THE AUGUSTEAN EMPIRE (44 B.C.—A.D. 70)

CHAPTER XIX.

TIBERIUS

I.

THE SUCCESSION

THE death of Augustus left two questions of paramount importance to be decided; should the system of a Principate continue, and if so who should be princeps and fill Augustus’ place. If the Principate was to continue, then the adopted son of Augustus, Tiberius Julius Caesar (to call him by the name that he had borne since his adoption on 26 June AD 4), by age, experience and by possession of power was the obvious candidate; indeed by virtue of his proconsular power he had already with perfect propriety sent despatches to the armies to announce Augustus’ death. But he was a man of fifty-five, the best years of his life behind him, his character and judgment formed and hardened. Some retrospect is therefore essential if we are to appreciate the views he held and the principles upon which he would rule.

The details of his early career have already been seen; few men were so hard worked and so little rewarded, and his marriage to Julia in order to act as guardian to the two grandsons of Augustus ended his patience. At the age of thirty-six, in disgust, he suddenly relinquished the path of duty, and turned to scholarly retirement at Rhodes, where he was to remain for eight years. He had learnt to love it when he had stayed there on his way back from Armenia, and here he could pursue undisturbed those studies which attracted him. He was abreast of the best Greek and Roman culture of the day, was fond of painting and sculpture, and had studied rhetoric under Theodorus of Gadara; poets and mathematicians were his friends, and to him scholars such as Apollonides dedicated their editions of authors or addressed their poems. Yet there was little geniality about his scholarship: it took the form rather of a fondness for curious questions and a Varronian love of out-of-the-way knowledge, coupled with a meticulous correctness and exactitude in all matters of ceremonial, form and etiquette (especially as regards things divine) that made him a dragon to the young or inexperienced. At its best this bent of the man is seen in his hatred of superficiality or flattery and his contempt for shams (such as Apion of Alexandria), at its silliest in a pedantry that could apologize for the introduction of Greek words into an official edict. But in Rhodes he came under the influence of a remarkable man, Thrasyllus, astrologer and philosopher. Thrasyllus was no charlatan; he was renowned for his studies in Plato and music, but it was his mastery of astrology that attracted Tiberius and the attraction is intelligible. Tiberius was over thirty-six, by birth, endowments and upbringing he should have been destined for success, yet everything had gone awry: he had had to renounce his wife, he had lost his brother and had seen his own years of faithful service cast aside for younger men. Unable to appreciate Augustus’ longing for direct heirs, unable to discern that it was his own austere personality that had docked him of favour, his proud and sensitive spirit found consolation in the thought that all was ruled by a destiny inexorable and impersonal, of which he, like others, was the victim. ‘Fata regunt orbem: certa stant omnia lege’: the words represent his own view as well as that of the poet who penned them in the years when Tiberius’ influence was in the ascendant.

Indeed he had need of all the consolations of philosophy: he had to bear the disgrace and banishment of Julia, in 1 BC his tenure of tribunician power was not renewed, for he was still under the displeasure of those at Rome, and he tasted all the bitterness of a fall from greatness. Gaius Caesar scorned him and his courtiers referred to him as ‘the exile’; he experienced—and long remembered—the enmity or coldness of such men as M. Lollius or Archelaus of Cappadocia (whom he had once helped), and the true friendship of Sulpicius Quirinius or Lucilius Longus. In the end Livia’s entreaties wrung from Augustus permission for him to return to Rome in AD, but only with Gaius Caesar’s approval and on the understanding that he should take no part in public affairs.

Then came the sudden amazing turn, Gaius and Lucius Caesar dead and himself adopted by Augustus, yet even so not left a free hand but forced to adopt Augustus’ favourite grandson, Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus, into his family as senior to his own son. But he was to work all the same, for there followed eight years fighting in Germany and Pannonia, until on 23 October AD 12, he was allowed to celebrate a triumph for his victories. The death of Augustus found him a disappointed and tired man, capable and experienced and with a wide knowledge of the needs of the Empire, but with the virtues of a subordinate rather than of a leader. Though he was a cautious and skilful general, in civil life and in dealing with the Senate he was not at ease. Long years under another’s authority had made him diffident and self-critical and when called upon to face a sudden situation or a case without precedent he would waver and hesitate. He made a few friends whom he trusted devotedly—Longus, Thrasyllus, Sejanus: in other company he was reserved and awkward, unable to preside graciously at the pleasures and shows of the populace, unwilling to join in the extravagances and luxury of the nobles, and with a capacity for self-control that seemed inhuman. Such was the man on whose weary shoulders the burden of rule was to fall.

Apart from his weariness there were disquieting factors; the succession was by no means certain, there might be rivals ready to make a bid for power. Augustus himself had not been free from anxiety that disturbances might follow his death, and Tiberius was naturally aware of the possibility. Though Agrippa Postumus was put out of the way as soon as Augustus was dead, there had been friends prepared to rescue and rush him to the northern armies; there were, too, various nobles whose eminence, merits and wealth gave them a possible claim should candidature for a principate be discussed, men such as L. Arruntius, Asinius Gallus, or M. Lepidus, and above all there was his nephew and adopted son Germanicus, a figure far more to the popular taste. Young, handsome and courageous, he was reputed to possess his father’s Republican and democratic sentiments, and since AD 13 he had been in command of the armies of the Rhine. It may be suspected that tradition, so uniformly favourable to him and kindly to his memory, rests on writers who were glad to find in his gracious figure a foil to the dourness of Tiberius, but it is obvious that he had much to attract. Affable in manner, he was popular with the troops to whom he made concessions and applied a gentler discipline than Tiberius had done. He was a poet, who had on his staff men of some literary eminence (such as Albinovanus Pedo or Suillius Rufus or P. Vitellius), and his poems (such as the Aratea tactfully dedicated to Tiberius) and some epigrams show skill and taste, though little more. He longed to equal and complete the exploits of his father Drusus in Germany, but had not the necessary gifts of leadership or insight; in war as in poetry he was perhaps too much the enthusiastic amateur. But his ambitions were fed and fostered by his wife Agrippina, proud of her descent from the divine Augustus, and he could be sure of support not only from those nobles who regarded war and conquest as the chief business of a Roman, but also from the newer nobility who might hope for fame and advancement from it. All these considerations might well make Tiberius pause.

The first business was to arrange for the State funeral of Augustus and get the machinery of government working again. The bringing of the body to Rome must have taken some fifteen days and the first meeting of the Senate, which Tiberius had summoned by virtue of his tribunician power, cannot have taken place till early September. Some attempt was possibly made to induce Tiberius to accept the principate then and there, but he would not allow any business save that connected with the funeral of Augustus. The will of the dead ruler, bequeathing two-thirds of his estate to Tiberius and one-third to Livia, was read, and Tiberius heard the opening sentence, ‘since cruel fate has robbed me of my sons Gaius and Lucius let Tiberius Caesar be my heir.’ A public funeral was decreed, and a few days later amid all the pomp and ostentation that Roman ceremonial could provide, the pyre bearing the body was fired, while an eagle was let loose to fly heavenwards, symbolizing the assumption of Augustus among the immortals.

Some five or six days after the funeral the Senate again met, on 17 September. Godhead was decreed to the dead emperor under the style of Divus Augustus; he was voted a temple and a body of priests. For Livia, who under the will was adopted into the gens Julia and became Julia Augusta, exceptional honours were at first proposed, but limited by Tiberius, whose sense of tradition and propriety rebelled: yet although in Italy such flattering titles as mater patriae or mater Augusti were never officially conferred or recognized, in Spain she appears as Genetrix Orbis, at Smyrna as Iulia Augusta Augusti mater, and in the East she was often worshipped under the name of the local goddess. But by now four weeks had elapsed since the death of Augustus and the question of the future form of government was urgent. If the Principate, as planned and put into execution by its founder, was to continue, there was one obvious candidate, and it is reasonable to believe that Augustus, in his last days, had made careful arrangements with his friends and confidants, and with Tiberius himself in that last long interview on the day before his death. Upon Tiberius the year before he had had conferred by law a proconsular imperium equal to his own and a renewal of his tribunician power; in his will he had bequeathed to him two-thirds of his estate and the name Augustus. After Augustus’ death a notable step had been taken when the consuls swore an oath of loyalty to Tiberius and administered the oath to Senate, Knights and People, for though the action had no constitutional significance its moral effect was strong. The one thing now needful was to make Tiberius’ supremacy definite and acknowledged, but his election must above all appear as the free unanimous choice of Senate and People forced upon a reluctant but dutiful man.

This is undoubtedly what was secured, but Tacitus’ account leaves the procedure uncertain. It may be conjectured that the consuls proposed a motion that Tiberius should become Princeps Senatus in place of the deified Augustus, should retain his proconsular imperium and his tribunician power not for a period but for life, and should have all such powers necessary for the protection of the State as Augustus had possessed. Against this proposal of the consuls—for whatever its form, in substance it offered him the government of the State—Tiberius, though aware he must give way in the end, for long held out. His reluctance was natural enough: he knew well what a ‘burdensome slavery’ rule could be, he realized the dangers and possible rivalries, to his friends he likened himself to a man holding a wolf by the ears, but he also knew that there must be a ruler beside and above the Senate. So at last he pronounced the words of acceptance, but even in doing so he intimated that he hoped the day might yet come when the Senate would grant his old age relief and rest. Such reluctance, natural enough in a man of the experience and diffidence of Tiberius, made a great impression: while admirers lauded his modesty, detractors saw in it merely a shameless farce and an example of hypocrisy. Both views were reasonable: while Tiberius’ unwillingness was genuine enough, the result of the session of the Senate was a foregone conclusion; though he was dead, Augustus imposed his will on Tiberius as effectively as in life. From 17 September the new Principate had officially begun.

II.

 ITALY AND THE SENATE

There was only one standard which the new princeps could follow, that of his predecessor, and his reign demonstrated a rigid respect for the Augustan tradition and observed carefully all his instructions. For some years Tiberius achieved a fair measure of success in ruling. All authorities agree in recognizing a good early period (the mitia or prima tempora of his Principate), but not on the point at which it ended. A convenient line of demarcation can be found in the year 26 when Tiberius withdrew from Rome, for this withdrawal had grave consequences. The domestic policy of the first twelve years shows well the strength and weakness of his methods.

Adherence to the Augustan canon meant first and foremost gracious co-operation with the Senate, for the Senate was to be a partner in government. Its members were men of experience and training, it had provinces of its own to govern, and it now possessed jurisdiction over Italy in matters social and religious; in addition it could serve the Princeps as a legislative organ, and it was already in process of becoming a court for criminal jurisdiction, where serious cases or influential culprits could be tried. At the very beginning of the reign its importance was enhanced by a momentous change that Tiberius carried out, nothing less than the complete transference of the elections from People to Senate. Not that Tiberius was the author of this change; he simply brought into operation a scheme that Augustus had devised and left in writing. But from this time onward the Senate became the sole electoral body, while the People apparently raised no voice in protest.

