Augustus, page 51
After this meeting the princeps did not speak of any affairs of state, but did boast again that he had found Rome made of mud brick and left it in marble – no doubt reflecting the solidity of the peace and prosperity he had created as much as the physical rebuilding of the City. We do not know how many days he lingered. Dio says that he ate only figs from a tree he had cultivated in the garden – and also mentions the rumour that Livia smeared some with poison and gave them to Augustus, while she ate only unsullied ones. Such stories – much like his alleged jibe at Tiberius – are likely to date from the years when Tiberius was deeply unpopular, and make little sense. The death of a man who had never been robust and was now very elderly by the standards of the ancient world makes any explanation other than natural causes utterly unnecessary. Weakened by his inability to eat, most likely the princeps’ heart simply gave out.35
Suetonius goes into some detail about his final day, 19 August AD 14, and although we do not know his ultimate source, his account has the ring of truth. At the very least, it represents how it was felt a good emperor should meet his end. Several times Caesar Augustus asked whether there were disturbances outside, apparently worried either about a display of affection or afraid of spreading unrest which might threaten the stability of the state and the ease of succession. Conscious of his appearance, he called for a mirror and instructed a slave to comb his hair into order and help him adjust his jaw – a more controlled version of the dying Julius Caesar pulling his toga up to cover his head. Thus composed, he told them to let in some of his friends, asking them whether they felt that he had played his part well in the mime or comedy of life. Then he slipped into Greek and spoke some lines which may have been a direct quote, or perhaps his own invention of the type of thing said by an actor leaving the stage at the end of a performance:
Since well I’ve played my part, all clap your hands,
And from the stage dismiss me with applause.36
The tone of the story makes it clear that Augustus expected approval and applause. There is no hint of last-minute doubt, but Dio may be right to see gentle irony and an admission that even the most successful life ends with the grave. Then he dismissed them, but before they left he asked some recent arrivals from Rome for news of Livilla, the wife of Tiberius’ son Drusus, who had recently been ill.37
Left with Livia and his close attendants, there was a moment of agitation when Augustus called out that he was being carried off by forty young men. Suetonius notes that this was the number of praetorian guardsmen who would carry his corpse, but since the princeps had left detailed plans for his own funeral the idea may already have been in his head. He died at the ninth hour – that is nine hours after dawn, so late afternoon or early evening by our reckoning – held in Livia’s arms and kissing her for the last time. His last words to her were: ‘Livia, remember our married life, and farewell.’
Imperator Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Julius and ‘father of his country’, was dead. Livia may have delayed announcing his death until preparations for what followed were confirmed, although this claim may simply be part of the wider invention of a conspiracy surrounding the death of the princeps.38
There was one more journey for the body of the princeps, based on the funeral preparations for Agrippa, Drusus and all the others of his family who had died while away from Rome. Beginning during the night so that they could avoid the heat of an August day, the town councillors of Nola carried the corpse in state at the start of its journey to Rome. Each day it was laid to rest in the coolness of the basilica of a town en route, whose leaders took over the task each night of bearing it on to the next major community. Everywhere there were public displays of mourning and respect – few people could remember the times before Augustus had led the state. A party of leading equestrians met the cortège at Bovillae, just south of Rome and the old site of Alba Longa, and took it on into the City, where it was placed in the vestibule of Augustus’ complex on the Palatine.39
The Senate debated how best to honour him, and as in the past most of their proposals were rejected as excessive. Augustus’ close family made the few arrangements for his funeral that he had not already determined. It began, as aristocratic funerals had always done, with a gathering in the Forum. A date of 8 September is a plausible suggestion, but cannot be proved. Although it was a far more ordered affair than the funeral of Julius Caesar, his close association with this spot was no doubt in everyone’s minds as they came to pay their respects to his son. Actors wore the funeral masks of Augustus’ ancestors as was the custom, but others wore the images and insignia of other unrelated great men from Rome’s history. Pompey was among them, and many – perhaps all – of the summi viri from the precinct of the Forum Augustum were there to honour the passing of the greatest Roman of them all. Caesar Augustus was more than simply another aristocrat – he was the second founder of the City, the man who had restored Rome to peace, prosperity and a proper relationship with the gods, and so in death as in life he claimed association with all the great deeds and heroic leaders of the past.
