Augustus

In the case of young Caesar, monarchic and republican elements had both been present from the beginning. The facts of young Caesar’s rise to sole power are well-known: born C. Octavius in 63 bce, named principal heir to his great-uncle Julius Caesar (44 bce), defeated Caesar’s murderers Brutus and Cassius (42 bce), Pompey’s son Sex. Pompeius (36 bce), and Antony and Cleopatra (31-30 bce). What is important is that during his rise young Caesar had consistently espoused two causes. One was avenging Julius Caesar by legal means (RG 2.1). As heir he shed ’’Octavius’’ and became ‘‘C. (lulius) Caesar’’ - only his enemies called him ‘‘Octavianus.’’ He implemented the Senate’s divine honors to Julius Caesar (becoming ‘‘son of the Divine’’), and he completed Julius Caesar’s building projects - notably the Temple of Venus Genetrix, divine ancestress of the lulii. But the other cause young Caesar professed was defending the republic. From 43 to 33 bce he was, by popular statute, a ‘‘Triumvir for putting the Republic back in order’’ with formal power to appoint Roman magistrates and provincial governors. He called his rivals enemies of the republic: Brutus and Cassius, who ‘‘waged war against the Republic’’ (RG 2.1), the ‘‘pirate’’ Sex. Pompeius, who led ‘‘runaway slaves who had taken up arms against the Republic’’ (RG 25.1), and M. Antony, who led a ‘‘faction that oppressed the Republic’’ (RG 1.1). And from the beginning young Caesar’s reign would be distinguished from Hellenistic monarchies by the presence of republican institutions. Both young Caesar and M. Antony chose as their closest associates ‘‘new men’’ who lacked senatorial ancestors. When Cleopatra rewarded M. Antony’s general P. Cani-dius with tax privileges - ‘‘the annual exportation of 10,000 artabas of wheat and the annual importation of 5,000 Coan amphoras of wine without anyone exacting anything in taxes from him’’ - she did so by royal fiat, subscribing the order, ‘‘Let it be done’’ (van Minnen 2000). But when young Caesar’s associate Vedius Pollio received similar privileges - tax immunity on Asian exports up to 10,000 denarii - it was by decree of the Roman Senate, communicated through an edict of the Roman consuls (SEG 39 no. 1180, 40). And when, in 12 bce, Augustus eulogized his second-in-command M. Agrippa, he did so in terms of powers granted by the Senate and Roman people:

You were granted the tribunician power by decree of the Senate... it had been sanctioned by law that your imperium was to be greater than anyone else’s in whatever provinces the Republic of the Roman People summoned you. (EJ 366)

Once young Caesar had achieved sole power, there was no question of his dissolving the republic. Instead he made good on his promise to put the republic in order and began to establish a working relationship with it. As the recently-discovered coin shows, the process extended over several years. He began with domestic affairs, annulling acts of the triumvirs that were contrary to custom, restoring popular elections, and completing the first census of the Roman people in 42 years. The following year (27 bce) he turned to provincial affairs. The Senate met as it formerly had done to decide which would be the provinces of the Roman people and what ranks of official would govern them; the Senate divided the empire into provinces of the Roman people (internal, pacified, with governors chosen by lot) and provinces of Caesar (frontier, garrisoned, with governors appointed by the emperor). Between the two there was little real difference: emperor and republic issued orders to both, and revenues from both went to the public treasury (Millar 1966). (In general, the emperor and the republic shared the task of governing; popular statutes, senatorial decrees, and imperial edicts seem to have been interchangeable in practice: aqueducts, for example, were regulated by decrees, statutes, and edicts [Fron. Aq. 2.100-29; EJ 282]; Greek-Roman relations in Cyrene, by edicts and a decree [EJ 311]; customs collection in Asia by consular edicts, a decree, and an imperial edict [SEG 29 no. 1180, 39-57]). More significant was the allotment of multi-provincial commands. With the defeat of Egypt, Roman domination of the Mediterranean was complete, so Augustus pushed inland, annexing the whole of the Iberian peninsula and the Alps and pushing the frontier beyond the Rhine and to the Danube. The superior commands were restricted to imperial family members: under Augustus, Augustus himself, his son-inlaw Agrippa, or his stepsons Tiberius and the elder Drusus; under Tiberius, Tiberius’ adopted son Germanicus and biological son the younger Drusus. Yet even these commands were formally bestowed by the Roman people and the commanders all seem to have had the republican title ‘‘proconsul.’’ A recently-discovered imperial edict reveals that Augustus, when abroad, was formally a proconsul (Alfoldy 2000), while a Tiberian senatorial decree shows that Germanicus, too, was a proconsul with powers bestowed by the Roman people:

Who had been sent out by our princeps at the instance of the Senate to put overseas affairs in order...a proconsul concerning whom a law had been brought before the People that in whatever province he entered, he was to have greater imperium than the person who was governing that province as proconsul. (AE 1996 no. 885, lines 30-6)

