Augustus

XXIV

THE BITTER END

A.D. 4–14

Competent generals had asserted Roman dominion. One of them marched an army north from the Danube up to the river Elbe, on the far side of which he erected an altar dedicated to Augustus as a symbol of imperial power; he took care, however, to winter his troops on the Rhine. But while the lands between the Rhine and the Elbe were increasingly dependent on Rome, what the Romans called Germania was by no means entirely pacified.

Tiberius had last commanded an army in 8 B.C., the year after Drusus’ death. In A.D. 4, when he was forty-six, he picked up where the two young brothers had left off all those years ago. His aim was to complete the imperial strategy. A powerful and hostile tribe, the Marcomanni, occupied land near the heads of the Elbe and the Danube (in modern Bohemia). It was essential to defeat them and take control of their territory. Then at last Rome would have a secure frontier running without interruption from the North Sea to the Black Sea. A synchronized pincer movement was devised for the culminating campaign of A.D. 6. The army of the Rhine was to advance from the river Main to Nuremberg and the army of Illyricum would move north under Tiberius’ personal command.

Brilliantly conceived and brilliantly executed, the plan saw the two armies within a few days of converging on the Marcomanni, when news came of a great revolt in Dalmatia and Pannonia. Tiberius immediately came to terms with the king of the Marcomanni and rushed off to Pannonia, where he was to spend the next three years fighting the rebels.

He was replaced in Germania by his fellow consul of 13 B.C., a competent but lackluster administrator named Publius Quinctilius Varus. The new proconsul believed that Tiberius’ victories had silenced all opposition; he saw his task as the transformation of a defeated territory into a Roman province.

Back at Rome, the elderly princeps went on governing. In A.D. 4, he conducted a census, to register citizens and their property. The purpose was to revise taxation indebtedness, doubtless upward. However, in light of the uneasy public mood he applied the findings of the census only to those who owned property in Italy worth more than 200,000 sesterces.

The terms of military service were reformed: new recruits were now required to serve twenty years rather than the former sixteen; the cash gratuity at the end of a soldier’s service was set at twelve thousand sesterces, the equivalent of fourteen years’ pay. Centurions were rewarded at a much higher rate and could become wealthy men. The cost of these gratuities was becoming hard to bear and in A.D. 6 Augustus established an aerarium militare, or military exchequer, which arranged for the payment of gratuities (the state treasury continued to maintain the standing legions). It was financed, unpopularly, by a death duty and a tax on the proceeds of public auctions. Providing in this way for retired soldiers was a wise move, for it cut the personal link between a general and his men, who in the days of the Republic expected him to guarantee their future.

In A.D. 9 the princeps responded to agitation to repeal the law concerning unmarried and childless individuals by consolidating his moral legislation with the lex Papia Poppaea.^* The previous laws were confirmed, but some concessions were made. Married people without children were no longer treated as unmarried in the matter of inheritance. Childless widows and divorced women were given a longer period of grace—two years and eighteen months, respectively—before they were required to remarry. Men debarred from receiving legacies because they were unmarried were granted some time after being named in a will to marry.

The news of the Pannonian revolt, which had brought Tiberius’ German campaign to an untimely halt, deeply shocked Augustus and the Roman establishment. It was reported (perhaps with a touch of exaggeration) that the Pannonians had more than two hundred thousand infantry and nine thousand cavalry in arms. Velleius points out that the Pannonians were well-trained soldiers: “The Pannonians possessed not only a knowledge of Roman discipline but also of the Roman tongue, many also had some measure of literary culture, and the exercise of the intellect was not uncommon among them.”

The rebel forces overwhelmed Macedonia with fire and the sword. Roman traders were massacred. The princeps reported to the Senate that Italy was at risk of invasion. He moved for a time to Ariminum (today’s Rimini), to be closer to the theater of war and able to advise on developments.

Fresh from Germania, Tiberius did not have enough troops to quell the Pannonians decisively, but was able to make a stand with five legions. More legions were urgently summoned from the eastern provinces, but it would take them some time to reach the scene. The citizenry of Italy, in these uneasy times, refused to flock to the legionary standards, and Augustus raised levies from among the slaves of the wealthy, who were given their freedom when they enlisted. This was a bitter expedient, for throughout Rome’s history, the recruitment of slaves had been a last, shameful resort.

