undertakings. The Rhæti, who dwell between Noricum and Gaul, near the
Tridentine Alps close to Italy, overran a good part of the adjacent
territory of Gaul and carried plunder even out of Italy. Such of the
Romans or their allies as used the road going through their country met
with depredations. These actions of theirs were of course more or less
like those of any nation which has not accepted terms of peace, but
further they destroyed all the males among their captives, not only those
who were apparent but also the embryo ones in the wombs of women, the sex
of which they discovered by some divination. For these reasons Augustus
first sent Drusus against them: he joined battle with a detachment of
theirs that met him near the Tridentine mountains, and speedily had them
routed; for this exploit he received the honors belonging to prætors.
Later, when the tribe had been repulsed from Italy but still harassed
Gaul, the emperor despatched Tiberius in addition. Both of the leaders
then invaded the Rhætian country at many points at once,--the lieutenants
leading such divisions as they did not command personally,--and Tiberius
even crossed the lake[6] in boats. In this way, by encountering them
separately, the Roman commanders spread alarm and had no difficulty in
overcoming those who came near enough for fighting at any time, because
they had only to deal with scattered forces; the remainder, who had
become weaker and more despondent through such tactics, they captured.
And because the land had a large population of males and seemed ripe
for revolt, they deported most of those of military age, especially the
strongest, leaving behind only so many as would be sufficient to inhabit
the country but unable to make any uprising.
[-23-] This same year Vedius Pollio died, a man who in general had done
nothing deserving notice, being the son of liberti, ranking as a knight,
without any achievement of consequence in his record; but he had become
exceedingly renowned for his wealth and his cruelty, so that he has
even won a place in history. Most of the things that he did it would be
wearisome to relate, but I may mention that he kept in tanks huge eels
trained to eat men, and was accustomed to throw to them the slaves that
he desired to put to death. Once, when he was entertaining Augustus, the
cupbearer shattered a crystal goblet, and without respect to the guest he
ordered that the fellow be thrown to the eels. Hereupon the boy fell on
his knees supplicating Augustus who at first tried to persuade Pollio not
to carry out his intentions. As his host would not yield the point the
emperor said: "Bring all the rest of the drinking vessels which are of
the same sort or any others of value that you may possess, for I want to
use them," and when they were brought he ordered them to be broken. The
master seeing this was of course vexed but could no longer be angry over
one cup, considering the great number of others that were ruined, and
could not punish his servant for what Augustus had done; therefore
reluctantly he took no action. That was the sort of person this Pollio
was, who died. He left various bequests to many different persons and to
Augustus a good share of his inheritance together with Pausilypum[7], a
place between Neapolis and Puteoli, with instructions that some public
work of great beauty should be erected. Augustus razed his house to the
foundation, on the pretext that it was necessary for the preparation of
the other structure, but really with the purpose that he should have no
monument in the city, and built a colonnade, inscribing on it the name
not of Pollio but of Livia.
This he did later. At the time mentioned he founded a number of cities as
colonies in Gaul and in Spain and restored to the people of Cyzicus their
freedom. To the Paphians, who had suffered from an earthquake, he gave
money and allowed them, by a decree, to call their city Augusta. I have
recorded this, not because Augustus himself and the senators failed to
aid many other cities both before and after this, in case of similar
misfortunes,--if any one should attempt to mention them all, the task of
such a historian would be endless,--but my aim is to show that the senate
assigned names to cities as an honor and the latter did not, as is the
usual procedure now, compile for themselves (each separately) such lists
of names as they might choose.