Julius Caesar’s image was not included, since he was a god now, and no mere man, but that did not mean that he was neglected or that his memory was suppressed. Tiberius mounted the Rostra outside the Temple of the Divine Julius to deliver the first eulogy. He was dressed in a dark tunic and toga of mourning, as was his son Drusus, who delivered a second eulogy, this time from the ‘old’ Rostra, which in turn had been remodelled by Julius Caesar and Augustus. All around in every direction were the symbols of Augustus on monuments and buildings. The Senate was present, and the magistrates-elect for the next year, wearing just their tunics and without togas, carried the body to the Campus Martius. All along the route were more reminders of the glory and building projects of the princeps. Augustus’ body was concealed inside a coffin, no doubt because after several weeks in late summer it was not in the best condition; instead a neat and flawless wax effigy of him as a triumphing general was carried on top of it, reclining on a couch of ivory and gold. There were also two gold images of him in the procession, one brought by the senators from the Curia Julia which he had restored, and another carried in a triumphal chariot.40
A pyre was waiting on the Campus Martius, and the coffin placed upon it. Rome’s senior priests then processed around it. After them, selected equestrians ran around the pyre, followed by praetorian guardsmen, some of whom threw their military decorations onto the coffin, just as Julius Caesar’s soldiers had done at his funeral. Then praetorian centurions tossed lit torches onto the pile of wood, which was carefully prepared and quickly caught fire. At that moment an eagle was released from within the structure and flew away into the air, symbolising the ascent of the princeps’ spirit to heaven to join his father among the gods. A former praetor later took a public oath to say that he had clearly seen Augustus’ form ascending to the sky.41
For five days the elderly Livia remained near the spot – perhaps in some temporary shelter. She was attended by some of her household and by leading equestrians. At the end of that period these men, barefoot and with their tunics unbelted so that they hung down low around their ankles, gathered the ashes and remains of bone into an urn. This was carried to and placed within the Mausoleum, the monumental tomb that Augustus had begun building almost fifty years earlier.
CONCLUSION
HURRY SLOWLY
‘Democracy, indeed, has a fair-appearing name . . . Monarchy . . . has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them . . . for it does not belong to the majority of men to acquire virtue . . . Indeed, if ever there has been a prosperous democracy, it has in any case been at its best for only a brief period.’ Dio, early third century AD.1
Augustus ‘seduced the army by bounties, the people by the free corn dole, the whole world by the comfort of peace, and then gradually assumed the power of the Senate, the magistrates, and the making of law. There was no opposition, for the bravest men had fallen in the line of battle or to proscription lists . . .’ Tacitus, early second century AD.2
Public business was largely suspended while the cortège moved towards Rome and during the funeral ceremonies themselves, although the Senate did convene to listen to Augustus’ will. Tiberius and Livia were named as his principal heirs, although, in the normal Roman way, other more distant family members were named as secondary heirs in case they predeceased them. He also bequeathed the vast sum of forty-three million sesterces to the state, as well as individual bounties to every citizen and to the army. An ordinary soldier in the praetorian guard received 1,000 sesterces, the members of the paramilitary urban cohorts and vigiles each 500 sesterces, while legionaries and the freedmen soldiers raised during the emergencies of AD 6 and AD 9 each got 300 sesterces. In every case the scale for officers would have been much higher, and the generosity was a clear acknowledgement that supremacy ultimately relied on retaining the exclusive loyalty of the army. Augustus had never ceased to be the warlord he had become in his nineteenth year.3
The Rhine and Danube frontiers
Tiberius already possessed all of the important powers of Augustus, including the maius imperium and the tribunicia potestas. From the beginning he naturally issued orders to the praetorians and other units in Rome, and wrote to the commanders of the provincial armies. In practical terms the state had gone from having two principes to once again having a single princeps. It was not a question of inheriting Augustus’ powers as adopted son or heir, since Tiberius had them in his own right. Yet appearances were important, and just as Augustus ‘laid down’ his powers in January 27 BC and resigned the consulship in July 23 BC only to be persuaded by the Senate to resume leadership of the commonwealth, so Tiberius wished to be called to his role. The two men were of very different characters, and this time the performance was less slick, or perhaps less well orchestrated. Tiberius’ awkward manner and over-complicated rhetorical style confused many as to his real intentions, but in the end the senators were able to ‘convince’ him that he must assume all the responsibilities of his much-lamented father.
On 17 September the Senate had declared Augustus to be a god, so Tiberius was now properly Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus divi filius. It was stipulated in the will that he must take the name Augustus, but the new princeps refused to let the Senate confirm this by a vote. Instead he maintained that he employed the name only in accordance with his father’s wishes and to honour him. Similarly he refused an automatic award of the title pater patriae. Yet, just like his display of reluctance in the Senate, such modesty did little to hide his willingness to assume the supreme role, a decision already made when he was granted each individual power by Augustus.4
There was no serious alternative. News of the death of Augustus sparked mutinies among some of the legions on the Danube and afterwards on the Rhine. The causes were boredom, the long-delayed discharges for men well past their terms of service, and all the frustrations imposed by harsh discipline combined with the uncertainty of a world without the man who had paid them and to whom they had taken an oath of loyalty. In the main the mutineers wanted no more than improved conditions and other immediate privileges. On the Rhine there was briefly talk of proclaiming their commander Germanicus as princeps instead of Tiberius, but this quickly came to nothing. The adopted son was just as loyal as a Roman son should be, and there was no real enthusiasm for a return to civil war.