Thus co-operation between the Senate and Princeps was of the first importance, and Tiberius was assiduous in attendance. During the early years of his Principate a large number of senatus consulta were passed: while some were of a routine nature, adding to or interpreting already existing laws, others such as that against prostitution by women of rank or that which allowed a condemned criminal ten days grace, either accorded with his known views or were even promoted by him. Throughout Tiberius showed the Senate great deference and an almost too anxious respect, consulting it often even on minor matters and occasionally on some, such as the enlistment or discharge of soldiers, which were not its concern at all. He was scrupulously careful to avoid influencing opinion by proclaiming his own view too quickly, and tolerated considerable freedom of speech and expression. He entered the Senate-house unescorted, and would rise to greet the consuls or yield place to them. Any important commission or body of inquiry would always contain a majority of senators and was often composed entirely of them. Instances are easily found: the continued floods on the Tiber and the resulting damage were met by the appointment of a Board of Curators of the banks and bed of the river. Tiberius himself apparently nominated the first five members, all senators, but subsequent Curators appear to have been chosen ex senatus consulto; about the same time there was also established a Board for Public Sites, its duty being to investigate what was and what was not public property and to adjudicate in disputed cases; to this Board, too, senators were appointed, as also to a commission whose business it was to copy out and reinscribe public records that had become illegible and also to find the text of those which had been lost or destroyed. A senatorial commission was appointed to relieve the damage inflicted by an earthquake on some great cities in Asia Minor, though in order to avoid possible conflict with the consular governor of the province, the chief commissioner was only of praetorian rank. When in AD 22 Tiberius wished for the conferment of tribunicia potestas upon his son Drusus he approached the Senate, as Augustus had done. It still dealt with boundary questions in its own provinces (as for instance with the Dentheliates ager), and it alone could give exemption from the operation of the laws and allow towns such as Massilia or Trebia to benefit from legacies left to them. And Tiberius’ deference to the order was paralleled by his readiness to help senatorial families who had fallen undeservingly on evil days: to such he made large grants of assistance, to enable them to preserve their position and to live in a manner befitting their rank, but they had to prove their case before their peers, ana to wastrels he would give no heed.

In the sphere of religion and morals, which the Senate had always regarded as peculiarly its own, Tiberius consulted it frequently: not that he was himself a believer in the State religion, as a religion, but he knew the value of traditional observances and set his face resolutely against foreign practices or cults. In the first days of his rule he felt bound, as an augur, to ask the Senate to grant him dispensation for having touched the dead body of Augustus, and on several occasions he displayed his knowledge of Roman religious lore and ceremony, as in 23 over the rights and privileges of the various priesthoods, or in 32 when he rebuked two men for ignorance of procedure with regard to the Sibylline books. In the year 19 a scandal connected with the worship of Isis led to a searching investigation; the convicted priests were crucified, the image of Isis flung into the Tiber and the temple was destroyed, while her followers and worshippers were compelled to burn their robes and gear. Similarly, when some Jews were found to have obtained money under false pretences from a Roman lady, Tiberius persuaded the Senate to expel the Jews and their rites from Italy, while four thousand of the strongest were sent to Sardinia to act as a police force there. And, as before, the Senate dealt with all such matters as rights of asylum in temples and the reception or rejection of the cults.

Still more clearly was the bias of Tiberius visible over the great shows and games. He did not approve of them: he disliked both the waste of money and the popular licence and rioting. Several times complaints about the conduct of actors were brought before the Senate, and in 23 they were finally expelled from Italy: in addition he placed restrictions upon the number of pairs of gladiators to be exhibited and manifested so general a disapprobation of the building of theatres or giving of games (as for instance at Trebia or Pollentia), that the very gladiators complained of the lack of opportunity for showing their prowess. This parsimony over games and spectacles and this cheerless austerity were some of the most unpopular things in his Principate.

More pressing were the problems to be faced from the social legislation of Augustus. Anxiety to ensure a large free population for Italy, to preserve due grades and distinctions in that population, and to prevent indiscriminate manumission and the flooding of Italy with foreign blood had led Augustus to pass or encourage various laws such as the Lex Aelia Sentia of AD 4 and the Lex Papia Poppaea of AD 9. The aims and effectiveness of the Lex Papia Poppaea have been discussed elsewhere, but one of the great evils of this formidable statute (as of the Lex Julia de Maiestate) was that it encouraged a class of informers and offered high rewards to them: such encouragement had its natural result; much of the law still needed interpretation, everywhere vexatious trials were set on foot, and no one felt safe. There began ‘a mania for accusations’, and hundreds were like to be involved, but Tiberius saw the extent of the danger and instituted a special commission of fifteen senators to moderate the working of the law by equitable interpretation of knotty points or of undue harshness. So too with the problems presented by the freedman class, where new legislation appears to have been necessary. The details are controversial and only an outline can be given here. In the ordinary way a libertinus, not being of free birth, could not hope for municipal magistracies or other offices; but often these libertini were the most vigorous and enterprising section of a community and worth encouraging, and the princess could apparently confer free birth (ingenuitas) by giving such the right to wear a gold ring . So great, however, were the privileges conferred by this right that many claimed it fraudulently, and in 23 a senatus consultum was passed strictly limiting the right of wearing the ring to those who could show free descent for two generations and had equestrian census. But such an enactment, ambiguous in its terms and reactionary in its sentiment, could only cause further trouble, and in the very next year one of the consuls introduced a Lex Viseilia to deal with the question. It must have been comprehensive, but we know of only two clauses: the first, granting full citizenship to all Junian Latins who served for only six years in the corps of Vigiles, reveals how easy it was for such men to rise to full citizenship; the second debarred those who were not ingenui from gaining magistracies or dignities in a municipality, ‘unless they are upheld by the grant of the gold ring from the princeps. Even so, ambition and office-seeking were stronger than the fear of the law, and in the reign of Claudius we hear of over four hundred prosecutions for unlawful claims.

In all such matters Tiberius worked through and with the Senate, and his moderation and prudence often saved it from mistakes. When the Senate could only propose consultation of the Sibylline books to cope with the Tiber floods it was Tiberius who suggested a commission of Curators, and when in 16 an attempt was made to introduce some foolish sumptuary legislation he joined with Asinius Gallus in deprecating it as futile and likely to lead to petty litigation. He showed like common sense in face of a demand for a special court for lampoons and libel, and a downright phrase of his speech on this has been preserved: “we really have not so much spare time as to warrant involving ourselves in still more business; if you once open this window, you will prevent any other business being transacted, for everyone’s private quarrels will be brought before you on this excuse”. To Tacitus his presence in the Senate and participation in the debates (as in the law-courts) seems a mockery; in reality, Tiberius often prevented the senators from throwing all burdens and decisions on the princeps and reminded them of their dignity and duties.

Throughout he was morbidly careful to avoid unusual powers or titles or anything which might hinder the smooth working of the Augustan scheme. He refused to allow the oath of allegiance to him to be renewed yearly. After his accession he only held the consulship three times, never for more than half a year, and always to do honour to a possible heir or partner, to Germanicus in 18, to his son Drusus in 21, and to Sejanus in 31. When acting as judge himself he retained the traditional custom of calling in a select number of his friends as advisers, the consilium Caesaris. He did not use the title Imperator as a praenomen, he refused the title pater patriae both in 15 and 19; he would not allow any to address him as ‘lord’ or ‘master’ save his own slaves, but laid down the rule that “I am dominus to my slaves, and imperator to my soldiers, but to all the rest I am princeps”. But the very fact that he had to refuse or deprecate such forms of address shows the tendency of the times, and in addition he could not disguise or soften a certain bluntness or harshness which must have made even his kindnesses appear ironical and caused a natural fear in approaching him. “You’re rather late in waking up” was the greeting he gave to a request for help from Acilius Buta, a notorious spendthrift, and a proposal that November should be called Tiberius was met by the query “and what will you do if you have thirteen Caesars?”. Some time after the death of Drusus in 23 the people of Ilium, suddenly aware that they had sent no embassy to offer sympathy, hastily dispatched one; Tiberius listened, and then in his turn begged to offer them his condolences upon the death of a distinguished fellow-citizen—Hector. The words are the echo of a hard clear mind, but neither Caesar nor Augustus would have answered thus, and his replies raised one more barrier between himself and his people.

III.

 GERMANICUS AND DRUSUS

With the gloominess of Tiberius the popularity and charm of Germanicus stood in strong contrast. But he did little to warrant the favour shown him: the frontier-problems of the Rhine and his undistinguished campaigns have been related elsewhere, and Tiberius can scarcely have approved of what went on during the three years 14-16. On hearing of the death of Augustus the Rhine armies mutinied, demanding shorter service and higher pay: Germanicus could not cope with them firmly; a first emotional appeal missed fire, he met their demands by a forged letter from Tiberius, and instead of restoring discipline by his own presence he encouraged the more loyal legionaries to use mob-law and then arrived to shed tears over the result. Obsessed with the idea of emulating his father’s exploits and conquering all Germany he had carried out a census in Gaul and requisitioned supplies for a grandiose effort. But nothing came of it, even Tacitus has to admit that Germanicus blundered, though Tiberius (in an effort to please) offered him a triumph in 15, and bestowed triumphal insignia on three of his legati: Caecina, Silius and Apronius. And Germanicus’ theatrical instinct led him now to visit the rotting remains of the Varian legions amid the gloom and loneliness of the Teutoburger Wald, now to disguise himself and penetrate the tents of his troops to test their feeling; when a serious disaster overwhelmed his returning transports he could scarcely be refrained from committing suicide. Tiberius must have despised the amateurish efforts of his adopted son, while the popularity both of him and of his wife Agrippina, who on one occasion had appeared in public and allayed a panic, left him uneasy. Recall was the only way out, but it must be honourable. Still reasons could easily be found: the many victories of Germanicus had re­established Roman prestige, his task on the Rhine was accom­plished and could be crowned by a triumph; affairs in the East too needed the presence of a member of the imperial house, who could win experience of a second frontier. So Germanicus reluctantly returned; with his five children in the chariot he celebrated an imposing triumph on 26 May, 17; the Greek laureate poet Crinagoras hymned it, and the exiled Ovid spurred his tired Muse once more; a triumphal arch was erected, and a largesse was distributed in Germanicus’ name to the citizens.

Yet subsequent events proved the correctness of Tiberius’ decision, though some imputed it to jealousy. Only a few years later the chief opponents of Rome, Arminius and Maroboduus, both fell victims to treachery; Arminius was assassinated, Maroboduus was given a retreat in Italy, and Tiberius hailed this as the successful culmination of his patient diplomacy. And he was right; another fifty years were to pass before Rome experienced any serious trouble from German tribes. The Hermunduri remained friendly and Tiberius initiated an interesting experiment in frontier-guarding: numbers of Suebi and Marcomanni, who had accompanied king Maroboduus or the successful usurper Catualda (who was later driven out in his turn), were settled on the far bank of the Danube between the rivers Marus and Cusus (the March and the Eipel in Czecho-Slovakia), under a native chieftain called Vannius, and so became a client-state and an outpost to break the shock of possible invasions. Here, as elsewhere, the far-seeing Tiberius began processes, some of which were not taken up or did not come to fruition till the second century, but it is a tribute to his judgment that they were all adopted in the end.

The need of a special commissioner in the East had been one reason for Germanicus’ recall. The new Parthian king Artabanus had planned to set his brother Orodes upon the vacant throne of Armenia, king Vonones whom he had expelled had taken refuge at Antioch in Syria and was rumoured to have brought a vast treasure with him, the aged Archelaus of Cappadocia was suspected of treason and had been summoned to Rome, and the kings of the smaller states of Commagene and Cilicia had recently died; Judaea and Syria were begging for a diminution of tribute. Such a state of affairs could only be settled satisfactorily by one man with supreme control over all the Eastern provinces, who could view all these different problems as parts of one connected whole, and with such an exalted command only a member of the imperial house could be entrusted. The Senate granted to Germanicus a maius imperium over all governors in the Eastern provinces, and to mark the impressiveness of the occasion Tiberius himself assumed the consulship for AD 18 together with Germanicus. All the same he was in a dilemma: he must send Germanies, he must give him power and position, yet inwardly he was uneasy; he distrusted the weakness and amiability of the young man, dominated by the strong ambition of Agrippina, left uncontrolled in the East, where the legatus of Syria, Creticus Silanus, had betrothed his daughter to Germanics’ second son, Nero. Some counterpoise was needed and here Tiberius’ choice was unfortunate; in place of Silanus he sent to Syria Cn. Piso, a typical noble of the old Republican type, arrogant, harsh, unyielding. Tacitus mentions a rumour that Tiberius gave Piso ‘secret instructions,’ but Tiberius was neither fool nor knave and Piso’s own temperament would be effective enough without instructions.

Germanicus did not hurry; he had with him a distinguished circle of comites, eminent both in war and in letters, and he travelled leisurely, visiting places of historic interest. In Dalmatia he met his cousin Drusus, and then passed by Actium, Athens, and Lesbos into Asia; at Ilium, the associations of the spot inspired him to an address to Hector:

‘Myrmidonas periisse omnes dic, Hector, Achilli

Thessaliam et magnis esse sub Aeneadis.’

Everywhere he and his family were greeted with processions and honours: Chios instituted a holiday on his birthday, Clazomenae, Eumeneia, and Pergamum have left inscriptions, Patara celebrated him and Drusus as Theoi epiphanies; to Andriaca he was ‘ Saviour and Benefactor,’ Synnada struck coins in his honour, and two towns in Asia Minor, Caesarea-Germanica in Bithynia and Germanicopolis in West Cilicia, took a new name to celebrate his visit. Coins and inscriptions testify triumphantly to his extraordinary popularity and bear out Tacitus’ sober judgment that ‘it would not be easy to reckon up the number of statues or places where he was worshipped.’

While he departed for his main task in Armenia his legati were busy. Q. Veranius organized Cappadocia as a province to be under an equestrian procurator, retaining apparently most of the old divisions, transferring the king’s estates to the imperial patrimonium and lightening the royal taxes to make Roman rule more acceptable; even so the new revenue accruing from Cappadocia was a very important addition. To the south and east lay the wealthy and fertile kingdom of Commagene: Q. Servaeus arranged for its transformation into a province under a pro-praetorian legate in charge perhaps of a legion; Cilicia, which was smaller, was simply incorporated in the province of Syria. In Armenia all went well, and the new king whom Germanicus installed was to rule for something over fifteen years, a surprising duration for an Armenian monarch.

Returning to Syria Germanicus opened up negotiations with Artabanus, who was willing to renew the treaty of friendship, but requested that Vonones should be removed farther west; this was done, and the unfortunate exile was killed shortly afterwards while attempting escape. Other countries and states, too, opened negotiations with the Roman prince or came into closer connec­tion; the good will of the desert caravan-city of Palmyra was important, and she now received apparently a resident representative of Rome and allowed one of her citizens, Alexandros, to undertake a mission on behalf of Germanicus to Sampsiceramus of Emesa and to Mesene. Perhaps Germanicus actually visited the city, for in the great court of the temple of Baal there has been found a dedication to Tiberius, Germanicus and Drusus by the commander of the Tenth Legion.

Winter was now approaching and Germanicus decided to take the rest, of which he felt in need, in Egypt. His choice could not have been more unfortunate, for it ignored the restrictions placed on visits to that jealously-guarded land. Perhaps Germanicus argued that, on the precedent of Gaius Caesar, his maius imperium made a request for leave to visit Egypt unnecessary; probably he never thought at all; Tiberius, naturally irritated, complained roundly in the Senate. The rest of his trip was marked by similar thoughtlessness, his curious passion for oracles drove him to visit the sanctuary of Apis (which Augustus had refused to do), he wore Greek dress in Alexandria (like Antony), to relieve a local famine he supplied cheap corn to the people of Alexandria from the reserve granaries, and the early months of AD 19 were spent in a pleasure trip up the Nile. Two edicts of his reflect his own benevolence and the enthusiastic welcome he received: such popularity did nothing to weaken Tiberius’ mistrust, and the whole visit was disastrous in its effects. On his return fresh trouble broke out: in the previous year Piso had refused to detail troops for Armenia, though Germanicus had turned a blind eye on this and other pieces of contumacy: now he found that Plancina, Piso’s wife, had been currying favour with the troops and that Piso himself had done all he could to upset his authority and arrangements. This could not be borne: Tacitus records laconically ‘Piso determined to leave Syria,’ but for an imperial legate to leave his province of his own accord would be inexcusable, and it is more reasonable to assume that Germanicus, using his higher power, bade him leave; such a command, though its legality might be disputed or its intention misinterpreted, even Piso would not dare disobey. Shortly after, however, Germanicus fell ill at Antioch; the meagre information available suggests some kind of fever, but he was convinced that Piso had poisoned him, and in this belief, with a last prayer to Agrippina to avenge his murder, he died on 10 October. The body was hastily cremated at Antioch, and despite the wintry season Agrippina, bearing the ashes, at once took ship for Rome.

The death of Germanicus can scarcely be regarded as a loss to the Empire. His friends might fondly compare the circumstances of his death with those of Alexander the Great, and Tacitus reserves for him the most glowing colours on his palette, but dispassionate examination can find little more in him than a versatile and amiable mediocrity. The grief that the provinces and Rome felt for him was genuine enough, but there is nothing to show that Germanicus would have made a worthy princeps. But his death opened a rift between Agrippina and Tiberius which had far-reaching consequences; nothing could persuade the widow that the emperor had not somehow engineered the death of her husband, and from that day there were two parties in the State. Unfortunately Tiberius did little to avert such ill-feeling; although he sent Drusus with two praetorian cohorts to escort the ashes to Rome, neither he nor Livia appeared at the exequies, and in an edict he rebuked the people for undue indulgence in mourning. The effect upon Agrippina and her adherents can be imagined. Vengeance was her only thought, and the task was made lighter by the folly of Piso, who after unseemly rejoicings over Germanicus’ death determined to win back by force from Cn. Sentius Saturninus (who had been chosen to act as legatus for the time) the province from which he had been excluded. Repulsed, he prepared to stand his trial at Rome, and after appealing vainly to some influential senators, found an advocate in the moderate M. Lepidus.

The usual procedure would have been to bring him before the quaestio de veneficis, but, however democratic in theory the Principate might be, the alleged murder of the son of the Princeps could not be treated as an ordinary crime; though Tiberius refused to have the case tried before his own tribunal—which would have been intolerably embarrassing—he referred the case to the Senate, thereby making it out as a matter of State importance. In the court of the Senate the consuls normally presided, but on this occasion Tiberius opened proceedings in a speech of studied moderation.

The charges against Piso were apparently threefold, poisoning Germanicus, contumacy towards his superior, and attempted invasion of a province by force. Piso’s defenders could and did demonstrate the absurdity of the accusation of poisoning, and Piso himself put in a countercharge that Germanicus had expelled him from Syria in order to further treasonable designs, but acquittal was impossible; the senators were sure there had been foul play somewhere, the mob outside was riotous and ready to lynch the accused, and Tiberius would never overlook insubordination and violence in one of his own legati. Seeing his case hopeless Piso, to save his name and estate, committed suicide. So ended a sensational trial, but an air of mystery remained about it which Tacitus’ narrative does nothing to dispel, and there were many left willing to believe that Tiberius had brought about the death of his heir.

The obvious successor was now Drusus, Tiberius’ only son by Vipsania, and therefore doubly dear to him. He was about the same age as Germanicus but had been kept more in the background; he was not quaestor till 11 and apparently never held the praetorship, though he was given the consulship by his father in 15. Tradition may be right in calling him cruel, but generally he appears as an ordinary young man of good breeding but no great talent, fond of his wife Livilla (the daughter of the elder Drusus), and so greatly attached to his cousin Germanicus that courtiers could compare the two to the Dioscuri. Simultaneously with the mutiny in Germany mutiny broke out in the Pannonian legions, and Tiberius dispatched his son with a strong body of comites to deal with it: granted that an opportune eclipse (27 Sept. AD 14) came to his aid, he displayed a firmness in marked antithesis to the emotionalism of Germanicus, and later seems to have carried out the negotiations with Maroboduus and the settlement of the regnum Vannianum competently. Tiberius’ joy is intelligible when in 19 Livilla gave birth to twin sons, who were named Tiberius (Gemellus) and. Germanicus, for now the line was secure, and the provinces were quick to recognize this; at Ephesus and in Cyprus we find priests of the young twins. It was natural enough that Tiberius should bestow on him a second consulship, for 21 (during which he himself retired into Campania to give the young man experience of responsibility), and, well-satisfied, should in the next year ask the Senate for a grant of tribunicia potestas for him. The young man was popular, he treated the children of Germanicus kindly, he was gaining experience. One figure alone he could not tolerate, the man on whom his father was coming to depend more and more, the Prefect of the Praetorian Guards, Sejanus: with him and with his ambitions he came into collision.

