THE IMPERIAL AND MILITARY POLICY OF AUGUSTUS
_Tu regere imperio populos,_
_Romane, memento._
[Sidenote: The extension of the Empire under Augustus.]
At the end of his life Augustus left, among other memoirs, a roll
containing certain maxims of state which he thought important for his
successors to observe. Among them was an injunction not to seek to
increase the Empire, for it would be difficult to guard an extended
frontier. His own policy had been directed generally on this principle.
Such additions as were made in his time were mainly those rendered
inevitable by the necessity of securing the already existing frontiers.
When his generals went beyond that they met with difficulties and
sometimes with disaster.[256] The additions actually made were (1) in
Africa: Egypt was made a province in B.C. 30, at first almost as a
private possession of the Emperor, though in B.C. 10 it was, nominally
at any rate, put on the same footing as the other provinces. Mauretania,
on the other hand, though made a province in B.C. 33, was restored to
independence under King Iuba in B.C. 25. (2) In Asia a new province of
Galatia was formed in B.C. 25, with a capital at Ancyra, and embracing
several districts, such as Lycaonia, Isauria, Pamphylia, and parts of
Phrygia. (3) In the West, sometime before A.D. 6, Mœsia, answering to
the modern Servia and Bulgaria, was made a province as a barrier of
the Empire on the Danube. So also Illyricum, in B.C. 9-8, was extended
to the Danube by the addition of Pannonia; Noricum, also on the Danube,
was held in subjection, if not fully organised as a province, after B.C.
16; and Rhætia (modern Bavaria) was put under a Roman procurator after
B.C. 15. All these additions were clearly rendered necessary in order to
protect the line of the Danube as the frontier of the Empire. Lastly, on
the reorganisation of Gaul in four provinces (B.C. 16-14), two districts
along the left bank of the Lower Rhine, called Germania Superior and
Germania Inferior, were also occupied and partly organised, while some
minor Alpine districts, Alpes Maritimæ (Savoy and Nice), Alpes Cottiæ
(Susa and district), Alpes Penninæ (Canton du Valois) were taken over
and administered sometimes independently and sometimes as part of other
provinces. In these cases again the extension was merely consequential,
the inevitable result of having a long frontier to defend against
invading tribes.[257] The Rhine and the Danube then became the limits
of the Empire. We shall have occasion to see immediately what dangers
awaited an attempt to go beyond them.
[Sidenote: The East.]
Augustus twice spent periods of between two and three years in the East,
engaged in resettling frontiers and re-organising the Roman provinces.
After the victory at Actium (B.C. 31) he remained in the East till B.C.
29. The changes then made chiefly consisted in upsetting most of the
arrangements which had been made by Antony with various client kings,
and in favour of the children of Cleopatra. Thus Cyprus, which had been
restored to Cleopatra, was now separated from Egypt and made a province;
the coast towns of Syria and Palestine were reunited to the province of
Syria; certain cities of Crete and Cyrene, Iudæa and Ituræa, and of
Cilicia, which Antony had assigned to Cleopatra’s son, Cæsarion, were
either reunited to the provinces or declared free, as was also the case
with other districts and towns assigned by Antony to his own son by
Cleopatra. Certain client kings, however, were allowed to retain their
territory and dignity, such as Herod in Iudæa, Amyntas in Galatia,
Archelaus in Cappadocia. But the eternal question in the East was that
of the Parthians. They not only were resolved to maintain the Euphrates
as the limit beyond which Roman power was not to pass, but they had
frequently made raids upon Syria, and were always attempting to occupy
Armenia, which was a Roman protectorate, and the intervening kingdom
of Media. The disaster of Crassus in Mesopotamia, and the chequered
operations of Antony, had all sprung from these facts. When Augustus
arrived in Asia the state of things which had finally resulted from
the operations of Antony was that Artaxes (whose father, Artavasdes,
had been treacherously captured by Antony and afterwards put to death
by Cleopatra) was king of Armenia, and had attacked Media and captured
its king Artavasdes; and that Phraates had recovered his kingdom of
Parthia. Augustus had two or three advantages in dealing with these
complications. He found the brothers of the Armenian Artaxes still
prisoners at Alexandria, and sent them to Rome as hostages. Again the
captured king of Media managed to escape and appealed to him for help;
and, lastly, Phraates of Parthia had only just recovered his throne,
from which he had been expelled by a rebellion headed by Tiridates, and
the latter escaped to Syria and sent to implore the help of Augustus,
while legates from Phraates also arrived soliciting his support. Augustus
availed himself skilfully of these complications to assume the position
of a lord paramount and arbiter. He allowed Tiridates to remain in
safety in Syria; but he treated the legates of Phraates in a friendly
manner, and cordially invited a son of that king to accompany him to
Rome, where, however, he was kept as a hostage. Artavasdes was set up in
Lesser Armenia to form a check upon Artaxes. These diplomatic successes
were regarded in Rome, as we have seen, as veritable triumphs over the
dangerous Parthians—the only name much known there. The abolition of the
arrangements of Antony, which had involved the curtailment of the Roman
Empire, was recorded on coins struck in B.C. 29, with a head of Augustus
on the obverse, and on the reverse a figure of victory standing on the
mystic cista, with the legend _Asia recepta_. But it is with his second
Eastern progress (B.C. 22-19) that the useful public works, such as roads
and buildings, of which traces are still found, probably began.
