Augustus

XX

LIFE AT COURT

His daily routine when he was princeps seems to have changed little over the years and was studiedly austere. His house on the Palatine, next to Livia’s house, was modestly appointed. Its substantial remains confirm Suetonius’ description of it as “remarkable neither for size nor for elegance; the courts being supported by squat columns of peperino stone, and the living-rooms innocent of marble or elaborately tessellated floors.” The building had a private side with small living spaces and some larger public staterooms.

Suetonius also remarked on the princeps’ study. “Whenever he wanted to be alone and free of interruptions, he could retreat to a study at the top of the house, which he nicknamed ‘Syracuse’ [perhaps alluding to the workroom of Archimedes, the great Syracusan mathematician and experimental scientist] or ‘my little workshop.’”

This room has been discovered and reconstructed. The walls and ceiling are painted in red, yellow, and black on a white ground. Motifs include swans, calyxes, winged griffins, candelabra, and lotus flowers. All these images were derived from the art of Alexandria, which was popular in Rome in the first century B.C., and may have reflected the impression the city made on Octavian during his visit in 30 B.C.

The princeps used the same bedroom all the year round for more than forty years. He is said to have slept on a low bed with a very ordinary coverlet. A small windowless chamber, finely decorated with frescoes featuring the comic and tragic masks of theater, survives, which may have been Augustus’ bedroom.

The couches and tables that furnished the house were preserved at least until Suetonius’ day; many of them, he wrote after examining them, “would hardly be considered fit for a private citizen.”

Like their aristocratic contemporaries, Augustus and Livia are likely to have slept apart. The princeps awoke with dawn to the sounds of a stirring household. A poor sleeper, he would often drop off during the day while he was being carried through the streets and when his litter was set down because of some delay.

Slaves bustled about cleaning the house, with buckets, ladders to reach the ceilings, poles with sponges on the ends, feather dusters, and brooms. In the days before electrification, every minute of natural daylight was precious, so Augustus did not lie in but got up at once. He wore a loincloth and undertunic in bed, so when he rose all he had to do was slip his feet into his shoes. He took care not to thrust his right foot into his left shoe, for he believed that would bring him bad luck. He probably cleaned his teeth with dentrifice, a powder made from bone, horn, or egg or shell-fish shells.

The princeps paid little attention to his hair, and when it was cut had several barbers working in a hurry at the same time. Sometimes he had his beard clipped and at other times was shaved. When at the hairdresser’s, he used to read or write.

Unless he was due to preside over a public ceremony or attend a meeting of the Senate, Augustus wore house clothes woven and sewn for him (or so it was sedulously said) by Livia and his female relatives. He felt the cold badly, and in winter protected himself with four tunics and a heavy toga above an undershirt; below that he wore a chest protector, underpants, and woolen gaiters. His shoes had thick soles to make him look taller. A change of better clothes and shoes was always at hand in case he was unexpectedly called on to appear in an official capacity.

A Roman breakfast (ientaculum) was a quick and simple affair—some cheese and olives (possibly prepared as a paste to spread on the cheese), some bread dipped in water, honey, or diluted wine. The business of the day started with a salutatio; when the doors of the house were opened a crowd of clients or dependents arrived to pay their respects. Senators often attended and were greeted with a kiss. However, anyone was admitted and was allowed to present a request. Augustus behaved in a relaxed and friendly manner; once a petitioner was in such a state of anxiety that he laughed and said: “Anyone would think you were offering a penny to an elephant!”

Once the morning reception was over, Augustus was free to work by himself in his “Syracuse,” and to hold meetings with his staff as well as with politicians.

Augustus’ and Livia’s houses witnessed a mix of personal and business life (the domus or home, and the familia Caesaris or Caesar’s household). They were far too small for administrative needs, so other neighboring buildings on the Palatine were bought up, creating a government quarter. Because the new Temple of Apollo adjoined Augustus’ house, its spaces—the cella and the Greek and Latin libraries—could be used to house official events or large meetings.

As is always the case with autocracies, a court developed—that is, not so much a place as a social group, which acted as an intermediary between the ruler and society at large. It accompanied Augustus on his travels away from Rome. Distinctions of power and influence were carefully graded and essentially expressed the degree of access a given person had to the ruler. Augustus went to a great deal of trouble to conceal the thoroughly unrepublican reality of his absolute authority, and took care to act much as any ordinary consul or other officeholder would. He was scrupulously polite to other members of the nobility, exchanging social visits with them and always attending their birthday celebrations.

