Augustus, page 24
As well as re-establishing the courts, it was announced that proper elections would resume, employing the grandly refurbished and rebuilt Saepta, begun by the dictator and now completed by Agrippa. The Roman people could assemble in ‘sheep pens’ decorated with marble and works of art, and wait shaded from the sun by canopies. This end to the appointment of magistrates may not have begun until the autumn of 27 BC, but it is possible that it started the year before. Dio tells us that in 28 BC Caesar returned control of the state treasury to a pair of officials selected from the former praetors. Many debts owed by individuals to the state were cancelled, but the treasury was still left in a healthy condition, following the transfer to it of substantial quantities of wealth taken from Egypt and the eastern provinces after Actium. Stability in the provinces and allied kingdoms promised a steady flow of income in the years to come.12
Alongside the revival of traditional institutions – if sometimes in a modified form – came a physical renewal of the City of Rome itself as the concerted building activity of the late thirties BC continued and intensified. In 28 BC Caesar himself responded to a request from the Senate and ordered the restoration of eighty-two temples within Rome. Many were small, and in most cases the structures conformed to the simple traditional designs rather than the grander styles of the modern era. Structural restoration was accompanied by careful revival of the old rituals undertaken in each one. Pietas was a virtue central to Rome’s sense of identity and the neglect of proper reverence due to the old gods of the Roman people was symptomatic of the moral decline of recent generations, so evident in the decades of discord and violence. Moral explanations for upheaval came most readily to the Roman mind, and so restoration must involve changes in behaviour, conduct and a reassertion of a good relationship with the gods who had guided Rome’s rise to greatness. At the same time the Egyptian cult of Isis was banned from the City itself. The spirit of religious revival was strictly traditional and was led by Caesar personally.
The repair and restoration of temples went alongside the continuing construction of grand projects in the heart of the City and out on the Campus Martius. Agrippa remained busy, and senators who had triumphed continued to plough some of their spoils into monuments. All provided a lot of well-paid work for thousands – perhaps even tens of thousands – of men living in Rome. In 28 BC Caesar also gave out four times the normal allowance of grain to those citizens eligible to receive it from the state. An attempt to arrange distribution so that it would not interfere with work proved unsuccessful, but shows how important the creation of jobs was in the grand building projects of these years. The combination of good employment opportunities and some state assistance helped to spread confidence that a man could feed himself and his family, and left few inclined to riot.13
In September the Actian Games were celebrated for the first time and lasted for several days, providing yet another reminder of victory and the peace it had brought. There were gymnastic contests held in a temporary wooden stadium erected on the Campus Martius. Many of the participants were drawn from distinguished families and competed in various events to commemorate Caesar’s great victory. At least one day was also devoted to gladiatorial fights between foreign prisoners of war. During the course of the festival Caesar once again fell ill, and was unable to attend the remaining days. Agrippa took his place, and as always behaved in a way that made clear the credit should go to his leader, who paid for the festival.14
A month later, on 9 October, the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine was opened. This had been vowed in 36 BC, after a lightning bolt struck part of a grand house recently acquired by Caesar. Unlike many of his restorations, the new temple was an opulent affair, built in gleaming white marble with gold decoration, and showing a strong Greek influence while being well within the Roman tradition. It was part of a larger complex, including a sacred grove and a library. Apollo was the deity given most credit for the victory at Actium, and this new temple, high up on the Palatine, was visible over a wide area, including from the Forum. It was also next to Caesar’s house, which already seems to have combined more than one existing aristocratic residence. Around this time work was begun on a road which would have approached the main entrance of his home from the far side of the hill, coming from the Forum Boarium rather than up from the main Forum itself, which would have meant passing the houses of other aristocrats on the way. Caesar was marked out as special, favoured by the gods, and beyond rivalry with other senators. He ordered all the golden statues and other monuments depicting him to be melted down and offered as ritual tripods in Apollo’s Temple. This was modesty intended to be celebrated, and as much an expression of power as the acceptance of such honours in the first place.15
