Tiberius

TIBERIUS

TIBERIUS

ROBIN SEAGER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley and Los Angeles 1972

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

ISBN 0-520-02212-2

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-185511

© 1972 Robin Seager

Printed in Great Britain

To my father and mother

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

ABBREVIATIONS

I TIBERIUS’ CHILDHOOD: THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND

1. THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

2. TIBERIUS’ BIRTH AND INFANCY: THE TRIUMVIRATE

3. THE AUGUSTAN PRINCIPATE

II TIBERIUS AND AUGUSTUS

1. TIBERIUS’ FIRST STEPS IN PUBLIC LIFE

2. THE SUCCESSION: MARCELLUS AND THE SONS OF AGRIPPA

3. THE NORTHERN FRONTIER: RHAETIA AND VINDELICIA

4. THE SUCCESSION: TIBERIUS’ MARRIAGE TO JULIA

5. THE NORTHERN FRONTIER: ILLYRICUM AND GERMANY

6. TIBERIUS’ RETIREMENT TO RHODES

7. TIBERIUS’ ADOPTION

8. THE NORTHERN FRONTIER: GERMANY AND PANNONIA

9. TIBERIUS THE SUCCESSOR OF AUGUSTUS

III THE ACCESSION OF TIBERIUS

1. THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS AND THE REMOVAL OF AGRIPPA POSTUMUS

2. THE INTERIM AND THE MEETING OF THE SENATE ON 17 SEPTEMBER

IV GERMANICUS AND DRUSUS

1. THE MUTINIES ON THE DANUBE AND THE RHINE

2. THE GERMAN CAMPAIGNS OF 15

3. THE GERMAN CAMPAIGN OF 16

4. THE TRIAL OF LIBO AND THE RISING OF CLEMENS

5. DRUSUS IN ILLYRICUM

6. GERMANICUS IN THE EAST

7. THE TRIAL OF PISO

8. THE SUCCESSION: DRUSUS AND THE SONS OF GERMANICUS

V TIBERIUS AS PRINCEPS, A.D. 14-26

1. SENATE AND MAGISTRATES

2. THE EQUESTRIAN ORDER AND THE PEOPLE

3. HONOURS AND TITLES

4. RELIGION

5. THE LAW OF MAIESTAS

6. THE PROVINCES

7. TIBERIUS AND THE PRECEPTS OF AUGUSTUS

VI SEIANUS

1. THE RISE OF SEIANUS

2. SEIANUS’ AMBITIONS

3. SEIANUS AND THE DEATH OF DRUSUS

4. FROM DRUSUS’ DEATH TO TIBERIUS’ WITHDRAWAL TO CAPREAE

5. THE SUPREMACY OF SEIANUS

6. THE FALL OF SEIANUS

VII THE LAST YEARS

1. TIBERIUS AND ROME AFTER SEIANUS’ FALL

2. THE EASTERN FRONTIER

3. THE SUCCESSION: GAIUS AND TIBERIUS GEMELLUS

4. TIBERIUS’ DEATH

CONCLUSION

STEMMA THE SOURCES MAPS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

THE SOURCES

TACITUS

SUETONIUS

DIO

VELLEIUS PATERCULUS

MAPS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

PREFACE

It is the aim of this book to give an account of Tiberius’ character and of his career that will be at the same time intelligible to the general reader and useful to scholars and students of the early principate. No serious book on Tiberius’ reign as a whole has appeared in English since that of Marsh in 1931. Since that time there have been many new discoveries in the fields of epigraphy and papyrology, as well as a steady stream of books and articles on various aspects of Tiberius’ life and work. Thus a new biography needs no justification, except perhaps against the charge that imperial biography as a genre is obsolete, if not actually pernicious. In reply it may fairly be said that under Tiberius the political and social development of the empire and the personal history of its ruler are more intricately and intimately dependent upon one another than at any other time, so that neither can be understood in isolation.

