056 - The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 56, The King is Dead, Long Live the King. Last time, we left Augustus reeling from the shocking annihilation of three legions in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. The princeps, who was now over 70, never really recovered from the blow. The self-assuredness that had marked the regime from the beginning, a more tempered version of the audacious swagger that young Octavian had displayed, now shifted into something more cautious, more uneasy, and more paranoid. It was not just the defeat in Germania that caused the change in tone. Augustus was getting on in years, and found himself handing off more and more of the day-to-day routine of empire to Tiberius, who, as we will see, was nothing if not cautious, uneasy, and paranoid. But Tiberius' influence aside, there is no doubt that the disaster in the Teutoburg Forest affected Augustus mightily. It was the first time the fates had conspired to deny the princeps what he really wanted, in this case, the full annexation of Germania. He had dealt with setbacks and disappointments and betrayals before, and perhaps a younger Augustus would have raised more troops and conquered Germania, just to prove to them who was in charge. But now, he took the defeat as a sign from the gods that he was overreaching, that he asked for too much, and that it was time to pull back. Twilight was settling in on the emperor, and he knew it.

After the loss in Germania, Augustus stopped thinking about expansion, and stopped thinking altogether really, about initiating new projects. The time had come to shore up the regime, secure his legacy, and make sure that when he finally, inevitably died, that the empire would not slip into chaos. Looking out over Rome, Augustus could at least be content in the knowledge that his legacy would not be that hard to secure. Every street in the capital, and every city in the provinces had been touched by his policies, his reforms, and his vision for the future of the empire. Famously announcing on his deathbed that he had found Rome a city of brick, and left it a city of marble, Augustus was speaking both literally and metaphorically. Literally, his building projects had replaced many of the old crumbling facades around the city with the marble edifices we think of today when we picture ancient Rome. Augustus also left in his wake a slew of temples, baths, palaces, and aqueducts, all built in an attempt to turn the city, which was now after all the capital of the known world, into something that at least resembled its status. A great many of the projects, in particular a new line of aqueducts that delivered fresh water in abundance to the filthy, teeming masses, were spearheaded by Agrippa, who was not just Augustus' leader on the battlefield, but also something like his chief urban planner. At one point, Agrippa even took a step backwards on the Cursus Honorum, a thing not often done, just to take the office of city aedile, which had jurisdiction over the areas Agrippa and Augustus wanted to see improvements done.

But it was not just the physical buildings themselves that Augustus transformed. He also inherited a jumbled mess of haphazard Republican administrative practices that left the empire ill-governed and ill-served. He had the good fortune to reign for over 40 years, so he could afford to slowly work his way through the Gordian knot of entrenched interests that protected what was theirs at the expense of anything resembling the greater good. In addition to building out a stable slave and freedman-based bureaucracy, Augustus also introduced a professional firefighting force and a professional police force to Rome for the first time. Gone now were the days where a Marcus Crassus could sit outside a burning home and extort the property from frantic owners in exchange for putting out the blaze. Gone also were the private tax farmers out in the provinces. I haven't talked much about how the Romans collected their taxes up to this point, but basically it went like this. A private agency would bid for the right to collect taxes in a certain area. The winning bid paid to the Senate was the money the state received as the quote-unquote tax revenue. The business model of the tax farmer was then to go out into his province and try to raise more in taxes than he had paid to the government. There was little oversight built into the system, and the structure became lousy with corruption, dishonesty, and extortion. So Augustus canceled the whole setup and began employing a professional corps of tax collectors to implement a tax code that reflected reasonable expectations about what the provincials ought to be able to provide. If Rome was going to rule what it had conquered, they needed to get smart about how they treated the provincials. To paraphrase a line not yet uttered by Tiberius, the point is to fleece the sheep, not skin them. Seeing unscrupulous tax farmers run rampant was a persistent PR nightmare for Rome, and Augustus' reforms there probably paid for themselves ten times over in the costs not borne by future generations putting down revolts that would have inevitably strung up when the sheep started getting skinned.