Another magnificent temple to Apollo was completed during these years, although in this case it was a rebuilding of an earlier shrine. Paid for and supervised by Caius Sosius, who had captured Jerusalem in 34 BC and as one of the Antonian consuls in 32 BC had led the attack on Caesar, it was unusual in that it would take his name, and become known as the Temple of Apollo Sosianus. It incorporated classical Greek sculpture in its friezes, but the newly commissioned pieces depict defeated enemies who wear trousers and look more western than Judaean, and may be intended to represent some of the Illyrian barbarians conquered by Caesar in the Balkans. Sosius had managed to win pardon after Actium, and was permitted to complete his building work and take credit for it. Restoring an old temple and commemorating a victory of the legions were good things. Sosius had worked hard to win this pardon and his expensive building work may well have been a pledge of loyalty to the new regime. It should not be seen as competition. With Antony gone, along with all the other warlords of the civil wars, there was no one who could rival Caesar.16
It is in this light that we should view the episode of Marcus Licinius Crassus, who after his consulship had gone to govern Macedonia. Responding to raiding by hostile tribes in 29 BC, he counter-attacked aggressively and with considerable skill. In the first major battle he not only shattered an army of the Bastarnae tribe, but personally killed their leader, King Deldo, in hand-to-hand combat. Following up on this success, he expanded the scope of his campaigns and won a succession of victories in this and the next year. These operations have something of the feel of Julius Caesar’s initial interventions in Gaul, with a bold, even ruthless exploitation of any opportunity to widen the conflict, and achieve the rapid destruction of each new enemy. Dio describes them in some detail, and it looks as if Livy did the same. Yet they lasted no more than two years and, just like Julius Caesar, Crassus did nothing that could not be presented as well within the wider interests of the Roman people.17
He probably returned to Rome at the end of 28 BC or early the following year and was awarded a triumph – one that was clearly far more deserved than many celebrated under the triumvirs. Dio claims that sacrifices honouring the success were made in both his name and Caesar’s, and that the latter took the title of imperator, but Crassus did not. This is clearly a mistake. Crassus is granted the title on two inscriptions from Greece, and there is no reason to believe that these were cut before word was received that the honour was not to be granted. It is also clear that Caesar did not accept the title on this occasion.18
Dio also tells us that for the killing of Deldo Crassus would have been eligible to perform an additional honour as the culmination of his triumph if he had been fighting under his own auspices – he was a proconsul rather than still in the year of his consulship. This ritual was the spolia opima, the right to dedicate the armour and weapons of the dead enemy leader in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Only three Roman commanders had ever performed this rite. The first was Romulus in the eighth century BC, the second Cornelius Cossus in the fifth century BC, and the last Marcus Claudius Marcellus in 222 BC. Romulus was a king and Marcellus consul when they won this honour. The status of Cossus was less clear, but the version recorded by Livy during these years had him serving as a subordinate rather than the supreme Roman commander. However, in what is clearly a later addition, Livy asserts that, ‘contrary to what my predecessors and I have said, Cossus was consul’ when he killed the king of Veii. His source was none other than Caesar himself, who ‘had entered the shrine of Jupiter Feretrius, which he repaired when it had crumbled with age, and had himself read the inscription on the linen breastplate’ allegedly dedicated by Cossus. Livy ‘thought it would be almost sacrilege to rob Cossus of such a witness to his spoils as Caesar, the restorer of that very temple’. In spite of this insertion, Livy did not change the narrative in the main text, which states that Cossus was a military tribune, serving under a dictator.19
