Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (46 page)

Page 229

Augustus, first century A.D. (Courtesy of the Archer M. Huntington
Art Gallery, University of Texas at Austin, William J. Battle
Collection of Plaster Casts)

Page 230

was a term with good republican connotations: The
princeps senatus
had simply been the most eminent man in the Senate, and the
principes
had been the leading men in the state. Augustus as
princeps
was nothing new or radical; in his own words, he was simply
primus inter pares
, ''first among equals."

The reality of the sharing of power, however, was different, for Augustus controlled the armies and held
maius imperium
and
tribunicia potestas
all at the same time. The consulate, stripped of its military functionsonly Augustus, his closest friends, or his relatives led the armiesbecame solely administrative and ceremonial. When Marcus Crassus, the grandson of the triumvir, killed an enemy king in single combat in 28
B.C.
, Augustus denied him the
spolia opima
; Augustus had to keep sole control of the military. The Senate's autonomy was greatly diminished, for Augustus ultimately controlled affairs through his various powers and commands; the people's authority too was reduced, for their officialselected from a list nominated by Augustuswielded very little real power. Still, Augustus knew that he could not afford to alienate any of the classes and that he could not manage the empire alone; consequently he strove to make them active partners in the new system. So he transformed the Senate into the civil service that the republic had lacked and drew from its educated and experienced members to fill the various posts in the government. The
equites
too were incorporated into the system, as more of them were enrolled in the Senate and given posts in the government. Augustus placated the common people of Rome with generous grants of food and games. Few people opposed the new system, for all enjoyed the benefits of peace; Augustus inaugurated the famous pax
Romana
(the peace of Rome), two centuries of largely unbroken peace and prosperity throughout the Mediterranean world.

Since Augustus himself picked men to become governors, paid their salaries, and scrutinized their performance, he was able to ensure fair and ethical government in the provinces. Governors could be charged with extortion in a court over which Augustus himself presided. He also abolished the horrible tax-farming system (see chapter 15); provincial peoples still paid taxes, but now to a salaried Roman official who was independent of the governor. Communications between Rome and the provinces were

Page 231

improved by the establishment of the
cursus publicus
, a sort of Pony Express for government officials. Consequently, the provinces prospered under the new system: Borders were secure, internal peace prevailed, taxes were fair, roads were built, and piracy was suppressed. Soon a far-flung trade developed across the Mediterranean and all Europe and beyond, from Britain to Egypt, the Crimea, India, Sri Lanka, and even China. Many provinces established cults for the worship of Rome and Augustus, so grateful were they for the prosperity they experienced under the Augustan system.

In foreign policyover which Augustus, by virtue of his consular power and
maius imperium
, had complete controlRome won numerous victories. Under Augustus, peace finally came to Spain. He concluded a treaty with Armenia and Parthia, even gaining from the Parthians the standards from Crassus' obliterated army; the loss of the standards had been a source of shame to the Romans. He extended the borders north of Greece as far as the Danube, establishing the provinces of Noricum, Raetia, Pannonia, and Moesia (roughly modem-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Albania, Yugoslavia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria). He founded twelve new towns in Gaul, and Gaul began to prosper after the horrors of its wars with Julius Caesar. A Roman army penetrated into Ethiopia, in retaliation for the Ethiopians' raid into Egypt. Embassies came to Rome from India and Scythia (modem Ukraine).

Augustus experienced one disaster in foreign policy. Early in his reign he intended to conquer Germany, since Germanic tribes had been attacking Gaul. Marcellus (Augustus' nephew) and Tiberius (the son of Augustus' wife Livia by a previous marriage) were having great success against the Germans, pushing the border between Gaul and Germany beyond the Rhine River, their goal being to establish the Elbe as the frontier. In
A.D
. 9, however, disaster struck, when the Roman general Varus and his three legions were led into a trap in the Teutoburg Forest and wiped out by the German Arminius. Augustus was devastated by the annihilation of the three legions. He had demobilized and settled one hundred thousand soldiers at the end of the civil wars and had in arms fewer than twenty-five legions; the loss of three was a severe blow. Augustus refused to shave or cut his hair (traditional

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The Roman Empire at the death of Augustus, A.D. 14. (Drawn by John Cotter)

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signs of mourning in Rome) and is said to have walked the halls of his palace at night saying, "Quintili Vare, legiones redde!" (Varus, give me back those three legions!). He then decided not to devote any more resources to enlarging the empire, a course followed by his successors.