Eventually the reinforcements from the east arrived, and Tiberius now mustered an army of a hundred thousand men. In A.D. 7 he launched a tough, brutal two-year campaign. He avoided pitched battles, preferring to divide his forces into separate columns and occupying all points of importance. Everywhere the legions devastated the countryside, while maintaining their own supply lines, and subdued the enemy by starving it.

Augustus wrote to his collega imperii in flattering terms: “Your summer campaigns, dear Tiberius, deserve my heartiest praise; I am sure that no other man alive could have conducted them more capably than yourself in the face of so many difficulties and the war-weariness of the troops.” These generous words, however, concealed anxiety. The public mood was discontented, and Dio claims that the princeps believed Tiberius was marking time in order to remain under arms for as long as possible. His suspicion was that Tiberius wanted to strengthen his political position by building the army’s personal loyalty to him.

If Augustus did believe this, he was surely mistaken; Tiberius had his hands full in what was widely held to be Rome’s most dangerous war since that against Hannibal and the Carthaginians two centuries before. Whatever his reason (one senses a loss of nerve), the princeps sent the twenty-two-year-old Germanicus, quaestor in A.D. 7, with the levies of liberated slaves to join an irritated Tiberius, who said he had plenty of soldiers now, and sent some of the newcomers back.

By A.D. 8 the Pannonians had been vanquished; now that they had come to terms, the following year was devoted to dealing with the less problematic Dalmatians. The fighting was bitter and scrappy. Eventually the rebels accepted defeat and surrendered.

There is no doubt that Tiberius was a general of a very high order. He was a good strategist, a most efficient organizer, and well-liked by his troops; the empire was lucky to have him. He traveled back to Rome for victory celebrations, but the promised triumphs were never held, for within a few days, dispatches arrived from Germany, bearing disastrous tidings.

It was September and rain was falling. The territory west of the river Weser through which the Romans marched was a mix of wetlands, woods, and fields. Oak mingled with birch, beech, and alder. In the forest’s densest parts there was little direct light and the pathways were narrow. In other places the soldiers passed cultivated fields and meadows with the occasional farmhouse or barn.

A Roman army on the march was an impressive sight. On this occasion the XVIIth, XVIIIth, and XIXth legions (about fifteen thousand men) were advancing through the countryside in column of route. In addition, there were archers, light-armed scouts, and cavalry, as well as artillery and baggage trains. At the head of this magnificent force was the proconsul Publius Quinctilius Varus.

His policy was to transform vanquished Germania into a Roman province as expeditiously as he could. That meant building roads and towns, encouraging trade, and introducing the tribespeople to Roman law. It appears that the Romans also levied taxes. Many of the legionaries were distributed in small detachments to local German communities that had asked for protection against outlaws and guards for supply columns. As Varus saw it, the army was there on a policing rather than a military mission.

In fact, the Romans were regarded as unwanted occupiers and a plot was formed to entrap and destroy the legions. The ringleader was a young Germanic chieftain, known to us only by his Romanized name of Arminius. In his late twenties, he understood the Romans and their war methods well, for he had served in the Roman army, probably in Pannonia. He had obviously made a good impression, for he received Roman citizenship and was appointed an eques. He was on Varus’ staff and was constantly in his company.

Arminius’ idea was not to rise in open rebellion, for he knew that a German horde would be unlikely to defeat the Romans in open battle. Instead, he intended to lure Varus away from the Rhine by sending him false reports of an uprising. Arminius would then lay an ambush for the Romans in what was supposed to be friendly country.

The plot was betrayed, but Varus could not bring himself to distrust his friendly Germans. Believing in Arminius’ honesty, he took the bait, gathered his scattered forces, and marched off to put down the supposed rebellion. The conspirators, purporting to be loyalists, rode with the legions for a time, but then one by one made their excuses and slipped away.

Arminius had chosen the location for the ambush with great care. Archaeologists have discovered the site (at Kalkriese in Lower Saxony) and have unearthed the detritus of a battle. A level pathway led through woods, running between a steep hill and a great bog. Along the hillside the Germans built a camouflaged turf rampart at least seven hundred yards long, where the ambushers could lie in wait for the enemy, out of sight and out of mind. When the Roman column arrived, Arminius’ men launched volleys of spears from behind the turf rampart and then charged. They achieved total surprise.