Modern scholarship has guessed an ulterior motive for Caesar’s testimony, and turned the evidence for what appears little more than an antiquarian curiosity into signs of a nervous leader frightened of any competition. In this version Crassus, heir to his grandfather’s fortune and possessing the heritage and prestige of an ancient patrician family, acted and behaved like a true Roman aristocrat, determined to win fame and compete for glory with all of his contemporaries, including Caesar. The first general in almost two centuries to kill the enemy commander with his own hand, it was natural to claim the ancient privilege of dedicating the spolia opima, adding to the glory of his family and himself. Caesar feared a rival and, jealous of others’ distinction – especially when it involved grand, ancient rites like this or the closing of the gates of Janus – ensured that the Senate refused Crassus the additional honour. The grounds were technical, and possibly spurious, based on what he claimed to have seen painted on an ancient cuirass in a crumbling temple. Caesar was desperate, frightened that more senators might rally to the head of such an established family, and so was willing to do anything to block the revival of such an ancient honour in case it helped to raise up a rival. Crassus was allowed his triumph, but no more, and disappears from the record afterwards, although the family line continued.20
Conspiracy theories are always appealing, and this one creates an attractive image of a Caesar under pressure from strong opposition among senators, nervously struggling to consolidate and protect his position. It is now routinely stated as fact in most accounts of these years – I have done as much myself elsewhere. Unfortunately, closer examination quickly collapses the whole structure. Dio does not say that Crassus claimed the right to dedicate the spolia opima and was refused – and no other source mentions the incident at all. He did triumph – scarcely an inconspicuous honour – and many other senators never again appear in our sources after they have held office, governed a province, and won a war, so there is no hint of anything suspicious in his subsequent absence from the record. Caesar’s restoration of the temple was inspired by Atticus, and dated to several years earlier. It is impossible to say when he made public his inspection of the cuirass but, given his deep interest in ancient Roman ritual, it may have had nothing at all to do with Crassus. Livy mentions it as an honour, and the failure to revise his main text is a weak prop for suggestions that he was somehow critical of Caesar and his regime.
It is extremely unlikely that there was any public controversy when Crassus returned. If the idea of claiming the spolia opima ever occurred to him – and not simply to Dio writing centuries later – then a formal request, debate and refusal in a session of the Senate would surely have appeared more clearly in his account or another source. Crassus had served with Sextus Pompeius and Antony before managing to switch his allegiance to Caesar, which suggests considerable political tact. Even if the idea of claiming the honour occurred to him, it is most probable that he either gave it up himself or was privately dissuaded – perhaps by someone close to Caesar. Some perspective is worthwhile. There is not a shred of evidence for Crassus possessing a wide following in the Senate. He may well have been popular with the legions he had led to victory, but these represented a very small proportion of an army otherwise uniformly loyal to Caesar, who had been busily rewarding his soldiers and veterans in the last few years. Crassus could not hope to rival Caesar even if he wanted to do so, and in the meantime had won office and honours enough to satisfy the expectations of most aristocrats.21
For the moment, Caesar’s military might was unassailable, and most classes were reasonably content, the commonest emotion being sheer relief at the return of peace. Italy was no longer full of recently dispossessed farmers, unruly discharged soldiers or debtridden citizens desperate enough to follow any leader promising them the hope of better fortune. There is no good evidence for the survival of determined Antonian or Pompeian partisans, and the slogans and allegiances of the decades of civil wars had worn thin. Caesar was supreme and faced no immediate threats. The future was harder to predict, and there was no obvious template to copy in creating a regime that would ensure both stability and his own security.