Augustus also took a hard look at the organization of the legions. Since the reforms of Marius, the army had been populated with professional soldiers whose income depended on their generals winning battles and securing loot. As Augustus himself could attest, if an ambitious general wanted to turn his armies against the state, there was little to stop him as long as the men were handsomely paid. The princeps was confident that the generals and men of the army were loyal to him personally for now, but after he died, there was no telling what was going to happen. A likely scenario, though, was that every ambitious general was going to turn on every other ambitious general, plunging Rome back into civil war. So Augustus set up a central treasury for the payment of soldiers and veterans, providing the seed money for the new treasury out of his own pocket. With the men knowing that their salaries came from Rome and not from the local general in charge, they would be far less likely to follow him if his ambition took him beyond the law. Not that it wouldn't happen, mind you, just that it would be a lot less likely.

With all he could do in a single lifetime, as done as he could ever hope it would be, Augustus began to withdraw from public life. He stopped coming to meetings of the Senate and relied on Tiberius and Germanicus to be the public face of the regime. Tiberius already had most of the powers that Augustus held, and for all intents and purposes, they were co-rulers by this point, which was of course by design. When Augustus died, Tiberius would not really need to ascend to the throne, he would simply need to continue to wield all the power he already had. But the growing power of Tiberius, so necessary for a smooth handover, also changed the overall outlook of the late Augustan regime. Augustus had always been advised by Macinus to allow for a large degree of freedom when it came to the arts and the letters. That is to say, that Augustan Rome enjoyed something like freedom of speech. Critics were free to speak their minds, and old enemies of the Caesars, Brutus, Cassius, and Cato, were allowed to be described in glowing terms. Augustus may not have liked what he heard, but it was far better to let a man have his say than try to censor him. A man who believes he can speak his mind will air his grievances in public and be done with it, while a man who is stifled will not suddenly be less aggrieved, he will merely speak of them privately and with other like-minded individuals. And that, of course, is where truly dangerous conspiracies are born. But Tiberius, lacking the self-confidence of Augustus, proved to be very touchy about criticism, and in the last years of Augustus' life it became more dangerous to criticize the regime openly than it had been in the past. In A Sign of Things to Come, public criticism of the regime came to be conflated with treason, and where once a book highlighting the moral failings of imperial allies would have passed unnoticed, now it was grounds for banishment.

But the bed Tiberius was making would not be Augustus' to lie in. No, all that was left for him to do was put the final spin on the events of his life, make sure his affairs were in order, and wait patiently for death. To the first end, he composed what would have become known as the Deeds of the Divine Augustus, a listing of all the things he had accomplished in his long life. When he finally settled on the final draft in 14 AD, he ordered that the deeds were to be published on tablets and spread throughout the empire upon his death. The list turned out to be a masterpiece of not quite revisionist history. That is, he did what he said he did, none of the deeds listed are lies, but he also did quite a few other things too, things that he didn't necessarily want to highlight for eternity if he catched my drift. The horror of the prescriptions, for example, don't make the cut. I've posted a link to a translation of the document on the website if you want to browse the list in its entirety. I think my favorite part, listed right there amidst the battles he won, the temples he built, the provinces he brought into the empire, the honors he received and the honors he turned down, is when he describes the spectacle of a naval battle he staged for the people after digging an enormous hole near the Tiber and filling it with water. Some 3,000 men and 30 large ships participated in a giant mock sea battle. Hey guys, remember that? That was awesome, huh?

