
have displaced his uncle without a struggle. At the time of Tiberius’
adoption he was only nineteen, and Augustus could not reckon on the ten
more years of life which in fact remained for him. No doubt in these last
years of his life Augustus had come to see that some sort of hereditary
principle was necessary to prevent civil war at every vacancy. In B.C. 23
he had ignored that principle altogether, and as far as he could without
naming an heir had put Agrippa in the way of the succession. But Agrippa
had now been dead nearly sixteen years, and Augustus had had no minister
since either so able or so faithful. Like Cromwell in his last hours, he
was driven to recognise the conveniency of the hereditary principle; and
though the practical designation of Tiberius was apparently a breach of
it, yet by means of the adoptions and marriages which he had arranged,
it best prepared for its continuance hereafter. It was one of those
politic compromises which had characterised his whole policy. It moreover
best secured the position and safety of the beloved Livia; and it set
a precedent which was often followed with advantage in after-times,
when military arrogance and violence did not overpower every other
consideration, that an Emperor’s natural heir should be his successor,
or at any rate some one closely allied to him; and that in case of the
failure or complete unworthiness of such an heir a prudent emperor should
provide for the succession by adoption.
CHAPTER X
THE IMPERIAL AND MILITARY POLICY OF AUGUSTUS
_Tu regere imperio populos,_
_Romane, memento._
[Sidenote: The extension of the Empire under Augustus.]
At the end of his life Augustus left, among other memoirs, a roll
containing certain maxims of state which he thought important for his
successors to observe. Among them was an injunction not to seek to
increase the Empire, for it would be difficult to guard an extended
frontier. His own policy had been directed generally on this principle.
Such additions as were made in his time were mainly those rendered
inevitable by the necessity of securing the already existing frontiers.
When his generals went beyond that they met with difficulties and
sometimes with disaster.[256] The additions actually made were (1) in
Africa: Egypt was made a province in B.C. 30, at first almost as a
private possession of the Emperor, though in B.C. 10 it was, nominally
at any rate, put on the same footing as the other provinces. Mauretania,
on the other hand, though made a province in B.C. 33, was restored to
independence under King Iuba in B.C. 25. (2) In Asia a new province of
Galatia was formed in B.C. 25, with a capital at Ancyra, and embracing
several districts, such as Lycaonia, Isauria, Pamphylia, and parts of
Phrygia. (3) In the West, sometime before A.D. 6, Mœsia, answering to
the modern Servia and Bulgaria, was made a province as a barrier of
the Empire on the Danube. So also Illyricum, in B.C. 9-8, was extended
to the Danube by the addition of Pannonia; Noricum, also on the Danube,
was held in subjection, if not fully organised as a province, after B.C.
16; and Rhætia (modern Bavaria) was put under a Roman procurator after
B.C. 15. All these additions were clearly rendered necessary in order to
protect the line of the Danube as the frontier of the Empire. Lastly, on
the reorganisation of Gaul in four provinces (B.C. 16-14), two districts
along the left bank of the Lower Rhine, called Germania Superior and
Germania Inferior, were also occupied and partly organised, while some
minor Alpine districts, Alpes Maritimæ (Savoy and Nice), Alpes Cottiæ
(Susa and district), Alpes Penninæ (Canton du Valois) were taken over
and administered sometimes independently and sometimes as part of other
provinces. In these cases again the extension was merely consequential,
the inevitable result of having a long frontier to defend against
invading tribes.[257] The Rhine and the Danube then became the limits
of the Empire. We shall have occasion to see immediately what dangers
awaited an attempt to go beyond them.
[Sidenote: The East.]
Augustus twice spent periods of between two and three years in the East,
engaged in resettling frontiers and re-organising the Roman provinces.
After the victory at Actium (B.C. 31) he remained in the East till B.C.
29. The changes then made chiefly consisted in upsetting most of the
arrangements which had been made by Antony with various client kings,
and in favour of the children of Cleopatra. Thus Cyprus, which had been
restored to Cleopatra, was now separated from Egypt and made a province;
the coast towns of Syria and Palestine were reunited to the province of
Syria; certain cities of Crete and Cyrene, Iudæa and Ituræa, and of
Cilicia, which Antony had assigned to Cleopatra’s son, Cæsarion, were
either reunited to the provinces or declared free, as was also the case
with other districts and towns assigned by Antony to his own son by
Cleopatra. Certain client kings, however, were allowed to retain their
territory and dignity, such as Herod in Iudæa, Amyntas in Galatia,
Archelaus in Cappadocia. But the eternal question in the East was that
of the Parthians. They not only were resolved to maintain the Euphrates
as the limit beyond which Roman power was not to pass, but they had
frequently made raids upon Syria, and were always attempting to occupy
Armenia, which was a Roman protectorate, and the intervening kingdom
of Media. The disaster of Crassus in Mesopotamia, and the chequered
operations of Antony, had all sprung from these facts. When Augustus
arrived in Asia the state of things which had finally resulted from
the operations of Antony was that Artaxes (whose father, Artavasdes,
had been treacherously captured by Antony and afterwards put to death
by Cleopatra) was king of Armenia, and had attacked Media and captured
its king Artavasdes; and that Phraates had recovered his kingdom of
Parthia. Augustus had two or three advantages in dealing with these
complications. He found the brothers of the Armenian Artaxes still
prisoners at Alexandria, and sent them to Rome as hostages. Again the
captured king of Media managed to escape and appealed to him for help;
and, lastly, Phraates of Parthia had only just recovered his throne,
from which he had been expelled by a rebellion headed by Tiridates, and
the latter escaped to Syria and sent to implore the help of Augustus,
while legates from Phraates also arrived soliciting his support. Augustus
availed himself skilfully of these complications to assume the position
of a lord paramount and arbiter. He allowed Tiridates to remain in
safety in Syria; but he treated the legates of Phraates in a friendly
manner, and cordially invited a son of that king to accompany him to
Rome, where, however, he was kept as a hostage. Artavasdes was set up in
Lesser Armenia to form a check upon Artaxes. These diplomatic successes
were regarded in Rome, as we have seen, as veritable triumphs over the
dangerous Parthians—the only name much known there. The abolition of the
arrangements of Antony, which had involved the curtailment of the Roman
Empire, was recorded on coins struck in B.C. 29, with a head of Augustus
on the obverse, and on the reverse a figure of victory standing on the
mystic cista, with the legend _Asia recepta_. But it is with his second
Eastern progress (B.C. 22-19) that the useful public works, such as roads
and buildings, of which traces are still found, probably began.
[Sidenote: Movements in the East between B.C. 24 and B.C. 22.]
Between these two visits there had been only two movements of serious
importance—the useless and almost disastrous expedition of Ælius
Gallus into Arabia (B.C. 24-3), and the invasion of Southern Egypt at
Elephantine by Candace, queen of Æthiopia, encouraged by the diminution
of the Roman forces in Egypt during the Arabian expedition. The
Æthiopians gained some minor successes over three Roman cohorts stationed
near the frontier, but were eventually repulsed by the præfect Gaius
Petronius, who pursued them to their capital town Nabata, which he took
and plundered.[258]
[Sidenote: Second Eastern progress, B.C. 22-19.]
The second eastward progress of Augustus began with some months’
residence in Sicily. There he was busied in founding colonies, of which
seven are named. The chief town of Sicily was still Syracuse, but it
seems to have suffered in the time of Sextus Pompeius, and Augustus
placed in it two thousand settlers, probably veterans. It was the object
of such colonies to provide for veterans and poor Italians, but also
to Romanise countries more completely, and to introduce an industrial
class. Sicily needed above all things free cultivators. Its corn trade
had suffered from the competition of Africa, Sardinia, and Egypt, and
its pastoral farms were largely owned by Roman capitalists, who did not
reside, but employed slave-labour directed by bailiffs or _villici_.[259]
One object at least, therefore, of these measures of Augustus was to
bring into the country a class of small landowners residing on their
property. Land was found for them by purchase, where there was no _ager
publicus_ available.
[Sidenote: Augustus in Greece B.C. 21.]
From Sicily Augustus passed to Greece and wintered at Samos. Achaia
was a senatorial province, but the Emperor, we may notice, exercised
complete authority there. He had already established two colonies—at
Actium and Patræ, and he seems to have devoted most of his attention
to promoting their interests. He compelled the inhabitants of several
townships in the neighbourhood of both towns to migrate to the new
colonies, and he insisted on the colony at Actium being admitted to the
Amphictyonic League. The places were well chosen for naval purposes, but
the element of compulsion in his policy towards them was unfortunate.
He does not appear to have done much for Greece generally. It was in
a lamentably decaying state, the population declining, and old towns
disappearing. Nearly the only exception was the Iulian colony at Corinth.
Such changes as Augustus made on this visit rather tended to emphasise
this state of things, and certainly did nothing to relieve it. Athens,
which retained nothing of its greatness except its past and the still
surviving reputation as a university town (though Marseilles was running
it hard even in that), had disgraced itself in his eyes by the display of
sympathy, first for the Pompeians against Iulius, again for Brutus and
Cassius against the triumvirs, and lastly for Antony against himself. A
town always on the losing side can expect little favour. It was deprived
of its few remaining extra-Attic dependencies, Ægina and Eretria, and
was forbidden to avail itself of almost the only source of revenue
left—the fees which certain persons were still willing to pay for the
honour of being enrolled as its citizens. Sparta, indeed, was rewarded
by the restoration of Cythera, in return, it is said, for hospitality
to Livia when in exile with her former husband; but, on the other hand,
it was deprived of the control over its harbour town of Gythium. But
though both Iulius and Augustus favoured Sparta, as against Athens—a fact
commemorated by a temple to Iulius and an altar to Augustus—it remained
completely insignificant.
Very different was his policy in Asia. There Augustus set himself to
restore the prosperity of the towns by grants of money, by relief from
or readjustment of tribute, and by the promotion of useful public works.
Nor were details of local administration and internal reforms neglected.
Edicts are preserved which touch on such matters as the age of local
magistrates, or the succession to the property of intestates in Bithynia,
shewing with what minute care he studied local interests and problems.
It was now probably that schemes were set on foot for opening up the
country by roads, afterwards carried out by his legates. Milestones are
being now discovered along the _via Sebaste_ connecting the six Pisidian
colonies dated in the eighteenth year of his tribunician power (B.C. 6)
and a marble temple to Augustus still stands at Ancyra (_Angora_), to
witness the gratitude of these Asiatic cities. At the same time disorder
or illegal conduct was sternly punished. Cyzicus was deprived of its
_libertas_ for having flogged and put to death some Roman citizens, and
the same punishment was awarded for their internal disorders to Tyre and
Sidon, whose ancient liberties had been secured to them by Antony when he
handed over the country to Cleopatra.
[Sidenote: Return of the standards by the Parthians.]
But of all his achievements during this progress nothing made such a
sensation in the Roman world, or was so much celebrated by the poets of
the day, as the fact that he received back from the Parthian king the
Roman eagles and standards lost by Crassus in B.C. 53, by Antony’s legate
Decidius Saxa in B.C. 40, and by Antony himself in B.C. 36 in a battle
with Parthians and Medes. Those taken by the Medes had been returned to
him, but not those taken by the Parthians. In B.C. 23 Tiridates, who
had been allowed to take refuge in Syria in B.C. 30, came to Rome, and
Phraates, to counteract his appeal, sent ambassadors thither also. After
consulting the Senate Augustus declined to give up Tiridates, but he
sent back to Phraates the son whom he had kept at Rome for the last six
years on condition that the king should restore the standards. Pressed
though he was by the disaffection of his subjects, Phraates had not
yet fulfilled his bargain. But perhaps this disaffection had by B.C.
20 become more acute, or he was alarmed by the promptness with which
Augustus asserted Roman supremacy in Armenia. Artaxes had ruled ill and
had been insubordinate. Augustus appears to have meditated an expedition
against him, but his subjects anticipated the difficulty by assassinating
him. Augustus says that he might have made Armenia a province, but
preferred to allow the ancient kingdom to remain. Accordingly on his
order Tiberius went to Armenia and with his own hand placed the diadem
on the head of Tigranes, brother of the late king, who had been living
in exile at Rome. Thus the supremacy of Augustus was acknowledged in
Armenia and its king ruled by his permission. A coin struck in B.C.
19 represents it as a real capture of Armenia, having on its reverse
_Cæsar Div. F. Armen. capt. Imp. viiii._ The Parthian king thought it
well now to fulfil his bargain, and again Tiberius was commissioned to
receive the captured standards in Syria. With the standards were also
some prisoners; though there were others who had in the thirty-three
years that had elapsed since the fall of Crassus settled peaceably in
Parthian territory, married wives, and now refused to return.[260] Such
a contented abandonment of their native land seemed shocking to the
orthodox Roman, unable to suppose life worth living among barbarians
for one who had once been a citizen of the Eternal City. Prisoners of
war were never much valued at Rome. It was the traditional maxim that
the state never paid ransom, though private friends might and did, and
Horace’s ode may be meant to support the Emperor’s refusal of some
demand of Phraates for ransom of prisoners to accompany the standards.
This transaction, however, was the crown of the Emperor’s work in the
East. It is commemorated on coins of B.C. 19 bearing a triumphal arch,
with Augustus receiving the standards, on the obverse, and the legend
_civibus et signis militaribus a Parthis receptis_ on the reverse. The
poets were not behind with their compliments. Vergil, who was in Greece
in this the last year of his life, seems to have inserted three lines in
his description of opening the doors of Bellona to bring in an allusion
to it.[261] Horace, who had for the time given up lyric poetry, yet
contrives a compliment in one of his epistles;[262] and, on returning
to lyric poetry in B.C. 13-12, is careful to include it among the great
services of Augustus; and Propertius, after prophetic suggestions as to
what will be done, at last burst out into a triumphant hymn of praise
over the achievements of these years, and, above all, on the Nemesis that
has come for the slaughtered Crassus.[263] Many years afterwards Ovid
takes the opportunity in describing the temple of Mars Ultor, in which
Augustus deposited the recovered standards, to glorify him for having
wiped out an old and shameful stain upon the Roman arms.[264] There
were many other arrangements made with the client kings of Asia, all of
which were accompanied by the strict condition that they were henceforth
to confine themselves to the territories now assigned to them and were
to make no wars of aggression. The _pax augusta_ was to be strictly
maintained everywhere.
[Sidenote: Augustus returns from the East, B.C. 19.]
All this had been done without any drop of blood shed in war, and
Augustus was able to devote the winter of B.C. 20-19 at Samos to rest and
enjoyment, receiving numerous embassies from all parts, as far as from
India. The Indian envoys brought him a present of tigers, a beast never
before seen in Greece or Italy, and a wonderful armless dwarf who could
draw a bow and throw javelins with his feet. He returned next year by way
of Athens, where he was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries and where
he met with Vergil. The poet joined the Emperor’s train, visited Megara
with him, and returned with him to Italy, only to fall ill at Brundisium
and die (September 22).
[Sidenote: Troubles in the West. Defeat of Lollius, B.C. 16.]
Though Augustus returned to Rome amidst loud congratulations, the Western
part of the Empire was not yet at peace, and in fact there were many
threatening signs of future trouble. Agrippa, indeed, in the very year
of the Emperor’s return from the East, crushed the rebellious Cantabri
and Astures, not without severe fighting; but though Augustus was able
now to remain at home, passing laws, holding the secular games, and
strengthening his family by adopting Agrippa’s children, the Empire was
not at peace, the Ianus Quirinus still stood open. There were, in fact,
a number of “little wars,” mostly frontier raids. Thus in B.C. 17-16, P.
Silius Nerva was engaged with various Alpine tribes, and in repelling an
inroad of Pannonians. There were also about the same time brief outbursts
in Spain and Dalmatia, and inroads of barbarous tribes (Dentheletæ and
Scordisci) into Macedonia. In Thrace the guardian of the sons of Cotys
had to be assisted against the Bessi, and the Sauromatæ had to be driven
back across the Danube. These were comparatively unimportant affairs, But
a more serious danger was caused by some warlike German tribes—Sugambri,
Usipetes, and Tencteri—crossing the Rhine and invading Gallia Belgica.
They defeated some Roman cavalry, and while pursuing them came up with
Lollius and his main army, which they again defeated, capturing the
eagle of the Fifth Legion. Suetonius says that the affair was rather
disgraceful than really disastrous. But it seemed sufficiently serious
to Augustus. Agrippa was away in the East looking after Syria and Asia,
and did not return till B.C. 13; and he resolved to go to Gaul himself,
taking with him Tiberius, and leaving Drusus to carry on the latter’s
prætorship. The Germans, however, had no wish to fight a regular imperial
army, they therefore retired beyond the Rhine, and made terms and gave
hostages.
[Sidenote: Administration of Gaul, B.C. 16-14.]
Augustus nevertheless found enough to do without positive fighting in
introducing improvements and reforms. At Nemausus the old gate of the
town walls still stands, inscribed with his name, and dated in the
seventh year of his tribunician power (B.C. 16); he had, moreover, to
listen to long tales of grievances caused by the extortions of Licinius,
the procurator at Lugdunum. This man’s career was an early example of
that of the rich freedmen of later times. Brought as prisoner from Gaul
by Iulius Cæsar, and apparently emancipated by Octavian in accordance
with his uncle’s will, he had by some means amassed an immense fortune,
and retained the favour of Augustus by large contributions to the
public works from time to time promoted by the Emperor. A millionaire
disposed to such liberality is always welcome to a sovereign with a
taste for expensive reforms. As a Gaul by birth, Augustus seems to have
supposed that he would be a sympathetic officer. But he proved more
Roman than the Romans in exacting the last farthing. We are reminded
of “Morton’s fork” and of Empson and Dudley, when we are told that he
insisted on certain monthly payments being made fourteen times in the
year, on the ground that November and December meaning the ninth and
tenth months, there must be two more to be accounted for! The complaints
were so serious, however, that Licinius thought it necessary to offer to
surrender his whole property to Augustus, as though he had only amassed
it for the public service, with the deliberate purpose of weakening the
disloyal natives. We are not told whether he was left in power, but
at any rate he escaped punishment and survived Augustus. He probably
was recalled to Rome, where he tried to pacify public indignation by
large contributions to the restoration of the Curia Iulia, which was
re-dedicated in honour of the Emperor’s grandsons about A.D. 12.
[Sidenote: Campaigns of Tiberius and Drusus, B.C. 15.]
But another and more serious trouble had now to be faced. The Rhæti,
inhabiting the modern Grisons, Tyrol, and parts of Lombardy, were making
raids upon Gaul and Italy, burning and slaying and plundering. With them
were allied the Vindelici (inhabiting parts of modern Baden, Wurtenburg,
and S. Bavaria), with other Alpine tribes.[265] The campaign against
these tribes was intrusted to Tiberius, who conceived a masterly plan
which was crowned with brilliant success. Drusus was summoned from Rome
to guard the passes into Lombardy, and in the valleys of the Tridentine
Alps at the entrance of the Brenner pass, near the Lacus Benacus (Lago
di Garda), he won a brilliant victory over them, and forced many of
their mountain strongholds. Shut off thus from Italy they turned their
armies towards Helvetic Gaul, but were met by Tiberius and again
defeated between Bâle and the Lake of Constance. These two defeats seem
practically to have annihilated these tribes, and they gave no further
trouble. It was after this that Noricum was annexed, and Rhætia and
Vindelicia conquered, and presently formed into the province Rhætia.
[Sidenote: At the end of B.C. 14 Augustus returns to Rome.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 13.]
Still Augustus had to stay on another year in Gaul. Risings had to be
suppressed among the Ligurians of the Maritime Alps, and in Pannonia;
while Agrippa, who had returned from Palestine accompanied or followed by
Herod, went to Sinope, on the Pontus, to put down a disturbance that had
arisen owing to a disputed claim to the crown of the Cimmerian Bosporus,
which an usurper named Scribonius had seized. At the end of B.C. 14, or
the beginning of B.C. 13, Augustus returned to Rome with Tiberius, who
entered then upon his first consulship, and there they were also joined
by Agrippa. Whether the temple of Ianus was now closed for the third time
is not certain. But there are some good reasons for supposing that it
was. In two passages, Horace, writing in B.C. 13, speaks of it as though
it were a recent occurrence; Dio, in speaking of the return of Augustus,
says that he came back after “having settled all the affairs of the
Gauls, Germanies and Spains”; there was certainly a lull in the German
trouble, where Drusus had been left in command; and lastly an inscription
recording the extension of the great road to Gades in Southern Spain,
has the date of this year, and records the closing of Ianus in honour
of Augustus. None of these are in themselves absolute proofs, but taken
together they form a strong presumption.[266] At any rate, Augustus
returned to Rome with the feeling that he had secured peace. Though he,
as usual, avoided meeting a complimentary procession by entering the city
after nightfall, yet he came with laurelled fasces. The next morning,
after greeting a crowd of people on the Capitol, he caused the laurels to
be taken off and solemnly laid on the knees of Jupiter, and the first
business he transacted in the Senate was the settlement of the claims of
his soldiers. But the peace did not last long. Augustus himself spent the
next three years in Italy busied with the census, the lectio senatus,
legislation, and various ceremonies. Lepidus died in the early part of
this year, and he was at once declared Pontifex Maximus, though the
_inauguratio_ did not take place till the following February.
[Sidenote: Death of Agrippa, B.C. 12.]
However, before the year was ended, news came of disturbances in
Pannonia, and Agrippa—once more associated in the tribunician power—was
sent thither. He had no fighting, for the rising was abandoned at his
approach. It was his last journey. Next spring he was taken ill in one
of his Campanian villas. Augustus threw all business aside and hastened
to his house, but arrived too late. Never had ruler a more faithful or
abler friend and servant. At every crisis of his life Agrippa had been by
his side, and wherever danger was most threatening he had taken the post
of difficulty and honour. If he gained wealth in his master’s service,
he was always ready to spend it in support of his master’s aims. In the
interests of the dynasty he had sunk all private wishes and ambitions.
About Agrippa the passion for prurient scandal, characteristic of the
age and people, for once is silent, and not a single line or innuendo
survives to impeach his private or public life. Augustus shewed both his
respect and deep feeling. He accompanied the body to Rome, pronounced the
funeral oration himself, and deposited the ashes in the new mausoleum
which he had erected for his own family.
[Sidenote: Tiberius in Pannonia.]
The news of Agrippa’s death seems to have encouraged the Pannonians
once more to strike for freedom. Tiberius accordingly was appointed to
succeed him in the command. He laid waste wide portions of their country,
inflicted much slaughter upon the inhabitants, and seems quickly to have
reduced them to obedience, though only for a time.
[Sidenote: Drusus in Germania B.C. 12-9.]
Meanwhile Drusus was not idle. The Sugambri and their allies crossed the
Rhine into the district called Lower Germany, a part of Belgium (now
North Brabant), where they would find tribes nearly allied to themselves,
and willing to shake off the Roman yoke. Drusus had been engaged in the
consecration of an altar to Augustus at Lugdunum, where he had invited
the attendance of leading Gauls from all these provinces. He hurried back
to the Rhine and drove the invaders over the river, and then throwing a
bridge across it (somewhere below Cologne), he attacked the Usipites on
the right bank of the Lupia, and then marched up the Rhine to attack the
Sugambri. But there was a fleet of ships supporting him in the Rhine. He
cut a canal from the River to Lake Flevo (Zuyder Zee), so that this fleet
might sail up the coast to the mouths of the three rivers—the Amisia,
Visurgis, and Albis (_Ems_, _Weser_, _Elbe_). He proposed to make the
Elbe the limit of the Roman Empire, instead of the Rhine; but in this
first year only reduced the coast as far as the Visurgis. The next year
(B.C. 11), he advanced by land to the same river, only farther inland,
and occupied the country of the Cherusci (Westphalia), and though on
their way home his men were nearly caught in an ambush, they got back
safely to the banks of the Lupia, and several forts were established in
various parts of the country. The next year (B.C. 10) he was engaged
with the Chatti (Hessen), who endeavoured to regain the territories from
which he had driven them in the previous year.[267] In B.C. 9, being
now consul, he pushed as far as the Elbe, where he erected a trophy to
mark the extreme limit of the Roman advance, through the land of the
Chatti and Trevi. But on his return march he fell and broke his leg, and
there being no skilled physician with the army, he died after thirty
days’ suffering. Besides these marches into Germany, he had, during his
command, established a line of fortresses on the Lower Rhine, to the
number of fifty, as far up the stream as Argentoratum (Strassburg).
[Sidenote: Tiberius in Germany B.C. 8-7.]
On hearing of his brother’s accident, Tiberius, who was at Ticinum,
hurried to his side, was with him when he died, and accompanied the
corpse on foot back to Rome, where he delivered a funeral oration, and
Augustus, who returned from Lugdunum at this time, another. The ashes
were placed in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Tiberius was appointed to
succeed him on the Rhine, and in B.C. 8 crossed the river to attack the
Sugambri. But as the other tribes made their submission, the Sugambri
were induced to send some of their leading men to negotiate also.
Augustus then took a step which requires, at any rate, some explanation.
He seized these legates and kept them in confinement in various towns as
hostages. It had the immediate effect, however, of keeping the Sugambri
quiet, large numbers of them were settled on the left bank of the Rhine,
and Tiberius was able to come home for his triumph in B.C. 7, with which
the name of Drusus was also associated.
No wars of any consequence disturbed the peace of the Empire for nearly
nine years. Tiberius retired to Rhodes in B.C. 6, and his successors in
the command of the army of the Rhine had the task of maintaining and
strengthening the conquests of Drusus. The two districts on the left bank
of the river, Germania Inferior and Superior, though for some purposes
they belonged to Gallia Belgica, yet as military districts were distinct,
and they included some fortresses on the right bank of the Rhine. The
country between the Rhine and the Elbe was in an ambiguous position. It
was not a province, and yet the commanders on the Rhine occupied as much
of it as they could from time to time maintain.
[Sidenote: Tiberius again in Germany and Illyricum, A.D. 4-7.]
But in A.D. 4 Tiberius, now returned from Rhodes, and adopted son of
Augustus, took over the command on the Rhine, and immediately began a
great forward movement like that of his brother Drusus. He too advanced
to the Weser and reduced the Cherusci who were in revolt; and after
marching to the Lippe again, advanced to the Elbe (A.D. 5), reducing
the Chauci and Longobardi, this time with the support of a fleet that
entered the mouth of the Elbe. Some others thought it safer to send
envoys and make terms of friendship with Rome. Next year (A.D. 6) he was
to attack the Marcomanni under a powerful leader named Marobudus. The
attack was to be made from two sides. C. Sextius Saturninus, an able
and experienced officer, was to lead one army from the Rhine, through
the territory of the Chatti (near Cologne), while Tiberius himself led
another from Noricum across the Danube. The two were to converge upon
the district now occupied by the Marcomanni answering to the modern
Bohemia. Tiberius was accompanied by the governor of Pannonia (Valerius
Messalinus), and a large part of the troops stationed there. But the
expedition was prevented by a sudden rising in Pannonia and Dalmatia. The
inhabitants of these countries had not become reconciled to Roman rule;
they felt the burden of the tribute, and the opportunity afforded by the
withdrawal of so many troops was eagerly seized. Tiberius was forced to
offer terms to Marobudus, which he accepted, and hurry back to Pannonia,
while Saturninus returned to the Rhine for fear of an outbreak there.
The rising in Pannonia and Dalmatia was with difficulty suppressed after
a weary struggle lasting between three and four years. Many legions had
to be drafted into the country from other provinces as well as large
auxiliary forces. Germanicus was summoned to assist with a new army, and
Augustus himself came to Ariminum to be near at hand. Suetonius affirms
that it was the most serious struggle in which the Romans had been
engaged since the Punic wars. In B.C. 9 Tiberius indeed returned to Rome
to claim his triumph, but had to go back to put a last touch to the war.
[Sidenote: The fall of Varus, A.D. 9.]
Meanwhile the army of the Rhine had been under the command of P.
Quintilius Varus. Velleius gives an unfavourable account of him. He
was more a courtier than a soldier, and in his government of Syria had
shown himself greedy of money. “He entered a rich province a poor man,
and left a poor province a rich one.” From the time of his accession to
the command in B.C. 7 he seems to have regarded the country between the
Rhine and Elbe as completely reduced to the form of a Roman province,
and proceeded to levy tribute with the same strictness as he had been
used to do in Syria. But the German tribes did not regard themselves as
Roman subjects. The Romans were only masters of so much as their camps
could control. While Varus was living in fancied security in his summer
camp on the Weser, busied only with the usual legal administration of a
provincial governor, four great German peoples, the Cherusci, Chatti,
Marsi, and Bructeri, were secretly combining under the lead of the
Cheruscan chief, Arminius, to strike a blow for liberty. As the autumn of
A.D. 9 approached Varus prepared to return to the regular winter quarters
on the Rhine (Castra Vetera). Arminius, who had served in the Roman
army, and had been rewarded by the citizenship and the rank of eques,
had ingratiated himself with Varus, and was fully acquainted with his
plans, and though Varus had been warned of his treachery he seems to have
taken no heed. In order to bring him through the difficult country where
the ambush was to await him, a rising of a tribe off his direct road to
the Lower Rhine was planned. He fell into the trap, and turning aside to
chastise the rebellious tribe, was caught in a difficult pass, somewhere
between the sources of the Lippe and Ems, and he and nearly the whole
of his army perished. For three days the army struggled through a thick
and almost pathless forest, encumbered by a heavy baggage train, and a
number of women and children, attacked and slaughtered at nearly every
step by the Germans who were concealed in the woods, and continually made
descents upon them. A miserable remnant was saved by the exertions of L.
Asprenas, a legate of Varus, who had come to the rescue. Varus and some
of his chief officers appear to have committed suicide. The loss of three
legions and a large body of auxiliaries greatly affected the Emperor,
now a man of over seventy. For many months he wore signs of mourning,
and we are told that at times in his restless anxiety he beat his head
upon the door, crying, “Varus, give me back my legions!” Perhaps this is
the picturesque imagination of anecdote mongers. Though alarmed for the
possible consequences both at home and in the provinces, he acted with
spirit and energy. He ordered the urban pickets to be carefully posted,
suspended all changes in provincial governments, and held a levy of
citizen soldiers, enforcing by threats and punishment the duty of giving
in the names. For some time past service in the army had been regarded as
a profession sufficiently attractive to draw volunteers, without having
recourse to the legal right of conscription. But a sudden emergency
like this seems to have found men apathetic or disinclined, and he had
to resort to the old methods. He thought it necessary also to get rid
for a time of Gauls or Germans who were serving in the city cohorts or
residing in Rome. Tiberius, on the news of the disaster, hurried from
his Pannonian quarters to Rome, and was appointed to the Rhine command,
to which he went early in A.D. 10. The danger most to be feared was
that the victorious Germans would at once cross the Rhine. But this had
been averted partly because the Marcomanni had declined to join the
insurrection, even when Arminius sent the head of Varus to their chief,
Marobudus, and partly by the fact that the rebellious Germans themselves
wasted time in blockading Aliso, the fort erected by Drusus on the Lippe,
which was obstinately defended by its garrison under Lucius Cædicius. It
proved to be the Ladysmith of the German war, for the Germans, fearing to
leave it on their rear, missed the opportunity of attacking the camps on
the Rhine before they could be reinforced. The brave garrison, when their
provisions were exhausted, escaped on a dark night and reached Castra
Vetera in safety. Still, the result of the rising was to free Germany
beyond the Rhine. When Tiberius arrived to take the command in A.D. 10,
he spent the first year in strengthening the forts along that river; and
though in A.D. 11 he moved his summer camp beyond it, he never went far,
or apparently engaged in any warlike operations then or in A.D. 12. In
the next year he returned to Rome and was succeeded in the command by his
nephew, Germanicus. The forward movements of this young prince belong to
the next reign, but Tiberius no doubt learnt now what a few years later
induced him to recall Germanicus and be content with the frontier of the
Rhine.
[Sidenote: Administrative reforms. The post.]
The life of Augustus was now near its close, and there are no more
military enterprises to record. He had never commanded in the field
since the Cantabrian war of B.C. 25; but he had taken part in the most
important wars by moving to within such a distance of the seat of war as
to hear news quickly and to superintend the despatch of provisions and
reinforcements. He was probably more usefully employed in this way, and
was enabled to see, by personal observation, the needs of the provinces
and the best methods of remedying abuses and promoting prosperity. In
the course of his reign he is said to have visited every province except
Sardinia and Africa, and hardly any is without some trace of his activity
and liberality in the way of roads, bridges, or public buildings. He
was anxious that all, however distant, should feel in touch with the
central authority at Rome. Among other means to promote this was the
establishment or improvement of an imperial post which should reach the
most distant dependencies.
We must not think of this as being like the modern postal service—meant
for the general use of the public. It was purely official. Just as the
main purpose of the great roads was to facilitate the rapid movement
of armies and officials, so the post was a contrivance to expedite
official despatches, to convey the Emperor’s orders to remotest parts
of the Empire, and to carry back news and warnings to the government
at home. Along the great roads in Italy and the provinces there had
long been posting houses where relays of horses, mules, or carriages
could be obtained, but there was never what we should call a postal
service for the transmission of private letters. Rich men kept slaves
for this purpose (_tabellarii_), the magistrates had official messengers
(_statores_), and the companies of _publicani_ had their regular service
of carriers. Private people could, as a favour, get their letters
occasionally conveyed by some of these; and it was considered a proper
act of politeness at Rome when despatching a slave with letters to
distant places, to send round to one’s friends to know whether they
wished to send any by him. Again, governors of provinces under the
republic had arranged with certain scribes in Rome to copy out the
_diurna acta_ and transmit them by slaves or paid messengers. But for
official purposes Augustus arranged a number of stations along the great
roads with men, horses, and carriages, to convey to and from Rome all the
news that it was needful for the government to know or all orders that
emanated from the Emperor.[268] Private persons would have no right to
use these public servants or conveyances; but no doubt the organisation
for the public service facilitated the transmission of private
correspondence also.
This actual and material tightening of the bond which united distant
parts of the Empire with the central government went side by side with
the moral effect of the change in the position of the governors. No
longer permitted to make what profit they could from excessive exactions,
or percentages allowed by usage though not by law, they all received a
fixed salary, as did the lesser officials; and though extortion was still
occasionally heard of, the provinces knew that they had a rapid means of
appealing to the Emperor and a fair certainty of redress.
[Sidenote: The army under one commander-in-chief.]
Another change that made at first for unity, though it afterwards had
the contrary effect, concerned the army. In the time of the republic
there was in theory no one standing army. There were many armies, all
of which took the military oath to their respective commanders. Now the
military oath was taken by all to one man—the Emperor. The commanders of
legions were his _legati_. He regulated the pay, the years of service,
the retiring allowance for all alike. Each of the republican imperators
had a prætorian guard, generally consisting of auxiliary troops. Now
there was one prætorian guard, naturally stationed at Rome, and though
distinguished from the rest by increased pay and easier years of service,
it, as well as the _cohortes vigilum_, was under the same command. This
applies also to the fleet which was organised under Augustus chiefly
to protect the coast and clear the sea of pirates: the two principal
stations being at Misenum on the west, and Ravenna on the east coast,
with a third maintained for a time at Forum Iulii (Fréjus). The men
serving in these ships occupied the same position as citizen soldiers
or auxiliaries, and like them took the oath to one man—the Emperor.
But the very completeness of the organisation, it is right to notice
here, eventually made for disruption. Certain legions became constantly
attached to certain provinces, the auxiliaries serving with them being
as a rule recruited from the same provinces. The several branches of the
army thus came to feel an _esprit de corps_, and to regard themselves
as a separate entity with separate interests and claims. Consequently,
when in after-times the central authority was in dispute or in process
of change, the legions in the different provinces spoke and thought
of themselves as separate “armies,” capable of taking an independent
line and having a determining voice in deciding who should be their
Imperator. In those troublous times the provinces which had no military
establishment, or only a weak one, ceased to count for much, and had
to follow the strongest army near them.[269] For the present such
difficulties were not foreseen. Augustus was a strict disciplinarian,
and little was heard as yet of any serious insubordination. When it
did occur it was promptly punished. He disbanded the 10th legion for
misconduct, and exercised at times the full vigour of military punishment
for desertion of posts or lesser offences, and was careful in addressing
his troops not to lower his dignity by affectation of equality. He called
them “Soldiers!” not “Fellow-soldiers!” At the same time he kept up the
traditional exclusiveness of the legions, and seldom employed freedmen,
except as a kind of special constable in the city, and twice in times
of great distress, the Illyrian and German wars: even then they were
formed in separate cohorts, and armed in some way less complete than the
legionaries.
The same conservative attachment to the ancient superiority of Rome
made him chary of granting the citizenship either to individuals, or to
masses of soldiers, or to states. This was one of the points in which
his policy was opposite to that of Iulius. The latter by his large
grants of citizenship to soldiers, professional men and communities,
had helped to raise the number of citizens from about 450,000 in B.C.
70 to 4,063,000 (the number in the Census of B.C. 28). During the
forty-five years that remained to Augustus the number had only gone up
to 4,937,000 (the Census of A.D. 13). This is probably little more than
can be accounted for by the growth of population; so that extensions of
the franchise must have been insignificant. His idea was an empire, one
in its military obligations and in its subjection to one supreme head,
and yet not divorced from the original city state. Rome was to be the
imperial city, the seat of government; the Populus Romanus was to be the
inhabitants of Rome extended to the limits of Italy. There was to be a
sharp line of division between the ruling and the ruled. It was one of
those compromises that are without the elements of permanence. And yet
it established a sentiment that has lasted, and is a reason that even to
this day the centre of spiritual life to a large part of Europe is on the
banks of the Tiber. In material matters the extension of the citizenship
meant the gradual shifting of the centre of power, and when early in
the third century Caracalla, for purposes of taxation, extended the
citizenship to the whole Empire, though the Roman name and its historical
prestige remained, Rome itself became only one of a number of cities in
a widely spread empire, and politically by no means the most important.
Such a conception was far from the mind of Augustus. It would have seemed
to him to be more worthy of his rival Antony, who was for setting up a
new Rome in Alexandria.
CHAPTER XI
AUGUSTUS AND HIS WORSHIPPERS
_O tutela præsens_
_Italiæ dominæque Romæ._
[Sidenote: Popular feeling towards Augustus.]
After the settlement of the constitution in B.C. 23 Augustus was only
absent from Italy three times, from B.C. 22 to B.C. 19 in Sicily and the
East, from B.C. 16 to B.C. 13 in Gaul and Spain, and B.C. 9-10 in Gaul.
At the outbreak of the Pannonian and Dalmatian wars A.D. 6-9 he stayed
for some time at Ariminum. For the rest of the time he lived at Rome,
with the usual visits to his country houses, made by land or yacht.