Dio devotes almost all of his fifty-second book to opposed speeches put into the mouths of Agrippa and Maecenas, the former arguing for a revival of a system based closely on the Republic and the latter advocating a veiled monarchy. The words are the historian’s own, reflecting the empire that he knew in the early third century AD, and many of his own ideas may well have more to do with the politics of his own lifetime. Yet his claim that Caesar thought seriously about the problem matches Suetonius’ claim that he considered restoring a Republican system during these years. Whether or not this would have included his own withdrawal from politics, matching Sulla’s resignation of power and retirement, is harder to say. If he toyed with the idea, then he clearly decided against it.22
Modern historians readily invoke Julius Caesar’s dictatorship and see this as an object lesson to his heir of what to avoid. No ancient source claims this. The dictator was dead less than a year after returning from the Munda campaign and had so little time to do anything that it is doubtful that there were many lessons to be drawn from his fate. Perhaps his assassination highlighted the importance of showing respect to the Senate and other institutions, but it is hard to see that Caesar’s power was any less blatant in 28 BC, even if he did not call himself dictator. Circumstances had changed, and the Senate and its moods were very different compared to 44 BC.23
The work of restoration of something resembling normality filled 28 BC. It was a gradual process, and the new respect for magistracies and institutions did not diminish Caesar’s power. In August there seems to have been a formal declaration of the end of civil war. He also announced that all of the illegal acts of his triumviral colleagues, as well perhaps as the powers and some of the extra honours granted to him as triumvir, should become invalid from the end of the year. It suggested the task of ‘restoring the commonwealth’ was well under way, the crisis largely over so that extraordinary magistracies were no longer needed. Everything about this indicates an ordered, deliberate process, and there is no hint of an unwilling Caesar being hustled into making concessions. At the end of the year when he and Agrippa took their oaths as they laid down the consulship, Caesar’s power was undiminished.24
AUGUSTUS
On 1 January 27 BC Caesar began his seventh, and Agrippa his third, consulship. It is unclear whether formal elections had been held. If so, then his popularity would have ensured their success, whether or not other candidates came forward. On the Ides – the 13th in the case of January – the Senate convened with Caesar as presiding consul. Only a few of the assembled senators were warned that the meeting was to involve a major announcement rather than general debate. Caesar had with him a carefully prepared speech. Suetonius tells us that it was his practice to write out any important – and sometimes even fairly trivial – announcement in full, and read it out, to make sure that he expressed himself as clearly as possible and neither said anything he did not want to say nor omitted anything by mistake.25
It is impossible to say how far the speech given by Dio reflects what Caesar actually said beyond the central point. He announced that he was resigning his powers, and returning control of the provinces, armies and laws to the Senate. In Dio’s version he begins by declaring that what he is about to say will amaze them, since he is at the height of well-earned success and could not be forced to give up power. It is only if they consider his virtuous life, and understand that he has acted out of duty to avenge his father and protect the state, that they will find his action now less surprising and more glorious.
Who could be found more magnanimous than I – not to mention again my deceased father – who more nearly divine? For I – the gods be my witnesses! – who have so many gallant soldiers, both Romans and allies, who are devoted to me, I who am supreme over the entire sea within the pillars of Hercules except for a few tribes, I who possess both cities and provinces in every continent . . . when you are all at peace . . . and, greatest of all, are content to yield obedience, I in spite of all this, voluntarily and of my own motion resign so great a dominion and give up so vast a possession.26
Julius Caesar is constantly invoked, for his achievements, his own refusal to accept the crown and title of king and his undeserved murder. His heir now follows in his footsteps, perhaps winning even greater glory by laying down the power he wields. He has done what needed to be done, leaving the commonwealth strong and stable, so that the task of governing it can now safely be left to others.
Whether or not Dio’s version is faithful to the original, his description of the senators’ reaction seems highly plausible. Caesar’s intimates knew what he was going to say and loudly applauded at appropriate moments. Of the rest, some suspected that the thirty-six-year-old consul was merely play-acting and had no intention of giving up his dominance, but did not dare to show this and accuse the young warlord of lying. Those who believed him were split between some who welcomed the thought of his resignation and others – probably a majority – who feared that this would simply bring on yet another civil war as new leaders emerged to squabble for supremacy. Neither group cheered – the former through fear and the latter in dismay. There were plenty of shouts begging him to change his mind and continue to control the state. Caesar presided over the meeting and therefore it was his task to choose who would speak. For some time he persisted in his request to be permitted to resign and be allowed to live in well-earned peace. As individuals and as a whole, the most senior council of the Republic pleaded with the consul to remain at the head of the state.27