What happened next is uncertain, but, despite many casualties, a good number of legionaries and most of the officer corps survived and pushed on, under constant attack, passing through open country and then plunging into woods again.

On the third day after the ambush, the situation became hopeless and Varus and his staff realized that there was no escape. Even if it meant leaving their remaining soldiers leaderless, they agreed that there was only one honorable course of action. They nerved their courage for the “dreaded but unavoidable act” and committed suicide, running themselves through with their swords.

It was now every man for himself. Some soldiers followed Varus’ example; others simply lost heart, dropped their weapons, and allowed themselves to be slaughtered by the enemy.

Of the three legions’ fifteen thousand men, few survived to tell the tale. The Germans took about fifteen hundred prisoners, of whom two thirds were sold into slavery; a number of them eventually won their freedom and made their way back to Italy. The remainder were sacrificed as religious offerings. They were put to death in different ways; some had their throats cut, while others were hanged from trees, crucified, or buried alive. The German gods appreciated variety. Victims’ heads were nailed to trees in the forest as a warning to any intending invasion in the future. Once they had exacted their punishments and removed their dead, the Germans left the scenes of battle as they were, for time and nature slowly to restore and conceal.

News that something terrible had happened percolated through the region, and all but one of the Roman fortresses on the eastern side of the Rhine were hastily evacuated. The “province” of Germania was lost.

Augustus was in his early seventies. He had been working at full stretch for fifty years and the last decade had been crammed with personal disappointment and political trouble. He no longer dealt with individual petitions, although with the help of assistants he still investigated legal suits and passed judgment, seated on a tribunal at his headquarters on the Palatine Hill. He gave up attending Senate meetings or people’s assemblies, and entrusted the reception of foreign delegations to a trio of former consuls.

Like the outbreak of the Pannonian rebellion, the Varus disaster (in Latin, Variana clades) seemed to make the princeps briefly panic. He tore his clothes, as was the Roman custom when a man was facing shame and catastrophe, and did not shave for months. He was so upset that he would beat his head against a door, crying out: “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!” He kept the anniversary as a day of deep mourning.

A record survives of an aged diva being brought back to the stage in A.D. 9 during celebrations to congratulate the princeps on “his recovery”; this reveals that he had been ill, although we know nothing about the nature of his condition or its gravity. It could have been a reaction to the loss of his legions.

Augustus sent Tiberius to take over the Rhine command, to counter any German invasion of Gaul or even Italy, and to demonstrate that Rome’s military power was undiminished. At home he feared a popular uprising and sent military patrols around the city at night. Not trusting the Germans in his bodyguard, he sent them to various islands; he also deported the large Gallic and German community from the city. The terms of service of provincial governors were extended so that experienced men were in place to cope with any trouble.

The emergency exposed a serious potential weakness of Augustus’ military strategy. Ever since his victory over Antony and Cleopatra, he had set the empire’s military strength at twenty-eight legions, but this was only just sufficient to man the frontiers. There were no soldiers left over to form a mobile field army that could move quickly to a crisis point.

But the emergency soon passed. Arminius did not invade Gaul; Rome and the provinces remained tranquil. The indispensable Tiberius did what was required on the northeastern frontier, where he campaigned for three more years. However, he made no attempt to recover Germania as a Roman province, and the empire was never again to reach beyond the Rhine.

Had the regime really been at risk? Augustus’ alarm reflected an innate caution. But also, for all the sonorous rhetoric about the restored Republic, his power essentially depended not on constitutional legality but on the support of the army and the people. If that was withdrawn, his day would soon be done. And imperial success was essential to the regime’s popularity; indeed, the only event likely to shake the loyalty of either constituency was a major military defeat.

So it was reasonable to predict that the loss of three legions would entail serious political consequences. That it did not do so may owe something to the security measures that the princeps took, but is better seen as evidence that Augustus’ constitutional settlement was firmly established. No oppositional grouping existed that was ready and able to exploit the situation.

For all that, the Variana clades was a real and substantial setback, which provoked a strategic review behind closed doors on the Palatine. The aggressive plan to settle Germania up to the Elbe, which we may guess Agrippa and Augustus to have devised twenty years previously, was revoked. From now on the Rhine was to be the permanent boundary between Romanized Gaul and the barbarians of central Europe.