[B.C. 14 (_a. u._ 740)]
[-24-] The next year Marcus Crassus and Gnæus Cornelius became consuls;
and the curule ædiles after resigning their office because they had
entered upon it under unfavorable auguries took it back again, contrary
to precedent, at another meeting of the assembly. The Portico of Paulus
was burned and the fire from it reached the temple of Vesta, so that the
sacred objects that this shrine contained were carried up to the Palatine
by all of the vestal virgins except the eldest (who had gone blind)
and were placed in the house of the priest of Jupiter. The portico was
afterward rebuilt, nominally by Æmilius, who was the representative of
the family that had formerly erected it, but really by Augustus and the
friends of Paulus. At this time the Pannonians revolted and were again
subdued, and the maritime Alps, inhabited by Ligurians called Cometæ and
still free even then, were reduced to a slave district. The revolt in the
Cimmerian Bosporus was also quelled. One Seribonius, who maintained
that he was a grandson of Mithridates and had received the kingdom from
Augustus after the death of Asander, married the latter's wife,
named Dynamis, who was the daughter of Pharnaces and a grandchild of
Mithridates, and obtaining the power committed to her by her husband got
control of Bosporus. Agrippa on being informed of this sent against him
Polemon, king of the Pontus near Cappadocia. He found Seribonius no
longer alive, for the people of Bosporus, learning of his ambitions, had
killed him beforehand, but when these resisted Polemon out of fear that
he might be allowed to reign over them, he engaged them in a set battle.
The victory was his, but he was unable to reduce them to order until
Agrippa came to Sinope, apparently with the intention of conducting
a campaign against them. At that they laid down their arms and were
delivered to Polemon. The woman Dynamis became his spouse,--of course
with the sanction of Augustus. For this outcome sacrifices were made in
the name of Agrippa, but he did not celebrate the triumph, though voted
to him. Nay, he did not so much as write the senate anything about what
had been accomplished. As a result subsequent conquerors, taking his
method as a law, no longer sent any word themselves to the legislative
body and did not accept the celebration of a triumph. For this reason no
one else among his peers (so I am inclined to think) was permitted to do
this, but they enjoyed merely the ornament of triumphal honors.
[-25-] Augustus finally finished ordering everything in the Gauls, the
Germanias, and the Hispaniæ: upon special districts he spent a great
deal, and levied a great deal upon others, and to some he gave freedom
and citizenship, whereas from others he took them away.
[B.C. 13 (_a. u._ 741)]
He then left Drusus in Germania and himself returned to Rome in the
consulship of Tiberius and of Quintilius Varus. It chanced that the news
of his coming reached the city during those days when Cornelius
Balbus after dedicating the theatre now called by his name was giving
spectacles. At this he assumed great importance as if it were he that was
to bring Augustus back, though because of a flooding of the Tiber there
was so great a quantity of water in the theatre that no one could enter
it save in a boat; and Tiberius put the vote to Balbus first, as an
honor for his building the theatre. The senate convened and among other
decisions resolved to place an altar in the senate-chamber itself, to
commemorate the return of Augustus, and that criminals who approached
him as suppliants within the pomerium should be exempt from punishment.
However, he accepted neither of these honors and even escaped a reception
by the people on this occasion by being brought into the city under the
cover of night. This he did almost always whenever he had to go out to
the suburbs or anywhere else, both on his way out and on his way back, so
that nobody should annoy him. The following day he greeted the people on
the Palatine, ascended the Capitol, and taking off the laurel from
around his rods he placed it upon the knees of Jupiter. For that day he
furnished the people with baths and barbers free of charge. After this he
convened the senate and made no address himself by reason of hoarseness,
but gave the book to the quaestor to read which enumerated his
achievements and promulgated rules as to how many years the citizens
should serve in the army and how much money they should receive at the
end of their services in place of the land for which they were always
wont to ask. The object was that by being enlisted on certain specified
terms from the very start they should find in their treatment no excuse
for revolt. The number of years was for the Pretorians twelve and for the
rest sixteen; and the money to be distributed was less for some and more
for others. These measures caused the soldiers neither pleasure nor anger
for the time being, because they had neither obtained all they were
desiring nor yet lost everything. In the remainder of the population it
aroused confident hopes of not being deprived of their possessions in the
future.
[-26-] His next action was to dedicate the theatre called after
Marcellus. In the festival held on this account the patrician children as
well as his grandson Gaius performed the "Troy" equestrian exercise,
and six hundred Libyan wild beasts were slaughtered. Iullus, the son
of Antony, who was prætor, celebrated the birthday of Augustus with
horse-races and slaughterlng of wild beasts, and entertained both him and
the senate (following a decree of that body) upon the Capitol.