A group of trusted intimates emerged, the amici Caesaris, or friends and political allies of Caesar. It was not a formal grouping, but if an amicus lost his status for any reason, this was a terrible thing. Once a consul-elect, Tedius Afer, learning that a spiteful comment of his had enraged Augustus, committed suicide by jumping from a height.

It was far more unusual for a family member to forfeit his or her place in the princeps’ circle. Their relationship to Augustus gave them a more or less permanent position; a daughter or a nephew might misbehave but remain a daughter or a nephew. As in courts throughout history, important relatives probably came to represent different political points of view, and courtiers gathered behind them in cabals as they perceived their interests to dictate. Thus we detect in 23 B.C. what may have been shadowy groupings around Octavia and Marcellus on the one hand, and Agrippa and Livia on the other. Policy, love, and friendship were often hard to disentangle.

Running the empire entailed a huge amount of complicated administrative work, much of which was performed by freedmen. These had a number of important advantages over family members and social equals: there was an inexhaustible supply of them, and, unlike aristocratic members of the ruling class, they obeyed direct orders. They had no political constituency and their fate was bound up with that of their employer. Crucially, they reported to nobody but the princeps, and so what they did was easily kept secret.

For this reason, little is known about how Augustus organized his staff. To judge by the officially designated separate departments established by later emperors, they may have been loosely arranged in groups that dealt with correspondence, with petitions, with foreign embassies and delegations, and with legal matters. There must have been an archiving function and an accounts department to manage Augustus’ vast wealth.

A few freedmen—among them Licinus and Celadus—became close friends of the princeps. When he wanted to be completely incommunicado he hid himself away in a suburban villa owned by a freedman who had been a member of his bodyguard. However, bad behavior was strictly punished; when an imperial secretary was found to have leaked the contents of a confidential letter, Augustus had his legs broken.

Augustus cultivated a simple, easy style of speaking and writing and disliked what he called the “stink of far-fetched phrases.” He conveyed his meaning as plainly and directly as possible; so, for example, he would repeat the same conjunction several times for clarity, even though the effect was awkward. Letters of his seen by Suetonius employed some rather odd expressions, perhaps deriving from his provincial childhood. For example, he liked to say “wooden-headed” ( pulleiacus) for “crazy” (cerritus), “feel flat” (vapide se habere) for “feel bad” (male se habere), and “be a beetroot” (betizare) for “be sluggish” (languere). Of a sudden or swift action, he would say it was “quicker than boiled asparagus.” He often wrote “they will pay on the Greek Kalends,” a proverbial expression meaning “never,” for the Kalends, signifying the first day of a month, were a purely Roman term. Favorite Greek maxims included “More haste, less speed” and “Give me a safe commander, not a bold one”; he liked the Latin tag “Well done is quickly done.”

Augustus wrote a number of prose works of various kinds, some of which he read aloud to close friends in the same way that professional authors used to do in lecture halls. They included an “Encouragement of Philosophy” and some volumes of autobiography (written during his illness in Spain in 24 B.C.). Augustus’ attempts at verse were few and far between. He wrote a poem in hexameters, “Sicily,” and a few epigrams, which he composed at bathtime.

People often wrote with a reed quill on sheets of papyrus, using sponges to erase text and clean the quill. When Augustus tried his hand at a tragedy about the Greek hero Ajax, who went mad and killed himself with his sword, he was dissatisfied with the result and destroyed it. When some friends asked: “What in the world has become of Ajax?” he replied: “Ajax has fallen on his sponge!”

Augustus seems to have been slightly dyslexic. Uninterested in correct spelling, as determined by grammarians, he preferred to write words as they were pronounced, and often transposed syllables and letters or omitted them. When he wrote in cipher he used the same very basic code that Julius Caesar did; he simply wrote “B” for “A,” “C” for “B,” and so on (using “AA” for the last letter of the alphabet).

The mornings of fasti (lucky) days were devoted to public business: meetings of the Senate (which, in theory at least, could last until sunset but no later), court cases, and religious ceremonies. So the princeps would often find himself out and about in central Rome.

