Augustus

Tiberius was also a promising lad, but he was not of Octavian’s blood and so took second place in his plans. The man who was now in sole command of the Roman empire was beginning to consider how to ensure his regime’s long-term future. With his always uncertain health, it was not too soon to establish a dynastic succession; if his nephew fulfilled his promise, he would be an ideal heir.

There was another thing: Octavian liked and trusted youth. He and his “band of brothers,” his two trusted former school friends, Agrippa and Maecenas, had set out together on their great enterprise to avenge Caesar’s murder and win power when in their late teens. The challenges they faced called forth their talent; now Octavian was looking forward to promoting the new younger generation that was about to emerge. Perhaps as early as 29 B.C., he arranged for the minimum ages of officeholders to be reduced: in the case of a quaestor, from thirty years to twenty-five; of a consul, from forty-two to thirty-seven. Senators’ sons were expected to familiarize themselves with administration; they were allowed to wear the purple-striped toga, which was the uniform of a senator, encouraged to attend Senate meetings, and given officer posts during their military service.

Sadly, Octavian and his beloved Livia were childless, although she suffered one miscarriage. It is curious that both had had children by their former spouses. Perhaps, as one classical source has it, this was a case of physical incompatibility, but more probably some illness led one or the other to become infertile.

As yet the boys were too young to help shoulder the burdens of government. That remained the task of Agrippa and Maecenas, although little love was lost between them. The former was “more a rustic at heart than a man of refined tastes,” although he admired great art and argued that all paintings and sculptures should be nationalized rather than spirited away into private collections where they were never seen. He was a collector on a grand scale, spending an astonishing 1.2 million sesterces on two paintings—one of them depicting the Greek hero Ajax and the other Aphrodite—which he installed in the public baths he built.

By contrast, Maecenas could almost “outdo a woman in giving himself up to indolence and soft luxury.” He delighted in silks and jewels; he was an epicure, who introduced to fashionable dining tables a new delicacy, the flesh of young donkeys; and he was reputed to have been the first person to build a heated swimming pool in the capital. He was married to the beautiful but arrogant Terentia. They were always quarreling, but her husband remained fond of her and invariably sought reconciliation. It was said of him that he married a thousand times, although he only had one wife.

Terentia attracted, and apparently won, Octavian’s favors, but this seems not to have affected the two men’s relationship. Although he was uxorious, Maecenas was not monogamous. He had many affairs, including one with a famous actor, Bathyllus, a freedman and friend of Octavian. Although sleeping with men was apparently not to his taste, Octavian had no objection to multifarious lifestyles among members of his circle.

Octavian used to poke fun at his friend’s precious, overelaborate style of writing, by parodying it in personal letters to him. Macrobius, a writer of the fifth century A.D., quotes an example: “Goodbye, my ebony of Medullia, ivory from Etruria, silphium from Arretium, diamond of the Adriatic, pearl from the Tiber, Cilnian emerald, jasper of the Iguvians, Persenna’s beryl, Italy’s carbuncle—in short, you charmer of unfaithful wives.”

Though his private life was colorful, Maecenas showed sleepless energy in times of crisis, and he gave excellent political advice. He did not seek public political office, preferring to operate informally, behind the scenes. As we have seen, he cultivated the finest poets of the age, ensuring that, so far as possible and without the application of censorship, geniuses such as Virgil and Horace stayed on message.

Agrippa could not stand Maecenas’ exotic and effeminate manners. Straightforward, direct, and loyal, he was the finest general and admiral of the age. He made up for Octavian’s lack of military skills, as had been tacitly acknowledged by the award of the corona rostrata for his services in the Naulochus campaign. The war against Sextus Pompeius would not have been won without him, and he had been discreetly invaluable in Illyricum. Now, as the mastermind of victory at Actium, he received the right to display an azure banner and (of more practical value) the freehold of country estates in Egypt.

Agrippa was completely loyal to Octavian and to the public service. In fact, he regarded them as one and the same, and it would be a bad day for the regime were he ever to see them as different. Completely trusted, he became (in effect) Octavian’s deputy—nearly his equal, but always a step behind when on parade.