His return to the city after any prolonged absence was celebrated with
every sign of rejoicing, with sacrifices, music, and a general holiday.
On his return from Gaul in B.C. 13 an altar was dedicated to _Fortuna
redux_.[270] Nor was this mere adulation. The people had come to look
upon him as the best guarantee of peace and security. The troubles of
the days preceding the civil wars, the street fighting and massacres,
the horrors of the civil war itself, were not forgotten: but his own
part in them was ignored or forgiven; it was only remembered that he had
put an end to them; that he had restored the ruinous city in unexampled
splendour; that it was owing to his liberality, or that of his friends
acting under his influence, that at Rome there were luxurious baths,
plentiful water, abundant food, streets free from robbers, help ready in
case of fire, and cheerful festivals nearly always in progress. It was
thanks to him that the roads in Italy were not beset by brigands, that
the corn-ships from Egypt crowded the harbour of Puteoli unmolested by
pirates on their course,[271] that not only the dreaded Parthian, but
princes from the ends of the earth were sending embassies desiring the
friendship of Rome. At the least sign of the old disorders they clamoured
for his return and besought him to become Dictator, director of the corn
trade, perpetual guardian of morals, anything, convinced that under his
absolute rule there would be peace, plenty, and security. Horace exactly
represents this feeling when he addresses Augustus in his absence in
Gaul: “Oh scion of the gracious gods, oh best guardian of the race of
Romulus ... return! Your country calls for you with vows and prayer ...
for when you are here the ox plods up and down the fields in safety;
Ceres and bounteous blessing cheer our farms; our sailors speed o’er seas
that know no fear of pirates; credit is unimpaired; no foul adulteries
stain the home; punishment follows hard on crime.... Who fears Parthian,
Scythian, German, or Spaniard with Cæsar safe? Each man closes a day of
peace on his native hills, trains his vines to the widowed trees, and
home returning, light of heart, quaffs his wine and ends the feast with
blessings on thee as a god indeed.”[272]
[Sidenote: The worship of Augustus.]
These feelings found expression in a form which in our day is apt
to appear, according to our temperament, ridiculous or profane. In
plain terms this was to treat Augustus as divine, a god on earth. The
various expressions of Horace[273] may perhaps be put down to poetical
exaggeration or conventional compliment, though there is a real meaning
at their back; but though Augustus refused to allow temples and altars
to himself in Rome and Italy,[274] and even ordered certain silver
statuettes to be melted down, the evidence of inscriptions makes it
certain that the cult began in his lifetime in several places, as at
Pompeii, Puteoli, Cumæ in Campania, and in other parts of Italy.[275]
In Rome itself, when Augustus reorganised the _vici_, the old worship
of the _Lares Compitales_ at some consecrated spot in each _vicus_
or “parish” was restored, but they were commonly spoken of as _Lares
Augusti_, and the _Genius Augusti_ was associated with them. It is this
fact that, to a certain extent, explains and renders less irrational an
attitude of mind which we are apt to dismiss as merely absurd. Each man
had a _Genius_—a deity to whom he was a particular care. We speak of a
man’s “mission,” implying by the word itself some external and directing
power, probably divine. The step is not a long one which identifies the
man and his genius, especially when his mission seems to be to bring
us peace and prosperity. “Oh Melibæus, ’twas a god that wrought this
ease for us!” exclaims the countryman in Vergil, who had got back his
lands. This confusion between the inspirer and the inspired, between the
mission and the man, was everywhere apparent. Among the statues in the
temples, and in the sacred hymns and other acts of worship, the figure
or the name of Augustus was associated with those of the gods in a way
that admitted, indeed, of a distinction being drawn between a memorial
to an almost divine man and an act of devotion to a god, but often
obscured that distinction for ordinary folk. When we dedicate a church
to a saint, or “to the glory of God and in memory of So-and-so,” the
distinction is of course clear, but the confusion which has from time to
time resulted is also notorious. Thus in the Cuman Calendar of a sacred
year, in which the anniversaries of striking events in the career of
Augustus are marked for some act of worship, sometimes the _supplicatio_
is bluntly stated as _Augusto_; sometimes in honour of some abstract idea
as _imperio Augusti_, _Fortunæ reduci_, _Victoriæ Augustæ_; at others to
a god—_Iovi sempiterno_, _Vestæ_, _Marti Ultori_, _Veneri_. In fact, the
_supplicatio_ always had a double reference, it was an act of prayer or
thanksgiving to a god, but it was also an honour to a successful man. The
two ideas properly distinct easily coalesced. A _supplicatio_ in honour
of Augustus, without much violence, became a _supplicatio_ to him.
[Illustration: ALTAR DEDICATED TO THE LARES OF AUGUSTUS IN B.C. 2 BY A
MAGISTER VICI.
_Photographed from the Original in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence._
_To face page 196._]
Of the still more formal cult which arose after his death with a temple
regularly dedicated to him by Livia on the Palatine, and a new college
of Augustales to keep up the worship in all parts of the Empire, an
explanation somewhat analogous may be given. He was declared _divus_ by
the Senate, he was the late Emperor of blessed memory, a sainted soul,
the very spirit or genius of eternal Rome. The traditions in early
Roman history of the god-born and deified founder, the hero-worship of
Greece, the veil which concealed (as it still conceals) the state of the
departed, combined with the tolerant spirit of polytheism to make it
almost as easy for the men of that time to admit a new deity into the
Olympian hierarchy, as for mediæval Europe to admit a new saint into the
Calendar.
Augustus, as we said, had the good sense and modesty to put difficulties
in the way of this worship in Rome and Italy. It was another matter
in the provinces. The divine, or semi-divine, honours paid him there
were closely bound up with loyalty to Rome and a belief in her eternal
mission. He therefore allowed temples and altars to be built, but always
on the understanding that the name of Rome should be associated with
his own. Such a method of expressing devotion to Rome and reverence for
her magistrates had not been unknown in earlier times. In the second
century B.C. a colossal statue of Rome had been set up by the Rhodians in
a temple of Athena; the people of Chalcis had erected a temple in honour
of Flamininus; and Cicero implies that in his time it was not an uncommon
thing to do in the Asiatic provinces. At Smyrna a temple to Rome had
been erected in B.C. 195;[276] and even before these the communities in
Asia and Greece had been accustomed to honour the Ptolemies in a similar
manner. The new cult therefore had nothing strange to the feelings and
habits of the time. It began early in his career of success—not later at
most than B.C. 36, after the defeat of Sextus Pompeius[277]—and it spread
rapidly. We hear of temples “to Rome and Augustus,” or altars, at Cyme,
Ancyra, Pergamus, Nicomedia, Alexandria, Paneas, Sparta, and elsewhere
in the East. Connected with them were yearly festivals and games, as at
Athens, Ancyra, and in Cilicia.[278] Nor was it in the East only that
this worship began in the lifetime of Augustus. We hear of temples or
altars in Spain, Mœsia, Pannonia, Narbonne; and the altar at Lugdunum
(Lyon), consecrated by Drusus in B.C. 12, was deliberately intended to
supersede the Druidical religion which was national and separatist.
[Sidenote: The attitude of Augustus to this worship.]
For forming an estimate of Augustus himself it is of great interest to
decide, if possible, how far he was deluded, how far he was acting from
deliberate policy in countenancing these things. When some people of
Tarraco reported to him, as an omen of his victorious career, that a
palm had grown on the mound of his altar in that city, he replied with
half-grave, half-playful irony, “That shews how often you use it!”[279]
But there is no note of disapproval or abnegation in the answer. He
accepts it as a natural fact that there should be such an altar, as a
modern sovereign might accept the compliment of a statue. Can we explain
it, except as a case of conscious fraud or blinding vanity? I believe
we may. We must notice first that Augustus had been zealous in the
apotheosis of Iulius, had urged Antony to become his flamen, had built
a temple to him in Rome, and encouraged the building of temples and
altars elsewhere. Now this apotheosis and worship of Iulius had begun
before his death,[280] as Augustus knew perfectly well. But in spite of
the manifestly party spirit of the packed Senate that voted the divine
honours to Iulius, he gave no sign of revulsion or incredulity. On the
contrary, he professed himself the heir not only of his wealth and
honours, but also of his religious obligations and political purposes.
It is clear, again, that Augustus believed in the gods, that is, in some
immortal being or beings who governed and controlled the world. The
restorer of a hundred temples, of sacred writings and ancient religious
rites, the pious fulfiller of vows made in the hour of danger or escape,
may have had crude or uncertain beliefs, have held views philosophical or
superstitious, wise or foolish, but he could hardly have been an atheist.
He was too busy a man to be much troubled with philosophic doubts,
and perhaps—obvious as it may be—the answer of Napoleon would have
represented his view: who after listening for a time to certain
atheistic arguments, said, pointing to the starry heavens, “All very
well, gentlemen, but who made all that?” Given a belief in oneself and
in Providence, the next step is to believe that Providence is on our
side, as Cromwell saw the hand of God even in his most questionable
achievements. If we can translate this into the language of an age
accustomed to hear at any rate with acquiescence of heroic men, sons of
the gods and destined to be enrolled among their peaceful ranks, of the
genius which attended each man from the cradle to the grave, of the care
of the gods for the welfare of the state in its darkest hours, manifested
by omens, warnings, and even material appearances: if again we consider
how much it adds to the strength of a belief to find it shared by others
and to see that it makes for the moral good of the world, we may come
faintly to conceive a frame of mind in Augustus on this subject which
need not—in view of his age and its sentiments—be set down either as
wholly irrational or wholly hypocritical. “The Roman Empire,” he might
say to himself, “is all that really matters in the world. I am divinely
appointed to restore and defend it. I have in fact secured its peace
and prosperity. If the people call me god, it is their way of honouring
the Genius that directs me, the Providence that has selected me to be
their benefactor and saviour. If they believe in that, they must also
believe in the sanctity and eternal authority of Rome and the Empire.
Religion and loyalty are but different words for the same virtue.” In
his eyes the state was divinely appointed, even in itself divine, and in
so far as he represented the state he was a divinity to its subjects.
Stability was its first requisite. “My highest ambition,” he said in an
edict, “is to be called the author of an ideally good constitution, and
to carry with me to the grave a hope that the foundations I have laid
will remain unmoved.” Goodness, and loyalty to the state, had become
convertible terms to him. Once as he was looking at a villa formerly
belonging to Cato, one of his companions, thinking to please him by
denouncing an anti-Cæsarean, spoke of the “obstinate wrong-headedness of
Cato.” But he answered gravely “any one who is opposed to revolution is
a good man as well as a good citizen.” At another time he came upon one
of his grandsons reading a book of Cicero. The boy, thinking he was on
forbidden ground, tried to conceal the book; but Augustus took it into
his hand, read in it a short time, and handed it back with the remark,
“A true scholar, my boy, and a patriot.” Perhaps he thought with remorse
of his own part in the great man’s death, perhaps of the time when he
believed him to have been false to himself, but “patriot”—“a lover of his
country”—made up for all.[281]
[Sidenote: The civilitas of Augustus.]
It is clear, again, that it was not personal vanity or a desire for
adulation that actuated Augustus. He disliked fulsome compliments or
overstrained titles of respect, and laughed at cringing attitudes,
as when he said of some obsequious petitioner that “he held out his
billet and then snatched it away again like a man giving a penny to an
elephant.” He specially objected to be called _dominus_, a word properly
applying to a master of slaves, and forbade the word to be used even
in jest in his own family. He wished to be regarded as a citizen among
citizens. He took care to shew interest (unlike Iulius) in the games
and shows that were liked by the people, and disapproved of special
marks of respect being paid to his young grandsons by the people rising
and cheering when they entered the circus. He went through the streets
on foot even when Consul, or rode with the curtains of his sedan drawn
back, that he might not seem to avoid the looks or approach of the
crowd; he admitted all kinds of people without distinction of rank
to his morning levees; forbade the Senators to rise when he entered
or left the house; visited friends without state, and was careful to
attend family festivities such as betrothal parties. At elections he
went round with his candidates and canvassed for votes, and appeared
for his clients in the courts (though anxious not to allow his presence
to exercise an unfair influence) and shewed no annoyance at being
cross-questioned and refuted. In the Senate he allowed great freedom of
speech without resentment. He was interrupted while speaking by cries of
“We don’t understand,” “I would contradict you if it were of any use.”
On one occasion, when he was leaving the house with some signs of anger
after a tiresome debate, he was followed by cries, “Senators should be
allowed to speak freely on public affairs,” something like the shouts
of “Privilege” that greeted Charles I. on a famous occasion. When he
mildly remonstrated with Antistius Labeo for nominating Lepidus (whom he
particularly disliked and treated with great contumely) to the Senate,
Antistius retorted rudely, “Every one is entitled to his own opinion.” He
was tolerant of such language and wrote a soothing note to Tiberius, who
expressed himself vehemently about some occurrence of the sort: “My dear
Tiberius, don’t give way to youthful excitement, or be so very indignant
at some one being found to speak harm of me. It is quite enough if we can
prevent their _doing_ us any harm.” In matters more personal or private
he could stand a telling or rough retort. When holding a review of the
equites he brought up a number of charges against a certain eques, who
rebutted them one after the other and ended with the contemptuous remark:
“Next time, sir, you cause inquiries to be made about a respectable
man, you had better intrust the business to respectable people.” Seeing
another eques eating in the circus he sent a message to him, “When I want
to lunch, I go home.” “Yes,” was the answer, “but you are not afraid of
losing your place.” Another eques was rebuked by him for squandering his
patrimony, and deigned no further remark than, “Oh well, I was under the
impression that it was my own property.” He once paid a Senator’s debts,
and got no more thanks than a note with the words, “Not a farthing for
myself!” A young man was once noticed at Court with an extraordinary
likeness to himself. Augustus ordered him to be introduced and said:
“Young gentleman, was your mother ever at Rome?” “No,” he replied, “but
my father was.” In this case it must be acknowledged that the Emperor
richly deserved the retort. The point, however, in all these stories
is that he was content to give and take and be a man among men. There
would be no longer any ground for Pollio’s remark, when Augustus wrote
some satirical epigrams upon that incarnation of all the talents: “I
say nothing. It is not easy to write against a man who can write one’s
name in a proscription list.” There are other anecdotes which still
farther illustrate this human side of Augustus. A veteran begged him
to appear for him in court, and Augustus named one of his friends to
undertake the case. The veteran cried out, “But when you were in danger
at Actium, Cæsar, I did not get a substitute; I fought for you myself!”
With a blush Augustus consented to appear. The troubles and tragedies
of life interested him. On hearing of one of Herod’s family executions,
he remarked, “I had rather be Herod’s pig than his son!” And when a man
supposed to be rich was found on his death to be overwhelmed with debt,
he sent to purchase his pillow at the auction, which had enabled him to
sleep when he owed such enormous sums. He could bear to have the laugh
turned against himself. The story of the man with the two ravens, one
taught to greet himself and the other Antony, has been already referred
to (p. 119). Another is of a similar kind. A poor Greek poet was in
the habit of waylaying him as he left his house for the forum with
complimentary epigrams to thrust into his hand. Augustus took no notice
for some time, but one day seeing the inevitable tablet held out he took
it and hastily scribbled a Greek epigram of his own upon it. The poet by
voice and look affected to be overpowered with admiration, and running up
to the Emperor’s sedan handed him a few pence, crying, “By heaven above
you, Augustus, if I had had more I would have given it you!” Everybody
laughed and Augustus ordered his steward to give him a substantial sum of
money.
It is curious that though Augustus was unmoved by rough retorts or
offensive speeches he shewed considerable sensitiveness to attacks
which took the form of lampoons and epigrams. He went so far on some
occasions as to refute them in an edict. But he used the “edict” as a
means of communication with the citizens and provinces on all sorts of
subjects, such as for explaining his purpose in putting up the bust
of distinguished men, or to draw attention to what he thought useful
in ancient writers. But he shrank not only from offensive poems, but
from being the subject of any poetry or history composed by incompetent
people. Before all things he was not to be made to look ridiculous by
witty attacks or clumsy praise. The prize poem or declamation was an
abomination to him, and the prætors were charged to prevent the public
use of his name in such compositions. Connected with this sensitive
refinement of taste may be mentioned the simplicity of his manners and
way of life.
[Sidenote: The residences of Augustus.]
The Palace of Augustus, though in a group of great splendour, was not in
itself on a scale approaching the huge constructions of later Emperors.
He appears at first to have occupied a modest house close to the forum,
which had once belonged to the orator Licinius Calvus, who died B.C. 47.
He then purchased a site on the Palatine on which to erect a new house;
but in B.C. 36, after the final defeat of Sextus Pompeius, the Senate
voted him the house of Hortensius. In a chamber of this house he slept
summer and winter for the rest of his life, though occasionally when
unwell he would pass the night in the house of Mæcenas on the Esquiline
which was regarded as a healthier situation. On receiving this house
from the Senate, he devoted the site already purchased to the temple of
Apollo and its libraries, which with its peristyle was filled with the
most precious specimens of Greek art, and in which under the statue of
Apollo by Scopas the Sibylline books were preserved in gilded caskets.
In B.C. 12, upon becoming Pontifex Maximus, he built a small temple of
Vesta between these buildings and his house, to keep up the tradition
of the Pontiff residing near the shrine of Vesta in the forum, while he
handed over the official residence of the Pontiff to the Vestal Virgins
themselves. The house of Hortensius was afterwards partly destroyed by
fire and rebuilt with greater magnificence, the neighbouring house once
owned by Catiline being taken in; but even then it was on a moderate
scale compared with the later palaces. Its entrance, however, was
conspicuously marked by the laurels, the civic crown, and gilded shields
which were placed there by vote of the Senate since B.C. 27. Besides this
town-house, which has furnished the name for a royal residence to this
day, he had of course various villas in different parts of Italy. But
they were not numerous in comparison with the number we know to have been
owned by nobles at the end of the republic. There was one at the ninth
milestone on the Flaminian Way called _ad gallinas_, in the gardens of
which was the bay tree, from the leaves of which Augustus had his garland
made when celebrating his triumphs; as it became the traditional habit
of succeeding Emperors to do also. The others near Rome were selected
for their coolness and healthy position—Lanuvium twenty miles from the
city on a lofty spur of the Alban Mountains, “cold Præneste” twenty-five
miles, and “sloping Tibur” about twenty miles away. These, however, were
suburban residences and gave no escape from society or business. They
were full of Roman villas,[282] and in the temple of Hercules at Tibur he
frequently sat to administer justice. When he could get a real holiday he
preferred a yachting voyage among the islands on the Campanian coast.
For one of them (Ænaria) he took in exchange from the municipality
of Naples the beautiful Capreæ, destined for greater notoriety under
his successor. He used to call it or some small island in the bay his
“Castle of Idleness.”[283] His villas were on a modest scale. He greatly
disapproved of the vast country palaces which were becoming the fashion,
and forced his granddaughter to demolish one which she was building.[284]
Earlier in life he was accused of extravagance in the matter of rich
furniture and antique bronzes. But he seems to have shaken off this
weakness later on. The furniture of his villas was extremely simple, and
there were no costly pictures and statues in them, but the gardens were
carefully laid out with terraces and shrubberies, and generally adorned
with various curiosities, as at Capreæ with the huge bones of a whale.
His table was simple and the dinners never long. He was careful in
selecting his company, but knew how to make graceful concessions as to
the rank of his guests when occasion required it. He drank little wine,
and generally not of the best vintages; but he exerted himself to promote
conversation and to draw out the silent and shy. He would sometimes come
late and retire early without breaking up the party; sometimes talked
instead of eating, taking his own simple food before or after the meal.
Before all he does not appear to have adopted the unsociable habit, often
mentioned by Cicero and especially characteristic of Iulius, of reading
and answering his letters at table. The dinner was generally a family
function and his young grandsons were always present at it. Sometimes
conversation was varied by reciters, readers, actors or professors of
philosophy. But at the Saturnalia and other festivals the quiet and
decorum of these meals gave way to the spirit of the hour. The table was
better furnished and the Emperor presented his guests with all kinds of
gifts, or amused himself by holding a kind of blind auction, putting
together lots of widely different value which the guests bid for without
knowing what they were purchasing. On such occasions gambling with dice
was permitted, though in family parties the Emperor took care to lose or
to surrender his winnings, and sometimes he supplied each member of the
party with a sum of money beforehand with which to make their stakes. But
games of chance had a fascination for him at all times of his life, and
his real gambling was not confined to festival days. He made no secret
of it, and we hear nothing of any great loss or gain. Social life at
Rome began early in the day, visitors at a levee would arrive soon after
daybreak, and a magistrate would sometimes have to be up immediately
after midnight, to take omens or perform some other religious rite. But
as Augustus worked late at night, and was not a good sleeper, early
rising was painful to him, and resulted in his falling fast asleep in
his sedan. If any of these night duties became imperative he took the
precaution of sleeping in some lodging near the place. But his normal
habit was to work up to noon, then after the light luncheon or prandium,
often consisting of bread and a few grapes, to sleep for a short time
fully dressed. Having finished the morning’s work and bath, dinner (cena)
would come between 3 and 4, though busy men like the Emperor often pushed
it on to 6 or 7; after dinner he went to his study, and there finished
off what was left of the day’s work, his memoranda and accounts, sitting
or reclining on his couch far into the night. The amount of work which
he must have bestowed upon his official business is shewn by the state
of readiness and completeness in which the various schedules of the
finances of the Empire and the army, and the book of political maxims
were found at his death. In early youth he had dabbled in literature,
and composed a tragedy in the Greek fashion called “Ajax”; but coming
in later years to estimate its value more truly he destroyed it, and
when some friend or flatterer inquired for it, he said, “Ajax has fallen
on his own sponge.”[285] He composed also memoirs of his own life, but
they were interrupted by his serious illness after the Spanish War (B.C.
25-3), and never resumed. They were used by Suetonius and other writers,
as well as collections of his letters, edicts, and speeches, but have not
been preserved. Only one of his epigrams has survived, of which I shall
speak hereafter. These excursions into literature, never very serious,
seem to have ceased as he got on in life. In the third book of his _Odes_
(written between B.C. 30-25), Horace tells the Muses that “they afford a
recreation to high Cæsar when he has put his troops into winter quarters
and seeks a rest from toil,”[286] but in the fourth book (B.C. 13-12)
it is the statesman, the conqueror, and reformer that he addresses, not
the man of letters. The Epistle addressed to Augustus in B.C. 12, though
it deals with literary criticism and explicitly supports the Emperor’s
well-known dislike of being the theme of inferior writers, while it
dwells upon his numerous employments and warmly compliments him on his
successful achievements, contains no word or hint of his authorship.[287]
The principate was a most laborious profession, absorbing all his
energies and occupying all his time, and though he might enjoy the
company of literary men, despatches, edicts, and state papers would now
be the limit of his literary ambition.
The heavy work of his lofty position was performed under painful
conditions of health. Besides at least four serious illnesses[288]
of which we hear, he was subject to periodical complaints, generally
recurring at the beginning of spring and autumn. Soon after B.C. 30 he
gave up the martial exercises of the Campus, then the less fatiguing
ball games, and finally confined himself to getting out of his sedan to
take short runs or walks. As he grew old his only outdoor amusements
(except yachting) seem to have been fishing and playing games with little
children.
In the last years of his life he gave up going into Roman society.
In the earlier part of his principate he dined out freely, and not
always in select company. He seems to have been rather inclined to the
vulgar millionaire, perhaps because he could reckon on contributions to
the public objects which he had at heart. He did not expect splendid
entertainments, and was content with the wine of the district, still he
did not like being treated with too little ceremony. To one man who gave
him a dinner ostentatiously plain and common, he remarked on leaving—“I
did not know that I was such an intimate friend of yours.” At times,
too, he had occasion to assume the Emperor with some of these _nouveaux
riches_, as in the celebrated case of Vedius Pollio. This man had a
stewpond of lampreys, which he fed with flesh. When he was entertaining
Augustus on one occasion the cup-bearer dropped a valuable crystal
cup, and his master ordered him at once to be thrown to the lampreys.
Augustus tried to beg him off, but when Pollio refused, he ceased to
entreat; assuming imperial airs he ordered all the cups of the same
sort in the house, and all others of value, to be brought into the room
and broken. Licinius, the grasping procurator of Gaul, was another of
these rich vulgar people, with whom Augustus was somewhat too intimate,
and expected in return for that honour large contributions to his
works. On one occasion he even took the liberty of altering the figure
in the promissory note sent by him so as to double the sum. Licinius
said nothing, but on the next occasion he sent a note thus expressed:
“I promise towards the expense of the new work—whatever your Highness
pleases.”
Wit is seldom kind, and some of the retorts attributed to him are not
always exceptions to the rule. To a humpbacked advocate pleading before
him, and often repeating the expression, “If you think I am wrong in
any way, pray set me straight,” he said, “I can give you some advice,
but I can’t set you _straight_.” To an officer who made rather too
much fuss about his services, and kept pointing to an ugly scar on his
forehead, he said, “When you run away you shouldn’t look behind you.”
More good-natured are the following. To a young prefect who was being
sent home from camp for misbehaviour, and who exclaimed, “How can I go
home? What am I to say to my father?” he replied, “Tell him that you did
not like me.” To another who was being cashiered, and pleaded to have
the usual good-service pension, that people might think he had left the
service in the usual way, he said, “Well, give out that you have received
the money; I won’t say that I haven’t paid it.”
Though affable to all, and neither an unkind nor unreasonable master to
his slaves, or patron to his freedmen, he was enough a man of his age not
to hesitate to inflict cruel punishment for certain offences. A secretary
who had taken a bribe to disclose some confidential paper, he ordered to
have his legs broken. A favourite freedman was forced to commit suicide
when detected in intrigues with Roman married ladies. He ordered the
personal servants of his grandson Caius, who had taken advantage of his
illness and death to enrich themselves in the province of Syria, to be
thrown into the sea with weights attached to their feet.
To those who had been his friends there is hardly any instance of extreme
severity after the end of the civil wars. It is possible that Muræna
died before trial, though his fellow-conspirator was put to death.
Cornelius Gallus, the first prefectus of Egypt, committed suicide rather
than confront the accusations brought against him and the evident animus
of the Senate; but Augustus did not wish it, and exclaimed with tears in
his eyes that it was hard that he should be the only man who might not be
angry with his friends without the matter going farther than he intended.
The coldness that arose between him and his ministers Agrippa and Mæcenas
was only temporary and never very grave. He deeply deplored their loss
at their death. We shall have to discuss his conduct to his daughter and
granddaughter and their paramours in another chapter. But neither in
regard to these persons nor the conspirators against his life did he ever
act in a way that his contemporaries would think cruel.
These anecdotes of Augustus do not suggest a very heroic figure, very
quick wit, or great warmth of heart. They rather indicate what I conceive
to be the truer picture, a cool and cautious character, not unkindly
and not without a sense of humour; but at the same time as inevitable
and unmoved by pity or remorse as nature herself. No one accuses him of
having neglected or hurried any task that it was his duty to perform.
But neither friend, relation, nor minister ever really influenced him.
He issues orders, and they all obey instinctively, without remonstrance,
and generally with success. He is providence to them all. Everything
succeeds under his hands. He is no soldier, though he knows one when he
sees him, but all the nations of the earth seek his friendship. Till the
last decade of his life no serious reverse befel his armies; at home all
opposition melted away, as the difficulties in a road or course disappear
before a skilful driver or steerer. He is not godlike, but there is an
air of calm success about him which swayed men’s wills and awakened their
reverence.
CHAPTER XII
THE REFORMER AND LEGISLATOR
_Quid leges sine moribus_
_vanæ proficiunt?_
[Sidenote: The earliest reforms in the Empire.]
The activity of Augustus as reformer in the city and Italy, and to a
great extent in the provinces also, was subsequent to the settlement of
his constitutional position in B.C. 23, after which date changes in it
were generally consequential, and in matters of detail. But it began
long before. In B.C. 36 he had taken effective measures to suppress the
brigandage which had pushed its audacity nearly up to the very gates
of Rome. In B.C. 34-3 Agrippa, under his influence, had started the
improvement in the water supply of Rome by restoring the Aqua Marcia;
had cleansed and enlarged the cloacæ, repaired the streets, and begun
many important buildings. In B.C. 31 we have evidence that Augustus
was turning his attention to the details of administration in the
provinces,[289] and in the next year, in his resettlement of Asia, he
restored to Samos, Ephesus, Pergamus, and the Troad, works of art which
Antony had taken from them to bestow upon Cleopatra.[290] In B.C. 28,
measures of relief were adopted for state debtors, and a term fixed
beyond which those who were in actual possession of properties could not
be disturbed by legal proceedings.
[Illustration: AUGUSTUS AS SENATOR.
_Photographed from the Statue in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence._
_To face page 212._]
[Sidenote: The roads and police patrols, B.C. 27.]
The first need of the country was security. How difficult this had long
been to maintain, and how ill the senatorial government at the end of the
Republic had been able to cope with the evil is shewn by the fact that
remnants of the bands of Spartacus and Catiline were in B.C. 61 still
infesting the district of Thurii. In spite of the repressive measures
of B.C. 36, which seem to have been successful as far as the immediate
neighbourhood of Rome was concerned, at the end of the civil war armed
bands still openly appeared in various parts of Italy, seized and carried
off travellers, confined them in the slave-barracks, or _ergastula_,
or put them to ransom. These _ergastula_ were originally slave-prisons
used for keeping refractory slaves, who worked during the day in chains,
and were shut up in separate cells at night, often underground or only
lighted by windows high up and out of reach of the inmates. In some
parts of Italy—chiefly the north—they were not known, and chained slaves
were not employed; but in other parts they were numerous, and afforded
convenient hiding-places. The chief abuse connected with them was that
men properly free could be carried off and concealed in them as though
they were slaves, while they afforded a leader in rebellion convenient
sources from which to draw recruits; the miserable inmates being only
too ready to join any one who gave them a hope of freedom and release
from those horrible dens. Accordingly a review of the _ergastula_ is
constantly heard of, till they were finally abolished by Hadrian. Among
the measures for the suppression of brigandage now taken was a visitation
of these places. It was not done in mercy to the slaves. Augustus, though
he treated his own servants with kindness, took the sternest Roman view
of the absolute power of a master, and boasts that after the war with
Sextus Pompeius he handed over 30,000 slaves—who had been serving with
the enemy—to their masters “to be punished.”[291] When we remember what
the “punishment” of a Roman slave meant, it is difficult to think without
horror of the sum total of human misery which this implies.
[Sidenote: The great roads of Italy secured.]
A more effective and permanent measure, however, was to secure the
roads and make them fit for rapid military movements. A system of road
commissions (_curæ viarum_) was started in B.C. 27, commissioners
(_curatores_) being appointed to superintend each of the great roads
leading from Rome to various parts of Italy. The duty at first was
usually imposed upon men who had enjoyed triumphs, and Augustus himself,
after his triple triumph, undertook the _via Flaminia_, the great north
road from Rome to Ariminum on the Adriatic, from which place other roads
branched off through the valley of the Po, and to the Alpine passes. The
pavement of the road was relaid, the bridges repaired, and the completion
of the work was commemorated by the still existing arch at Rimini, with
its partially surviving inscription.[292] For greater safety, also,
military pickets were stationed at convenient points along the roads,
which put a stop to brigandage.
In close connection with the roads were the twenty-eight military
colonies established by Augustus in Italy. Of these seven were along the
line of the Flaminia, or near it; one of them (Bononia) was the point
where the main roads to Rome converge. Others guarded the entrances to
the Alpine passes, or the road through Venetia to Istria—which Augustus
included in Italy—while another group protected the main roads through
Campania. Thus these colonies were not only centres of loyalty to the
Empire, but served to keep open the great routes. The object of the
division of Italy into eleven regions, the exact date of which is not
known, was probably for the purpose of the census, and the taxation
which was connected with it, but it was also for other administrative
purposes, as for the regulation of the military service of the young
men in each of them.[293] The regions followed the natural divisions of
the country and of nationalities, but the importance of the roads in
connection with them is shown by the fact that before long they became
known in many cases by the name of the chief road that traversed them,
as Æmilia, Flaminia, and others. What Augustus was doing for Italy his
legates under his authority were doing for the most important provinces.
Great roads—_viæ Augustæ_—were being laid everywhere. We have evidence of
them from inscribed tablets in Dalmatia, Pisidia, and Cilicia, Bætica,
Northern Spain, Gallia Narbonensis, and elsewhere.[294] These works
went on throughout his reign, but in B.C. 20 he commemorated his formal
appointment as head commissioner of all roads by placing a pillar covered
with gilded bronze in the forum near the temple of Saturn, with the
distances of all the chief places along the great roads from one of the
thirty-seven city gates from which these roads branch out. The base of
this _milliarium aureum_ is still in its place.
[Sidenote: The collegia.]
Another source of mischief were the _collegia_, or guilds. Under cover
of promoting the interests of certain trades and professions these
guilds were used, or were believed to be used, for all kinds of illegal
purposes. Some of them were of great antiquity, but they had come to
be so often misused for political terrorism (especially the _collegia
opificum_) that the Senate had suppressed many of them in B.C. 63. But
Clodius shortly afterwards got a law passed authorising their meetings,
and he employed them freely for promoting his own riotous proceedings.
Iulius Cæsar had dissolved all except the most ancient and respectable,
but during the civil wars they seem to have revived. Under a law passed
in B.C. 22 Augustus held a visitation of them. Some were dissolved and
some reformed, and a licence was henceforth required from Senate and
Emperor for their meetings.
[Sidenote: Feeding the city.]
In the city itself the first need was food. It depended very largely on
imported corn. Again and again we hear of dearth and famine prices at
Rome. The people, often, no doubt, rightly, believed that this dearness
of provisions arose from artificial causes. When Sextus Pompeius and
his confederates were scouring the seas and pouncing upon corn-ships
the cause was clear enough, and the gratitude to Augustus for crushing
him was very natural. But even when there was no such evident danger
great distress was often caused by sudden rise of prices. The idea
had always been in such times to appoint some powerful man _præfectus
annonæ_, with a naval force enabling him to secure that the corn fleets
should have free passage to Italy, should be able to unload their
cargoes without difficulty, and dispose of them at a moderate price. A
well-known instance of this was the appointment of Pompey in B.C. 57.
But in less troublous times a separate commissioner was appointed to
watch the several places of corn export, Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa.
These were not posts of very great dignity, and Brutus and Cassius in
B.C. 44 looked upon their nomination to them as a kind of insult. But
besides the dangers of the sea and of pirates certain merchants had hit
upon means—practised long before at Athens—of artificially raising the
price. They made what we should call “a corner” in corn. Either they
bought it up and kept it back from the market, or they contrived various
ways of delaying the ships and producing a panic among the dealers. As
in all difficulties, the people looked to Augustus for help, and in
B.C. 22 begged him to accept the office of _præfectus annonæ_, “chief
commissioner of the corn market.” While declining the dictatorship
offered him at the same time with passionate vehemence, he accepted this
commissionership; and the law which he caused to be passed now or some
time later on shews how necessary some State interference was. By this
law penalties were inflicted on any one “who did anything to hinder the
corn supply, or entered into any combination with the object of raising
its price; or who hindered the sailing of a corn-ship, or did anything of
_malice propense_ whereby its voyage was delayed.”[295]
[Sidenote: Distribution of corn free or below market value.]
But besides a free and unmolested corn market, the Roman populace had
long come to look for another means of support—a distribution of corn
either altogether free or considerably below the market price. Detached
instances of this practice occur in the earlier history of Rome, the corn
sometimes coming as a present from some foreign sovereign, sometimes
being distributed by private liberality. It had always been objected to
by the wiser part of the Senate, and had laid the donors open to the
charge of trying to establish a tyranny. It was reserved for the tribune
Gaius Gracchus to make it into a system (B.C. 122). Since his time it had
been submitted to as a matter of course by nearly all magistrates. Sulla,
indeed, seems to have suspended it for a time, but the first measure of
the counter revolution that followed his death was to re-establish it.
Iulius Cæsar had restricted it to citizens below a certain census, but
had not the courage to abolish it. It was, indeed, a kind of poor-law
relief, but of the worst possible sort. It not only induced a number of
idle and useless people to prefer the chances of city life to labour
in the country, but it unnaturally depressed the price of corn, and
therefore discouraged the Italian farmer, already nearly ruined by the
competition of foreign corn; it exhausted the treasury, and, after all,
did not relieve the poor. Livy regards it as one of the causes which
denuded Italy of free cultivators, and left all the work to slaves.
Cicero always denounced it on much the same grounds, and Appian points
out how it brought the indigent, careless, and idle flocking into the
city.[296] The system, moreover, was open to gross abuses, slaves being
manumitted that they might take their share, under contract to transfer
it to their late masters. Augustus saw that by these distributions
injustice was done both to farmers and merchants, and that agriculture
in Italy was being depressed by it. He says in his memoirs[297] that
he had at one time almost resolved to put a stop to the practice, but
refrained from doing so because he felt sure that the necessity of
courting the favour of the populace would induce his successors to
restore it. However unsound this reasoning may be, it would no doubt have
been an heroic measure for one in his position to have carried out the
half-formed resolution. As a matter of fact, his distributions were on a
large scale, and in times of distress were entirely gratis. _Tesseræ_, or
tickets, entitling the holders to a certain amount of corn or money, were
distributed again and again. The value of the corn tickets was generally
supplied from the _fiscus_ or his private revenue; but that after all was
only a question of accounts, it did not affect the economical or moral
results in any way.
[Sidenote: State loans.]
A better economical measure was a system of State loans. Immediately
after the end of the civil war the transference to the Roman treasury of
the enormous wealth in money and jewels of the Ptolemies at Alexandria
caused the price of money to go down and the money value of landed
property consequently to go up. For a time at least the common rate of
interest sank from 12 to 4 per cent. Augustus took advantage of this
state of things to relieve landowners who were in difficulties, by
lending them money free of interest, if they could show property of
double the value as security for repayment.
[Sidenote: The Tiber.]
There were other reforms equally beneficial. Among the many _curæ_
(commissions) which he established was one for superintending public
works, which would thus not depend on private munificence; another of the
streets; of the water supply; and, above all, of the Tiber. Rome was,
as it still is, extremely subject to floods. Quite recently there were
five or six feet of water in the Pantheon, and in B.C. 27 the rise of
the Tiber was so serious that the lower parts of the city were covered,
and the augurs declared it to be an omen of the universal prevalence
of the power of the new _princeps_. In B.C. 23 it swept away the _pons
Sublicius_.[298] He could not of course prevent these floods, but he
gave some relief by dredging and widening the river-bed, which was
choked with rubbish and narrowed by encroachments. The commission thus
established remained an important one for many generations, but in B.C. 8
he superintended the business himself.