At the same time he was placing the final draft of the Deeds for Safekeeping with the Vestal Virgins, Augustus also deposited three other documents. One described in detail the military and financial situation of the empire, tax rolls, troop locations, project timelines, the works, everything Tiberius would need to immediately understand what he had inherited. The second document laid out in detail how he wanted his funeral procession to unfold, and the last was his final will, which contained only one posthumous surprise for Rome. In the spring of 14 AD, for reasons that will forever be open to historical interpretation, Augustus decided to visit his exiled grandson Posthumus Agrippa, who had been living on a small barren island these past seven years. Explanations for the visit ranged from Augustus needing to take stock of the boy to see if he was fit to return to society, to Augustus needing to take stock of the boy to see if he had any plans to overthrow Tiberius once the old man was dead, to Augustus needing to take stock of the boy to decide whether or not he could possibly push Tiberius aside and make Posthumus his heir. There was also some disagreement about whether Livia knew anything about the meeting and what her reaction to the encounter might have been. According to the Livia killed everyone faction, Augustus tried to keep the meeting secret, but Livia found out about it anyway. Afraid of what this meant for Tiberius, she would order the assassination of Posthumus as soon as Augustus was dead. And oh yeah, according to the Livia killed everyone theory, she's about to kill Augustus too, but we'll get to that. Others speculate that she knew full well about the meeting and its result, that Augustus determined Posthumus was too dangerous, that he would welcome any opportunity to become a rallying point for anti-Tiberian partisans, and that Augustus was leaving orders that Posthumus be killed upon his death. There is really no coming to a firm conclusion about the meeting, but we know that it happened and what happened to Posthumus as soon as Augustus was dead. He was killed. Whether the princeps ordered it because he was worried about the stability of the empire, or Livia ordered it because she feared for her own son's career, is anyone's guess. But perhaps belaying the notion, at least, that Augustus was set to push Tiberius aside and make Posthumus his heir, in the summer of 14 AD, he ordered Tiberius to take over the critical command in Illyricum. This meant that Augustus was putting Tiberius in charge of a large chunk of the Roman army while simultaneously keeping him close to Italy. Posthumus, meanwhile, continued to sit on a lifeless rock and was left out of Augustus's so recently revised will. That probably tells us all we need to know about whether Augustus was planning to replace Tiberius as his heir.

In the early summer of 14, Tiberius set out for Brundisium to take over his command in the Balkans, and was accompanied for the first leg of his journey by Augustus himself. But the two parted ways about 150 miles south of Rome. Tiberius continued south while Augustus peeled off and made his way to one of his villas in the town of Nola, which lay in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. His health had been deteriorating for some time, and lately he had come down with another serious illness. Publicly, he was settling into the villa to recuperate away from the hustle and bustle of Rome, but those close to the princeps knew that he was really settling in to die. It had been a long life, a good life, but it was time to let go. On the nineteenth of the month that now bears his name, with Livia by his side, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus finally died. He was seventy-six years old and had ruled Rome for forty-four years. His attributed final words, depending on the translation, went, Have I played my part in the farce of life well enough? He followed this with a common tagline used by actors when closing out their performances, If I have pleased you, then kindly signify appreciation with a warm good-bye. To Augustus, all the world really was but a stage. I think it is safe to say that he played his part convincingly.

Like everything else surrounding the last few months of Augustus' life, there is some disagreement about what happened next. Either Tiberius was recalled to Nola when Augustus was still dying, and the two were able to go over the last details of succession, or he was only alerted once the princeps was dead and that Livia spent a few days keeping her husband's death a secret while she waited for Tiberius to arrive. There is also some disagreement about how and why Augustus finally died, namely, whether he died of natural causes or was poisoned by his wicked wife, Livia. I don't tend to think that dying at the age of seventy-six, after a life spent in and out of sickbeds, needs a conspiracy theory to explain it, but rumors persist to this day that Livia poisoned the figs Augustus was fond of eating because she was afraid that if Augustus kept living, he might change his mind about her son. In his biography of Augustus, Anthony Everett does some fancy mental gymnastics to reconcile the ambiguity surrounding Augustus' death by wondering if perhaps, with all the pieces in place for a smooth transition and Augustus' final illness not proving fatal enough, that he and Livia had a nod-wink agreement for her to poison the figs. If life was merely theatre and Augustus had written his script such that now it was time for him to die, there was no sense in lingering on the stage and risking the whole production.

As I alluded to earlier, immediately upon the death of Augustus, imperial agents hastened to the island where Agrippa Posthumus was exiled and the young man was murdered. As I said, the two prime suspects for the order were Augustus or Livia, but many drew the conclusion that Tiberius might have been behind the murder. When confronted with these accusations, though, Tiberius made a great stink about opening an inquiry into the case in order to clear his own name. When Augustus and Livia's inner circle caught wind that Tiberius was perhaps getting ready to air some dirty laundry, they moved quickly to stop the accusations against the new emperor so that he would drop the matter. It was a dangerous time for the regime, but there were still doubts about whether or not it could survive Augustus. Now was not the time to go around embracing transparency.

