Augustus

The reforms considerably strengthened Augustus’ position, but the real winner from the crisis of 23 B.C. was Agrippa. He had been shown to be indispensable; now he, too, received imperium proconsulare (but not imperium maius). This probably gave him some kind of general authority in the eastern provinces, where Augustus dispatched him in the autumn. In effect, Agrippa was now the empire’s co-regent.

Too much information has been lost for us to be sure, but it looks very much as if the princeps had had his wings clipped. Perhaps the governing faction—that is, all those men whose fortunes, livelihoods, even lives depended on the regime’s continuance—made its leader acknowledge that the state was not his personal property and that an insurance policy (to wit, Agrippa) needed to be taken out against some future mortal illness.

It has even been speculated in modern times that what had taken place was a “secret coup d’état” in which Agrippa and Livia joined forces. There is hardly anything to back this up—except that Tiberius, Livia’s eldest son, was betrothed, perhaps already married, to Agrippa’s daughter, Vipsania. This could be interpreted as a sign that the two most important people in Augustus’ life felt the need to jointly protect themselves against the dynastically domineering princeps. It also appears that Octavia and Livia did not get on, and that the latter was irritated by the former’s promotion of Marcellus. Equally, though, Augustus and his canny wife could have seen the value of neutralizing the prickly Agrippa by making him a member of the family.

At the time, many observers interpreted Agrippa’s departure as exile. According to Suetonius, he “had felt that Augustus was not behaving as warmly towards him as usual, and that Marcellus was being preferred to him; he resigned all his offices and went off to Mytilene.” Some held that Agrippa did not want to oppose or seem to belittle the young man. In another view, on his recovery Augustus found out that Marcellus was not well disposed toward Agrippa because of the delivery to Agrippa of the seal, and so ordered Agrippa to the east. A writer in the following century wrote of the “scandalous sending away of Agrippa.”

It is not necessary to see these two accounts—co-regency and “exile”—as mutually exclusive. Augustus and Agrippa were grown-up politicians. Both of them (and perhaps especially the latter) held a somber commitment to the public interest, not to mention the advantage of their governing party (which they saw as much the same thing). It is possible that they agreed not only about Agrippa’s promotion, but also on the desirability of a tactful withdrawal to allow Marcellus to emerge onto the public stage without Agrippa’s overshadowing presence.

When looking to the future, Agrippa and the sickly Augustus had to accommodate a number of possible outcomes. If the princeps were to die soon, Agrippa would presumably take over. His humble birth and rough tongue made him unpopular with the old nobility, and he did not have the huge advantage of being a member of the Caesarian, almost-royal family; but he was omnicompetent, and would do.

If both men lived for another fifteen or twenty years, a perfectly reasonable supposition, Marcellus would be an appropriate dynastic successor, assuming that meanwhile he showed sufficient ability at the business of government. To make assurance doubly sure, Livia’s promising sons, Tiberius and the fifteen-year-old Drusus, would also be trained in public administration.

Whatever was or was not going on behind the scenes, the professional partnership between Augustus and Agrippa went on from strength to strength. When the two men’s powers were renewed in 18 B.C., Agrippa was granted the same tribunicia potestas that the princeps held. His energy and effectiveness were undimmed.

Then the worst possible thing that Augustus could imagine took place. In the autumn of 23 B.C., before his games were over, Marcellus fell ill and died. He was only twenty-one years old. He was given the same medical treatment by Musa as his uncle, but this time it did not work. The princeps delivered a eulogy at his funeral and placed his body in the great circular family mausoleum he was in the process of building (Marcellus’ gravestone and the later one of his mother survive). A new theater on the far side of the Capitoline Hill from the Forum, the foundations of which had been laid by Julius Caesar, was named the Theater of Marcellus in his honor. (Part of its exterior wall can still be seen.)