[Sidenote: Fire brigades.]
A danger at Rome, more frequent and no less formidable than flood, was
fire. So frequent were fires that the most stringent laws had been passed
against arson, which it seems was even punishable by burning alive. In
B.C. 23 Augustus formed a kind of fire brigade of public slaves under
the control of the curule-ædiles. But the old magistracies were no
longer objects of desire, and it was difficult to get men of energy to
fill them, a state of things which was one of the chief blots in the new
imperial system. At any rate in this case they were not found efficient,
and in the later years of his reign (A.D. 6), a new brigade in four
divisions was formed of freedmen with an equestrian præfect, who turned
out to be so effective that they became regularly established.
[Sidenote: The Sibylline Books and Sacred Colleges.]
Another part in the scheme of Augustus for the reconstruction of society
was to revive the influence of the Sacred Colleges and brotherhoods,
and to renew the ceremonies with which they were connected. One method
of doing this was to become a member of them all himself, much as
the king of England is sovereign of all the Orders. Thus according
to the _Monumentum_ (ch. 7) he was pontifex, augur, quindecemvir for
religious rites, septemvir of the Epulones, an Arval brother, a fetial
and a sodalis Titius. Nor was he only an honorary or idle member. He
attended their meetings and joined in their business, and took part in
whatever rites they were intended to perform. Thus his membership of the
Arval brethren is recorded in the still existing _acta_; as a fetial
he proclaimed war against Cleopatra. The _sodales Titii_, a college
of priests of immemorial antiquity, had almost disappeared until the
entrance of Augustus into their college revived them and their ritual.
He not only joined these colleges, but revived and even increased their
endowments,[299] and, above all, those of the six Vestal Virgins, to whom
he presented the _regia_, once the official residence of the Pontifex
Maximus, and an estate at Lanuvium. The restoration of the College of
Luperci, which had celebrated on the 15th of February the old ceremony of
“beating the bounds” almost from the foundation of the city, was more or
less a political matter. It had gone out of fashion, and its ceremonies
had got to be looked upon as undignified. Iulius Cæsar had revived and
re-endowed them. The Senate for that very reason in the reaction after
his death had deprived them of these endowments, which Augustus now
restored. We have already noticed his renewal of the _augurium salutis_,
the old ceremonial prayer at the beginning of the year that could only be
offered in time of peace. He also induced some one to accept the office
of _flamen Dialis_ in B.C. 11, after it had been vacant since B.C. 87,
because the restrictions under which its holder laboured were so numerous
and tiresome that in spite of its dignity—its seat in the Senate and
curule chair and lictor—no one would accept it. He took pains again
to restore the Sibylline Books to their old place of importance. The
originals were lost in the fire of B.C. 82, and a commission had at once
been issued to collect others from towns in Greece and Greek Italy. But
some of them were getting illegible from age, and some were of doubtful
authenticity, and consequently all kinds of prophetic verses got into
circulation, giving rise at times to undesirable rumours and panics.
Augustus in B.C. 18 ordered them to be re-copied and edited, and the
authorised edition was then deposited in his new temple of Apollo on the
Palatine, and continued to be consulted till late in the third century.
After an attempt by Iulian to revive its authority it was finally burnt
by Stilicho about A.D. 400.
[Sidenote: Pontifex Maximus.]
As one of the quindecemvirs Augustus had charge of these books, but
he formally took the official headship of Roman religion by becoming
Pontifex Maximus. He was elected and ordained to that office in March
B.C. 12. The people had wished him to take it in B.C. 30, but he would
not violate what was a traditional and sacred rule that the office was
lifelong, and though Lepidus was degraded from the triumvirate in B.C.
36, he was still Pontifex Maximus. It is true that he was not allowed to
do any of the duties, or only those of the most formal kind, but still
he had the office. The ground for asking Augustus to take it was that
the election of Lepidus had been irregular; he had managed to get put in
during the confusion following the assassination of Cæsar, and therefore
might be deposed. Augustus however takes credit for his scrupulous
observance of a religious rule, and was particularly gratified by the
crowds of people who came up to vote for him, a sort of ecclesiastical
coronation.[300]
[Sidenote: The _ludi sæculares_, May 31-June 2, B.C. 17.]
In B.C. 17 he gave an emphasis to some of these religious revivals by
celebrating the _ludi sæculares_, the centenary of the city, in virtue
of some verses found in this Sibylline volume. We need not trouble
ourselves as to whether his calculation of the year was a right one
(the _sæculum_ was really 110 years), it is enough to note that they
were meant, like a centenary of a college or university, to call out
patriotic and loyal feelings which should embrace both the country and
the country’s religion. They are made interesting to us by the fact
that Horace—always ready to further his master’s purposes—was selected
to write the Anthem or Ode to be sung by a chorus of twenty-seven boys
and twenty-seven girls. An inscription, found in 1871 in the bed of the
Tiber, gives the official program of this festival, and ends with the
words _Carmen composuit Q. Horatius Flaccus_.[301] The poet probably
had before him, when he wrote it, the general scheme of the festival,
which included solemn sacrifices and prayer to Iuno, Diana, Iupiter, and
Ilithyia. Augustus and Agrippa took the leading part in the religious
functions—as members of quindicemviri—and both repeated the prayers,
which in the case of all these deities invoked a blessing on the “Populus
Romanus Quiritium.” In short, everything was done to mark it as a
national festival, to make the Romans recall their glorious inheritance
and unique position, and at the same time to show that the _princeps_
represented that greatness before gods and men. Whatever else Augustus
may have thought of the national religion, he evidently regarded it as
the surest bond of national life, and the inclusion of a prayer to
Ilithyia, goddess of childbirth, joined with his contemporaneous attempt
to encourage marriage and the production of children (which the obedient
Horace echoes[302]), shews that he also connected that religion with
morality. The restoration of religion, in fact, in his mind, goes side
by side with the purification of morals. It is the practical statesman’s
view of religion as a necessary police force and perhaps something more.
Napoleon restored the Catholic Church in France with a similar sagacity,
and the people blessed him, as they did Augustus, for giving them back
_le bon Dieu_.
[Sidenote: The reformation of morals.]
But the state of things required in his judgment, not only a religious
revival, but more stringent laws. Horace again reflects his master’s
views in the making, before they find expression in act. The sixth ode
of the first book (written about B.C. 25) joins to the necessity of a
restoration of the temples and a return to religion a warning as to the
relaxation of morals, tracing the progress in vice of the young girl
and wife, with the shameful connivance of the interested husband, and
exclaims: “Not from such parents as these sprang the youth that dyed the
sea with Punic blood, and brake the might of Pyrrhus and great Antiochus
and Hannibal, scourge of God.” Again in the twenty-fourth ode of the
same book, also written about B.C. 25, he warmly urges a return to the
old morality, and promises immortality to the statesman who shall secure
it: “If there be one who would stay unnatural bloodshed and civic fury,
if there be one who seeks to have inscribed on his statue the title of
‘Father of the Cities,’ let him pluck up heart to curb licentiousness.
His shall be a name for the ages!” And when Augustus has acted on the
resolution, to the formation of which the poet was privy, he tells him
ten years later that by his presence family life is cleansed from its
foul stains, that he has curbed the licence of the age and recalled
the old morality.[303] This he would represent as the result of the
Emperor’s legislation, the _lex marita_ of the secular hymn.
It was after his return from the East in B.C. 19 that Augustus first
received censorial powers for five years. Whether this amounted to a
definite office—a _præfectura moribus_ or _regimen morum_, as Dio and
Suetonius assert—does not much matter. The experiment of appointing
censors in the ordinary way had been tried in B.C. 22 for the last time
and had not been successful, and the _censoria potestas_ now given to
Augustus practically put into his hands that control over the conduct
of private citizens which the censors had exercised by their power of
inflicting “ignominy” upon them. The ancient censorial stigma had been
applied to irregularities in almost every department of life, but it
depended on the will of the censors themselves, not on laws. Feeling now
directly responsible for the morals and general habits of the citizens he
began a series of legislative measures designed to suppress extravagance
and debauchery, and to encourage marriage and family life, which would
have permanent validity. He believed in externals, even trivial ones,
as indicating a growing laxity; making, for instance, a point of men
appearing in the forum and on official occasions in the old Roman toga.
The lighter and more comfortable _lacerna_ or _pallium_ was as abominable
in his eyes as a suit of flannels would seem to a martinet of to-day
in the Park or on parade.[304] Before all things the Romans were to be
national, in dress no less than in other respects.
[Sidenote: Sumptuary laws.]
But the failure which always attends such regulations was no less
inevitable in regard to the first of his new reforming measures, his
sumptuary laws, regulating the exact amount that it was legal to spend
on a _cena_ in ordinary days, on festivals, and at wedding feasts, or
the _repotia_ which the bridegroom gave on the afternoon following his
marriage. This was no new thing. It had been tried at various times
throughout Roman history. Beginning with a very ancient law regulating
the amount of silver plate each man might legally possess, the rent he
might pay for his house, and the provisions of the Twelve Tables, we have
laws in the third and second centuries B.C., limiting the cost of dress
and jewels for women, the number of guests that might be entertained at
banquets, and the amount that might be spent upon them. Sulla had also a
sumptuary law, among his other acts, of the same kind. But Iulius Cæsar
had gone farther than any one in B.C. 46. He had not only regulated the
cost of furniture and jewels, according to the rank of the owners, and
the amounts to be spent upon the table, but he had sent agents into
the provision markets, who seized all dainties beyond the legal price,
and even entered private houses and removed dishes from the table. Of
course such measures were not only annoying, they were ineffective
also. Directly he left Rome the rules were neglected. Our own Statute
Book has many laws of the same kind, which rapidly became dead letters.
Nearly the one and only permanent effect of the old sumptuary laws had
been to create a sentiment against large and crowded dinner parties as
vulgar.[305] Nor did Augustus succeed much better. Towards the end of his
reign he issued an edict extending the legal amount which might be spent
on banquets, hoping to secure some obedience to the law. But nothing
that we know of Roman life afterwards leads us to think that this form
of paternal government—though quite in harmony with Roman ideas—ever
attained its object. Human nature was stronger than political theory.
[Sidenote: The Iulian laws of marriage, adultery and divorce.]
Nor were the laws, carried about the same time,[306] on marriage,
divorce, and kindred subjects, much more effective. In part they
re-enacted rules which had always been acknowledged and always disobeyed,
and so far as they did not punish a crime, but endeavoured to enforce
marriage, they were continually resisted or effectually evaded.
They consisted of a series of enactments—whether we regard them as
separate laws or chapters in the same law—for restraining adultery and
libitinage, for regulating divorce, and for encouraging the marriage of
all ranks.[307] They were passed in B.C. 18-17, and were supplemented
by a law of A.D. 9, called the _lex Papia Poppæa_. The text of none of
them survives, and we have to trust to scattered notices in the later
legal writers. They may be roughly classed as restrictive, penal, and
beneficiary. In the first may be placed the regulation that no senator
or member of a senatorial family might marry a freed-woman, courtesan,
actress, or the daughter of an actor; though other men might marry a
freed-woman or even emancipate a slave in order to marry her. And under
the same head came the regulations as to divorce. The legal doctrine
appears to have been that marriage contracted with the old religious
ceremony called _confarreatio_ was indissoluble, except in the case of
the wife’s adultery, on whose condemnation to death the execution was
preceded by a solemn dissolution of the marriage or _diffareatio_. It was
also a common belief that no divorce had ever taken place at Rome until
that of Carvilius in B.C. 231. Yet the laws of the Twelve Tables (B.C.
450) contained provisions as to divorce, so that it had certainly been
known before; and perhaps the truth was that Carvilius was the first to
divorce his wife without any plea of adultery, in which case he would
have to give security for the repayment of her dowry. Since that time
the religious _confarreatio_ had become extremely rare. Both men and
women avoided an indissoluble tie. The fashion was to be married _sine
manu_, that is, without the woman passing into the _manus_ or power of
her husband. She still remained subject to the _patria potestas_, or to
that of her guardian, or was _sui iuris_ according to her circumstances
at the time. Such marriages could be dissolved by either party, and
without charge of misconduct. Public opinion seems to have restrained
both men and women for some time from taking advantage of their freedom,
but its force steadily diminished, till towards the end of the republic
divorce became so common as to provoke little remark. It was an
arrangement—as in the case of Augustus and his family—governed almost
entirely by considerations of convenience or advantage, and generally
left all parties concerned on a friendly footing. This of course was
not always the case when the divorce was the result of misconduct, or
at least of misconduct on the wife’s part, nor even if it resulted
from incompatibility of temper or money disputes, which left a feeling
of soreness behind them. It was a system—however disastrous to family
life—too deeply rooted for Augustus to attempt to change it, even if
he had wished to do so. His law seems to have dealt only with certain
formalities and conditions of divorce—such as the necessity of having
witnesses, and in case of a charge of misconduct a kind of family council
or court of inquiry—not with the freedom of divorce itself, except that
in the case of a freed-woman, she was prevented from divorcing her
husband or marrying again without his consent. That, however, rested
on the idea of the rights of a patronus rather than on the sanctity of
marriage. Otherwise the law chiefly dealt with questions of property,
restraining the husband from alienating his wife’s estate without her
consent, and re-enacting (with what modifications we do not know) the
provisions for the repayment of dowry.
[Sidenote: Penalties (1) for adultery or seduction.]
The _penal_ enactments affected (1) those guilty of adultery or seduction
(_stuprum_), and (2) those who remained unmarried or without children.
In adultery both parties were punished by transportation (_deportatio
in insulam_) and a partial confiscation of property. A husband’s
unfaithfulness incurred no penalty except that he lost all claim to
retain any part of the wife’s dowry, even for the benefit of children.
But the old barbarous principle of the injured husband’s right to kill
both wife and paramour, if detected by himself, was retained, though
under certain conditions. If he allowed the guilty wife to remain with
him, he was bound to release the man; and if he connived at the adultery
for gain, he was subject to a fine. _Stuprum_ was formerly defined as
the forcible detention of a free woman for immoral purposes, and could
be punished by flogging or imprisonment. Under the Iulian law it was
extended to the seduction of an unmarried woman or a widow who had been
living chastely.
[Sidenote: (2) For remaining unmarried.]
The penalties upon those who remained unmarried between certain ages were
in the form of a direct tax or of certain disabilities. The former, under
the name of _uxorium_, was of great antiquity, and had been levied by
the censors of B.C. 404, but it was light and intermittent; the Iulian
law revived and increased it. The disabilities were that an unmarried
man between the legal ages could not take a legacy from a testator
not related to him within the sixth degree, unless he married within
a hundred days of being informed of the legacy. This was extended by
the _lex Papia Poppæa_ (A.D. 9) to the childless, who could only take
half any legacy from a testator unconnected with them within the sixth
degree. One child saved a man from coming under this law, three children
a freeborn woman, four a freed-woman. Again, a husband and wife who were
childless could only receive a tenth of a legacy left by one to the
other, though, if there were children by another marriage, a tenth was
added for each, or if they had had children who had died. For all alike
there were numerous exemptions founded on absence from home on public
service, age, or ill-health; and a certain time of grace (_vacatio_) was
given between the attainment of the legal age and the actual marriage, or
between two marriages, or after a divorce.
[Sidenote: Privileges to parents. The _ius trium liberorum_.]
The beneficiary clauses of the law were those which relieved married
men or women and men or women with children from these disabilities,
and gave them exemption from certain onerous public duties and special
places of honour in the theatres. The fathers of three children at Rome,
four in Italy, five in the provinces, had also certain preferences for
offices and employments and other honorary distinctions, such as taking
precedence of a colleague in the consulship. This was not a new idea, for
it had in one shape or another existed in many Greek states, and in B.C.
59 Iulius Cæsar had in his agrarian law given the preference to fathers
of three children in the distribution of land.
[Sidenote: Opposition to the law.]
The disabilities imposed on the unmarried were met with vehement
resistance, in consequence of which the clause was introduced giving
the three years’ grace between the attainment of the legal age and the
actual marriage. After the passing of the Papia Poppæa (A.D. 9) the
Emperor in the theatre or circus was received with loud shouts from the
equestrian seats demanding its repeal. He is said to have sent for the
children of Germanicus and held them up as an example for all to follow;
and he afterwards summoned two meetings of the equites, one of those
married, and the other of the single. To each he delivered a speech,
which Dio reports or invents. He pointed with dismay to the fact that the
first meeting was so much less numerous than the second. He commended
the married men for having done their duty to the State, but to the
unmarried he addressed a longer and more vehement appeal. He argued that
they were defeating the purpose of the Creator, were contributing to the
disappearance of the Roman race, which was being replaced by foreigners
necessarily admitted to the franchise in order to keep up the numbers of
the citizens; that he had only followed in his legislation the precedent
of ancient laws with increased penalties and rewards, and that while he
acknowledged that marriage was not without its troubles, yet that was
true of everything else, and they were compensated by other advantages
and the consciousness of duty done.[308]
But though the Emperor carried his point at the time and passed a law
which remained in force for more than three centuries, it did not really
benefit morality. It was constantly evaded by colourable marriages, often
with quite young children. “Men did not marry to have heirs, but in order
to become heirs,” it was said. And though Augustus attempted to prevent
this by an edict enacting that no betrothal was to count which was not
followed by a marriage within two years, other means of evading the law
were found which gave rise to the intrusion of spies and informers who
made their profit by thus violating the secrets of the family. Again,
the granting of the _ius trium liberorum_ became gradually a matter of
form, and the idea of the superiority of the married state necessarily
disappeared with the rise of certain Christian ideals. The law was
repealed by the sons of Constantine.
[Sidenote: The character of Augustus in view of this legislation.]
Though a line is often drawn between a man’s public and private
character, it still remains hard to reconcile the earnestness of Augustus
in pressing these laws and his severity in punishing offences of this
nature with the reports of his own personal habits. I have already
expressed my disbelief in the stories of his youthful immoralities.
Suetonius, who spares no emperor the inevitable chapter summing up his
sins of the flesh, asserts that not even his friends deny the intrigues
of his later years, but merely urge that they were conducted not for
the gratification of his passions, but for motives of policy, that he
might gain information of secret plots. He mentions no names and gives
no evidence; the only names that have come down are those mentioned
in Antony’s extraordinary letter justifying his own connection with
Cleopatra. Antony, however, could only have known Roman gossip at second
or third hand in Alexandria, and the whole tone of the letter is so
reckless and violently coarse that it goes for very little by way of
evidence. Dio indeed mentions the wife of Mæcenas. But his statements
do not hang together or amount to very much. In one place he tells us
that Augustus was annoyed with Mæcenas because the latter had told his
wife something as to measures being taken against her brother Murena. At
another he says that some gossips attributed his journey to Gaul in B.C.
16 to a wish to enjoy her society without exciting popular remark, “for
he was so much in love with her that he once made her dispute with Livia
as to the superiority in beauty.” Even if the gossip was worth anything,
this hardly looks like a secret intrigue. Nor is it a confirmation of
it that Mæcenas at his death left Augustus his heir. However, the fact
may nevertheless be so. Livia is said elsewhere by Dio to have explained
her lasting influence over Augustus by the fact that she was always
careful not to interfere in his affairs, and, while remaining strictly
chaste herself, always pretended not to know anything of his amours. If
Livia did say this, it would of course be a sufficiently strong proof of
the allegations against him. But such reported sayings rest ultimately
on gossip and tittle-tattle, and do not go for much. The story told
by Dio, and amplified by Zonaras, of Athenodorus of Tarsus getting
himself conveyed into his chamber in the covered sedan intended for
some mistress, and springing out of it sword in hand and then appealing
to Augustus as to whether he did not often run such risks, is not very
likely in itself, and at any rate must refer to the triumviral days. For
about B.C. 30 Athenodorus was sent back to govern Tarsus. The one epigram
by the hand of Augustus, which has been preserved by Martial,[309] is
undeniably outspoken and coarse, but it is the coarseness of disgust,
not of lubricity, and to my mind is evidence—so far as it may be called
so—for him rather than against him. If, however, all that Suetonius and
Dio allege against his middle life is true, we must still remember that
in the eyes of his contemporaries, and indeed in Roman society generally
from Cato downwards, such indulgence in itself was not reprehensible. It
entirely depended on circumstances, and whether other obligations—such
as friendship, public duty, family honour—were or were not violated.
From that point of view the only crime of Augustus would be in the case
of Terentia, wife of Mæcenas, if the tale is true. As among the other
emperors whose life Suetonius wrote, with the exception of Vespasian, the
character of Augustus stands out clear. One age cannot judge fairly of
another, and it is not seldom that we find ourselves at as great a loss
to reconcile theory and practice, as to account for lives such as those
of Augustus and Horace in conjunction with the legislation of the former
and the moral sentiments occasionally expressed by the latter.
CHAPTER XIII
LATER LIFE AND FAMILY TROUBLES
_Edepol, Senectus, si nil quidquam_
_aliud viti apportes tecum, cum_
_advenis, unum id sat est quod diu_
_vivendo multa quæ non volt videt._
[Sidenote: The situation in B.C. 20-17.]
After the restoration of the standards and prisoners from the Parthians
in B.C. 20, and when the peaceful settlement of the Eastern provinces
and subordinate kingdoms had been carried through or fairly started,
Augustus appears to have thought that the greater part of his life’s
work had been accomplished. The frontiers of the Empire had been settled
and secured. The Eastern provinces had been visited, necessary reforms
introduced, and great works of public utility set on foot. He wrote word
to the Senate that the Empire was sufficiently extensive, and that he had
no intention of adding to it by further annexations. He returned to Rome
the following year (B.C. 19) to find that the renewed trouble in Northern
Spain had been settled, or was on the point of being settled, by Agrippa.
He proposed to devote himself henceforth to internal reforms and the
superintendence of the peaceful improvements which he contemplated in the
provinces. He no doubt had in mind the necessity of a personal visitation
of distant parts of the Empire from time to time; but by associating
the able and trustworthy Agrippa with himself in the tribunician power
(B.C. 18) he might feel that he would always have a support in the
administration at home or abroad on which he could rely. It was at this
time, therefore, that the reforms and restorations were accomplished
which have been described in the last chapter, crowned by the national
festival, the _ludi sæculares_, in which he and Agrippa stood side by
side as mouthpieces of the whole people before the gods.
We have seen, however, how these peaceful hopes were disappointed.
Scarcely were the secular games over than news came of the serious
disturbances in Gaul, Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Thrace, which led to his
three years’ absence from Rome and his long residence in Gaul and Spain.
He had only returned to Rome from this absence little more than a year
when he lost Agrippa, who died in March, B.C. 12, and he was obliged
to fall back upon the support of Tiberius, as his two grandsons were
only eight and five years old respectively. It was in B.C. 11 that he
compelled him to divorce his wife, Vipsania, to whom he was devotedly
attached, and marry Iulia, left a widow by Agrippa. The change was
thoroughly distasteful to Tiberius. He loved Vipsania, and he had good
reason to suspect Iulia of at least levity. So strong were his feelings
for his divorced wife that means had to be taken to prevent the two
meeting, for on a chance _rencontre_ he was observed to follow her with
straining eyes and tears. The arrangement, indeed, was wholly the work
of Augustus, with a view to a possible failure in the succession (which
did actually occur), for by this time he had evidently imbibed the idea
of a dynasty, and of the necessity of having some one connected with
him to take his place, who would be regarded as a natural successor
by all classes of citizens. But it proved the origin of a sorrow and
mortification which did much to overcloud his later days.
[Illustration: JULIA, DAUGHTER OF AUGUSTUS.
_From the Bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence._
_To face page 234._
LIVIA, WIFE OF AUGUSTUS.
_From the Bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence._
_Page 274._]
[Sidenote: Iulia, b. B.C. 39; ob. A.D. 14.]
At first, we are told, the marriage seemed likely to be a happy one.
Iulia accompanied her husband on his campaigns in Dalmatia (B.C. 11-10),
or at any rate awaited him at Aquileia, where a child was born and
died. But from that time forward the breach between them was always
widening. Tiberius seems to have remembered certain passages that had
passed between them while she was still the wife of Agrippa, and she
regarded him as her social inferior, and wrote a violent complaint of
his character and habits to Augustus—supposed to have been composed for
her by her lover, Sempronius Gracchus, who paid for that service by his
life in the first year of the next reign; and when in B.C. 6 Tiberius
retired to Rhodes, his motive seems to have been as much to escape her
company as to avoid the awkwardness of his political position. Left
thus to her own devices in the midst of a corrupt society, she seems
soon to have outdone all former excesses. She was beautiful—except that
she early had grey hair—witty and wilful: so wilful and capricious that
Augustus used to say that he had “two fanciful daughters whom he was
obliged to put up with—the state and Iulia.” She drew round her all the
rich and extravagant youth. At the amphitheatre, on one occasion, some
one pointed out the contrast between the respectable elderly personages
who surrounded Livia and the wild youth who formed her own train. “Oh!
they will grow old along with me!” she replied. To a graver friend, who
suggested that she would do better to imitate the economical habits of
her father, she retorted: “He forgets that he is a Cæsar; I remember that
I am Cæsar’s daughter.” Once the Emperor entered the room while she was
at her toilet and noticed that her tire women had been plucking out her
grey hairs. He stayed chatting on all kinds of subjects, and insensibly
led the conversation to the subject of old age. “Which would you prefer?”
he asked, “to be grey or bald?” “Oh, grey,” she replied. “Then I wonder,”
said he, “that you let these women make you bald so soon.” She had at
times given him some unpleasant doubts as to her conduct. She came to
see him once dressed in a meretricious style, which she knew would vex
him. Next day she reappeared dressed with complete decorum. He had said
nothing the day before, but now exclaimed, “Isn’t this a style more
becoming to a daughter of Augustus?” “Oh,” said she, “I dressed to-day
for my father to see, yesterday for my husband.”
He had never liked her mixing in general society as a girl. She and
his granddaughters, who lived in his house, were trained to spend
their time in women’s work, spinning wool, and the like, and to have
no secret conversations or idle talk; and he once wrote to a young
noble who had called on her while staying at Baiæ that “he had taken
a great liberty.” But in spite of such seclusion she had developed a
considerable knowledge of and taste for literature, and her cheerful
good nature made her popular at court and in society. Her father watched
her career as a married woman, and from time to time gave her half-grave
and half-playful hints as to her extravagance in dress and the style of
people that surrounded her. But he does not seem to have entertained
serious suspicions. Meanwhile she is said by our authorities not only
to have been indulging in numerous intrigues, but to have violated all
propriety and decency by joining in noisy revelry at night in the streets
and forum, and to have been present at parties where men stayed late and
drank deep. The crash came at a moment that seemed a culminating one in
the Emperor’s career, when a scandal must have been peculiarly trying.
[Sidenote: _Pater patriæ_, B.C. 2.]
Since the beginning of B.C. 8 Augustus had been at home. In that year
a fresh period of his various powers had been duly renewed by a vote
of the Senate, which had also genie, honoured him by naming the month
Sextilis after him as “August,” and he had had the gratification of
welcoming Tiberius home from Germany victorious, and witnessing his
triumph. His young grandson Gaius was designated consul in B.C. 5 for
the sixth year from that time, and the next year he himself took that
office after an interval of eighteen years, that he might add dignity
to the ceremony of Gaius taking the _toga virilis_. Though vexed at
Tiberius’s retirement to Rhodes, he had good reason to hope that in the
two young Cæsars the succession was well provided for. In spite of some
uneasiness on the German frontier and among the Parthians, there was for
the time profound peace. At the beginning of B.C. 2 he was again consul,
in order to introduce the second grandson to the forum; and to show their
appreciation of his achievements, and their affection for his person, the
Senate at length voted to give him the title of “_pater patriæ_.” It was
first offered him by a popular deputation in his villa at Antium. He made
some difficulty about accepting it; but the next time he appeared at the
theatre or circus he was met by loud shouts, the whole people addressing
him by that title, and at the following meeting of the Senate on the
5th of February Valerius Messala was put up to address him formally:
“With prayers for your person and your house, Cæsar Augustus—for in
offering them we deem ourselves to be praying for the perpetual felicity
of the Republic and the prosperity of this city—we, the Senate, in full
accord with the Roman people, unanimously salute you as _Father of your
country_.” Augustus, rising with tears in his eyes and voice, could just
answer briefly, “My dearest wishes have been fulfilled, Fathers of the
Senate, and what is there left for me to ask of the immortal gods except
that I may retain this unanimous feeling of yours to the last day of my
life?”
Though the title had long been popularly applied to Augustus, this
was the first official recognition of it. It had very old historical
precedent, from Romulus to Iulius Cæsar. It was meant to be the highest
compliment which could be paid, but it conferred no new powers, though
in after-times some of the Emperors regarded it as giving them a kind of
paternal authority. Augustus was evidently highly gratified. The shows
given at his expense this year were of unusual magnificence: gladiators,
wild beast hunts, sham sea-fights on the flooded Transtiberine fields,
had all roused great enthusiasm, and a special festival in his honour
had been held at Naples—in the Greek fashion—as an expression of thanks
to him for assistance rendered in the distress caused by a recent
earthquake and eruption of Vesuvius. The year thus opened with unusual
cheerfulness, and though now past sixty he might feel encouraged by the
popular enthusiasm to continue his work with unabated energy.
[Sidenote: Detection of Iulia.]
Suddenly the disgrace that had been gathering round his house was
revealed to him. We are not told who enlightened him and turned the
suspicions which he had persistently put away into certainty. Of course
the natural suggestion is that it was Livia, between whom and Iulia,
as mother of the two young heirs who stood in the way of Livia’s son
Tiberius, there was no cordial feeling. The contrast in their ways of
life, and the remarks caused by it, no doubt reported by good-natured
friends, had not helped to make these relations any more pleasant. But
whoever was the informant, Augustus was at last thoroughly roused, and
thrown into the greatest state of agitation. Whatever may have been his
own private vices in the past, the decorum of the palace in which Livia
presided was unimpeached and highly valued by him. The pure atmosphere
of the Augustan house—Horace says—and the paternal care of the Emperor
were mainly the causes of the manly characters of Tiberius and Drusus,
and Horace always echoes what Augustus at any rate wished to be thought
true. To have the secrets of the family thus revealed to the multitude,
to the scorn of the hostile and the pity of the well-disposed, was no
doubt galling. He shunned society for some time and kept away from Rome.
He had also the additional annoyance of reflecting that the publicity
was greatly his own fault. In the heat of his anger he wrote to the
Senate and put the affair, more or less, in its hands. In cooler moments
he repented of this, and exclaimed that “it would never have happened
if Agrippa and Mæcenas had been alive.” Several men are said to have
suffered death on the charge, though we only know of two names, Iulius
Antonius and Sempronius Gracchus, the former of whom committed suicide,
while the latter was banished to an island on the African coast. Seneca,
who generally makes the worst of Augustus, says that he spared their
lives and punished them by banishment. The case of Iulius Antonius was
particularly bad. He was the son of Antony by Fulvia, had been brought up
by Octavia, married to her daughter Marcella, and by her influence and
the kindness of Augustus, had been prætor (B.C. 13) and consul (B.C. 10).
He had therefore been treated as a member of the family, and a highly
favoured one. Gracchus is said to have begun his intrigue while Iulia
was the wife of Agrippa, and to have helped to irritate her against her
husband Tiberius. But however guilty Iulia may have been, she did not
forfeit the popular affections. Again and again Augustus was assailed
by petitions to recall her. He passionately refused, exclaiming at last
to a more than usually persistent meeting, that he “would wish them all
daughters and wives like her.” The most that he could be persuaded to
grant was that at the end of five years she should be allowed to exchange
her island (Pandateria) for Rhegium, and to live under less stringent
conditions as to dress and food, and the servants who attended her. Her
mother, Scribonia, accompanied her into exile, and though Tiberius,
acting under the authority of Augustus, sent from Rhodes a message of
divorce, he made a formal request that she might be allowed to retain
whatever he had given her. The sincerity of such an intercession was
illustrated by the fact that on the death of Augustus he immediately
deprived her of all allowances. She, however, only survived her father a
few weeks. All this severity is perhaps best accounted for if we accept
the statement of Dio and Pliny, that she was charged not only with
adultery, but with joining in some plot against her father in favour
of her lover, Iulius Antonius.[310] At any rate it is difficult not to
feel some sympathy with a woman, married and re-married without choice
on her part or any question of affection, for nine years the wife of a
man as old as her father, and then transferred to another, whose heart
was fixed elsewhere, and whom his warmest admirers cannot describe as
one likely to be sympathetic or expansive, one in fact who began with a
strong prejudice against her. She knew also that her own mother, with
whom she seems to have kept up affectionate relations, had been turned
off immediately after her birth for no assignable reason, just as she had
been married for a momentary political object. She could have grown up
with no very deep reverence for her father’s morality or lofty ideas of
the marriage relationship.
[Sidenote: Death of Gaius and Lucius Cæsar, A.D. 2-4.]
From this time forward family misfortunes seemed to dog the steps of
Augustus for some years to come. The next blow was the death of the
two young sons of Iulia, Gaius and Lucius, whom he had adopted, had
personally educated in their childhood, and was training for their great
future. When the elder was only 15 (B.C. 5) he had been designated consul
for A.D. 1, and the Senate had voted that he and his brother might at
that age “take part in public business,” that is, might be employed in
any capacity the Emperor might choose directly they assumed the _toga
virilis_. Accordingly, in B.C. 1, Gaius was sent to the East, with a
pretty wide commission to visit the Eastern provinces. He seems to have
travelled considerable distances, and even entered Arabia. Tiberius,
who was then at Rhodes, crossed to Samos to greet him. The meeting,
however, was not a happy one. M. Lollius, the head of Gaius’s staff,
seems to have influenced the young prince against Tiberius, and induced
him to send home a report to the Emperor of certain indications that he
was contemplating some treasonable measures. Augustus candidly informed
Tiberius of this, and it was it seems partly from the necessity of
clearing himself, that at the earnest entreaty of his mother, he, two
years later, sought and obtained the permission of Augustus to return
to Rome. Meanwhile there had been wild talk among the staff of Gaius,
one of them expressing his readiness to sail to Rhodes and bring the
head of “the exile” back. He does not, however, appear to have forfeited
the confidence or affection of Augustus, who writes to him on the 23rd
September, A.D. 1: “Good day to you, Gaius, apple of my eye, whom by
heaven I continually miss when away. But it is especially on days such
as this one that my eyes seek for my Gaius; and wherever you have spent
it I hope that you have kept my sixty-fourth birthday in good health
and spirits. For you see I have safely passed the grand climacteric,
which for all old men is their 63rd year. Pray heaven that whatever
time remains for me I may spend with the knowledge that you and your
brother are safe and sound and the republic supremely prosperous, with
you playing the man and preparing to take up my work.” But these hopes
were doomed to be disappointed, as we have seen, by the treacherous
wound received at Artagera in Armenia in A.D. 4. Two years earlier his
younger brother, Lucius, had died suddenly and somewhat mysteriously at
Marseilles at the beginning of a progress through the Western provinces,
which was to form part of his political education. The fact that his
death corresponded nearly with the return of Tiberius from Rhodes gave
rise to suspicions that it had been caused by the machinations of Livia,
anxious to secure the succession for her son. Even the death of Gaius,
though so far away, was put down to the same malignant influence; for
it was argued that his wound was slight and had not been expected to
end fatally. Tacitus records that the detractors of the imperial family
were accustomed to remark that “Livia had been a fatal mother to the
republic, a fatal stepdame to the family of the Cæsars.” There is,
however, no scrap of evidence to connect her with either event. It is
doubtful whether the young men had shewn much promise; but their death
was treated as a matter for public mourning. At Pisæ, of which colony
they were “patrons,” there still exist two long and pompous inscriptions
(_Cenotaphia_) recording their death, speaking of the successful campaign
of Gaius in the East, ordering mourning “in view of the magnitude of so
great and unexpected a calamity,” and decreeing various honours to the
memory of Lucius “princeps iuventutis,” and of Gaius “princeps designate.”
[Sidenote: The succession.]
These losses were followed by the adoption of Tiberius by Augustus, and
that of Germanicus by Tiberius. The former had already several children,
so that the sons and grandsons and great-grandsons—by adoption—of
Augustus in A.D. 7, as recorded on the arch at Pavia, were Tiberius;
Germanicus; Drusus, son of Tiberius; Nero and Drusus, sons of Germanicus,
and Claudius, his brother. All these survived Augustus. But Tiberius and
Claudius alone reigned, Caligula was not born till five years later (A.D.
12).
[Sidenote: Fresh troubles. The younger Iulia.]
Augustus thus felt that the succession was well secured; but the last
decade of his life was destined in some ways to be the most troubled of
all. The German wars began again in A.D. 4, and culminated in the Varian
disaster of A.D. 9; while the difficulties and alarm were increased by
the dangerous risings in Pannonia and Dalmatia (A.D. 6-9), during which
Augustus remained for some time at Ariminum, to be within moderate
distance of the seat of war. A renewed outbreak of piracy also compelled
him to take over the management of Sardinia from the Senate for three
years (A.D. 6-9). This was partly the cause, perhaps, of the distress at
Rome in B.C. 6 from a rise in the price of corn, intensified by various
disastrous fires. The unrest thus created led to some more or less
dangerous conspiracies, such as that of Plautius Rufus, who was accused
of abetting disturbances and spreading seditious libels. Others were
connected with attempts to rescue Iulia at Rhegium and Agrippa Postumus
in Planasia, an island near Elba. We also hear of a plot of one Cornelius
Cinna, who however was pardoned and allowed to be consul in A.D. 4.
Seneca asserts that after this act of clemency the life of Augustus was
never attempted again; and Dio has recorded a conversation between him
and Livia in that year, in which, seeing her husband sleepless and torn
with continued anxieties, she recommended this policy of leniency. But
one last mortification remained for him. In A.D. 9 his granddaughter
Iulia was discovered to have followed her mother’s example. She was
married to Æmilius Paulus Lepidus, and had a son and a daughter Lepida,
once betrothed to the future Emperor Claudius, but never married to him.
Her lover, D. Silanus, was not banished to any definite place, but was
obliged to leave Rome, to which he was not allowed to return till A.D.