[Sidenote: Movements in the East between B.C. 24 and B.C. 22.]
Between these two visits there had been only two movements of serious
importance—the useless and almost disastrous expedition of Ælius
Gallus into Arabia (B.C. 24-3), and the invasion of Southern Egypt at
Elephantine by Candace, queen of Æthiopia, encouraged by the diminution
of the Roman forces in Egypt during the Arabian expedition. The
Æthiopians gained some minor successes over three Roman cohorts stationed
near the frontier, but were eventually repulsed by the præfect Gaius
Petronius, who pursued them to their capital town Nabata, which he took
and plundered.[258]
[Sidenote: Second Eastern progress, B.C. 22-19.]
The second eastward progress of Augustus began with some months’
residence in Sicily. There he was busied in founding colonies, of which
seven are named. The chief town of Sicily was still Syracuse, but it
seems to have suffered in the time of Sextus Pompeius, and Augustus
placed in it two thousand settlers, probably veterans. It was the object
of such colonies to provide for veterans and poor Italians, but also
to Romanise countries more completely, and to introduce an industrial
class. Sicily needed above all things free cultivators. Its corn trade
had suffered from the competition of Africa, Sardinia, and Egypt, and
its pastoral farms were largely owned by Roman capitalists, who did not
reside, but employed slave-labour directed by bailiffs or _villici_.[259]
One object at least, therefore, of these measures of Augustus was to
bring into the country a class of small landowners residing on their
property. Land was found for them by purchase, where there was no _ager
publicus_ available.
[Sidenote: Augustus in Greece B.C. 21.]
From Sicily Augustus passed to Greece and wintered at Samos. Achaia
was a senatorial province, but the Emperor, we may notice, exercised
complete authority there. He had already established two colonies—at
Actium and Patræ, and he seems to have devoted most of his attention
to promoting their interests. He compelled the inhabitants of several
townships in the neighbourhood of both towns to migrate to the new
colonies, and he insisted on the colony at Actium being admitted to the
Amphictyonic League. The places were well chosen for naval purposes, but
the element of compulsion in his policy towards them was unfortunate.
He does not appear to have done much for Greece generally. It was in
a lamentably decaying state, the population declining, and old towns
disappearing. Nearly the only exception was the Iulian colony at Corinth.
Such changes as Augustus made on this visit rather tended to emphasise
this state of things, and certainly did nothing to relieve it. Athens,
which retained nothing of its greatness except its past and the still
surviving reputation as a university town (though Marseilles was running
it hard even in that), had disgraced itself in his eyes by the display of
sympathy, first for the Pompeians against Iulius, again for Brutus and
Cassius against the triumvirs, and lastly for Antony against himself. A
town always on the losing side can expect little favour. It was deprived
of its few remaining extra-Attic dependencies, Ægina and Eretria, and
was forbidden to avail itself of almost the only source of revenue
left—the fees which certain persons were still willing to pay for the
honour of being enrolled as its citizens. Sparta, indeed, was rewarded
by the restoration of Cythera, in return, it is said, for hospitality
to Livia when in exile with her former husband; but, on the other hand,
it was deprived of the control over its harbour town of Gythium. But
though both Iulius and Augustus favoured Sparta, as against Athens—a fact
commemorated by a temple to Iulius and an altar to Augustus—it remained
completely insignificant.
Very different was his policy in Asia. There Augustus set himself to
restore the prosperity of the towns by grants of money, by relief from
or readjustment of tribute, and by the promotion of useful public works.
Nor were details of local administration and internal reforms neglected.
Edicts are preserved which touch on such matters as the age of local
magistrates, or the succession to the property of intestates in Bithynia,
shewing with what minute care he studied local interests and problems.
It was now probably that schemes were set on foot for opening up the
country by roads, afterwards carried out by his legates. Milestones are
being now discovered along the _via Sebaste_ connecting the six Pisidian
colonies dated in the eighteenth year of his tribunician power (B.C. 6)
and a marble temple to Augustus still stands at Ancyra (_Angora_), to
witness the gratitude of these Asiatic cities. At the same time disorder
or illegal conduct was sternly punished. Cyzicus was deprived of its
_libertas_ for having flogged and put to death some Roman citizens, and
the same punishment was awarded for their internal disorders to Tyre and
Sidon, whose ancient liberties had been secured to them by Antony when he
handed over the country to Cleopatra.