While Augustus was establishing peace and stability, he was also waging a public relations campaign to solidify his position and to win the support of the Romans and Italians. He had begun the campaign when he assumed the name Caesar and portrayed himself as Caesar's successor and as
divi filius
(son of a god) when Caesar was considered to have become a god. Augustus intensified his efforts to solidify support for himself against Marcus Antonius. Through his righthand man, Agrippa, Augustus worked to improve Rome and Italy. He financed the beautification of Rome, so that he could truthfully say, "I found Rome a city of clay, but left it a city of marble." The Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) is a good example. The walls surrounding the altar itself are decorated with images in relief. In one of them we see Augustus, wearing a toga (symbolic of peace), in a procession of family members and other Romans who will be making a sacrifice to the gods. The altar kept Augustus' name and achievements before the eyes of the people, and it also beautified Rome. Through Agrippa Augustus repaired and constructed eighty-two temples and aqueducts, repaired sewers (Agrippa sailed up the Cloaca Maxima to inspect it), instituted a fire brigade, and built a new forum, the Forum Augusti. He instituted a type of police force (called
vigiles
) to patrol the countryside and reduce the number of kidnappings and robberies, since innocent travelers on deserted country roads were being abducted and enslaved; the twelve colonies of veterans that he founded in Italy further helped secure the countryside against crime. Augustus also established a special tax to fund the
aerarium militare
(soldiers' treasury), which paid for farms for veteran soldiers upon their retirement from the army. (If the Senate had done that a century earlier, the republic might not have fallen.) Augustus divided the city Rome into 14
regiones
and 265
vici
(villages), each
vicus
being administered by a
vicomagister
, to improve the process of taxation and census-taking. The Italian peninsula he divided into eleven regions, for the same purpose. He also established the Praetorian

Page 234

The Pantheon, whose construction was begun by Agrippa;
the Latin inscription reads, "Marcus Agrippa, the son
of Lucius, when consul for the third time, made [this]."
(Author photograph)

Guard, which consisted of nine cohorts of soldiers, as a permanent military force in Rome. Rome was now the capital of the Western world, and Augustus made the city's appearance match its importance.

Augustus also engaged in literary patronage. He and his friends Maecenas and Messalla gave grants of money and land so promising young poets could devote their energies to their art, and in doing so fostered what is now called the Golden Age of Latin literature. One finds various themes in the poetry: love, of course, but also meditations on ethics and what constitutes a good life, patriotism and appreciation of the peace and stability that Augustus brought, celebration of the joys and beauty of the Italian countryside, and tales from Greek, Roman, and Italian myths. The poetry is of the highest artistry and polish; for example, Vergil

Page 235

Interior of the Pantheon. (Author photograph)

spent seven years on his
Georgics
, a philosophical poem about farming and the countryside that has only 2,188 lines, and three years on his
Eclogues
, which contains fewer than 1,000 lines. It averages out to less than one line of verse per day.

Vergil's epic poem
The Aeneid
was the greatest literary achievement of the Augustan age and the most famous expression of its outlook. The poem tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan prince famous for his sense of duty to the gods, his family, and community, who was also a brave and patriotic soldier. He thus epitomized Roman values (see chapter 2). When Troy is destroyed by the Greeks, Aeneas leaves his home and city, carrying his aged and lame father on his shoulders, bearing the
penates
(household gods) in one arm, and leading his young son Ascanius with the other. He leaves in pursuit of some vague destiny; he hears that he is destined to found what will become a great empire. Aeneas does not fully understand his assignment or its importance, yet he toils and

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