20, and then under disabilities for State employment. Iulia herself
was banished to the island Tremesus (_St. Domenico_), on the coast of
Apulia, where she remained till her death in A.D. 27, supported by an
allowance from Livia. We do not know enough of the affair to judge of
her guilt; but in some mysterious way her husband was involved in a
charge of treason about this time. In the same year the poet Ovid was
banished to Tomi, forty miles south of the mouth of the Danube, in a
district exposed to constant raids of the Sarmatians and Dacians. It has
always been supposed that this severity was connected with the affair of
Iulia, and that either he was one of her lovers, or was privy to some of
her intrigues, amatory or political. The reason assigned in the edict
appears to have been the licentiousness of his verse, and as Augustus
was just then engaged in reinforcing his laws against various forms of
immorality, and trying to encourage marriage as against concubinage,
this may have been partly the reason. Only as his most licentious poems
had been published seven years before it seems a little late in the
day. His own account of his misfortune—never outspoken—goes through two
phases. At first he seems to wish to attribute it all to his amatory
poems. “He is a poet destroyed by his own genius: his verses have been
his undoing: they deserved punishment, but sure not so heavy a one.”
But presently he began to own that there was something else: “Not,” he
says, “any political offence, no plot against the Emperor, no plan of
violence against the state. He had seen something he should not have
seen. He is ruined by his own simplicity and want of prudence, combined
with treachery on the part of friends and slaves. The exact cause he dare
not reveal, and yet it is well known at Rome.” Ovid was now fifty-two and
married for a third time to a wife connected distantly with the imperial
family. The chances are therefore against an intrigue with Iulia. There
is one other possible explanation; Ovid was at Elba when he got notice of
the edict, staying with his wife’s connection, Paulus Fabius Maximus, who
afterwards incurred the suspicion of Livia as favouring Agrippa Postumus,
confined in the neighbouring island of Planasia since B.C. 7. We know
from Suetonius that there was at least one plot to remove him, and it may
be that Ovid knew of it and even saw some of the conspirators.
However that may be, the other explanation is also possible: that
Augustus meant what he said, and regarded Ovid’s works as unwholesome.
He was what would be called in our time a “decadent” poet. He represents
the worst side of Roman society, as it began to be unfavourably affected
by that abstention from practical politics, which came to be the fashion
in the latter half of the reign of Augustus. He had himself refused to
take any office that would give him a seat in the Senate, and seemed to
think that to be the natural conduct of a man of taste and literature. He
was the mouthpiece of the gilded youth who sought in amorous intrigue,
and a fastidious dalliance with the Muses, a more congenial employment
than the performance of those duties to the state which no longer held
out promises of unlimited wealth or power. He was only cleverer than the
ruck of such men, and Augustus may possibly have selected him as the
representative of a tendency at which he was alarmed. Ovid was precisely
the sort of man to create the tone of society which had been the ruin of
his daughter and granddaughter. It is quite possible that being intimate
with such circles the poet may have known, or been supposed to know,
something inconvenient about the last scandal, and, at any rate, he would
be on the side of Iulia as against her grandfather. At the time of his
exile he was engaged, at the Emperor’s suggestion or request, on the
composition of the poetical Calendar or Fasti, which was incidentally to
celebrate the chief events of Roman history, and it has been suggested
that the story of Claudia’s vindication of her chastity (_Fast._ iv. 305
_sqq._) was intended as a veiled defence of the elder or younger Iulia.
Whatever the offence given, neither Augustus nor Tiberius could ever be
induced to allow his recall.
The poet’s abject language in praying to be allowed to return illustrates
incidentally the absolute supremacy of the Emperor, and the attribution
to him of divine honours and powers, the steady progress of which has
been noted in a previous chapter. We may also note that what Paris is to
the Parisians, Rome is to Ovid. Augustus and his ministers or friends had
made it the home of splendour and luxury. The poet fondly dwells on all
its beauties, pleasures, and conveniences, and, like a true Parisian,
can hardly conceive of life away from it, its games, its theatres, the
sports on the Campus, the lounge in the forum, or the wit and poetry
heard at the tables of the great. As the spring comes round in his
dreary, treeless dwelling on the Pontus, he thinks of the flowers and
vines of Italy, but, above all, of the pleasures of the city in April,
the month of festivals: “It is holiday with you now, and the wordy war of
the wrangling forum is giving place to the unbroken round of festivals.
The horses are in request, and the light foils are in play. The young
athletes, their shoulders glistening with oil, are bathing wearied limbs
in baths supplied by the virgin stream. The stage is in full swing, and
the audiences are clapping their favourite actors, and the three theatres
are echoing instead of the three forums. Oh four times, oh beyond all
counting, happy he who may enjoy the city unforbidden!” It had been the
object of Augustus to make the city splendid and attractive, and to
keep the citizens comfortable and contented and proud of their home. He
had doubtless succeeded; but it was sometimes at the cost of a lowered
standard of public duty and a growing devotion to personal ease and
enjoyment.
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAST DAYS
_Let the sound of those he fought for,_
_And the feet of those he wrought for,_
_Echo round his bones for evermore._
[Sidenote: The activities of the last years of Augustus, A.D. 8-14.]
The public and private troubles mentioned in the last chapter did not
break the spirit or paralyse the energies of the aged Emperor, or prevent
him from taking a strenuous part in the administration of the Empire.
The last eight years of his life were full of stir and movement, though
our meagre authorities give us few details. He actively supported the
campaigns of Tiberius and Germanicus; he was introducing reforms in
Gaul;[311] he was pushing on improvements in the East, and founding a
series of colonies in Pisidia as a defence against the predatory mountain
tribes; he was directing a census of the whole Empire; he was emending
his marriage laws by the farther enactments contained in the _lex Papia
Poppæa_, which he supported by energetic speeches; he was elaborating a
great financial scheme; he was personally attending to the embankment of
the Tiber; he was reforming the city police and fire brigades; and when
the Varian disaster occurred we have seen with what energy he acted, how
he enforced the law of military service and despatched reinforcements to
the Rhine, while he cleared the city of dangerous elements and provided
against possible movements in the provinces. Though now seventy-two
years old he shewed no sign of senility in heart; and as it was said
that at every stage of his life he had the beauty appropriate to it, so
in spirit, courage, and prudence he seems always to have answered to any
strain to which he was submitted.
[Sidenote: Financial measures of Augustus.]
To understand the financial changes of these years it is necessary to
recall a few broad facts as to the revenue of the Empire. It arose from
(1) Italy, (2) the provinces. In Italy the sources of revenue were the
customs (_portoria_), the rent of public land, the _vicesima_ or 5 per
cent. on the value of manumitted slaves. From the time that it became
the habit to pay the soldiers, a _tributum_ or property tax had been
raised, at first as a temporary measure, or even as a loan, but gradually
as a regular thing. Since the Macedonian wars, however, B.C. 167, this
_tributum_ had not been levied: the additional wealth acquired by the new
conquests being sufficient. It does not appear that the _tributum_ was
abolished by law, and indeed for a short time it was reimposed by the
Triumvirs, though only as an extraordinary tax (_temerarium_). After the
Social war of B.C. 89 the Italians became full citizens and shared this
exemption.
The second and most important source of revenue were the provinces.
There were royalties on mines, customs, rent of public land, and other
sources of profit to the government; but also every province paid a
_stipendium_—a certain sum of money—to the Roman treasury. The manner
in which it was paid—whether in money or produce, or a mixture of
the two—differed in different provinces, as also did the mode of its
assessment and collection; but the broad fact was that each province had
to furnish a sum of money, and that owners of property in a province
were liable to a _tributum_ or tax.[312]
In the time of Augustus there was no great change made in the nature or
incidence of this taxation; but the management of the treasury itself was
revolutionised. In the first place, the _ærarium_ instead of being under
the care of the yearly elected quæstors, who issued money on the order of
Senate or magistrates, was put under _præfecti_ appointed by the Emperor,
and though the Senate still had a nominal control over it, it was
really under his power. In the next place, a new _ærarium_ was formed,
afterwards called the _fiscus_, into which was paid the revenues of the
imperial provinces. This was entirely under the Emperor, and the tendency
was in time to have every extraordinary revenue, such as confiscations,
lapsed legacies (_caduca_), and the like, paid into it. Besides this
there was the _patrimonium Cæsarum_, the private property of the Emperor
in virtue of his office. To this belonged the whole revenues of Egypt and
the Thracian Chersonese, and other large estates. When Augustus talks of
his having supplemented the treasury or made distributions to the people,
it is often from this fund that he drew, though he had besides large
personal property (_res familiaris_), which he employed at times for the
same purpose.
Of course from the revenue of the provinces had to be deducted the cost
of their administration and defence. Provinces, therefore, which needed
large forces and constant defence from surrounding barbarians did not
pay. Cicero, indeed, asserts that in his time none of the provinces
except Asia paid for their expenses. This probably is an exaggeration,
but there is no doubt that the loss on some had to be put against the
gain on others, and that the balance of the yearly budget was not always
on the right side, as, at a later date, we know that Vespasian said that
the treasury wanted four hundred million sesterces (about £3,000,000
sterling) to be solvent. The outbreak of the German wars in A.D. 4, and
the large forces which it had long been necessary to keep upon the Rhine
had caused, if not a deficit, at any rate the near prospect of one. It
was just such a crisis as in old times would have justified the levying
of a _tributum_ as a special war tax. There were, however, two reasons
against Augustus doing this. In the first place, such a _tributum_ would
be temporary, and he wanted a permanency; and, in the second place, the
citizens had come to view freedom from the _tributum_ as their special
privilege, differentiating Italy from the subject provinces, and marking
them out as a governing body. True to his policy of avoiding offensive
names, while at the same time getting what he wanted, Augustus decided
against the _tributum_. What he did was to create a new department, an
army-pay treasury (_aes militare_), with two præfects of prætorian rank.
The money in this treasury was to be devoted to the pay and pensions
of the soldiers. He started it with a gift in his own name and that of
Tiberius of 170,000,000 sesterces (about £1,500,000), and arranged that
the tax which he had contrived soon after the end of the civil wars, the
1 per cent. on goods sold at auctions or by contract, should be paid
into it. But this was not sufficient for the purpose, and he had to
look round for other means of raising revenue. He did therefore what a
late Chancellor of the Exchequer did for us—he imposed death duties: 5
per cent. on all legacies except those from the nearest relatives. This
avoided the offensiveness of depriving the people of Italy of a valued
privilege, while it in fact brought them financially almost in a line
with the provinces. For those who paid _tributum_ did not pay _vicesima_,
and _vice versâ_. Still the tax offended a powerful class and met with
much resistance. The practice of leaving large legacies to friends, as
an acknowledgment of services rendered, was common in Italy, and the tax
therefore fell heavily upon the rich. In A.D. 13 a determined move was
made in the Senate to obtain its abolition. Augustus sent a written
communication to the Senate, pointing out that the money was necessary,
but asking them to contrive some other method of raising it. The Senators
declined to formulate any plan, and only answered that they were ready
to submit to _anything_ else. Thereupon Augustus proposed a _tributum_
or tax on land and houses. Confronted with this alternative the Senate
at once withdrew from opposition. It was a case of financial necessity,
and it must not be supposed that Augustus wished to lower the prestige
of Italy or the value of the citizenship. That was one of the points in
which he reversed the policy of Iulius, who had been lavish in bestowing
the citizenship, and seems to have had visions of a uniform Empire united
in privilege as in government. Augustus, on the other hand, was even
ultra-conservative and ultra-Roman in this respect. He made constant
difficulties about granting the citizenship. In answer to Tiberius, who
begged it for some favourite Greek, he insisted upon only granting it if
the man appeared personally and convinced him of the soundness of his
claim. Even Livia met with a refusal in behalf of some Gaul. The Emperor
offered to grant the man immunity from tribute, saying that he cared less
about a loss to his treasury than for vulgarising the citizenship.
[Sidenote: Declining health and strength.]
Though Augustus shewed in this transaction all his old tact and
statesmanship with no failure either in determination or power of
_finesse_, yet he was growing visibly feebler in body. He gave up
attending social functions; and it was too much for him to appear any
longer at meetings of the Senate. Accordingly, instead of the half-yearly
committee of twenty-five members who used to be appointed to prepare
measures for the House, a sort of inner cabinet of twenty members
appointed for a year—with any members of his family whom he chose—met
at his house and often round the couch on which he was reclining, and
their decisions were given the force of a _Senatus-consultum_. His
interest, however, in every detail was as keen as ever. For instance,
we have a letter from him to Livia, written at the end of A.D. 11,
as to the advisability of allowing Claudius (the future Emperor) to
appear in Rome during the ceremonies connected with the consulship of
his brother Germanicus. Claudius (now twenty-one) was reported to be
deformed and half-witted, and his mother Antonia herself described him as
scarcely human (_monstrum hominis_). The letter is worth reading, partly
because it is the only complete one (at any rate, of any length) which
we possess, and partly because it illustrates the care which Augustus
took to keep up the prestige of the imperial family, to avoid, above all
things, incurring popular ridicule, and his attention to minute details:—
“I have consulted with Tiberius, as you desired me to do, my dear Livia,
as to what is to be done about your grandson (Claudius) Tiberius. We
entirely agree in thinking that we must settle once for all what line we
are to take in regard to him. For if he is sound and, to use a common
expression, has all his wits about him, what possible reason can there
be for our doubting that he ought to be promoted through the same grades
and steps as his brother? But if we find that he is deficient, and so
deranged in mind and body as to be unfit for society, we must not give
people accustomed to scoff and sneer at such things a handle for casting
ridicule both on him and on us. The fact is that we shall always be in
a state of agitation if we stop to consider every detail as it occurs,
without having made up our minds whether to think him capable of holding
offices or not. On the present occasion, however, in regard to the point
on which you consult me, I do not object to his having charge of the
triclinium of the priests at the games of Mars if he will submit to
receive instructions from his relative, the son of Silanus, to prevent
his doing anything to make people stare or laugh. We agree that he is not
to be in the imperial box at the Circus. For he will be in full view of
everybody and be conspicuous. We agree that he is not to go to the Alban
Mount or to be in Rome on the days of the Latin festival. For if he is
good enough to be in his brother’s train to the mountain, why should
he not be honorary city prefect? Those are the decisions at which we
arrived, my dear Livia, and we wish them to be settled once for all to
prevent our wavering between hope and fear. You are at liberty, if you
choose, to give Antonia this part of my letter to read.”
[Sidenote: Confidence in Tiberius.]
Perhaps the voice is the voice of Tiberius, but the courtesy and
well-bred style are all Augustus’s. By this time the influence of
Tiberius was well established, and Augustus treats him as a successor who
has a right to be consulted on all family matters and important State
affairs. Since his return from Rhodes Tiberius had done eminent service
to the State both on the Rhine and in Illyricum. In appointing Varus
to Germany Augustus had made a mistake which he seldom committed. He
had nearly always picked good men, but P. Quintilius Varus had not only
been extortionate in his former province, but was neither energetic nor
prudent; and his experience among the unwarlike inhabitants of Syria was
not a good preparation for dealing with the brave and warlike Germans.
Tiberius knew him well, having been his colleague in the consulship of
B.C. 13, and would certainly not have appointed him. It was to Tiberius
that the Emperor then turned to retrieve the disaster and confront the
almost more serious dangers in Illyricum. And if he found him trustworthy
in the field, this letter shows how much confidence he felt in him
at home. It was a common report that Augustus knew and disliked his
character. The lackeys of the palace gave out that he had on one occasion
exclaimed, “Unhappy people of Rome who will some day be the victims of
those slow grinders!” And in a speech to the Senate some expressions
used by him were taken to convey an apology for his reserved and sullen
manners, and an acknowledgment, therefore, of his mistrust or dislike.
But it is abundantly plain that in these last years he not only trusted
his military abilities, but felt a sincere affection for himself. In
earlier times, before the retreat to Rhodes, the short notes written
to him (parts of which are preserved by Suetonius[313]) are playful
and intimate; and though he was vexed at his retirement and answered a
suggestion of return by a message bidding him “dismiss all concern for
his relatives, whom he had abandoned with such excessive eagerness,”[314]
yet the fragments preserved of the Emperor’s letters to him in these
later times breathe not only admiration, but warm affection. “Goodbye,
Tiberius, most delightful of men! Success to you in the field, you who
serve the Muses as well as me! Most delightful of men, and, as I hope
to be happy, bravest of heroes and steadiest of generals!” And again:
“How splendidly managed are your summer quarters! I am decidedly of
opinion that, in the face of so many untoward circumstances and such
demoralisation of the troops, no one could have borne himself with
greater prudence than you are doing! The officers now at Rome who have
served with you all confess that the verse might have been written for
you, ‘One man by vigilance restored the State.’” Once more: “Whenever
anything occurs that calls for more than usually earnest thought or that
stirs my spleen, what I miss most, by heaven, is my dear Tiberius, and
that passage of Homer always occurs to me—
“‘If he but follow, e’en from burning fire
We both shall back return, so wise is he!’”
And in the midst of his laborious campaign the Emperor writes to him
anxiously: “When I hear or read that you are worn out by the protracted
nature of your labours, heaven confound me if I do not shudder in every
limb; and I beseech you to spare yourself, lest if we hear of your being
ill your mother and I should expire and the Roman people run the risk of
losing their empire. It doesn’t matter a bit whether I am well or not as
long as you are not well. I pray the gods to preserve you to us and to
suffer you to be well now and always, unless they abhor the Roman people.”
These letters seem sufficiently to refute the idle stories of the _gêne_
that his presence was to Augustus, of his being a wet blanket to cheerful
conversation, and a makeshift with which the Emperor was forced to put
up in default of better heirs. Nor did Tiberius fall short in respect
and loyal service. After his adoption in A.D. 4, he immediately accepted
the position of a son under the _patria potestas_, abstained from
manumissions and other acts of a man who was _sui iuris_, and apparently
transferred his residence to the palace, and seems really to have taken
the burden from shoulders no longer strong enough to bear it.
[Sidenote: Death of Augustus at Nola, August 19, A.D. 14.]
For now the end was near, portended as the pious or credulous believed
by many omens. There was an eclipse of the sun,[315] and various fiery
meteors in the sky. On one of his statues the letter C of Cæsar was
melted by lightning, and the augurs prophesied, or afterwards invented
the prediction, that he would die within a hundred days and join the
gods—_æsar_ being good Etruscan for “divinities.” He himself seems to
have been made somewhat nervous by certain accidents that might be
twisted into omens. The early part of A.D. 14 was taken up with the
usual legal business, but also with the Census, which he held this year
in virtue of his consular power and with Tiberius as his colleague. The
organisation of the city into _vici_ probably made the actual clerical
work easy and rapid, but when that was over came the ceremony of “closing
the lustrum” (_condere lustrum_), and the offering of solemn sacrifice
and prayer. This took place in the Campus Martius, and large crowds
assembled to witness it. But the Emperor, uneasy at something which
he thought ominous, or perhaps really feeling unwell, would not read
the solemn vows, which according to custom had been written out and
were now put into his hands. He said that he should not live to fulfil
them and handed them over to Tiberius to read. After this ceremony was
over, Augustus was anxious to get away from Rome and take his usual
yachting tour along the Latin and Campanian coast. On this occasion he
had the farther object of accompanying Tiberius as far as Beneventum
on the Appian road, on his way to Brundisium and Illyricum, where some
difficulties resulting from the recent war required his presence and
authority. But various legal causes awaiting decision detained the
Emperor in the city. He was restive and impatient at the delay, and
petulantly exclaimed that “if they let everything stop them he should
never be at Rome again.” At length, however, he set out, accompanied
by Livia and Tiberius and a numerous court. They reached the coast at
Astura, in the delta of a river of the same name, which falls into the
sea at the southern point of the bay of Antium. It was a quiet place
though there were seaside villas near, and there Cicero had spent the
months of his mourning for Tullia, finding consolation in the solitude
of the woods which skirt the side of the stream. At Astura the party
embarked, but owing to the state of the wind they did so by night. A
chill then caught brought on diarrhœa, and laid the foundation of his
fatal illness. Nevertheless the voyage along the Campanian coast and the
adjacent islands was continued till they reached Capreæ. It was on this
voyage that, happening to touch at Puteoli, he was so much delighted and
cheered by the thanks offered him by the crew of an Alexandrian corn-ship
for his safeguarding of the seas. At Capreæ he seems to have stayed some
time, amusing himself by watching the young athletes training for the
Greek games at Naples—the only town in Italy except Rhegium which at this
time retained any traces of Hellenic customs and life. He gave parties,
also, at which he asked his Roman guests to dress in Greek fashion and
speak Greek, and the Greeks to use Roman dress and speak Latin. There
was the usual distribution of presents, and on one occasion he gave
a banquet to the athletes in training, and watched them after dinner
pelting each other with apples and other parts of the dessert. It was a
custom, more honoured in the breach than in the observance, with which he
was familiar. He once entertained a certain Curtius, who prided himself
on his taste in cookery, and who thought a fat thrush that had been put
before him was ill-done. “May I despatch it?” he said to the Emperor. “Of
course,” was the reply; upon which he threw it out of the window. On this
occasion the aged Emperor, feeling, we may suppose, somewhat better and
glad to be away from the cares of State, enjoyed this curious horse-play.
He was also particularly cheerful during these days at Capreæ, pleasing
himself with inventing Greek verses and then defying one of Tiberius’
favourite astrologers to name the play from which they came.
Before long, however, he crossed to Naples, with his illness still upon
him, but with alternate rallies and relapses. At Naples he had to sit
through some long gymnastic contests that were held every fifth year
in his honour. Such a function in an August day at Naples would have
been trying to the most vigorous and healthy, but for a man in his
seventy-sixth year, and suffering from such a complaint, it must have
been deadly. He preferred, however, not to disappoint people eager to
shew him honour. He then fulfilled his purpose of accompanying Tiberius
to Beneventum, and having taken leave of him there turned back towards
Naples. But he was never to reach it. At Nola, about eighteen English
miles short of that town, his illness became so acute that he was obliged
to stop at the villa there in which his father had died seventy-two
years before. Messengers were hastily sent to recall Tiberius. With
him the dying man had a long private conversation, in which he seems
to have imparted to him his wishes and counsels as to the government;
and perhaps it was now that he pointed out the three nobles who were
possible candidates for the succession—“Marcus Lepidus, who was fit for
it, but would not care to take it; Asinius Gallus, who would desire it,
but was unfit; and L. Arruntius, who was not unfit for it and would have
the courage to seize it if opportunity offered.” But this conference over
he busied himself with no other affairs of State. He seemed to acquiesce
in the fact that he had done with the world, its vexations and problems.
On the last day of his life, the 19th of August (his lucky month!) the
only question which he continually repeated was whether his situation
was causing any commotion out of doors. Then he asked for a mirror
and directed his attendants to arrange his hair and close his already
relaxing jaws, that he might not shock beholders by the ghastliness of
his appearance. Then his friends were admitted to say goodbye. With a
pathetic mixture of playfulness and sadness he asked them whether “they
thought that he had played life’s farce fairly well?” quoting a common
tag at the end of plays:—
“If aught of good our sport had, clap your hands,
And send us, gentles all, with joy away.”
These being dismissed, he turned to Livia and asked for news of one of
her granddaughters who was ill; but even as he spoke he felt the end was
come—“Livia, don’t forget our wedded life, goodbye!” And as he tried to
kiss her lips he fell back dead.
It was a rapid and painless end, for which he had so often hoped, an
_euthanasia_ that he used to pray for, for himself and his friends. Up
to the last his mind had been clear, with only the slightest occasional
wandering. And so after long years of work and struggle, of mixed evil
and good, of stern cruelties and beneficent exertion, of desperate
dangers and well-earned honours, the great Emperor as he lay dying looked
into the eyes which he had loved best in the world.
The body was borne to Rome by the municipal magistrates of the several
towns along the road, the _cortège_ always moving by night because of the
heat, and the bier being deposited in the court-house of each town till
it reached Bovillæ, twelve miles from Rome. There a procession of Roman
knights took it in charge, having obtained that honour from the consuls,
conducted it to Rome, and deposited it in the vestibule of his own house
on the Palatine.
With not unnatural or unpardonable emotion some extravagant proposals
were made in the Senate as to funeral honours and general mourning. But
Tiberius disliked such excesses, and the funeral though stately was
simple. The bier was carried on the shoulders of Senators to the Campus.
Twice the _cortège_ stopped, first at the Rostra, where Drusus, the son
of Tiberius, delivered a funeral oration (_laudatio_), and again at the
front of the temple of Iulius, where Tiberius himself read a panegyric.
Drusus had dwelt chiefly on his private virtues, Tiberius confined
himself to his public work. He began with a reference to his youthful
services to the state immediately after the death of Cæsar; his success
in putting an end to the civil wars, and his clemency after them. He
spoke of the skill with which, while splendidly rewarding his ministers,
he yet prevented them from gaining a power detrimental to the state; of
his disinterested and constitutional conduct when, having everything in
his hands, he yet shared the power with the people and Senate; of his
unselfishness in the division of the provinces in taking the difficult
ones upon himself; of his equity in leaving Senate and constitution
independent; of his economy and liberality; of the good order which
he kept and the wholesome laws which he carried; of his sympathy with
the tastes and enjoyments of the people; of his hatred of flattery and
tolerance of free speech. The address was read and had been carefully
composed. There is not much fervour or eloquence in it, but it skilfully
put the points which Augustus would himself have put, and indeed had put
in that _apologia pro vita sua_ which we know from the inscription at
Ancyra.
The speeches over, the _cortège_ moved on to the Campus Martius,
where the body was burnt on the pyre prepared for it, and the ashes
ceremoniously collected by eminent equites, who according to custom wore
only their tunics, without the toga, ungirdled, and with bare feet.
The urn was then deposited in the Mausoleum which Augustus had himself
erected in B.C. 28 on the Campus close to the curving river-bank, which
had already received the ashes of his nephew Marcellus, of his sister
Octavia, of his two grandsons, and of his great friend and minister
Agrippa, but was sternly closed by his will to his erring daughter and
granddaughter.
[Sidenote: His will, and other documents left by him.]
Always careful and businesslike, he left his testamentary dispositions
and the accounts of his administration in perfect order. His will,
which had been deposited with the Vestal Virgins and was now read aloud
by Drusus in the Senate, made Tiberius heir to two-thirds, Livia to
one-third of his private property. In case of their predeceasing him it
was to be divided between Drusus (son of Tiberius), Germanicus, and his
three sons, as “second heirs.” There were liberal legacies to citizens
and soldiers and to various friends. The property thus disposed of was
the _res familiaris_: the _Patrimonium Cæsarum_—Egypt, the Thracian
Chersonese, and other estates—went to his successor in the principate.
The will contained an apology for the smallness of the amount thus coming
to his heirs (150,000,000 sesterces or about £1,200,000) on the plea that
he had devoted to the public service nearly all the vast legacies which
had fallen to him. By the will Livia was also adopted into the Iulian
_gens_ and was to take his name. She was thenceforth therefore known as
Iulia Augusta, and seems to have assumed that thereby she obtained a
certain share in the imperial prerogatives, a claim which led to much
friction between herself and her son.
Besides the will, and a roll containing directions as to his funeral,
there were two other documents drawn up by Augustus with great care.
One was a _breviarium totius imperii_, an exact account of the state of
the Empire, the number of soldiers under colours, the amount of money
in the treasury or the _fiscus_, the arrears due, and the names of
those freedmen who were to be held responsible. As a kind of appendix
to this were some maxims of state which he wished to impress upon his
successor: such as, not to extend the citizenship too widely, but to
maintain the distinction between Roman and subject; to select able men
for administrative duties, but not to allow them to become too powerful
or think themselves indispensable; and not to extend the frontiers of the
Empire.
A third roll contained a statement of his own services and achievements
(_index rerum a se gestarum_). Meant to be preserved as an inscription,
it is in what we might call the telegraphic style, a series of brief
statements of facts without note or comment beyond the suggestiveness of
a word here and there designedly used. Yet it is essentially a defence
of his life and policy—the oldest extant autobiography. He directed it
to be engraved on bronze columns and set up outside the Mausoleum. This
was no doubt done, but the bronze columns have long ago disappeared.[316]
Fortunately, however, copies of the inscription were engraved elsewhere
(with a Greek translation) in temples of “Rome and Augustus,” as at
Apollonia in Pisidia and Ancyra in Galatia. That at Ancyra (_Angora_)
exists nearly complete to this day, and some portions at Apollonia. No
life of Augustus could be complete without this document, which is
therefore given in an English dress at the end of this book.
The Senate at once proceeded to decree divine honours to him. A temple
was to be built at Rome, which was afterwards consecrated by Livia and
Tiberius. Others were erected elsewhere, and the house at Nola in which
he died was consecrated. His image on a gilded couch was placed in the
temple of Mars, and festivals (_Augustalia_) were established with a
college of Augustales to maintain them in all parts of the Empire, as
well as an annual festival on the Palatine which continued to be held by
succeeding Emperors.
[Sidenote: Rumours as to the death of Augustus.]
The usual foolish rumours followed his death. Some said that Tiberius
did not reach Nola in time to see him alive; that he had died some
time before, but that Livia closed the doors and concealed the truth.
Others even said that his death had been hastened by Livia by means of
a poisoned fig; and professed to explain it by a piece of secret court
history. Shortly before his death, they said, Augustus had gone attended
only by Fabius Maximus on a secret visit to Agrippa Postumus in the
island of Planasia, to which he had been confined since the cancelling
of his adoption in A.D. 5; and that Livia fearing that he would relent
towards him and name him as successor, determined that he should not live
to do so, Fabius Maximus having meanwhile died suddenly and somewhat
mysteriously. But the authentic accounts of his last illness and death
give the lie to such an unnecessary crime. Unhappily the jealousy of
the unfortunate Agrippa Postumus was a fact which helped to spread such
stories, but it was a jealousy roused by the knowledge of some secret
plots to carry him off and set him up as a rival, and “the first crime
of the new reign”—his assassination by his guards—must, we fear, lie at
the door of either Tiberius or Livia. Another report was that the soul of
Augustus flew up to heaven in the shape of an eagle that rose from his
pyre. Nor must the ingenious Senator—Numerius Atticus—be omitted, who
declared on oath that he had seen the soul of the Emperor ascending, and
was said to have received a present of 25,000 denarii (about £1,000) from
Livia in acknowledgment of this loyal clearness of vision.
[Sidenote: The continuous government.]
The prudent forethought of Augustus in regard to the succession answered
its purpose. There was practically no break in the government. Tiberius
was possessed of _tribunicia potestas_, which enabled him to summon and
consult the Senate. He also, in virtue of his proconsular imperium,
gave the watchword to the prætorian guard, and despatched orders to the
legions in service in the provinces. There was, indeed, some question
as to whether this imperium legally terminated with the death of the
_princeps_, but the matter was settled by all classes taking the oath
(_sacramentum_) to him, and all the powers and honours (except the title
of _pater patriæ_, which he would not accept) were shortly afterwards
voted to him in the Senate and confirmed by a _lex_. His professed
reluctance to accept the whole burden only brought out more clearly how
the work of Augustus had made the rule of a single man inevitable: “I
ask you, sir, which part of the government you wish to have committed
to you?” said Asinius Gallus. No answer was possible. A man could not
control the provinces without command of the army. But he could not
control the army if another man controlled the exchequer. He could not
keep order in Rome and Italy, if another had command of all the legions
and fleets abroad, and could at any moment invade the country or starve
it out by stopping the corn-ships. And if a man had the full control of
the purse and the sword, the rest followed. It was well enough for the
officials to have the old titles and perform some of the old work, but if
the central authority were once removed there would be chaos. The Senate
had attempted to exercise that central authority and failed. It could not
secure the loyalty of men who, exercising undisturbed power in distant
lands, soon grew impatient of the control of a body of mixed elements
and divergent views, which they often conceived to be under the influence
of cliques inimical to themselves. The provinces too as they became
more Romanised were certain to claim to be put on a more equal status
with Italy: they could only be held together by a man who had equal
authority everywhere, never by a local town council. Augustus, indeed,
did not realise this development, or rather he feared its advent. In his
eyes Rome ought still to rule, but could only do so by all its powers
being centred in one man, who could consult the interest and attract the
reverence of all parts of the Empire alike. The success of this plan
depended, of course, on the character of the man, and perhaps, above all,
on his abilities as a financier; but, at any rate, it was impossible
to return to a system of divided functions, and constitutional checks,
which were shewn to be inoperative the moment a magistrate drew the sword
and defied them. So far the work of Augustus stood, and admitted of no
reaction. Republican ideals could only be entertained as pious opinions,
not more practical than some of the republican virtues, on the belief in
which they were founded.
CHAPTER XV
THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS, HIS CHARACTER AND AIMS, HIS WORK AND FRIENDS
_Hic vir hic est, tibi quem_
_promitti sæpius audis._
[Sidenote: The early career and change of character.]
When a great piece of work has been done in the world it is not difficult
to find fault with it. A man seldom if ever sees the bearing and ultimate
results of his own actions, or carries out all that he intended to do.
Even when he seems to have done so, time reveals faults, miscalculations,
failures. At an age when among us a boy is just leaving school, Augustus
found himself the heir of a great policy and a great name amidst the
ruins of a constitution and the _disjecta membra_ of a great Empire.
A comparatively small city state had conquered the greater part of
the known world, and proposed to govern it by the machinery which had
sufficed when its territory was insignificant, not extending at any rate
beyond the shores of Italy. A close corporation, greedy and licentious,
had divided amongst its members the vast profits from the gradually
extending dominions. The central authority which should have restrained
the rulers of distant provinces and the collection of their revenues
was composed to a great extent of those most deeply interested in the
corruptions which it was their duty to judge and condemn. Loyalty to this
central authority grew weaker and weaker, party spirit grew stronger
and less scrupulous. In the desperate struggle for wealth and luxury men
stuck at nothing. Bloodshed bred bloodshed, violence provoked violence,
till good citizens and honourable men (and there were always such) found
themselves helpless; and the constitution which had rested on the loyalty
of magistrates and citizens was ready to fall at the first touch of
resolute disobedience. Then a great man appeared. Iulius Cæsar had not
been free from the vices or corruption of his contemporaries; but party
connections at home led him to sympathise with the people, and the ten
years of war and government in Gaul, during which his enemies at home
were constantly threatening and thwarting him, had convinced him that
the existing constitution was doomed. He was resolved to attempt its
reconstruction, even at the risk of civil war. But civil war is a sea
of unknown extent. Conqueror though he was in all its battles, it left
him only a few months to elaborate reforms. In those he did some great
things; but his revival of the Sullan Dictatorship was too crude a return
to monarchy, while the exigencies of civil war forced him to employ
inferior agents. The aristocratic clique saw themselves about to lose
their cherished privilege of tyranny and extortion, and they killed him.
When Octavian came home to take up his inheritance, he would naturally
have joined Antony, and taken immediate vengeance on the guilty clique.
But he found him intent upon the consolidation of his own position,
and not inclined to admit his claim to the inheritance or to any share
of power. He therefore outwardly joined the leaders of the party which
he detested in order to get rid of Antony and forestall his bid for
autocracy. The vicissitudes of the struggle which followed, ending in
the triumvirate and the division of the Roman world, infected him with
the poison of civil strife—the cruelty which treats honourable enemies
as outlaws, and regards personal triumph as the only end of political
exertion. This period in his career and in the development of his
character ends with the victory over Sextus Pompeius, in B.C. 36, and the
additional security gained by the successes of Agrippa in Gaul during the
two preceding years. From that time he began to regard himself as the
champion of law and order, as the defender of Italy, and the guarantee of
peace in the Western Provinces.
Then came a great danger—the danger of a separation of East and West.
Under the influence of his passion for Cleopatra, Antony was building
up a new empire of subordinate kings, it is true, but subordinate to
Alexandria not Rome: and Alexandria was being adorned with the spoils
of Asiatic temples to make it a worthy capital of the Eastern world.
How far this was really to involve a diminution of the Roman Empire
was probably not clear to Antony himself. The old provinces were not
formally separated, but they were pared and diminished to round off the
new kingdoms for his and Cleopatra’s children. At Rome the danger was
looked upon as a real one; and once more Augustus felt that if he was to
have a free hand in the renovation of the Empire which he contemplated,
Antony must disappear. No doubt every artifice was employed to discredit
his opponent, and to convince the Roman people that their dominion in
the East was slipping from them. But, however Machiavellian his tactics,
there was a solid basis of fact beneath them; a real danger or separation
had existed. The victory of Actium settled that question; and when
the few severities which followed it were over, we are happily called
thenceforth to contemplate the legislator and reformer, the administrator
of, on the whole, a peaceful Empire. There were no more civil wars, and
no serious conspiracies. With rare exceptions—perhaps only the Arabian
expedition—the wars in which Augustus was henceforth engaged were the
necessary consequences of a long frontier. War was often prevented by
diplomacy, and such wars as were undertaken were always successful,
with the exception of those with the Germans, and even in their case
immediate danger was averted.
The moral problem presented by the change from ruthless cruelty to wise
and persistent clemency has exercised the minds of philosophers and
historians ever since. “It was not clemency,” says Seneca, “but a surfeit
of cruelty.” But this explains nothing. If Augustus had ever been cruel
for cruelty’s sake, the increased opportunities of exercising it would
have whetted his appetite for blood as it did in some of his successors.
It was circumstances that had changed, not altogether the man. Still, no
doubt, success softened (it does not always) Augustus’s character. His
ministers were humane men and in favour of milder methods; his wife was
a high-minded woman, and always ready to succour distress, as she shewed
during the proscriptions, and afterwards in her son’s reign. He had among
his immediate friends philosophers and men of letters, whose influence,
so far as it went, was humanising. And lastly such opposition as still
existed was no longer of irreconcilables who had known “liberty”; a
new generation had grown up which on the whole acquiesced in the peace
and security of a benevolent despotism. It was a new era, and Augustus
became a new man. Full of honours and possessed with irresistible powers,
feeling the responsibility heavily, and often in vain desiring rest, he
had no farther personal object to gain beyond the credit of having served
his country and saved the Empire. The apologia of the _index rerum_,
brief and bald as it is, was intended to shew that he had done this.
[Sidenote: The value of his work.]
In estimating the value of his work we are met with this difficulty at
the very threshold of the inquiry, that his object was to avoid quick and
conspicuous changes. Instead of discussing some heroic measure we have
to examine a multitude of details. In every department of political and
social life we trace his hand. Working day and night, he was scheming
to alter what he thought bad, and to introduce what he thought good.
The reconstruction and embellishment of the city, the restoration of
religion, the rehabilitation of marriage, measures necessary for the
security of Rome and Italy, for the better government and material
prosperity of the provinces, for the solvency of the exchequer, and for
the protection of commerce—all these continually occupied his time and
his thoughts. Of this steady industry this or that result may be open to
criticism, but, on the whole, it seems certain that it increased the good
order and prosperity of the Empire, and therefore added to the comfort
and happiness of innumerable lives.
[Sidenote: Advantages and disadvantages of the autocracy.]