Almost as soon as Augustus had died a centurion of the praetorian guard set out for the island on which Agrippa Postumus was confined. Once there, the officer killed Augustus’ grandson, although allegedly not without a struggle, for he was young and strong. When the centurion and his party returned to Rome and reported to Tiberius as his commander, the latter strenuously denied having given any such order. We cannot know whether or not the new princeps was telling the truth. Speculation at the time and ever since has sometimes claimed that he was lying, or has put the blame on Livia instead. Others have held Augustus responsible, so that almost his last order would have evoked the ruthless triumvir he had once been, with one last case of moriendum esse. Tacitus was sceptical, claiming that on no other occasion did he kill any of his close family. Tiberius obviously gained most immediate advantage from the death since it removed a potential rival, but we can never know who actually gave the order. Before the year was out his former wife Julia was also dead, her end hastened by living conditions made harsher on his instructions.5
The dreadfully high death toll among Augustus’ extended family continued in the years that followed. Germanicus died in AD 19 while in the eastern provinces and, although there were rumours of poisoning by a jealous Tiberius or Livia, he was probably yet another victim of ill fortune. Drusus died in AD 23, and this time it was most likely murder and the culprits his wife (the sister of Germanicus and Claudius, and Drusus’ first cousin) and her lover, the ambitious commander of the praetorian guard, Lucius Aelius Sejanus. The latter’s machinations helped to discredit Germanicus’ widow and sons. Agrippina – the last of Julia’s children – and her two older sons were subsequently arrested and exiled, all dying in captivity. Livia survived her husband by fifteen years, although relations with her son became more and more difficult. She eventually died in AD 29 at the age of eighty-six, but received few honours from Tiberius and was not deified until the reign of her grandson Claudius.
In the early weeks Tiberius spoke a good deal of his desire for senators to play a greater role in aiding his leadership, but in practice his actions tended to centralise power even further. One of his first decisions was to transfer elections from the Popular Assemblies to the Senate, leaving the Saepta as no more than an ornamental park and venue for public entertainments. While it is true that Augustus had always been able to secure the election of his chosen candidates, the history of his principate showed plenty of occasions of genuine – and sometimes corrupt and even violent – competition for the remaining posts, as well as a tendency for the electorate to vote in ways he did not want. Yet there was no real public resistance to the change, and senators preferred having to win over only their peers instead of a larger electorate. The quality of magistrates does not appear to have altered for better or worse as a result of this reform.6
Unlike Augustus, Tiberius was unwilling to embark on tours of the provinces and in time he grew weary even of the day-to-day meetings with senators and others in Rome itself. In AD 26 he left Rome, retiring the next year to the villa on Capri and never returning to the City in the remaining ten years of his life. From AD 14–16 Germanicus continued to command on the Rhine but was then recalled and sent to the east. Drusus was mainly kept in Rome and, after the death of Germanicus, there was no attempt to use him for major tours of the provinces. Instead, these were left to the charge of their governors, many of whom remained in office for unusually long periods, but none of whom were instructed to fight aggressive wars. Augustus had left advice to keep the boundaries of the empire where they were and, even if he had not meant it to be more than a temporary pause to recover from the troubles of AD 6 and AD 9, Tiberius chose to follow this as a doctrine throughout his life. In contrast to Augustus’ principate there were fewer campaigns and far fewer public celebrations of victory, nor were many new monuments built from spoils. Tiberius spent far less on building projects and entertainment in Rome than he had done while Augustus was alive.7
The principal sources for these years are Tacitus and Suetonius, both of whom portrayed him as vindictive and cruel, and implied secret perversions – in short, only marginally less of a monster than the likes of Caligula and Nero. Modern scholars have generally rejected this prejudice and, if a little inclined to be too generous to him, rightly point out that in the main Tiberius’ supremacy was a time of peace and stability, especially in the provinces. If there were few aggressive wars, foreign affairs were generally successful. Arminius survived being defeated in battle by Germanicus, but when left alone turned his aggression against Maroboduus rather than the Romans. The king of the Marcomanni was defeated and fled to live as an exile within the empire, his own confederation of tribes breaking up. Around the time that Germanicus died, Arminius was murdered by some of his own chieftains who resented his power, and the peoples he had united once again fragmented into disunited and mutually hostile groups. It would be several generations before another such charismatic leader appeared on either the Rhine or Danubian frontier, and thus two perceived dangers were removed without the need for Roman action.
For twenty-three years the empire was generally stable, with problems on the frontiers and within a handful of provinces being kept under control, and in this respect Tiberius’ decisions seem to have been sound. Most of his successors would follow his example and not tour the empire as Augustus had done, and, like Tiberius, they would not send senior family members to perform this task in their stead. For many, this was because they did not have anyone suitable – or at least any relative they were willing to trust. Augustus’ concept of more than one princeps was only occasionally revived, and even more rarely successful. In itself this did not seem to matter, even if it did mean that in the future expansion was limited. Although this was a profound change from Rome’s past, it is hard to say whether the impact on the political system, economy and society was good or bad.
