The death of Marcellus had occurred in an unhealthy season when many shared the same fate. Yet there were found people who attributed it to Livia’s jealousy on behalf of her son Tiberius, and her anger at the preference shown to the Emperor’s nephew. Scarcely any death occurred in the imperial family that did not give rise to some such idle and malevolent gossip. But the Emperor soon had cause to regret the absence of Agrippa, who was living in Lesbos and administering Syria by his legate. The next year was a year of sickness and scarcity at Rome, and was also disturbed by more than one outbreak of political unrest, one of the few conspiracies against the life of Augustus being detected and punished. We do not know why Muræna and Fannius Cæpio plotted to kill Augustus, if they really did so. It may be that the change made in the principate in B.C. 23 seemed to them to be too much in the direction of autocracy, or that the consulship without Augustus as colleague suggested some idea that its old supremacy might be recovered. The violent party strife which occurred later at the election for B.C. 21, may have had some connection with the same feeling. Muræna had had a successful career, had been rewarded by an augurship and a consulship in B.C. 23, and there is nothing known which explains his conduct. It may be that his offence was chiefly intemperance of language. Dio says that he had a sharp tongue which spared no one, and Horace perhaps meant to give him a hint in the ode addressed to him. Velleius tells us that, unlike his fellow conspirator Fannius Cæpio, he was a man of high character.[252] At any rate their execution—for both are said to have been put to death—is one of the few instances of severity on the part of Augustus since the civil war. This trouble was followed by others—a renewed outbreak in Spain, riots at the elections, and a coldness between himself and his devoted friend and minister Mæcenas, caused, it is said, by his being supposed to have communicated to his wife Terentia, the sister of Muræna, some secret as to the detection of the plot. All these things must have caused Augustus much uneasiness. He had left Rome in the summer of B.C. 22 for Sicily, intending to start thence on another progress through the Eastern Provinces. There urgent messages came to him to return and put a stop to the disturbances. He did not wish to give up his Eastern journey and yet did not venture to leave the city without some control. His thoughts turned naturally to the support that had never failed him—to Agrippa. He was summoned home primarily to take charge of Rome; but he came back to what seemed the highest possible position next to that of the Emperor, and one that promised a still greater one in the future. Augustus insisted on his divorcing Marcella (daughter of Octavia) and marrying his own daughter Iulia, left a widow by Marcellus. As usual Agrippa did all that was imposed upon him well and thoroughly (B.C. 21-20). Having restored order in the city, he next went to Gallia Narbonensis, where he not only put a stop to some dangerous disturbances, but initiated great public works in the way of roads and aqueducts. Passing to Spain he finally crushed the Cantabri and Astures, who were again in arms. He seems indeed to have suffered reverses in this war, as his master had done before, but in the end he reduced them to submission. All this good work was done while Augustus was in the East (B.C. 21-19), and for it he refused the triumph offered him by the Senate at the instigation of the Emperor. But his succession, should he survive the Emperor, was now secured by his being associated with him in the tribunicia potestas and other prerogatives for five years at the first renewal of his powers in B.C. 17. Agrippa had now two sons by Iulia, Gaius born in B.C. 20, Lucius in B.C. 17; and Augustus adopted both of them by the ancient process of a fictitious purchase. He had now legitimate heirs and nothing farther was done about the succession for some years. Agrippa died in March, B.C. 12, just as his period of tribunician power was expiring. But during these years the two sons of Livia, Tiberius and Drusus, had begun those services on the German frontier and among the Rhæti and other powerful tribes which proved their vigour and ability. These services were renewed, after a few months’ interval of quiet, in B.C. 13 and following years. Accordingly Augustus seems to have meditated putting Tiberius in much the same position as Agrippa had held. In B.C. 11 he compelled him to divorce his wife Vipsania (a daughter of Agrippa) and marry Agrippa’s widow Iulia, the Emperor’s only daughter. He thought still farther to secure a line of descendants to succeed if necessary to his power. But he made the mistake of neglecting sentiment. Tiberius was devotedly attached to Vipsania, by whom he had a son, and could feel neither affection nor respect for Iulia, who fancied that she lowered herself in marrying him. The only thing that could compensate him for such a marriage was the chance of succession, and that was barred by the existence of Gaius and Lucius Cæsar. His only son by Iulia died, and before long her frivolity and debaucheries disgusted him, and therefore, though associated in the tribunician power for five years in B.C. 7, he sought and obtained permission in the next year to retire to Rhodes, where he stayed seven years in seclusion.