Senior Roman officials not only commanded political authority, they also dispensed justice in the courts. Augustus attended assiduously to his legal work, often staying in court until nightfall. If he happened to be unwell, he had his litter carried to the open-air judicial tribunal in the Forum. As a judge, he was conscientious and lenient. He speeded up the legal process, striking off the lists lawsuits that were not promptly pursued. Once he tried a case of parricide, the punishment for which was being sewn up in a sack with a dog, a cockerel, a snake, and a monkey and thrown into a river or the sea. Anxious to save the guilty man from this terrible fate, he asked him: “I take it, of course, that you did not kill your father?”

When appearing in public Augustus liked to present himself as being no more important than any other leading senator. He did his best to avoid leaving or entering Rome in daylight hours because that would have compelled the authorities to give him a formal welcome or send-off. When he was serving as consul, it was inevitable that he was seen in public as he moved from Senate meeting to law court to temple ceremony and sacrifice. He usually walked from one engagement to another through the streets of Rome, although sometimes he was carried about in a closed litter.

Although Augustus was perfectly capable of speaking extempore in public, he was always afraid of saying too much, or too little. So he not only carefully drafted his speeches to the Senate and read them out from a manuscript, but he also wrote down in advance any important statement he planned to make to an individual, and even to Livia (it says something of her own clerical tidy-mindedness that she kept and filed all Augustus’ written communications with her).

Most Romans had lunch, a snack much like breakfast, about midday, but Augustus seldom observed regular mealtimes, eating as and when he felt hungry. “I had some bread and dates while out for my drive today,” he noted in a letter, and informed another correspondent: “On the way back in my litter from the Regia [the “Palace,” a tiny and ancient building in the Forum, the official headquarters of the pontifex maximus], I munched an ounce of bread and a few hard-skinned grapes.”

He was a light eater and preferred plain food to gourmet dishes. He especially liked coarse bread. This was made of crushed or ground wheat (if the latter, it often contained bits of grit from the stone mill, which could grind down the eater’s teeth), and could be cooked without leaven or kneading. The resulting loaf was as hard as rock. Other favorite foods were small fishes, hand-pressed moist cheese (probably like today’s Italian ricotta), and green figs.

Augustus drank little alcohol. His limit was a pint of wine-and-water (ancient wine was strong and rich and was almost always diluted); and if he went beyond that he made himself vomit it up. He seldom touched wine before the main meal of the day. Instead he would quench his thirst with a piece of bread dunked in water; or a slice of cucumber or a lettuce heart; or a sour apple, either fresh or dried.

In the afternoon the princeps could enjoy some leisure. He used to lie down for a while without taking his clothes or shoes off. He had a blanket spread over him, but left his feet uncovered.

Augustus had learned to pamper his health. He suffered from various minor conditions. Sometimes the forefinger of his right hand became so weak when it was numb and shrunken with the cold that he could hardly write, even when wearing a horn finger-brace. For some years he suffered from bladder pains, but these disappeared after he passed gravel in his urine. He could not tolerate sunlight even in winter; so he always wore a broad-brimmed hat when he was outdoors.

Some seasonal ailments recurred—an expanded diaphragm in early spring and when the sirocco blew, catarrh. He found it hard to endure extremes of heat and cold. He became rheumatic and took the waters at some sulfur springs between Rome and Tibur (today’s Tivoli).

Medical practitioners could do little to cure most disorders, so sensible doctors concentrated their energy on preventive medicine. Celsus advised moderate exercise and cautioned against excess in eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse. Although the last activity may be counted as an exception, it would appear that Augustus adopted this kind of regimen.

“He who has been engaged during the day, whether in domestic or public affairs,” wrote Celsus, “ought to keep some portion of the day for the care of the body.” During the civil wars Augustus took exercise by riding and fencing on the Campus Martius. With the arrival of peace, he used to play catch with two companions, or handball with groups. He soon gave this up and confined himself to riding, or taking a walk at the end of which he would work up a sweat by wrapping himself in a cloak or blanket and sprinting or jumping. Sometimes he went fishing.

On other occasions, especially when the weather was bad, he played dice or marbles with deliciae. Augustus was always on the lookout for little boys with pretty faces and cheerful chatter, and he loathed people who were dwarfish or disabled, seeing them as freaks of nature and harbingers of misfortune.

Romans usually took a bath in the afternoon, after exercise and before the main meal of the day, either in their own bathhouse at home if they were rich enough to afford one, or at the public baths, such as Agrippa’s splendid new Thermae. Once again, Augustus’ watchword was moderation in everything. He did not have a full bath too often, and instead was given a rubdown with oil or took a sweat by the fire after which he was doused with water that had been either warmed or allowed to stand in the sun to remove its chill.