After this there was another reorganization of the senate. At first the
necessary value of their property had been limited to ten myriad denarii
because many of them had been deprived by the wars of their ancestral
estates. As time went on and men's possessions became larger, it was
advanced to twenty-five myriads, and no one was any longer found who
wanted to be senator. On the contrary, some children and grandchildren
of senators, of whom a part were really poor and another part had been
brought low through calamities suffered by their ancestors, not only
failed to lay claim to the senatorial dignity, but when already placed on
the list withdrew on oath. Therefore previous to this, while Augustus
was still out of the City, a decree had been passed that the so-called
viginti viri[8] should be appointed from the knights. Hence none of them
was any longed enrolled in the senate without having secured some one of
the other offices that lead to it.--These twenty men are a part of the
six-and-twenty.[9] Three of them have charge of capital cases at law. The
next three attend to the coinage of the money. Four act as commissioners
of the streets in the City. Ten are put over the courts that fall by lot
to the _Centumviri_. The two who were entrusted with the roads outside
the walls and the four who were sent to Campania had been abolished. The
senate had voted during the absence of Augustus another measure besides
this, namely that, since nobody could any longer be easily induced to
become a candidate for the tribuneship, they might appoint by lot some
who had been quæstors and were not yet forty years old. At this time the
emperor made a scrutiny of the whole body of citizens. Those of them who
were over thirty-five years of age he did not trouble, but those under
that age who had property of the requisite value he forced to become
senators, except in the case of cripples. Their bodies he viewed himself
but in regard to their property he accepted sworn statements, the men
themselves taking the oath (with others to corroborate their allegations)
and accounting for their lack of funds as well as for their habits of
life.
[-27-] Nor did he, while observing such strictness in ordinary public
business, neglect the conduct of his own family. Indeed, he rebuked
Tiberius because he had seated Gaius beside him at the thanksgiving
festival which he gave in honor of the emperor's return: and he censured
the people for honoring him with applause and eulogies. On the death of
Lepidus he was appointed high priest and the senate consequently wished
to vote him certain honors;[10] but he declared that he would not accept
them, and when the senators became urgent he rose and left the gathering.
So that measure was not ratified, and he received no official residence,
but because it was absolutely essential that the high priest should live
on public ground he made a portion of his own dwelling public property.
The house of the rex sacrificulus, however, he gave to the vestal virgins
because it was separated merely by a wall from their apartments.
Cornelius Sisenna was blamed for the conduct of his wife and stated in
the senate that he had married her with the knowledge and on the advice
of the emperor,--whereat Augustus grew exceedingly angry. He indulged in
no violence of word or action but hurried out of the senate-chamber and
then a little later came back again, choosing rather to do this (as he
said to his friends afterward), in spite of its not being right, than to
remain where he was and be compelled to do some harm.
[B.C. 12 (_a. u._ 742)]
[-28-] Meantime he bestowed upon Agrippa, who had come from Syria, the
great honor of the tribunician authority for another five years, and sent
him out to Pannonia, which was ready for war, allowing him greater powers
than officials outside of Italy ordinarily possessed. Agrippa made the
campaign though it already was winter: Marcus Valerius and Publius
Sulpicius were the consuls. As the Pannonians became terror stricken at
his approach and showed no further signs of uprising he returned, and on
reaching Campania fell sick. Augustus happened to be giving, under the
name of his children, contests of armed warriors at the Panathenaic
festival, and when he learned of Agrippa's condition he left the country.
Finding him dead, he conveyed his body to the capital and allowed it to
lie in state in the Forum. He also delivered the oration over the dead
man, with a curtain stretched in front of the corpse. Why he did this
I know not. Yet some have said it was because he was high priest, and
others because he was discharging the functions of censor. Both are
mistaken. A high priest is not forbidden to behold a corpse, nor yet
a censor, except when he is about to put the finishing touches to the
census. Then if he sees such an object before his purification, all his
work is rendered null and void. Besides this oration Augustus conducted
his funeral procession in the way that his own was later conducted. He
buried him in his own tomb, though the deceased had a lot of his own in
the Campus Martius.