The change was rational, based on close observation of the realities in both Rome and Germany. Arminius’ failure to exploit his victory suggested that the Germans no longer presented a serious threat to the stability of Gaul, if they ever really had. As always, they were unable to combine in an alliance for any length of time. It simply was not worth going to the trouble and expense of reinstalling the province of Germania. Reconnoitering and occasional punitive expeditions would be enough to ward off any risk of attack.

In A.D. 12, the twenty-seven-year-old Germanicus held the consulship, but if there were expectations of a return to optimism they were disappointed. Although he was busy in the law courts, he achieved nothing of importance.

Augustus wrote a letter commending Germanicus to the Senate, and the Senate to Tiberius. His physical energy was waning and he did not read it out himself, for he could not make himself heard, but instead handed the document to Germanicus to read. Taking the war in Germany (now drawing to a close) as his excuse, he asked senators to forgo attending the morning salutatio at his house on the Palatine Hill, and not to feel offended if he no longer attended public banquets.

Natural disaster struck again: the Tiber burst its banks and the Circus Maximus was flooded. For the first time we hear of seditious literature being burned and the authors punished. Probably in this year, a well-known advocate in the courts, Cassius Severus, was banished to Crete for having “blackened the characters of men and women of the highest status by licentious writings.” The princeps had not been the target, but, also for the first time, this kind of offense was dealt with under the treason law. Also, the Senate burned the “republicanist” writings of a historian, who committed suicide.

These reactionary moves strike a new, disturbing note, for one of the regime’s more attractive traits in earlier years had been its acceptance, if not its endorsement, of free speech. An easy self-confidence had given way to anxiety. Perhaps this reflects the growing influence of Tiberius, who, despite his possible republican sympathies, had long been of an authoritarian cast of mind. Years before, Augustus had written to him: “You must not…take it to heart if anyone speaks ill of me: let us be satisfied if we can make people stop short at unkind words.”

In the following year, A.D. 13, Augustus’ imperium was optimistically extended for a further ten years, and (yet another first) Tiberius, now fifty-six, received equal powers. Even if old age was slowing him down, the princeps remained hardworking, busy, and clever. The 5 percent death duty introduced in A.D. 6 proved extremely unpopular among the upper classes. The Senate indicated that it would accept any impost except for the death duty, so Augustus set in motion plans for a land tax instead. He was well aware that that would present an even more alarming prospect; and indeed the Senate decided it would be best to stick to the devil they knew. The old manipulator had lost none of his skill.

Thoughts of death can never have been far from Augustus’ mind throughout his long life: his health was poor in the first half of his career; until Actium, he regularly ran the risk of being killed in battle; and in Rome he was sharply aware that the Ides of March set a baleful precedent. He was only in his mid-thirties when he commissioned his splendid mausoleum.

Now certainty replaced possibility. In April of A.D. 13, Augustus assembled a number of documents, describing the achievements of his reign and leaving various instructions; it may be that a deterioration in his health prompted him to take this step. The documents were mostly written in his own hand, although his office staff will have done the research. In one sealed roll, he gave directions for his funeral. In another, he set out his record, which he wished to have engraved on two bronze columns at the entrance to his mausoleum. The princeps did not write the text all at once, but in his orderly way had begun it years previously and added to it from time to time; he only finally signed it off on May 13, A.D. 14.

Written in plain, dignified Latin, this second document became known as the Acts of the Deified Augustus, or Res Gestae Divi Augusti; copies were posted in different cities in the empire (translated into Greek where appropriate).

The Res Gestae is an astute piece of writing, of which a modern manager of public opinion could be proud; for while he tells no outright lies, Augustus casts the most favorable possible light on his activities. He never once mentions Mark Antony by name, whether as fellow triumvir or military enemy; nor does he go into any detail about his revolutionary past—it is as if the proscription never happened.

The third document Augustus prepared at this time, the breviarium imperii, was a statement of the number of serving troops in different parts of the empire, the reserves in the public exchequer and in the privy purse, and the tax revenues due for collection; he also supplied the names of the freedmen and slave secretaries who would be able to furnish further particulars under each heading, on demand.

Augustus also composed a homily directed at both Tiberius and the people, in which he advised them, among other things, to stay within the empire’s current boundaries. This injunction partly reflected the success of his policy of imperial expansion along the Danube and partly the new chastened acceptance of the Rhine as the appropriate barrier between Gaul and the Germanic tribes.

