Augustus

Some promoters were proud of allowing no losers to escape death, although this would make the games much more expensive; these contests were called munera sine missione, games without quarter. The death rate in the gladiatorial profession is unknown, but it was probably lower than blood-thirsty descriptions would imply. There is evidence of fighters surviving many bouts, eventually receiving their freedom (symbolized by a wooden sword) and retiring into provincial respectability. In this sanguinary form of live theater, an imaginative impresario could stage-manage suspense and copious blood without excessive mortality.

Another spectacle that drew the crowds was the wild-beast hunt, or venatio. All kinds of animal were captured in different corners of the empire and brought back to Rome to end their lives in the arena. Thousands could be killed in a day. Men armed with spears, bows, daggers, and even firebrands, and sometimes accompanied by packs of hounds, battled with terrified and enraged panthers and lions, leopards and tigers. Red cloths were waved in front of bulls, in a precursor of the modern Spanish bullfight. Other creatures that were hunted, if more rarely, included hippopotami, ostriches, and crocodiles. Caesar staged five venationes during the festivities, in one of which he pitted elephants against each other. In addition, he imported six hundred lions and four hundred other large cats.

It was widely noticed that at the theatrical events and public banquets, Octavius was invariably in attendance on his great-uncle, who treated him as affectionately as if he were his own son. At sacrifices and when entering temples for religious rituals, he kept the young man by his side and he arranged for others taking part in these public occasions to give him precedence.

Increasingly, suppliants approached Octavius and asked him to intercede for them with Caesar in one way or another. His success with Agrippa’s brother and his growing familiarity with the dictator gave him the courage to put forward requests, which seem to have been invariably granted. This was, in large part, because of the tactful approach he adopted. Nicolaus observes: “He took care never to ask a favour at an inopportune moment, nor when it was annoying to Caesar.”

Caesar decided it was time to give the young man some administrative experience. He turned over to him the responsibility for managing the theatrical program of the triumphal celebrations. Keen to show his commitment, Octavius stayed to the end of all the performances, even on the hottest and longest days. This strained his already delicate health and he fell seriously ill.

Caesar was beside himself with anxiety and, to cheer him up, visited the sufferer every day or sent friends in his place. Doctors were in permanent attendance. On one occasion a message came while he was dining that Octavius had suffered a serious relapse and was in danger of dying. The dictator leaped up at once and ran barefooted to the house where Octavius lay. Frantic and deeply upset, he cross-examined the doctors about their patient’s prognosis and then sat down by the boy’s bedside. Gradually Octavius recovered, but he remained weak for some time.

The nature of Octavius’ illness on this occasion is not known; it may have been a severe bout of sunstroke.

The triumphs were quickly followed by Cleopatra’s arrival in Rome as Caesar’s houseguest. Her journey from Egypt was delayed until after the Egyptian triumph. One of the captives in the procession had been her sister Arsinoe, who had been briefly recognized as queen by the Alexandrians before falling into Caesar’s hands, but, although she loathed her, Cleopatra had not wished to witness her sibling led in chains and her kingdom presented as a vanquished power.

The queen was accompanied by the youngest of her brothers, and new husband, the fifteen-year-old Ptolemy XIV, and, it may be assumed, a substantial retinue. Doubtless she was accompanied by her baby son, Caesarion. Caesar lodged them all in his mansion set in lovely gardens (his hortus) on the other side of the Tiber near the southeastern corner of the Janiculum Hill. Here Cleopatra held court and received Rome’s senior politicians. Her airs and graces of royalty did not go down well among Rome’s determinedly republican elite, even when accompanied by lavish presents and cultivated entertainments. Men like the orator Cicero cordially disliked her, for all the queen’s efforts to ingratiate herself.

It may be surmised that Cleopatra returned the compliment, with equal cordiality. Her mind-set was irredeemably autocratic. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the noisy bear pit of Roman politics and for competing aristocrats who refused to acknowledge that anyone was superior to them. Back in Alexandria her response to dissent was to use force and she must have been bewildered by Caesar’s policy of clemency.