Livia awoke at about the same time as her husband and their respective days ran along broadly parallel lines, only intersecting from time to time. In bed she will have been wearing a loincloth, a brassiere or a corset, and a tunic reaching to a little below the knee. When she got up she stepped into some shoes and put on a finely made stola or long tunic. Above this she could drape a wrap or mantle (amictus).

Fashionable women preferred cotton from India (available since the Parthian entente with Rome) to linen or wool, or silk imported mysteriously from the distant undiscovered Orient. White and black were popular, as well as bright colors such as purple, yellow, and blue. Scarves could be worn, tied at the neck; a mappa, or kerchief, dangling from an arm could be used to wipe dust or perspiration from the face.

According to the poet Ovid, Livia was too busy to devote much attention to her appearance.

Don’t suppose you’ll ever catch her

Completely at leisure; she’s scarcely time for her own

Toilet.

However, as a great lady, she was expected to meet a certain standard. She employed numerous dressers (ornatrices) as well as staff to look after her wardrobe. One person was responsible for tending her ceremonial garments and accessories. A calciator made her shoes. A masseuse (unctrix) helped keep her physically in good shape.

Livia was in overall charge of the family’s clothes, but that she personally spent much time at the loom or with the needle may be doubted. Otherwise how were members of staff designated as wool weighers (lanipendi) and sewing men and sewing women (sarcinatores and sarcinatrices) meant to be spending their time? The sculpted busts of Livia that survive show her wearing no jewelry and, despite the fact that she used the services of a margaritarius, a pearl setter, it may be that she dressed conservatively and liked to be, in Horace’s famous phrase, “simplex munditiis” or “simple in her elegance.”

Like her husband, Livia would not have washed first thing in the morning; however, her hair needed to be dressed. This could take some time and she will have made use of an ornatrix. The fashionable hairstyle of wealthy women of Livia’s day had the hair drawn forward from the middle of the head, and then pulled back up into a topknot. On the sides, the hair was taken back in plaits to behind the head. Stray wisps of hair might fall over the forehead and down the nape of the neck.

Roman women used cosmetics, and we may suppose that Livia was no exception. Creams, perfumes, and unguents were widely sold. Makeup for the face consisted of a grease base, often lanolin from unwashed sheep’s wool, mixed on small plates with various colored substances—ocher or dried wine lees for rouge; black from ash or powdered antimony for the eyebrows and around the eyes. Chalk and, dangerously, white lead were applied to the face and arms.

Livia had a robust constitution. Like her husband, she ate sensibly. Late in her life she attributed her good health to the wine she habitually drank; this was a highly select vintage from Pucinum, a rocky promontory in the Gulf of Trieste where a small castellum used to stand (and nowadays the Castle of Duino).

Drinking wine was not Livia’s only prescription for longevity. She produced recipes for various ailments, some of which have survived. One of these was for inflammation of the throat and was a concoction of opium, anise, aromatic rush, red cassia, coriander, saffron, cinnamon, and other herbs mixed with Attic honey. Another promised to relieve nervous tensions and included fenugreek, Falernian wine, olive oil, marjoram, and rosemary. This was cooked and strained and mixed with half a pound of wax. It was to be rubbed gently into the body.

Livia’s interest in homemade medicines, employed (it may be guessed) on reluctant relatives and members of her household, could well have contributed to the reputation as a poisoner that she acquired after Marcellus’ death.

How exactly Livia passed her time received little attention from contemporary historians. Although a Roman upper-class woman was free to go out, attend public entertainments, visit temples, and play an active role in high society, she was not expected to have a public career; rather, she was to pursue a vocation of looking after her husband and children. She ran the household while her spouse entered politics, fought wars, and governed provinces. In his absence, she would make sure that all was well on his estates and with his finances. Even more important, she would tend the family’s political connections and, when necessary, pull strings behind the scenes.

Provided she adhered to the rules, an intelligent Roman woman like Livia would have little difficulty in bending them to her purposes. She was well advised to take account of two models of feminine behavior, one to admire and the other to avoid. In the first category was Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi brothers, reformers who lost their lives in struggles with the Senate in the second century B.C. Once, when another woman who was a guest in her house showed off her jewelry, the finest in existence at that time, Cornelia kept her in talk until her children came home from school, and then said: “Here are my jewels.” When the boys were grown, she helped them in their political careers, and she bore their loss “with a noble and undaunted spirit.”