[-29-] Such was the end of Agrippa, who had in every way proved himself
clearly the noblest of the men of his day and used the friendship of
Augustus for the emperor's own greatest benefit and for that of the
commonwealth. So much as he surpassed others in excellence, to such an
extent did he voluntarily make himself lower than his patron. He employed
all his own skill and bravery for what would prove most profitable to
Augustus and expended all the honor and power received from him on
benefiting others. As a result he never became in the least troublesome
to Augustus nor the object of jealousy on the part of others. He helped
his friend organize the monarchy like one who was really in love with
the idea of supreme power and he won over the populace by his kindness,
showing himself most truly a friend of the people. At his death he left
them gardens and the bath-house called after his name, so that they
might bathe free of charge; and he gave Augustus certain lands for
this purpose. The latter not only rendered these public property, but
distributed to the people also a hundred denarii apiece, with the
explanation that Agrippa had ordered it. He had inherited most of the
deceased's property, among the articles of which was the Hellespontine
Chersonese, which had come I know not how into the possession of Agrippa.
The emperor felt his loss for a very long time and therefore caused the
populace to hold him in honor. A posthumous son born to him he called
Agrippa. However, he did not allow any of the citizens to omit any of
the ancestral customs (although none of the more prominent men wished to
present himself for the festivals) and he personally superintended the
gladiatorial combats. They were often given, too, in his absence.--This
demise of Agrippa was not only a private loss to his own household, but
a public loss to all the Romans, as was shown by the fact that portents
occurred on this occasion as great as were usually seen before the
most tremendous disasters. Owls gathered in the capital and a bolt of
lightning descended upon the house at Albanum, where the consuls reside
during the sacrifices.[11] The star called comet stood for several days
over the City and was finally dissolved into flashes of light. Many
buildings in the City were destroyed by fire, among them the tent of
Romulus, which was set ablaze by crows dropping upon it burning meat from
some altar.--These were the matters of interest connected with Agrippa.
[-30-] After this Augustus was chosen supervisor and corrector of morals
for another five years,--this also he received for a limited period as he
had the monarchy,--and he ordered the senators to burn incense as often
as they had a sitting, and not to come to his residence: the first, that
they might show reverence to the gods, and the second, that they might
have no difficulty in convening. Inasmuch as very few became candidates
for the tribuneship on account of its power having been abolished, he
made a law that magistrates should each nominate one of the knights who
possessed not less than twenty-five myriads; the people should then
choose from these the number lacking, and if the men desired to be
senators afterward, well and good; otherwise they should return again to
the rank of knights.
The province of Asia also stood very greatly in need of some assistance
on account of earthquakes, and he therefore paid into the public treasury
from his own resources their annual tribute and assigned them a governor
for two years chosen by lot and not arbitrarily selected.
Apuleius and Mæcenas were at one time bitterly reviled in some court of
adultery, not because they had themselves behaved wantonly but because
they had actively aided the man on trial; thereupon Augustus entered the
courtroom and sat in the prætor's chair: he did nothing violent, but
simply forbade the accuser to insult his relatives or friends, and then
rose and left the place. For this action and others the senators honored
him with statues, paid for by private subscription, and by giving
bachelors and spinsters the right to behold spectacles with other people
and to attend banquets on his birthday. Neither of these privileges was
previously permitted them.
[-31-] When now Agrippa, whom he loved for his excellence and not
through any compulsion, had died, the emperor found that he needed an
assistant in the public business, one who would far surpass the rest in
both honor and power, who might manage everything opportunely and be free
from envy and plots. Therefore he reluctantly chose Tiberius, for his own
grandsons were at this time still minors. He caused him also to divorce
his wife, though she was a daughter of Agrippa by another marriage and
had one child an infant and was soon to give birth to another; and having
betrothed Julia to him he sent him out against the Pannonians. This
people had for a time been quiet, fearing Agrippa, but now after his
death they revolted. Tiberius subdued them, having ravaged considerable
of their territory and done much injury to its inhabitants; he had as
enthusiastic allies the Scordisci, who were neighbors of theirs and
similarly equipped. He took away their arms and sold for export most of
the male population that was of age. For these achievements the senate
voted him a triumph, but Augustus did not allow him to hold it, granting
him instead the triumphal honors.