Finally, the princeps wrote (or revised) his will, complex and surprising; it took up two notebooks and was penned partly in his hand and partly by two freedmen. He arranged for its deposit at the Temple of the Vestal Virgins; unlike the hapless Mark Antony, he was confident there would be no latter-day Octavian so bold as to open it before he was dead and buried.

Sometime during A.D. 13, Augustus strengthened the standing committee that he had created to expedite senatorial business. The consuls remained members, but all the other nominated officeholders were replaced by consuls designated for future years. Tiberius, Tiberius’ son Drusus, and Germanicus also joined the committee. It looks very much as if the aim was to create a body strong enough to cope with the strains of transition from one reign to another.

Augustus’ final months are surrounded by mystery. As in a detective novel, the reader is given too few facts with which to explain events and identify culprits. Much depends on intelligent guesswork and the interpretation of cryptic clues. The trouble is that this was real life, with no author to write a final chapter in which all is made clear.

In the late spring or early summer of A.D. 14, Augustus came to feel regret for Agrippa Postumus’ exile. Taking a very few people into his confidence, he sailed to the island of Planasia, accompanied only by a court intimate, Paullus Fabius Maximus. Fabius was a distinguished figure, who had served as consul and governor in Spain. He was also a patron of the arts and had been a close friend of Horace and (a little surprisingly) Ovid. Tacitus reports on the encounter: “There [on Planasia] tears and signs of affection on both sides had been plentiful enough to raise a hope that the young man might yet be restored to the house of his grandfather.”

Soon after their return, Fabius died, but not before having told his wife, Marcia, of the secret adventure, and she incautiously passed on the news to Livia. At her husband’s funeral, Marcia was heard to sob bitterly that she had been the cause of his destruction. The implication was that, learning of this breach of confidence, an angry Augustus had withdrawn his amicitia from Fabius, who as a result felt obliged to commit suicide.

Augustus’ last days are described at some length by Suetonius. In August A.D. 14, he and Tiberius prepared to leave Rome. They had recently conducted a census, which was held once every lustrum, or five years, and the princeps, despite his fading health, was well enough to preside over a purification of the Roman people that marked the end of the lustrum. The ceremony took place in a crowded Campus Martius.

All kinds of portent were recorded about this time—the usual melange of nonsense with, on this occasion, an actual event inflected by superstition. During the ritual, an eagle circled overhead several times and flew to the nearby Pantheon, where it perched above the first “A” of Agrippa’s name in the dedication over the entrance. The princeps, seeing this, immediately took it to signify his imminent demise. So he told Tiberius to read out in his place the vows he was due to take as part of the ritual, for although he had composed them and had had them inscribed on a tablet, he did not want to make himself responsible for promises that could only be discharged after his death.

Tiberius was to travel to Illyricum and reorganize the recently vanquished province; Augustus, as a mark of signal favor, agreed to accompany him down the Via Appia as far as the town of Beneventum, about 130 miles south of Rome. Livia was in the party. Before arriving at the mosquito-ridden Pomptine Marshes, through which Horace and Maecenas had journeyed on their way to Tarentum for negotiations with Mark Antony, the princeps decided to transfer to a ship, but became indisposed and decided to detour to the island of Capri for a few days’ rest and relaxation.

The party then crossed back to Italy and resumed its journey south. As planned, Augustus turned back at Beneventum to make his way to Rome but, feeling worse, instead stopped off at a family villa at Nola on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, where his father, Gaius Octavius, had died during his praetorship in 58 B.C.

At this point Livia reappears in her role as poisoner. Tacitus reports: “Augustus’ illness began to take a turn for the worse, and some suspected foul play on the part of his wife,” who was worried about her husband’s reconciliation with Agrippa Postumus. Dio goes further, albeit without committing himself:

Livia was afraid, some people allege, that Augustus might bring [Agrippa] back to make him emperor, and so she smeared with poison some figs which were still ripening on trees from which Augustus was in the habit of picking the fruit with his own hands. She then ate those which had not been smeared, and offered the poisoned fruit to him. At any rate, he fell sick from this or some other cause.

Tiberius was recalled and rushed to Nola. According to Dio, Augustus died before his return and Livia concealed the news until her son had reached her side, fearing that in his absence there “might be some uprising.” Guards were posted in the street around the villa and optimistic bulletins were issued from time to time. But Suetonius claims that Tiberius arrived in time to see Augustus alive. The dying man had a long talk with him in private, after which he attended to no further important business.

