Augustus

Now that Lepidus had gone, Augustus succeeded him as pontifex maximus. Finally, he had reached the commanding heights of the Roman religious establishment. He was in a stronger position than ever to accelerate his efforts to restore traditional religious values. Most educated Romans were skeptics and rationalists yet still harbored a belief that Rome’s greatness was in some way due to its piety. If the pax deorum, the goodwill of the gods, were not maintained, then disaster could be just around the corner.

As we have seen, Augustus’ temple building and restoration program was only one aspect of his policy; he also continued to revive lost religious practices, increasing the number of priests and enhancing their privileges. He revived old fellowships, such as the fratres arvales, or “land brothers,” who handled spring ceremonials to promote the crops. Ordinary citizens were catered for with the revival of local cults in the city’s neighborhoods: at ceremonies to propitiate the lares compitales, the spirits of the main crossroads in every ward in the city, their images were garlanded with wreaths of flowers twice a year. The princeps sealed his long-standing popularity with the people by associating these cults with that of his “genius,” the spirit that protected him and his family.

This was as far as Italian opinion would let him go. Julius Caesar had been deified when safely dead, and Augustus knew better than to have himself declared a god in his lifetime. However, elsewhere throughout the empire he encouraged the dual cult of Rome as a goddess and of himself as a godlike being. This gave provincials the opportunity to stage loyalty ceremonies and encouraged an imperial esprit de corps.

It was time to complete stage two of the military strategy. The Alps had been won and two Danube provinces created. But the Pannonian tribes were becoming restive again, and a Roman general led an expedition against them in 14 B.C. Toward the end of the following year, Augustus decided it was time to impose a permanent solution and gave Agrippa overall direction of the war. Although winter had begun, Agrippa embarked on his campaign at once. We have no details, but the Pannonians seem to have quieted down, and Agrippa returned from the Balkans, crossing by sea to Brundisium.

The real reason for his return may have been his health, for in March of 12 B.C., when he arrived in Campania on his way north to the capital, he fell gravely ill. Although at fifty he was still comparatively young, no surviving source has revealed what he was suffering from. Perhaps nobody knew. A fierce Balkan winter may have had something to do with it, and it is reported that in his final years Agrippa suffered unendurable pain from gout. On medical advice, and without informing Augustus, Agrippa took an agonizing course of treatment, plunging his legs into hot vinegar when a paroxysm of the disease was at its worst.

Augustus learned of his colleague’s illness while he was presenting some gladiatorial games in honor of Gaius and Lucius. He immediately set out from Rome, but Agrippa was dead when he arrived. The blow was devastating. The two men had been friends from boyhood, and had shared the astonishing adventure of their lives. Even when their relationship was severely tested, they had remained true to each other. Augustus knew that without Agrippa’s military talent he would have been lucky to have reached his present eminence.

Many prodigies and portents were recorded, which served to underline the seriousness of Rome’s loss. The one that will have made the greatest impression as far as Augustus was concerned was the burning down of the hut of Romulus, next to his house on the Palatine. This had happened before, thanks to careless priests, but the culprits this time were said to be crows. The birds dropped onto the hut flaming fragments of meat, which they had snatched from some sacrificial altar.

It was the custom for widows to remarry, and the princeps gave careful consideration to Julia’s future. He flirted with the idea of giving her to some political nonentity, even an eques. The trouble was that Julia would remain a great lady and, being an independent-minded person, might be willing and able to exert political influence on her own account from the security of a separate household. Better by far to keep her inside the family circle. In that case the only two available candidates were Drusus and Tiberius; but Drusus’ wife, Antonia, was Octavia’s daughter and thus able to produce children of Augustus’ bloodline. She had already given birth to a son, called Germanicus after his father’s victories, and more offspring might be anticipated.