I am deeply indebted to my friends Ewen Bowie, Eric Marsden and Jeremy Paterson, all of whom read the entire book in manuscript and made many valuable criticisms and suggestions; they are not of course responsible for whatever faults remain. I should also like to express my gratitude to my publishers for a constant and ready co-operation that has made my task much lighter and pleasanter than it might have been.

Plymouth, April 1971 Robin Seager

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Tiberius’ Age B.C.

44 Assassination of Caesar (March 15).

43 Octavian consul (August). Triumvirate formed (November).

42 Ti. Nero praetor. Philippi (October). Birth of Tiberius (November 16).

41 1

40 Fall of Perusia (February). Pact of Brundisium (October). 2

39 Pact of Misenum (spring). 3

38 Birth of Drusus (January 14). Marriage of Octavian and Livia 4 (January 17).

37 Pact of Tarentum (spring). 5

36 6

35 7

34.. … 8

33 Death of Ti. Nero. Betrothal of Tiberius and Vipsania. 9

32 10

31 Actium (September). 11

30 12

29 Octavian’s triumph (August 13-15). 13

28 14

27 Octavian called Augustus (January). Tiberius assumes toga 15

uirilis (April 24).

26 Tiberius in Spain as military tribune. 16

25 Marriage of Marcellus and Julia. 17

24 18

23 Augustus resigns consulship, receives tribunician power. 19

Tiberius quaestor, Marcellus aedile. Death of Marcellus.

22 Tiberius prosecutes Fannius Caepio. 20

21 Marriage of Agrippa and Julia. 21

B.C.

20 Tiberius in Armenia. Birth of C. Caesar. Marriage of 22 Tiberius and Vipsania.

19 Augustus’ imperium made valid inside Rome. 23

18 Agrippa receives tribunician power. 24

17 Birth of L. Caesar. Adoption of Gaius and Lucius. 25

16 Tiberius praetor. 26

15 Tiberius and Drusus in Rhaetia and Vindelicia. Birth of 27 Germanicus (May 24).

14?Birth of Drusus (October 7). 28

13 Tiberius consul. Agrippa’s tribunician power renewed. 29

12 Death of Agrippa (February). Birth of Agrippa Postumus. 30 Betrothal of Tiberius and Julia. Tiberius to Illyricum.

II Tiberius in Illyricum. Tiberius and Drusus receive pro- 31 consular imperium. Marriage of Tiberius and Julia.

10 Tiberius in Illyricum. Son born to Tiberius and Julia. 32

9 Drusus consul. Tiberius in Illyricum. Death of Drusus. 33

8 Tiberius in Germany. 34

7 Tiberius consul 11. Tiberius’ triumph (January). Tiberius in 35 Germany.

6 Tiberius receives tribunician power, retires to Rhodes. 36

5 Gaius and Lucius principes iuuentutis. 37

4 38

3. ….. 39

2 Divorce of Tiberius and Julia. Exile of Julia. 40

i Gaius’ mission to the East. 41

A.D.

1 Gaius consul. 42

2 Tiberius returns to Rome. Death of Lucius (August 20). 43

3 44

4 Death of Gaius (February 21). Tiberius receives tribunician 45 power. Adoption of Germanicus by Tiberius. Adoption of Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus by Augustus (June 26).

Tiberius to Germany.

5 Tiberius in Germany. 46

A.D.

6 Pannonian revolt. 47

7 Tiberius in Illyricum. 48

8 Tiberius in Illyricum. 49

9 Tiberius in Illyricum. Clades Variana. 50

10 Tiberius in Germany. 51

11 Tiberius in Germany. 52

12 Germanicus consul. Birth of Gaius (August 31). Tiberius’ 53 triumph (October 23).

13 Tiberius’ imperium made equal with that of Augustus and his 54 tribunician power renewed.

14 Death of Augustus (August 19). Execution of Agrippa 55 Postumus. Mutinies. Tiberius accepts principate (September 17). Germanicus in Germany. Death of Julia.

