The Augustan Empire 43 BC

Legislatively, a.d. 4[220] was the year of the Lex Aelia Sentia, the most far-reaching of the statutes regulating slavery and freedom from sla­very;[221] also of important improvements in the administration of justice, notably the addition of a fourth decuria of persons liable for jury service.[222] Militarily, Tiberius' campaigns in Germany in a.d. 4, 5 and 6 were, as twelve years before, grand successes:[223] in a.d. 5 Roman armies reached the Elbe again, and in a.d. 6 the pincers were set to close on a great prize, the Bohemian kingdom of Maroboduus.

It was the last moment of imperial optimism in Augustus' reign. What was left, looked at narrowly, takes on a colouring of disaster and disillusion, not least — though not only - in the military sphere, where it hurt hardest: the historical irony of that letter to Gaius Caesar becomes very acute. So before plunging into the gloom it is as well to remind ourselves that Augustus had succeeded in establishing a political order that survived, with modifications, for some centuries and a territorial hegemony that expanded for another hundred years and for two centuries lost nothing that it had included at his death.

The forces were poised against Bohemia when the shock came, the news that all Illyricum was in rebellion. Tiberius' efforts of fifteen years before had not proved lasting. Bohemia had to be abandoned, and Tiberius to return to the front he had known, to battle for three heavy years against a national uprising.[224] And it was not the only trouble of those years.[225] We hear of cities in revolt, and proconsuls having to be appointed instead of chosen by the lot and to have their tenures prolonged. The wild Isaurians in Asia Minor were in ferment, and Cossus Cornelius Lentulus won ornamenta triumphalia for operations in Africa against the Gaetulians. Sardinia had to be redesignated as a part of the 'province of Caesar' because of a recrudescence of the corsairs. There was once again a Judaean problem: Archelaus, who had received the lion's share on the death of Herod, had been denounced by his people and exiled to Gaul, and Rome had to take Judaea over as an equestrian province.[226]

Resources were strained. The very nature of the professional army came into question, its recruitment and its cost, especially that of providing for time-expired soldiers. Augustus attempted to cut the cost by lengthening the term of service.¹⁸⁹ He also put to the Senate the problem of funding an overall increase in state income,¹⁹⁰ met a stony silence, and so, in a.d. 6, imposed on Roman citizens a death-duty of 5 per cent on the estates of the moderately rich and upwards, if left to any but their families.¹⁹¹ Its purpose was to fund a new Military Treasury to provide the retirement payments to the soldiers. Augustus primed it with 170 million sesterces of his own money,[227] but the death-duty was the first direct taxation of Roman citizens since 167 b.c., and was regarded by the rich, who paid it, with outrage.

The years a.d. 6 and 7 have the fairest claim of all the years of Augustus' reign to be called 'crisis' years, for upon military and financial anxieties, and widespread disaffection, there supervened natural catas­trophes and dynastic discords. Nature did her best to prove that none of the problems of the great conurbation had been even halfway solved: food shortages led to rationing, and there was another bad fire. A new fire service was established, since the devolution solution had proved inadequate: thus began the vigiles of the imperial period, under an equestrian prefect.[228] But the plebs was disgruntled: there was a spate of revolutionary talk, and flysheets circulated at night.[229] According to Dio, a certain Publius Rufus was thought to have instigated those things, but to have had more powerful hidden backers - a story with repercus­sions that will emerge.

In a.d. 7 Germanicus, quaestor that year, was sent to Illyricum with troop reinforcements for Tiberius. They included not only the products of a rare levy of citizens at Rome,¹⁹⁵ but also slaves purchased by the government and manumitted to enable them to be enrolled.¹⁹⁶ Dio transmits a story that Augustus suspected Tiberius of dragging his feet and sent Germanicus to stir things up: Tiberius had actually said he had soldiers in plenty, and sent some back.¹⁹⁷ We may well suspect political manoeuvrings behind these facts, but they remain obscure. At the elections there were riots, and Augustus, impatient with the proprieties, nominated all the magistrates himself - the only time: he had worked at full stretch for fifty years, and crisis was taking its toll. He began to give up public appearances, and appointed a committee of senior senators to take over the hearing of embassies.