But of course the upshot of it all was the establishment of a monarchy;
and it still remains to be considered how far its benefits were
counterbalanced by evils arising from the loss of freedom. It might be
argued that tyrants always appeal to their right use of power however
irregularly obtained, but that the plea is beside the question. Freedom
is the only guarantee of the _continuance_ of good government. The
beneficent tyrant may any day be succeeded by a bad one. The policy of
Augustus had led the people on step by step to forfeit this freedom,
and lose even the taste for it, lulled to sleep by the charms of safety
and luxury. When the glamour had faded from some eyes, it was too late.
The generation which had known freedom had disappeared; the experience
necessary for working the old machinery no longer existed. The few who
still remembered with regret the old constitution, under which they had
hoped to take an independent share of political activity, had nothing
left to them but sullen submission.
[Sidenote: In the provinces.]
In the provinces, indeed, this consideration did not apply. The despotism
there added to the sum of happiness and took nothing away. They had lost
their independence long ago. They were already under a master, a master
who was changed at short intervals, whom it was very difficult to bring
to an account if he were oppressive, in whose selection they had had
absolutely no share, and whose character they had no means of calculating
beforehand. They might one year be enjoying all the benefits of an able
and disinterested ruler, the next they might find themselves in the power
of a tyrannical extortioner, selfish, cynical, cruel. The old republican
names and ideals were nothing to them; or rather they suggested organised
oppression and a conspiracy to refuse redress. The change to one master,
who had everything to gain by their prosperity, and was at the same
time master of their old oppressors, must have seemed in every respect
a blessing. If there was any drawback it was that nationality and the
desire for self-government were killed by kindness. In all difficulties
and disasters they looked to the Emperor for aid and seldom looked in
vain. In the East especially this was probably not wholesome; yet the
immediate effects in producing prosperity and comfort were marked enough
to put aside for the present all such scruples.
[Sidenote: In Italy.]
But for the governing nation itself, while some of the benefits were
no less manifest, the mischievous results were more easy to point out.
Material prosperity was much increased. The city was made a pleasant
and attractive place of residence. Italy was partially repeopled with
an industrious class. Commerce was encouraged and protected, literature
and the fine arts were fostered, and the Palace on the whole set a good
example of simplicity of living. But, on the other hand, the rule of a
single person stifled political life. By the system of _curæ_ or special
commissions all administrative work was transferred to nominees of the
Emperor, who were often his intimate friends, or even his freedmen,
bound to him by the closest ties of subordination. The old magistracies
became unattractive, not only because they no longer led as a matter of
course to profitable employment abroad, but because their holders had
little of interest to do. The Senate, though treated with respect and
retaining some importance as a high court of justice, was practically no
longer a governing body. It was wholly at the beck of the Emperor, and
such work of consequence as it still performed was often transacted by
small committees, the main body merely assenting. In spite, therefore,
of the dignity of the Senator’s position, it ceased to attract the best
men. The higher classes turned away from a political career, and gave
themselves up more and more to luxurious idleness. The rise of the
freedman—practically the rule of favourites—was clearly foreshadowed,
though owing to the industry of Augustus, and his genius for detail, it
did not become prominent in his time. As the upper classes were thus to
a certain extent demoralised by the Principate, so the city proletariat
was pampered and made still more effete. The city was made only too
attractive to them, and they were to be kept in good humour by an endless
series of games and shows. There was a good deal of truth in the retort
of the player Pylades, when reproved by Augustus for his feud with
Bathyllus, that it was for the Emperor’s advantage that the people should
have their attention fixed on the playhouse rather than on politics.
But they soon began not only to regard these amusements as their right:
they expected also to be fed at the cost of the government, whether by
direct gifts of money, or by the distribution of cheap or even gratuitous
corn. Nor can it be said that the amusements provided for them were of
an elevating nature. Augustus boasts in the _Index_ (c. 20), that he
gave seven shows of gladiators in his own name or that of his sons, in
which about 10,000 men in all had fought;[317] and besides other games
twenty-six _venationes_ of “African beasts,” _i.e._, mostly elephants, in
which about 3,500 were killed. The mob of Rome needed little brutalising,
but they got it in abundance.
With such drawbacks, however, it still must be owned that the
administration of Augustus largely increased the sum of human happiness
by the mitigation of oppression in the provinces, and by the suppression
of disorder in Rome and Italy. The finances were placed on a sound
footing, property was rendered secure, and men felt everywhere that they
might pursue their business with every chance of enjoying the fruits of
their labours. This was something after a century of revolution more or
less acute, and twenty years of downright civil war. It is worth while to
attempt to picture to ourselves the man who was the author of these good
and bad results.
[Sidenote: The personal appearance and character of Augustus.]
Augustus was a short man (just under five feet seven inches), but so well
proportioned that the defect in height was not noticed unless he was
standing by much taller men. He was remarkably handsome at all periods of
his life, with an expression of calm dignity, whether silent or speaking,
which involuntarily inspired respect. His eyes were grey, and so bright
and keen that it was not easy to meet their gaze. If he had a personal
vanity it was in regard to them. He liked to think that they dazzled
those on whom he looked, and he was pleased at the answer of the Roman
eques, who, when asked why he turned away, replied, “Because I could not
bear the lightning of your eyes.” Vergil gratified this vanity of his
patron when in the description of the battle of Actium (_Æn._, viii. 650)
he pictures him,
_Stans celsa in puppi; geminas cui tempora flammas_
_Læta vomunt._
And the Emperor Iulian, in “The Banquet of the Emperors,” laughs not
unkindly at the same weakness when he introduces him, “changing colour
like a chameleon, and wishing that the beams darting from his eyes
should be like those of the mighty sun.” The busts, statues, and coins
of Augustus fully confirm this statement as to his beauty; and in the
triumphal statue found in Livia’s villa at Prima Porta, the artist has
succeeded in suggesting the brightness and keenness of his eyes. He was
usually clean shaven, but from his uncle’s death to B.C. 38, according
to Dio (48, 34), he grew his beard as a sign of mourning; though coins
showed him with a slight whisker till about B.C. 36. These portraits
are full of life and character. The clear-cut features, the firm mouth
and chin, the steady eyes, the carelessly ordered hair, the lines on
forehead and cheeks, suggest a man who had suffered and laboured, who was
yet self-controlled, calm, and clear-headed. It is a face not without
some tenderness, but capable of firing up into hot indignation and even
cruelty. There is an air of suffering but of determined victory over
pain; altogether a face of a man who had done a great work and risen
to a high place in the world and knew it; who had confidence, lastly,
in his star. On taking leave of Gaius Cæsar, it is said, he wished him
“the integrity of Pompey, the courage of Alexander, and his own good
fortune.” On some of his coins beneath the head crowned with the crown
of twelve rays, is the Iulian star, first observed at the funeral of
Iulius Cæsar, and which he adopted as the sign of his own high fortunes:
on others the Sphinx, which he at first adopted as his signet—emblem
perhaps of a purpose unbetrayed. Augustus was accomplished in the
subjects recognised in the education of his time, though he neither wrote
nor spoke Greek with ease. He had studied and practised rhetoric, and
had a good and correct taste in style, avoiding the use of far-fetched
or obsolete words and expressions, or affected conceits. He ridiculed
Antony for his “Asiatic” style of oratory, full of flowers of speech and
flamboyant sentences; and writing to his granddaughter, Agrippina, while
praising her abilities he warns her against pedantic expressions whether
in conversation or writing. Without being an orator, he spoke clearly
and to the point, assisted by a pleasant voice, which he took pains to
preserve and improve. In the Senate, the camp, and private conferences,
he preferred to read his speeches, though he could also speak well on
the spur of the moment. In domestic life, though somewhat strict, he
was generally simple and charming. He lived much with wife and children,
associating himself with their employments, and even joining in the games
of the latter. He personally superintended the education of his adopted
sons, taught them his own method of shorthand, and interested himself in
their reading. He had old-fashioned ideas about the proper employment of
the women in his family. They were expected to busy themselves in weaving
for the use of the household, to visit and receive visits only with his
approval, and not to converse on subjects that could not with propriety
be entered on the day’s journal. Though his daughter and granddaughters
were well educated, and had a taste for literature, it may well be
that a home thus conducted was so dull as partly to account for their
aberrations in the fuller liberty of married life.
His attachments were warm and constant, and he was not illiberal to
his friends or disinclined to give them his full confidence. But he
was always his own master. No friend or freedman gained control over
him or rose to the odious position of “favourite.” He allowed and even
liked freedom of speech, but it was always without loss of dignity. He
was not a man with whom liberties were taken even by the most intimate.
He was quick tempered, but knew it, and was ready to admit of caution
and advice, as in the well-known story of Mæcenas, watching him in
court about to condemn a number of prisoners (probably in the civil
war times), and throwing across to him a note with the words, _Surge
tandem carnifex!_ “Tis time to rise, hangman!” Or when he received with
complaisance the advice of Athenodorus (hero of the covered sedan) that
when he was angry he should say over the letters of the alphabet before
coming to a decision.
[Sidenote: His ultra-Roman views.]
In later times he was always looked back upon by his successors as the
true founder of the Empire, and the best model for their guidance;
yet it is doubtful how far he had wide and far-reaching views. He was
a statesman who dealt with facts as he found them and did the best
he could. He was deeply impressed with the difficulty of his task.
Commenting on the fact of Alexander the Great having accomplished his
conquests by the age of 32, and then feeling at a loss what to do for the
rest of his life, he remarked that he “was surprised that Alexander did
not regard the right ordering of the empire he possessed a heavier task
than winning it.” But in one important respect at least he was wrong in
his idea of what he had done. He never conceived of an empire filled with
citizens enjoying equal rights, or in which Rome could possibly occupy a
secondary place. He was ultra-Roman in his views; and worked and schemed
to maintain the supremacy of the Eternal City. That supremacy may indeed
be said to have remained to this day in the region of spiritual affairs.
But it was destined to disappear politically, except in name, before many
generations had passed away, and as a logical consequence of much that
he had himself done. A new Rome and a new Empire—though always resting
on the old title and theory—were to arise, in which Italy would be a
province like the rest, and old Rome but the shadow of a mighty name.
[Sidenote: The court circle.]
Among those who exercised a permanent influence on Augustus, the first
place must be given to LIVIA (B.C. 54-A.D. 29). The writers on Augustus
comment on the romantic revolution of her fortunes. After the affair of
Perusia she fled with her husband, Nero, and her little son, Tiberius,
from Augustus, who was to be her husband, and was to be succeeded by her
son. Her divorce and prompt marriage to Augustus, while within a few
months of being again a mother, is not only a thing revolting to our
ideas, it was strictly against Roman principles and habits, and required
all her new husband’s commanding influence to be admitted as legal. Yet
Suetonius says, and says truly, that he continued “to love and honour her
exclusively to the end” (_dilexit et probavit unice et perseveranter_).
The same writer gives an account of the Emperor’s intrigues with other
women. To our ideas the two statements are contradictory, but Suetonius
would not have thought so. Conjugal love was not _amor_; the latter was
thought even inconsistent with, or at least undesirable in, conjugal
affection. He means that throughout his life Augustus continued to
regard her with affection, to respect her character, and give weight to
her opinion. For my own part, I believe that something more might be
said, and that much of what has come down to us as to the conduct of the
Emperor may be dismissed as malignant gossip. But however that may be,
the influence of Livia over him seems never to have failed, and it was
exercised on the side of clemency and generosity. She set an excellent
example of pure and dignified conduct to Roman society, and, though
abstaining from interference generally in political matters, was ready to
give advice when called upon. She seems usually to have accompanied him,
when possible, on his foreign progresses or residences away from Rome.
When Herod visited Augustus at Aquileia in B.C. 14, she appears to have
shared her husband’s liking for that strange medley of magnificence and
cruelty, and sent him costly gifts for the festivity which accompanied
the completion of the new city of Cæsarea Sebaste in B.C. 13. The usual
allegation against her is that she worked for the succession of her
sons, Tiberius and Drusus, as against the Iulian family, represented
by the son of Octavia and the children of Iulia. To secure this object
she was accused in popular rumour of compassing the deaths successively
of Marcellus, of Gaius and Lucius Cæsar, of Agrippa Postumus, and,
finally, of having even hastened the end of Augustus himself. This last
is not mentioned by Suetonius, and is only related by Dio as a report,
for which he gives no evidence, and which he does not appear to have
believed. Tacitus records the criticism of her as a _gravis noverca_ to
the family of the Cæsars, and seems to accept her guilt in regard to
Gaius and Iulius (_Ann._ 4, 71). But he is also constrained to admit that
she exercised a humanising influence over Tiberius, that his victims
constantly found refuge and protection in her palace, and that she was
benevolent and charitable to the poor—maintaining a large number of
orphan boys and girls by her bounty. The most suspicious case against
her is the execution of Agrippa Postumus immediately after the death
of Augustus—“the first crime of the new reign.” It will never be known
whether the order for that cruel deed issued from her or her crafty
son. The death of Marcellus was in no way suspicious, as it occurred in
a season of exceptional unhealthiness, when large numbers were dying
at Rome of malarial fever. As to the deaths of Gaius and Lucius, no
suspicion seems to have occurred to Augustus, and he was keenly anxious
for their survival. The poisoned fig supposed to have been given to
himself is a familiar feature in the stories of great men’s death of
every age in Italy. Tacitus in the famous summing up of her character,
while acknowledging the purity of her domestic conduct, yet declares that
her social manners were more free than was considered becoming among
women of an earlier time; that as a mother she was extravagantly fond, as
a wife too complaisant; and that her character was a combination of her
husband’s adroitness and her son’s insincerity. He by no means intends to
draw a pleasing portrait. He seldom does. But what we may take for true
is that she was beautiful, loyal to her husband, open-handed and generous
to the distressed, merciful and kind to the unfortunate. To those who
think such qualities likely to belong to a poisoner and murderess, her
condemnation must be left. It is curious that neither Vergil, Horace, nor
Propertius mention or allude to Livia; nor does Ovid do so until after
the death of Augustus—for the _consolatio ad Liviam_ on the death of
Drusus is not his. On some of the inscriptions of a later period in the
reign her name appears among the imperial family as wife of the Princeps.
That was itself an innovation, and it seems as if the poets abstained
from mentioning her under orders. It was improper for a matron of high
rank to be made public property in this way. Horace, for instance, only
once alludes to the wife of Mæcenas, and then under a feigned name.
Of those who influenced the earlier policy of Augustus, and supported
him in the first twenty years of the Principate, the first place must be
given to Agrippa and Mæcenas.
M. VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA (B.C. 63-13), differed widely from Mæcenas, but
was like him in constant attachment and fidelity to Augustus. He was
with him in Apollonia, and on the news of the murder of Iulius advised
an appeal to the army. Even before this he had accompanied him to Spain
when he went to join his uncle in B.C. 45, and ever afterwards served him
with unswerving fidelity and conspicuous success. In the war with Sextus
Pompeius, at Perusia, in Gaul, Spain and Illyria, in the organisation of
the East, and on the Bosporus, it was his energy and ability that decided
the contest in favour of his master, or secured the settlement that he
desired. He was the organiser of the Roman navy, and though his great
work at the Lucrine lake proved to be only temporary, the squadrons that
guarded the seas at Misenum, Ravenna and Forum Iulii were the result
of his activity and foresight. His acts of splendid liberality in Rome
have been already noticed. He shewed the same magnificence in Gaul and
elsewhere, and seems also to have largely assisted in the great survey
of the empire instituted by Augustus. Not only did he support all the
plans and ideas of his master, he was ready to take any position and make
any personal sacrifice to further his views. After his first marriage
to Pomponia, by whom he was the father of Vipsania, he was married to
Marcella, the Emperor’s niece. To support his master’s plans for the
succession he submitted to divorce her and marry Iulia, after having
previously made way for the rise of Marcellus by accepting a command in
the East. The Emperor shewed his confidence in him on every occasion. In
B.C. 23 when he thought himself dying he placed his seal in his hands,
in B.C. 18 he caused him to be admitted to share his tribunician power
for five years, which was renewed again in B.C. 13; so that though his
two sons were adopted by Augustus, the succession would almost certainly
have fallen to him had the Emperor died in their minority. This elevation
however did not give him rest: the last years of his life were spent
in the East, on the Bosporus and in Pannonia, from which last he only
returned to die. This faithful service had been rendered in spite of
the fact that he had advised against the acceptance of the principate.
He had urged the financial difficulties, the irreconcilable nature of
the opposition, the impossibility of drawing back, and Octavian’s own
weak health. But when his master preferred the advice of Mæcenas, he
took his part in the undertaking without faltering and with splendid
loyalty. Though Augustus owed much of his success to his own cautious
statesmanship, he owed even more to the man who failed in nothing that he
undertook, and would claim no honour for himself in return. The Emperor
delivered the funeral oration over this loyal servant, and, deposited his
ashes in the Mausoleum which he had built for his own family.
[Illustration: MÆCENAS.
_Photographed from the Head in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, by
Edne. Alinari._
_To face page 279._
P. VERGILIUS MARO.
_Photographed from the Bust in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, by Edne.
Alinari._
_Page 284._]
C. CILNIUS MÆCENAS (_circ._ B.C. 65-B.C. 8), was probably a few years
older than Augustus, but near enough to his age to have been one of
his companions at Apollonia. His influence was maintained till about
B.C. 16. It is most conspicuous from the time immediately following the
Perusian war. He negotiated the marriage with Scribonia, the peace of
Brundisium with Antony (B.C. 40), and the subsequent reconciliation of
B.C. 38. In the war against Sextus Pompeius (B.C. 38-36), he was partly
with Augustus, but partly at Rome, with full powers to act for him and
even to alter his despatches and letters as seemed necessary, having
the triumvir’s private seal entrusted to him for that purpose. This
was possible from the fact of such letters being written by amanuenses
and being therefore only recognisable by the seal. Thus Cicero often
commissions Atticus to write formal letters to his friends for him.
This position—it was no definite office, or perhaps was more like being
_legatus_ to Octavian than anything else—he seems to have retained
till after the battle of Actium, at which he probably was not present,
though that has been disputed. He detected the conspiracy of the younger
Lepidus, and sent him to Octavian to be judged. In B.C. 29, on Octavian’s
return from the East, he recommended the establishment of a despotism,
as a republic was no longer possible. The speech preserved by Dio (52,
14-40) may very well be genuine, in view of the habit of the day, and
of Augustus himself, of reading addresses even in comparatively private
conferences on matters of importance.[318] Even if it is not the genuine
speech, it correctly represents many of the principles on which Augustus
did act, and as to which he doubtless consulted Mæcenas. It counsels him
to keep in his hands legislation, foreign affairs, elections, executive
appointments and the courts of law, and to hear cases of appeal himself:
exactly what Augustus did under various disguises. It argues that it
was necessary both for his own safety and that of the state that he
should remain in power, the glory being well worth the risk. Other
recommendations are a reform of Senate and equites, the maintenance of
the old republican magistrates for home service, the establishment of a
_præfectus urbi_, the exercise by himself of censorial functions, the
subordination of provincial governors to the Emperor, and their payment
by a fixed salary, with the appointment of procurators to superintend
the finances of the provinces. A system of education for the equites
is also suggested, which does not seem to have been carried out; but
many of the financial proposals were adopted, as well as the idea of
keeping the people amused by games and shows. The advice to abolish the
_comitia_ Augustus could not follow consistently with his policy of
compromise. They remained and were the causes of more than one trouble
and disturbance, but their freedom of election was gradually but surely
destroyed, and one of the first measures of Tiberius was to abolish them
as no longer a reality. The reform of the Senate was, as we have seen,
carried out. As for the judicia, the Senate became a high court for cases
of treason (_maiestas_), before which alone Senators could be tried;
the _decuriæ iudicum_ were reformed, and Augustus himself performed
the functions of a court of appeal in various ways, sometimes by his
tribunician power of “interceding” against the sentences of magistrates
or Senate, and sometimes by hearing cases from the provinces of citizens
who disputed the competence of provincial courts and claimed to be
heard at Rome. Mæcenas holding no office never became a Senator; but he
represented the Emperor in his absence, unless Agrippa was appointed to
do so instead. In this capacity he really exercised a greater power than
any definite office would have given him, and the whole business of the
Empire passed through his hands.[319]
But it was not only as the ostensible representative of the Emperor that
he worked for his support. In the comparative retirement of his palace on
the Esquiline he contributed to that object by gathering round him the
best intellects and first men of letters of the day, whom he induced to
devote their talents not only to glorify the Emperor personally, but to
popularise his policy and magnify his service to the state. How far this
may have been effectual by making it the fashion to accept and admire the
principate may perhaps be questioned, but that he should have secured
such writers as Vergil, Horace, and Propertius on his side says much for
his insight and literary taste. One of the weaknesses of the position
of Iulius had been that he had the literary class mostly against him.
The present reputation and future fame of Augustus were to be better
safeguarded. Personally Mæcenas was luxurious and effeminate, always a
valetudinarian, and in his later years afflicted with almost constant
insomnia. This accounts well enough for the retirement from public
business during the last eight years of his life without those other
causes of the Emperor’s displeasure which have been already discussed.
His wife was a beauty, much younger than himself, wilful and wayward;
and if it is true that she intrigued with Augustus, it seems also true
that her husband repaid her in kind. There were frequent quarrels and
reconciliations, so that Seneca says that he married her “a thousand
times;” and once at any rate the family trouble found its way into the
law courts, where, however, the _bona fides_ of the divorce which she
was alleged to have made was questioned.[320] In spite of some coldness
between them in later years, and the physical infirmities which removed
him from public business, Augustus sincerely mourned his loss, as of a
counsellor who never betrayed his confidence or spoke idle words. He had
no real successor. From the time of his death the Emperor seems more and
more to have become his own prime minister, or to have looked to his own
family for assistance as well as for a successor. Tacitus (_Ann._ 3, 30)
says that his place was taken by Sallustius Crispus, great-nephew of
the historian; but Augustus does not seem to have thought highly of his
ability, and the part he took in affairs was not prominent enough to have
secured mention by either Suetonius or Dio. Mæcenas wrote himself both
in prose and verse, but in an affected and obscure style, which Augustus
playfully ridiculed. The stoic Seneca is particularly severe on a poem
in which he declares that he clings to life in spite of all physical
sufferings however painful:—
“Though racked with gout in hand and foot,
Though cancer deep should strike its root,
Though palsy shake my feeble thighs,
Though hideous hump on shoulders rise,
From flaccid gum teeth drop away;
Yet all is well if life but stay.
Give me but life, and e’en the pain
Of sharpest cross shall count as gain.”
[Sidenote: Augustus and the poets.]
The chief writers of the Mæcenas circle, who either became intimate
with Augustus himself, or were induced by Mæcenas to join in the chorus
of praise, were Vergil, Varius, Horace, Propertius. Of the epics of L.
Varius Rufus (_circ._ B.C. 64-14) on Iulius Cæsar and Augustus, we have
only a few fragments. The historian, Livy, (B.C. 59-A.D. 16) was also on
friendly terms with Augustus, and seems to have had some hand in teaching
Claudius, son of Drusus, the future emperor. But his great work—from
the foundation of Rome to the death of Drusus (B.C. 9) was afterwards
regarded as being too republican, and even Augustus used laughingly to
call him the Pompeian. It was the poets who made Augustus and his policy
the subject of their praises, and who employed their genius to support
his views.
[Sidenote: Vergil.]
The first to do this was P. Vergilius Maro (B.C. 70-17). The earliest
of his writings, the _Eclogues_, composed between B.C. 42-37, do not
show any close connection with Augustus. The first indeed celebrates the
restoration of his farm after a personal interview with Octavian, on the
suggestion of Pollio and Mæcenas, and the poet declares that never will
there fade from his heart the gracious look of the young prince. But the
chief object of praise in the _Eclogues_, so far as there is one, is
Pollio, who had been left in charge of the distribution of lands by the
Triumvirs in B.C. 42. In the _Georgics_, however, finished after B.C. 30,
we find that he has fallen in with the new _régime_. They are dedicated
to the minister Mæcenas, they celebrate Augustus’s triple triumph of
B.C. 29, and they were composed partly, at any rate, at the wish of
Mæcenas, who with Augustus was anxious to make country life and pursuits
seem desirable. No doubt the theme itself was congenial to Vergil, who
preferred a country life at Nola, or near Tarentum, to the bustle of
Rome; but it also happened to chime in with the views of Augustus, who
all his life believed in the influence of literature and wished to have
the poets on his side. Accordingly, soon after his return from the East
in B.C. 29 he seems to have suggested to Vergil to compose a poem that
would inspire men with a feeling of national pride and an enthusiasm
for the greatness of Rome’s mission. The plan and form were no doubt
wholly Vergil’s, but the spirit and purpose, like those of Horace’s more
patriotic odes of about the same time, were those which the Emperor
desired. He was not satisfied with mere suggestion, he was eager for
the appearance of the poem. While in Gaul and Spain from B.C. 27-24 he
frequently wrote to the poet urging the completion of the work. A part of
one of Vergil’s answers has been preserved:
“As to my Æneas, upon my honour if I had anything written worth your
listening to, I would gladly send it. But the subject thus begun is so
vast, that I almost think I must have been beside myself when I undertook
a work of this magnitude; especially considering that—as you are aware—I
am also devoting part of my time to different and much more important
studies.”
The _Æneid_ was thus undertaken at the solicitation of Augustus. The
legend on which it turns—perhaps a late one—of the landing of Æneas
in Italy and the foundation of Rome by his descendant, is with great
skill interwoven with a fanciful descent of the _gens Iulia_ from his
son Iulus, to magnify Rome and her divine mission, and at the same
time to point to Augustus as the man of destiny, and as representing
in his own person and career the majesty of the Roman people. In such
a poem detailed allusions cannot be expected as in the occasional odes
of Horace. Yet, besides the fine passage in the eighth book describing
the victory of Actium and the discomfiture of Cleopatra, and that in
the sixth announcing the victorious career of Augustus, we have, more
or less, direct references to the restoration of religious worship in
the _vici_, to the return of the standards by the Parthians, and the
death of the young Marcellus. In form, the _Æneid_ follows the model of
Homer, the supreme epic. But in substance it is original, in that it
does not take for its theme one of the old myths—as the Alexandrine poets
always did—but while teeming with all kinds of mythological allusions it
finds its chief inspiration in the greatness of Rome, measured by the
elemental strife preceding the accomplishment of the divine purpose:
_tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem_—“So vast the task to found the
Roman race,” is the keynote of the whole. It is original as the epic of
Milton was original who, with details borrowed from every quarter, took
for his theme the foundation of a world and the strife in heaven that
preceded it. Vergil’s epic is Roman history on the highest plane, and has
crystallised for ever a view of that history which has done more than
arms and laws to commend it to the imagination of mankind. Augustus had a
true intuition when he forbade the poet’s executors to obey his will and
burn the rolls containing this great national epic.
[Sidenote: Horace.]
Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS (B.C. 65-B.C. 8) is not perhaps so great a poet as
Vergil, but he possessed the charm which keeps such work as his alive.
His connection with Augustus is a remarkable phenomenon in literary
history. Having fought on the side of his enemies at Philippi, and having
shared in the amnesty granted to the bulk of the troops, he returned home
to find his paternal property confiscated. Poverty drove him to poetry,
poetry gained him the friendship of Varius and Vergil, who introduced
him to Mæcenas, who saw his merit, relieved him from the uncongenial
employment of a clerk, and eventually introduced him to Augustus. The
Emperor, in his turn, was not long in recognising his charm. He writes to
Mæcenas:
“In old times I was vigorous enough to write my friends’ letters for
them. Nowadays being overwhelmed with business and weak in health, I am
very anxious to entice Horace away from you. He shall therefore quit your
table of parasites and come to my table of kings and assist me in writing
letters.”
The refusal of Horace—prudent no doubt in view of his tastes and
habits—did not lose him the Emperor’s favour. He twice received
substantial marks of it, and some extracts or letters to him from
Augustus have been preserved which exhibit the latter in his most
gracious mood:
“Consider yourself a privileged person in my house, as though an habitual
guest at my table. You will be quite within your rights and will always
be sure of a welcome; for it is my wish that our intimacy should be on
that footing if your state or health permits it.”
And again:
“What a warm recollection I retain of you, you will be able to learn from
Septimius among others, as I happened to be talking about you in his
presence the other day. For you need not suppose, because you were so
high and mighty as to reject my friendship, that I am on the high horse
too to pay you back.”
Augustus, in fact, had a great opinion of Horace, and predicted his
immortality. He selected him to write the ode for the secular games,
pressed him later in life to immortalise the achievements of Tiberius and
Drusus, and was desirous of his own name appearing as the recipient of
one of his Satires or Epistles.
“I am quite angry, let me tell you, that you don’t give me the preference
as a person to address in your writings of that kind. Are you afraid
that an appearance of intimacy with me will damage your reputation with
posterity?”
Horace made the Emperor a return in full for such condescension. How far
the genius of a poet is warmed or chilled by patronage it is not easy to
decide. So far as he is tempted away from his natural bent, or confined
in the free expression of thought, he suffers: so far as he is saved
from sordid cares, he is a gainer. Horace, in early youth, sympathised
with the republican party in whose ranks he had served, and probably in
later life still felt a theoretical preference for it, and could speak
of the _nobile letum_ and _atrox animus_ of Cato with a true note of
admiration, But he was a man of his time. The policy of Octavian had made
the supremacy of Augustus inevitable, and it at least secured peace and
safety. The patronage and liberality of Mæcenas assuredly helped to turn
the scale, but I see no reason to doubt that the poet was convinced,
though, perhaps, without enthusiasm, that the new _régime_ was one to
be supported by reasonable men. The kindness of the Emperor naturally
enhanced the effect of his commanding personality, but it would be
difficult for a poet so placed to write with greater dignity and less
fulsomeness than Horace does in the first epistle of the second book,
addressed to Augustus at his own request. But it is in the _Odes_ that we
must trace the unbroken sympathy with the career and policy of Augustus.
If they are closely examined, with an eye to chronological arrangement,
the ingenuity with which these imitations of Greek models are framed to
support and recommend the purposes or celebrate the successes of the
Emperor, will stand revealed in a striking manner. The _Epodes_ and the
first three books of the _Odes_ were apparently written between B.C. 35
and B.C. 25. Dropped in among a number of poems of fancy, or passion, or
mere literary _tours de force_, are compositions that follow not only the
actual achievements of Augustus, but his ideals, his intentions, and his
aspirations, from the years just before Actium to his return from Spain
in B.C. 25. We begin with the Second Epode, which refers with regret to
the abandoned intention of invading Britain in B.C. 35, and expresses
his alarm at the prospect of a renewed civil war. In the Sixteenth Epode
this terror has become a reality; the civil war has begun, and the poet,
foreseeing the downfall of the state, turns longing eyes to the peace and
calm of the fabled islands of the West. From Italy and all its horrors
they must at any rate depart. In the Ninth Epode the relief has come; the
shameful servitude of a Roman imperator and Roman soldiers to a foreign
queen is over; Antony and Cleopatra are in full flight (B.C. 31). In
another year it is known that Antony has fallen by his own hand, and that
Cleopatra has saved herself the indignity of the triumphal procession by
the adder’s aid (_Od._ i. 39). The discharge of the legions follows, and
their settlement in Italian and Sicilian lands (2 _Sat._, 6, 54). In the
other odes of the first book the devotion to Augustus proceeds apace.
The Iulian star is in the ascendant (1, 2, 20); Augustus is _pater_
and _princeps_, anticipating the future titles (1, 2, 20); he is again
contemplating the invasion of Britain (1, 35, 29); the Arabian expedition
is being planned with all its futile hopes of wealth (1, 29; 1, 35). In
the second book of the _Odes_, beginning with reflections on the evils
of civil war (2, 1), the poet notices one after the other the triumphs
of Augustus or his generals in B.C. 27-24. The Cantabrian war (2, 6, 2;
2, 11, 1); the triumphal arch at Susa (2, 9, 19); the success of his
diplomacy in Scythia, Armenia, and Parthia (_ib._) In the third book the
embassy of British chiefs is treated as though the island were annexed
(3, 5, 2); the Cantabrians are regarded as conquered after the expedition
of Augustus (3, 8, 22; 3, 14). Then succeeds a period of statesmanship
and reform. The Emperor’s Roman policy, and his determination to keep
Rome the centre of government, are warmly supported (3, 3); the moral
evils, the extravagance and debauchery of the age must be cured, and
Horace proceeds to support the abortive legislation of B.C. 27, and to
foreshadow the censorial acts, and the legislation of B.C. 18. There
is a protest against the magnificence and extent of country houses (2,
15); against the effeminacy of youth (iii. 2); against the immorality
of women and the licentiousness that led to civil strife (3, 24). The
_Carmen sæculare_ speaks of the legislation as effected, and foretells
its success (20); while in the fourth book he asserts that, at any rate
while Augustus is with them, that success has been secured (4, 5), and
that he has not only given them peace, but a great moral reform (4, 15).
The policy of the Emperor in regard to the bugbear of the East, the
Parthian power, is also followed step by step. They are the dangerous
enemy whose subjection will make Augustus divine (3, 5, 1-4), and whose
threatened invasions keep his ministers in constant anxiety (3, 29, 27).
This is before B.C. 20; but in B.C. 19 they have made submission and
restored the standards and prisoners (_Epist._ i. 18, 56), and this is
one of the triumphs of Augustus that requires a master hand to record
(_Epist._ ii. 1, 255); it is the glory of the Augustan age (_Od._ 4,
15, 6), and as long as Augustus is safe, no one will fear them more (4,
5, 25). Finally, at the Emperor’s request, he celebrated the victories
of Drusus and Tiberius over the Vindelici and Rhæti (4, 4 and 14), and
especially the defeat of the Sugambri who had routed Lollius (4, 2, 34;
4, 14, 51), with a compliment to Augustus himself for having gone to
Gaul to support Tiberius and Drusus with reinforcements and advice (4,
14, 33), and for having at length closed the door of Ianus (4, 15, 9).
The lyrical career of Horace, therefore, corresponds remarkably with the
activities of Augustus. His genius presented those activities to his
fellow citizens (and Horace’s verses were soon read in schools) exactly
in the light in which the Emperor wished them to be viewed. If we lay
aside some expressions of overstrained compliment, which favoured the
growing fashion of paying the Emperor divine honours, it cannot be said
that the language is fulsome or degrading to the poet. The “parasitic
table” of Mæcenas may, as M. Beulé asserts, have been a misfortune to
the poets, and attenuated their vein of inspiration: but a man must have
something in practical life on which to pin his faith; and Horace might
have done worse than devote his genius to promote loyalty to the great
statesman who had saved Roman society and given peace and prosperity to
an empire. Just as Vergil, if he had followed his own impulse, might have
perhaps produced a fine poem on the Epicurean cosmogony, but not one that
lives and breathes with the noble glow of patriotism.
[Sidenote: Propertius.]
Sextus Propertius (_circ._ B.C. 45-_circ._ B.C. 15) was another of the
Mæcenas circle of poets who did something to glorify Augustus. He is
not (but that is a personal opinion) on anything like the same level as
either Vergil or Horace as an artist. He is said to have died young,
perhaps at thirty years of age, and there is no evidence of personal
intimacy with Augustus, but there is some indication of his having been
on bad terms with Horace. His elegies also are nearly all poems of
passion. Politics and emperors are mere episodes, and were introduced
in deference to Mæcenas. Still many points in the career of Augustus
are referred to in the same spirit as that of Horace. The siege of
Perusia—described in tones of horror, which would scarcely have been
acceptable—precedes his conversion (1, 21), and the failure of the
marriage law of B.C. 27 is only referred to with relief (2, 7, 1). In
more complimentary terms he speaks of the victory of Actium (3, 7, 44),
and of the downfall of Antony and Cleopatra (4, 8, 56; 4, 10, 32, _sqq._;
4, 7, 56); and the end of the civil wars is attributed to Augustus (_illa
qua vicit condidit arma manu_, 3, 8, 41). Then came the intended invasion
of Britain (3, 23, 5); the Arabian expedition and the Indian envoys (3,
1, 15; 4, 3 1); the opening and description of the Palatine Library—the
best extant (3, 29); the raids of the Sugambri and their suppression (5,
6, 77); while he has the Parthians frequently on his lips, though rather
as predicting what is to be done with them than as recording the return
of the standards.[321] In the fifth book there are signs of a beginning
of a _Fasti_ like that of Ovid as a record of events in Roman history;
and it is possible that this was in obedience to a wish of Augustus,
who, on his death, transferred the task to Ovid. Thus his voice also was
secured, in part at least, in support of the imperial _régime_.
[Sidenote: Ovid.]
Publius Ovidius Naso (B.C. 43-A.D. 18) belongs to the last part of the
reign. He had only seen Vergil, and though he had heard Horace recite,
he does not profess to have known him. He was quite young when Augustus
was winning his position and reforming the constitution, and there
are no signs of his coming forward as a court poet till Mæcenas and
his circle had disappeared, and if he had attracted the attention of
Augustus at all, it was probably not altogether in a favourable manner.
His earliest poems—the _Amores_ and _Heroidum Epistulæ_—do not touch
on public affairs; they are poems of passion—the former personal, the
latter dramatic. In the _Ars Amatoria_ (about B.C. 2-A.D. 2) for the
first time we detect the court poet from a complimentary allusion to the
approaching mission of Gaius Cæsar to Syria and Armenia, with his title
of _princeps iuventutis_ and that of Augustus as _pater patriæ_, as also
to the _naumachia_ or representation of the battle of Salamis given by
Augustus in the flooded _nemus Cæsarum_ in B.C. 2 (_A. A._, 1, 171-2).
The _Metamorphoses_ had been composed before his exile in A.D. 9, but
after the death of Augustus he apparently introduced the Epilogue (xv.
745 _sq._) containing an eulogy on Tiberius, and on the now finished
career of Augustus. It is the _Fasti_—the Calendar of events in Roman
history—that probably was undertaken in obedience to a wish of the
Emperor, and in which accordingly we find points in his career touched
upon. It was dedicated to Germanicus, and contains an allusion to his
own exile, and was therefore, partly at least, composed between B.C.
2 and A.D. 10. His allusions to Augustus are not those of an intimate
acquaintance, but of an admiring subject—real or feigned. He mentions the
battle of Mutina (iv. 627); the bestowal of the title Augustus (i. 589);
the recovery of the standards from the Parthians as a triumph of the
Emperor (vi. 467). He alludes to Augustus becoming Pontifex Maximus (iii.