15 Drusus consul. Tiberius pontifex maximus (March 10). 56 Germanicus in Germany. Seianus sole praetorian prefect.

Death of a son of Drusus.

16 Germanicus in Germany. Trial of Libo (September). 57 Clemens.

17 Germanicus’ triumph (May 26). Drusus to Illyricum. 58 Germanicus appointed to the East. Earthquake in Asia. Exile of Rhescuporis. Rebellion of Tacfarinas.

18 Tiberius consul in, Germanicus consul 11. Fall of 59 Maroboduus.

19 Death of Germanicus (October 10). Birth of Drusus’ twins. 60

20 Trial of Cn. Piso. Death of Vipsania. 61

21 Tiberius consul iv, Drusus consul 11. Tiberius in Campania. 62 Trial of Clutorius Priscus. Revolt of Florus and Sacrovir.

22 Drusus receives tribunician power. Trial of C. Silanus. 63

23 Divorce of Seianus and Apicata. Death of Drusus (September 64 14). Death of Drusus’ son Germanicus.

24 Tiberius’ province renewed. Trial of C. Silius. Death of 65 Tacfarinas.

25 Trial of Cremutius Cordus. Seianus refused Livia Julia. 66

26 Trial of Claudia Pulchra. Tiberius leaves Rome. 67

27 Tiberius retires to Capreae. 68

A.D.

28 Trial of Titius Sabinus. Marriage of younger Agrippina and 69 Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus. Revolt of Frisii.

29 Death of Livia. Exile of Agrippina and Nero. 70

30 Imprisonment of Asinius Gallus. Imprisonment of Drusus. 71 Betrothal of Seianus and Livia Julia.

31 Tiberius consul v, Seianus consul. Seianus executed (October 72 18). Macro praetorian prefect. Death of Livia Julia.

32 .. 73

33 Death of Asinius Gallus. Death of Drusus. Death of Agrip- 74 pina (October 18). Financial crisis. Marriages: Gaius and Junia Claudilla; Drusilla and L. Cassius Longinus; Julia Livilla and M. Vinicius; Julia and C. Rubellius Blandus.

34 Tiberius’ province renewed. Suicide of Mam. Scaurus. 75

35 Suicide of Fulcinius Trio. L. Vitellius in the East. 76

36 77

37 Suicide of L. Arruntius. Death of Tiberius (March 16). Funeral of Tiberius (April 3).

ABBREVIATIONS

All other abbreviations and short titles used in the notes should be self-explanatory if reference is made to the bibliography.

TIBERIUS

I

TIBERIUS’ CHILDHOOD:

THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND

1. THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

For a man with political ambitions in the late republic the way to eminence in the state was the cursus honorum, the succession of magistracies that made up a career in public office. Beginning as quaestor at the age of thirty, he would find himself assigned as paymaster and general aide to a provincial governor or perhaps allotted a financial post at Rome. The next step up was the aedileship or the tribunate of the plebs. As aedile he would be in charge of markets and public buildings and would be expected to ensure his future progress by the giving of lavish games. As tribune he could play a more prominent part, with the power to initiate legislation himself and to hamper public business by his veto. Then came the praetorship, during which he would be engaged in the administration of the civil law or in presiding over one of the standing criminal courts, the quaestiones. After his year of office he could, if he chose, serve for a year or sometimes longer as proconsular governor of a province. Finally, at a minimum age of forty-three, he might attain the consulship. In the last decades of the republic a consul’s duties were few except in moments of crisis, usually involving nothing more arduous than presiding at the election of the consuls for the following year. To follow his consulship he could again, if he wished, govern a province as proconsul.