When visitors arrived from Rome, Augustus wanted to hear the latest news of Drusus’ daughter, Livilla, who was ill. Finally, he kissed his wife, saying “Goodbye, Livia. Never forget our marriage.” Just before he died, his wits seemed to wander, for he suddenly cried out in terror: “Forty young men are carrying me off!” (This was later interpreted as a prophecy, for the same number of Praetorians would form the guard of honor that conveyed him to his lying in state.)

Augustus had always hoped for a quick and painless death, and the gods granted his wish. The date was August 19, a little more than a month before his seventy-seventh birthday. He had been ruler of the Roman empire for almost forty-four years.

Immediately, a codicillus, an order, was sent to Planasia to execute Agrippa Postumus. The tribune in command of Agrippa’s guard told a centurion to see to the matter. The young man was strong and large and put up a fight, despite the fact that he had no weapons. He was eventually dispatched, with some difficulty. The deed was done only in the nick of time, for a slave of his called Clemens, having heard of Augustus’ death, immediately took a cargo ship to Planasia to rescue Agrippa, either by force or trickery. Unfortunately for Agrippa, the boat sailed slowly and Clemens arrived too late.

Meanwhile, the commander of the island guard set sail for Rome, where he presented himself to Tiberius and reported that the execution had been carried out. Tiberius vehemently denied having had anything to do with the matter, and insisted that the officer give an account of himself to the Senate.

According to Tacitus, the author of the codicillus was Gaius Sallustius Crispus, who, like Maecenas, did not trouble to hold public office, but operated behind the scenes. The grand-nephew of the historian Sallust, he became a “repository of imperial secrets.”

Alarmed by Tiberius’ decision to open Agrippa’s death to public debate, Sallustius warned Livia that “palace secrets, and the advice of friends, and services performed by the army, were best undivulged…. The whole point of autocracy is that the accounts will not come right unless the ruler is the only auditor.”

Tiberius was persuaded to remain silent. The matter was closed.

How should we best interpret the events surrounding the death of Augustus? The regime realized that the transition from one princeps to another, from the dominance of one man to the establishment of a dynasty, would be a time of great danger. All concerned took great pains to make everything run as smoothly as possible. The most likely threats would stem from civil dissidence in Italy and mutiny among the legions on the imperial frontiers. The focus for any trouble would be Agrippa Postumus, the last male representative of the Julian line.

The imagined account with which this book opens is an attempt to tell a coherent and feasible story of what occurred while rejecting as little as possible of the surviving ancient narratives. It incorporates most, but not quite all, that the sources report. It plausibly assumes that all the leading players—Augustus, Tiberius, and Livia, together with their advisers—devised a transition plan and were determined ruthlessly to implement it, whatever their personal feelings.

The most important charges that I have rejected are that Augustus changed his mind about who should succeed him and wanted to replace Tiberius with Agrippa, and that Livia acted to defeat him. Both are highly unlikely. Once the princeps had committed himself to Tiberius, whatever his reservations, he did everything within his power to promote his new co-ruler’s interests. Even the minor decision to accompany him to Beneventum was a clear and public statement of support. In the absence of concrete knowledge, Roman historians filled in the gap by reference to the traditional image of the wicked stepmother, ever eager to supplant a true heir with her own child.

This does not mean that we have to reject the trip to Planasia. Modern scholars argue that Augustus was far too frail to undertake such an arduous journey, but this is unconvincing if we recall that in the days immediately before his death he was willing to travel by road to the Pomptine Marshes, sail to Capri and back to Italy, and then resume his journey to Beneventum, before retracing his steps.

Augustus’ motive for the journey may have been purely sentimental; but the record of the way he treated his close relatives suggests a ruthlessness that precluded emotion. More probably, as I suggested, he wanted to assess whether Agrippa was in an insurrectionary frame of mind, and to reduce the chance that he would join an anti-Tiberius plot by feeding him delusive hopes of a return to favor at Rome.

