The Augustan Empire 43 BC

Certain things that were done can be seen as preparatory. The generation of soldiers who had been recruited after Actium must now be pensioned off, so a big phase of veteran settlement occurred in Gaul and Spain; and it is no surprise that, connected with the discharges and new recruitments, the term of service was now[204] officially established at a minimum of sixteen years for legionaries and twelve for the praetorian guard. Thus, out of the needs of the time, emerged the formal establishment of the Roman army as a professional service (for 'other ranks', not officers). And at roughly the same time Lugdunum seems to have begun to function as a major government mint, coining gold and silver; new money was going to be needed to pay legions campaigning in north and west. Gaul was subjected to a census, and detested both the tax and the procurator.

The first big movement¹²⁸ was the subjugation by the brothers, Tiberius Nero and Nero Drusus, of Raetian and Vindelician Switzerland (not without mass deportations) and the bloodless incorporation of the kingdom of Noricum. Augustus took an imperatorial salutation; the stepsons could have neither triumph nor ovation, for they were only legati Augusti, but at least Horace accorded them proud celebration, as he did also for the return of Augustus to Rome in 13 в.с.¹²⁹ And in relation to that reditus a magnificent new way was invented to advertise the 'divine family': on 4 July 13 в.с., by decree of the Senate, there was inaugurated a sacred precinct and altar of the 'Augustan Peace' in the north part of the Campus Martius; it was not dedicated till 10 January 9 в.с. Its famous frieze is an imaginary depiction of a procession of the 'divine family' and the members of the great priesthoods to an inaugural celebration; contemporaries will probably have been able to identify every figure.¹³⁰ Both the frieze and the independent panels of the Ara Pacis are eloquent with all the themes of Augustan ideology, not the least striking emphasis being upon children, the 'young hopefuls', the key to future glory.¹³¹

To the Ara Pacis we now have to add, as an element - perhaps the major element — in a complex architectural ensemble, the enormous public sundial and astronomical clock created, also, in the north part of the Campus.¹³² Its gnomon, 30 m high (with plinth), was one of the two obelisks brought from 'captured Egypt';¹³³ the paved ground under the feet of pedestrians was itself the sundial; and the equinoctial line on the ground passed through the Ara Pacis and subtended a right angle to the Mausoleum by the Tiber. There has been detected a whole wealth of symbolism about the birth and conception of Augustus in relation to renewal and peace, adding significance to one of the best-known inscriptions of the period, the letter of the proconsul of Asia and decrees of the Joint Council of the province inaugurating a new calendar for Asia based on Augustus' birthday, which is celebrated as 'giving a new look to the cosmos'.¹³⁴

Of course, both the rulers returned to Rome in 13 B.C., for their

A prelude consisted of campaigns by Publius Silius in the Alpine foothills.

Hor. Carm. iv.4 and 14; iv.; and 2, lines 41-60.

Contra, however, Zanker 1987 (f 632) 128. There are still many disagreements about the identity of individual figures: see, e.g., the next note.

Zanker 1987 (f 632) 219, contests the view that two of the little boys are barbarian captives, and thinks that they are, after all, Gaius and Lucius Caesar.

Buchner 1982 (f 306); Zanker 1987 (f 632) 149-50. Unmentioned in the Res Gestae-, had it already been discovered that the 'clock was wrong'? (Pliny, HN xxxvi.72-3).

EJ² 14. The other was placed on the spina of the Circus Maximus. Their transport and erection were a tremendous technological feat. ¹³⁴ EJ² 98.