Augustus, page 38
Roman citizens were less common in the three Gauls than in Narbonensis, although the number rose steadily over time. The local aristocracy were encouraged to give their sons a Roman education, and in due course rhetoric would flourish in Gaul. In the meantime there were opportunities to assist the Roman administration, to serve on its behalf as local magistrates, and most of all to find employment as officers in the Roman army. Around a third of the auxiliary units raised under Augustus came from Gaul. An aristocrat’s power was no longer judged by the number of warriors in his train as it had been in Julius Caesar’s day, but the opportunity was there for the descendants of these leaders to win glory fighting for Rome. Quite a few men were still buried with a sword or other weapon by their side in the last years of the first century BC as they had been for generations. Some things changed only gradually. The druidic cult, glimpsed in our sources but still poorly understood, provided some extra-national structure and arbitration in pre-Roman Gaul, and it did not vanish instantly. Practices such as human sacrifice were suppressed, as was the endemic raiding, head-hunting and warfare between the tribes which fed it. Augustus banned Roman citizens from participating in druidic rites, but did not outlaw the religion itself. Other Gaulish cults took on Roman names and associations, and increasingly became housed in stone temples, even if these were often still raised outside the towns on existing sacred sites.20
The persistence of tradition did not necessarily mean an active and deliberate rejection of Roman ways, and overall the impression is of widespread eagerness to become Roman, at least on the part of the better-off. In fact the Romans made little effort to impose their own culture, except where it served the purpose of administration. Thus the Roman calendar was introduced to divide up the year and show when festivals and taxes were due, in place of the traditional lunar calendar overseen by the druids. As with any new system, it was not always fully understood at first, and one of Augustus’ financial officials chose to exploit the ignorance of the unfamiliar system. His name was Julius Licinus, and he was himself a Gaul, but had been captured and enslaved, quite possibly during Julius Caesar’s campaigns. In due course he became part of the latter’s household, and served him so well that he was eventually granted freedom. Loyal also to Augustus, he was made a procurator – a rank not yet fully defined, but increasingly associated with equestrian status and employed to assist imperial legates much like a quaestor assisted a proconsul – and given the task of collecting taxes owed to the state.
Licinus showed little sympathy for his fellow Gauls. Probably already rich when he arrived in the province, he was determined to become even richer before he left and took every opportunity to take more than was due and pocket the difference. December was the last month of the year in the old Roman calendar, which had only ten named months. When Julius Caesar reformed the calendar, he kept January as the first month and December as the last since both included important dates in the political and religious year. Licinus now pointed out to the provincials that the name December obviously meant ‘tenth month’ in Latin, and that the logical inference was surely that there must also be an eleventh and twelfth month before the year was complete. On this premise he extorted two more months’ worth of tax from them.
Whether or not they were convinced by his reasoning, the Gauls had little choice but to pay if they were not to face the wrath – and ultimately forcible compulsion – of the imperial power. Yet many were suspicious, and when Augustus arrived in the province in 16 BC they complained to him. At first the princeps dismissed some of the claims, in part because he did not want to admit to having appointed such a venal representative, and only accepted some milder criticism of his procurator. Yet the weight of evidence and the clear hostility of so many important local aristocrats piled on the pressure against Licinus, who then came up with an even more imaginative scheme to avoid punishment. He invited Augustus to his house, and presented the princeps with all the extra money he had gathered, declaring that he had done so to prevent the aristocracy of Gaul being rich enough to rebel against Rome. This is a rare hint that the Romans even worried about the possibility of rebellion in Gaul, and should not be pushed too far. However, it does seem that Licinus went un-punished, so perhaps his excuse was credited.
It was often difficult for Augustus to know what his agents were doing in the provinces until he visited the region, and this was one of the reasons for his extensive tours. A measure of self-enrichment was expected and accepted, but the aim was to restrain the excesses of provincial government under the Republic, which too often had driven the provincials to the rebellions Licinus claimed to be preventing. Travelling to seek an audience with the princeps took time and was expensive, since it might involve a journey to Rome or wherever he happened to be at the time. The tours through the provinces made it possible for far more individuals and communities to speak to him. While Augustus was in Gaul, Agrippa was in Syria and the other eastern provinces, acting in the same way. It was not only a chance to resolve specific petitions, but offered a clearer statement of the attitudes and ideology of Roman government. This made it harder in the future for individual governors – whether proconsuls or legates – to adopt a markedly different approach in dealing with communities.