The name is one of the most famous and sinister in Roman history. L. Aelius Sejanus was of Etruscan descent, his father L. Seius Strabo a distinguished knight, and he himself, as his name indicates, had at some period been adopted by a member of the gens Aelia. From the start his qualities found favour, for Augustus chose him as one of the comites for C. Caesar, when he went Eastward in 1 BC, and possibly on this journey he first met Tiberius. In 14 he was raised by Tiberius to share with his father the Prefecture of the Praetorians; shortly after, on the appointment of his father as Prefect of Egypt, he was left in sole command, and his position and his own talents enabled him to strengthen the hold he had already won upon Tiberius.

The reasons for his rise are not far to seek, though Tacitus can find no explanation beyond the ‘anger of the gods with Rome.’ By birth he belonged to a class to which the Principate was opening a new and dazzling future, the competent Equites. Possessed of great physical strength and of a soldierly bearing, discreet, trustworthy and efficient, he was the very man to appeal to the practical Tiberius. His office was a responsible one, responsible not only for the safety of the princeps but also for law and order throughout the peninsula; ‘nihil aeque Tiberium anxium habebat quam ne composita turbarentur,’ and though Sejanus did not often have to employ the praetorians their use was prompt and effective.

Sometime between AD 21 and 23 the Prefect succeeded in persuading Tiberius that discipline and efficiency would be better served by concentrating the nine praetorian cohorts at Rome, and new barracks covering over forty acres were built on high ground near the Porta Viminalis. In other ways, too, the favour of the Princeps was manifest; he proposed to marry Sejanus’ daughter to a son of his nephew Claudius, and he referred in the most com­plimentary terms to his lieutenant, calling him ‘partner of my labours’ and ‘my helper in government.’ The hot-tempered Drusus found this hard to bear, and on one occasion actually struck the favourite, but his opposition did not accomplish much; the very year after he had been granted tribunician power he died.

Again fate had dealt Tiberius a cruel blow. He found himself, at the age of sixty-four, bereft of son and successor and forced to fall back on the children of Germanicus, for the twin-sons of Drusus were far too young, and indeed one of them (Germanicus) died the same year. Yet another helper was taken from him, Lucilius Longus, one of his most intimate friends, who had shared his withdrawal to Rhodes. Tiberius had little left him apart from a few scholars and the faithful prefect who stood by his side to support him during the funeral ceremony of his son. And his grief, though deep-hidden by his habitual reserve and by a feverish devotion to his duties, could not but be exasperated by the confident joy of Agrippina, who could now count on the succession of one of her numerous sons. As in duty bound, Tiberius commended Nero and Drusus, the two eldest, to the Senate, but he was unwilling to see the young men’s heads turned by premature honours, and when in the year 24 priests included the names of Nero and Drusus in the New Year vows for the safety of the princeps they received a rebuke. Slowly Sejanus began to see a fine avenue for his ambition: were Agrippina’s children once out of the way, who but the faithful Sejanus was fit to be guardian for Tiberius’ surviving grandson? Given time and care it should not be difficult to prejudice Tiberius against Agrippina or her sons or to lead them on to their own destruction. His position as Chief of the Police gave him advantages, and he found to his hand a weapon of formidable possibilities, the law of maiestas. The greater use of this law and the growing ascendancy of the favourite mark a second stage in the Principate of Tiberius.

IV.

MAIESTAS AND THE POWER OF SEJANUS

Every State, however small, has sooner or later to protect itself not only against enemies without but also against malevolent citizens; as its constitution develops and changes, so do the sanctions safeguarding it and the conception of what constitutes treason. The progress of this conception at Rome has been seen elsewhere: with the Principate a new law of treason, the Lex Iulia de maiestate, became necessary. In his own person the princeps, as the holder of imperium, the possessor of tribunician sacrosanctity, and head of the State religion, was a visible symbol of the might and majesty of Rome, and conspiracy against his life would be treason; in 23 BC the young Tiberius had secured the condemnation of Fannius Caepio for conspiring to kill Augustus. But much in this law, as in the Lex Papia Poppaea, required interpretation; conspiracy was punishable, but what of insults by word or deed, or against statues or representations? And what was the position of members of the emperor’s family? Augustus was thought to have gone too far when he treated adultery with Julia as treason, but relationship to the princeps and protection by a bodyguard suggested a privileged position.

However necessary the new law, there were dangers in its scope and application which were only slowly realized. It en­couraged the rise of a class of professional informers, delatores,— for there was no public prosecutor in Rome,—and the informer was rewarded, if successful, with one-quarter of the goods of the accused. The vagueness too of the conception of maiestas meant that it was liable to be tacked on to any and every charge, in the hope of securing prejudice against the accused. So long as the princeps could exercise a sane and moderating influence, so long as he felt secure, all would be well; let him once feel insecure or allow his fears or personal feelings to be worked upon and the law would become an instrument of terror.

It was unfortunate that Augustus should have left to his successor two laws, the Lex Iulia de maiestate and the Lex Papia Poppaea, of uncertain application and of wide scope, depending upon the odious assistance of common informers; the early years of Tiberius witnessed a number of accusations for treason, brought by some doubtless in good faith, but by others as a speculation. In this period of transition it will be seen that Tiberius showed both moderation and ironical good-sense, and that when consulted he refused resolutely to admit trivial charges or interpret libels or malicious utterances against himself as treasonable, but this is not immediately discernible from the pages of the Annals. For Tacitus both by reason of his own life and prejudices could not give a fair account; knowing how formidable an engine the Law of Treason had become in his days, he saw in Tiberius, whose Memoirs Domitian had studied so carefully, the author of its abuse and in his moderation merely hypocrisy, and his pulse beats quicker as he approaches the hated topic. He relates the earliest cases that men may know ‘from what beginnings and with what subtlety on the part of Tiberius this horrid form of destruction crept into the State’; the earliest informers, poor abjects, set the example of a life which, rendering them rich and formidable, brought ruin first on others and finally on themselves; he describes the affair of Libo Drusus in greater detail because it was the ‘first appearance of an evil that cankered the State’; he introduces the case of Appuleia Varilla with the grim words, ‘meanwhile the Law of Treason was attaining its full stature,’ even though he reveals a few lines afterwards that Tiberius expressly refused to admit a charge of maiestas against her.

It would thus be unreasonable to expect from Tacitus an unbiassed view, and the only way to win this is by careful examination. Space does not admit of a full analysis, which has already been exactly and triumphantly carried out by scholars1, and in any account of the Empire it would be an error in proportion to assume that the law of maiestas is the most significant feature of Tiberius’ rule. What it is important to remember is that the interpretation and application of the statute was still in a fluid state: although cases would normally be tried in a praetorian quaestio, in so delicate a matter a praetor could hardly be blamed for consulting the consuls or the princeps. But the steady development of the Senatorial court as a regular tribunal for cases of extortion, and the growing tendency for it to take cog­nisance of such ordinary criminal charges as that of murder, when committed by persons of rank, led to the displacement of the quaestiones in such cases and to the growth of a feeling that senators should be tried by their peers. A charge of treason, in the sense of revolutionary designs, would usually affect men of outstanding power and influence; that is why little is said of praetorian courts and so much of hearings before the Senate. It would be the duty of the consuls, as presidents of the courts, to consider the applicability of all such charges, and to decide whether a case should be proceeded with or not, though here their decision might be overridden by the princeps’ tribunician veto. The first accusations, as might be expected, were brought in the hope of getting a widened definition and establishing precedents: one man was accused of allowing an actor (a person technically infamis) to be a member of a guild of worshippers of Divus Augustus, another of perjury by the deity of Augustus; Granius Marcellus, an ex­governor of Bithynia (who was also accused of extortion), of slanders on Tiberius and of substituting the head of Tiberius on a statue of Augustus. Such futilities were at once dismissed by Tiberius with the scorn and anger they deserved and the men set free, save that Marcellus was very properly sent before the court for extortion; but while Tiberius’ good sense is praiseworthy, justice must not be withheld from Tacitus, who on this topic is often treated as though he were a rhetorical charlatan, and accused of introducing these cases with unnecessary solemnity of indignation, seeing that nothing came of them. But Tacitus is perfectly right: the very triviality of the charges exhibits only too clearly the mean mentality and petty cupidity of the informers whom such legislation had created1. If suspicion were once aroused, the issue might be very different, as the affair of Libo Drusus in 16 showed.

The evidence in this case is by no means clear. The sources imply that Libo was accused of revolutionary designs, that is, of plots against the Emperor and his two sons (all of whom were in Rome in the autumn of 16) and of magical practices, and he was naturally tried by the Senate. Tacitus suggests that he was merely an empty-headed fool in the hands of unscrupulous black­guards and that the charges were interpreted too severely; the most serious piece of evidence appears to have been a notebook of his, in which mysterious marks were attached to the names of Tiberius, Germanicus and Drusus, and various senators. Belief in magical arts was strong, Tiberius himself was a victim of the grossest superstitions, and Libo, convinced there was no escape, returned home to commit suicide. Tiberius declared on oath that he would have pardoned him, had he lived, in spite of his guilt. For that his guilt was regarded as proven is shown not only by Velleius, but also by an entry in the Fasti Amiternini mentioning the holiday decreed for 13 September, the day when Libo’s ‘ murderous designs ’ were detected in the Senate, and it is signifi­cant that his trial was followed by a general decree banishing astrologers and professors of magic from Italy. Henceforward magic or the use of magical arts might be charged as treasonable, and terrible new possibilities were opened up.

Better founded were accusations akin to the perduellio, where men were punished for conspiring against the peace and welfare of the State; such cases were those of Antistius Vetus, accused of helping King Rhescuporis to disturb the general peace, Vibius Serenus, accused of stirring up revolt in Gaul, and M. Caecilius Cornutus, charged with complicity. Even here it should be noted that Vetus was punished with the normal penalty of aquae et ignis interdiction and that when a severer penalty was proposed for Serenus, Tiberius interposed in the interests of clemency. Sometimes a charge of treason was tacked on to others, as can be seen in the trials of Aemilia Lepida and of M. Silanus: Lepida was accused of an embarrassing variety of crimes, and finally convicted, though not of maiestas, for Tiberius refused to admit the charge; Silanus was guilty of extortion and cruelty, and though punished by exile, it remains doubtful whether it was for maiestas, since bad government was a sufficiently heinous offence in Tiberius’ eyes.