The alternative paradigm illustrated the grave danger a woman faced if she tried to play too active a part in a man’s world. In the following century, a certain Sempronia, mother of Caesar’s assassin Decimus Junius Brutus, associated herself with the radical politician Lucius Sergius Catilina.

Among their number [women who joined Catilina] was Sempronia, a woman who had committed many crimes that showed her to have the reckless daring of a man. Fortune had favored her abundantly, not only with birth and beauty, but with a good husband and children. Well educated in Greek and Roman literature, she had greater skill in lyre-playing and dancing than there is any need for a respectable woman to acquire, besides many accomplishments such as minister to dissipation. There was nothing that she set a smaller value on than seemliness and chastity, and she was as careless of her reputation as she was of her money.

This is a nearly contemporary assessment of a woman as able and attractive (it would appear) as Cornelia. Lubricity does not sit easily with the roll call of her good qualities, and her sexual history, whatever it may really have been, was evidently a metaphor for political impropriety. Sempronia had stepped out of line and so her personal character had to be blackened.

Livia had no intention of making the same mistake. She kept a low profile, which won her much respect. She took care not to meddle in what her husband saw as his business and turned a blind eye to his sexual liaisons (not a word was ever whispered impugning her chastity). She was completely discreet and kept silent about all she knew. The princeps, for his part, respected her intelligence and often consulted her. It is a mark of his respect and affection, we can assume, that he did not divorce her and find another wife who might have borne him a son. Many of his contemporaries would have done precisely that.

Tacitus saw Livia as a feminine bully who controlled her husband, but she is said to have believed that she had no real power over Augustus and that she exerted influence only because she was always willing to give way to his wishes. A number of recorded occasions illustrate Augustus’ readiness to refuse her requests, but he may have followed her recommendations at other times. It seems most likely that he treated her as he did other senior officials in whom he had confidence; like any chief executive of a large organization, he would expect his advisers to make sure that their advice was consistent with his overall policies and, if it was, he would be inclined to accept it.

Livia’s morning was devoted to handling domestic matters and supervising her substantial business interests. After lunch she took a bath, and it was now that the greatest amount of time and attention will have been given to her toilette. If guests were coming to dinner, she would need to look her best.

The Roman year was punctuated by holidays during which lavish public entertainments were staged. Augustus was aware that these shows—especially the munera, the gladiatorial displays—were important for the ongoing popularity of the regime.

The munera were extraordinarily expensive even for the princeps’ deep pockets and he usually limited funding to two regular seasons, lasting between six to ten days in December and up to four in March. Most of the year’s numerous other feast days were devoted to the very popular chariot races at the Circus Maximus and to drama and dance spectaculars at various theaters in the city, including the one dedicated to the memory of Marcellus.

The Circus Maximus (which was used for gladiatorial displays as well as the races) was overlooked by the steep slope of the Palatine Hill. Augustus had a habit of watching shows from the upper rooms of houses on the Palatine that belonged to friends or his freedmen. Occasionally he sat in the pulvinar, a roofed platform at the Circus on which a couch carrying images of the gods was placed and which was used as a box by him and members of his family.

Augustus did not always arrive at the beginning of the games or even for the first day or so, but he always presented his excuses and appointed a substitute “president.” He did not repeat Julius Caesar’s mistake of reading papers and dictating replies during performances, a habit much disliked by the crowd. He watched intently “to enjoy the fun, as he frankly admitted to doing.” Augustus’ favorite sport was boxing; in the professional game he liked to pit Italians against Greeks, but he also had a taste for slogging matches between untrained roughs in narrow street alleys.

The princeps took a friendly interest in professional entertainers of all kinds and got to know some of them personally. However, there were limits of propriety on which he insisted; he banned gladiatorial contests sine missione, that is where a defeated fighter could not be reprieved and so had to be killed by his opponent. Augustus wanted to see bravery, but disliked pointless bloodshed. He also severely punished actors and other stage performers for licentious behavior. Women were not allowed to watch athletic contests (competitors did not wear clothes), and Augustus barred them from sitting alongside men at other entertainments; they were banished to the back rows.