If that was how things stood, there was no particular need to keep Livia in the dark. But whether or not she knew of what was afoot, Augustus was annoyed with Fabius Maximus because, by confiding in his wife, he had breached the total secrecy that was meant to cover the operation—in much the same way that Maecenas’ gossiping to Terentia about her brother’s conspiracy had led to his loss of influence with the princeps. A high value was placed on confidentiality at the court of Augustus. (However, Marcia’s grief at her husband’s funeral did not necessarily mean he had committed suicide; disgrace could have triggered an illness, such as a heart attack.)

In the introductory chapter, I proposed that Augustus’ health unexpectedly improved, but that recovery came too late. According to this hypothesis, all the arrangements for the handover of power to Tiberius had been made and could not conveniently be revoked. It was necessary for him to die if the transition was not to falter. So, half in collusion with her victim, his loving wife, Livia, administered the poisoned figs. (Incidentally, we do know that the princeps liked the fruit, and that Livia cultivated a type of fig that was named after her; if there was a fig tree at Nola, perhaps she had had it planted.) Such a speculative explanation would account for her reported action, and accords with the gloomy sense of duty that characterized the political culture of the time. Roman history contains many examples of suicide for political reasons, and of assisted suicide.

Alternatively, and no less speculatively, it is possible that the story of the figs was a farrago invented and disseminated by people like Clemens and other populist agitators, to suggest mendaciously that Augustus did mean to designate Postumus as his true heir. Once again, the easy slander of Livia as the wicked stepmother dispensing poisoned fruit was too tempting to resist. It is puzzling, though, that a tale from so tainted and unrespectable a source should have had sufficient currency to enter the historical record. The truth of Augustus’ death will never be known.

Finally, we must consider who originated the order to kill Postumus. Suetonius sums up the options: “Some doubt remains whether this order was left by Augustus to be acted on when he died; or whether Livia wrote it in his name; or whether, if so, Tiberius knew anything about it.”

Sallustius can be acquitted, for even if he penned the codicillus, he will hardly have done so unprompted. Although Tiberius was the beneficiary, it is doubtful that he was involved, or had even been told about it. His angry insistence that Agrippa’s death be debated by the Senate argues innocence of both the deed and the knowledge.

Livia seems never to have directly intervened in politics or initiated political action, but she was known to wield influence. For Sallustius to ask her to use her good offices with Tiberius was a sensible idea, not necessarily sinister. That the commander reported to Tiberius rather than her also tends to exonerate her. It is conceivable that she forged a letter from the princeps, but from what we know of her this would have been out of character.

By far the most probable culprit was Augustus himself. It is true, as Tacitus points out, that he had never before had any of his blood relations executed, but we know that he could act unforgivingly against those of them who threatened him. He killed Caesarion, Julius Caesar’s illegitimate son, without a qualm, and treated the two Julias harshly. The visit to Planasia does suggest that he found the decision to kill his grandson difficult to make.

Augustus’ signet ring was removed from his finger. His eyes were closed. Tiberius, being his closest relative, called him by name and said, “Vale,” “Farewell.” Slaves belonging to undertakers washed and perfumed the corpse. A coin was placed in its mouth, to pay the ferryman to carry Augustus’ spirit across the river Styx to the underworld.

The body was carried to Rome on the shoulders of senators from the neighboring municipalities and colonies of veterans. The August heat was insupportable and the journey was conducted by night. In the daytime the dead man lay in state in the town hall or principal temple of each halting place.

At Rome, Augustus’ will was read out. The preamble ran: “Since fate has cruelly carried off my sons Gaius and Lucius, Tiberius shall inherit two thirds of my property”—a less than ringing endorsement of his chief heir. Tiberius received one hundred million sesterces, and Livia fifty million. Ninety million sesterces was set aside for small individual bequests to the soldiery and the people.

All of this was as might be expected. However, the princeps, so cautious and patient in his lifetime, sprang an astonishing surprise from beyond the grave: he adopted his wife. Just as Tiberius received the name of Augustus, so Livia received that of Augusta. As Augustus’ daughter, she became a member of the Julian clan, and from now on was known as Julia Augusta.

What did Augustus intend by this extraordinary promotion? It was the only important political decision he ever made that was completely without precedent, and he left no explanation for it. However, in the first instance, we may readily conclude that it signaled Livia’s contribution to the governance of the state during his reign. Everyone supposed she had been an important adviser behind the scenes, and the adoption was an official recognition of the fact. Augustus may also have wished to strengthen his wife’s position after his death, so that she could exert some control or at least influence over Tiberius; her political skills could complement his largely military experience. Perhaps, even, he wanted to show the world how deeply he loved his wife.