[Sidenote: Return of the standards by the Parthians.]
But of all his achievements during this progress nothing made such a
sensation in the Roman world, or was so much celebrated by the poets of
the day, as the fact that he received back from the Parthian king the
Roman eagles and standards lost by Crassus in B.C. 53, by Antony’s legate
Decidius Saxa in B.C. 40, and by Antony himself in B.C. 36 in a battle
with Parthians and Medes. Those taken by the Medes had been returned to
him, but not those taken by the Parthians. In B.C. 23 Tiridates, who
had been allowed to take refuge in Syria in B.C. 30, came to Rome, and
Phraates, to counteract his appeal, sent ambassadors thither also. After
consulting the Senate Augustus declined to give up Tiridates, but he
sent back to Phraates the son whom he had kept at Rome for the last six
years on condition that the king should restore the standards. Pressed
though he was by the disaffection of his subjects, Phraates had not
yet fulfilled his bargain. But perhaps this disaffection had by B.C.
20 become more acute, or he was alarmed by the promptness with which
Augustus asserted Roman supremacy in Armenia. Artaxes had ruled ill and
had been insubordinate. Augustus appears to have meditated an expedition
against him, but his subjects anticipated the difficulty by assassinating
him. Augustus says that he might have made Armenia a province, but
preferred to allow the ancient kingdom to remain. Accordingly on his
order Tiberius went to Armenia and with his own hand placed the diadem
on the head of Tigranes, brother of the late king, who had been living
in exile at Rome. Thus the supremacy of Augustus was acknowledged in
Armenia and its king ruled by his permission. A coin struck in B.C.
19 represents it as a real capture of Armenia, having on its reverse
_Cæsar Div. F. Armen. capt. Imp. viiii._ The Parthian king thought it
well now to fulfil his bargain, and again Tiberius was commissioned to
receive the captured standards in Syria. With the standards were also
some prisoners; though there were others who had in the thirty-three
years that had elapsed since the fall of Crassus settled peaceably in
Parthian territory, married wives, and now refused to return.[260] Such
a contented abandonment of their native land seemed shocking to the
orthodox Roman, unable to suppose life worth living among barbarians
for one who had once been a citizen of the Eternal City. Prisoners of
war were never much valued at Rome. It was the traditional maxim that
the state never paid ransom, though private friends might and did, and
Horace’s ode may be meant to support the Emperor’s refusal of some
demand of Phraates for ransom of prisoners to accompany the standards.
This transaction, however, was the crown of the Emperor’s work in the
East. It is commemorated on coins of B.C. 19 bearing a triumphal arch,
with Augustus receiving the standards, on the obverse, and the legend
_civibus et signis militaribus a Parthis receptis_ on the reverse. The
poets were not behind with their compliments. Vergil, who was in Greece
in this the last year of his life, seems to have inserted three lines in
his description of opening the doors of Bellona to bring in an allusion
to it.[261] Horace, who had for the time given up lyric poetry, yet
contrives a compliment in one of his epistles;[262] and, on returning
to lyric poetry in B.C. 13-12, is careful to include it among the great
services of Augustus; and Propertius, after prophetic suggestions as to
what will be done, at last burst out into a triumphant hymn of praise
over the achievements of these years, and, above all, on the Nemesis that
has come for the slaughtered Crassus.[263] Many years afterwards Ovid
takes the opportunity in describing the temple of Mars Ultor, in which
Augustus deposited the recovered standards, to glorify him for having
wiped out an old and shameful stain upon the Roman arms.[264] There
were many other arrangements made with the client kings of Asia, all of
which were accompanied by the strict condition that they were henceforth
to confine themselves to the territories now assigned to them and were
to make no wars of aggression. The _pax augusta_ was to be strictly
maintained everywhere.
[Sidenote: Augustus returns from the East, B.C. 19.]
All this had been done without any drop of blood shed in war, and
Augustus was able to devote the winter of B.C. 20-19 at Samos to rest and
enjoyment, receiving numerous embassies from all parts, as far as from
India. The Indian envoys brought him a present of tigers, a beast never
before seen in Greece or Italy, and a wonderful armless dwarf who could
draw a bow and throw javelins with his feet. He returned next year by way
of Athens, where he was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries and where
he met with Vergil. The poet joined the Emperor’s train, visited Megara
with him, and returned with him to Italy, only to fall ill at Brundisium
and die (September 22).
[Sidenote: Troubles in the West. Defeat of Lollius, B.C. 16.]