The path was steep and narrowed as it climbed: twenty quaestors were elected each year, but only two consuls — it was not until the principate that it became a rare honour for a consul Ordinarius to hold office for the whole of his year without giving way after a few months to a suffect. Hence many were bound to fall by the wayside. A man’s success depended on the influence he could bring to bear, and he stood or fell alone, for at Rome there were no groups that bore any resemblance to the modern political party. He could enhance his personal standing by acquiring military glory and distinction in the arts of peace, oratory and jurisprudence. But even more important was the position he inherited. Over the years every great Roman family built up an intricate nxus of relationships on which the power of its members was based: ties of friendship, marriage and adoption with other families, ties of patronage with individuals of lower rank, with cities, tribes and provinces all over the empire. For a ‘new man’, one who came of a family no member of which had previously held public office and so lacked these connections, there would normally be no hope of advancement beyond the praetorship, for the nobiles, descendants of men who had reached the consulate, jealously guarded the highest office for the scions of their own houses.

But once a man had attained the consulship, whether on merit or because his father had held it, he was at the centre of power, for the dominant force in Roman politics was the senate. All former magistrates were senators for life, but their seniority and long experience gave the opinion of the consulars a weight that would not often be challenged by the mass of senators or by individual magistrates. For although the senate was nominally an advisory body and its decrees had no binding legal force, its traditional authority was so great that for any magistrate to defy or ignore it was an act of rare temerity.

The power of the magistrates was limited in other ways. Their actions could be vetoed by a holder of equal or greater power and also by a tribune of the plebs, for the office of tribune had originally been conceived to protect the people against high-handed magistrates. Even a consul’s hands could be tied by his colleague or by a tribune. Moreover a magistrate held office for only a year. When his term was over and he became a private citizen again, he might find himself on trial for any illegal acts he had committed. Praetors, consuls and proconsuls, who might command troops, held imperium, which in theory gave them the right to bind, beat and decapitate, symbolized in the fasces borne by their attendant lictors. But this right had long been limited by that of prouocatio, appeal to the people against the arbitrary exercise of imperium. Only a dictator, who might be appointed in a crisis for a term of six months, was not subject to the checks of veto or appeal.

Nor were the various assemblies of the people, which met to pass laws and elect magistrates, able to offer any sustained and consistent challenge to the predominance of the senate. The people met only when summoned by a magistrate and could only say yea or nay to the proposals put before it by him. Moreover, the voting was weighted in various ways to favour the views of the right-thinking rich. The senate provided the only element of corporate continuity in the Roman constitution, and it was this above all that established its authority and gave it the advantage in any contest with an individual magistrate or with the people.

This brief sketch represents an oligarchic ideal. The senate was by no means always unanimous. But in its great days men contended for supremacy within it; they did not attempt to overthrow its power. Only in the last century of the republic was that power subjected to repeated attacks.

First it was the turn of the tribunes of the plebs. Between 133 and 100 the brothers Ti. and C. Sempronius Gracchus and L. Appuleius Saturninus all tried to circumvent the opposition of the senate by taking reforming legislation straight to the people, riding roughshod over the veto of their colleagues and seeking immediate re-election to office. When the customary constitutional checks proved ineffective, the senate did not hesitate to resort to violence: all three tribunes were murdered.

But among his other reforms C. Gracchus had transferred the right to serve on juries from the senate to the equestrian order. The measure, intended to check senatorial corruption, gave a political identity to the équités, whose only other unifying feature was the possession of a minimum census qualification, and control of the courts remained a bone of contention for fifty years. The most vocal and politically effective group within the order was formed by the publicani, whose interest lay in tax-farming and other state contracts: they were often able to influence the actions of provincial governors and the senate. The efforts of reformers to exploit the équités were shortlived and unsuccessful, but it was not until the principale that their energies were harnessed in the army and the imperial civil service.

The tribunate of Ti. Gracchus also marked the beginning of Italian agitation for the Roman citizenship, a demand eventually granted only after a brief but bitter war that broke out in 91. The enfranchisement of Italy was to have profound effects, as new candidates came forward to compete for office and new voters made the assemblies more difficult for Roman politicians to control: the local aristocrats of the Italian towns gradually began to make their way in politics, encountering resistance as long as the republic survived, but surging forward during the triumvirate and early principale.