Now that Livia had become Julia Augusta, she had an official constitutional position in the state for the first time in her life. Although technically without imperium or anything approaching it, she seemed to contemporaries almost to be co-ruler with her son. During the Senate debates about decrees passed in Augustus’ honor, Dio reports that “she took a share in the proceedings, as if she possessed full powers.” It is said that for a time Tiberius’ correspondence carried her name as well as his, and letters were addressed to them both.

However, Tiberius held traditional views and disapproved of women openly intervening in public affairs. When the Senate voted her the honorific title of parens patriae, or parent of the fatherland, Tiberius rejected the offer on her behalf. It soon became clear that power lay with him alone, although, despite his annoyance at her elevation, he continued to seek his mother’s advice in private.

The funeral of a leading Roman was an event that combined terror, splendor, and solemnity, and although we do not have the details of the order of service for Augustus, it will have broadly followed the regular procedure. As was always the case, the ceremony took place at night.

A procession formed to convey the body from the house on the Palatine to its last resting place. Almost the entire population of Rome turned out onto the streets, and troops lined the route to ensure public order. The procession was managed by a dominus funeris, or master of the funeral, attended by lictors dressed in black. It was headed by trumpeters playing mournful music, and girls and boys of the nobility sang a dirge in praise of the dead man.

Farce and laughter can be a means of purging grief, or at least alleviating it. A troupe of clowns and mimes was sometimes hired at funerals; the performers would follow the musicians and singers, led by an archimimus, who imitated the speech and gestures of the dead man.

Like most wealthy Romans, Augustus will have liberated some of his slaves in his will. They came next in the procession, wearing the special cap of liberty that was given to freedmen.

The bier then appeared. This was a couch made of ivory and gold and spread with a purple and gold pall. Beneath the covering, Augustus’ body was hidden in a coffin; above it, a wax effigy in triumphal costume was displayed. The bier was accompanied by a statue of the princeps in gold and another of him riding a triumphal chariot. Statues of his ancestors were also carried, as well as personified images of the nations he had added to the empire, and of leading Romans of the past. Interestingly, Pompey the Great was among the company, but Julius Caesar was excluded on the grounds of his divinity.

The family, dressed in mourning, walked behind, among them Julia Augusta. The entire Senate were in attendance, as were many equites, and the Praetorian Guard. Anybody who was anybody was present.

The cortège stopped in the Forum, where Tiberius and his son Drusus, both dressed in gray, delivered eulogies. It then wended its way through the Porta Triumphalis, the gate through which triumphal processions entered the city, and arrived at Augustus’ mausoleum in the Campus Martius. The awe-inspiring climax of the ceremony approached.

In the early Republic, Romans were usually buried, but by the end of the first century B.C. almost everyone was cremated. Augustus’ body was laid on a pyre in the ustrinum, or crematorium, next to the mausoleum. Once the bier was in place, all Rome’s priests marched around it, followed by the equites. Then the Praetorian Guard circled it at a run and threw on the pyre all the triumphal decorations (often valuable silver or gold plaques) any of them had received from the princeps in recognition of acts of valor.

Centurions lit the pyre, and as the flames rose an eagle was released and flew up into the sky, as if bearing Augustus’ spirit into the heavens. A former praetor, presumably a man with an eye for the main chance, solemnly swore that he saw the spirit of the princeps on its journey upward. Julia Augusta rewarded his sharpness of sight with the huge sum of one million sesterces.

Perfume was thrown onto the fire, as well as things that the dead man would have enjoyed—cups of oil, clothes, and dishes of food. The ghosts of the dead, the manes, liked to drink blood, which reinvigorated them; this may have been supplied by gladiators, who were often hired to fight at funerals, their duels lit up by the flames.

When the fire had burned out, wine was poured over the embers. A priest purified those present from the taint of death by sprinkling water over them with a laurel or olive branch. The mourners were then dismissed, each of them saying “Vale” as he or she left the scene.

Eventually, only one person was left beside the ashes—Julia Augusta, widow and now daughter of the dead princeps. The old lady remained where she was for five days. Then, attended by leading equites, who were barefoot and wore unbelted tunics, she collected the bones and lodged them in the mausoleum.