The Augustan Empire 43 BC

It was in 28 B.C. that some of the slowly maturing plans began to take shape. There faces us in the end that unavoidable topic, the constitution of the Principate: it will be dealt with in chapter 3, but in the present chronological account what happened can best be described as 'business as usual after alterations', which was what all Rome wanted and expected. 'In my sixth and my seventh consulship, after I had ex­tinguished the fires of civil war, in accordance with the wishes of all [Greek version: 'of my fellow citizens'] having taken control of all things, I transferred the res publico [Greek version: not politeia but kjrieia, 'supreme authority'] from my power into the arbitrament of the Roman Senate and people.'³⁶ It can be noted at once that there was no such thing as 'the constitutional settlement of 27 B.C.': 'In my sixth (28) and my seventh (27) consulship ...', says Augustus.³⁷ The process was con­ceived of as a steady return to normality after years of abnormality. In 28

³⁴ Crook 1955 (d 10) 11. 35 Dio lii.42.6; Mommsen 1888 (a 65) ш 912-13.

³⁶ RG 34.1. ³⁷ And cf. Tac. Ann. 111.28, sexto demum consulate.

Caesar shared the consularfasces, month by month, with his colleague, in the traditional manner (after all, he was now in Rome and so able to do so), and he announced that the rulings of the triumvirs -including his own, and presumably insofar as not already validated — would be abolished as from the end of the year.³⁸ What was occurring was what Antony and Caesar, as triumvirs, had promised would occur. They had envisaged it for their intended joint consulate of 31 в.с.:³⁹ it had been regrettably delayed by civil war, so Caesar implied, but now here it was; and nobody at Rome can have expected that the 'dynasts' would reserve to themselves no special place in the restored order. The difference was that there was now only one 'dynast' left, which was, needless to say, no small difference.

But first, the year 28 had other excitements for the Roman public. To begin with, no less than three 'business-as-usual' proconsular triumphs, in May, July and August; then in September the first celebration of 'Actian Games' in Rome; and in October the completion of the white marble temple of Apollo on the Palatine.⁴⁰ Potent symbolism lay in that: Actian Apollo to be the presiding genius of a new age, a synthesis of Greece and Rome, of arms and arts, his shining temple standing prominent, housing famous original statues and flanked by libraries, and connecting with - so as to be virtually a part of- the house of Caesar. The ever-recurring paradox of all this story comes out in those symbols: the effort of Caesar, on one plane, to restore the 'Scipionic' Rome of past glories, matched, on another plane, by the rapid growth, also by his efforts, of new concepts and structures, of a 'parallel language'.⁴¹ The paradox is yet more apparent if the view of some modern writers be accepted that Caesar's huge Mausoleum beside the Tiber was already finished by 28 в.с. and was a great symbol; but that may not be right,⁴² and there is disagreement about what it is supposed to have symbolized. Certainly, the Mausoleum was not redolent of modest aspirations, but the late-republican Romans were competitive about tombs, and it was perhaps just an ace of trumps in that competition.⁴³

Caesar was absent from his 'Actian Games': he was ill. Scepticism is common amongst historians about the illnesses that punctuated the first forty years of Caesar's life: they were, it is supposed, psychological reactions to tense situations, or even fraudulent and calculated. The scepticism is fuelled by the fact that after 23 B.C. he lived to a great age in

³⁸ Dio Lin.2.5. Grenade equates that announcement with the edict quoted by Suetonius, Aug. 28.2. Unconvincing. ⁵⁹ App. BCiv. v.75.313.

Propertius 11.31; Simon 1986 (f 577) 19-25; Zanker 1987 (f 632) 52-73 and 242-5.

Concept borrowed from C. Nicolet 1976 (a 66) ch. 9, ies langages paralleles'.

Reliance is placed on Suet. Aug. 100.4; but it was recem when Virgil wrote Am. vi.873 and still unfinished when Marcellus was placed in it. ⁴³ For the competition see Zanker 1987 (f 632) 27.