After his obligatory stay in Nola, Tiberius traveled to Rome and delivered news of Augustus's death to the Senate. In Tacitus's famously direct language, two pieces of news became known simultaneously. Augustus was dead and Tiberius was now in control. This was exactly as Augustus had planned the handover to take place. No power vacuum was to open up, not even for a moment. Immediately the Senate fell into line and hailed Tiberius as their new emperor, and then set about trying to one-up each other with proposed honors for the now-dead Augustus. They also started drawing up elaborate funeral arrangements, but, of course, Augustus had already provided the details of his funeral, leaving nothing to chance. When Tiberius read the princep's wishes aloud, the Senate deferred, just like they always had. Tiberius then read them the last will and testament of Caesar Augustus, which famously began, Since fate has cruelly carried off my sons Gaius and Lucius, Tiberius must inherit two-thirds of my property. In other words, dear Tiberius, I never did like you. After making room for small payments to every citizen in Rome, Augustus left the remaining third of his estate to his wife, Livia, who, the Senate was astonished to learn, he was posthumously adopting as his daughter. The adoption would ensure that she would be allowed to maintain her power and position, drawing strength not because of her marriage to Augustus, which was now obviously at an end, but because she was his daughter, status that she could never lose. Henceforth she would be known as Livia Augusta, or simply, the Augusta.

The body of Augustus was borne back to Rome, and the funeral procession he had laid out was carefully followed. The official funeral orations were delivered by Tiberius and his natural son, Jerusalem. The body was cremated in the Forum, and the ashes placed in the family mausoleum that Augustus had constructed. At this point, he also formally joined the pantheon of Roman gods, and was forever after referred to as the Divine Augustus, whose pronouncements and policies took on an almost holy character. Tiberius certainly justified many of the decisions of his early reign by pointing out that he was merely following the lead of the Divine Augustus. For example, in his final paperwork, Augustus implored Rome to stay within the settled boundaries of the empire. This injunction was adhered to not just by Tiberius, but more or less by every one of their successors. The only real exception being Claudius' annexation of Britain and Trajan's campaigns in the early 100s, most of the fruits of which were immediately abandoned by his successor Hadrian anyway.

Over the course of his long life, Augustus changed the face of Rome. He had taken it from shaky republic to outright autocracy, and ensured that the empire never looked back. His institutional reforms cleared out most of the inefficiencies that threatened to drag down Rome's domination of the whole of the Mediterranean, while the ruthless purges of his enemies guaranteed that all the energy to go back to the old ways had been eliminated. The republic was dead, but Rome would live. His life was complicated, his motives sometimes pure and sometimes not, and historians and scholars throughout the ages have variously described him as a maniacal tyrant, a puppet of his wife, and a wise, benevolent dictator. He is almost universally referred to, though, as Rome's greatest and most successful emperor. Most believe that his long reign set the foundations for Rome's continued status as the preeminent power of the ancient world. Whether this was a good thing or not depends on who you talk to, but there is no denying that Augustus was one of the most influential men in the history of the Western world. Now he passes from this stage.

Next week, we will plunge into the early years of Tiberius's reign as emperor and his rivalry with the charismatic and popular Germanicus. The young prince may have been oblivious to the fact that his popularity was far eclipsing that of his uncle, but Tiberius certainly wasn't. It's not that Tiberius was a bad emperor early on, just that he wound up playing the socially awkward Nixon to Germanicus's easygoing Kennedy. Germanicus's popularity at the expense of Tiberius played right into the persecution complex that the emperor had carried around with him his whole life. So while we don't know for sure that he played a role in the untimely death of his nephew, the people of Rome certainly believed that he did, which did nothing for his popularity. This negative feedback loop ate at Tiberius, but he took comfort in the fact that his own son Drusus now had no rival for the throne and would be able to follow in his father's footsteps. But when, in 23 AD, Drusus either died from an illness or, more likely, was killed by his wife and her lover Sejanus, Tiberius lost the last thing keeping him grounded, which proved to be very, very bad for the citizens of Rome.