Gaius and Lucius Cæsar.
Meanwhile the boys were being brought up with a view to their splendid future under the eye of Augustus, when he was at home, and often under his personal instruction, accompanied him as they grew older on his journeys, in a carriage preceding his own or riding by his side, and in fact were treated in every way as real and much beloved sons. In the year in which they assumed the toga virilis (B.C. 5 and B.C. 2) Augustus again entered upon the consulship, that the deductio in forum should be as brilliant and dignified as possible. The Senate was not behindhand; from the day of taking the toga virilis it voted that they should be capable of taking part in public business, and each of them in turn was designated consul, Gaius to enter upon his office that time five years. A new dignity moreover was invented, each in turn being named by the equites princeps inventutis. As Augustus was princeps senatus as well as princeps civitatis, each of these young men was to be the head of the next ordo, the original condition for belonging to which was that a man must be iuvenis. Both were members of the College of Augurs. They were, in fact, treated as we expect to see princes of the blood and heirs-apparent treated.[253] But whatever was the intention of Augustus or the expectation of the people, fate interposed ruthlessly. The younger—Lucius—died first, on the 20th of August, A.D. 2, at Marseilles, before he could enter on the consulship to which he had been designated; the elder Gaius was sent into Asia in B.C. 1, where he entered upon his consulship of A.D. 1. The object of his mission was to force Phraates IV., king of the Parthians, to evacuate Armenia which he had invaded. This was accomplished without fighting and by personal negotiation with the Parthian king; but when he entered Armenia to take possession and arrange for its restoration to its recognised king, he was wounded by an act of treason under the walls of Artagera. Weakened by this wound, and being in other respects in a feeble state of health and spirits, he obtained leave from Augustus to lay down his command. He started on his homeward journey, but died on the way at Limyra in Lycia the 23rd of February, A.D. 4.
Tiberius finally fixed upon as successor.
The succession was once more uncertain. The members of the imperial family at this time were few. Of the children of Agrippa and Iulia Agrippa Postumus was barely sixteen, and his two sisters, the younger Iulia and Agrippina a few years older. Drusus, the younger brother of Tiberius, had married Antonia, daughter of Marcus Antonius and Octavia, and had left three children, Germanicus, b. B.C. 15, Livia b. B.C. 12, and Claudius (afterwards Emperor) b. B.C. 10. Augustus meant to provide a new line of descendants by marrying Agrippina to Germanicus, but that did not take place till about A.D. 5. Meanwhile, probably on Livia’s suggestion, he turned his thoughts to his stepson Tiberius, who had divorced Iulia and had a son (Drusus) by his former wife Vipsania, who was married to his cousin Livia. There is no good evidence that Augustus entertained any but warm feelings for Tiberius, and he certainly had had good reason to respect his military abilities and energy. He seems to have been hurt at his prolonged stay at Rhodes and to have regarded it as a sign that Tiberius cared nothing for him and his family. He had therefore discouraged his return two years before, though he had given him the position of legatus as a colourable pretext for staying abroad without loss of dignity. Upon the death of Lucius, however, he seems to have wished him to return to Rome. Tiberius did so, partly on the instigation of his mother, and partly, perhaps, because he had reason to expect the hostility of Gaius, and yet had judged from the latter’s visit to him on his way to Syria that he was not likely to be a formidable rival; for he was at once somewhat arrogant and weak, and was surrounded by injudicious and dishonest advisers. On his return he for some time lived in retirement and refrained from all public business. But when the death of Gaius was announced (A.D. 4) Augustus adopted Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus, having first arranged that Tiberius should adopt his nephew Germanicus. The adoption of Agrippa Postumus was shortly afterwards annulled, and he was banished to an island under surveillance.[254]
There was now therefore a regular line of succession. Tiberius indeed had no drop of Iulian blood in his veins, but adoption according to Roman law and sentiment placed him exactly in the same position as that of a naturally born son, and by his son’s marriage to Antonia, his adoption of Germanicus, and the marriage of the latter to Agrippina, it seemed that there was security that after him must come some one who was collaterally or directly descended from Augustus. In the same year (A.D. 4) Tiberius was once more associated with Augustus in the tribunician power for ten years.[255] There could be no longer any doubt who would succeed. At the death of Augustus there would be, if Tiberius survived, a man already possessed of the most important of his functions; and his position was still farther strengthened in the last year of the Emperor’s life by being associated also in his imperium proconsulare. This gave him authority in the provinces and the command of all military forces; and we find him, in fact, upon the death of Augustus giving the watchword at once to the prætorian guard.