Two other cases, where the written or spoken word was concerned, offer greater uncertainties. In the first a poet, Clutorius Priscus, who had earned a handsome reward for an elegy on the death of Germanicus, was vain enough to compose and recite, when Drusus fell ill in 21, a poem to show how he could celebrate Drusus’ death. He was brought before the Senate, perhaps on a charge of magical arts (where Libo’s case would be a precedent), and condemned: although the moderate M. Lepidus pleaded for the aquae et ignis interdictio ‘exactly as though he were guilty under the law of treason,’ the mass of senators voted for instant execution. (It should be noted that Tiberius was absent from Rome at the time.) In the second Cremutius Cordus, a historian of repute, was accused by agents of Sejanus in 25. But though Tacitus puts into his mouth a spirited defence, the exact charge is doubtful; if he was really accused of praising Brutus and Cassius as ‘the last of the Romans,’ a phrase which Brutus himself had used over Cassius, it must have been interpreted as treasonable praise of men condemned by the Lex Pedia as traitors and outlaws, and therefore no fit subject for eulogy. Dio’s statement that Cordus had recited his Histories before Augustus can only be true of parts of it, for one surviving fragment shows a definitely anti- Augustan tone. In the end Cordus committed suicide and his books were publicly burnt by the aediles, though copies survived among friends.

But while we may discern in these trials too much zeal on the part of Sejanus and too little independence of judgment on the part of the senators, and while Tacitus paints the growth of the evil in dark colours, there is much to show that Tiberius tried to exercise a moderating influence. He would not at first recognize slanderous utterances against himself as falling under maiestas: he refused to proceed against Appuleia Varilla in 17, and though Cominius was convicted in 24 of libel against him he pardoned him; punishment for this offence was apparently not inflicted till 25, when Votienus Montanus was banished. He interceded in favour of a knight, Ennius, who was accused of melting down a statue of him; he would not regard adultery with a member of the imperial house as maiestas, he caused the punishment in 21 of two Roman knights and in 25 of a senator, Firmius Catus, for bringing malicious accusations, and he could warn a delator not to mar his speeches by over-vehemence. More still, after the execution of Clutorius Priscus he persuaded the Senate to pass a decree that no decisions should be entered on the records in the aerarium before the lapse of ten days; this meant that in future a condemned man had ten days of grace, in which much might happen. There is irony in the reflection that the ruler who, according to Tacitus, was responsible for ‘reintroducing’ the law of treason, actually made for a condemned man an innovation of clemency. ‘But the Senate,’ comments Tacitus, ‘was not left free to repent, and Tiberius was not softened by the interval.’

This then was the instrument that Sejanus found ready for him, a law of treason of widening scope and a body of professional informers who could be disciplined by him. His first task was to rouse the fears of Tiberius against Agrippina and her sons. It is often assumed that they were innocent victims of Sejanus’ cunning; but it must be remembered that Agrippina had never forgiven Tiberius, that descent from the divine Augustus might give her sons a strong claim to the succession, and that she had a considerable body of support. There was possible danger here, and Sejanus slowly struck down her chief adherents by maiestas trials, and fomented the jealousy of Drusus against his elder brother Nero by suggesting that he would be the obvious successor once Nero were out of the way5. C. Silius, a former governor of Germany, and his wife Sosia Galla, two friends of Agrippina, were condemned for extortion and removed, and a cousin Claudia Pulchra was found guilty of adultery and banished. Agrippina regarded these as attacks upon herself and loaded Tiberius with reproaches; she fell ill and when Tiberius visited her besought him with tears to let her take another husband; such a step would merely mean more com­plications and Tiberius left her abruptly. Now at last Sejanus could play the two off against each other: so-called friends warned her that Tiberius intended to poison her, and when at table she would scarcely touch food; to Tiberius Sejanus pointed this out as suspicious and contumacious conduct; Nero was provoked to incautious utterances, all of which were faithfully reported.

Unpleasantnesses such as these seem finally to have decided Tiberius to carry out a long-cherished plan and withdraw from Rome. He was sixty-seven and wearied with the cares of rule; the death of Drusus had been a crushing blow (he could not bear to see about the court people who reminded him of his son), and in his agony then he had spoken of resignation. It was whispered too that he found the temper of his august mother hard to bear, and was sensitive about some facial disfigurement from which he was suffering. If to all these we add disgust with the intrigues at court, and the fear of danger (sedulously fostered by Sejanus), there was reason enough for withdrawal. For his retreat he had chosen the island of Capreae, which Augustus had purchased from Naples some fifty years ago and on which he had built a large number of villas. On this four-mile island, with its heavenly climate, difficult of access and remote on some hill he might hope for solitude and peace. The friends he took with him, apart from Sejanus, evince a genuine love of scholarship and science as practised in those days; Thrasyllus with his philosophy and star­lore, Cocceius Nerva, a distinguished jurist and man of culture, Curtius Atticus, renowned for eloquence, and grammarians and men of letters.

Yet the withdrawal was a fatal mistake and had the most serious consequences. Though Tiberius worked on steadily and remitted none of his care for the Empire, it looked like despair and desertion of duty, and while it lost him prestige with the people, its effect on the Senate was to emphasize glaringly its inferiority and dependence on the princeps. There was no longer a first citizen attending its sessions, allowing freedom of speech and calling the senators ‘my good masters’: henceforward the Senate received letters and despatches, requesting, suggesting, ordering, and felt itself helpless before the will of an inaccessible despot. More ominous, the position of Sejanus was materially strengthened; Tiberius’ trust in him was unbounded; though he did not grant his request to marry Livilla, he could assure him that there was no eminence too lofty for his virtues and loyalty; the very journey to Capreae gave renewed proofs of Sejanus’ unselfish devotion, for when the roof of a grotto in which they were dining collapsed he saved the life of Tiberius at the peril of his own. Whatever Sejanus said was likely to be credited, and the way was now clear against Agrippina. Another prominent adherent of hers was removed, Titius Sabinus; information against him was obtained by secreting witnesses between ceiling and roof, and on New Year’s Day 28 a despatch from Tiberius accused Sabinus of conspiring against him and of corrupting his freedmen; the death penalty was passed and (contrary to law) carried out immediately, and a letter of thanks arrived from Tiberius declaring he was afraid of plots. It was the first occasion that death had been decreed for maiestas, and it was decreed because of Tiberius’ expressed fears. The narrative in Tacitus is designed to imply that these fears were mainly the invention of Sejanus, but a passage in Pliny the Elder who speaks of an incident which happened ‘when Titius Sabinus and his slaves were being punished in connection with the case of Nero, son of Germanicus,’ suggests a different view; it is not impossible that Agrippina and her son, if not themselves guilty of plotting, were the focus of a conspiracy, and that there was some danger. However that may be, when in the year 29 the empress mother died, Tiberius finally took action against his daughter and grandson.

The death of Augustus’ widow demands more than a passing mention. She died at the advanced age of eighty-six: for sixty years she had been a prominent figure at Rome, famous for her beauty, dignity and discretion; she had undoubtedly exercised a great influence upon her husband, and always for mildness and clemency, yet in the Annals she hardly ever appears save in a bad light and trailing a catalogue of crimes that would do credit to a Borgia: it is hinted that she caused the deaths of Marcellus, then of Gaius and Lucius Caesar, overthrew the two Julias, perhaps poisoned Augustus, and hastened the death of Agrippa Postumus ‘novercalibus odiis’; the final verdict is—‘a complaisant wife well matched with the cunning of her husband and the hypocrisy of her son.’ This farrago of nonsense is only comprehensible if it is noted that accusations fall against her mainly on the question of succession, that they are simply the result of the jealousy and hatred of the Julias and Agrippinas and their party, and that Tacitus reflects their propaganda. They drew the portrait of the scheming stepmother and found a malicious delight in supposing that afterwards the son, who (according to them) owed her so much, could not bear her masterful temper and neglected her in her last illness. It is likely enough that Tiberius found her difficult: Rome was unaccustomed to queens or queen-mothers, and the question of her rank or precedence was not easy. His sense of decorum was shocked by undue prominence given to a woman (be it Livia or Agrippina), and so he moderated the honours proposed for her in 14 and limited the right of coinage she possessed in Alexandria: but the tendency of the age was against him and it is noticeable that on the Paris cameo, depicting the departure of Germanicus for the Orient, Julia Augusta is represented as sitting beside, though on a lower throne than the princeps. At first he appears to have treated her with great consideration; he consulted with her and took her opinion, and he even allowed her to inscribe her name before his on at least one monument. News of an illness in 22 brought him back hastily from the retreat he had sought in Campania, and he permitted the Senate to vow special games and an altar to Pietas Augusta for her recovery. On Capreae, however, he became more negligent: the altar was not dedicated until twenty years had passed, he did not attend her funeral, and did not hasten to carry out the provisions of her will. The laudation was pronounced by Gaius Caesar, the youngest son of Germanicus, who was then in his seventeenth year. In spite of malignant tradition we may believe that she well deserved the honorific titles that many provincial cities gratefully gave her and that she was fully worthy of the great age in which she lived.

V.

THE FALL OF SEJANUS AND THE LAST YEARS

The death of Julia Augusta marked the beginning of two years momentous for Tiberius and his line, for Sejanus could at last bend all his energies against the house of Germanicus. Unfortunately it is just here that Tacitus suddenly fails us, practically all of Book V of the Annals being lost, and for the ensuing period of excitement and terror there remain a few sections of Suetonius, some pieces of information in Josephus, and some nineteen chapters of Dio Cassius, the first seven of which are not Dio at all but later compilation. Dio and Suetonius are so frequently detected in error, where they can be checked by Tacitus or others, that it would be uncritically optimistic to hope that their information is any better just at this point, and the fall of Sejanus offers Dio not only some welcome omens but also full field for the display of his moralizing and dramatic tendencies. Still some outline can be reconstructed.

Shortly after Livia’s death despatches arrived from Tiberius containing bitter complaints against the character and morals of Nero and the ‘contumacy’ of Agrippina. The majority of the senators hesitated; outside a mob was clamouring that the despatches were a forgery, and though shouting loyally for Tiberius it bore aloft the images of Agrippina and her sons. An angry letter from Tiberius followed, the Senate was submissive,—and all that can safely be said is that Agrippina and Nero were both sentenced to banishment; both were removed in chains, in closed litters, with strict orders to the soldiers on no account to stop or talk with anyone; the mother, after being kept in custody for a while near Herculaneum, was sent to Pandateria, Nero, after being adjudged hostis, to Pontia. Such punishment and such precautions would scarcely have been taken unless conspiracy had been alleged; we may assume that Agrippina and her son were charged with treasonable designs to flee to the German armies and overthrow Tiberius, and (though certainty is impossible) it looks as though Cotta Messallinus, Avillius Flaccus and possibly Domitius Afer were prominent in accusation1. That the two were guilty of imprudent speech and rash hopes is likely enough, that there was serious danger is most improbable, and the fact that so many former friends and lieutenants of Germanicus were afterwards implicated in the fall of Sejanus suggests that a number had deserted Agrippina for the winning side.

