Augustus

One of an aedile’s duties was to look after the city’s water supply, street cleaning, and drains; Agrippa reorganized and refurbished the aqueduct system. He also commissioned a new aqueduct, the Aqua Julia (some years later he added the Aqua Virgo, so called because a young girl pointed out springs to the soldiers who were hunting for water). He had five hundred fountains built as well as magnificent public baths, the Thermae Agrippae. The reservoirs and the fountains, or nymphaea, were elaborately decorated, with many bronze and marble statues and pillars. Agrippa also repaired and cleansed Rome’s underground drainage system.

The regime’s bid for popularity was unrelenting. During his aedileship, Agrippa distributed olive oil and salt and arranged for the city’s 170 baths to open free of charge throughout the year. He presented many festivals, and because those attending were expected to look smart he subsidized barbers to offer their services gratis. At public entertainments, tickets good for money and clothes were thrown to the crowds. Also, massive displays of many kinds of goods were set up and made available free on a first come, first served basis. All these measures were paid for from the fortune Agrippa had amassed (from war booty, legacies, and grants of land and money) during his ten years of working and fighting for Octavian.

Agrippa’s aedileship signaled in the most attractive and practical way that prosperous times were back. Agrippa’s investments in Rome’s infrastructure (to say nothing of the public buildings constructed or restored by other leading members of the regime) greatly enhanced its appearance. The construction work also provided welcome jobs in a city with a high rate of unemployment. While the other, long-absent triumvir was squandering time in the east, everyone could see the concrete advantages that Octavian’s regime was bringing to the ordinary citizen.

Octavian was ready for a showdown with Antony. His career since his acceptance of his legacy from Julius Caesar makes complete sense only if it is understood as a careful and undeviating pursuit of absolute power. A typically competitive and ambitious Roman, he wanted that power for himself; he was the heir of Rome’s greatest sole ruler since the expulsion of King Tarquin the Proud in the sixth century B.C., and it was only what he deserved. But Octavian also despised the incompetent and unruly selfishness of the ruling class, epitomized by the destructive and pointless policies of Fulvia and Lucius Antonius, that had led to the Perusian war; Sextus Pompeius’ absence of policy; and Mark Antony’s loss of discipline and focus. With respect to the latter, one senses a dismissive scorn for an older colleague who ought to have known better, and who had, in Octavian’s view, “failed to conduct himself as befitted a Roman citizen.”

Step by step, Octavian had built up his strength over the years, seizing every chance that came his way. The Illyrian campaign was the last piece of the puzzle: it gave him the military status he had so conspicuously lacked. Agrippa’s rebuilding of Rome was a sign that he and his supporters were planning a long-term strategy for the empire’s governance. However, if matters were not brought to a head now, the initiative might well pass back to Antony, especially if he finally scored a substantive victory over the Parthians and covered himself in glory.

The Triumvirate’s second term was due to end in December 33 B.C., and it would be in Octavian’s interest to avoid any risk of an amicable renewal, for that would freeze a status quo he wanted to terminate. He was in as strong a position as he would ever be.

In 33 B.C., Octavian was consul for the second time. Early in the year he delivered a blistering speech against his fellow triumvir. He criticized Antony’s activities in the east: Antony had had no right to kill Sextus Pompeius, whom he would willingly have spared, and Antony had been wrong to trick the Armenian king into captivity. This behavior had damaged Rome’s good name.

Octavian also attacked Antony’s cruel treatment of Octavia and his relationship with Cleopatra. The Donations of Alexandria were unacceptable. Even more offensive, seeing that it was clearly aimed at undermining Octavian’s position as Julius Caesar’s heir, was Antony’s promotion of young Ptolemy Caesar, or Caesarion, as the great dictator’s natural son.

Little of this was very convincing in itself. It strains credulity that Octavian had a soft spot for Sextus or cared a sesterce for the fate of a far-off country of which most people knew nothing. And as for Antony’s sexual life, it had always been colorful.