415); to the laurels on his palace front (iv. 957); to the demolition of
the house of Vedius Pollio as connected with the reforms and the laws
of B.C. 18 (vi. 637); to the division of the city into _vici_, and the
worship of the Lares Augusti (v. 145); to the Forum Augusti and the
temple of Mars dedicated in B.C. 2. (v. 551, _sqq._). Ovid afterwards
protested that his books had been read with pleasure by Augustus, and
assumed to have some knowledge of the private chambers of the palace
(Trist., 1, 5, 2; 2, 520), but there is nothing in the allusions to
matters which he knew that Augustus wished to have recorded that has the
air of close or intimate relations. They are the conventional expressions
of the outside, and perhaps humble, panegyrist, not those of a friend
and supporter, like Horace. The abject expressions in the Tristia and
the letters from Pontus need not be taken into account. They are merely
bids for a recall, and they often express in the crudest form the growing
fashion of worshipping the Emperor or his genius. Perhaps the most
subtle of these appeals is that in which he explains why he had spent
his youth in writing frivolous poetry instead of celebrating the glories
of the Emperor—he was not a good enough poet, and would have dishonoured
a subject above his reach (Tr., ii. 335-340). This was using a weapon
forged by the Emperor himself, who had always let it be known that he
disliked being the subject of inferior artists. The melancholy and
feebleness of these later poems of Ovid seem to bear a sort of analogy
with the cloud that descended on the later years of Augustus. Vergil and
Horace have the freshness of the morning or the vigour of noon, Ovid the
gathering sadness of the evening.
AUGUSTUS’S ACCOUNT OF HIS REIGN (FROM THE INSCRIPTION IN THE TEMPLE OF
ROME AND AUGUSTUS AT ANGORA)
1. When I was nineteen I collected an army on my own account and at my
own expense, by the help of which I restored the republic to liberty,
which had been enslaved by the tyranny of a faction; for which services
the Senate, in complimentary decrees, added my name to the roll of
their House in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius [B.C.
43], giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; and gave
me imperium. It ordered me as proprætor “to see along with the consuls
that the republic suffered no damage.” Moreover, in the same year, both
consuls having fallen, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for
revising the constitution.
2. Those who killed my father I drove into exile, after a legal trial,
in punishment of their crime, and afterwards when these same men rose in
arms against the republic I conquered them twice in a pitched battle.
3. I had to undertake wars by land and sea, civil and foreign, all over
the world, and when victorious I spared surviving citizens. Those foreign
nations, who could safely be pardoned, I preferred to preserve rather
than exterminate. About 500,000 Roman citizens took the military oath to
me. Of these I settled out in colonies or sent back to their own towns,
after their terms of service were over, considerably more than 300,000;
and to them all I assigned lands purchased by myself or money in lieu
of lands. I captured 600 ships, not counting those below the rating of
triremes.
4. I twice celebrated an ovation, three times curule triumphs, and was
twenty-one times greeted as imperator. Though the Senate afterwards voted
me several triumphs I declined them. I frequently also deposited laurels
in the Capitol after performing the vows which I had taken in each war.
For successful operations performed by myself or by my legates under
my auspices by land and sea, the Senate fifty-three times decreed a
supplication to the immortal gods. The number of days during which, in
accordance with a decree of the Senate, supplication was offered amounted
to 890. In my triumphs there were led before my chariot nine kings or
sons of kings. I had been consul thirteen times at the writing of this,
and am in the course of the thirty-seventh year of my tribunician power
[A.D. 13-14].
5. The Dictatorship offered me in my presence and absence by the
Senate and people in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius
Arruntius [B.C. 22] I declined to accept. I did not refuse at a time
of very great scarcity of corn the commissionership of corn supply,
which I administered in such a way that within a few days I freed the
whole people from fear and danger. The consulship—either yearly or for
life—then offered to me I declined to accept.
6. In the consulship of M. Vinicius and Q. Lucretius [B.C. 19], of P. and
Cn. Lentulus [B.C. 18], and of Paullus Fabius Maximus and Q. Tubero [B.C.
11], when the Senate and people of Rome unanimously agreed that I should
be elected overseer of the laws and morals, with unlimited powers and
without a colleague, I refused every office offered me which was contrary
to the customs of our ancestors. But what the Senate at that time wished
me to manage, I carried out in virtue of my tribunician power, and in
this office I five times received at my own request a colleague from the
Senate.
7. I was one of the triumvirate for the re-establishment of the
constitution for ten consecutive years. I have been _princeps senatus_ up
to the day on which I write this for forty years. I am Pontifex Maximus,
Augur, one of the fifteen commissioners for religion, one of the seven
for sacred feasts, an Arval brother, a _sodalis Titius_, a fetial.
8. In my fifth consulship [B.C. 29] I increased the number of the
patricians by order of people and Senate. I three times made up the roll
of the Senate, and in my sixth consulship [B.C. 28] I took a census of
the people with M. Agrippa as my colleague. I performed the _lustrum_
after an interval of forty-one years; in which the number of Roman
citizens entered on the census roll was 4,063,000. A second time with
consular imperium I took the census by myself in the consulship of Gaius
Censorinus and Gaius Asinius [B.C. 8], in which the number of Roman
citizens entered on the roll was 4,223,000. I took a third census with
consular imperium, my son Tiberius Cæsar acting as my colleague, in the
consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius [A.D. 14], in which
the number of Roman citizens entered on the census roll was 4,937,000. By
new laws passed I recalled numerous customs of our ancestors that were
falling into desuetude in our time, and myself set precedents in many
particulars for the imitation of posterity.
9. The Senate decreed that vows should be offered for my health by
consuls and priests every fifth year. In fulfilment of these vows the
four chief colleges of priests or the consuls often gave games in my
lifetime. Also individually and by townships the people at large always
offered sacrifices at all the temples for my health.
10. By a decree of the Senate my name was included in the ritual of the
Salii; and it was ordained by a law that my person should be sacred and
that I should have the tribunician power for the term of my natural life.
I refused to become Pontifex Maximus in succession to my colleague during
his life, though the people offered me that sacred office formerly held
by my father. Some years later I accepted that sacred office on the death
of the man who had availed himself of the civil disturbance to secure
it; such a multitude flocking to my election from all parts of Italy as
is never recorded to have come to Rome before, in the consulship of P.
Sulpicius and C. Valgius [6 March, B.C. 12].
11. The Senate consecrated an altar to Fortuna Redux, near the temple
of Honour and Virtue, by the Porta Capena, for my return, on which it
ordered the Vestal Virgins to offer a yearly sacrifice on the day on
which in the consulship of Q. Lucretius and M. Vinicius [B.C. 19] I
returned to the city from Syria, and gave that day the name _Augustalia_
from my cognomen [15 Dec.].
12. By a decree of the Senate at the same time part of the prætors and
tribunes of the plebs, along with the consul Q. Lucretius and leading
nobles, were despatched into Campania to meet me—an honour that up to
this time has been decreed to no one else. When I returned to Rome from
Spain and Gaul after successful operations in those provinces, in the
consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius [B.C. 13], the Senate
voted that an altar to Pax Augusta should be consecrated for my return on
the Campus Martius, upon which it ordered the magistrates and priests and
Vestal Virgins to offer an annual sacrifice [30 Jan.].
13. Whereas the Ianus Quirinus, which our ancestors ordered to be closed
when peace throughout the whole dominions of the Roman people by land and
sea had been obtained by victories, is recorded to have been only twice
shut before my birth since the foundation of the city, the Senate three
times voted its closure during my principate.
14. My sons Gaius and Lucius Cæsar, whom fortune snatched from me in
their early manhood, in compliment to me, the Senate and Roman people
designated consuls in their fifteenth year with a proviso that they
should enter on that office after an interval of five years. From the day
of their assuming the _toga virilis_ the Senate decreed that they should
take part in public business. Moreover, the Roman equites in a body gave
each of them the title of _Princeps Iuventutis_, and presented them with
silver shields and spears.
15. To the Roman plebs I paid 300 sesterces per head in virtue of
my father’s will; and in my own name I gave 400 apiece in my fifth
consulship [B.C. 29] from the sale of spoils of war; and a second time
in my tenth consulship [B.C. 24] out of my own private property I paid
a bounty of 400 sesterces per man, and in my eleventh consulship [B.C.
23] I measured out twelve distributions of corn, having purchased the
grain from my own resources. In the twelfth year of my tribunician power
[B.C. 11], I for the third time gave a bounty of 400 sesterces a head.
These largesses of mine affected never less than 50,200 persons. In
the eighteenth year of my tribunician power and my twelfth consulship
[B.C. 5] I gave 320,000 of the urban plebs sixty denarii a head. In the
colonies of my soldiers, in my fifth consulship [B.C. 29] I gave from the
sale of spoils of war 1,000 sesterces a head; and among such settlers
the number who received that triumphal largess amounted to about 120,000
men. In my thirteenth consulship [B.C. 2] I gave 60 denarii apiece to the
plebeians then in receipt of public corn; they amounted to somewhat more
than 200,000 persons.
16. The money for the lands, which in my fourth consulship [B.C. 30], and
afterwards in the consulship of M. Crassus and Cn. Lentulus the augur
[B.C. 14], I assigned to the soldiers, I paid to the municipal towns. The
amount was about 600,000,000 sesterces, which I paid for lands in Italy,
and about 260,000,000 which I disbursed for lands in the provinces.
I was the first and only one within the memory of my own generation to
do this of all who settled colonies in Italy and the provinces. And
afterwards in the consulship of Tib. Nero and Cn. Piso [B.C. 7], and
again in the consulship of C. Antistius and D. Lælius [B.C. 6], and of C.
Calvisius and L. Pasienus [B.C. 4], and of L. Lentulus and M. Messalla
[B.C. 3], and of L. Caninius and Q. Fabricius [B.C. 2], to the soldiers,
whom after their terms of service I sent back to their own towns, I paid
good service allowances in ready money; on which I expended 400,000,000
sesterces as an act of grace.
17. I four times subsidised the _ærarium_ from my own money, the sums
which I thus paid over to the commissioners of the treasury amounting
to 150,000,000 sesterces. And in the consulship of M. Lepidus and L.
Arruntius [A.D. 6], to the military treasury, which was established on
my initiative for the payment of their good service allowance, to the
soldiers who had served twenty years or more, I contributed from my own
patrimony 170,000,000 sesterces.[322]
18. From and after the year of the consulship of Gnæus and Publius
Lentulus [B.C. 18], whenever the payment of the revenues were in arrear,
I paid into the treasury from my own patrimony the taxes, whether due in
corn or money, sometimes of 100,000 persons, sometimes of more.
19. I built the curia and Chalcidicum adjoining it, and the temples of
Apollo on the Palatine with its colonnades, the temple of the divine
Iulius, the Lupercal, the colonnade at the Flaminian circus, which I
allowed to be called Octavia, from the name of the builder of the earlier
one on the same site, the state box at the Circus Maximus, the temples
of Jupiter Feretrius and of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitol, the temple of
Quirinus, the temples of Minerva and of Juno the Queen, and of Jupiter
Liberalis on the Aventine, the temple of the Lares at the head of the
_via Sacra_, the temple of the divine Penates in the Velia, the temple of
Youth, the temple of the Mater Magna on the Palatine.
20. The Capitolium and the Pompeian theatre—both very costly works—I
restored without any inscription of my own name. Water-conduits in many
places that were decaying from age I repaired; and I doubled the aqueduct
called the Aqua Marcia, by turning a new spring into its channel.
The Forum Iulium and the basilica, which was between the temple of Castor
and the temple of Saturn, works begun and far advanced by my father, I
completed; and when the same basilica was destroyed by fire, I began its
reconstruction on an extended plan, to be inscribed with the names of my
sons, and in case I do not live to complete it I have ordered it to be
completed by my heirs.
In my sixth consulship [B.C. 28], I repaired eighty-two temples of
the gods in the city in accordance with a decree of the Senate, none
being omitted which at that time stood in need of repair. In my seventh
consulship [B.C. 27] I constructed the Flaminian road from the city to
Ariminum, and all the bridges except the Mulvian and Minucian.
21. On ground belonging to myself I built a temple to Mars Ultor and
the Forum Augustum, with money arising from sale of war spoils. I built
a theatre adjoining the temple of Apollo, on ground for the most part
purchased from private owners, to be under the name of my son-in-law
Marcus Marcellus. Offerings from money raised by sale of war-spoil I
consecrated in the temple of Apollo, and in the temple of Vesta, and in
the temple of Mars Ultor, which cost me about 100,000,000 sesterces.
Thirty-five thousand pounds of gold,[323] crown money contributed by
the municipia and colonies of Italy for my triumphs, I refunded in my
fifth consulship [B.C. 29], and subsequently, as often as I was greeted
Imperator, I refused to receive crown money, though the municipia and
colonies had decreed it with as much warmth as before.
22. I three times gave a show of gladiators in my own name, and five
times in the name of my sons and grandsons; in which shows about 10,000
men contended. I twice gave the people a show of athletes collected from
all parts of the world in my own name, and a third time in the name of my
grandson. I gave games in my own name four times, as representing other
magistrates twenty-three times. In behalf of the quindecimviri, and as
master of the college, with M. Agrippa as colleague, I gave the Secular
games in the consulship of C. Furnius and C. Silanus [B.C. 17]. In my
thirteenth consulship [B.C. 2], I gave for the first time the games of
Mars which, since that time, the consuls have given in successive years.
I gave the people wild-beast hunts, of African animals, in my own name
and that of my sons and grandsons, in the circus and forum, and the
amphitheatres twenty-six times, in which about 3,500 animals were killed.
23. I gave the people the spectacle of a naval battle on the other side
of the Tiber, in the spot where now is the grove of the Cæsars, the
ground having been hollowed out to a length of 1,800 feet, and a breadth
of 1,200 feet, in which thirty beaked ships, triremes or biremes, and
a still larger number of smaller vessels contended. In these fleets,
besides the rowers, there fought about three thousand men.
24. In the temples of all the states of the province of Asia, I replaced
the ornaments after my victory, which he with whom I had fought had taken
into his private possession from the spoliation of the temples. There
were about eighty silver statues of me, some on foot, some equestrian,
some in chariots, in various parts of the city. These I removed, and from
the money thus obtained I placed golden offerings in the temple of Apollo
in my own name and in that of those who had honoured me by the statues.
25. I cleared the sea of pirates. In that war I captured about 30,000
slaves, who had run away from their masters, and had borne arms against
the republic, and handed them back to their owners to be punished. The
whole of Italy took the oath to me spontaneously, and demanded that I
should be the leader in the war in which I won the victory off Actium.
The provinces of the Gauls, the Spains, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, took
the same oath. Among those who fought under my standards were more than
seven hundred Senators, eighty-three of whom had been, or have since
been, consuls up to the time of my writing this, 170 members of the
sacred colleges.
26. I extended the frontiers of all the provinces of the Roman people,
which were bordered by tribes that had not submitted to our Empire. The
provinces of the Gauls, and Spains and Germany, bounded by the Ocean from
Gades to the mouth of the river Elbe, I reduced to a peaceful state. The
Alps, from the district near the Adriatic to the Tuscan sea, I forced to
remain peaceful without waging unprovoked war with any tribe. My fleet
sailed through the Ocean from the mouth of the Rhine towards the rising
sun, up to the territories of the Cimbri, to which point no Roman had
penetrated, up to that time, either by land or sea. The Cimbri, and
Charydes, and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans, belonging to
the same tract of country, sent ambassadors to ask for the friendship
of myself and the Roman people. By my command and under my auspices,
two armies were marched into Æthiopia and Arabia, called Felix, nearly
simultaneously, and large hostile forces of both these nations were cut
to pieces in battle, and a large number of towns were captured. Æthiopia
was penetrated as far as the town Nabata, next to Meroe. Into Arabia the
army advanced into the territories of the Sabæi as far as the town Mariba.
27. I added Egypt to the Empire of the Roman people. When I might have
made the Greater Armenia a province after the assassination of its king
Artaxes, I preferred, on the precedent of our ancestors, to hand over
that kingdom to Tigranes, son of King Artavasdes, grandson of King
Tigranes, by the hands of Tiberius Nero, who was then my stepson. The
same nation being afterwards in a state of revolt and rebellion, I handed
over to the government of King Ariobarzanes, son of Artabazus, king of
the Medes, after it had been reduced by my son Gaius; and after his death
to his son Artavasdes, upon whose assassination I sent Tigranes, a member
of the royal family of the Armenians, into that kingdom. I recovered all
the provinces on the other side of the Adriatic towards the East and
Cyrenæ, which were by this time for the most part held by various kings,
and before them Sicily and Sardinia which had been overrun by an army of
slaves.
28. I settled colonies of soldiers in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, both
the Spains, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Gallia Narbonensis, Pisidia. Italy has
twenty-eight colonies established under my auspices, which have in my
lifetime become very densely inhabited and places of great resort.
29. A large number of military standards, which had been lost under other
commanders, I recovered, after defeating the enemy, from Spain and Gaul
and the Dalmatians. I compelled the Parthians to restore the spoils and
standards of three Roman armies, and to seek as suppliants the friendship
of the Roman people. These standards I laid up in the inner shrine
belonging to the temple of Mars Ultor.
30. The tribes of the Pannonii, which before I was _princeps_ an army of
the Roman people never reached, having been subdued by Tiberius Nero,
who was then my stepson and legate [B.C. 11], I added to the Empire of
the Roman people, and I extended the frontier of Illyricum to the bank
of the river Danube. And when an army of the Daci crossed to the south
of that river it was conquered and put to flight under my auspices; and
subsequently my army, being led across the Danube, forced the tribes of
the Daci to submit to the orders of the Roman people.
31. To me there were often sent embassies of kings from India, who had
never before been seen in the camp of any Roman general. By embassadors
the Bastarnæ and the Scythians and the kings of the Sarmatians, who live
on both sides of the river Don, and the king of the Albani and of the
Hiberi and of the Medes, sought our friendship.
32. Kings of the Parthians—Tiridates, and afterwards Phrates, son of
King Phrates—fled to me for refuge; of the Medes Artavasdes; of the
Adiabeni Artaxares; of the Britons Dumnobellaunus and Tim ...;[324] of
the Marcomanni and Suebi....[324] Phrates, king of the Parthians, son of
Orodes, sent all his sons and grandsons to me in Italy, not because he
had been overcome in war, but seeking our friendship by means of his own
sons as pledges. And a very large number of other nations experienced the
good faith of the Roman people while I was _princeps_, with whom before
that time there had been no diplomatic or friendly intercourse.
33. The nations of the Parthians and the chief men of the Medes by means
of embassies sought and accepted from me kings of those peoples—the
Parthians Vonones, son of King Phrates, grandson of King Orodes; the
Medes Ariobarzanes, son of King Artavasdes, grandson of King Ariobarzanes.
34. In my sixth and seventh consulships [B.C. 28, 27], when I had
extinguished the flames of civil war, having by universal consent become
possessed of the sole direction of affairs, I transferred the republic
from my power to the will of the Senate and people of Rome. For which
good service on my part I was by decree of the Senate called by the name
of Augustus, and the door-posts of my house were covered with laurels
in the name of the state, and a civic crown was fixed up over my door,
and a golden shield was placed in the Curia Iulia, which it was declared
by its inscription the Senate and people of Rome gave me in recognition
of valour, clemency, justice, piety. After that time I took precedence
of all in rank, but of power I had nothing more than those who were my
colleagues in the several magistracies.
35. While I was administering my thirteenth consulship [B.C. 2], the
Senate and equestrian order and the Roman people with one consent greeted
me as FATHER OF MY COUNTRY, and decreed that it should be inscribed in
the vestibule of my house, and in the Senate house, and in the Forum
Augustum, and under the chariot which was there placed in my honour in
accordance with a senatorial decree.
When I wrote this I was in my seventy-sixth year [A.D. 13-14].
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Ad capita bubula._ Lanciani (_Remains of Ancient Rome_, p. 139) says
that this was the name of a lane at the eastern corner of the Palatine.
Others have thought it to be the name of the house, as the _ad malum
Punicum_ in which Domitian was born (Suet., _Dom._ 1). So later we hear
of a house at Rome _quæ est ad Palmam_ (_Codex Theod._, p. 3). The house
may have had its name from a frieze with ox-heads on it, like the tomb of
Metella, which came to be called _Capo-di-bove_. It seems less easy to
account for a lane being so called. See also p. 205.
[2] C. I. L., vol. i. p. 279.
[3] Cicero, _ad Q. Fr._ 1, 1, 21; 1, 2, 7. Velleius Pat., 2, 59; Sueton.,
_Aug._ 3.
[4] The plebeian Atii Balbi do not seem to have been important. M. Atius
Balbus was prætor in B.C. 62 (with Cæsar), governor of Sardinia B.C.
61-60, and in B.C. 59 was one of the XX viri under the Julian land law
(Cic., _ad Att._ ii. 4).
[5] These and other stories will be found in Sueton., _Aug._ 94, and Dio,
45, 2. Vergil makes skilful use of them in _Æn._, vi. 797, _sqq._
[6] Antony, when he wished to depreciate Augustus, asserted that his
great-grandfather had a rope-walk at Thurii; and some such connection of
his ancestors with that place may account for the cognomen, which would
naturally be dropped afterwards (Suet., _Aug._ 7).
[7] The marriage could not have taken place earlier than the middle of
B.C. 57, for when Atia’s first husband died Philippus was in Syria. He
was succeeded by Gabinius in B.C. 57, and reached Italy in time to stand
for the consulship, the elections that year being at the ordinary time,
_i.e._, July (Cic., _ad Att._ 4, 2).
[8] L. Marcius Philippus was the son of the famous orator, and was a warm
supporter of Cicero. With his colleague as consul-designate he proposed
the prosecution of Clodius (Cic., _ad Q. Fr._ ii. 1). When the civil
war was beginning he was allowed by Cæsar to remain neutral (Cic., _ad
Att._ ix. 15; x. 4). But Cicero found him tiresome company, for he was
garrulous and prosy (_ad Att._ xii. 9, 16, 18); and in the troublous
times following the assassination of Cæsar he set little store by his
opinion (_ad Att._ xvi. 14; _ad Brut._ i. 17).
[9] The law of B.C. 52 allowed Cæsar to be “elected in his absence”
(_absentis rationem haberi_), but said nothing of his being in possession
of a province. By long prescription the Senate had the right of deciding
when a provincial governor should be “succeeded.” But then Cæsar’s term
of provincial government had been fixed by a _lex_, which was superior
to a _Senatus-consultum_; and he might also argue that if it was
unconstitutional for a man to be elected consul while holding a province,
the Senate had violated the constitution in allowing Pompey to be consul
in B.C. 52.
[10] The Senate did not insist on the _professio_, from which Cæsar had
been exempted by name in Pompey’s law. But its contention was that it
still retained the right of naming the date at which a man was to leave
his province, and of deciding in regard to an election whether a man was
a legal candidate, which might depend on other things besides the making
or not making a _professio_.
[11] The difficulty was that both consuls were absent. There was no
one therefore capable of holding a consular election. But as the other
curule magistrates still existed, “the _auspicia_ had not returned to
the Fathers,” who could not therefore name an interrex. The Prætor
Lepidus—though willing—could not “create” a _maius imperium_. The only
way out of it was to name a Dictator (_com. hab. causa_); but one of
the consuls, according to tradition, could alone do that. Eventually
Lepidus, by a special vote of the people was authorised to name Cæsar
as Dictator—which had precedents in the cases of Fabius Maximus and
Sulla—and Cæsar, as Dictator, held the consular elections. Cæs., b. c.
ii, 21; Dio, 41, 36.
[12] Nicolas (ch. 4) says that he took the _toga virilis_ about fourteen
(περὶ ἔτη μάλιστα γεγονὼς τεσσαρακαίδεκα). But Suetonius (_Aug._ 8) says
that he spoke the _laudatio_ of his grandmother in his twelfth year, and
“four years afterwards” took the _toga virilis_.
[13] Octavius was _sui iuris_, his father being dead; his adoption
therefore required the formal passing of a _lex curiata_. Now the
opposition, supported by Antony, against this formality being carried out
was one of the grounds of Octavian’s quarrel with him in B.C. 44-3, and
the completion of it was one of the first things secured by Octavian on
his entrance into Rome in August, B.C. 43 [Appian, b. c. iii. 94; Dio,
45, 5]. This seems conclusive against the theory that Iulius adopted
him in his lifetime. Moreover all authorities speak of the adoption as
made by _Will_. Livy, _Ep._ 116, _testamento in nomen adoptatus est_;
Velleius, ii. 59, _testamentum apertum est, quo C. Octavium nepotem
sororis suæ Iuliæ adoptabat_. See also Appian, b. c. iii. 11; Dio, 45, 3;
Plutarch, _Brut._ 22. It is true that Nicolas—speaking of the triumph of
B.C. 46—(§ 8) says υἱὸν ἤδη πεποιημἐνος. But if he means anything more
than “regarding him as a son,” he twice afterwards contradicts himself:
See § 17 ἀπήγγελλον τά τε ἄλλα καὶ ὡς ἐν ταῖς διαθήκαις ὡς υἱὸς εἴη
Καίσαρι ἐγγεγραμμένος. _Cf._ § 13.
[14] Cicero, _ad Att._ xii. 48, 49; Nicholas, § 14; Valer. Max., 1, 15,
2. For the subsequent fate of the man see Cicero, _ad Att._ xiv. 6, 7, 8;
App., b. c. iii. 2-3.
[15] The patrician _gentes_ were dying out, and it was thought good
to replenish their numbers, thus gradually forming a class of nobles
distinct from these ennobled by office. In making the Octavii patricians,
the initiative was taken by the Senate; in later times, however, the
power of creating _patricii_ was conferred on the imperator. Iulius seems
also to have done it on his own authority. (Dio, 43, 47; Suet., _Aug._ 2.)
[16] He took with him Apollodorus of Pergamus, a well-known author of a
system of rhetoric (Suet., _Aug._ 89; Strabo, 13, 4, 3; Quinct., 3, 1,
17). Other teachers of his, whether at Apollonia or elsewhere, are Areius
of Alexandria, Alexander of Pergamus, Athenodorus of Tarsus (Suet. _l.
c._; Dio, 51, 4; Plutarch, _Ant._ 11; Nicol. Dam., § 17; Zonaras, 10, 38).
[17] Suet., _Aug._ 65; Vell. Paterc., 2, 59, 64; App., b. c. 5, 66; Dio,
48, 33. The other instance of a friend who fell into disfavour and ruin
quoted by Suetonius is Cornelius Gallus. But he does not seem to have
been at Apollonia. He was nearly three years older than Augustus, and in
B.C. 44-3 was perhaps with Pollio in Bætica. See Cic., _ad Fam._ x. 32.
[18] Nicolas, § 16; App., b. c. iii. 9-10.
[19] Dolabella consul for the last half of B.C. 44 with Antony; Pansa and
Hirtius, B.C. 43; Plancus and Dec. Brutus B.C. 42. Probably M. Brutus and
C. Cassius (or certainly the former) B.C. 41 [Plut., _Cæs._ 62; Cic., _ad
Fam._ xii. 2]. For B.C. 43 prætors and other magistrates were named, but
for the next years only consuls and tribunes.
[20] Dio, 43, 47, καὶ ἔς γε τὰ ἔθνη ἀκληρωτὶ ἐξεπέμφθησαν.
[21] M. Brutus, C. Cassius, Dec. Brutus, L. Cimber, C. Trebonius.
[22] Cic., _ad Att._ xiv. 9; Cæs., b. c. ii. 22; Plut., _Ant._ xi.
[23] Dio, 46, 60.
[24] Cæsar had auxiliaries in Spain from Aquitania B.C. 49; Cæs., b. c.
i. 39.
[25] Cicero, _ad Att._ xiv. 5, 8, 9.
[26] Livy, _Ep._ 62. Appian says that Metellus did not fight, but was
received as a friend, wintered at Salonæ, and then went home and claimed
a triumph (_Illyr._ xi.).
[27] Eutrop., v. 4.
[28] _Id._ vi. 4; Oros., v. 23.
[29] Cæs., b. c. iii. 5, 9.
[30] Livy, _Ep._ 110; App., b. c. ii. 47.
[31] _Id._, b. c. ii. 59.
[32] Cæs., _b. Alex._ 42-3.
[33] _Id._, 34-6.
[34] Cic., _ad Fam._ v. 10 (_a_), 10, 11.
[35] App., _Illyr._ 13.
[36] App., b. c. iv. 75; Dio, 47, 21. Vatinius was ill, and his late
reverses had lost him the confidence of his men, who insisted on being
transferred to Brutus.
[37] Dio, 43, 42; Horace, _Odes_, iii. 1, 13.
[38] Cæs., _b. Alex._ 48-64; _Hisp._ 7, 12.
[39] App., b. c. ii. 107.
[40] Wrongly called Aulus Albinus by Appian, b. c. ii. 48; see Klein,
_die Verwaltungsbeamten der Provinzen_, p. 83.
[41] Cic., _ad Fam._ xiii. 30, 36, 50, 78, 79; Cæs., _b. Afr._ 2, 26, 34.
[42] Cic., _ad Fam._ vi. 16, 17.
[43] Dio, 48, 17, 19; Livy, _Ep._ 123; Appian, b. c. iv. 84. A certain
M. Casinius was nominated to Sicily for B.C. 43, but did not go there,
perhaps owing to the order of the Senate (meant to support Dec. Brutus)
made on the 20th of December, B.C. 44, that all governors should retain
their provinces till farther orders (Cic., _ad Fam._ xii. 22, 25).
[44] App., b. c. ii. 48.
[45] Cic., _ad Att._ xv. 7; xvi. 3.
[46] App., b. c. iv. 2; Dio, 46, 55.
[47] Sueton., _Aug._ 47. This probably means after his accession to sole
power. According to Nicolas, § 11-12, he visited Africa with Cæsar in
B.C. 45. See p. 13. There is no record, however, of his ever having been
to Sardinia.
[48] App., b. c. v. 67. The hold of Sext. Pompeius on Sardinia was
recognised in the “treaty” of Misenum made in B.C. 39 (Dio, 48, 36; App.,
b. c. v. 72).
[49] See Note 2, p. 24.
[50] Cicero, _3 Phil._ § 26; _ad Fam._ xii. 22, 23, 30.
[51] Appian, b. c. iii. 85, 91.
[52] Appian, b. c. iv. 36, 53-56; v. 26; Dio, 48, 21-23. It seems
impossible to reconcile Appian and Dio. The course of events here
indicated agrees chiefly with Dio, whose account appears on the whole the
more reasonable.
[53] Cæs., b. c. iii., 102.
[54] _Id._, _b. Alex._ 42.
[55] Drawn up by the commissioners after the fall of Corinth, B.C. 146.
[56] Cicero, _ad Att._ xi. 15; Cæsar, b. c. ii. 56, 106; Dio, 42, 14.
[57] Servius had fought against Cæsar at Pharsalia, though his son was
with Cæsar. After the battle he retired to Samos and refused to continue
the war. See Cicero, _ad Fam._ iv. 3, 4, 11, 12; vi. 6; xiii. 17, 19, 23,
25, 28.
[58] App., b. c. v. 72.
[59] Cicero, _ad Fam._ vi. 12; App., b. c. iii. 2.
[60] See Cicero, _13 Phil._ 23 (Antony’s letter).
[61] P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther. See his letter to Cicero, _ad Fam._
xii. 14, 15.
[62] Cæs., _b. Alex._ 66: _rebus omnibus provinciæ et finitimarum
civitatum constitutis_ is all that we are told.
[63] Dio, 47, 26. Appian gives two accounts of Bassus. In the first he
represents him as the real commander of the legions, while Sext. Iulius
was the nominal chief. He, however, gives an alternative account more in
accordance with that of Dio. See App., b. c. iii. 77; iv. 58, _sq._
[64] Cicero, _ad Att._ xiv. 9.
[65] _Id._, _ad Fam._ xii. 11 (Cassius to Cicero); xii. 12.
[66] Cicero, _ad Att._ vi. 5; Valer. Max., vi. 1, 15.
[67] Cyrene with four other cities—Apollonia, Ptolemais, Arsinoe,
Berenice—formed a Pentapolis. (Livy, _Epit._ 70.)
[68] App., b. c. I. iii. _sq._; Sall., _hist. fr._ ii. 39.
[69] Vell. Pat., ii. 34; Dio, 36, 2; Iust. 39, 5; Livy, _Epit._ 100. The
laws of Crete were left in force (Cic., _Mur._ § 74; _pro Flacc._ § 30).
[70] App., b. c. iii. 12, 16, 36; iv. 57; Dio, 47, 21.
[71] Cicero, _2 Phil._ § 97.
[72] The possibility of these legions crossing to Italy had caused no
little anxiety at Rome; Cicero, _ad Att._ xiv. 16.
[73] Cicero, _ad Att._ xv. 21.
[74] Suetonius (_Iul._ 83) says, “three-fourths”; so also does Nicolas
Dam. 17 (τρία μέρη τῶν χρημάτων). But Livy (_Ep._ 116) says “one-half”
(_ex semisse_). It is possible Livy may refer to the amount left when
the legacy of 300 sesterces to each citizen was deducted. Nicolas seems
to think, however, that this legacy was charged on the remaining fourth.
Octavian certainly undertook to pay it, but then Pinarius and Pedius
handed over their shares to him.
[75] Appian (b. c. ii. 147) says that the body itself was not seen during
Antony’s _laudatio_, but that a wax figure was displayed which by some
mechanical contrivance was made to revolve and show all the wounds.
[76] Nicolas (§ 17) would seem to send them straight to Antium. But
from Cicero’s letters it is clear that Brutus at any rate went first to
Lanuvium, _ad Att._ xiv. 10, 21; xv. 9. They seem to have gone to Antium
towards the end of May or beginning of June.
[77] Suet., _Aug._ 25.
[78] The last being the adjectival form of his original name, in
accordance with the usual custom in cases of adoption.
[79] Cicero, _ad Att._ xiv. 5, 10, 11, 12.
[80] Cicero, _ad Att._ xiv. 20, 21. Dio (45, 6) says that the introducing
tribune was Tib. Canutius. But it seems probable that this refers to a
second speech.
[81] Cic., _ad Att._ xv. 2. There is a singularly manly and frank letter
from Matius to Cicero (_ad Fam._ xi. 28), defending his attachment to
Cæsar and his services to Octavian.
[82] Appian, b. c. 3, 20, τῶν προσόδων ἐξ οὗ παρῆλθεν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐς
αὐτὸν ἀντὶ τοῦ ταμιείου συμφερομένων. The sole management of the Treasury
had been committed to Cæsar in B.C. 45 (Dio, 43, 44, τἁ δημόσια χρήματα
μόνον διοικεῖν). He had taken it out of the hands of the _quæstors_ and
appointed two _præfecti_ to manage it: but it does not seem that they had
anything to do with the money in the temple of Ops, as to which there was
some doubt as to its being “public money” in the ordinary sense.
[83] Cicero, _1 Phil._ § 17; _2 Phil._ § 93.
[84] Cicero, in _2 Phil._ § 93, seems to assume that Antony had taken the
money all at once. But from Cicero’s own letters it would seem that the
process of despoiling the temple of Ops was a gradual one, and that the
use made of the money by Antony was more or less a matter of conjecture.
On the 27th of April he writes: “You mention plundering going on at the
temple of Ops. I, too, was a witness to that at the time” (_ad Att._
xiv. 14). On the 7th of May he says that Dolabella had a great share
of it (_ad Att._ xiv. 18). In November he says that his nephew Quintus
knew all about it, and meant to reveal it to the public (_ad Att._ xvi.
14). Appian (b. c. iii. 20) makes Antony say to Octavian: “The money
transferred to my house was not so large a sum as you conjecture, nor is
any part of it in my custody now. The men in power—except Dolabella and
my brothers—divided up the whole of it as the property of a tyrant.”
[85] Cic., _ad Att._ xvi. 8.
[86] Dio, 45, 6; this seems a different case from that mentioned by App.,
b. c. iii. 47, and referred to by Cicero, _ad Att._ xvi. 15, as happening
later in this same year.
[87] See _ante_ p. 14: Dio, 45, 2; Sueton., _Aug._ 2, 10; Tac., _Ann._
xi. 25.
[88] Dio, 45, 4; Cicero, _ad Att._ xv. 3.
[89] Cicero, _2 Phil._ § 100; _ad Att._ xiv. 20, 21.
[90] _Id._, _ad Att._ xiv. 3 (9th April); xv. 4 (24th May); _2 Phil._
§ 108; Appian, b. c. iii. 5. The Senate had been induced to vote him a
bodyguard. See the letter of Brutus and Cassius to Antony in Cicero, _ad
Fam._ xi. 2.
[91] Dio, 45, 10; Cic., _ad Att._ xvi. 1. The negotiation after all
fell through on the question of Sextus’s recovering the actual house
and property of his father, much of which was in Antony’s hands (Cic.,
_ad Att._ xvi. 4; Dio, 45, 9). He refused to accept a mere money
compensation. Eventually, when the Senate had broken with Antony, it made
terms with Sextus, appointing him commander of the naval forces of the
Republic. Consequently he was proscribed by the Triumvirs. App., b. c.
iii. 4.
[92] Cic., _ad Att._ xv. 10, 11.
[93] Cicero (_2 Phil._ § 109) declares that Antony’s bodyguard was
stationed round the Senate—some of them being foreign mercenaries—and
that his opponents therefore did not venture to enter the house.
[94] Appian, b. c. iii. 29-30. But Appian in regard to the order of
events here is very confused and often wrong.
[95] Cicero, _ad Att._ xvi. 4, 5.
[96] _Id._, _1 Phil._ § 14; _ad Att._ xvi. 7; _ad Fam._ xii. 2.
[97] Nicolas (§ 30), Appian (b. c. iii. 39), Plutarch (_Ant._ 16), acquit
Augustus. The two writers who adopt Cicero’s view of the truth of the
accusation are Seneca (_de Clement._ 1, 9, 1) and Suetonius (_Aug._ 10).
See Cicero, _ad Fam._ xii. 23.
[98] _ad Att._ xv. 12.
[99] See _ante_, p. 3.
[100] He had the title _Imperator_ inherited from Cæsar (Dio, 43, 44);
but this was a mere honorary title, and could not be held to give
_imperium_. He was careful to use it however, as in the inscription
recording the formation of the triumvirate.... EMILIVS M. ANTONIVS. IMP.
CÆSAR. III VIR R.P.C. A.D. IV KAL. DEC. AD. PRID. KAL. IAN. SEXT....
[101] _Monum. Ancyr._ I, annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato
consilio et privata impensa comparavi: per quem rem publicam _dominatione
factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi_. Compare Cæsar, _b. civ._ 1,
22, ut se et Populum Romanum _factione paucorum oppressum in libertatem
vindicaret_.