But what was to prove the most important development of all occurred just before the end of the second century. Faced with a desperate shortage of troops, the great general C. Marius ignored the property qualification for military service and enlisted men who owned no land. Such men came to look to their general for gratuities and grants of land when their period of service came to an end and were prepared, to secure their own interests, to follow him against the state. The senate never found an answer to the problem of the rebellious commander at the head of an army. Marius himself did not use the tool he had forged, but his enemy L. Cornelius Sulla initiated the last stage in the fall of the republic by marching on Rome in 88. Ironically, as dictator in 81, Sulla tried to turn back the tide. But his settlement was rapidly undermined. Less than ten years after his death Cn. Pompeius Magnus was consul for the first time, in 70, although he had held none of the lower offices and was well below the minimum age laid down by Sulla. Pompey’s unprecedented career continued with extraordinary commands against the pirates in 67 and Mithridates, king of Pontus, in 66. But a rival soon emerged: C. Julius Caesar, consul in 59. Pompey married Caesar’s daughter Julia, but tension between the two men increased throughout the fifties, while Caesar was occupied with the conquest of Gaul and Pompey engaged in political juggling at Rome. Finally in 49, faced with the choice between civil war and political annihilation, Caesar invaded Italy.

The end of the civil war saw Caesar as dictator — not for six months

but for life. Senate and magistrates were treated with a contempt that

reduced constitutionalists like Cicero to despair. On the Ides of March 44 Caesar paid the price for attempting to ignore the rules of the political game as the Roman governing class had always played it. His assassins misguidedly hoped that with Caesar gone public life as they had known it could continue. Instead his death ushered in a further fifteen years of civil war, administrative chaos, and social and political change, before Augustus established a new order: the principate.

2. TIBERIUS’ BIRTH AND INFANCY: THE TRIUMVIRATE

Tiberius Claudius Nero was born at Rome on 16 November, 42.¹ His lineage was ancient and glorious. Both his father, Ti. Claudius Nero, and his mother, Livia Drusilla, were descended from Ap. Claudius Caecus, consul in 307 and 296: Nero from one of Caecus’ sons, Ti. Claudius Nero, Livia from another, P. Claudius Pulcher, consul in 249.² Both these branches of the patrician Claudii had played a major part in the history of the republic, and the family was renowned for headstrong arrogance and stubborn pride.³ But the Nerones had dropped into the background — no Claudius Nero had held the highest office since Ti. Claudius Nero, consul in 202 — while the Pulchri had continued to occupy a prominent place, with consuls in 92, 79 and 54, as well as the notorious P. Clodius, Cicero’s bitter enemy, tribune of the plebs in 58. By a practice common among the aristocracy, Livia’s father had been adopted into another noble house, that of the Livii Drusi, and so became M. Livius Drusus Claudianus. His adoptive father was M. Livius Drusus, the famous tribune of 91, son of the opponent of C. Gracchus.

In 50 Tiberius’ father had been hoping to marry Cicero’s daughter Tullia,⁴ but when the civil war broke out he joined the Caesarian side.

Quaestor in 48, he commanded the fleet in the Alexandrian campaign.5 His services on that occasion earned him further favours from Caesar: a priesthood and the task of founding colonies in Gaul at Narbo and Arelate. But like many of Caesar’s former adherents he turned against the dictator, and after the Ides of March 44 took up an extreme position in the senatorial debate of 17 March. Both Antony and Cicero spoke in favour of moderation and a general amnesty, but Nero, now an ardent republican, made the provocative suggestion that the ‘Liberators’ should be rewarded.6