The way was now growing clearer: some time in 30 Nero was terrorized into committing suicide; could Sejanus but sweep aside Drusus and Gaius the only possible successor would be the emperor’s sole surviving grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, and the only possible guardian for so young a boy the incorruptible Sejanus. During the year 30 all went smoothly and his position grew stronger each day; he had many supporters, he had influential connections with most of the northern armies, though in Syria the legions never placed his image with that of the Princeps, and at last Tiberius promised him marriage with a member of the imperial family, and nominated him as consul for the year 31 with himself as colleague. Such treatment could mean only one thing, that Sejanus was destined for succession. He had induced Tiberius to send Drusus to Rome, where he was accused by Cassius Longinus and kept a prisoner in the palace. Only Gaius remained, and against him Sejanus had his agent ready.

And then something happened or rather two things; the suspicions of Tiberius were aroused and in the end Sejanus lost patience. Men might support Sejanus against Agrippina or Nero but not against the whole family of the popular Germanicus; somehow a hint reached Antonia, the mother of Germanicus and sister-in-law of Tiberius, and she sent a confidential messenger to warn Tiberius. The first sign was the sudden summons of Gaius, hitherto neglected in Rome, to Capreae, where he was given the toga virilis, he would be far safer on the island than in Rome whither Sejanus had departed to hold the consulship for 31. But for some months Tiberius took no overt action, not so much through fear, as through agonizing doubt. How could he be sure? If the news were true, once Sejanus got wind that he were suspected, then he had no other way of escape than removing the man who suspected him, and Tiberius’ life was no longer safe. The Emperor must proceed cautiously: he praised Gaius and bestowed on him a priesthood; he found his action was popular, but at the same time he gave priesthoods to Sejanus and his son.

Sejanus had entered on his consulship full of confidence: a fragmentary inscription suggests that he made an inflammatory speech to the people; he got one of his creatures to overthrow Curtius Atticus (thus removing an honest man from Capreae), and it is said that he was granted the imperium proconsulare by the Senate. But Tiberius’ attitude began to give him anxiety, for the princeps was slowly making it plain to the Senate that the favourite was not all-powerful. He sometimes addressed him by all his titles, but at others showed him scant respect or vetoed excessive adulation, and as he himself resigned the consulship in May Sejanus had to follow suit. Worse was to come: Sejanus had promoted an attack on the influential L. Arruntius, who was governing Nearer Spain from Rome as imperial legatus. Tiberius intervened to quash the proceedings, had the accusers punished, and caused the Senate to pass a decree forbidding attacks upon imperial legati during their term of office.

This decision, which can be dated between 1 July and 1 October of 31 (and more probably in the earlier months), was a definite setback for Sejanus, and taken with the ambiguous attitude of Tiberius apparently threw him completely off his balance. By now he had expected to receive all the necessary titles and powers, yet Tiberius was still hesitating. Did he suspect? Amid fear and exasperation Sejanus lost patience; he wrote to his friends in the provinces, tested the loyalty of the urban cohorts and was promised money from the military chest by P. Vitellius. But whatever his intentions they were betrayed by one Satrius Secundus, and Tiberius took the necessary counter-measures, though he must have doubted whether any remained loyal to him. He determined to appoint Sertorius Macro as Prefect of the Guards, and early in October sent him with a despatch to the Senate and secret instructions to P. Memmius Regulus, the consul-suffect on 1 October, whom he could trust; if necessary Drusus was to be released from custody and shown to the people; but for days the old man watched from one of the heights of Capreae for the signal that was either to reassure him or hurry his flight in the ships that waited beneath him.

On the night of 17 October Macro arrived in Rome and made all ready: meeting Sejanus early on the 18th he assured him that the despatch he brought was a request from Tiberius to the patres to grant tribunician power to the favourite; it would have been the final touch, making him definitely consort imperii, and Sejanus walked joyfully into the trap. Macro now showed the praetorians his appointment and took them back to the camp, after placing the despatch in the consul’s hands and leaving Graecinus Laco with his Vigiles to guard the meeting. The famous letter then read was planned by its length and ambiguity to lull the suspicions of Sejanus and prevent any sudden act; at the beginning Tiberius wrote of perils that threatened him and asked for one of the consuls to be sent with a military escort; the letter wound on its long course and suddenly at the end came denunciation. Sejanus was seized and removed in custody; then when the senators saw that the praetorians were quiet and the mob gave no sign he was strangled that very evening. Six days later his eldest son was executed, and on the 26th Apicata, his divorced wife, committed suicide, but not before she had composed and sent to Tiberius a document that added the final shock to his agony of mind. He had already had to bear the horror of betrayal by the one man he had trusted and now he learnt that his son, Drusus, had not died a natural death; Livilla had committed adultery with Sejanus and the pair had poisoned him. And meanwhile the senators were passing decrees—for 18 October to be a public holiday, for a statue of Liberty to be set up, begging Tiberius to accept the title of pater patriae—while provinces and cities hailed the overthrow of a pernicious enemy and worshipped the ‘foresight’ of Tiberius. But for nine months Tiberius did not move from his villa: even Regulus was repulsed; he could face no one.

The few remaining years of Tiberius’ life were spent away from Rome, mostly at Capreae, though towards the end a restlessness beset him and he moved from place to place. Not content, however, with leaving him to old age and misery, tradition has branded him so that the name of Tiberius has come to stand for unnatural vice and sensuality. Yet it is significant that such stories occur in no first-century writer; the testimony of Philo, who extols Tiberius in order to blacken Gaius the deeper, may be exaggerated but it remains impressive in its favourable tone. And though Seneca and Pliny admit Tiberius’ gloomy nature, and have silly stories to illustrate his love for drink, they never even hint at such vices: there is the same silence in Plutarch, though he actually speaks of the long sojourn of Tiberius on Capreae, and in Josephus too; even Juvenal has only a scornful fling at the aged emperor surrounded by a herd of astrologers on his rock at Capreae. But in Tacitus and Suetonius, and to a lesser degree in Dio Cassius, the accusation is definite and detailed, and we can only conjecture that the first two were able to draw upon some chronique scandaleuse accessible and eagerly read in Stoic-aristocratic circles. Apart from the intrinsic untrustworthiness of such scandals, which are a commonplace of ancient polemic, the general good health of Tiberius (he lived to be seventy-seven), the company which he took with him to Capreae, which showed his interest in scholarship and learning, and the fact that scandal tends to gather round a solitary and retired life inexplicable to the mob, must all weigh against them. In the end they are all part of the hostile portrait of Tiberius as really vicious from birth, though repressed and hypocritical at first, and only breaking out when all control was removed at the end of his life.

At the worst, the verdict, to those who are accustomed to appreciate ancient historical evidence, must be non liquet. But those defenders of Tiberius who obstinately maintain that even after the disasters of 31 he remained unaltered have a difficult thesis. Seriously to suggest that Tiberius’ mind was unaffected by the shocks that suddenly cumulated on it, argues strange ignorance. His reason must nearly have given way under the assaults of fear, self-pity, and craving for revenge. Even on his stronghold at Capreae he scarcely felt secure and ordered careful watch against unauthorized landings; if he were ever to come to Rome he begged the Senate to give adequate protection to one who was ‘an old man and alone.’ As for the followers of Sejanus, punishment must be ruthless. And this brooding over revenge was accompanied by periods of despair and frenzy so intense that his very despatches to the Senate bore evidence of a soul tortured and distracted; when Agrippina died in October 33 he boasted that he had not had her strangled or her body thrown down the Scalae Gemoniae, the opening of another despatch is preserved by Tacitus and Suetonius: “what to write to you, Conscript Fathers, or how to write or what not to write at this time, may heaven bring me to a worse death than I feel myself dying daily if I know”. To Tacitus this sentence is merely a proof that vice is its own punishment.

The interrogation of the guilty and suspect (and all friends of Sejanus were suspect) was carried out with savage rigour, and Tiberius was pitiless, for who could suffer as much as he had suffered? Something of a reign of terror prevailed. Some of the accused, such as Junius Blaesus or P. Vitellius, committed suicide, some were kept in custody for Tiberius to question, as Junius Gallio or Mamercus Scaurus, others (like Q. Servaeus or Sextus Paconianus) turned informer and were presumably acquitted; the end of some, such as Julius Africanus or Seius Quadratus, is completely unknown. But many less notable had been involved; it is said that the prisons were crowded with Seianiani; the suspense and dread of those months must have been shattering. The account given by Tiberius in his own Memoirs was that he punished Sejanus for his mad designs against the children of Germanicus: very few helpers of Sejanus escaped; Drusus, who had aided him against Nero, was allowed to starve to death in the palace; Livilla was driven to kill herself.

The last four years of Tiberius are pictured by Tacitus as of unrelieved gloom, during which maiestas pursued its devastations. It is indeed likely enough that in these last years few people in eminent positions could feel secure, and the shadow of accusation fell very near; this explains the reluctance of many to accept provincial governorships against which Tacitus declares that Tiberius publicly complained. Yet Tacitus himself records instances where the delatores were punished, every accusation was not successful, and it is not easy to find a case of a clearly innocent person being victimized. Indeed Tacitus has to mingle, with the execution of the condemned, deliberate suicides, such as those of Cocceius Nerva or Arruntius, and natural deaths, such as those of Aelius Lamia or M.’ Lepidus, as though to place the blame for all these on Tiberius. But though the picture is rhetorically coloured, it is noteworthy that some cases were cruelly or unduly delayed, because Tiberius could not make up his mind1. The hesitation and indecision, so characteristic of Tiberius, grew worse still in these latter years, and he cannot be exempted from blame over the trials for maiestas. An elaborate analysis of these has been carried out by Ciaceri: after making all possible deductions, he concludes that some sixty-three persons had to face trial for treason during the reign of Tiberius, and he regards this figure as not large. Against this two points must be urged: the first, that nearly all of Book Five of the Annals is missing and that Tacitus only mentions the more notable and noble victims and disregards slaves or lowborn. The second objection is more general: Tiberius’ reign lasted a little over twenty-two years; all cannot be well within a State when in so short a period sixty-three persons can be accused and tried for treason; granted that some of these cases were due to the zeal or plotting of Sejanus, yet a ruler is ultimately responsible for his ministers, and we cannot acquit Tiberius. His diffidence and hesitation, coupled later with fear and suspicion, allowed the growth of a grave evil.

A certain hardening too in his attitude towards the trials must be admitted. In the year 23 he aggravated the penalty for maiestas, interdiction from fire and water, by depriving those convicted of the power to make a will, one of the most definite marks of citizenship, and in the same year Vibius Serenus, after condemnation, instead of being allowed to choose his place of exile, was deported to Amorgos. Here we have the beginnings of a penalty that soon developed fully, deportatio, involving loss of citizenship, confiscation of all goods save a competence, and deportation to an island. And when in AD 24 the Senate were discussing a proposal to abolish the customary rewards to the informers if the party accused of maiestas committed suicide before the end of the trial, Tiberius resisted vehemently, declaring that informers were the guardians of the Law.

