The Augustan Empire 43 BC

But yet another mysterious set of facts adds fuel to the hypothesis of conspiracy. There were two — or in an ironical sense perhaps three — attempts to achieve a break-out for Agrippa. In Suetonius' conspiracy- list ' Audasius and Epicadus had intended to spirit lulia the daughter and Agrippa the grandson from the islands where they were held to the armies.'[230] There is something amiss with the tale, because by the time Agrippa was sent to his island 'lulia the daughter' had left hers. Perhaps it is a mere slip for 'lulia the granddaughter'; but the elder lulia was still in exile and still a potential focus for dissidence, so the error may be different. In any case, the story reinforces the view that Agrippa was in banishment because he was dangerous; and the danger was to Tiberius. The second story is how, immediately upon Augustus' death, Agrippa's slave Clemens went hotfoot to Planasia but arrived too late, the primum facinus novi principatus having already occurred — and how, two years later, he obtained a following by passing himself off as Agrippa, was arrested and put to death, and care was taken not to probe deeply into what were suspected to be his powerful backers 'in the house of the princeps' and amongst senators and equites.[231] That story finds credence amongst historians; the third, ironical indeed if true, still divides them. It is that Augustus, shortly before his death, visited Agrippa in his exile and they were reconciled.[232] Whether true or not, that tale, too, points in a consistent direction: Agrippa was politically of high significance. And it may well be that in conjuring up a conspiracy against Augustus (or Tiberius) in the years a.d. 6 to 8 historians have tried to be too clever. The cui bono of the elimination of Iulia's children was Tiberius, and they may have been the victims rather than the authors of a deadly dynastic struggle.

On the return of Tiberius from Illyricum at the beginning of a.d. 9 there was a ceremony of reditus in his honour in the Saepta; and resentment, not on the part of the plebs but of its betters, spilt over: the equites protested against the rules of the lex lulia de maritandis ordinibus, with their penalties upon the childless. Old Augustus read the assembled populace in the Forum a furious lecture about childlessness;[233] and while Tiberius travelled back to the front for what was to prove the conclusive campaign against the rebels in Dalmatia, a Lex Papia Poppaea was put to the assembly by the suffect consuls. It modified the statute of twenty-five years earlier: Dio and Suetonius, however confusing and incompatible their accounts, give an impression that concessions were made, whereas Tacitus speaks expressly to the contrary.[234] For the unmarried, at any rate, one should not underestimate the public ignominy in which the legislation sought to place them: if the ordo equester (being, presumably, the biggest concentration of wealthy caelibes) thought they had influence with the aged ruler, they were sharply rebuffed.

When, late in a.d. 9, with the great rebellion crushed, Tiberius and Germanicus returned to Rome, full triumphs were voted to Augustus and Tiberius, and Germanicus was voted ornamenta triumpbalia, praetor­ian standing, and permission to stand for the consulship ahead of normal.[235] But no triumphs ensued, for, five days later, the mood of congratulation was shattered by the yet more unimaginable blow of the 'disaster of Varus';[236] three legions lost, and everything beyond the Rhine lost with them. The optimism of Roman conquest had, as in Illyricum, proved unjustified, imperium sine fine unattainable. Augustus' nerve very nearly broke, and we are told he had thoughts of suicide. The defeat laid bare the slender military base on which the empire rested; the Illyricum campaign had already stretched manpower to the limits. Conscription was applied, and stepped up, and there are tales of people executed for refusing the levy. All veterans were recalled, freedmen again enrolled. It was a question whether the Roman people would stand it: fear of a tumult us in Rome led to drafting of an extra military force, and the ruler's personal German bodyguard was held no longer safe.[237]

Tiberius had to take on Germany. He toiled for three more hard years,[238] with nothing to show for all of them that could be treated triumphally; when his ceremony of reditus finally took place,[239] and his celebration of a full triumph, it was labelled not as 'over the Germans' but as the postponed triumph 'over Illyricum'. There was to be no provincia Germania.