Though Augustus returned to Rome amidst loud congratulations, the Western
part of the Empire was not yet at peace, and in fact there were many
threatening signs of future trouble. Agrippa, indeed, in the very year
of the Emperor’s return from the East, crushed the rebellious Cantabri
and Astures, not without severe fighting; but though Augustus was able
now to remain at home, passing laws, holding the secular games, and
strengthening his family by adopting Agrippa’s children, the Empire was
not at peace, the Ianus Quirinus still stood open. There were, in fact,
a number of “little wars,” mostly frontier raids. Thus in B.C. 17-16, P.
Silius Nerva was engaged with various Alpine tribes, and in repelling an
inroad of Pannonians. There were also about the same time brief outbursts
in Spain and Dalmatia, and inroads of barbarous tribes (Dentheletæ and
Scordisci) into Macedonia. In Thrace the guardian of the sons of Cotys
had to be assisted against the Bessi, and the Sauromatæ had to be driven
back across the Danube. These were comparatively unimportant affairs, But
a more serious danger was caused by some warlike German tribes—Sugambri,
Usipetes, and Tencteri—crossing the Rhine and invading Gallia Belgica.
They defeated some Roman cavalry, and while pursuing them came up with
Lollius and his main army, which they again defeated, capturing the
eagle of the Fifth Legion. Suetonius says that the affair was rather
disgraceful than really disastrous. But it seemed sufficiently serious
to Augustus. Agrippa was away in the East looking after Syria and Asia,
and did not return till B.C. 13; and he resolved to go to Gaul himself,
taking with him Tiberius, and leaving Drusus to carry on the latter’s
prætorship. The Germans, however, had no wish to fight a regular imperial
army, they therefore retired beyond the Rhine, and made terms and gave
hostages.
[Sidenote: Administration of Gaul, B.C. 16-14.]
Augustus nevertheless found enough to do without positive fighting in
introducing improvements and reforms. At Nemausus the old gate of the
town walls still stands, inscribed with his name, and dated in the
seventh year of his tribunician power (B.C. 16); he had, moreover, to
listen to long tales of grievances caused by the extortions of Licinius,
the procurator at Lugdunum. This man’s career was an early example of
that of the rich freedmen of later times. Brought as prisoner from Gaul
by Iulius Cæsar, and apparently emancipated by Octavian in accordance
with his uncle’s will, he had by some means amassed an immense fortune,
and retained the favour of Augustus by large contributions to the
public works from time to time promoted by the Emperor. A millionaire
disposed to such liberality is always welcome to a sovereign with a
taste for expensive reforms. As a Gaul by birth, Augustus seems to have
supposed that he would be a sympathetic officer. But he proved more
Roman than the Romans in exacting the last farthing. We are reminded
of “Morton’s fork” and of Empson and Dudley, when we are told that he
insisted on certain monthly payments being made fourteen times in the
year, on the ground that November and December meaning the ninth and
tenth months, there must be two more to be accounted for! The complaints
were so serious, however, that Licinius thought it necessary to offer to
surrender his whole property to Augustus, as though he had only amassed
it for the public service, with the deliberate purpose of weakening the
disloyal natives. We are not told whether he was left in power, but
at any rate he escaped punishment and survived Augustus. He probably
was recalled to Rome, where he tried to pacify public indignation by
large contributions to the restoration of the Curia Iulia, which was
re-dedicated in honour of the Emperor’s grandsons about A.D. 12.
[Sidenote: Campaigns of Tiberius and Drusus, B.C. 15.]
But another and more serious trouble had now to be faced. The Rhæti,
inhabiting the modern Grisons, Tyrol, and parts of Lombardy, were making
raids upon Gaul and Italy, burning and slaying and plundering. With them
were allied the Vindelici (inhabiting parts of modern Baden, Wurtenburg,
and S. Bavaria), with other Alpine tribes.[265] The campaign against
these tribes was intrusted to Tiberius, who conceived a masterly plan
which was crowned with brilliant success. Drusus was summoned from Rome
to guard the passes into Lombardy, and in the valleys of the Tridentine
Alps at the entrance of the Brenner pass, near the Lacus Benacus (Lago
di Garda), he won a brilliant victory over them, and forced many of
their mountain strongholds. Shut off thus from Italy they turned their
armies towards Helvetic Gaul, but were met by Tiberius and again
defeated between Bâle and the Lake of Constance. These two defeats seem
practically to have annihilated these tribes, and they gave no further
trouble. It was after this that Noricum was annexed, and Rhætia and
Vindelicia conquered, and presently formed into the province Rhætia.
[Sidenote: At the end of B.C. 14 Augustus returns to Rome.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 13.]