From Gaul Augustus moved on to Spain, making his third trip across the Pyrenees. The Iberian Peninsula was now peaceful since Agrippa’s suppression of the last serious rebellion in 19 BC, its peace only sporadically interrupted by small-scale outbreaks of trouble. Of the three newly organised provinces, Baetica, made up of the most settled and prosperous areas of the south where Roman culture happily combined with a long tradition of urbanism, had passed over to senatorial control. This change probably occurred around the same time as the transfer of Narbonensis to a proconsul and offered further proof that Augustus was willing to give up power once he had discharged his duty to stabilise a region. The other two provinces remained under his control and were governed by his legates. In the west Lusitania – a somewhat larger area than modern Portugal – was generally settled and no longer contained a substantial garrison. Three legions were stationed in Hispania Citerior, which stretched from modern Galicia through central Spain to the Mediterranean coast, and included the peoples conquered in recent years. The other legions who had fought in those wars were already leaving Spain and being posted elsewhere – in most cases to Gaul or Illyricum.21
Some of the legionaries stayed. Augustus established two major veteran colonies during or after the wars in Cantabria, both of which took his name: Caesaraugusta (modern-day Zaragoza) on the River Ebro in Hispania Citerior and Augusta Emerita (modern-day Mérida) on the River Guadiana in Lusitania. Just as in Gaul, a growing network of new roads combined with the rivers to provide good communications to these and other major cities. The colonies rewarded veterans for their loyalty, and at the same time were bastions of Roman rule, potentially being of military use in the unlikely event of serious problems. Augusta Emerita was certainly built to be impressive, surrounded by city walls more for show than defence, and was approached over the long, many-arched bridge across the Guadiana.
The colonies were also models of Roman life, and were precisely planned and organised, with a grand forum at their heart – perhaps two of these in the case of Augusta Emerita. Agrippa built the city an imposing stone theatre, decorated with statues of himself and Augustus and with inscriptions recording the years of their tribunician power. The princeps gave the colonists a similarly grand amphitheatre so that they could enjoy those most Roman of entertainments. Later generations would greatly embellish the city and add to its monuments, in many cases copying some of Augustus’ great projects in Rome itself. Other colonies were established or given a new influx of discharged veterans in both Spain and Gaul, and urban growth in general flourished throughout most of the Spanish provinces, in the main through local aspiration. Most major communities acquired a Roman forum, and although the designs are not identical the similarities are striking. Size varied, but almost without exception they were laid down to the best principles of Roman architecture, employing a basic unit of measurement to dictate every other dimension, from the width and spacing of columns to the size of buildings and courts. The unit itself varied, but the concept did not and imposed a geometrical neatness that was the ideal of Roman design. As in Gaul, there were profound economic changes as new markets appeared, and locals or Roman landlords began to produce olive oil, fish sauce and wine for consumers in other provinces and Italy itself.22
OLD COMRADES AND OLD RIVALS
Soldiers remained vital to the Augustan regime, and it is worth reminding ourselves that, although it was only the second decade after Actium, it was already the longest period without civil war since 88 BC – or since 91 BC if the Social War is included. Legionaries needed to be controlled and kept loyal during their service, and provided with land on retirement in a way that made them content and did not cause too much of a disturbance to the people living in the area. Around this time – Dio dates the reform to 13 BC – Augustus introduced new regulations for the army, confirming the length of service for legionaries as sixteen years, and just twelve years for the more pampered nine cohorts of praetorian guards. The number of legions was fairly static, and less prone to the sudden rapid increase in numbers common during the civil wars, so it was easier to predict the number of veterans due for demobilisation each year.23
At the same time it seems that auxiliary units were becoming more permanent. Some were still named after their commander – such as the ala Scaevae, a cavalry regiment led probably by one of Julius Caesar’s famous centurions – but increasingly they were numbered and named after the region of the nation from which they were raised. Gallic, Thracian and Spanish units were all common. Professional officers, often equestrians or from the classes that produced most centurions, commanded such regiments as prefects, giving them honourable and profitable careers. The same was true of provincial aristocrats, for whom serving as an army officer offered the opportunity for citizenship and joining the hierarchy of the empire. In each case such opportunities came from the princeps and bound these men to him. After long or short spells in the army, former officers returned to prominent roles in their home community, whether this was a colony or a town in Italy or the provinces. Ideally they remained Augustus’ men, content with their lot and so unlikely to rally to any rival who attempted to raise an army. The name Caesar mattered, for there were now surely many families for whom loyalty to the dictator and then his heir was already a well-established tradition.
