Augustus

INTRODUCTION

A.D. 14

The island was mountainous and almost completely inaccessible, with precipitous cliffs, sea grottoes, and strangely shaped rocks. Endless sunshine, abundant, almost tropical flora, and clear air made it a lovely place, as did its delightful inhabitants, who were originally colonists from mainland Greece. Here he could forget business of state and relax in complete privacy and safety.

Security was an important issue, for the old man was ruler of the known world and had many enemies. He had overthrown the partly and messily democratic Republic, and for more than forty years had governed the Roman empire alone. He was known as Augustus, or “Revered One,” a name that separated him from ordinary mortals. However, he never paraded his authority; he did not like to be called dominus, “My Lord,” but princeps, “top person” or “first citizen.”

Capri was not just beautiful, it was easy to defend. Years ago Augustus had built a palatial villa here. Perched on a high promontory, it was like a ship’s prow made from stone. The building contained every luxury—extensive gardens, a bath complex with hot rooms and splash pools, and spectacular views of the sea. There were no springs in this arid, rocky spot, so cisterns gathered a supply of rainwater. Four-story apartment blocks housed the many servants, slaves, and guards needed to look after the princeps and his guests.

Augustus was not the only lotus-eater. He wanted his staff to have a good time, too. Some of them lived on an islet off Capri, which he nicknamed the Land of Do-Nothings because they were so lazy.

Augustus was seventy-seven and in poor health. He had noticed the first signs of terminal decline the previous spring; the end was fast approaching. So, too, was his greatest challenge. For the good of Rome (he told himself) one-man rule had to continue, so he gave careful thought to the preparations that would ensure a smooth handover of power to his chosen successor. He knew that trouble lay ahead. As soon as he died, many Romans would want to go back to the days of the free Republic. People were already talking idly of the blessings of liberty. There was irresponsible chatter of civil war.

The princeps set up a small succession committee, comprising a handful of trusted advisers, and gave it the task of planning the transition. The trick would be to set everything in place before anyone noticed or had time to object. He chaired the meetings himself, and he took Livia, his seventy-one-year-old wife, into his confidence, as he always had done throughout his career; she attended some of the group’s meetings.

Augustus intended his successor to be Livia’s fifty-five-year-old son, an able military commander, Tiberius Claudius Nero. Ten years ago he had formally adopted Tiberius and shared his power with him.

If only, the old man thought to himself, he did not have to leave Rome to a man he did not really care for. Competent, hardworking, experienced—yes, Tiberius was all these things, but he was also gloomy and resentful. “Poor Rome,” he muttered to himself, “doomed to be masticated by those slow-moving jaws!”

There was another possible pretender. Augustus had a grandson, Agrippa Postumus, now in his mid-twenties. He had always had a soft spot for Agrippa, but the child grew up into an angry and violent young man, unsuitable for public office. Nevertheless, Augustus adopted him as his son simultaneously with Tiberius, hoping that the lad would become more mature and responsible.

He did not, and his saddened grandfather had had to disown him. A few years ago, he had sent Agrippa to cool his heels at the seaside resort of Surrentum. But the boy still managed to get into trouble, and was now languishing under military guard on Planasia, a tiny island south of Elba: out of sight but, unhappily, not out of mind.

This was because Agrippa had influential friends at Rome, people who were tired of his grandfather’s cautious, patient style of governing. Augustus had received reliable reports that a plot was afoot to spring the boy from his place of exile, take him to one of the frontier armies, and march on Rome.

Any resistance during the handover of power after Augustus’ death would center on Agrippa. So the succession committee’s first job was to deal with the threat he posed. In May of A.D. 14 Augustus let it be known that he was in need of some peace and quiet and intended to spend a couple of weeks at a villa in the countryside south of Rome. From there, he departed, under conditions of strictest secrecy, on the long sea journey north to Planasia.

Agrippa was astonished by the sudden arrival of his grandfather, and there were tears and hugs all round. But a little conversation showed that the boy was as moody and dangerous as ever. Augustus was moved, but pitiless. Right from his entry into public life at the age of eighteen, no one who threatened his power received any quarter. The greater the threat, even if it came from his nearest and dearest, the icier the punishment.

The princeps put his arm around Agrippa’s shoulders and reassured him that he loved him and would soon bring him home to Rome. He calculated that this would dampen any enthusiasm for plotting escape and revenge. Then Augustus boarded his ship, upset but glumly reconciled to arranging his grandson’s execution.

Everything would be much more manageable if all the main players in the succession game were out of Rome. The agreed plan was that when the time came, the princeps would dispatch Tiberius, his established deputy and heir, to settle affairs in the troublesome province of Illyricum (today’s Croatia). He would be giving a clear sign to political observers that all was well, and (more to the point) that he was well. His own final destination would be his father’s old villa at Nola, near the volcanic mountain of Vesuvius. If matters could be so arranged, he would die in the same room as Gaius Octavius had more than seventy years previously. This would be a dignified reminder of what the regime stood for: honoring the past and the old plain-living values of rural Italy.