Still Augustus had to stay on another year in Gaul. Risings had to be
suppressed among the Ligurians of the Maritime Alps, and in Pannonia;
while Agrippa, who had returned from Palestine accompanied or followed by
Herod, went to Sinope, on the Pontus, to put down a disturbance that had
arisen owing to a disputed claim to the crown of the Cimmerian Bosporus,
which an usurper named Scribonius had seized. At the end of B.C. 14, or
the beginning of B.C. 13, Augustus returned to Rome with Tiberius, who
entered then upon his first consulship, and there they were also joined
by Agrippa. Whether the temple of Ianus was now closed for the third time
is not certain. But there are some good reasons for supposing that it
was. In two passages, Horace, writing in B.C. 13, speaks of it as though
it were a recent occurrence; Dio, in speaking of the return of Augustus,
says that he came back after “having settled all the affairs of the
Gauls, Germanies and Spains”; there was certainly a lull in the German
trouble, where Drusus had been left in command; and lastly an inscription
recording the extension of the great road to Gades in Southern Spain,
has the date of this year, and records the closing of Ianus in honour
of Augustus. None of these are in themselves absolute proofs, but taken
together they form a strong presumption.[266] At any rate, Augustus
returned to Rome with the feeling that he had secured peace. Though he,
as usual, avoided meeting a complimentary procession by entering the city
after nightfall, yet he came with laurelled fasces. The next morning,
after greeting a crowd of people on the Capitol, he caused the laurels to
be taken off and solemnly laid on the knees of Jupiter, and the first
business he transacted in the Senate was the settlement of the claims of
his soldiers. But the peace did not last long. Augustus himself spent the
next three years in Italy busied with the census, the lectio senatus,
legislation, and various ceremonies. Lepidus died in the early part of
this year, and he was at once declared Pontifex Maximus, though the
_inauguratio_ did not take place till the following February.
[Sidenote: Death of Agrippa, B.C. 12.]
However, before the year was ended, news came of disturbances in
Pannonia, and Agrippa—once more associated in the tribunician power—was
sent thither. He had no fighting, for the rising was abandoned at his
approach. It was his last journey. Next spring he was taken ill in one
of his Campanian villas. Augustus threw all business aside and hastened
to his house, but arrived too late. Never had ruler a more faithful or
abler friend and servant. At every crisis of his life Agrippa had been by
his side, and wherever danger was most threatening he had taken the post
of difficulty and honour. If he gained wealth in his master’s service,
he was always ready to spend it in support of his master’s aims. In the
interests of the dynasty he had sunk all private wishes and ambitions.
About Agrippa the passion for prurient scandal, characteristic of the
age and people, for once is silent, and not a single line or innuendo
survives to impeach his private or public life. Augustus shewed both his
respect and deep feeling. He accompanied the body to Rome, pronounced the
funeral oration himself, and deposited the ashes in the new mausoleum
which he had erected for his own family.
[Sidenote: Tiberius in Pannonia.]
The news of Agrippa’s death seems to have encouraged the Pannonians
once more to strike for freedom. Tiberius accordingly was appointed to
succeed him in the command. He laid waste wide portions of their country,
inflicted much slaughter upon the inhabitants, and seems quickly to have
reduced them to obedience, though only for a time.
[Sidenote: Drusus in Germania B.C. 12-9.]
Meanwhile Drusus was not idle. The Sugambri and their allies crossed the
Rhine into the district called Lower Germany, a part of Belgium (now
North Brabant), where they would find tribes nearly allied to themselves,
and willing to shake off the Roman yoke. Drusus had been engaged in the
consecration of an altar to Augustus at Lugdunum, where he had invited
the attendance of leading Gauls from all these provinces. He hurried back
to the Rhine and drove the invaders over the river, and then throwing a
bridge across it (somewhere below Cologne), he attacked the Usipites on
the right bank of the Lupia, and then marched up the Rhine to attack the
Sugambri. But there was a fleet of ships supporting him in the Rhine. He
cut a canal from the River to Lake Flevo (Zuyder Zee), so that this fleet
might sail up the coast to the mouths of the three rivers—the Amisia,
Visurgis, and Albis (_Ems_, _Weser_, _Elbe_). He proposed to make the
Elbe the limit of the Roman Empire, instead of the Rhine; but in this
first year only reduced the coast as far as the Visurgis. The next year
(B.C. 11), he advanced by land to the same river, only farther inland,
and occupied the country of the Cherusci (Westphalia), and though on
their way home his men were nearly caught in an ambush, they got back
safely to the banks of the Lupia, and several forts were established in
various parts of the country. The next year (B.C. 10) he was engaged
with the Chatti (Hessen), who endeavoured to regain the territories from
which he had driven them in the previous year.[267] In B.C. 9, being
now consul, he pushed as far as the Elbe, where he erected a trophy to
mark the extreme limit of the Roman advance, through the land of the
Chatti and Trevi. But on his return march he fell and broke his leg, and
there being no skilled physician with the army, he died after thirty
days’ suffering. Besides these marches into Germany, he had, during his
command, established a line of fortresses on the Lower Rhine, to the
number of fifty, as far up the stream as Argentoratum (Strassburg).