During autumn 44 an ominous contest developed between the consul Antony, the senior Caesarian leader, and the nineteen-year-old Octavian, Caesar’s great-nephew and posthumously adopted son, who exploited with cold daring the magic of Caesar’s name.7 The immediate prize was control of the Caesarian party and the loyalty of Caesar’s veterans, whose demands for land had not yet been satisfied, but for Octavian the ultimate goal was a position of power as great as Caesar’s own. Nevertheless at the end of 44 the old republic still had its champions: D. Brutus held the fortress of Mutina, M. Brutus was established in Macedonia and Cassius in Syria. Cicero, republicanism’s most eloquent spokesman, dreamed of first employing the youthful Octavian as a weapon against the seemingly more dangerous Antony and then dispensing with him when he had served his purpose, just as the senatorial oligarchy had hoped a decade before to use Pompey to destroy Caesar before discarding him.

Luck, nerve and cunning protected Octavian. At first, in spring 43, he joined forces with the republicans against Antony, but in August he marched on Rome and seized the consulship. Reconciliation with Antony soon followed. In November Octavian, Antony and M. Aemilius Lepidus met near Bononia and agreed to divide power among themselves. On 27 November they were appointed by law as triumvirs to rule the state for five years. In 42 Octavian and Antony set out to deal with Brutus and Cassius, The campaign of Philippi in October of that year set the final seal on the military doom of the republic. The scions of many noble families were killed, and one of those who committed suicide after the battle was Tiberius’ grandfather, Drusus Claudianus.⁸ The only remaining centre of resistance was in Sicily, where Sex. Pompeius, the surviving son of Pompey, maintained himself at the head of a pirate fleet. The two dynasts now went their separate ways, Antony to campaign against the Parthians in the East, Octavian to deal with the settlement of veterans in the West.

Tiberius’ father was praetor in 42, but at the end of the year he did not lay down his office.⁹ Italy was torn by widespread discontent: the financial exactions of the triumvirs, their seizures of land to provide the veterans with allotments and the activities of Sex. Pompeius combined to produce an explosive situation. In 41, with Antony engaged in the East, trouble came to a head at home between Octavian and Antony’s friends, led by his wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius, now consul. When war broke out between them Nero, like Lucius, claimed to champion the cause of the dispossessed and attempted to raise Campania.¹⁰ Lucius’ forces, penned up in Perusia, eventually surrendered to Octavian in February of 40 and were mercilessly liquidated. But Nero and Livia escaped first to Praeneste and then to Neapolis, and so by sea to Sicily, where Sex. Pompeius offered a haven to refugees.¹¹ At Neapolis they left the aged C. Velleius, who had served as praefectus fabrum (adjutant) under Pompey and Brutus as well as under Nero¹² Too infirm to follow, Velleius committed suicide, a deed of honour remembered with pride by his grandson, the historian Velleius Paterculus.¹³

But in Sicily Nero did not find the welcome he expected. Sextus did not grant him immediate audience and forbade him the use of the praetorian insignia that he still continued to usurp. Claudian pride could not brook such treatment, and so Nero left Sicily in a huff to throw in his lot with Antony. But even in the relative safety of Greece the family almost perished — in a forest fire near Sparta, from which Livia escaped with only her clothes scorched and her hair singed.¹⁴

The infant Tiberius had accompanied his parents in their flight.¹⁵ Suetonius tells, with what measure of truth we do not know, how his crying twice almost gave away their hiding-place at Neapolis. In Sicily, despite his father’s failure to come to terms with Sex. Pompeius, the baby seems to have won the affection of Sextus’ sister, who presented him with a cape and brooches that were still on display at Baiae in Suetonius’ time.