At last, in the summer of A.D. 14, the moment of truth arrived. The princeps looked and felt more ill than ever. Neither he nor his doctors knew what was the matter with him; he seemed to be suffering from no particular illness, but felt feverish and very weak. It was clear to him as well as to Livia and Tiberius that he had, at best, only weeks to live. It was time to put the succession plan into operation.

To make sure rumor and malice did not reach the legions on the frontiers before official news came of a change of leadership in the capital, top-secret dispatches were sent by rapid courier to the commanders of the German and Danube armies and to the governors of the eastern provinces. These warned of Augustus’ failing condition, and Tiberius’ succession. They advised strict discipline to reduce the risk of mutinies.

Augustus gave Tiberius his commission for Illyricum. As a very public sign of his confidence in him, he decided to accompany Tiberius for part of his journey south down the Via Appia, the great road that led to the port of Brundisium on Italy’s heel. He was held up at Rome for some days by a long list of court cases that he was judging. Losing patience, he cried: “I will stay here no longer, whoever tries to detain me!” It occurred to him that when he was gone, people would remember that remark as prophetic.

Eventually the two men were able to leave Rome, accompanied by a large bodyguard of soldiers and an entourage of slaves, servants, and officials. Augustus noticed that a brisk sea breeze was rising and decided on the spur of the moment that the party would take ship that evening, although he disliked night voyages. This had the advantage of avoiding the malarial Pomptine Marshes, through which they would have had to pass if traveling by road.

It was a bad idea, for the old man caught a chill, the first symptom of which was diarrhea. So, after coasting past Campania, he decided to spend a few last sunlit days at Capri. He was determined to enjoy himself. The princeps sat for a long time watching local youths at the open-air gymnasium, and invited them back to a banquet. He encouraged them to play practical jokes, and they scrambled about for tokens that he threw at them, entitling the holders to small prizes such as fruit and sweetmeats.

The princeps and his party crossed over from Capri to Neapolis (today’s Naples), where, although his stomach was still weak and his diarrhea returning intermittently, he attended the athletic competition that the city staged every five years in his honor. He then set off with Tiberius and said goodbye to him at Beneventum, retracing his steps as arranged to the villa at Nola. Privately, Tiberius was warned not to hurry, and to expect an early recall.

Augustus looked at Livia. The last thing either of them expected had happened: he was feeling and looking in excellent form. She stared back at him. There seemed to be a third person in the bedroom—an almost touchable awareness of the huge, difficult thing that needed to be done.

The problem was obvious. All the arrangements were in place for the princeps’ death, but the princeps was recovering from his final illness. The timetable was at risk. The recently sent dispatches would soon be received. The longer Augustus lived, the more opportunity there would be for rumors to fly around Rome and the empire, fomenting disunity and trouble, imperiling the smooth transfer of power.

That afternoon, while Augustus was taking a siesta and the house was quiet in the summer heat, Livia went to the peristyle, a large cloister around an open-air garden. In the middle stood a fig tree, heavy with ripe fruit, which Livia had planted years ago. Augustus liked to pick a fig or two in the evening. Livia coated some of them with a poisonous ointment, leaving a few untouched.

Later, the aged couple walked out into the garden and Augustus picked two of the poisoned fruit and ate them. He noticed nothing. Livia ate a fig she had left alone. There was no reason for her husband to know exactly how he was going to die, she thought; indeed, if she was lucky, he might not guess that she had had to carry out what they had unspokenly agreed. Much more pleasant for him.

Augustus slept badly. He suffered from stomach cramps and renewed diarrhea, and developed a high fever. Guessing what had happened, he silently thanked his wife. In the morning, he called for a mirror. He looked terrible. He had his hair combed and his lower jaw, which had fallen from weakness, was propped up. He gave some orders to a military officer, who immediately set sail for the island of Planasia with a troop of soldiers. Hail and farewell, Agrippa!

A small group of notables, including Livia and Tiberius, recalled as prearranged, gathered round the bedside. The princeps uttered some suitable, obviously unspontaneous last words.

“I found Rome built of clay: I leave it to you in marble.”

He was referring not simply to his redevelopment of the city, but also to the strength of the empire.

Augustus could not resist adding a bleak joke. He had always seen life as a pretense, something not to be taken too seriously, and at his house on the Palatine Hill at Rome, he had had his bedroom walls painted with frescoes of the tragic and comic masks that actors wore. Their image came into his mind, and he asked:

“Have I played my part in the farce of life well enough?”

After a short pause, he quoted a well-known theatrical tag.

“If I have pleased you, kindly signify

Appreciation with a warm goodbye.”