[Sidenote: Tiberius in Germany B.C. 8-7.]
On hearing of his brother’s accident, Tiberius, who was at Ticinum,
hurried to his side, was with him when he died, and accompanied the
corpse on foot back to Rome, where he delivered a funeral oration, and
Augustus, who returned from Lugdunum at this time, another. The ashes
were placed in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Tiberius was appointed to
succeed him on the Rhine, and in B.C. 8 crossed the river to attack the
Sugambri. But as the other tribes made their submission, the Sugambri
were induced to send some of their leading men to negotiate also.
Augustus then took a step which requires, at any rate, some explanation.
He seized these legates and kept them in confinement in various towns as
hostages. It had the immediate effect, however, of keeping the Sugambri
quiet, large numbers of them were settled on the left bank of the Rhine,
and Tiberius was able to come home for his triumph in B.C. 7, with which
the name of Drusus was also associated.
No wars of any consequence disturbed the peace of the Empire for nearly
nine years. Tiberius retired to Rhodes in B.C. 6, and his successors in
the command of the army of the Rhine had the task of maintaining and
strengthening the conquests of Drusus. The two districts on the left bank
of the river, Germania Inferior and Superior, though for some purposes
they belonged to Gallia Belgica, yet as military districts were distinct,
and they included some fortresses on the right bank of the Rhine. The
country between the Rhine and the Elbe was in an ambiguous position. It
was not a province, and yet the commanders on the Rhine occupied as much
of it as they could from time to time maintain.
[Sidenote: Tiberius again in Germany and Illyricum, A.D. 4-7.]
But in A.D. 4 Tiberius, now returned from Rhodes, and adopted son of
Augustus, took over the command on the Rhine, and immediately began a
great forward movement like that of his brother Drusus. He too advanced
to the Weser and reduced the Cherusci who were in revolt; and after
marching to the Lippe again, advanced to the Elbe (A.D. 5), reducing
the Chauci and Longobardi, this time with the support of a fleet that
entered the mouth of the Elbe. Some others thought it safer to send
envoys and make terms of friendship with Rome. Next year (A.D. 6) he was
to attack the Marcomanni under a powerful leader named Marobudus. The
attack was to be made from two sides. C. Sextius Saturninus, an able
and experienced officer, was to lead one army from the Rhine, through
the territory of the Chatti (near Cologne), while Tiberius himself led
another from Noricum across the Danube. The two were to converge upon
the district now occupied by the Marcomanni answering to the modern
Bohemia. Tiberius was accompanied by the governor of Pannonia (Valerius
Messalinus), and a large part of the troops stationed there. But the
expedition was prevented by a sudden rising in Pannonia and Dalmatia. The
inhabitants of these countries had not become reconciled to Roman rule;
they felt the burden of the tribute, and the opportunity afforded by the
withdrawal of so many troops was eagerly seized. Tiberius was forced to
offer terms to Marobudus, which he accepted, and hurry back to Pannonia,
while Saturninus returned to the Rhine for fear of an outbreak there.
The rising in Pannonia and Dalmatia was with difficulty suppressed after
a weary struggle lasting between three and four years. Many legions had
to be drafted into the country from other provinces as well as large
auxiliary forces. Germanicus was summoned to assist with a new army, and
Augustus himself came to Ariminum to be near at hand. Suetonius affirms
that it was the most serious struggle in which the Romans had been
engaged since the Punic wars. In B.C. 9 Tiberius indeed returned to Rome
to claim his triumph, but had to go back to put a last touch to the war.
[Sidenote: The fall of Varus, A.D. 9.]
Meanwhile the army of the Rhine had been under the command of P.
Quintilius Varus. Velleius gives an unfavourable account of him. He
was more a courtier than a soldier, and in his government of Syria had
shown himself greedy of money. “He entered a rich province a poor man,
and left a poor province a rich one.” From the time of his accession to
the command in B.C. 7 he seems to have regarded the country between the
Rhine and Elbe as completely reduced to the form of a Roman province,
and proceeded to levy tribute with the same strictness as he had been
used to do in Syria. But the German tribes did not regard themselves as
Roman subjects. The Romans were only masters of so much as their camps
could control. While Varus was living in fancied security in his summer
camp on the Weser, busied only with the usual legal administration of a
provincial governor, four great German peoples, the Cherusci, Chatti,
Marsi, and Bructeri, were secretly combining under the lead of the
Cheruscan chief, Arminius, to strike a blow for liberty. As the autumn of
A.D. 9 approached Varus prepared to return to the regular winter quarters
on the Rhine (Castra Vetera). Arminius, who had served in the Roman
army, and had been rewarded by the citizenship and the rank of eques,
had ingratiated himself with Varus, and was fully acquainted with his
plans, and though Varus had been warned of his treachery he seems to have
taken no heed. In order to bring him through the difficult country where
the ambush was to await him, a rising of a tribe off his direct road to
the Lower Rhine was planned. He fell into the trap, and turning aside to
chastise the rebellious tribe, was caught in a difficult pass, somewhere
between the sources of the Lippe and Ems, and he and nearly the whole
of his army perished. For three days the army struggled through a thick
and almost pathless forest, encumbered by a heavy baggage train, and a
number of women and children, attacked and slaughtered at nearly every
step by the Germans who were concealed in the woods, and continually made
descents upon them. A miserable remnant was saved by the exertions of L.