Augustus therefore is responsible for the principate of Tiberius, though some of its powers had to be formally bestowed by a decree of the Senate. Did he do ill or well in this? Hardly any emperor left behind him such an evil reputation as Tiberius. His funeral procession was greeted with shouts of “Tiberius to the Tiber,” the Senate did not vote him the usual divine honours, and Tacitus has exerted all his skill to make his name infamous. A gallant attempt has been made by Mr. Tarver to plead for a rehearing of the case, and to shew that Tiberius was pure in private life and admirable as a ruler. I for one agree with him in rejecting as unproved slander and often as physically impossible the charges of monstrous immoralities raked up both by Tacitus and Suetonius, often, no doubt, from the prurient gossip of Rome, which has never been surpassed for foulness. The same summary rejection cannot, I think, be applied to the formidable list of his cruelties. But these mainly fell upon members of the imperial family and their adherents; they did not affect the Empire at large. Augustus could not foresee these family and dynastic tragedies; but he judged, and apparently judged rightly, that he was leaving a successor whose prudence and sagacity, in spite of what seemed a sullen reserve, would secure the peace and prosperity of the Empire as a whole. There is nothing to prove that Augustus regarded him otherwise than affectionately. If he turned out to be the monster represented by his enemies, Augustus no doubt made a grave mistake. It is a ridiculous suggestion that he deliberately designated him his successor in order that people might regret himself. Such recondite snares for posthumous fame are more like the cunning of a madman than the motives influencing a reasonable being. Suetonius, who reports the suggestion, says that after mature reflection he is convinced that a man so careful and prudent as Augustus must have acted on better motives; must have weighed the virtues and faults of Tiberius and decided that the former predominated. As a matter of fact Augustus had little choice. Agrippa Postumus was impossible; Germanicus might have served, but he could never have displaced his uncle without a struggle. At the time of Tiberius’ adoption he was only nineteen, and Augustus could not reckon on the ten more years of life which in fact remained for him. No doubt in these last years of his life Augustus had come to see that some sort of hereditary principle was necessary to prevent civil war at every vacancy. In B.C. 23 he had ignored that principle altogether, and as far as he could without naming an heir had put Agrippa in the way of the succession. But Agrippa had now been dead nearly sixteen years, and Augustus had had no minister since either so able or so faithful. Like Cromwell in his last hours, he was driven to recognise the conveniency of the hereditary principle; and though the practical designation of Tiberius was apparently a breach of it, yet by means of the adoptions and marriages which he had arranged, it best prepared for its continuance hereafter. It was one of those politic compromises which had characterised his whole policy. It moreover best secured the position and safety of the beloved Livia; and it set a precedent which was often followed with advantage in after-times, when military arrogance and violence did not overpower every other consideration, that an Emperor’s natural heir should be his successor, or at any rate some one closely allied to him; and that in case of the failure or complete unworthiness of such an heir a prudent emperor should provide for the succession by adoption.
CHAPTER X
THE IMPERIAL AND MILITARY POLICY OF AUGUSTUS
Tu regere imperio populos,