Yet even in old age and solitude Tiberius found time to supervise carefully as ever both Italy and the Empire; in foreign affairs there was no slackening of power or interest, and it was the same at home. When a land and financial crisis suddenly occurred in Italy in AD 33 Tiberius was able to set money in circulation again by a princely loan of one hundred million sesterces, to be managed by a board of Senators, from which debtors could borrow over a period of three years free of interest. To complaints of the people about the high price of corn he replied by publishing the amount and sources of the corn he was bringing to Rome and showing it was more than Augustus had brought. When a fire damaged the Aventine and surrounding regions in 36, Tiberius succoured the homeless by another great gift of one hundred million sesterces. Donations such as these show how securely based were the imperial finances, and his thrifty policy enabled him to leave a sum of two thousand seven hundred million sesterces in the treasury for his successor.

In the autumn of 36 Tiberius began to show signs of failing. He was troubled over the question of an heir, for Gemellus was too young and the claims of Germanicus’ son, Gaius, could not be passed over; he had been made a priest in 31, and given the quaestorship in 33 with the right to hold office five years before the legal age; his favour was courted both by the Praetorian Prefect, Macro, and by the Jewish prince, Julius Agrippa, who had returned to Italy in the spring of 36 leaving a train of unpaid debts in the East. Tiberius bade him attend upon Gemellus, but Herod preferred the society of Gaius, into whose ears he instilled tales of what an absolute monarch might do, were Tiberius but out of the way. An imprudent conversation, overheard by the charioteer Eutychus, led to his denunciation and eventual im­prisonment in the autumn of 36. But Gaius could not be set aside and in 35 Tiberius had made a will in which he and Gemellus were nominated as joint-heirs. On March 16, 37, the end came in the villa of Lucullus at Misenum: feeling his strength failing Tiberius took off his ring to hand it over, then gripped it again, called for his attendants, staggered a few paces and fell, solitary and hesitant in death as in life.

But so quiet a death little suited the imagination of those who wished to contemplate the ‘tyrant’ Tiberius ending unhappily and the ‘madman’ Gaius beginning badly. They persuaded themselves that Tiberius’ skill in astrology brought him sorrow; he foresaw that Gaius would kill Gemellus and rule evilly, and he wept over it. And Gaius must have poisoned or suffocated him, perhaps through Macro or—better still—with his own hands. The crowd in Rome received the news of his death with fierce joy, crying ‘Tiberius to the Tiber.’ Something of the tragic destiny of the man has been seen in preceding pages, but no final verdict can be passed until his government of the provinces has been considered: here we can view him removed from the background of court life, which he loathed, and from association with a Senate, which he was apt to despise, employing his talents and experience for the service of the empire.

VI.

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE EMPIRE

The first duty of a princeps was to safeguard the empire and assure tranquillity: Tiberius’ own experience and his obedience to Augustus’ advice combined to make him avoid wars or expeditions, with their consequent expense, and trust more in diplomacy: ‘consiliis et astu res externas moliri, arma procul habere.’ The measures that he took along the frontiers call for separate treatment: inside the empire he effected such changes in the administration or government of regions as seemed necessary for safety. Client-kings or rulers who proved unsatisfactory were removed: soon after his accession he sent for King Archelaus of Cappadocia and brought him to trial before the Senate, possibly on the charge of treasonable designs, and he deprived C. Julius Laco of the tyranny that he held in Sparta. The aged Archelaus died in Rome, Laco was destined to return to power. Tiberius’ knowledge of Illyricum taught him that it was more economical for the whole Balkan peninsula to be under one control, and he arranged for the Senatorial provinces of Achaea and Macedonia to be combined with the imperial province of Moesia, placing the whole under the supervision of Poppaeus Sabinus. Where it seemed advantageous to incorporate client-kingdoms, as Cappadocia and Commagene, they were taken over, while friendly relations were maintained with regions beyond the frontiers, such as the new realm of Vannius or the older Bosporan kingdom.

While Germany and Parthia were left to internal dissension, occasionally fostered from Rome, and the frontiers secured against attack, three minor wars within its borders troubled the general tranquillity of the empire. The province of Africa suffered during the first ten years from a revolt of the Musulamii, under a leader who had learnt Roman discipline and methods of warfare, Tacfarinas, and aided by the bordering Mauri. The nomad tribes found their freedom of movement hampered by the slow advance of a settled urban civilization, and the clash soon came. At first Roman generalship could not cope with the mobile squadrons of a guerilla enemy and little was done, though Tiberius was eager and ready to reward a senatorial commander, such as Furius Camillus, with triumphal insignia. But Africa was too large a province, its contribution to the corn-supply too important for prolonged dislocation to be tolerable; in AD 20 Tiberius dispatched the Ninth legion from Pannonia to reinforce the army and gently reminded the Senate that it was their duty to choose a capable commander. An uncle of Sejanus, Junius Blaesus, won some successes, for which he was greeted as imperator in AD 22, —the last time a private citizen secured that honour,—but it was left for P. Dolabella, who split his forces into four flying columns, finally to rout and kill Tacfarinas. For assistance given in this campaign Ptolemy of Mauretania (who had succeeded his father Juba in the winter of 23/24) received formal recognition as socius et amicus and gifts suitable to that distinction; on his coins he displays these gifts and the temple of the god Tiberius. Even this petty war demonstrated the Senate’s weakness: it is significant that when Tiberius asked it to choose a good commander it shirked responsibility by placing the decision on him. Pacification could now begin: the Ninth legion had returned to Pannonia in AD 23; the troops of the Third were put to useful work, laying roads, constructing bridges and improving communications. The tranquillity and growing prosperity of the province is reflected in public works and buildings that sprang up during the reign, notably at Bulla Regia and Thugga.

While Spain appears to have been undisturbed, Gaul suffered from one movement of revolt, though not of any seriousness. Its leaders were the Romanized Gauls, Julius Florus and Julius Sacrovir, working among the Aedui and Treveri. The campaigns of Germanicus had drained the resources of the country, and once Germanicus was withdrawn a personal element for loyalty was lacking; Roman governors and negotiatores had not learnt moderation all in a day, there were many debt-ridden men who would flock to the standard of revolt, and possibly feeling had been exasperated by the suppression of the Druids and the disarmament of the natives. Whatever its causes, it was not a widespread movement, and was easily crushed once the governors of Upper and Lower Germany, C. Silius and Visellius Varro, had settled their jealousies, though Silius spoilt the effect of his victory over Sacrovir by extortion and avarice, for which he was to pay later in Rome. But the lesson of the revolt was the usefulness of the Rhine legions as a police force rather than any real disaffection among Gauls, and the emperor Claudius was not merely tactful when he praised the century-long loyalty of that nation. For the rest peace prevailed and was gratefully acknowledged, as in­scriptions from bodies of negotiatores or from guilds testify.

The only serious trouble arose in Thrace, where the Odrysian kingdom had been divided by Augustus between two members of the royal house; Rhescuporis, a brother of the late king Rhoemetalces, was given the mountainous and wilder parts in the west, while his nephew Cotys ruled the eastern half with its cultivable land and Greek cities on the coast. He had himself some reputation as a writer as well as a warrior, so that Ovid could appeal to him as a brother poet. But Rhescuporis, anxious to extend his domains, and foolishly encouraged by the wealthy Antistius Vetus, first entrapped and then killed his nephew; this could not be tolerated, and Tiberius entrusted L. Pomponius Flaccus, who had experience of the country, with the task of bringing him to Rome to stand his trial before the Senate. There he was accused by Cotys’ wife, Antonia Tryphaena, a remarkable woman, in whose veins flowed the blood of Antony; he was sentenced to exile in Alexandria where he was later killed. His son Rhoemetalces II, since he was acquitted of complicity with his father, was allowed to inherit his kingdom, but the children of Cotys and Antonia were too young to succeed; their mother apparently retired to Cyzicus, but they were brought up at Rome in the house of the widowed Antonia, where afterwards they met the young Gaius. For the time being the kingdom was placed under the guardianship of a Roman resident officer, Trebellenus Rufus; though he was subsequently recalled, Tiberius did not restore the kingdom to the family; perhaps he intended to annex it. But Thracians were not easily kept in order; a rising of the Odrysae and Coelaletae, who besieged Rhoemetalces in Philippopolis in 21, was dispersed; four years later they were in arms again, since levies and tribute pressed them hard, and the movement was serious enough to call for the intervention of the able Poppaeus Sabinus and earned him triumphal insignia. But the whole region must have been unsettled, and piracy broke out again: Cyzicus blocked up the channels that cut through the isthmus connecting her with the mainland, and Ilium recorded its thanks to a procurator of Drusus for putting down pirates in the Hellespont. In Thrace itself we hear that Tiberius planted a city called Tiberia (possibly a re-foundation of Philippopolis), and gave a new city-wall to Apollonia: if there is a kernel of truth in Malalas’ statement, it must be that Rhoemetalces gave this name to his capital in gratitude and loyalty, just as Herod Antipas founded the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee.

Apart from actual wars Tiberius took prompt action to put down disorders and guard against outbreaks. In his reign, if not shortly before, the City Prefecture, controlling the city cohorts, and responsible for order in the city, became a permanent office; brigandage in Sardinia was checked, a riot at Pollentia was punished by putting the leading citizens in chains, a threatened slave war in south Italy was stifled, and a daring attempt by a slave of Agrippa Postumus to impersonate his master, which might thave assumed dangerous proportions, was checked by prompt action. The rights of asylum which many famous temples in the East possessed threatened to become an abuse, and Tiberius asked the Senate, as the proper authority, to deal with the whole question; while tradition was respected, some check appears to have been imposed, though details are not given. Cyzicus, for an outbreak in which Roman citizens were roughly handled, lost the freedom it had possessed for a century, and to guard against brigands in Asia Minor and keep the hilly districts under control two cities were founded, one Tiberiopolis in the mountains between Mysia and Western Phrygia, the other Tiberia (or Tiberiopolis) on the site of Pappa, not far from Antioch by Pisidia, which itself saw renewed building activity during the reign.

