Augustus

At long last in the autumn of 22, Augustus, probably taking Livia with him, set out on a leisurely journey eastward. His first stop was Sicily. News came from Rome of more unrest among the people, who had elected only a single consul in the hope that Augustus would occupy the vacancy. This he refused to do, but recalled Agrippa to return from the east and restore order at Rome. It was now, in 21 B.C., that, in a further sign of his growing authority, Agrippa married the eighteen-year-old Julia despite her father’s absence.

Agrippa then moved on to his next assignment in Gaul and Spain. He campaigned in Aquitania and elsewhere; he also encouraged the building of Roman-style cities and networks of roads. He then went to northern Spain, where he resumed Augustus’ not entirely successful war of pacification. In 19 B.C., he finally subdued the unruly tribes whom the unmilitary princeps had found it so hard to defeat a few years before.

In the meantime, Augustus devoted time and attention to adjusting the boundaries and rulers of the smaller client kingdoms along the empire’s eastern frontier; but his real aim was to do a deal with King Frahâta of Parthia. His tactic was to run a diplomatic campaign alongside the threat of a military one. A pretender to the Parthian throne had kidnapped one of Frahâta’s sons and escaped with him to Rome. Augustus had sent the boy back to his father on condition that all the Roman standards and any surviving prisoners-of-war were returned. He now invited Frahâta to live up to his side of the bargain.

At the same time, a military expedition was organized against the strategically placed kingdom of Armenia. The aim was to depose its anti-Roman king, Ardashes, and replace him with a quisling. If Armenia was to fall within Rome’s sphere of influence, the Parthians would be out-flanked with a hostile northern frontier.

The general whom Augustus chose to lead his legions against the Armenians in 20 B.C. was his stepson Tiberius, who was now twenty-two years old and eligible for the jobs that would surely have gone to a living Marcellus.

He was strongly and heavily built and above average height; his shoulders and chest were broad and his body was well proportioned. He had a handsome, fresh-complexioned face, although his skin tended to break out in pimples. He had a large crown, tight lips like his mother’s, and piercing eyes. He let his hair grow long at the back, a habit of the Claudian clan.

Tiberius was not at all religious, but he did believe in astrology and therefore saw the world as governed by fate. Like Augustus, he was terrified of thunder, and when the skies loured he would put a laurel wreath on his head, to lightning-proof himself. He was devoted to Greek and Latin literature. He especially loved ancient myths and legends. He enjoyed the company of professors of Greek literature, whom he delighted in asking abstruse and unanswerable questions: such as “Who was Hecuba Queen of Troy’s mother?,” “What song did the Sirens sing?” “By what name was Achilles called when he was disguised as a girl?” His speaking style was encumbered by so many affectations and pedantries that his extempore speeches were considered far better than those he prepared.

Augustus arranged for Tiberius to enter public life in his late teens; the young man undertook high-profile prosecutions and special commissions, among the latter, the crucial task of reorganizing Rome’s grain supply. He acquitted himself well. The princeps was pleased, for he was keen for Tiberius and his brother, the eighteen-year-old Drusus, to share the burden of government. They were to be the packhorses of the regime, for the princeps had not given up his dynastic ambitions. In 20 B.C., Agrippa’s union with Julia produced a boy, Gaius. If he survived the multiple potentially lethal ailments of infancy, he could become the heir to empire, and on this occasion Augustus’ old school friend would be hardly likely to object.

But that was for the future. In the meantime, Tiberius led an army into Armenia. As it turned out, there was no fighting to be done, for the Armenians rose against their king and killed him before the Romans arrived. Tiberius crowned his successor, a pro-Roman exile, with his own hands.

Confronted with the Armenian takeover, Frahâta made the judgment call for which the Romans had been hoping. Although Augustus had no intention whatever of attacking Parthia, he was now in a strong tactical position if he wished to do so. The king handed over the standards and the prisoners.