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.
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.
At the end of B.C. 14 Augustus returns to Rome.
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.
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.
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.