Asprenas, a legate of Varus, who had come to the rescue. Varus and some
of his chief officers appear to have committed suicide. The loss of three
legions and a large body of auxiliaries greatly affected the Emperor,
now a man of over seventy. For many months he wore signs of mourning,
and we are told that at times in his restless anxiety he beat his head
upon the door, crying, “Varus, give me back my legions!” Perhaps this is
the picturesque imagination of anecdote mongers. Though alarmed for the
possible consequences both at home and in the provinces, he acted with
spirit and energy. He ordered the urban pickets to be carefully posted,
suspended all changes in provincial governments, and held a levy of
citizen soldiers, enforcing by threats and punishment the duty of giving
in the names. For some time past service in the army had been regarded as
a profession sufficiently attractive to draw volunteers, without having
recourse to the legal right of conscription. But a sudden emergency
like this seems to have found men apathetic or disinclined, and he had
to resort to the old methods. He thought it necessary also to get rid
for a time of Gauls or Germans who were serving in the city cohorts or
residing in Rome. Tiberius, on the news of the disaster, hurried from
his Pannonian quarters to Rome, and was appointed to the Rhine command,
to which he went early in A.D. 10. The danger most to be feared was
that the victorious Germans would at once cross the Rhine. But this had
been averted partly because the Marcomanni had declined to join the
insurrection, even when Arminius sent the head of Varus to their chief,
Marobudus, and partly by the fact that the rebellious Germans themselves
wasted time in blockading Aliso, the fort erected by Drusus on the Lippe,
which was obstinately defended by its garrison under Lucius Cædicius. It
proved to be the Ladysmith of the German war, for the Germans, fearing to
leave it on their rear, missed the opportunity of attacking the camps on
the Rhine before they could be reinforced. The brave garrison, when their
provisions were exhausted, escaped on a dark night and reached Castra
Vetera in safety. Still, the result of the rising was to free Germany
beyond the Rhine. When Tiberius arrived to take the command in A.D. 10,
he spent the first year in strengthening the forts along that river; and
though in A.D. 11 he moved his summer camp beyond it, he never went far,
or apparently engaged in any warlike operations then or in A.D. 12. In
the next year he returned to Rome and was succeeded in the command by his
nephew, Germanicus. The forward movements of this young prince belong to
the next reign, but Tiberius no doubt learnt now what a few years later
induced him to recall Germanicus and be content with the frontier of the
Rhine.
[Sidenote: Administrative reforms. The post.]
The life of Augustus was now near its close, and there are no more
military enterprises to record. He had never commanded in the field
since the Cantabrian war of B.C. 25; but he had taken part in the most
important wars by moving to within such a distance of the seat of war as
to hear news quickly and to superintend the despatch of provisions and
reinforcements. He was probably more usefully employed in this way, and
was enabled to see, by personal observation, the needs of the provinces
and the best methods of remedying abuses and promoting prosperity. In
the course of his reign he is said to have visited every province except
Sardinia and Africa, and hardly any is without some trace of his activity
and liberality in the way of roads, bridges, or public buildings. He
was anxious that all, however distant, should feel in touch with the
central authority at Rome. Among other means to promote this was the
establishment or improvement of an imperial post which should reach the
most distant dependencies.
We must not think of this as being like the modern postal service—meant
for the general use of the public. It was purely official. Just as the
main purpose of the great roads was to facilitate the rapid movement
of armies and officials, so the post was a contrivance to expedite
official despatches, to convey the Emperor’s orders to remotest parts
of the Empire, and to carry back news and warnings to the government
at home. Along the great roads in Italy and the provinces there had
long been posting houses where relays of horses, mules, or carriages
could be obtained, but there was never what we should call a postal
service for the transmission of private letters. Rich men kept slaves
for this purpose (_tabellarii_), the magistrates had official messengers
(_statores_), and the companies of _publicani_ had their regular service
of carriers. Private people could, as a favour, get their letters
occasionally conveyed by some of these; and it was considered a proper
act of politeness at Rome when despatching a slave with letters to
distant places, to send round to one’s friends to know whether they
wished to send any by him. Again, governors of provinces under the
republic had arranged with certain scribes in Rome to copy out the
_diurna acta_ and transmit them by slaves or paid messengers. But for
official purposes Augustus arranged a number of stations along the great
roads with men, horses, and carriages, to convey to and from Rome all the
news that it was needful for the government to know or all orders that
emanated from the Emperor.[268] Private persons would have no right to
use these public servants or conveyances; but no doubt the organisation
for the public service facilitated the transmission of private
correspondence also.
