Augustus

Finally, the princeps wrote (or revised) his will, complex and surprising; it took up two notebooks and was penned partly in his hand and partly by two freedmen. He arranged for its deposit at the Temple of the Vestal Virgins; unlike the hapless Mark Antony, he was confident there would be no latter-day Octavian so bold as to open it before he was dead and buried.

Sometime during A.D. 13, Augustus strengthened the standing committee that he had created to expedite senatorial business. The consuls remained members, but all the other nominated officeholders were replaced by consuls designated for future years. Tiberius, Tiberius’ son Drusus, and Germanicus also joined the committee. It looks very much as if the aim was to create a body strong enough to cope with the strains of transition from one reign to another.

Augustus’ final months are surrounded by mystery. As in a detective novel, the reader is given too few facts with which to explain events and identify culprits. Much depends on intelligent guesswork and the interpretation of cryptic clues. The trouble is that this was real life, with no author to write a final chapter in which all is made clear.

In the late spring or early summer of A.D. 14, Augustus came to feel regret for Agrippa Postumus’ exile. Taking a very few people into his confidence, he sailed to the island of Planasia, accompanied only by a court intimate, Paullus Fabius Maximus. Fabius was a distinguished figure, who had served as consul and governor in Spain. He was also a patron of the arts and had been a close friend of Horace and (a little surprisingly) Ovid. Tacitus reports on the encounter: “There [on Planasia] tears and signs of affection on both sides had been plentiful enough to raise a hope that the young man might yet be restored to the house of his grandfather.”

Soon after their return, Fabius died, but not before having told his wife, Marcia, of the secret adventure, and she incautiously passed on the news to Livia. At her husband’s funeral, Marcia was heard to sob bitterly that she had been the cause of his destruction. The implication was that, learning of this breach of confidence, an angry Augustus had withdrawn his amicitia from Fabius, who as a result felt obliged to commit suicide.

Augustus’ last days are described at some length by Suetonius. In August A.D. 14, he and Tiberius prepared to leave Rome. They had recently conducted a census, which was held once every lustrum, or five years, and the princeps, despite his fading health, was well enough to preside over a purification of the Roman people that marked the end of the lustrum. The ceremony took place in a crowded Campus Martius.

All kinds of portent were recorded about this time—the usual melange of nonsense with, on this occasion, an actual event inflected by superstition. During the ritual, an eagle circled overhead several times and flew to the nearby Pantheon, where it perched above the first “A” of Agrippa’s name in the dedication over the entrance. The princeps, seeing this, immediately took it to signify his imminent demise. So he told Tiberius to read out in his place the vows he was due to take as part of the ritual, for although he had composed them and had had them inscribed on a tablet, he did not want to make himself responsible for promises that could only be discharged after his death.

Tiberius was to travel to Illyricum and reorganize the recently vanquished province; Augustus, as a mark of signal favor, agreed to accompany him down the Via Appia as far as the town of Beneventum, about 130 miles south of Rome. Livia was in the party. Before arriving at the mosquito-ridden Pomptine Marshes, through which Horace and Maecenas had journeyed on their way to Tarentum for negotiations with Mark Antony, the princeps decided to transfer to a ship, but became indisposed and decided to detour to the island of Capri for a few days’ rest and relaxation.

The party then crossed back to Italy and resumed its journey south. As planned, Augustus turned back at Beneventum to make his way to Rome but, feeling worse, instead stopped off at a family villa at Nola on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, where his father, Gaius Octavius, had died during his praetorship in 58 B.C.

At this point Livia reappears in her role as poisoner. Tacitus reports: “Augustus’ illness began to take a turn for the worse, and some suspected foul play on the part of his wife,” who was worried about her husband’s reconciliation with Agrippa Postumus. Dio goes further, albeit without committing himself: