Tiberius the Tyrant

by John Charles Tarver

Julius Cæsar did not hold absolute power for more than four years; during those years he had time to remove obstructions, but not to build; his death did not involve a general collapse of the Government; the permanent officials continued in their places, the ordinary routine of public and private business remained much as before. The real danger which threatened society was the domination of the army under the command of a licentious adventurer such as Antonius, or the breaking up of the Empire and its distribution among similar leaders. That this did not happen is due chiefly to the personal qualities of one man, and that man a youth, who at the present day would be just leaving school to begin his career at the University.

It is possible to overrate as well as to underrate Octavian, to ascribe to him much that he could not possibly have done, as well as to refuse to him the credit due for what he actually performed.

In contrast with the achievements of his adoptive father, Octavian stands out in history as the great civilian; he hardly ever fought a successful battle; even his personal courage was suspected, but he succeeded where a long line of predecessors had failed and his success was in part due to the fact that he was not a soldier; he was never tempted to conquer for the sake of conquest, or to enter on campaigns in order that he might win glory; he was entirely free from the weaknesses of a Napoleon.

The precocity of the young Romans of the great families continually astonishes us, but Octavian would indeed be a marvel if, alone and unaided, he had placed himself among the four competitors for universal dominion at the age of twenty. Had he really been the son of Cæsar, and not a comparatively distant relative, had Cæsar himself been a constitutional monarch, and the monarchy an institution sanctioned by long precedent, his succession would not have surprised us; dynasties are upheld in spite of the youth or feebleness of the successor to the dynasty; but in this case there was no recognized dynasty, no prejudice outside the army in favour of the dynast, and the heir could not expect to inherit anything from his predecessor except his private property. This was his own view of his own position; he claimed no more.

Octavian was probably no less surprised than the Liberators or Cicero by his own popularity; the depth of the affection and admiration inspired by the great Cæsar was not at once comprehended by his contemporaries; they did not realize that he had become a myth in his lifetime, and on his death a god; the strength of the sentiments which he had evoked escaped the notice of the constructors of Utopian Republics and devotees of the rule of the Sacred Senate. Here was a new cult, and even a new incarnation of divinity. So little did Octavian understand the real foundations of his popularity that on his first arrival in Italy he made overtures to Cicero and the Constitutional party, to the men who approved of his adoptive father’s murder; so little did they understand the hold which he had upon the affection of the soldiers that they prepared to use him for their own purposes and then throw him over; they wanted a piece to play against Antonius, Octavian wanted power to force Antonius to disgorge his inheritance. His first important step was a masterly one. Upon Cæsar’s heir devolved the duty of paying Cæsar’s bequests to the Roman people, and expending money upon the great shows in honour of the dead hero. Antonius refused to surrender the treasures which he had seized. Octavian, whose natural father had been a very rich man, sold all his private property, sold all Cæsar’s property that had escaped Antonius, persuaded two of his relatives to forego their own share of the inheritance, and fulfilled the obligations imposed by the will. The contrast between him and Antonius was thus emphasized; Antonius had seized, confiscated, squandered upon his personal pleasures; Octavian gave, and paid for the pleasures of the people. It was this characteristic of Octavian, his indifference to personal display and personal luxury, that was one source of his strength throughout life; nobody could be more magnificent or spend more lavishly when such a course was required by the public interest, but in his personal expenditure he was rigidly economical. No Roman or provincial ever felt that his property was held in jeopardy, because Octavian needed money for his private pleasures. The ruler himself set the example of that moderation in expenditure which Horace so repeatedly commends to his contemporaries.

The moderation of Octavian recommended him to the financiers, and he at once found a valuable friend in the person of C. Cilnius Mæcenas. The Roman historians, in accordance with their invariable custom, ignore this great permanent official; they have no eyes for any man who has not held the great magistracies of the Republic, and the share of Mæcenas in building up the power of Octavian occupies but a small place in their writings; it is in fact only as a patron of literary men that Mæcenas is widely known, and the superficial observer might be tempted to infer that Mæcenas was a private friend of Octavian, whose influence was due solely to the Emperor’s favour. We know when Mæcenas died, but we do not know when he was born; his death occurred twenty-two years before that of Octavian, and as there is no indication that the event was considered premature, we are justified in assuming that he was so much older than Octavian as to have had considerable experience of affairs, and a sufficiently recognized position, when the younger man was seen to be a possible successor to the great Cæsar. Mæcenas was a prominent member of the Equestrian Order, of the body which had been supported in its struggles for recognition against the Senate by the Marian party, and by Cæsar himself; its interests coincided with those of the whole body of permanent salaried officials, who owed their appointments to Cæsar; the collection of the revenue of the Empire was in its hands; of the candidates for power, the one who secured the confidence of the Equestrians was the most likely to be successful. We do not know what had been the previous connexion between Octavian and Mæcenas, but we do no violence to probability by assuming that Mæcenas was known to Cæsar, and had enjoyed a measure of his confidence, that he belonged to the inner circle of financiers whom Cæsar must have repeatedly consulted, and that he had frequent opportunities for forming an opinion as to the capacity of the young Octavian.