This actual and material tightening of the bond which united distant
parts of the Empire with the central government went side by side with
the moral effect of the change in the position of the governors. No
longer permitted to make what profit they could from excessive exactions,
or percentages allowed by usage though not by law, they all received a
fixed salary, as did the lesser officials; and though extortion was still
occasionally heard of, the provinces knew that they had a rapid means of
appealing to the Emperor and a fair certainty of redress.
[Sidenote: The army under one commander-in-chief.]
Another change that made at first for unity, though it afterwards had
the contrary effect, concerned the army. In the time of the republic
there was in theory no one standing army. There were many armies, all
of which took the military oath to their respective commanders. Now the
military oath was taken by all to one man—the Emperor. The commanders of
legions were his _legati_. He regulated the pay, the years of service,
the retiring allowance for all alike. Each of the republican imperators
had a prætorian guard, generally consisting of auxiliary troops. Now
there was one prætorian guard, naturally stationed at Rome, and though
distinguished from the rest by increased pay and easier years of service,
it, as well as the _cohortes vigilum_, was under the same command. This
applies also to the fleet which was organised under Augustus chiefly
to protect the coast and clear the sea of pirates: the two principal
stations being at Misenum on the west, and Ravenna on the east coast,
with a third maintained for a time at Forum Iulii (Fréjus). The men
serving in these ships occupied the same position as citizen soldiers
or auxiliaries, and like them took the oath to one man—the Emperor.
But the very completeness of the organisation, it is right to notice
here, eventually made for disruption. Certain legions became constantly
attached to certain provinces, the auxiliaries serving with them being
as a rule recruited from the same provinces. The several branches of the
army thus came to feel an _esprit de corps_, and to regard themselves
as a separate entity with separate interests and claims. Consequently,
when in after-times the central authority was in dispute or in process
of change, the legions in the different provinces spoke and thought
of themselves as separate “armies,” capable of taking an independent
line and having a determining voice in deciding who should be their
Imperator. In those troublous times the provinces which had no military
establishment, or only a weak one, ceased to count for much, and had
to follow the strongest army near them.[269] For the present such
difficulties were not foreseen. Augustus was a strict disciplinarian,
and little was heard as yet of any serious insubordination. When it
did occur it was promptly punished. He disbanded the 10th legion for
misconduct, and exercised at times the full vigour of military punishment
for desertion of posts or lesser offences, and was careful in addressing
his troops not to lower his dignity by affectation of equality. He called
them “Soldiers!” not “Fellow-soldiers!” At the same time he kept up the
traditional exclusiveness of the legions, and seldom employed freedmen,
except as a kind of special constable in the city, and twice in times
of great distress, the Illyrian and German wars: even then they were
formed in separate cohorts, and armed in some way less complete than the
legionaries.
The same conservative attachment to the ancient superiority of Rome
made him chary of granting the citizenship either to individuals, or to
masses of soldiers, or to states. This was one of the points in which
his policy was opposite to that of Iulius. The latter by his large
grants of citizenship to soldiers, professional men and communities,
had helped to raise the number of citizens from about 450,000 in B.C.
70 to 4,063,000 (the number in the Census of B.C. 28). During the
forty-five years that remained to Augustus the number had only gone up
to 4,937,000 (the Census of A.D. 13). This is probably little more than
can be accounted for by the growth of population; so that extensions of
the franchise must have been insignificant. His idea was an empire, one
in its military obligations and in its subjection to one supreme head,
and yet not divorced from the original city state. Rome was to be the
imperial city, the seat of government; the Populus Romanus was to be the
inhabitants of Rome extended to the limits of Italy. There was to be a
sharp line of division between the ruling and the ruled. It was one of
those compromises that are without the elements of permanence. And yet
it established a sentiment that has lasted, and is a reason that even to
this day the centre of spiritual life to a large part of Europe is on the
banks of the Tiber. In material matters the extension of the citizenship
meant the gradual shifting of the centre of power, and when early in
the third century Caracalla, for purposes of taxation, extended the
citizenship to the whole Empire, though the Roman name and its historical
prestige remained, Rome itself became only one of a number of cities in
a widely spread empire, and politically by no means the most important.
Such a conception was far from the mind of Augustus. It would have seemed
to him to be more worthy of his rival Antony, who was for setting up a
new Rome in Alexandria.