The finances of the empire were in a sound condition at his accession but Tiberius kept a keen watch for possible wastage or extravagance. All beneficia which Augustus had granted lapsed automatically at his death: his successor did not confirm them without question, but investigated each claim carefully. Although at the time he was forced to recognize the privilege of discharge after sixteen years’ service which Germanicus had granted to the mutineers on the Rhine, and even to extend it to the Pannonian legions, he knew that the military chest was unequal to the strain and, once the mutinous spirit had subsided, in AD 15 he arranged that normally discharge would not take place until after twenty years’ service. During his reign the imperial estates must have been steadily growing: to take but a few instances, the estates of King Archelaus of Cappadocia became imperial property, we hear of copper-mines in Gaul owned by Julia Augusta, of a silver-mine in Rutene territory worked by slaves of Tiberius, of the gold and copper-mines of Sextus Marius in Spain which were confiscated in AD 33, and of the estate at Jamnia which Salome bequeathed to Julia Augusta; the management of these numerous concerns meant an increasing army of slaves and freed­men, such as those who controlled the area Liviana at Thyatira, or Herennius Capito at Jamnia. But the central executive in Rome, though growing, was still relatively small: though we hear of one freedman a rationibus (a clerk for accounts), of another acceptor a subscriptionibus (secretary for petitions), and of a third supra hereditates (presumably controlling the accounts of the vicesima hereditatum) during this reign, they were not yet the all-powerful and arrogant ministers of a generation later. Tacitus notes with approval the small number of freedmen in the palace, and when in 23 the procurator of Asia, Lucilius Capito, was alleged to have used soldiers to enforce his demands, Tiberius, expressly declaring that he had only given him power over the imperial slaves and revenues, disowned him and his actions.

There was nothing of the exactions or of the scandalous riches of imperial freedmen that marred later reigns. Tacitus comments favourably on the indifference that Tiberius at first displayed towards others’ money: he refused to accept legacies or claim bona caduca if any heirs could establish a reasonable claim. Careful conservation of all resources enabled him, while he would not waste a penny on unnecessary shows or donatives or congiaria to give spectacular grants when need was pressing—a hundred million sesterces after a fire on the Aventine in 36, the same sum during the financial difficulties of 33, and in 19 he spent what must have amounted to much the same in lowering the price of corn to the populace when rates were high. And though he refused a demand for reduction of taxation he bore it in mind: in AD 15 the people had murmured against the burden of the one per cent, tax on public sales, but Tiberius pointed out that it was the main prop of the military chest and could not be reduced; nevertheless, in 17 when the incorporation of Cappadocia as a province brought fresh revenues to the Empire, he remembered the complaint and reduced the tax to one-half per cent., at which figure it remained until the generosity of Gaius cancelled it altogether.

Such a proceeding, however, might mean that Tiberius was benefiting Italy from the spoils of the provinces, and leads us to consider his treatment of the provincials. Fortunately, on this point one of his own utterances is preserved; when a governor sent him more than the stipulated amount in taxes, his reply was sardonic but typical, ‘you should shear my sheep, not flay them’; and if it was the governor of Egypt, Aemilius Rectus, as Dio relates, he was relieved next year of his governorship. Both Tacitus and Philo concur in praising Tiberius’ government of the provinces; his choice of governors seems to have been good, and if a man proved unsatisfactory he was soon removed. Competent governors were retained long—too long, it was complained —in their posts, and here Tiberius had his own ironical explanation; man was by nature greedy but the longer he stayed in a province, once he had satisfied himself, his appetite would diminish and the provincials would suffer less. But he was a shrewd judge of ability, and men like Poppaeus Sabinus (who was practically in charge of the Balkans) or L. Apronius or C. Galerius, the prefect of Egypt, were kept in their positions for a long term of years and knew their provinces well. One phenomenon, however, seems difficult to explain, the absentee governorships of L. Arruntius and Aelius Lamia, who, although nominated to Spain and Syria, were detained in Rome. Both Suetonius and Tacitus ascribe it to fear of leaving a prominent noble a free hand in a province, but in that case why award the honour at all? There were precedents for such governorships certainly, Pompey from 53 BC onwards and Lepidus in 42, and the experiment, which might have resulted in a sort of Secretariat for a Province, was worth trying; but the reign of Claudius produced something different.

A notable example of a good choice was the governorship of L. Vitellius in Syria; his dealings with Parthia are discussed elsewhere, but in other quarters he displayed equal efficiency. He crushed with promptitude a rising of a mountain tribe, the Cietae in Western Cilicia, and when Philip the tetrarch died in AD 34 he was probably entrusted with the incorporation of his tetrarchy (comprising Gaulanitis, Trachonitis, and Batanea) into the province of Syria: it should be noted, however, that the revenues accruing from it were not paid into the common chest but kept in a separate fund, for possibly the same arrangement was made over other principalities held in abeyance, such as Eastern Thrace. Had Tiberius lived it looks as though the kingdom of Aretas of Nabataea would also have been absorbed, for Aretas had gone to war with Herod Antipas, and Vitellius received orders to march south against him; but before the orders could be carried out Tiberius was dead. But it is Vitellius’ actions in Judaea that earn him a title among good governors, and here he came into conflict with the procurator, Pontius Pilate, whose tenure of office, from AD 26 to 36, revealed him as a man whose character and capacity fell below those of the ordinary provincial official. But it has been made famous by the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which took place probably in 33. What is relevant for the purpose of this chapter is the fact of Pilate’s obvious anxiety to avoid disturbance or riot. For the Jews had been exasperated by his procuratorship; in ten years he had piled blunder on blunder in his scorn for and misunderstanding of the people he was sent to rule; the final blunder was a needless massacre of some Samaritans, who had gathered on Mt Gerizim. The Council of Samaria naturally protested; Vitellius at once deprived Pilate of his office and packed him off to Rome to await trial. But he did more and by so doing showed a nice understanding of Jewish feeling: he gained permission from Tiberius to restore the High Priest’s vestments, which were in Roman hands, to the custody of the Jews themselves, he remitted an unpopular market tax, and next year, when the priests begged him not to desecrate Jewish soil by bringing his men and their standards through it, he sent his troops round by another way, while he himself entered Jerusalem to offer sacrifice.

Such could be a good governor: against the bad Tiberius was implacable. There is evidence to suggest that he encouraged the provincial assemblies to act as organs for public opinion and forward complaints or instigate prosecutions. An ex-governor and a procurator of Asia were put on trial for extortion, one was condemned, the other escaped by suicide, and similar cases from other provinces are recorded. Indeed Tiberius’ severity was notorious: a procurator, Mela, recalled from his province, killed himself sooner than face trial, and C. Galba was forbidden to draw lots for a province because he had frittered away his fortune. In the imperial provinces Tiberius apparently completed the abolition of the farming of the tax-collecting to companies and used his own officials. This was some safeguard against extortion, as was a resolution proposed by Cotta Messallinus in AD 24, which made governors responsible for their wives’ delicts in a province.

Apart from these safeguards there were more positive benefits to record: in AD 17 a great earthquake, followed by fire, devastated Asia Minor and shook some of her finest cities, such as Sardes, Magnesia, Philadelphia, and Cyme, and this shock was the forerunner of others which later damaged Cibyra and Ephesus. Prompt relief followed, for Tiberius persuaded the Senate to concede a five-year remission of tribute to Sardes and himself made a grant of ten million sesterces to the city, and similar help was given to the others. Five years later the restored cities erected a colossal statue of Tiberius by the temple of Venus Genetrix, surrounded by symbolical representations of themselves1, while Sardes instituted a city-cult of Tiberius as a god and henceforward styled itself ‘Caesarian Sardes’; Asian cities commemorated the Emperor as founder at one stroke of twelve cities and coins celebrated the restoration. A few years later the gratitude of Asia, on hearing of the condemnation of Capito and Silanus, overflowed into a request to be allowed to dedicate a temple to himself, Livia, and the Senate; after much wrangling as to the site Smyrna enjoyed the honour of housing this curious triad. This could be allowed, for it had a precedent in Augustus’ times, but when Further Spain, grateful for the condemnation of Vibius Serenus, begged leave to erect a temple to Tiberius alone, per­mission was refused. The city of Olba in Western Cilicia celebrated Tiberius as founder and saviour, and Antioch in Syria, if we can believe Malalas, owed a whole series of buildings—city­wall, colonnades, theatre and temples—to his munificence.

One other activity remains to be mentioned,—that is road­making. In Africa, in Spain (especially in the north-west and the Montes Mariani) and in Narbonese Gaul repairs were carried out and new roads driven: an ambitious programme of construction was initiated in Dalmatia by the legate P. Cornelius Dolabella in 16, when the legionaries were employed on making at least four roads, some of which penetrated right into the interior, into the territory of the Ditiones and Daesitiatae, and so helped to quicken the pacification of these restless regions, and link up communication with Moesia; in Moesia itself the men of the Fourth and Fifth legions cut a road along the cliff-face of the right bank of the Danube not far from the Iron Gates. This constructional activity continued unabated not only in Tiberius’ early years but during those when he was supposed to be sunk in sloth on Capreae; it is a minor proof, but corroborative of other proofs, that there was a directing head still in the Empire.

The interest of the Principate of Tiberius lies not only in the tragic history of the Princeps, but in the fact that it was the testing of the Augustan system, whether it could endure, not only on its administrative but also on its personal side. Tiberius did what he could, but he had been too long in subordination to another; his adherence to the policy of Augustus was sound, it was the best he could do, but it was a second-best; self-criticism and diffidence made it difficult for him to take an independent line, he possessed none of that constructive leadership which the Claudius he despised so thoroughly was to show. Abroad and in the provinces he kept the Augustan system going, his rule was firm and just and met with due recognition from the grateful provincials, his choice of governors was good. But at home the story was different: he lacked the graciousness in dealing with men and the tact that Augustus had possessed in so supreme a degree; slowly there came a growing irritation at the incompetence and hesitancy of a Senate, which dared not decide for itself and was apt to fling back all important questions to the princeps. When he retired, in weariness and sorrow, to Capreae the situation was not a whit improved; to us it is clear that he worked on and remitted none of his labours, but to contemporaries it was a cowardly desertion of his post. A stream of despatches reached the Senate, but they seemed like the orders of a despot to his subjects, no longer the recommendations of one who pretended to be an equal. And in the last years, though he could still take vigorous action where necessary, as against Artabanus or Aretas, a definite slackening is perceptible; he completed but would not dedicate the temple of Augustus (for it meant coming to a Rome that he loathed), he no longer published the State accounts, he gave up the consilium principis in judicial cases. Most serious of all was the neglect of Gaius, to whom he gave no responsible office and no opportunity of gaining experience in administration or government. Presumably he dared not let him out of his sight or trust him in Rome, but his neglect was to bear terrible consequences. Good general and administrator though he was, worthy descendant of the Neros to whom Rome owed so much, he worked on lines already laid down for him and broke no new ground. Later tradition, often too personal in its verdicts, forgot the patient years of labour and recorded only the malignity of his enemies who made him a monster of vice and hypocrisy. Such accusations modern scholarship can refute and point the way to a truer judgment, but from the consequences of his own personality it cannot save him.

CHAPTER XX

GAIUS AND CLAUDIUS