Until the last year of the war in Illyricum the Germanic tribes had remained quiet under Roman overlordship. But in 9 A. D., provoked by the attempt of the new Roman commander, Publius Quinctilius Varus, to subject them to stricter control, they united to free themselves from foreign rule. In the coalition the Cherusci and Chatti were the chief peoples, and Arminius, a young chieftain of the Cherusci, was its leading spirit. Varus and his army of three legions were surprised on the march in the Teutoberg Forest and completely annihilated. Rome was in panic over the news, but the Germans did not follow up their initial success. Tiberius was again sent to the post of danger and vindicated the honor of Rome by two successful expeditions across the Rhine. But no attempt was made to recover permanently the lost ground. The frontier of the Elbe was given up for that of the Rhine with momentous consequences for the future of the empire and of Europe. The coast peoples, however, remained Roman allies and a narrow strip of territory was held on the right bank of the Rhine. The reason lay in the weakness of the Roman military organization, caused by the strain of the Illyrian revolt and the difficulty of finding recruits for the Roman legions among the Italians. The cry of Augustus, “Quinctilius Varus, give back my legions,” gives the clue to his abandonment of Germany.
The eastern frontier. In the East alone was Rome confronted by a power which was in any way a match for her military strength and which had disastrously defeated two Roman invasions. The conquest of this, the Parthian kingdom, appeared to Augustus to offer no compensation comparable to the exertions it would entail and therefore he determined to rest content with such a reassertion of Roman supremacy in the Near East as would wipe out the shame of the defeats of Crassus and Antony and guarantee Roman territory [pg 221]from Parthian attack. He was prepared to accept the natural frontier of the Euphrates as the eastern boundary of Roman territory. Between the Roman provinces in Asia Minor and the upper Euphrates lay a number of client kingdoms, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, and Commagene. At the death of Amyntas, king of Galatia, in 25 B. C., his kingdom was made into a province, but the others were left under their native dynasts. Across the Euphrates lay Armenia, a buffer state between the Roman possessions and Parthia, which was of strategic importance because it commanded the military routes between Asia Minor and the heart of the Parthian country. To establish a protectorate over Armenia was therefore the ambition of both Rome and Parthia. During the presence of Augustus in the East (22–19 B. C.), Tiberius placed a Roman nominee on the Armenian throne, and received from the Parthian king, Phraates IV, the Roman standards and captives in Parthian hands, a success which earned Augustus the salutation of imperator from his troops. Later Phraates sent four of his sons as hostages to Rome. But the Roman protectorate over Armenia was by no means permanent; its supporters had soon to give way to the Parthian party. Gaius Caesar between 1 B. C. and 2 A. D. restored Roman influence, but again the Parthians got the upper hand and held it until 9 A. D., when Phraates was overthrown and was succeeded by one of his sons whom Augustus sent from Rome at the request of the Parthians.
Judaea and Arabia. To the south of the Roman province of Syria lay the kingdom of Judaea, ruled by Herod until his death in 4 B. C., when it was divided among his sons. Subsequently Judaea proper was made a province administered by a Roman procurator. To the east of the Dead Sea was the kingdom of the Nabataean Arabs, who controlled the caravan routes of the Arabian peninsula and who were firm Roman allies. With their aid a Roman army under Aelius Gallus in 25 B. C. sought to penetrate into the rich spice land of Arabia Felix, but suffered such losses in its march across the desert that it was forced to return without effecting a conquest. At the same time Gaius Petronius defeated the Ethiopians under Queen Candace and secured the southern frontier of Egypt. Through the ports of Egypt on the Red Sea a brisk trade developed with India, from which distant land embassies on various occasions came to Augustus. Further west in Africa, Augustus added the kingdom of Numidia to the province of Africa, and transferred its ruler, Juba II, [pg 222]whose wife was Cleopatra, daughter of Antony the triumvir, to the kingdom of Mauretania (25 B. C.).
The conquests of Augustus established in their essential features the future boundaries of the Roman Empire. At his death he left it as a maxim of state for his successor to abstain from further expansion.
VI. The Administration of Rome
The problem of police. One of the great problems which had confronted the Roman government from the time of the Gracchi was the policing of Rome and the suppression of mob violence. To a certain extent the establishment of the praetorian guard served to overawe the city mob, although only three of its cohorts were at first stationed in the city. As a supplement to the praetorians Augustus organized three urban cohorts, each originally 1500 strong, who ranked between the legionaries and praetorians. Between 12 and 7 B. C. the city was divided for administrative purposes into fourteen regions, subdivided into 265 vici or wards. Each region was put in charge of a tribune or aedile. A force of six hundred slaves under the two curule aediles was formed as a fire brigade. But as these proved ineffective in 6 A. D. Augustus created a corps of vigiles to serve as a fire brigade and night watch. This corps consisted of seven cohorts, one for every two regions, and was under the command of an equestrian prefect of the watch (praefectus vigilum).
The Annona. Another vital problem was the provision of an adequate supply of grain for the city. A famine in 22 B. C. produced so serious a situation that the Senate was forced to call upon Augustus to assume the responsibility for this branch of the administration. At first he tried to meet the situation through the appointment of curators of senatorial rank, but after 6 A. D. he created the office of prefect of the grain supply, filled by an equestrian appointee of the princeps. His duty was to see that there was an adequate supply of grain on hand for the market at a reasonable price and in addition to make the monthly distribution of free grain to the city plebs. The number of recipients of this benefit was fixed at 200,000.
In this way Augustus was forced to take over one of the spheres of the government which he had intended should remain under the direction of the Senate and to witness himself the first step towards the breakdown of the administrative dyarchy which he had created.