Augustus, page 52
Much more serious was Tiberius’ gradual withdrawal from public life – he could only interact with senators and envoys from the empire and beyond if they came to him and waited their turn at Capri. Even while in Rome at the start of his reign he had become increasingly dependent on Sejanus, trusting him as he was unwilling to trust anyone else. In part this was because he was an equestrian and so not considered likely to harbour too much ambition. Agrippa had come from a similar background, but embarked on a senatorial career with the aid of Augustus and consistently proved himself as a highly successful general and administrator. Sejanus showed no interest in such things, but nevertheless his role rapidly grew from simple command of the praetorians to become the princeps’ most important adviser. When Tiberius moved away from the City, Sejanus effectively controlled access to him. Drusus and the sons of Germanicus were removed, as were sufficient prominent men to discourage the others. Great use was made of the maiestas law, which was now liberally interpreted and rigorously enforced for the least apparent slight to the princeps. In AD 31 Tiberius held the consulship – although he did not come to Rome – and took Sejanus as colleague, subsequently awarding him proconsular imperium and thus giving every sign of advancing him to the status of fellow princeps and heir. At the last minute he changed his mind, and Sejanus was arrested and executed in a bloody purge which claimed many more victims among Rome’s elite.
Tiberius’ principate created a climate of fear among the senators and senior equestrians that evoked old memories of the civil wars and proscriptions and never really receded under his successors. The mood was very different from Augustus’ day, and only in part because he had created enough fear during the triumvirate to deter all but the most bold or unwise conspirators. More importantly, Augustus took care to know the most important men in the state, mixing with them socially and treating them with respect. The unintentional consequence of Tiberius’ social awkwardness and eventual retreat from the City was to make it harder and harder for later principes to cultivate the same easy style. Livia’s son may or may not have been the bad man depicted in our sources, but in this respect at least he proved to be a bad princeps. Under him the monarchy became less veiled, and the aspect of a court and courtiers surrounding him became more obvious. Sejanus rose as high as he did purely through the favour of the princeps and without ever proving his talents as soldier or magistrate.8
OCTAVIUS, CAESAR AND AUGUSTUS
This is not a book about Augustus’ successors, nor the changes they made to the nature of the principate, for these are big topics in their own right. The judgement of the Romans themselves was that he was superior to almost all of them, and much later it became the custom to hope that each emperor would be ‘better [melior] than Trajan, and luckier [felicior] than Augustus’ in reference to the premature loss of so many of his close family. In spite of a nostalgic fondness for the aristocratic leadership of the Republic, which most often manifested itself in praise of Brutus and Cassius, senators showed no resentment and certainly no serious opposition to the reality of the principate. Only following the murder of Caligula did the Senate briefly talk about a return to the Republic, but the idea was quickly dismissed and they instead turned to deciding who should be chosen as princeps. The acknowledgement that the principate worked was universal and only a little grudging. What mattered was whether or not the emperor was a good man and a good ruler, both of which were judged on a combination of domestic and foreign success, and that he treated the senatorial order with appropriate respect. Thus the Augustan system of government was unchallenged and Augustus himself became the foremost model of a good princeps. There could be few clearer indications of his success.9
Then and now the man himself was much harder to judge, for he was too many different things to permit an easy verdict. Ambition drove him throughout his life. At some point – perhaps not until the murder of Julius Caesar, but we cannot say – he determined to be first in the state, and everything he did was directed to this end. To achieve this he had no hesitation in resorting to violence, and so in the years that followed he killed and terrorised, switching alliances as it suited the moment. Ambition was in the blood of any Roman aristocrat, but never before had it been quite so untrammelled by convention nor so openly aimed at winning permanent unrivalled supremacy – but then never before had someone been heir to Julius Caesar, dictator for life and laden with honours greater than any Roman had ever received in the past. The situation in which the young Augustus found himself was as unprecedented as his actions, but his motivation at the very least had strong roots in the traditions of his social class.
Nakedly and unrestrainedly ambitious, Augustus became more generous to his enemies as his eventual success came closer. His clemency was more studied than that of Julius Caesar, but real nonetheless and especially during the war with Antony he killed opponents only when it seemed necessary (in his own judgement of course) and pardoned wherever he felt it was safe to do so. This does not seem to have been the case earlier, when he showed little or no mercy to any enemy. In a strange way, the restraint of a killer who stops killing can be more gratefully received than the automatic mercy of someone determined to pardon whenever possible – his opponents had not quite known what to make of the clemency of Julius Caesar. After Actium, Augustus largely stopped killing other Romans, with just a few exceptions following real or alleged conspiracies, and even then there were no widespread purges. There is nothing to suggest that this restraint was imposed on him by anyone other than himself. It made good political sense, since it was surely easier to deal with a confident and well-disposed elite, but some of his successors executed far more readily than Augustus and still managed to stay in power for long periods. Pragmatic or not, his behaviour was ultimately his own choice, and we should admire Augustus for it just as much as we condemn him for the savagery of his earlier career.