The picture of virtue, industry, and economy does not tell the complete truth. Away from Rome and out of the public view, Augustus and his family lived in grand and extravagant style. Suetonius claims that his country houses were “modest enough”; he cannot have visited the rocky island of Pandateria (today’s Ventotene) thirty miles or so west of Naples, where the princeps built a palace, now undergoing a major excavation.

The island’s longer axis lies north–south and runs a little more than one and a half miles. All we know of Pandateria in antiquity is that it was plagued with field mice, which nibbled the sprawling grapes. It has no springs or rivers and large cisterns were built to collect rainwater. A small port was constructed, cut into the tufa, for landing building materials, food, wine, and other supplies. In the north, the island narrows and rises to a small plateau (where today’s cemetery stands). Here lie the remains of a building with many rooms, which were probably reserved for servants, slaves, and guards. The ground then dips and narrows into a small valley, where fountains played and a colonnaded portico with seats created a pleasant spot for conversation. A steep stairway led down to a small quay, giving family members and their guests private access to the villa.

Finally, the main house was reached by walking up from the valley to where it perched on a rocky promontory overlooking steep cliffs. The building was shaped like a horseshoe with a garden in the middle; it contained dining rooms, a bathing complex, and other living spaces. At the tip of the promontory, a viewing platform offered an uninterrupted panorama of sky and sea.

Here was secret splendor, where the princeps could entertain his intimate circle in undisturbed privacy. This was as it needed to be, for some of his friends were disreputable, not the kind of people with whom he should be seen in public. His dear Maecenas was a sybarite, but a civilized and able man. The same could not be said of the son of a wealthy freeman, the unappetizing Publius Vedius Pollio, who apparently helped establish a taxation system in the province of Asia after Actium. On one occasion Vedius went too far, even for his august friend.

Vedius had tanks where he kept giant eels that had been trained to devour men, and he was in the habit of throwing to them slaves who had incurred his displeasure. Once, when he was entertaining Augustus at dinner, a waiter broke a valuable crystal goblet. Paying no attention to his guest, the infuriated Vedius ordered the slave to be thrown to the eels. The boy fell on his knees in front of the princeps, begging for protection. Augustus tried to persuade Vedius to change his mind. When Vedius paid no attention, he said: “Bring all your other drinking vessels like this one, or any others of value that you possess for me to use.”

When they were brought, he ordered all of them to be smashed. Vedius could not punish a servant for an offense that Augustus had repeated, and the waiter was pardoned.

Despite his public endorsement of strict private morals, Augustus apparently led (as already noted) a various and vigorous sex life. It was common knowledge, according to Ovid, that his house

though refulgent with portraits

of antique heroes, also contains, somewhere,

a little picture depicting the various sexual positions

and modes.

Mark Antony once accused Augustus of dragging a former consul’s wife from her husband’s dining room into the bedroom—according to the startled Suetonius, “before his eyes, too!” Friends, among them a slave dealer called Toranius, used to arrange his pleasures for him, stripping women of their clothes so that they could be inspected as if they were slaves up for sale. Even as an elderly man Augustus is said “still to have harboured a passion for deflowering girls, who were collected for him from every quarter, even by his wife!”

The great attract gossip, and it is not mandatory to believe these saucy tales. However, it is worth noting that, according to the sexual mores of upper-class Romans, there was nothing especially out of the ordinary about the behavior attributed to the princeps (consider, at a lower social level, Horace’s unabashed confessions). Antony launched his accusation only because he was on the defensive about Cleopatra. Augustus’ sexual rapacity seems to have been a matter of common report throughout his life.

After exercising and bathing, Augustus and Livia approached the high point of the day, the cena or main meal. This started at about three in the afternoon and was an important means by which Romans socialized. It was not exclusively a family affair and guests were often invited. Clubs and societies of every kind held regular feasts, and leading aristocrats invited one another to an annual cena.

Dinner parties took place in the triclinium. This was a dining room furnished with three communal couches, which were covered by mattresses and arranged along three sides of the room with a table in the center (for larger gatherings the triple-couch layout was simply repeated). There were also tables for drinks. Up to three diners per couch reclined alongside one another, like sardines, with their heads nearest the table and their left elbows propped on cushions. Lying down to eat was a highly prized luxury; when Cato vowed to eat his meals upright as long as Julius Caesar’s tyranny lasted, he was felt to be making a real sacrifice. Women sat on chairs, although it was becoming fashionable for them to recline with the men. If allowed to be present, children used stools in front of their fathers’ places.