[-32-] Drusus had this same experience. The Sugambri and their allies,
owing to the absence of Augustus and the fact that the Gauls were restive
under the yoke of slavery, had become hostile, and he therefore occupied
the subject territory before them, sending for the foremost men on the
pretext of the festival which they celebrate even now about the altar of
Augustus at Lugdunum. Also he observed the Celtae crossing the Rhine
and drove them back. Next he crossed over to the land of the Usipetes
opposite the very island of the Batavi, and from there marched along the
river to the Sugambri country, devastating vast stretches. He sailed
along the Rhine to the ocean, conciliated the Frisii, and traversing the
lake invaded Chaucis, where he ran in danger, as his boats were left high
and dry at the ebb-tide of the ocean. He was saved at this time by the
Frisii (who joined his expedition with infantry), and withdrew, for it
was now winter.
[B.C. 11(_a. u._ 743)]
Coming to Rome he was made aedile[12]in the consulship of Quintus Aelius
and Paulus Fabius, though he had already prætor's honors.
[-33-] At the opening of the spring he set out again to the war, crossed
the Rhine, and subjugated the Usipetes. He bridged the Lupia, invaded the
country of the Sugambri and advanced through it into Cheruscis, as far as
the Visurgis. He was able to do this because the Sugambri in anger at the
Chatti, the only tribe among their neighbors that had refused to join
their alliance, had made a campaign of the whole population against them.
Drusus took this opportunity to traverse their country unnoticed. And he
would nave crossed also the Visurgis, had not provisions grown scarce and
the their country, and though beaten at first vanquished them in turn and
ravaged both that land and the territory of adjacent tribes which had
taken part in the uprising. Immediately he reduced all of them to
subjugation, gaining control of some with their consent, terrifying
others into reluctant submission, and engaging in pitched battles with
others. Later, when some of them rebelled, he again enslaved them. And
for this thanksgivings and triumphal honors were accorded him.
[-35-] While these events were occurring Augustus took a census,
reckoning in all the property that belonged to him, as an individual
might do, and also making a list of the senate. As he saw that many were
not always present at the meetings he ordered that even less than four
hundred might constitute a quorum for passing decrees. Previously that
had been the minimum number for ratifying any measure. The senate and the
people again contributed money to be spent on images of himself, but he
would erect no such likeness, and only set up representations of the
Public Health, of Concord, and of Peace. The citizens were always
collecting money for statues to him, on the slightest excuse; and at last
they ceased paying it privately, as before, but would come to him on the
first day of the year and give, some more, some less. He, after adding as
much or more again, would return it, not only to the senators but to
all the rest. I have also heard the story that on one day of the year,
following some oracle or dream, he would assume the guise of a beggar and
would accept money from those who passed. This, whether trustworthy or
not, is a prevailing tradition.
That year he gave Julia in marriage to Tiberius, and his sister Octavia
dying, he caused her body to lie in state in the hero-shrine of Julius;
on this occasion, too, he had a curtain over the corpse. He himself
delivered there the funeral speech and Drusus, having changed his
senatorial dress, had a place on the platform, for the mourning was a
public affair. Her body was carried in procession by her sons-in-law: not
all the honors voted to her were accepted by Augustus.
At this same time the first priest of Jupiter since [-36-] Merula was
appointed; and the quaestors were ordered to pay careful heed to the
decrees passed from time to time, because the tribunes and the ædiles,
who had previously been entrusted with this business, transacted it
through their assistants, and as a result some mistakes and confusion
took place.
It was voted, moreover, that the temple of Janus Geminus, which was open,
should be closed, on the assumption that wars had ceased.
[B.C. 10 (_a. u._ 744)]