It was a personal relationship. On one occasion a veteran – most probably a veteran officer or a praetorian, since the story is clearly set in Rome – was involved in a court case and went in person to ask Augustus to support him. The princeps sent his best wishes and offered a man to act as advocate on the veteran’s behalf, but this was not enough, and prompted the man to pull back his tunic and show the scars of his wounds to the crowd. ‘But I, Caesar,’ the old soldier declared, ‘did not send a substitute to serve in my stead when you were in danger at Actium, but I fought for you myself.’ When he heard this Augustus blushed and duly appeared to support the man in person, ‘for fear of appearing not simply haughty, but ungrateful’. Although he no longer called his soldiers ‘comrades’, Imperator Caesar Augustus wanted them to believe that he respected them for the dangers they had undergone under his leadership.24
He cared less about the feelings of another former comrade. Lepidus remained a senator, even though he was only ever brought to meetings on the order of the princeps, when Augustus did nothing to conceal his contempt for his former ally. Yet he remained pontifex maximus until he died in 13 BC. Rome’s most senior priest had therefore been almost inactive for more than twenty years, and although this permitted Augustus quietly to assume guidance of state ritual at Rome, there were some things that he could not do. It surprised many that he did not strip the disgraced triumvir of the rank and take it himself, but he was later to boast of refusing to do this, having only ‘accepted the office when he was at last dead who, taking advantage of a time of civil disturbance, had seized it for himself’.25
On 6 March 12 BC Augustus was duly installed as pontifex maximus – a post, he noted, formerly held by ‘my father’ Julius Caesar and never again held by anyone who was not emperor, until Rome had fallen and the pope took the title. It was a grand occasion, celebrated with great pomp and appropriate solemnity, and Augustus’ own description makes clear that he saw it as both his right and inheritance. Tradition dictated that this most senior priest live in his official residence on the edge of the Forum Romanum next to the Temple of Vesta, which had recently been damaged by fire. Augustus gave the building to the Vestals and remained in his house on the Palatine, consecrating part of it as a temple and making it nominally public property so that he could fulfil his priestly role properly. This merely reinforced the distinctly religious overtones of a complex which joined onto the precinct of Palatine Apollo as well as several other less spectacular shrines.26
Augustus returned to Rome in the summer of 13 BC. Tiberius had preceded him, and began the year as consul with Publius Quinctilius Varus as his colleague – the latter a son-in-law of Agrippa. Rome was troubled again by flooding, with the Tiber overflowing its banks so badly that Balbus was only able to reach his newly completed theatre by boat, which did not prevent him from holding celebrations to mark its formal opening. In honour of the occasion, Tiberius called upon the Spanish former consul for his opinion about how to mark the return of the princeps. Fresh honours were awarded on Balbus’ motion, and in due course politely declined by Augustus in a pattern that was now routine. Attempts to greet him formally were also thwarted when once again Imperator Caesar Augustus sneaked into Rome at night without fanfare. The next morning he received the crowd that gathered outside his house, and then climbed the Capitol, where he took the victor’s laurels from the fasces of his attendants and hung them on the statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Won by Tiberius and Drusus and attributed to Augustus, these marks of success were now presented to the god who protected Rome.
On that day Caesar Augustus arranged for the baths – chiefly the one built by Agrippa – to be free, as were the barbers who waited within them to shave or trim the hair of any fellow citizen who chose to attend. Later, at a meeting of the Senate, his voice was too hoarse to permit him to make a speech and so it was instead read for him by a quaestor. It was a time for festivals and celebration, for the Theatre of Marcellus was also now ready and was opened with great ceremony. His seven-year-old grandson Caius Caesar took part in the dramatic and sometimes dangerous riding exercises and mock fights of the so-called Trojan Games, at least nominally leading one of the teams of patrician boys. Beast fights were also part of the spectacle, with some 600 animals being slaughtered. In September there were more games and more killing of animals to mark the princeps’ birthday, and ironically enough the ceremonies were arranged and presided over by Iulus, son of Mark Antony and Fulvia.27
There were some awkward moments. At another set of games, this time given by Tiberius as consul to commemorate Augustus’ return to the City, the former permitted Caius to sit with the princeps in the place of honour. This was probably the occasion when the audience rose en masse to hail the boy, greeting him with cheers. Augustus was not pleased, and rebuked both his stepson and the people more generally. Although he would accept acclaim on such occasions for his own achievements, he felt it inappropriate for them to lavish it on a seven-year-old child who had not yet done anything or even come to formal manhood. More generally he would permit no one, whether family, senator or the crowd in general, to call him dominus – master or lord.28
The crowd’s reaction suggests that many wished to celebrate all those associated with Augustus, and implies that they saw the boy as worthy of power because of his birth and adoption. Yet the princeps took great pains to deny the existence of any dynasty which would in turn imply monarchy. Some of this was for the benefit of the aristocracy and was intended to preserve the illusion that they lived in a res publica which was not ruled by a single man, even if it was well and deservedly guided by its leading citizen. This was clearly a concern for Augustus, even if the readiness with which senators voted him ever more grand and unprecedented honours suggests that many now cared little for the liberty so dear to Brutus and Cassius. On balance, his own self-image probably had more to do with it. Augustus’ relentless pursuit of supremacy runs as a central thread throughout his life. This does not mean that his use of power was no more than a means to maintain it, since he worked very hard to use it well. There is every reason to believe that the princeps felt he deserved to win the civil wars, to gain supremacy and to hold onto it because it served the wider good – obviously as he perceived it. Thus he could really see himself as merely the first magistrate of the state, a servant rather than a ruler. Self-restraint, and the desire to live up to his own ideal, make far more sense as curbs on his behaviour than the opinions of the senatorial elite.
Now that he was back in Rome, there were opportunities both for unwelcome and inappropriate flattery and for uncomfortable moments during public debate. At one session of the Senate, a noble named Cornelius Sisenna was criticised for the behaviour of his wife. (It is possible that she was the daughter of Statilius Taurus, although since there was more than one Cornelius Sisenna active in these years we cannot be sure whether it was the same man.) In response, the husband denied that he was responsible for his spouse, since he had married her following the advice and active support of Augustus. Angry at being dragged into such an undignified dispute, and feeling in danger of saying or doing something he might later regret, the princeps got up and rushed from the Curia. He waited until he had calmed down before he returned to the chamber.29