An advisory inscription on the wall of a house at Pompeii from the first century A.D. gives a good idea of how lively these social events could be:

Do not cast lustful glances or make eyes at another man’s wife.

Do not be coarse in your conversation.

Restrain yourself from getting angry or using offensive language. If you cannot do so, then go home.

Augustus gave frequent dinner parties, but in his case there was no need for instructions of this kind. These were rather elaborate occasions and great attention was paid both to social precedence and to achieving a good balance of personalities on the guest list. Usually not greatly interested in eating, the princeps would often arrive late and leave early, letting his guests start and finish without him.

An usher (nomenclator) announced the diners as they entered. Their hands and feet were washed before they were shown to their places. They were provided with knives, spoons, and toothpicks, as well as napkins. Forks had not yet been invented as tools to eat with; guests helped themselves to food with their hands. Waiters brought in dishes and bowls and laid them on the table. Debris, such as shells and bones, was dropped onto the floor and swept up.

The meal opened with the gustatio, tasting, during which appetizers were served—various pulses, cabbage in vinegar, pickled fruit and vegetables, strongly spiced mashes of shrubs and weeds such as nettle, sorrel, and elder, and snails, clams, and small fish. A fashionable delicacy was stuffed and roast dormice. A wine-and-honey mixture accompanied the gustatio.

The main course consisted of a variety of meat dishes; favorites included wild boar, turbot, chicken, and sows’ udders. Fifty ways of dressing pork were known. There were no side dishes, but bread rolls were available. A sauce called garum or liquamen was added to almost everything. Garum was made from slowly decomposed mackerel intestines; its closest (if distant) modern equivalents are Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Finally, dessert consisted of fruit, nuts, and cakes soaked in honey.

Wines were served with the food, but the serious drinking began only when the meal was over. Sometimes people drank at will, but the commissatio, a kind of ceremonial drinking match in which cups were drained at a single draught, was a more organized method of inebriation. A master of ceremonies, the rex bibendi (literally, “king of what is to be drunk”), would be appointed on the throw of a dice. The rex bibendi was in charge of mixing the wine and setting the number of toasts which everyone had to drink.

Conversation flowed, and Augustus was an excellent and welcoming host with a talent for drawing out shy guests. He often enlivened his cenae with performances by musicians and actors or circus artistes and storytellers. Sometimes he would auction tickets for prizes of unequal value or paintings with their faces turned to the wall. Guests were required to take pot luck and bid blindly.

Most Romans went to bed early, but the princeps’ day was not yet done. After dinner was over, probably about sunset (some less reputable cenae went on deep into the night), he withdrew to a couch in his study. There he worked until he had attended to all the remaining business of the day, or most of it—reading dispatches, dictating correspondence to secretaries, and giving instructions.

Augustus was usually in bed by eleven and slept seven hours at the outside. A light sleeper, he woke up three or four times in the night. He often found it hard to drop off again and sent for readers or storytellers. He loathed lying awake in the dark without anyone sitting with him.

At last, the ruler of the known world drifted into sleep.

Photo Insert

THE ROMAN FORUM AS IT WAS TOWARD THE END OF AUGUSTUS’ LIFE

A. Tabularium, or archive.

B. Temple of Concord.

C. Temple of Saturn, where the Treasury was based.

D. Basilica Julia, a shopping and conference center.

E. The Rostra, or speakers’ platform.

F. Temple of Castor and Pollux.

G. Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar, built on the site of his cremation.

H. Temple of Vesta, where the Vestal Virgins tended an eternal flame. Here leading Romans could deposit their wills.

I. The Regia, headquarters of the Pontifex Maximus.

J. Basilica Aemilia, a shopping and conference center.

K. Curia Julia, the new Senate House commissioned by Julius Caesar.

L. Forum of Julius Caesar, completed in the dictator’s lifetime.

M. Temple of Venus Genetrix (Venus, the Mother or Ancestress of the Julian clan; here Caesar placed a gold statue of Cleopatra).

N. Forum of Augustus, which the princeps dedicated together with the

O. Temple of Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger) in 2 B.C.

The Palatine Hill today, where ruins mingle with trees, as seen from the Roman Forum. This was where the rich and the fashionable lived in the first century B.C. Augustus and Livia both had houses there and offices for their staff. Under the empire, the hill became a government quarter and the official residence of the emperors (from Palatine comes the word palace).