A monarchy was taking shape amid the republic - and the process was not always smooth. The emperor’s position was partly defined by the powers the republic bestowed, but those powers evolved (after 23 bce no annual consulship, special imperium for five-year terms, the newly-invented ‘‘tribunician power’’), while the plebs urged Augustus to take on more (RG 5-6: dictator, curator oflaws and morals). For most of the decade after Actium, senators and knights continued claiming recognition and authority that were no longer available: M. Licinius Crassus was denied the spolia opima for defeating a Macedonian king in single combat because he fought under the auspices of young Caesar (29-8 bce); the first governor of Egypt Cornelius Gallus was convicted in the Senate for boasting of his victories (29-6 bce); the Macedonian governor M. Primus was charged with waging unauthorized war (23-2 bce); L. Cornelius Balbus became the last man from outside the imperial house to celebrate a triumph for a victory over the African Garamantes (19 bce); and a popular aedile, M. Egnatius Rufus, had the temerity to stand for the consulship without imperial approval (19 bce). Many such aristocrats were executed as conspirators, beginning with the triumvir’s son M. Aemilius Lepidus, forced to commit suicide when accused of plotting to assassinate young Caesar (30 bce).

And the monarchy would be dynastic. Like any Roman aristocrat, Augustus hoped to transmit his name, wealth, and public status to an heir. Even without formal rules, the Augustan succession had several recurring features. Because Augustus, like Caesar, had no sons, he had to obtain heirs through remarriage (in the form of stepsons), through the marriages of his daughter Julia, or by adoption. Women such as his wife Livia, sister Octavia, and daughter Julia achieved unprecedented public prominence, and the very idea of the family was expanded to include cognate as well as agnatic relations (Corbier 1994). Because these heirs were sent on military campaigns, they kept predeceasing Augustus, and Augustus had to keep reshuffling the dynasty. And, perhaps because they kept dying, Augustus brought up heirs in pairs, creating problems whenever an emperor died and left two potential successors (Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus, Gaius and Tiberius Gemellus, Nero and Britannicus). The dynastic principle - and the latest dynastic permutations - were readily grasped by provincial subjects, who swore loyalty to the present and future of the house. In the earliest-known provincial oath, from 6/5 bce, the magistrates, Senate, and people of Conobaria in southern Spain specify the precise relationships of the princes’ dynastic ties (son and grandson) and their republican titles (consul designate, ponti-fex maximus), vowing:

For the sake of the welfare, honor, and victory of Imperator Caesar Divi f. Augustus, pontifex maximus, Gaius Caesar, leader of youth and consul designate, Lucius Caesar, son of Augustus, and M. Agrippa [Postumus], grandson of Augustus, to pursue by land and see unto extermination whoever will have done or said anything against them. (Gonzalez 1988)

Just as significant as the precision with which they observe the status of the people involved is the fact that they conspicuously omit Augustus’ stepson Tiberius, who had just retired to Rhodes in dudgeon over the rapid advancement of Gaius and Lucius.

But the regime’s foundation was still military. On the Danube, the Pannonian revolt took three years to suppress (6-9 ce). Beyond the Rhine three Roman legions were defeated by Germanic armies. With these setbacks, the army ceased to be an instrument of consistent expansion and became the guardian in a ‘‘fortress Rome’’ posture that characterized the High Empire (Luttwak 1976). This was the last of a series of fundamental changes to the Roman army under Augustus. The civil war armies had been demobilized into veterans’ colonies in Italy and overseas (Keppie 1983), in what may qualify as the greatest feat of governance in human terms in the ancient world. The legions, originally composed of citizen-soldiers mobilized anew each campaigning season, completed their transformation into a professional standing army paid by the republic (though Augustus contributed 170 million sesterces to found the soldiers’ treasury in 6 ce: RG 17), but receiving bonuses and decorations from the imperial family (Maxfield 1981). The auxiliary cohorts - originally allied militias - were coordinated as a second corps of the Roman army, under Roman command and deployed around the empire. The overseas colonies, the legions and their decorations, the auxiliary units and their commanders, an emergency levy occasioned by a defeat, and above all the presence of the imperial family in soldiers’ lives, all come together in a dedication from Alexandria Troas in Asia:

To Gaius Fabricius Tuscus, son of Gaius, of the tribe Aniensis, duovir, augur, prefect of the cohort of Apulia and of the works that were accomplished in the colony by order of Augustus, tribune of the soldiers of Legion III Cyrenaica for eight years, tribune of the levy of freeborn men that Augustus and Tiberius Caesar held at Rome, prefect of engineers for four years, prefect of the cavalrymen of the praetorian wing for four years. He was awarded the unstained spear and gold crown by Germanicus Caesar, commander in the Germanic war. By decree of the decurions. (Brunt 1974a; EJ 368)

Technically the legions remained ‘‘the army of the Roman people,’’ but materially and symbolically they were tied to the Caesars.