In any case, and however the connexion was brought about, the man who formed the alliance between Octavian and Mæcenas acted more wisely than Octavian had acted when he placed himself at the feet of Cicero. By himself Octavian might have appeared to be a risky speculation to the orderly men who were gradually attracted to his party; backed by the great financier he was safe; the clients of Cæsar in all parts of the Empire were provided with a guarantee which encouraged them to transfer to the nephew the allegiance which they had previously given to the uncle. Octavian’s merit lies in the fact that he was able to use the wisdom of this cautious adviser and submit to his diplomacy; his head was not turned by the popular declarations in his favour. He is frequently reproached with a lack of initiative, with a cynical indifference to the higher morality, with a cool calculation of his own interests, and of his own interests to the exclusion of all others; but to judge thus is to fall into the common error of condemning a man on his success; there is a natural tendency to ascribe to every man who eventually succeeds a deliberate intention of success from the commencement, and the careful working out of a preconceived plan. Royalists after the Restoration in England could only see in Cromwell a crafty plotter, who had proposed to himself the usurpation of the throne. It is assumed that the power of the men who rise to great positions was at the beginning the same that it was at the end, and that in the first stages of their career they could have refused to do things of which they disapproved.

When Octavian made overtures to Cicero and called him his “father,” he was in earnest, and acted according to his own inclinations, but he took a false step from which he was forced to recede; he quickly learned that he commanded sympathy as the avenger of his father’s murderer, that on those terms he was the darling of the fierce legionaries; he also learned that the Constitutional Party, to whom his temperament inclined him, regarded him as a necessary evil, and that his “father” proposed to use him and then remove him; after the publication of the Second Philippic, in which Cæsar was denounced no less savagely than Antonius, Octavian could no longer keep on terms of friendship with Cicero; he would have been treated as a renegade by his own soldiers; he had not even the alternative of retiring into private life; he was too dangerous to both parties alike; had he rejected the devotion of the legions, the daggers of the Constitutionalists or of the emissaries of Antonius would have struck him down; nominally a leader, he was really a hunted beast. The soldiers forced him into alliance with Antonius, the soldiers forced him to marry the daughter of the tigress Fulvia, the combination of ferocity drove him to his share in the proscription. To Antonius the proscription was a means of filling his ever leaky purse; to Fulvia, the sister of Clodius, it was a vengeance, she had an old score to settle with Cicero, to the soldiers it was the merited punishment of the murderers of Cæsar; Octavian could not hold back; he, however, did the best thing that was permitted by the circumstances, as soon as Antonius departed for the East he let the pursuit of the proscribed lapse; he broke with Fulvia and sent back her daughter; he proved singularly placable to those who wished to make terms with him.

At this period Octavian can hardly have designed the universal dominion to which he afterwards succeeded; it was enough to enjoy comparative security in Italy, and to be recognized as the chief agent in restoring safety to the peninsula; none of his military operations were aggressive, and he preferred diplomacy to war; he was content to let Antonius carry off the richest part of the Empire; he was content to make terms with Sextus Pompeius, and allow him to take his share of the provinces, provided the commercial interests of Rome were respected, and the corn ships allowed to find their way into the harbour. He required time to deal with the most difficult of tasks, the reabsorption of Cæsar’s veterans in the civilian population; in order that Octavian might be personally safe, it was necessary gradually to break up the army which had dictated to him, and replace it by one of which he would be master.

This operation must have required consummate skill and coolness; the financial problem alone must have been serious; it was, however, rendered much easier by the departure of Antonius to the East; to the Roman soldiers, as to ourselves for many centuries, the East was the El Dorado, and service or even settlement in Italy presented small attractions to the legionary compared with service on the Euphrates; the gold which had tempted Crassus still glittered in the imagination of the centurions. Octavian and his advisers were glad to see the more restless spirits stream after Antonius, it lightened their burden.