There is no sense of any deeply held plans or projects in those early years, and certainly no hint that the idea for the regime he would one day create was already taking shape in his mind. Instead his activity was devoted solely to the immediate end of winning power and defeating his enemies, and probably left no time for anything else. During these years he advertised his connection with Julius Caesar, celebrated the latter’s achievements, sought vengeance for his murder, and at the same time acquired power for himself. Later, in the thirties BC, he began to show more concern for the wider good, beginning to repair and add to the monuments and infrastructure of Rome, and to regulate the food supply of the City. Once again this was sensible politics, but the dedication with which he continued to act in this way after Actium suggests far more than the desire for immediate popularity. Augustus pursued power ruthlessly, but once he achieved it showed a great desire to make things work properly, whether it was the food or water supply, the road system, the various magistracies, or the administration of Rome itself, Italy and the provinces. The resources lavished on repairing old temples and building new ones were intended to restore a proper relationship with the gods who had once made Rome great and could do so again. Like so much of his innermost personality, we cannot know the real beliefs that underlay this concerted policy, but at the very least he wanted to be seen to be doing something about it, and more than likely the urge was genuine. Similarly the efforts to improve the conduct and morals of Rome’s elite were based on the widely held belief that their bad behaviour had deserved as well as caused the turmoil of the late Republic, and that better conduct would accordingly bring better fortune for the state.
Augustus pursued power relentlessly and then clung to it, whatever he might pretend in public. Such ambition is surely the hallmark of any successful political leader – and no doubt plenty of less successful ones. Yet in his case he made use of that power for the common good. He worked hard to make the res publica function again, and we cannot deny that he succeeded, since the peace and stability he imposed brought ever greater levels of prosperity. At a basic level more people were better-off under his principate than they had been for several generations. The concerns he dealt with were traditional ones, even if some of his methods were innovative. Julius Caesar had tried to address several of these issues, as had others, but none had the chance to deal with them as thoroughly as Augustus. In the process he made sure that it was well known that he was working for the common good, but once again such advertising was what any Roman politician would have done. By doing favours for individuals and whole communities he placed them in his debt, and so, as so often, personal advantage was intertwined with the wider good. That does not alter the fact that he did rule well, whatever his motivation.
His own position developed gradually. From 30 BC he effectively monopolised the control of military force and so was in modern terms a military dictator, however carefully he avoided the title itself. The changes to his legal status do not seem to have formed part of any gradual plan. Each was carefully considered and skilfully prepared before it was implemented, but then modified by trial and error. At the same time, every year reinforced the infiltration of his name and image into every aspect of public, and a good deal of private, life. Augustus was everywhere in a way never before matched over an area the size of the Roman Empire. Alongside this prominence came the burden of receiving a constant stream of embassies and petitions from the provinces and beyond the frontiers. Dealing with so many of these in person, or through a close associate or relative, ensured that he received the loyalty of many individuals and communities, especially those granted a favour. The price he paid was spending hour after hour, day after day, working hard to understand and judge matters of often very local importance.
Caesar Augustus was a military dictator who seized control of the state, and his eventual popularity should never hide this truth. His career was only possible because of the chaos in the Roman commonwealth during the first century BC and would have been unimaginable in earlier times. There is little point in speculating about what might have happened if Brutus and Cassius had won at Philippi, or if Augustus had died fighting Sextus Pompey or Antony, or from one of his many bouts of illness. Such things may make entertaining after-dinner conversations for enthusiasts, but rely on far too many imponderables to have any historical worth. Augustus won, and lived into old age, and we can never know what might have been if he had not, or if he had chosen a very different style of rule to the one he adopted.
Similarly we should be careful before drawing hasty parallels with our own day and age. The apparent institutional inertia at the heart of many Western democracies has echoes of the last decades of the Republic, when the leaders of the Senate were too busy with their own rivalries to face the serious problems that all acknowledged existed. If aspects of this seem similar, then much more is very different: the Roman Republic was in a far worse state since its politics had become so violent. Its fate is a reminder that no system, even one that was successful for such a long time, is free from the danger of decay and collapse, but there is a long way to go before we plumb such depths. Although that fate is certainly possible, there is nothing to make us believe that it is inevitable; we have not yet come to a situation where a modern Julius Caesar or Augustus might appear, and for this we should be very glad. For all the talents of these men, each had given orders which led to the deaths of thousands in the civil wars, and unless we are willing to speak of ends justifying any means, then this cost must always be set against their achievements. They were also unusually efficient and benevolent by the standards of warlords and dictators, and most have proved far less pleasant.