[102] Cicero, _ad Att._ xvi. 8 and 9.
[103] _Id._, _ad Fam._ xii. 23.
[104] App., b. c. iii. 43-45; Cic., _3 Phil._ § 10; Dio, 45, 13.
[105] Cic., _ad Att._ xvi. 10, 13 a, 13 b, 14.
[106] _Id._, _3 Phil._ § 19.
[107] _pestifera_, _13 Phil._ § 19.
[108] Cicero, _3 Phil._ §§ 19-27; _5 Phil._ § 23; _13 Phil._ § 19; App.,
b. c. iii. 45.
[109] Cic., _ad Att._ xvi. 11.
[110] _Id._ xvi. 14.
[111] _Id._ xvi. 15. It seems from Appian (b. c. iii. 31) that Octavian
was not a candidate, but he was generally supposed to wish it, and that
therefore many were going to vote for him. He ostensibly supported
another candidate—Flaminius. Antony stopped the election on the ground
that there was no need to fill up a vacancy so late in the year. This
settled the question. But it is doubtful whether this does not refer to
an earlier occasion.
[112] Cicero, _ad Att._ xvi. 15, 3.
[113] _Id._, _ad Fam._ xi. 6; _3 Phil._ §§ 37-39.
[114] The passages are Cicero, _5 Phil._ §§ 45-47; _11 Phil._ § 20; _13
Phil._ § 39; _Monum. Ancyr._ § 3; Livy, _Ep._ 118; C. I. L. x. 8375;
Suet., _Aug._ 10, 26. Dio (40, 29) says that he was in the Senate ἐν
τοῖς τεταμιευκόσι—_inter quæstorios_. This may be a misunderstanding of
Cicero’s proposal that for _purposes of election_ he was to count as
having been quæstor. The rank of proprætor was necessary for his command
in the army, not for his entrance into the Senate.
[115] Pollio in Bætica, Lepidus in Gallia Narbonensis and Hispania
Citerior, and Plancus in Northern Gaul.
[116] _Laudandum, ornandum, tollendum_ (Cic., _ad Fam._ xi. 20, 21). This
epigram seems to have been inspired by the exultant hopes roused by the
news of the battle of Forum Gallorum.
[117] _Monum. Ancyr._ § 1, respublica ne quid detrimenti caperet me
pro prætore cum consulibus providere iussit. This was a general order,
neither Antony nor any particular _hostis_ being named.
[118] Octavian first assumed the _fasces_ (symbol of imperium) on the 7th
of January (C. I. L. x. 8375.)
[119] Cicero, _8 Phil._ §§ 25-28.
[120] The letter is preserved in the 13th Philippic, with Cicero’s
bitter comments. It dwells on the favours and honours voted to the chief
assassins, as well as the abolition of many of Cæsar’s _acta_. Antony
also asserts that Lepidus and Plancus are on his side and warns Octavian
that Cicero is playing him false.
[121] The country is very flat, but was intersected by drains and
watercourses, making military evolutions difficult, if not impossible, in
the rainy season. (App., b. c. 3, 65.)
[122] Such as the cavalry engagement between Pontius Aquila and Tib.
Munatius Plancus at Pollentia (Dio, 46, 38). Octavian also suffered some
loss by the desertion of some Gallic cavalry (_ib._ 37).
[123] Cic., _ad Brutum_, ii. 2.
[124] In enrolling legions Bassus was probably justified by the _SCtum
ultimum_, which included the prætors. He was known to be a supporter of
Antony, and might be thought capable of occupying Rome in his interest.
We shall see afterwards that he joined him in Cisalpine Gaul. Some rumour
of his being likely to act in this way had been rife before January 1st,
when he was only prætor-designate. (See Cic., _ad Att._ xvi. 1; _ad
Brut._ i. 3.)
[125] Cicero says of Octavian that he _secundum proelium fecit_ because
he _castra multarum legionum paucis cohortibus tutatus est_ (_14 Phil._ §
28). The attack on the camp is not mentioned elsewhere (_ib._ § 37). For
his being greeted as Imperator see C. I. L. ix. 8375.
[126] Cic., _ad Brut._ 1, 3, 5.
[127] Suet., _Aug._ 11; Cic., _ad Brut._ i. 6.
[128] Cic., _ad Fam._ xi. 21.
[129] Dio, 46, 41; Livy, _Ep._ 118.
[130] Cic., _ad Brut._ i. 15.
[131] _Id._, _ad Fam._ xi. 20, 21, see _ante_ p. 52.
[132] _Id._, _ad Brut._ i. 4; App., b. c. iii. 82; Dio, 46, 42; Plut.,
_Cic._ 46. There was evidently some rumour of Cicero intending to be
consul, though he speaks with rather affected indignation of Octavian
wishing to be elected also (_ad Brut._ i. 10).
[133] Cic., _ad Brut._ 1, 3.
[134] _Id._ § 4.
[135] Cic., _ad Fam._ xi. 10.
[136] He was perhaps deceived by the report that Octavian’s legions had
taken an oath not to fight against any that had served under Iulius
Cæsar. This applied to some men at present with Antony. But Dio implies
that the oath was at the secret instigation of Octavian himself (Dio, 46,
42).
[137] Cic., _ad Fam._ xi. 13.
[138] _Id._ xi. 19.
[139] _Id._ xi. 20.
[140] _Id._ xi. 14.
[141] Cic., _ad Fam._ x. 23.
[142] _Id._ x. 24.
[143] _Id._ xi. 12 and 14.
[144] Cic., _ad Fam._ x. 16.
[145] _Id._ x. 35; xii. 35.
[146] _Id._ xi. 26, _cp._ xi. 13.
[147] _Id._, _ad. Brut._ i. 10.
[148] A similar technical difficulty had occurred in B.C. 49 (both
consuls being absent, and unwilling, of course, to name a dictator), and
had been got over by the nomination of a dictator by the prætor under a
special law. See p. 8; Cic., _ad Fam._ x. 26; _ad M. Brut._ i. 5.
[149] Plancus (Cic., _ad Fam._ x. 29) expresses surprise that Cæsar
wished to give up the glory of defeating Antony for the sake of “a two
months’ consulship.” But this only shows that Plancus did not understand
Octavian’s object or policy.
[150] Suet., _Aug._ 26; Dio, 46, 43; Plut., _Pomp._ 58. Appian (b. c. 3,
82), without alluding to this scene, regards the application itself as
the result of a secret intrigue with Cicero, and Cicero’s exclamation, if
made, may have been intended as encouraging and not sarcastic.
[151] The number given by Appian (b. c. iii. 88). Octavian had five
legions when he went to Gaul: two raised in Campania of veterans, one of
_tirones_, the Martia and Quarta (App., b. c. iii. 47). The other three
must have been made up from the armies of Pansa and Hirtius. None of
the veteran legions in these two armies would consent to follow Decimus
Brutus (Cic., _ad Fam._ xi. 19).
[152] Cic., _ad Brut._ 1, 18.
[153] _Ib._ and App., b. c. iii. 90.
[154] The panic had been increased by some damage done by his soldier on
the march to properties of known anti-Cæsareans.
[155] Confiscation of property and the forbidding of “fire and water”
followed as a matter of course. One of the assassins—P. Servilius
Casca—was tribune, and as such could not legally be condemned, but he
vacated his tribuneship by flying from Rome and was condemned with the
rest.
[156] The Senate had nothing to do with this _quæstio_, which was
established by a _lex_, but its attitude to Octavian amounted to a
condonation if not an active approval.
[157] According to Appian (b. c. iii. 97), Pollio for some time declined
to join Antony and Lepidus. He seems to have done so when their outlawry
was removed.
[158] Decimus Brutus first tried to reach Ravenna, hoping to sail
to Macedonia and join M. Brutus. Headed back by Cæsar’s advance, he
recrossed the Alps (being gradually deserted by his men) and trusted
himself to a Gaul, who had received favours from him of old. But his host
communicated with Antony, and by his orders put him to death. There were
other versions of his death. Perhaps neither Antony nor Cæsar cared to
ask questions so long as he was dead. (App., b. c. iii. 97-98; Dio, 46,
53; Velleius Pat., ii. 64; Livy, _Ep._ 120.)
[159] Plancus did not accompany Antony into Italy; he stayed in Gaul,
busying himself with the foundation of Lugdunum, and apparently
suppressing some movements in the Eastern Alps, for at the end of the
year coming home to enter on his consulship, he celebrated a triumph _ex
Rhætis_ [Inscrip. Neap., 4089; Fast. Capitol. 29 Dec. A. V. 711.] Pollio,
who had presently to assent to the proscription of his father-in-law, L.
Quintius, was left in charge of Transpadane Gaul, to arrange for lands
for the veterans. It was in this business that he came across Vergil and
his farm.
[160] Daughter of Fulvia by her first husband, P. Clodius.
[161] Plut., _Ant._ 19; App., b. c. iv. 6; Dio, 46, 44.
[162] The usual interval (_tres nundinæ_) for _promulgatio_ was dispensed
with.
[163] Appian, b. c. iv. 5; Livy, _Ep._ 120. Of the 69 names given by
Appian, he records the escape of 31. This tallies roughly with the
discrepancy between his and Livy’s reckoning.
[164] Appian, b. c. iv. 36.
[165] Suet., _Aug._ 27.
[166] Dio, 47, 14.
[167] _Id._ 47, 16-17.
[168] App., b. c. 4, 34.
[169] _Lassam crudelitatem_, Sen. _de Clem._ 1, 9, 2. The other opinions
referred to are Velleius, ii. 66; App., b. c. iv. 42, 45; Plut., _Ant._
21; Dio, 47, 7; Sueton., _Aug._ 27. For Toranius, see Nic. Dam. 2.
[170] Sueton., _Aug._ 61; Dio, 47, 17; [Tacit.] _de orat._ 29.
[171] Cicero, _13 Phil._ §§ 8-12, 50; Velleius, ii. 73. The decree was
passed on the 20th of March, B.C. 43.
[172] Dio, 48, 17 _sq._; Livy, _Ep._ 123.
[173] App., b. c. iv. 85; Dio, 47, 36; Livy, _Ep._ 123.
[174] Dio, 51, 2; Suet., _Aug._ 13.
[175] At any rate the head never reached Rome, but was lost at sea. App.,
b. c. iv. 135; Dio, 47, 49; Plut., _Ant._, 22; _Brut._ 53; Sueton.,
_Aug._ 13.
[176] Ulpian (dig. 48, 24) quotes this lost autobiography; see _Mon.
Ancyr._ § 3.
[177] The first meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, when the queen was rowed
up the Cydnus in her barge, dressed as Venus with attendant cupids, seems
to have been in the autumn of B.C. 42 (Plut., _Anton._ 25-6.). He had
seen her once before in B.C. 56 when he accompanied Gabinius to restore
her father. But she must have been a mere child then.
[178] These legions had behaved badly at Placentia, demanding a sum of
money from the inhabitants. Calenus and Ventidius may have justified
their action on this score (Dio, 48, 10).
[179] From _caliga_, “a soldier’s boot.”
[180] Dio, 48, 12.
[181] Appian, b. c. 4, 30; Dio, 48, 31. Livy, however (_Ep._ 121), says
_M. Lepido fuso_, as though he had resisted and had been beaten.
[182] Livy, _Ep._ 126; Velleius, ii. 74; App., b. c. v. 48-49; Dio, 48,
14; Seneca, _de Clem._ 1, 11, 1. The uncertainty of historical testimony
is illustrated by the fact that both Dio and Appian name C. Canutius (Tr.
Pl. B.C. 44) among the victims at Perusia, while Velleius (ii. 64) says
that he was the first to suffer under the proscription in B.C. 43.
[183] C. I. L., i. 697.
[184] This was to safeguard Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus. There is some
doubt, however, as to his having been an assassin. Cocceius denied it
(App., b. c. v. 62). Suetonius (Nero 3) does the same. But Cicero (_2
Phil._ §§ 27, 30) says that he was; and Appian himself does the same (b.
c. v. 59). Dio thrice speaks of him as a σφαγεύς (48, 7, 29, 54). At
any rate he was condemned by the _lex Pedia_, as though he had been an
assassin. He may have been one of those who joined the assassins on the
Capitol _after_ the murder.
[185] Appian, b. c. v. 65. It has been doubted whether this or the
meeting of B.C. 37 was the one to which Horace accompanied his patron
Mæcenas. In favour of this one is the mention of Cocceius Nerva by Horace
(_Sat._ 1 v. 28, 50), against it is the way in which he is mentioned
with Mæcenas as aversos _soliti_ componere amicos, as if he had been so
engaged before. But though in the second meeting he is not mentioned by
Appian, he may have been there. Something has been made of the mention
of the croaking frogs (l. 14), as this meeting could hardly have been
earlier than July, when the Italian frogs are said to be silent. For the
Ovations see C. I. L., i. p. 461.
[186] This was one of the chief grievances. Hor., _Ep._ ix. 9, _minatus
urbi vincla, que detraxerat servis amicus perfidis_.
[187] Hor., _Od._ ii. 1, 15-16; Dio, 48, 41; C. I. L., i. p. 461. Pollio
after this withdrew from active political life and devoted himself to
literature. He seems to have taken no part in the subsequent quarrels
between Antony and Augustus.
[188] Dio, 48, 19, 48; Hor., _Epod._ 9, 17.
[189] The first period ended on the last day of B.C. 38; but neither
Antony nor Cæsar had laid down their imperium of office. They now assumed
that it went on from the first day of B.C. 37, the want of legal sanction
during the intervening months being ignored. There is no certain trace of
this second triumvirate having been confirmed by a _lex_; yet one would
think that they would have taken care to have that formality observed.
See p. 143.
[190] Cicero, _ad Fam._ xi. 9; Cicero himself calls him _levissimus_, _ad
Brut._ 1, 15, § 9.
[191] In B.C. 52 Cicero had wished to give his daughter Tullia in
marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero (Cic., _Att._ 6, 6.).
[192] He was quæstor in B.C. 48, and therefore was not born later than
B.C. 78. Livia was born B.C. 58.
[193] Even Suetonius, not much inclined to speak good of Augustus, admits
that he _dilexit et probavit unice ac perseveranter_.
[194] Suetonius (c. 22) says that he had two ovations—after Philippi and
after the bellum Siculum. But if an ovation was decreed after Philippi,
it was not celebrated till B.C. 40, upon the reconciliation with Antony.
The second was this. Another had been voted in B.C. 43 after Mutina, but
not celebrated (C. I. L. i. p. 461). See also p. 100.
[195] Appian (b. c. v. 132) says that they elected him perpetual tribune
(αὐτὸν ... εἕλοντο δήμαρχον ἐς ἀεί). Dio (49, 15) only says that they
gave him the personal sacredness of the tribunes and the right of sitting
on their bench. Orosius (6, 18, 34) says that the Senate voted _ut in
perpetuum tribuniciæ potestatis esset_. We shall have to discuss this
later on, but it must be said at once that Augustus was never tribune,
and that it seems doubtful whether the _tribunicia potestas_ was given in
its full sense at this time.
[196] Dio, 49, 14; Strabo, x. 4, 9.
[197] Dio, 49, 34.
[198] App., b. c. v. 132; Suet., _Aug._ 32.
[199] Or, as they were also called Vetus, and Nova Africa. The former was
the old province formed of the territory of Carthage, the latter the new
province formed after the battle of Thapsus (B.C. 46) of which the first
governor was the historian Sallust. See pp. 23-4.
[200] Appian, _Illyr._ 17; Dio, 49, 34, 38.
[201] Appian, _Illyr._ 18-21; Dio, 49, 37. The Iapydes (a wild tribe) had
first been attacked in B.C. 129 by C. Sempronius and subdued after some
disasters. (Livy, _Ep._ 59.)
[202] Pliny, _N. H._ 36 § 121.
[203] The Porticus Octaviæ, of which an arch remains, was a rectangular
cloister enclosing the temples of Jupiter Stator and Iuno Regina.
[204] Dio, 49, 15; Sueton., _Aug._ 72.
[205] Horace, _Epod._ ix. ii.; _cp._ Ov., _Met._ 15, 826.
[206] An anecdote has been preserved illustrating the policy of “sitting
on the hedge,” which must have prevailed among many while the contest
between the two leaders was still undecided. After Actium, when Cæsar
landed (the time and place are charmingly vague), a man offered a
_cornix_ which had been taught to say, “Ave, Cæsar, imperator et victor.”
He bought the bird at a large price, whereat the man’s partner, being
jealous, urged that he should be forced to bring another bird, which
when brought repeated as it had been taught, “_Ave, Antoni, imperator et
victor_.”
[207] Dio, 50, 5; but Suetonius, _Aug._ 17, says that he was declared a
_hostis_.
[208] Dio, 50, 5. Thus Horace, on hearing the rumours of Antony’s defeat,
exclaims (somewhat prematurely), _Epod._ ix. 27:
“_Terra marique victus hostis punico,_
_lugubre mutavit sagum._”
[209] Bocchus of Mauretania, Tarchondemus of Cilicia Aspera, Archilaus of
Cappadocia, Amyntas of Lycaonia and Galatia, Philadelphus of Paphlagonia,
Malchus of Arabia, Herod of Judæa, Sadalas of Thrace, Polemon of Pontus.
(Plut., _Ant._ 61.)
[210] Dio, 50, 14-23.
[211] Dio, 50-31, says, ὑετός τε ἐν τούτῳ λαβρὸς καὶ ζάλη πολλή. But
Plutarch, _Ant._ 65, says that after four days of stormy weather on the
day of battle νηνεμίας καὶ γαλὴνης γενομένης συνῄεσαν.
[212] Suet., _Aug._ 17.
[213] The earlier writers, Horace (_Od._ i. 37, 27) and Velleius (2, 87),
seem to have no doubt about the snake story. Livy (as we have him) says
nothing either way except that she died by suicide (_Ep._ 133). It is the
later writers who express the doubt, Suet., _Aug._ 17; Plut., _Ant._ 86;
Dio, 51, 14.
[214] This word—one of the financial terms borrowed from Sicily (lit. “a
basket”)—was perhaps not commonly used in the restricted sense in the
time of Augustus, though the thing existed. Into the emperor’s _fisc_
went the revenues of the imperial provinces; but the balance in the case
of most was not large. Cicero indeed (_pro lege Manil_, § 14) says that
none of the provinces except Asia did much more than pay its expenses.
This was probably an exaggeration, but not a very great one.
[215] This, it should be remembered, was exclusive of the legions
regularly raised for certain provinces and stationed in them.
[216] _Mon. Ancyr._ 3, 16.
[217] Traces of the work of Augustus in provincial towns may still be
seen, as at Nismes and other towns in South-eastern France.
[218] Horace, _Odes_ iii. 3.
[219] In the _Mon. Ancyr._ 20, he says that he repaired 82 temples in
B.C. 28, and the Flaminian road with all but two of its bridges in B.C.
27.
[220] The foundations of the triple arch at Rome were discovered in
1888 between the temple of Cæsar and that of the Castores. For the
inscription see C. I. L. vii. 872. _SENATUS . POPULUSQUE . ROMANUS . IMP
. CÆSARI . DIVI . IULI . F . COS . QUINCT . COS . DESIG . SEXT . IMP .
SEPT . REPUBLICA . CONSERVATA._ The date here indicated is B.C. 29. See
Lanciani, _Ruins of Ancient Rome_, p. 270. Middleton, _Remains of Ancient
Rome_, vol. i. p. 284. There does not appear to be any record of the arch
at Brundisium.
[221] Vergil, _Georg._ iv. 560, _Cæsar dum magnus ad altum fulminat
Euphratem bello._ Horace, _Od._ 1, 12, 53:
_Ille seu Parthos Latio imminentes_
_Egerit iusto domitos triumpho,_
_Sive subjectos Orientis oræ Seras et Indos._
Similar exaggerations will be found scattered throughout the poems of
Propertius (ii. 7, 3; iii. 1, 13; iii. 23, 5; iv. 3, 4; iv. 4, 48; iv.
11, 3). Still more exaggerated language was used afterwards on the
restoration of the standards (B.C. 20).
[222] A good deal of confusion in our authorities has arisen by a
failure to distinguish between a _censoria potestas_ granted like the
_tribunicia_ by special vote and the _censoria potestas_ inherent in
the consulship, from which it had been devolved in B.C. 444. In the
_Monumentum_, ch. 8, Augustus himself says nothing about the _censoria
potestas_, but in the Venusian fasti (C. I. L. ix. 422) we find _imp.
Cæsar vi. M. Agrippa II. Cos. idem censoria potestate lustrum fecerunt_.
Suetonius (c. 27) knew that he was not Censor, but supposed him to have
acted under a decree granting him _morum legumque regimen perpetuum_, an
office, however, which Augustus expressly says that he declined (_Mon._,
ch. 6). Dio (52, 42) describes him as τιμητεύσας σὺν τῷ Ἀγρίππᾳ, a direct
confusion between the censorial power possessed by a Consul and that
bestowed independently. He, however, apparently did receive _censoria
potestas_ (never the censorship) in B.C. 19 for five years.
[223] _Rex sacrorum_, the greater _flamens_, the Salii had still to be
patricians. An _interrex_ also must be a patrician, but that office was
now practically at an end. The last case of an _interrex_ was in B.C. 52.
[224] A jest that was reproduced in London when country peers came up to
vote against the Home Rule Bill and were said by gossips to be obliged to
ask their way to the House of Lords. A popular ballad also was sung about
the streets—
“Cæsar leads the Gauls in triumph and guides them to the Senate house;
Gauls have doffed their native brogues and donned the Senate’s
laticlave!”
Sueton., _Cæs._ 72, 80. See also Cicero, 9 _Phil._ § 12; 13 _Phil._ §
27; _ad Fam._ vi. 18; _Bell. Afr._ 28; Dio, 42, 51; 43, 27. Compare the
career of P. Ventidius Bassus, brought a prisoner from Asculum to adorn
the triumph of Pompey after the Social war, then a mule contractor to
Cæsar, and afterwards going through all the offices to the consulship in
B.C. 43.
[225] On the analogy of slaves enfranchised by will. Suet., _Aug._ 35;
Plutarch, _Ant._ 15.
[226] Cicero calls such a man a _voluntarius Senator_, 13 _Phil._ § 28.
[227] Dio, 48, 34.
[228] Suet., _Aug._ 35; Dio, 52, 42. In the _Monumentum_ (c. 25) he
reckons the number of Senators who had served under him as “more than
700.” To them must be added those who had not taken active service and
those who were with Antony.
[229] Dio, 52, 42. The regulation had always existed because every
Senator was bound to attend if called upon, and therefore must be within
reach, unless he was one of those _qui reipublicæ causa abessent_. (Livy,
43, 11.) Thus Cicero, defending the Senators who crossed over to join
Pompey in Epirus, says to Atticus (viii. 15) that there was hardly one
who had not a legal right to cross, either as having imperium, or being
legatus to an imperator. The usual means of evading this was to obtain
a _libera legatio_ for a fixed time. Occasionally a man got himself
named an ordinary legatus to a provincial governor, but was allowed to
go elsewhere with some colourable commission. But this was an abuse. See
Cicero, _ad Fam._ xii. 21; _ad Q. Frat._ ii. 9; _ad Att._ xv. 11. Sicily
and Gallia Narbonensis were excepted as being practically Italy, or, as
Cicero says, “suburban provinces.”
[230] Sueton., _Aug._ 36; Dio, 3, 19; Tacitus, _Ann._ 5, 4.
[231] ὅρον τὴν ἕκτην ὑπάτειαν αὑτοῦ προσθείς. Dio, 53, 2. See Tacitus,
_Ann._ iii. 28.
[232] The doubt was an old one. Appian in one place affirms and in
another denies that there was a _lex_ for the second period of the
triumvirs (_Illyr._ 28; b. c. v. 95). No other authority mentions one,
and it certainly was not passed in the early months of B.C. 37, that is,
till after the triumvirs had already continued their office without legal
confirmation for some time. Willems (_le Sénat_, ii. 761) holds that
there was a plebiscitum; Mommsen that there was not.
[233] _Mon. Ancyr._ ch. 34.
[234] In B.C. 28 he took care to transfer the consular fasces to his
colleague Agrippa in alternative months, and when with soldiers to give
the watchword jointly with him. (Dio, 53, 1.)
[235] I do not myself see any good reason to doubt that Dio has given at
any rate the substance of these documents. It is not perhaps natural to
us to suppose two men like Mæcenas and Agrippa solemnly reading speeches
to the Emperor; but it was no unusual thing at Rome. Augustus himself is
said to have done it, even to his wife, Livia, and frequently with others
(Sueton., _Aug._ 84). Tacitus says it was the fashion of the time (_Ann._
4, 37), as it seems to have been still earlier, for Cicero complains that
his nephew, Quintus, had written an elaborate diatribe against him which
he meant to deliver to Iulius Cæsar in Alexandria. (_Ad Att._ xi. 10.)
For similar documents see Dio, 52, 1-40; 53, 3; 55, 15-21.
[236] Dio, 52, 15.
[237] The IMPERIAL provinces were: Hispania Tarraconensis, and Lusitania,
the Galliæ (beyond the Alps), including the districts afterwards called
Germania, superior and inferior, Cœle-Syria, Phœnicia, Cilicia, Cyprus,
Ægypt.
The SENATORIAL were: Sicilia, Hispania Bætica, Sardinia, Africa, Numidia,
Dalmatia, Greece and Epirus, Macedonia, Asia, Crete and Cyrene, Bithynia
and Pontus.
Cisalpine Gaul ceased to be a province, and was included in Italy.
Subsequent changes were:
B.C. 24. Cyprus and Gallia Narbonensis were transferred to the
Senate.
B.C. 21. Dalmatia was transferred to the Emperor.
B.C. 6. Sardinia was transferred to the Emperor for nine years.
The provinces added during the lifetime of Augustus: Galatia, Lycaonia,
Mœsia, and the minor Alpine provinces were imperial.
All provinces added afterwards were imperial.
[238] Ovid (F. 1, 587-616) says the Ides of January; the Calendarium
Prænestinum gives the 16th. Possibly the one is the date of the SCtum,
the other of the plebiscitum.
[239] Augustus himself uses it in the _Monumentum_ (chs. 30, 32), “me
principe,” “ante me principem.” Horace (_Od._ 1, 21, 13; 2, 30; _Ep._ 2,
1, 256), Propertius (v. 6, 46), both employ it when speaking of Augustus.
It occurs in inscriptions referring to Tiberius, and is the common term
used by Tacitus. If, therefore, it was not formally bestowed (as seems
probable), it soon grew into use as a title in ordinary language. Nor
was it altogether a new idea; Cicero had used it as a possible title of
honour, with which Pompey or Cæsar, had they been moderate, might have
been content. (Cic., _ad Fam._ vi. 6). Again, though it is not a mere
extension of _princeps senatus_, yet it is clearly connected with it.
As the Senatus is the first _ordo_ in the state, the _princeps senatus_
is also _princeps civitatis_. The two titles were soon confounded. Thus
Pliny (_N.H._ xxxvi. § 116) speaks of M. Æmilius Scaurus as _totius
princeps civitatis_, when he means that he had been several times entered
by the Censors on the roll as _princeps senatus_. But a new connotation
became attached to the word from the political powers of the _princeps_.
[240] Horace, _Epode_, vii. 7; _Odes_, i. 21, 15; iii. 5, 2; Propert.,
iii. 23, 5.
[241] Vergil, _Georg._ iii. 25; Horace, _Odes_ iii. 4, 33.
[242] Strabo, ii. 5, 8; iv. 6, 4.
[243] Strabo, _l. c._ In the _Monument_. (ch. 32) Augustus records the
visit of two British princes, Dumnobellaunus and another, of whose name
only the letters _Tinn_ remain (perhaps “Tincommius,” a king of what is
now Sussex).
[244] The triumph of M. Crassus is dated by the Tab. Triumph. C. I. L. 1,
416; but the defeat of the “Dacian Cotiso” is classed with the Cantabrian
war by Horace (_Od._ 3, 8, 18-24), and Livy, _Ep._ 135, mentions a second
war of M. Crassus “against the Thracians,” as contemporary with the
Spanish war.
[245] The Salassi, who had for the last 100 years given much trouble, had
twice in recent years been in arms: in B.C. 35 they defeated C. Antistius
Vetus, and, in B.C. 34, had, with great difficulty, been partly subdued
by Valerius Messalla. Their command of the principal Alpine pass made it
important that they should be kept in check.
[246] Hor., _Od._ 2, 6, 2, _Cantabrum indoctum iuga ferre nostra_.
[247] _Odes_ iii. 8, 21, _servit Hispanæ vetus hostis oræ Cantaber sera
domitus catena_; iii. 14, 3, _Cæsar Hispana repetit Penates Victor ab
ora_.
[248] Perhaps that of which remains exist at Aosta, and cannot now be
dated. That at Turbia was built B.C. 6 (Pliny, _N. H._ 3 § 136). That
at Susa in B.C. 8 [C. I. L. v. 7,231]. Horace may refer to it among the
_Nova Augusti tropæa_ (_Od._ 2, 9, 19).
[249] Horace, _Odes_ i. 29, 1; ii. 12, 24; iii. 24, 1; i. 35, 32-40.
[250] Propert., 3, 1, 11.
[251] Middleton (_Remains of Ancient Rome_, vol. ii. pp. 126-128) seems
to have given good reasons against its connection with the Thermæ of
Agrippa. Lanciani (_Ruins and Excavations_, pp. 476-488) asserts that the
structure as it now stands is of the age of Hadrian (about A.D. 129),
and doubts Agrippa’s original building being of the same shape. Even
the portico with its inscription—M. AGRIPPA L. F. COS. TERT. FECIT—he
thinks was taken to pieces and put up again by Hadrian. The history of
the building, however, cannot be regarded as thoroughly ascertained.
Agrippa’s third consulship was in B.C. 27, whereas Dio places the
completion of the Pantheon under B.C. 25 (53, 27). It may well have been
that the external building was finished and dedicated in B.C. 27, and
that the inside occupied two more years.
[252] A. Licinius Muræna was called A. Terentius Varro Muræna from
being adopted by Terentius Varro. See Dio, 54, 3; Suet., _Aug._ 19;
Hor., _Odes_ 2, 10; Velleius Paterc. 2, 91. Of Fannius Cæpio nothing
practically is known, he was prosecuted by Tiberius for _maiestas_ and
condemned.
[253] In the _cenotaphia Pisana_ Gaius is described after his death as
“iam _designatum_ iustissimum ac simillimum parentis sui virtutibus
_principem_.” But this is probably not an official title.
[254] There seems little doubt that the character of Agrippa Postumus
gave some ground for this measure; but Augustus seems to have regretted
and at times to have contemplated recalling him. His murder immediately
after the death of Augustus is called by Tacitus “the first crime of the
new reign.” Whether Tiberius or Livia was responsible for it cannot be
discussed here.
[255] So Dio (55, 5) says. Suetonius (_Tib._ 16) says five years. There
may have been a renewal after five years.
[256] _Monum. Ancyr._ 27; C.I.L. vi. 701.
[257] This is what Augustus means by saying “that he extended the
frontiers of all the provinces bordering on tribes that had not
submitted” (_Mon. Anc._ 26).
[258] The exact position of Nabata is uncertain. It is described in the
_Mon. Ancyr._ 26 as “close to Meroe.” Augustus takes the responsibility
of both these campaigns as being _meo iussu et auspicio_.
[259] As, for instance, Agrippa. Hor., _Ep._ 1, 12, 1. The seven colonies
mentioned are Syracuse, Tauromenium, Catana, Thermæ, Tyndaris, Lilybæum,
Panormus.
[260] Dio, 54, 8; Horace, _Od._ 3, 5; this ode was written several years
before the restoration of the standards, but the fact of the _milites
Crassi_ having settled in Parthia was naturally known.
[261] Verg., _Æn._ vii. 604-606.
[262] Horace, _Ep._ i. 18, 56; _Odes_ iv. 15, 6.
[263] Propert., 3, 10, 13; 4; 4, 16; 4, 5, 48; 4, 12, 3; 5, 6, 79.
[264] Ovid, _F._ v. 567-594. According to Mommsen there were two temples
of Mars Ultor, one on the Capitol (Dio, 54, 8), the other in the Forum
Augustum, vowed at Philippi, but not dedicated till B.C. 2. The _signa_
seem to have been deposited first in the former and then transferred to
the latter. Ovid evidently speaks of them as in the temple in the Forum
Augustum.
[265] Such as the Brenni and Genauni of Hor., _Od._ iv. 14, 10; cp. iv.
4, 18.
[266] _Mon. Ancyr._, 13; Horace, _Epist._ 2, 1, 255; _Odes_, 4, 15, 9;
Dio, 54, 25. For the inscription, see Clinton, _Fast. Hell._, B.C. 14.
The tenth tribunician year is from June 27th, B.C. 14, to 26th June, B.C.
13. The _ara pacis_ was founded in this year (4th July), dedicated 30th
January, B.C. 9.
[267] But he does not seem to have had any fighting this year, and in
fact the Senate voted to close the Ianus Quirinus, though that was
prevented by an inroad of the Daci into Pannonia, with which Tiberius was
sent to deal. Dio, 54, 36.
[268] Especially in camps, in which there seem to have been a regular
service of _tabellarii castrenses_. (Wilmann’s _Exempla_ 1357.)
[269] The armed provinces were those on the frontier. Towards the end
of the life of Augustus, the preponderance of the military force on
the Rhine and Danube is the noteworthy fact. The Gauls and “Germany”
had eight legions, Spain three, Africa two, Egypt two, Syria four,
Pannonia two, Mœsia two, Dalmatia two. But those on the Rhine were more
concentrated. (Tac., _Ann._ 4, 5.)
[270] C.I.L. x. 8375; _Mon. Ancyr._ 11.
[271] Suet., _Aug._ 98: “As he chanced to be cruising in his yacht round
the bay of Puteoli, the passengers and crew of an Alexandrine ship, which
had just come to land, came with white robes, with garlands on their
heads and burning censers in their hands, loudly blessing and praising
him, and saying that they owed it to him that they were alive, that they
sailed the sea, that they were enjoying their liberty and property.”
[272] Horace, _Odes_ iv. 5.
[273] See, among others, _Ep._ ii. 1-16; _Odes_ 3, 5, 2; 4, 5, 32.
[274] Suet., _Aug._ 52; Dio, 51, 20.
[275] The Latin inscriptions bearing on this point have been collected in
a convenient form by Mr. Rushforth, _Latin Historical Inscriptions_, pp.
51-61. Other places in Italy thus shewn to have adopted the cult in some
form or other during the lifetime of Augustus are Asisium, Beneventum,
Fanum Fortunæ, Pisa, Tibur, Verona, possibly Ancona, and Forum Clodii,
and some unnamed place in Latium.
[276] Plut., _Flamin._ 16; Cicero, _ad Q. Fr._ 1, 1, 9; _ad Att._ 5, 21;
Tac., _Ann._ 4, 56. Polyb. 31, 15.
[277] Appian, b. c. 5, 132, “and the cities began placing his image side
by side with those of their gods.”
[278] Information as to these is mostly to be found in Greek
inscriptions, C.I.G. 3,524, 3,604, 3,831, 4,039. See also Dio, 51, 10;
Strabo, 27, 1, 9; Joseph., _Antiq._ 15, 10, 3; Livy, _Ep._ 137; Pausan.,
iii. 25.
[279] Quintilian, vi. 377.
[280] For this and his statue in the temple of Quirinus, with legend of
_Deo invicto_, the vote of the Senate giving him a temple, flamen, and
other divine honours, see Dio, 43, 45; 44, 6; Cicero, _2 Phil._ § 110;
ad _Att._ 13, 44; Sueton., _Cæs._ 76. It was worse than the case of
Augustus, more insincere and less spontaneous. The Senate was filled with
the protégés of Iulius at the time.
[281] Macrob., _Sat._ 2, 4, 18; Plut., _Cic._ 49; Suet., _Aug._ 28.
[282] See Horace, _Odes_ iii. 4, 22: vester, Camenæ, vester in arduos
| tollor Sabinos, seu mihi frigidum | Præneste seu Tibur supinum | seu
liquidæ pacuere Baiæ.
[283] Apragopolis. In Suetonius (c. 97) it is doubtful whether he means
Capreæ or some other island. Perhaps it is _Nesis_, where M. Brutus had a
villa which might have come into his hands as confiscated property (Cic.,
_ad Att._ xvi. 1-4.)
[284] An echo of his master’s feelings on this point is as usual found in
Horace, _Od._ ii. 15.
[285] Another tragedy “Achilles” is mentioned by Suidas.
[286] Hor., _Od._ 3, 136. Suetonius (_Aug._ 85) mentions others, “An
answer to Brutus about Cato,” evidently a youthful essay; “Exhortations
to Philosophy,” no doubt youthful too; an hexameter poem called
_Sicilia_. When he tried to read them in later life to a family audience
they bored him so much that he handed the rolls over to Tiberius to
finish. Lastly, a short volume of Epigrams which he used to compose in
the bath.
[287] Hor., _Epist._ 2, 1.
[288] In B.C. 46, 42, 25, and 23. From that time, however, though
generally delicate he seems not to have had any serious attack.
[289] The _lex Iulia et Titia_, enabling the provincial governor to
assign guardians to such persons as were legally bound to have them, was
passed between the 1st of May and 1st of October, B.C. 31, the period
during which M. Titius was consul.
[290] Authorities will be found in Mommsen, _res gestæ_, p. 96.
[291] _Mon. Ancyr._, 25.
[292] C. I. L. xi. 365; _Mon. Ancyr._ 20. “In my seventh consulship I
remade the Flaminian road from the city to Ariminum, and all the bridges
except the Mulvian and Minucian.”
[293] See Suet., _Aug._ 46. The regions are described by Pliny alone,
_N.H._ iii. 46-128.
[294] The inscription on the road to Salonæ in Dalmatia is dated A.D.
19, but it must have been begun much earlier. For the other roads see
Willmanns 832, 829, 830, 832; Clinton’s _Fasti_, anno B.C. 14; _Journal
of Hellenic Studies_, xii. part i. p. 109 _sq._ C. I. L. iii. 6,974.
[295] Digest, 47, 11, 6. The penalties varied from a fine to exclusion
from the corn trade, _relegatio_, and condemnation to public works.
[296] Cicero, pro Sest. § 103; _ad Att._ vi. 6; Livy, vi. 12; Appian, b.
c. ii. 120; Dionys. H. xii. 24.
[297] Quoted by Sueton., _Aug._ 42.
[298] Dio, 53, 20, 33; Horace, _Odes_ 1, 2.
