The Augustan Empire 43 BC

Augustus' eastern sojourn claimed striking achievements. The back­ground of affairs in the kingdoms of Parthia and Armenia is described in chapter 4 below.¹⁰¹ The first result of Augustus' intervention in 20 в.с. was a diplomatic agreement with the government of Parthia, the only substantial territorial power on Rome's horizon. It was no doubt welcome to both sides, and established a treaty relationship as between equal powers and an official frontier. Moreover, legionary standards captured from Marcus Crassus and from Mark Antony were handed back to the Romans. Augustus succeeded brilliantly in exploiting the fact, for home consumption, as a victory of arms, which it was not. An opportunity also offered itself for Tiberius Claudius Nero, the stepson, to gain diplomatic or military credit by installing a Roman supporter on the throne of Armenia - which proved easy, because the monarch of the moment had been assassinated before Tiberius arrived. But it was the 'return of the standards' that became a corner-stone of the ideology of a reinvigorated Rome resuming her historic right to 'spare the conquered and defeat the proud'.¹⁰²

Augustus made many other political dispositions in the eastern provinces, for example depriving cities of their status as 'free' cities and promoting others, quite irrespective (as Dio points out) of the nature of provinces such as Asia and Bithynia, which were technically provinciae populi Romatti governed by proconsuls.¹⁰³ It was done by the authority of his imperium maius. Also, according to Dio,¹⁰⁴ he sent the Senate a letter stating a policy strangely like the instructions that Tacitus says he left behind in a.d. 14: 'to keep the empire within bounds'. That is surprising at this juncture, in view of the huge expansion that was to come: perhaps it was a justification for treaty relations with Parthia and the continued use of 'client kings' in the East.

Augustus voyaged home via Athens, whither Virgil journeyed in his honour (and died in his entourage at Brundisium on the way back: a heavy year for Roman poetry, which saw the death of Tibullus also). The magistrates and Senate proceeded to Campania to meet the returning ruler, a gesture that became a precedent;¹⁰⁵ and he appointed, proprio motu, a second consul for the empty place, thus both resolutely declining to change course but also cutting a Gordian knot by pure auctoritas-. it was not, apparently, challenged.

An altar to Fortuna Redux, 'Fortune the Bringer Home', was erected at the Porta Capena and a ceremony of reditus, return, was enacted, of which much is made in the Res Gestae.¹⁰⁶ A triumph, however, Augustus

к» Pp. i j 8-63.

102 Virg. Aen. VI.853. Cf. Prop, iv.6.83, Horace's Carmen Saeculare, and the breastplate of the statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, Simon 1986 (f 577) 52-7. ¹⁰³ Dio Liv.7.4-5.

¹⁰⁴ Dio Liv.9. i. ¹⁰⁵ First, actually, in 30 b.c., Dio li.4.5.

¹⁰⁶ RG 11; the Fasti Amiternini and Oppiani have it also, under 12 Oct.

refused, accepting instead ornamenta triumphalia, the insignia without the ceremony.¹⁰⁷ Triumphs were to be quite rare, partly because indepen­dent proconsular commands, a prerequisite of a triumph, died out and partly because triumphs competed, as public spectacle, with the ruler's own image-making: Agrippa led the abstinence. In March 19 в.с. Lucius Cornelius Balbus held a full, formal triumph for campaigns in Africa, and that was the last to be recorded in the Fasti Triumphales and the last to be held by anyone outside the 'divine family': for others, ornamenta triumphalia became the usual limit of honours. It may have been at that time that the arch was built next to the temple of Divus Iulius which had on its inner walls the pageant of Roman history represented by the Fasti Capitolini and Fasti Triumphales;¹⁰⁸ the ideology of military success and hegemony was the very breath of Rome: it was to be channelled in the interest of the ruler.