Augustus was the man who signed the proscriptions and the man whose self-restraint turned down so many of the excessive honours voted to him by the Senate. He was the man who stole another’s wife and whose lifelong faithfulness to her was marred by numerous adulteries, and also the man who proclaimed old-fashioned morality and the virtues of marriage. He was the man who exiled his daughter, granddaughter and grandson, and told others that they should raise families. As a youth he broke law and precedent to recruit a private army against a properly elected consul, and later made laws and agreed to be bound by them. If there is a theme, then it is that on the whole his conduct improved as he got older.
The contradictions remain, as does the simple fact that he was a warlord who fought his way to supremacy by killing fellow citizens and remained supreme because no one could ever match his military strength. The mature statesman hailed as ‘father of his country’, and the elderly princeps cheered by the Alexandrian sailors for letting them sail and live in peace, controlled the army and kept it loyal to him alone. Everything else he achieved in his life was based on his success as a warlord and we should never forget this, but nor should we deny that, as military dictators go, Caesar Augustus was not such a bad one, at least in the sense that, once established, he ruled well. For all the contradictions, to that extent his mime was surely deserving of applause.
APPENDIX ONE
The Senatorial Career or Cursus Honorum
A career in public life combined military and civilian responsibilities as a man undertook a series of elected magistracies. Augustus was to alter the responsibilities and their importance, and therefore it is useful to look at the career pattern at the time of his birth and his death.
The senatorial career in 63 BC
Sulla had modified the cursus and restated the age requirements. The stated ages were the minimum needed to seek election to each magistracy. For all magistracies except the tribunes of the plebs, the year of office began on 1 January and ended on 31 December. Tribunes took up office on 10 December.
The senatorial career in AD 14
APPENDIX TWO
Date of the Birth of Jesus
The date and circumstances of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth rely entirely on the Gospel accounts. It is not mentioned by any other sources until much later, and these later accounts were certainly influenced by – and probably wholly dependent on – the Gospels. This is in contrast to the Crucifixion, which is mentioned in other early sources, but should not surprise us in any way, as there was no reason for Greek or Roman accounts to mention the birth of anyone in the provinces. Information about even famous Romans is also often wholly absent or vague. We cannot be sure of the date of birth of Julius Caesar. It was probably in 100 BC, but since the opening sections are missing from both the biographies written by Suetonius and Plutarch, this is a best guess, and some scholars have suggested 102 BC. The stories associated with Augustus’ birth were all written down much later, after his subsequent importance was known.1
Of the Gospels, only Matthew and Luke describe the Nativity. These works are conventionally dated to the final quarter of the first century AD, although there is little direct evidence for this. It is fair to say that they could not be later, but it is possible that they are earlier. Mark is believed to be earlier – perhaps by a decade – and does not describe Jesus’ birth, and neither does John, which is accepted as the last of the four accounts to be written. It is important to remember that the Gospels were not intended as histories of the times, but to convey a theological message. Thus they described those aspects of Jesus’ life that were important in that respect, and only mention other events to serve that purpose – for instance there is very little in total about his childhood, and nothing at all about his adult life until he began his ministry. An historian – or a biographer – craves details of this sort, as well as as much context and background as possible, but this was simply not the focus of the Gospels. By comparison, we should note that we rarely know much about the lives of leading Romans until they became politically significant. For the moment it is worth noting that we should be careful before basing rigid theories on asides made by the Gospel writers which were probably never meant to be precise.
Matthew 2: 1 firmly dates the Nativity to the reign of Herod the Great. Luke 1: 5 specifically dates the birth of John the Baptist to Herod’s lifetime, and by implication dates the birth of Jesus to the same period. Herod died in 4 BC, making it likely that Jesus was born some time in the preceding year or two, around 6–5 BC, or in the early months of 4 BC. It has also been suggested that the position of the stars in 7 BC would have had particular significance for Zoroastrian astrologers – the most probable identification of Matthew’s wise men from the east – and so this year has been suggested. I do not feel sufficiently qualified in such matters to judge this claim, but any of these years would tie in with the Crucifixion occurring some time during the prefecture of Pontius Pilate, from AD 26–36.
Luke 2: 1–2 poses a problem, since it famously asserts that ‘there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria).’ As stated earlier, no other source mentions a single decree imposing a census and levy throughout the provinces. This does not mean that we can say with absolute certainty that Augustus never issued such a decree, but does mean that we should be cautious about accepting this purely on one piece of evidence. There was no reason for Luke to be careful in precisely describing the administrative mechanisms of taxation within the Roman Empire, even assuming that he understood such things, given how few people today really understand all aspects of the taxation systems in their own countries. What is clear is that under Augustus the taxation system of the empire was tidied up – much like many other aspects of government. As part of this process most – perhaps all – provinces were subjected to one or more censuses which assessed liability for taxation. In many cases it was for the first time, at least under direct Roman rule. Such assessments were distinct from the traditional Roman census, which dealt exclusively with Roman citizens and their property.