Though Sex. Pompeius had proved inhospitable, it was the need to solve the problem of the pirate leader that gave Nero and his family their chance to return. In October of 40 Octavian and Antony had renewed their alliance at Brundisium, to which Sextus had responded by raiding the coasts and harassing the corn fleets of Italy. Octavian, whose power and prestige were more directly affected by Sextus’ activities, was eager for a war that would simplify the situation, for with Sextus removed he would be free to prepare for the final struggle with Antony that was one day bound to come. Antony favoured a reconciliation: it suited him to keep Sextus in play as a useful check to his rival’s boundless ambition, while he himself was detained by war and pleasure in the East. The people of Italy, desperate for relief from the horrors of war and the famine provoked by Sextus, also clamoured for peace. In the face of such an outcry Octavian gave way, and a pact between the three men was concluded at Misenum in spring 39. One of its clauses was an amnesty for refugees, and under this condition Nero, Livia and Tiberius returned to Italy.¹⁶

There Livia, still only nineteen, attracted the attention of Octavian. Nero bowed to the triumvir’s will and divorced Livia, pregnant as she was.¹⁷ On 14 January, 38 — the same date as the birthday of Antony — Tiberius’ brother, Drusus Claudius Nero, was born.¹⁸ Only three days later, on 17 January, Octavian and Livia were married.¹⁹ Nero played no further part in public life, and Tiberius and Drusus grew up in their stepfather’s house under the guidance of their proud and ambitious mother. During the years of the disintegration of the triumvirate the child Tiberius made only one public appearance. In 33 his father died and to Tiberius, aged nine, fell the task of pronouncing the public funeral oration.²⁰ It would be interesting to know who wrote it, and what he found to say.

3. THE AUGUSTAN PRINCIPATE

The battle of Actium in 31 gave Octavian final victory over Antony and Cleopatra. Tiberius shared in his stepfather’s triumph, celebrated on 13-15 August of 29. He rode in the third day’s procession on the left-hand trace-horse; the place of honour on the right was reserved for Octavian’s nephew, M. Claudius Marcellus, son of C. Marcellus, consul in 50, and the princeps’ sister Octavia.²¹

Now that the civil wars were over, Octavian set about making sure that no man should ever again be able to achieve such a coup as he had accomplished himself. During his long career as princeps — the leading man in the state — his powers were redefined on more than one occasion in order to make his unprecedented position more intelligible and more acceptable to various sections of the community. He boasted later that in 28 and 27 the republic — or constitutional government — had been restored. A grateful Rome rewarded him not only with the surname Augustus, but with a provincial command of novel scope, embracing Gaul, Spain and Syria. But, although he made frequent journeys abroad, Augustus continued to base himself at Rome and retained the consulship for year after year. This unexpected behaviour gave rise to various difficulties. In the first place it created a promotion block. The surviving members of the old aristocracy, whose support or at least acquiescence was vital to the establishment of the new order, were liable to find themselves deprived, by Augustus’ constant occupation

of one consulship, of such power and dignity as was still accessible to them, while his own supporters too might be kept from the reward that they expected as their share in their master’s success. Nor was it clear what authority Augustus had to interfere, as he sometimes found it necessary to do, in the running of those provinces that were still controlled by the senate.

In 23, to obviate these problems, Augustus resigned the consulship. He now became proconsul of his own vast province, while his imperium was declared superior to that of the governors of senatorial provinces — a familiar and therefore acceptable expedient. At the same time he was granted the tribunician power for life. Of this he made little or no practical use: it was rather a symbol of his unceasing concern for the welfare of the common people. Nevertheless the people were not satisfied. Despite his assumption of the tribunician power, they regarded Augustus’ resignation of the consulship as a first step back towards the chaos and anarchy of the nobles’ bitter competition for high office. Riots were frequent, one consulship was left vacant, and demands were repeatedly made that Augustus should accept either the dictatorship or a lifelong consulship.

Augustus had learned from the errors of Julius Caesar tact, respect for the solemn façade of republican institutions and sensitivity to public opinion. So, in 19, he reformulated his powers yet again. To accede to the clamour of the mob was impossible: Caesar had disgraced the title of dictator for ever, and to resume his hold on the consulship would merely have resuscitated the problem that had prompted his resignation of it in 23. To satisfy the plebs without giving fresh offence to the upper classes Augustus devised a compromise. His imperium was made valid inside the city and he occupied a seat of honour between the consuls. Thus he now had the power that the people insisted he should have without the awkwardness that would have ensued if he had actually held the office of consul.