[299] The Sacred Colleges (1) were exempt from military service, imposts
and public services of all kinds; (2) had a charge on the _ager publicus_
for sacrifices, feasts, &c.; (3) in most cases had estates besides; (4)
received special grants from time to time for repairs of buildings.
[300] _Mon. Ancy._, 10; Livy, _Ep._ 117; Vell., ii. 63; App., b. c. v.
131; Dio, 44, 53. All these authorities speak of the irregularity of the
election of Lepidus.
[301] _Ephemeris Epigraphica_, viii. 2; Lindsay’s _Latin Inscriptions_,
p. 102.
[302] _Carmen Sæcul._ 13.
[303] Horace, _Odes_ iv. 5, 21; iv. 15, 9-12.
[304] We frequently hear in earlier times of the scandal caused by
certain people abandoning the heavy and not very comfortable toga for
lighter dress, Greek or Gallic. Those who care to trace the history of
such a matter will find references to it in Cicero, _pro Rab. Post._ §
27; 2 _Phil._ § 76; Livy, 29, 19; Tac., _Ann._ ii. 59; Hor., _Ep._ 1,
7, 65. And if it is desired to see how futile such orders are against a
prevailing fashion, the continued disuse of it may be traced in Juvenal
1, 119; 3, 172; Mart. 1, 49, 31; 12, 18, 17; Suet., _Aug._ 40; and as
late as Hadrian we find that the order needed renewal, Spart. _Had._ 22.
George III. insisting that Bishops should wear wigs is a case in point.
[305] Cicero (_in Pis._ § 67) speaks with scorn of the vulgar rich man
who had five, or sometimes more, guests on each couch.
[306] Though in making regulations on these subjects Augustus acted on
his censorial powers, when it came to enacting laws he would propose them
to the tribes in virtue of his tribunician powers.
[307] _De adulteriis coercendis; de pudicitia; de maritandis ordinibus._
[308] Dio, 56, 2-10; Suet., _Aug._ 34.
[309] Martial, _Epigr._, xi. 20.
[310] Pliny, _N. H._ 7 § 149; Dio, 54, 9.
[311] In A.D. 11 the people of Narbonne founded an altar to him in
gratitude for some reform in their constitution which he had either
granted or initiated. (Wilmanns, 194.)
[312] Asia and Sicily originally did not pay a _stipendium_, but tithes
on produce. This system was abolished by Iulius Cæsar.
[313] Suet., _August._ 76.
[314] Suet., _Tib._ 11.
[315] Dio, 56, 29. But there does not appear to have been one that year.
There was a partial eclipse of the moon on the 4th of April and a total
eclipse on the 27th of September.
[316] The Mausoleum was a huge mound of earth covered with shrubs, upon
a substructure or dome cased with white marble and surrounded by walks
and plantations, and surmounted by a bronze statue of Augustus. On
the still-existing foundation there is now what is called the _Teatro
Correa_. Besides this the spot on which his body was burnt was also
enclosed and planted. Strab., iv. 53. Middleton, _Remains of Ancient
Rome_, vol. ii. p. 288.
[317] It ought, however, to be said to his credit that he forbade the
exhibition of gladiators _sine missione_, _i.e._, without the right of
being allowed to depart safe from the arena when defeated if the people
so willed it.
[318] See note on p. 147.
[319] Horace, _Od._ iii. 8.
[320] Seneca, _Epp._ 114; _Digest._ 24, 1, 64.
[321] 2, 17, 13; 3, 1, 13; 3, 23, 5; 4, 3; 4, 4, 48; 4, 11, 3; 5, 6,
79-84.
[322] For purposes of comparison of these sums with our money, 1,000
sesterces may be taken as equivalent to about £8 10s., and a denarius as
about 10d.
[323] A pound of gold worth about £45.
[324] These names and some other words are obliterated in the
inscription, both Latin and Greek.
INDEX
A
Abydos, 80
Achæan League, the, 27
Achaia, 27, 28;
colonies in, 133
Acilius, M., 23
Actium, 86, 123-24, 290;
colony at, 175
_Ad capita bubula_, 1
_Ad gallinas_, 205
Ægina separated from Athens, 176
Ælius Gallus, 155, 174
Æmilius Lepidus, M., as prætor (B.C. 49) holds election for dictator,
8;
appointed to Hispania Citerior, 23;
visits Sextus Pompeius, 42;
in Transalpine Gaul, 59;
joins Antony, 64;
becomes one of the triumvirate, 70, 71;
announces the close of the proscriptions, 74;
suspected of intriguing with Sextus Pompeius, 82, 87;
his inferior position, 88;
in Africa, 99;
comes to Sicily, 104;
claims to govern Sicily, 105;
deposed from the triumvirate, 106;
his office of Pontifex Maximus, 107, 112, 160;
his death, 160;
see also 202, 221, 222
Æmilius Lepidus, M. (son of the triumvir), his conspiracy, 123;
his brother, 258
Æmilius Paullus Lepidus, L., (brother of the triumvir), proscribed, 72
_Ærarium_, the, 148, 249, 296
Æthiopia, 174, 299
Afranius, 23
Africa, province of, 24-26, 99;
see also 9, 11, 65, 71, 171;
colonies in, 133;
New Africa, 25, 113
Agrippa, _see_ “Vipsanius”
Agrippa, Postumus, 167, 168, 277
Agrippina, 167
Ahenobarbus, _see_ “Domitius”
Aix, 134
Alaudæ, the, 47
Alba Fucensis, 49, 51, 53
Albis (R. Elbe), 184, 186, 187
Alexandria, 11, 116, 117, 120, 121, 125, 127, 198
Allienus, Aul., 23, 31, 80
Alps, provinces of the, 17, 172
Amanus, Mount, 30
Amatius (the pseudo-Marius), 13
Amisia (R. Ems), 184
Amnesty to the Assassins, 38
Amphipolis, 83
Amyntas, king of Galatia, 30, 173;
and of Pisidia, 102, 108
Ancyra, 171;
temple of Augustus and Rome at, 176, 198, 261
_Annonæ præfectus_, 216, 217
Antiochus, king of Commagene, 116
Antistius Vetus, C., 31, 113, 154, 202
Antonius Musa (physician), 158, 161
Antonius, C. (brother of Marcus), defeated in Illyricum, 22;
in Macedonia, 27, 48, 49;
prætor (B.C. 44), 38, 40
Antonius, Julius (son of Marcus), 239
Antonius, L. (brother of Marcus), 26;
Trib. Pl. (B.C. 44), 38, 41;
triumphs as consul (B.C. 41), 89;
his quarrel with Augustus, 91, 93-5;
besieged in Perusia, 95-6
Antony (M. Antonius), depreciates Augustus, 3;
as Tribune (B.C. 50) vetoes the recall of Iulius Cæsar, 7;
Consul (B.C. 44), 18;
his speech at Cæsar’s funeral, 36;
opposes the claims of Octavian, 38-9;
takes the money in the temple of Ops, 39-40;
his use of Cæsar’s papers and his intrigues with the veterans, 42;
accuses Octavian of plotting his assassination, 44-5;
suppresses a mutiny at Brundisium, 48;
his speech at Tibur, 49;
goes to Ariminum, 50;
commissioners sent to, 54;
his letter to Hirtius and Octavian, 55;
his approval of the murder of Trebonius, 29;
his siege of Mutina, 56;
defeated at Forum Gallorum, 57-8;
his great march to Vada, 59;
declared a _hostis_, 59-60;
agrees with Lepidus and Octavian to form the triumvirate, 68-70;
his hold on Pompey’s property, 82;
his campaign at Philippi, 82-6;
goes to the East, 87;
his infatuation for Cleopatra, 91, 116, 117;
joins Sextus Pompeius in invading Italy, 98;
makes terms with Augustus and marries Octavia, 99, 100;
his legate puts Sextus Pompeius to death, 108;
his failures in the East, 116;
his final quarrel with Augustus, 118-21;
divorces Octavia, 120;
his defeat at Actium, 122-25;
his final struggle in Egypt, 126;
his death at Alexandria, 127;
estimate of, 130;
his letter to Augustus, 231
Antyllus (son of Antony), 127, 129
Apamea (in Syria), 30, 31
Apollo, temple and libraries of, 115, 156, 204, 205
Apollonia (in Epirus), 15, 34, 278;
(in Cyrene), 32;
(in Pisidia), 261
Apragopolis, 206
Aqua Marcia, 212, 297
Aquæ Statiellæ, 59
Aquileia, 234
Aquitania, 20
Arabia, deserts of, 17, 30;
expeditions into, 155, 156, 174
Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, 173
Argentoratum (Strassburg), 185
Ariminum, 7, 48, 71
Ariobarzanes, king of Cappadocia, 80
Armenia, 118, 177;
king of, 116, 125, 167
Arminius, chief of the Cherusci, 187, 188
Army, unity of the, 191
Arsinoe (in Cyrene), 32
Artagera, 167
Artavasdes, 173, 174
Artaxes, 173, 174, 177
Arvales, 220
Asia, province of, 9, 28, 88;
_Asia recepta_, 174
Asinius Gallus, 258, 263
Asinius Pollio, C., in Bætica, 23;
joins Antony, 59, 69;
superintends assignment of lands, 90, 283;
awaits Antony after Perusia, 97;
assists at the treaty of Brundisium, 99;
triumphs over the Parthini, 102
Asprenas, L., 188
Astura, 256
Astures in Spain, the, 153, 154, 179
At the Oxheads, 1
Athenodorus of Tarsus, 15, 231
Athens, 27, 101;
not favoured by Augustus, 175
Atia, mother of Augustus, 2, 3, 15, 36, 37;
death of, 78
Atius Balbus, M., 2
_Augurium salutis_, 142
Augusta Emerita, 154
Augustus (Gaius Iulius Cæsar Octavianus) birth of (B.C. 63), 1-2;
his cognomen of Thurinus, 3;
in the household of his stepfather, 3, 9;
takes the _toga virilis_ and made a pontifex, 10;
not adopted in Cæsar’s lifetime, 11;
shares Cæsar’s triumph, 12;
in charge of a theatre, 12;
goes to Spain, 12;
and to Carthage, 13;
appointed _magister equitum_ and made a patrician, 14;
at Apollonia, 15;
his resolve to avenge Cæsar, 16, 34;
returns from Apollonia, 35-7;
adopted by Cæsar’s will, 37;
pays Cæsar’s legacies and celebrates his games, 38, 40;
his dealings with the Ciceronians, 41;
his alleged plot against Antony, 44, 45;
enrols veterans, 46;
tampers with Antony’s legions, 48;
joined by the legio Martia and Quarta and granted prætorian rank,
50-52;
his campaign at Mutina, 56-9;
slighted by the Senate, 60;
refuses to pursue Antony, 61;
demands and obtains the consulate, 64-8;
enters the triumvirate and is betrothed to Clodia, 70-71;
his share of responsibility for the proscriptions, 76;
in the campaign of Philippi, 83-6;
his assignment of lands to veterans and troubles with L. Antonius
and Fulvia, 90-92;
his campaign of Perusia, 94-7;
marries Scribonia, 98;
his quarrels and reconciliations with Antony, 99-102;
his dangers in the Sicilian war, 102-9;
deposes Lepidus, 106-7;
honours voted to after the defeat of Sextus Pompeius, 111, 112;
his campaigns in Illyricum, 114;
his house on the Palatine, 115;
his letters to and from Antony, 120;
proclaims war as Fetial against Cleopatra, 121;
at the battle of Actium, 124;
winters at Samos and Athens (B.C. 31-30), 125, 126;
his interviews with Cleopatra, 128, 129;
honours voted to after Actium, 135;
his constitutional reforms, 137-47;
shares the provinces with the Senate, 147-48;
the title Augustus, 149, 301;
goes to Gaul (B.C. 27), 151-53;
and to Spain, 154;
his benefactions, 296;
his illness of B.C. 23 and recovery, 157, 158;
adopts Gaius and Lucius, 166;
his adoption of Tiberius, 168-69;
his maxim as to the extension of the Empire, 171, 261;
his settlement of the East, 172-79;
favours Sparta rather than Athens, 176;
in Gaul, 180-82;
activity after the fall of Varus, 188;
his military discipline, 192;
his absences from Italy, 194;
the worship of, 195-201;
his tolerant character, 201-4;
his health, 208-9;
his residences, 204-6;
his way of life, 206-11;
his reforms and legislation, 212-32;
his connection with the sacred colleges, 220;
his legislation on marriage and divorce, 226-32;
saluted as _pater patriæ_, 236-37;
financial measures, 250;
last journey and death, 255-58;
his funeral, 252-60;
will and other documents left by him, 260-62;
summary of his career, 265-72;
physical appearance and habits, 272-74;
buildings and other public works, 156, 297-98
Aurelius, 20
Aurelius Cotta, M., 24
Autocracy, advantages and disadvantages of, 269-71
Avernus, Lake, 103
B
Bætica, 23, 215
Balbus, _see_ “Cornelius”
_Basilica Iulia_, 156
Bassus, Q. Cæcilius, 18, 30, 31, 80
Bassus, Ventidius, 57, 59, 61, 70, 97, 116, 139 _n._
Belgæ, the, 21
Belgica, province of, 20, 180
Benacus Lacus, 181
Beneventum, 71, 256, 257
Berenice, 32
Bessi, the, 2, 17, 180
Beyroot (Berutum), 134
Bithynia and Pontus, province of, 28, 31, 80
Bœotia, 27
Bononia, 56, 57, 58
Brigandage, 113, 213
Britain, 151-52, 300
Brundisium, 8, 35, 48, 57, 82;
treaty of, 99-100;
mutiny of veterans at, 125
Brutus, _see_ “Iunius”
C
Cadiz, 12
Cæcilius Caldus, C., 29
Cælius Metellus, L., 47
Cæcilius Metellus, L., Tr. Pl. (B.C.), 8
Cæcilius Metellus Creticus, Q., 32
Cæcilius Metellus, Q., father-in-law of Pompey, 4, 30
Cæcina of Volaterræ, 47
Cæsar, Gaius, 166, 167;
death of, 240-42;
Cæsar, Lucius, 166, 168;
death of, 241
Cæsar, _see_ “Iulius,” “Augustus”
Cæsar-Augusta, 154
Cæsarion, 118, 120, 129, 173
Calabria, 35
Calpe (Gibraltar), 13
Calpurnius Piso, L., father-in-law of Cæsar, 44, 54
Calvisius Sabinus, C., 25, 103
Campania, 46
Candace, 174
Cantabri, war with, 153, 154, 179
Capreæ (Capri), 206, 256
Capua, 8, 48, 71, 112
Caracalla, 193
Carthage, colony at, 13, 133
Cassius, C., 19 _n._;
in Asia and Syria, 29-31;
has to quit Rome after Cæsar’s murder, 41;
offered the _cura annonæ_, 42;
nominated to Cyrene, 32, 43;
publishes edicts with Brutus against Antony, 44;
his nomination to Syria renewed by Senate, 55;
to be attacked by Antony, 71;
his war with the triumvirs, 79-83;
his death, 84
Cassius, Q., Tr. Pl. [B.C., 49], 7;
his failure in Spain, 23
Carrhæ, battle of, 30
Carthage, colony at, 25
Casinius, M., 24
Castra Vetera, 187, 188
Catiline, conspiracy of, 1, 3, 213
_Censoria potestas_, 137, 224, 294
Census, the, 137, 255
Chatti, the, 184, 186, 187
Chauci, the, 186
Cherusci, the, 187
Cicero (M. Tullius), 1, 2, 14, 24, 30;
meets Octavian, 37;
his view of Octavian and the situation, 39, 45-6, 50-1;
his epigram, 52, 60;
his correspondence with Octavian, 53;
his hostility to the party of Antony, 54, 56, 58-65;
his submission to Octavian, 67;
proscribed, 72;
Augustus’s opinion of, 201
Cilicia, province of, 25, 29, 30, 173
Cimber, L., 19
Cinna, L., 41
Citizenship, reluctance of Augustus to extend the, 251
Claterna, skirmish at, 55-6
Claudius, son of Drusus (afterwards emperor), 243
Claudius Marcellus, C. (Cos. B.C. 50), 45, 99
Claudius Marcellus, M. (Cos. B.C. 51), 6
Claudius Marcellus, M., son of Octavia, hopes to succeed Augustus,
157, 161;
Vergil’s lines on his death, 162-63
Claudius Nero, Tib. (husband of Livia), 97, 110, 111
Claudius Nero, Tib. (son of Livia, afterwards emperor), 97, 157, 163,
165;
forced to divorce Vipsania and marry Iulia, 165;
adopted by Augustus, 168, 186;
his character, 169;
crowns the king of Armenia, 177;
campaigns in the Eastern Alps, 181;
in Pannonia, 183;
succeeds Drusus on the Rhine, 185;
retires to Rhodes, 167, 185;
succeeds again to the command on the Rhine and thence goes to
Dalmatia, 186;
returns to the Rhine on the fall of Varus, 188;
letter of Augustus to, 202;
marries Iulia, 234;
divorces Iulia, 239;
Augustus’s feelings towards, 169-70, 253-55;
his successes, 263;
his speech at the funeral of Augustus, 259
Cleopatra, 30, 33;
prevented from sending aid to Antony against Brutus and Cassius, 80;
her meeting with Antony on the Cydnus, 91;
her influence on Antony, 118-21;
at Actium, 123-24;
her negotiations with Octavian and death, 126-29.
See also 172, 173, 176, 212, 231
Clodia, betrothed to Augustus, 71;
repudiated, 98
Clodius, P., 4
M. Cocceius Nerva, 99
Cœle-Syria, 30
_Collegia_, the, 215, 216
Colonies of Augustus in Italy, 133
Commagene, 116
Comum, colony of, 6
_Confarreatio_, 226
_Constitutio principis_, 159
_Consularia ornamenta_, 52
Corcyra, 21, 122
Cordova, 134
Corfinium, 8
Corinth, 27;
colony at, 133
Corn, supply and price of, 216, 217;
free distribution of, 217, 218, 296
Cornelius Balbus, L., 37;
theatre of, 156
Cornelius Dolabella, P., 18;
(Cos. B.C. 44) shares the money in the temple of Ops, 39;
receives a legion from Macedonia, 43;
puts Trebonius to death, 55;
his proceedings in Syria, 28, 29, 31;
kills himself at Laodicea, 80
Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, P., 29, 80
Cornificius, Q., 25, 105
Cornutus, M. (Præt. B.C. 43), 67
Cosa, 103
Cotys of Thrace, 180
Crassus, _see_ “Licinius”
Crete, 32, 113, 172
Crispus, _see_ “Marcius”
Croatia, 114
Cumæ, 196
_Cura annonæ_, 42
Curio, C., 6, 7, 9
Cyme, 198
Cyprus, separated from Egypt, 172
Cyrene, province of, 32, 33, 118, 173
Cyzicus, deprived of liberty, 176
D
Daci, the, 14, 114
Dalmatia, roads in, 215
Dalmatians, the, 17, 21, 22, 179, 186
Danube, 14;
provinces of the, 17, 172, 186
Dentheletæ, the, 180
Dertona, 59, 61
Dictatorship refused by Augustus, 217, 294;
of Sulla, 266
Didius, Q., 126
_Diffareatio_, 226
Divorce, 226-228
Dolabella, _see_ “Cornelius”
Domitius Ahenobarbus, L., 8, 10, 20
Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cn., 80, 81, 84, 99, 100, 118
Druidical religion, the, 198
Drusus (son of Livia), 111, 165;
marries Antonia, 167;
his campaigns in the Eastern Alps, 181;
his German campaigns, 184;
his death, 185;
see also 167
Drusus (son of Tiberius), 167, 242;
speaks at the funeral of Augustus, 259
Dyrrachium, 21
E
East and West, separation of, 86-7, 101, 267
Egypt, 9, 17, 24, 31-2, 125, 131, 132, 174
Elephantine, 174
Empire, the state of, 17-32;
divisions of between the triumvirs, 1st, 71, 2nd, 86-7, 3rd, 99-101
Ephesus, 212
Epirus, 8, 9
Equites, review of, 160;
property of, 141
Eretria separated from Athens, 176
_Ergastula_, 213
Euphrates, the, 17, 30, 99
F
Fannius Cæpio, conspirator, 164
Fetials, the, 220
Finances of the Empire, 248
Fire brigades, 219, 220
_Fiscus_, the, 39, 132, 141, 218, 249
Flamen Dialis, 220;
flamen of Iulius, 199
Flevo Lake (Zuyder Zee), 184
Floods in Rome, 219
_Fortuna redux_, 194, 197, 295
Forum Augustum and forum Iulium, 156
Forum Cornelii, 56
Forum Gallorum, battles at, 53, 58, 61
Forum Iulii (Fréjus), 191
Fuficius Fango, C., 26
Fufius Calenus, Q., 27, 97
Fufius Geminus, 114
Fulvia (wife of Antony), 26, 75, 98
G
Gabinius, A. (Cos. B.C. 58), 3, 26, 30, 114
Galatia, province of, 171
Germania inferior and superior, 172, 185
Germanicus, son of Drusus, 167, 229, 242
Germans, the, 17, 181-82, 184-85, 186-89, 242
Gaul, 4, 8, 17;
the provinces of, 19-21;
Cisalpine Gaul, 43, 44, 71, 133;
Transalpine Gaul, 71;
Narbonensis, 20, 23, 215;
colonies in, 133;
Augustus in, 152-53
_Genius_ of a man, the, 196
Getæ, the, 14, 17, 18
Gracchus, C., 217
Greece, province of, 27;
declining state of, 175
Grenoble, 64
Gythium, 176
H
Hadrian, 3
Hercules, temple of, 205
Herod, 101, 173, 182, 203
Herophilus, 13
Hirtius, Aul. (Cos. B.C. 43), governor of Transalpine Gaul, 20, 21;
to go to Asia, 29;
in the campaign of Mutina, 55-58;
his death, 59
Horace (Q. Horatius Flaccus) his view of Antony’s subservience to
Cleopatra, 117;
records Cæsar’s Cantabrian campaign, 154;
on the Arabian expedition, 155;
on the recovery of the standards, 178;
on the absence of Augustus, 195;
on the literary tastes of Augustus, 208;
his ode for the secular games, 222;
his connection with Augustus and his support of his popularity,
285-89
Hortensia, 76
Hortensius, Q., 27;
house of, 204
I
Iapydes, 114
Iberia (Georgia), 126
Idumæa, 107
Illyricum, 17;
province of, 21, 22, 26, 33, 114;
colonies in, 133
Imperator, 46
Imperium, 159, 160
Indian envoys, 179, 300
Isauria, 171
Issa, 21
Istria, 214
Italy, brigandage in, 113;
colonies of Augustus in, 133;
privileges of, 250
Ituræa, 173
Ianus, closing of, 142, 179, 182, 295
Iuba, 25, 171
Iulia, aunt of Iulius Cæsar, 14.
Sister of Iulius Cæsar, 2, 10.
Daughter of Iulius Cæsar, 6.
Mother of Antony, 6.
Daughter of Augustus, 99;
married to Marcellus, 161;
married to Agrippa, 164;
married to Tiberius, 231-36, 238-40.
Granddaughter of Augustus, 243
Iudæa, 116, 173
Iulius Cæsar, C. (the Dictator), 2-9, 11, 13, 18;
assassination of, 15, 34, 39;
his contemplated expedition against the Getæ and Parthians, 14, 18;
his enfranchisement of the Transpadani, 19;
in Cilicia, 29;
his funeral and will, 35, 36;
_heroum_ of at Alexandria, 129;
his settlements of veterans, 133;
apotheosis of, 199;
sumptuary laws of, 225
Iulius Cæsar, L. (relative of the Dictator), 7, 72;
Sextus Iulius, 30, 80
Iunius Brutus, Dec., 18, 19, 20;
in Cisalpine Gaul, 43, 48;
his edict, 51;
Antony proposes to succeed him, 54;
hard pressed for food in Mutina, 56;
delays the pursuit of Antony, 59;
his difficulties, 61, 62;
his last despairing letter to Cicero, 64;
his death, 69
Iunius Brutus, M., to be consul (B.C. 41), 18;
governor of Cisalpine Gaul, 19;
nominated to Crete, 32;
prætor (B.C. 44), 41-4;
in Macedonia, 28, 54-6, 79;
plan for recalling him to Rome, 62, 64;
to be attacked by Antony, 71;
his administration in Asia and campaign at Philippi, 79-81, 83-5;
his death, 85
Iupiter Tonans, 156
_Ius italicum_, 133;
_ius relationis_, _ius consulare_, 158;
_ius trium liberorum_, 229-30
L
Labienus, 116
Lance (_Sallanco_), 154
Land, assignations of, 91, 92, 112, 113, 132, 133
Laodicea, 30, 31, 80
_Lares compitales_, 196
_Latinitas_, 133
Latin games, the, 9, 10
_Legati pro prætore_, 147
Legio Martia, 35, 50, 57, 58, 60, 67;
Quarta, 35, 50, 66, 67;
reduction in number of legions, 132;
commanders of, 191;
numbers of in the provinces, 192 _n._
Lentulus, _see_ “Cornelius”
Lesbos, Agrippa in, 163
Leucopetra, 104
_Lex curiata_ for adoption, 37, 68;
_lex Papia Poppæa_, 226-29
Libya, 118
Licinius procurator at Lugdunum, 180, 181, 209, 210
Licinius Crassus, M., 6, 30
Licinius Muræna, A., his conspiracy, 164
Lilybæum, 11
Limyra, 167
Livia, daughter of Drusus, 167
Livia, wife of Augustus, 97, 110;
accused of making away with Marcellus, 163;
and of Lucius and Gaius, 201;
in Sparta, 176;
her facility as a wife, 231;
her connection with Iulia, 238;
farewell of Augustus to, 258;
becomes Iulia Augusta, 260;
her character, 275-78
Livy, historian, 283
Loans, state, 218, 219
Longobardi, the, 186
Lucca, 4
Lucrine Lake, 103
_Ludi sæculares_, 222, 223
Lugdunum, founding of, 20;
Augustus at, 180;
altar at, 198
Luperci, the, 220-21
Lupia (R. Lippe), 186
Lupiæ, 35
_Lustrum_, 137, 255, 294
Lycia, 80, 167
M
Macedonia, 2, 14, 17;
province of, 26, 27, 29, 43;
the legions in, 14, 34, 46;
colonies in, 133
Mæcenas (C. Cilnius) with Octavius at Apollonia, 15;
negotiates marriage with Scribonia, 98;
represents Augustus at Beneventum, 99, and at Tarentum, 103;
in charge of Rome (B.C. 31), 123;
his loss of favour, 164;
his character and services, 279-82
_Manus_, 227
Marcella, d. of Octavia and wife of Agrippa, 164
Marcellus, _see_ “Claudius”
Marcius Philippus, L. (stepfather of Augustus), 3, 4, 9, 36, 45, 54
Marcius Crispus, Q., 31, 79
Marcomanni, the, 186, 187
Marius, C., 13, 14
Marobudus, chief of the Marcomanni, 186, 188
Marriage, laws of, 226-30
Mars Ultor, 156, 197;
two temples of, 178
Marseilles, siege of, 9
Matius, C., 38
Mauretania, 171
Mausoleum of Augustus, 156, 261
Media, 173, 177
Merida, 133, 154
Mesopotamia, 14, 18
Metellus, _see_ “Cæcilius”
Menodorus, freedman of Sext. Pompeius, 100, 101
Miletus, 108
_Milliarium aureum_, 215
Milo, 4
Minucius, Q., 73
Misenum, treaty of, 24, 100
Mœsia, 17, 171;
temple in, 198
_Monumentum Ancyranum_, 261-62, 293-301
Morals, reform in, 223-32
Munatius Plancus, L. (Cos. B.C. 42), 18, 20, 62, 63, 76, 97, 120;
builds temple of Saturn, 156
Munda, 13, 23
Muræna, _see_ “Licinius”
Murcus, _see_ “Statius”
Mutina, campaign of, 25, 29, 52, 53-62
Mylæ, battles off, 104, 106
N
Nabata, 174
Naples, 37, 256, 257
Narbo, 152, 153;
temple at, 198
Narbonensis, _see_ “Gaul”
_Naumachia_, 291, 298
Neapolis (port of Philippi), 80
Nemausus (Nismes), 180
Nicolas of Damascus, 45
Nicomedia, 198
Nigidius, P., 2
Nile, the, 30
Nola, 2, 257, 262
Norbanus, C., 81, 83, 115
Noricum, 172, 181, 186
Nuceria, 71
Numidia, 25, 26, 87;
_see_ “Africa”
O
Octavia (sister of Augustus), 45, 75;
married to Antony, 100, 101;
reconciles Antony and Augustus, 103, 104;
her fidelity to Antony, 118;
divorced by Antony, 120;
her retirement from society, 162;
brings up Iulius Antonius, 239
_Octavia gens_, the, 1
Octavius, Octavian, _see_ “Augustus”
Octavius (father of Augustus), 1-3
Octavius, Rufus, C., 1, 2
Octavius, M., 22
Ops, money in the temple of, 39, 40, 54
_Orcini Senatores_, 139
Ovations of Augustus, 111
Ovid on the recovery of the standards, 178;
his banishment, 243-46;
his relations with Augustus, 291-93
P
Pacorus, 116
Pamphylia, 171
Paneas, 198
Pannonians, the, 114, 172, 179, 183, 186
Pannonia, altar in, 198
Pansa, _see_ “Vibius” (Transcriber’s Note: good luck with that; there
isn’t an index entry for Vibius. But try page 19.)
Pantheon, the, 156
Parthians, rumours of war with, 6;
Cæsar’s contemplated expedition against, 14, 18;
threaten Syria, 30;
Antony’s wars with, 43, 104, 116;
invade Armenia, 167;
their submission to Augustus and return of the standards, 173-79,
233, 300
_Pater patriæ_, 237, 301
Patræ, 27, 134;
colony at, 175
Patricians recruited, 14, 137
_Patrimonium Cæsarum_, 249
_Pax Augusta_, altar to, 182, 295
Pedius, Q., 36
Peducæus, Sext., 24
Peloponnese, 27
Pergamus, 212
Perusia, siege of, 95-7;
_Perusinæ aræ_, the, 96, 97
Pharnaces of Pontus, 9
Pharsalia, battle of, 9, 19, 22, 25, 28, 30
Pharus, 21
Philippi, battles of, 22, 26, 28, 31, 32, 76, 80-86
Philippics of Cicero, the, 46
Philippus, _see_ “Marcius”
Phœnicia, 30
Phraates IV., King of Parthia, 167, 173, (Phrates, 300)
Phrygia, 30, 171
Picenum, 8
Pinarius, L., 36
Penestæ, an Illyrian tribe, 21
Pergamus, 198
Piracy, 195, 298
Pisidia, colonies in, 176, 215
Plancus, _see_ “Munatius”
Plennius, 106
Plutarch acquits Augustus of plotting against Antony’s life, 45;
his account of Cleopatra’s death, 129
Po, the river, 70, 214
Polemon of Cilicia, 102
Pollio, _see_ Asinius
Pompeii, 196
Pompeius Magnus, Cn., position of, 4-9;
his government of Spain, 23;
organises Syria, 30, Crete, 32;
his defeat at Pharsalia and death in Egypt, 9
Pompeius, Cn. (son of Magnus), 12, 23
Pompeius, Sext. (younger son of Magnus) survives Munda, 17;
occupies Sardinia, 24;
visited by Lepidus in Spain, 42;
holds Sicily and Sardinia, 71, 81, 82;
rescues many of the proscribed, 74;
receives Achaia from Antony, 82;
war with, 87;
negotiations with, 98, 99;
renewed war with, 100-106;
death of, 108
Pompeius Bithynicus, 24, 82
Pontifex Maximus, office of, 107, 112, 160, 221-22, 295
Pontus, 28, 29
_Populus Romanus_, extension of the meaning of, 193
Porticus Octaviæ, 115, 116;
Liviæ, 156
Postal service, the, 189, 190
Portus Iulius, 103
Postumius, 38
Potentia, 6
_Præfectus urbi_, _præfectus annonæ_, 160
Præneste, 205
_Princeps senatus_, 142, 166, 294
“_Princeps_” as a title of the Emperor, 149-50;
powers of, 159
_Princeps iuventutis_, 166, 296
Propertius on the Arabian expedition, 155;
on the recovery of the standards, 178;
on the achievements of Augustus generally, 290
_Proconsulare imperium_, 148
Proculeius, C, 127
Proscriptions, the, 72-5
Provinces, the, 17-34;
Cæsar’s law as to the, 18;
division of between Augustus and Senate, 147-48;
finances of, 249
Ptolemais, 32
Ptolemy Apion of Cyrene, 18, 32
Ptolemy Auletes, 30, 31
Puteoli, 196
Q
Quintilius Varus, P., fall of, 187-88
R
Ravenna, 4, 7
Red Sea, the, 30
Regium Lepidi, 56
_Res familiaris_, 249, 260
Rhæti, the, 165, 172, 181
Rhætia, province of, 182
Rhegium, 71, 82, 103
Rhine, provinces of the, 17, 172;
crossed by Agrippa, 103;
armies of, 250;
frontier of the empire, 172;
crossed by Germany, 180
Rhodes, 80, 167
Rome, streets in, 113;
improvements in, 115, 134, 135, 156;
party feeling in, 119;
its attractions, 245-6;
supremacy of, 193, 275
Romulus, 149
S
Salassi, the, 113
Salonæ, 21, 22
Saltus Castulonensis, 22
Salvidienus Rufus, Q., 15, 82
Salvius, 73
Sænius, L. (Cos. B.C. 30), 137
Sallustius Crispus, 282
Samaria, 102
Samos, 28, 122
Samosata, 116
Sardinia, 9, 33, 71;
province of, 24-5
Sardis, 80
Saxa, Decidius, 81, 83, 116
Saragossa, 134, 154
Scodra, 99
Scopas, 205
Scordisci, the, 180
Scribonia (wife of Augustus), 98, 110, 239
Scribonius, usurper in the Bosporus, 182
Secular games, the, 222, 298
Senate, meeting of on 1st of June (B.C. 44), 42;
grants military rank to Octavian, 51;
lectiones and reforms of by Augustus, 138-42;
decline of, 270-1
Senators, number of, 140;
property qualification of, 144
_Senatus consultum ultimum_, 7, 53
Sertorius, 18
Sextius Saturninus, C., 186
Sextius, T., 25
Sibylline books, the, 205, 221
Sicily, Curio’s success in, 9;
province of, 23, 24, 33, 82;
war in, 104-106;
colonies in, 133, 174, 175
Sidon deprived of liberty, 176
Silius Nerva, P., 179
Smyrna, 80
Sodales Titii, the, 220
Sosius, C., campaign in Judæa, 116, 118
Spain, Pompey’s rule of, 4, 5, 8;
Cæsar in, 8, 9, 13;
provinces of, 22, 23, 29, 87;
colonies in, 133, 134;
temple in to Augustus, 198
Sparta, 27, 176, 198
Spartacus, 3, 213
T. Statilius Taurus, 104, 115;
builds an amphitheatre, 156
C. Statius Murcus, 31, 79, 81, 84
Stilicho, 221
Suetonius, 3, 24
Sugambri, 180
Sulla, 18
Sulpicius Rufus, Serv., 28, 54
_Sublicius pons_, 219
Succession, the, 160, 170, 242, 263
Sumptuary laws, 225
_Supplicatio_, meaning of, 197
Synnada, diocese of, 30
Syria, 18;
province of, 30, 31, 43, 118, 173, 177
T
Tarentum, 103
Tarraco, 13, 154
Tarsus, 29
Tauromenium, 104, 105
Temples, repair of, 134, 156, 297
Tencteri, 180
Terentius Varro, 48
Teuta, Queen, 21
Thapsus, 11, 23
Thasos, 81
Thessaly, 9, 27
Thracian tribes, 2
Thurii, 3, 213
Thurinus, 3
Thyrsus (freedman of Antony), 126
Tibur, 49, 205
Tillius Cimber, L., 28
Tiridates, 173, 177
Titius T. (Tr. Pl. B.C. 43), 72, 108, 117, 120
Titus, Emperor, 117
Toga, the disuse of the, 224
Trebonius, C., 19, 23, 28, 55
_Tribunicia potestas_, 112, 135-37, 158-60
Triumphs of Iulius Cæsar, 11;
of Augustus, 137
Triumvirate, the first, 4.
The second, 25, 70, 72, 118;
powers of, 143;
acta of abolished, 144
Turullius, P., 126
Tyre, deprived of liberty, 176
Tyndaris, 104
U
Usipites, the, 180, 184
V
Vada Sabatia, 59, 61
Valerius Messalla, M., 104, 105
Valerius, P., 22
Valerius Orca, Q., 24
Valerius Messalinus, 186
Varius Rufus, L., 283
Varus, _see_ Quintilius
Vedius Pollio, his cruelty rebuked, 209;
his house demolished, 291
Velitræ, 1, 2
Velleius Paterculus excuses Augustus for the proscriptions, 76
_Venationes_, 271, 298
Venetia, 214
Venusia, 71
Vergil, 2;
on the confiscations, 90;
on the death of Marcellus, 162, 163;
on the recovery of the standards, 179;
death of, 179;
his connection with Augustus and his work, 283-85
Vesta, temple of, 67;
new temple of, in Palatine, 205
Vestal Virgins, the, 67, 78, 135, 220
Veterans, the, 42, 44, 46, 90, 91, 132, 133, 174
_Via Æmilia_, 48, 59, 79;
_Egnatia_, 14, 15, 83;
_Flaminia_, 214, 297;
_Valeria_, 49;
_Valeria_ (in Sicily), 105;
_Sebaste_ (in Pisidia), 176;
_viæ Augustæ_ in the provinces, 215
Vibo, 71
_Vicesima_, the 5 p. c. legacy duty, 250, 251
Vindelici, 181
Vipsania, wife of Tiberius, 165, 167, 234
Vipsanius Agrippa, M., 11, 15;
makes the _portus Iulius_, and organises a navy against Sext.
Pompeius, 103-105;
improves the water supply of Rome, 115;
his activity before and at Actium, 123, 124 (Cos. B.C. 28);
holds the Census with Augustus, 137;
his great buildings, 156;
receives his Seal from Augustus when supposed to be dying, 157;
appointed to Syria, 161;
marries Iulia, 164;
in Gaul and Spain (B.C. 21-19), 165, 179;
associated in tribunician power, 165;
on the Bosporus, 182;
his death, 183, 234;
his character and career, 278-79
Visurgis (R. Weser), 184, 186, 187
Z
Zela, 9
The Gresham Press,
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED,
WOKING AND LONDON.
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