Julius Caesar’s intelligence and quickness of mind are well conveyed in this green basanite bust with inlaid marble eyes, carved about fifty years after his assassination in 44 B.C.

A fine bust of Mark Antony in green basalt. Found at Canopus, a suburb of ancient Alexandria, it offers not the bluff, hard-drinking soldier, but a reflective and high-minded ruler—the kind of man that Cleopatra would perhaps have preferred him to be rather than the one he actually was.

Sextus Pompeius, Pompey the Great’s younger son, posed a serious threat to Octavian. His melancholy expression and his beard and mustache, which Romans only grew to mark some tragic event or personal misfortune, suggest that this portrait in bronze was completed after Sextus’ defeat at Naulochus in 36 B.C. and subsequent death.

A Roman warship with soldiers on board. This marble relief dates from the 30s B.C., and the crocodile by the prow suggests a reference to the sea campaign against Cleopatra that culminated in Actium.

Alexandria as it appeared in ancient times. The view is of Canopic Way, one of the city’s main avenues. In the foreground is the crossroads near which stood the tomb of Alexander the Great. In the distance the Heptastadion can be seen, the great causeway that led to the island of Pharos and created the city’s two harbors.

Cleopatra, a portrait in marble probably made in Italy when she was a young woman. It conveys something of the charm of her personality, which captivated Julius Caesar.

Augustus’ much-loved sister Octavia. A kindly woman, she brought up Mark Antony’s children, including those he had by Cleopatra. She never recovered from the death of her twenty-year-old son, Marcellus, in 23 B.C. The marble bust dates from about 40 B.C.

Augustus’ wife, Livia, in middle age. This study, made in her lifetime, evokes an efficient woman of affairs, discreet but decisive.

Augustus and Agrippa at the height of their powers. These marble busts were carved in the 20s B.C. They are realistic character studies that illustrate the two men’s different personalities—the one astute and calculating and the other energetic and determined.

The tall man in the center of this relief has been identified as Agrippa. His head is veiled in his capacity as a priest attending a ritual sacrifice. In front of him walk two religious officials, the flamines diales, with their pointed hats, and a lictor, or ceremonial guard, carrying the fasces, an ax inside a bundle of rods. The little boy holding onto his toga may be either his son Gaius or Lucius. The boy is looking back toward his mother, Julia. The man walking behind her is probably Mark Antony’s son Iullus Antonius, later to become Julia’s lover. The stone carving comes from the Ara Pacis Augustae, or Altar of Augustan Peace. Inspired by the friezes on the Parthenon, it was dedicated in 9 B.C.

A contemporary portrait of Tiberius as a young man setting out on a distinguished career as soldier and public servant.

Young Gaius Caesar, Agrippa’s son by Augustus’ daughter Julia, whom the princeps adopted and groomed as his successor. The marble bust dates from about the time of his consulship in 1 B.C. or during his eastern mission.

Agrippa’s last son, Agrippa Postumus, born after his father’s premature death in 12 B.C. The contemporary sculptor has captured a sense of danger and intensity in his youthful subject.

This onyx cameo, the Gemma Augustea, is an example of mendacious art at its finest. Made in A.D. 10 the seventy-three-year-old princeps is presented as a half-naked youth. He is seated next to a personification of Rome, beside whom stands Augustus’ grandson Germanicus. On the left Tiberius alights from a chariot. Beneath is a scene of defeated and humbled barbarians. The overall impression is of serenity and success. In fact, the mood at Rome was nervous and gloomy, for Augustus was just recovering from the greatest threat to his authority during his long reign, the loss of three legions destroyed in an ambush in Germany the previous year.

A fresco of an actor’s mask from a room in Augustus’ house on the Palatine Hill, which may have been his bedroom. The princeps enjoyed theater and, to judge by his last words, saw himself as a performer. He asked the people around his bedside: “Have I played my part in the farce of life well enough?”

This image of Augustus is a majestic statement in stone of his imperium and auctoritas, his power and authority. Probably made in A.D. 15, the year after his death, it shows him as a beautiful young man, whose ageless features combine aspects of his actual appearance and the classic lineaments of the god Apollo, Augustus’ favorite in the Olympian pantheon. Found at his wife Livia’s villa at Prima Porta outside Rome.