Meanwhile the senate — purged on more than one occasion — and the magistrates continued to fulfil their traditional functions in a simulacrum of the old republican order. Ultimately now, however, men owed their advancement not to the time-honoured qualifications of birth, wealth and personal glory but to the princeps’ favour, though his support was often granted on the best of traditional grounds. Augustus’ power was beyond any challenge. He was supreme commander of the armies of Rome, supreme guardian of the welfare of the Roman people, and his personal authority and influence were greater than any man’s had ever been. For those who had ruled the republic and their descendants the dimming of their splendour and the curb on their ambition and achievement were bitter disappointments: they were not deceived by Augustus’ offer of dignity without real power. But for many who would have had no hope of a career under the republic the Augustan régime held out rich rewards for loyal and honourable service. The equites too found new scope for their talents in military and administrative posts, while the plebs had quickly realized that Augustus was better, not only at giving games, but also at caring for the water-supply, putting out fires and making the streets safe at night. Such in outline was the new political system under which Tiberius grew to manhood, the system which, by repeated tricks of fate, he was eventually called upon to perpetuate.

1 Fer. Cum., F. Ant., Act. Arv. (EJ p. 54); Suet. Tib. 5.1, dismissing the claim that Tiberius was born at Fundi and the alternative dates 43 and 41.

2 Tac. Ann. 6.51, Suet. Tib. 3.1 (who mistakenly gives Pulcher’s praenomen as Appius); for Livia, cf. also Tac. Ann. 5.1. The date of the marriage is unknown: probably about 43 or 42. On the Claudii Pulchri of the triumviral and Augustan periods, cf. Wiseman, HSCP 74, 1970, 207ff.

3 Cf. Suet. Tib. 2.

4 Cic. Att. 6.6.1.

5 Suet. Tib. 4.1, B. Alex. 25.3.

6 Suet. Tib. 4.1.

7 On the events of this period, cf. Syme, RR, 97ff.

8 Dio 48.44.1, Veil. 2.71.3.

9 Suet. Tib. 4.2.

10 Tac. Ann. 5.1, Suet. Tib. 4.2, Veil. 2.75.1.

11 Suet. Tib. 4.2, Dio 48.15.3, Veil. 2.75.3.

12 Veil. 2.76.1.

13 Suet. Tib. 4.3, Dio 48.15.3.

14 Suet. Tib. 6.1ff.

15 Cf. Tac. Ann. 6.51.

16 Tac. Ann. 5.1, Suet. Tib. 4.3, Veil. 2.77.3.

17 Suet. Aug. 62.2, Tib. 4.3, Dio 48.44, Vell. 2.79.2. Tac. Ann. 5.1 exaggerates, as the Fasti show; Suet. Claud. 1.1 is nonsense.

18 Suet. Claud. 11.3.

19 F. Ver.(EJp. 46).

20 Suet. Tib. 6.4.

21 F. Tr. Barb. (EJ p. 35), F. Ant. (EJ p. 50), Suet. Tib. 6.4, Dio 51.21.5ff.

II

TIBERIUS AND AUGUSTUS

1. TIBERIUS’ FIRST STEPS IN PUBLIC LIFE

Tiberius’ early career proceeded with the smoothness that might be expected for the stepson of Augustus. Little, however, is known of the details. Only the bare data of advancement are recorded: magistracies and military service.

At some date which is not preserved, but probably about 33, well before he came of age, Tiberius had been betrothed to Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of the great general Agrippa, whose power in the state was second only to that of Augustus himself.¹ It is possible to see in the match a scheme of Tiberius’ mother Livia to strengthen the position of the Claudian house by establishing a link between it and the princeps’ most prominent henchman; such an acceptance and exploitation of the realities of power would not be inconsistent with the traditions of the Claudii. But although the betrothal may have been political in