Tiberius the Tyrant

by John Charles Tarver

The advisers of Germanicus, possibly members of the deputation, then accused him of too great leniency and of imprudence. It would have been much better for him to have secured his personal safety and that of his wife and child by remaining with the Upper Army, which was faithful; and they urged him to send Agrippina and the boy to the Gauls at Trêves.

Agrippina protested that she would not retire, the granddaughter of Augustus was not going to run away from legionaries, she said. The affectionate remonstrances of her husband, however, prevailed, and she started; but when she was seen leaving the camp with an insignificant escort, taking with her “Little Gaiters,” the pet of the soldiers, and when it was understood that she was seeking shelter with foreigners, the temper of the men suddenly changed; they stopped her flight, they implored Germanicus to let her stay. He skilfully seized the opportunity, and addressed them in words which were so successful in reanimating their lost loyalty that he ventured in conclusion to bid them, as a pledge of their renewed fidelity, to set apart the innocent from the guilty, and vindicate their military honour. The revulsion of feeling was so complete that a rough form of trial was at once instituted. The commander of the first legion presided; each soldier was placed before him on a platform in turn, and acquitted or condemned to instant death by the shouts of his companions.

Germanicus then wrote to Cæcina, who was further down the Rhine with the other two mutinous legions, and said that he was coming to punish them, unless they previously punished themselves. Cæcina communicated the tenour of the letter privately to soldiers whom he trusted, and the camp was purged of its delinquents before the arrival of Germanicus. The method was rough, a somewhat indiscriminate massacre, but it was effective.

The troops, now anxious to clear themselves and to appease the spirits of their slaughtered brethren by sending the enemy to join them in the world of ghosts, were led across the Rhine, and a series of campaigns kept them too fully occupied to mutiny for several years.

Tiberius confirmed the concessions made by Germanicus, and granted them to all the mutinous armies alike, both in Pannonia and on the Rhine, but he adopted twenty years as the fixed period for service in the future. Excessive length of service had probably been confined to or felt as a grievance only in the armies in these comparatively wild regions. There was no lack of recruits for service in Syria or parts of the world where life was agreeable, and there was not the same wastage in the settled parts of the Empire; but central Europe possessed no attractions for the Roman soldier, and desperate expedients had been necessary to keep up the strength of the legions. A mutiny was also threatened in Spain, but it was nipped in the bud by the firmness and tact of Marcus Lepidus, whom we know as one of the possible aspirants to the Empire.

The campaigns which followed extended over five years; they were in every respect a repetition of previous campaigns in the same regions. The Roman soldiers occasionally got into difficulties through ignorance of the country, and especially of the tides; but, in spite of some severe reverses, they more than held their own against the Germans; these latter indeed began to quarrel among themselves. The differences between Arminius and members of his family were taken advantage of by Germanicus; further differences seemed likely to declare themselves between Arminius and Maroboduus. Tiberius returned to his previous policy. Germany had been sufficiently exhausted; the Rhine with a line of outposts must be the frontier. Germanicus was recalled and given the more coveted position of proconsul of the Eastern frontier. Drusus, the son of Tiberius, took his place in Germany.

The authorities consulted by Tacitus, among which are included the memoirs of the younger Agrippina, who was born soon after the mutiny somewhere near Cologne, ascribed the recall of Germanicus to the jealousy of Tiberius. The inconsistency which is involved in giving larger powers and greater responsibility to a dangerous rival does not strike them. There was every precedent for dreading the influence of high official position in the East upon the mind of an ambitious proconsul. Sulla had marched upon Rome from the East; the power of Pompeius was founded upon his victories over Mithridates and the pirates; Antonius had been tempted by his power in the East to grasp at universal dominion; even the young Caius Cæsar had succumbed to Oriental fascinations. Had Tiberius really been in dread of Germanicus, he would have kept him in comparative insignificance at Rome; he certainly would not have put the wealth, the resources, and the armies of the East at his disposal.

It was, however, exceedingly desirable to get Agrippina away from the armies on the Rhine, and Germanicus himself at the time of the mutiny seems already to have had misgivings as to her influence, for when the soldiers demanded that she and Caligula should return to the camp, he granted their demand so far as the boy was concerned, but found an excuse of an interesting and domestic nature for removing his wife to a distance. She did not return to the army till the mutiny was finally suppressed, but before the expected event had happened. Even Tacitus admits on more than one occasion that Agrippina was a lady of somewhat excitable temperament, and the virtues to which she laid ostentatious claim, and which were universally ascribed to her, are not incompatible with a restless ambition. She was a devoted wife, and even as a widow maintained a reputation for “impenetrable” chastity. She was the very pink and pattern of Roman matrons, but there was nothing in this to prevent her from attempting to push the fortunes of her husband and children in ways of which the former disapproved. In the last year of the Rhine campaigns of Germanicus she temporarily took command during her husband’s absence. Owing to a reverse which had just been sustained the authorities at headquarters proposed to destroy the bridge across the Rhine, a measure which would have cut off the retreat of the Roman legions as effectively as it would have prevented an invasion of Germans. Agrippina resisted this pusillanimous counsel; she did more, she took up her position at the end of the bridge and praised and thanked the legions as they returned. Nobody can fail to admire the womanly kindness which impelled her to clothe the ragged soldiers and poultice the wounded, but we may pardon Tiberius for complaining that she had forgotten her position when she inspected the companies and stood by the standards, and for seeing something more than an exaggerated maternal pride in the dress of Caligula and the wish that he should be called Cæsar, a something more than mere kindness in her freehanded gifts to the private soldiers.

Agrippina was not an intriguer, she was too boisterous, too self-confident for intrigue; but she was none the less dangerous: a woman of rights, conjugal rights, maternal rights, ancestral rights; an injured woman, the daughter of an injured mother, a woman whose virtues it is pleasantest to contemplate when exhibited in the bosom of another man’s family. Tiberius did not take her sufficiently seriously; on the whole he seems to have been amused by her, only taking action when action was imperatively necessary. He did not take sufficiently into account the power for mischief which a good-hearted wrong-headed woman of this description may become when her grievances have been taken up by others, and when more subtle intriguers have seen in her a useful tool.

It was soon after this exhibition of amazonian propensities that Germanicus was recalled, and doubtless with his own consent. The sequel indicates that his health had suffered in the arduous campaigns on the frontier, and he probably welcomed the exchange to a warmer climate. Tiberius, in recalling him, said that some opportunity of conquest must be left for Drusus, a remark which has been interpreted as an indication of jealousy on Drusus’ behalf; but it can also be interpreted as a humorous compliment to Germanicus himself. There was no occasion to remind him of the claims of Drusus, for the two cousins were united by a strong friendship, as we are informed by the same authorities who envelop us in an atmosphere of hatred, jealousy, envy, and malice.