Tiberius (8 page)

Old Augustus doddered about his plain palace, working at Empire and brooding over the vileness of his k
in. The good ones were dead; th
e survivors were foul. When he spoke of his daughter, his granddaughter, the Younger Julia, or Postumus, his one surviving grandson, he called them "my three running sores." He was past seventy. He was not up to many more disappointments.

But a very great one was in the making.

Germany flared up again. Tiberius was busy, and besides he had conquered the Germans once. Let another general try. He sent Varus, with three fine legions, eighteen thousand men. It was a great force for those times, for these were not barbarians or auxiliaries, they were native-born legionaries, the deadliest fighting men in the world. Surely they would teach the Germans a lesson once and for all!

It was a frightful disaster.

Varus blundered, allowed himself to be surprised. Under a German named Hermann—the Romans called him Arminius —the barbarians surrounded the legions in the Teutoburg Forest and cut them down.

Every man died. Most were killed in die fury of the fight; others died under torture, a victory amusement for the celebrating Germans. Varus took his own life, despairing, when he saw there was no way out.

It was wise of Varus to commit suicide. No doubt die Germans would have given him a more painful death. Still worse, he might have escaped and fallen into the hands of Augustus.

The old man went almost mad with rage. "Varus, Varus," he bellowed in the halls of his palace, "give me back my legions!" They said he even beat his head against the wall in his frenzy. Three legions were a great chunk out of Rome's armies—there only were twen
ty-eight legions in all. With th
ree of the finest destroyed, the others would be spread dangerously thin; so great a disaster would surely encourage revolt in other lightly-held lands.

And worst of all, it had been not only men that were lost in Teutoburg Wald, but
standards.
It was a national disgrace.

It was a time to call for Tiberius, and the old man did.

It took Tiberius a busy year, but he shored up the defenses, recruited new troops (it meant enrolling freedmen and slaves, so great was the danger!), sent out expeditions, punished the daring barbarians. Rome itself was shaking with sedition; Tiberius was equal to that threat too, and very stern. It was his golden hour, and he met it bravely, while the old man paced the halls and vilified the dead Varus.

Augustus could not have saved the Empire that year without Tiberius and he knew it. Those "slow-moving jaws" could grind up Rome's enemies better than the Emperor's.

There was one job left that could be done only by Augustus, and the old man proceeded to do it.

He called his slave-secretary and dictated his autobiography. As soon as it was done, copies were made and rushed to all the municipalities of the Empire, there to be carved or embossed or inscribed on temples and columns. Of all those copies, only two have come down to us—one in Latin and one in Greek, both badly mutilated but, fortunately, not in the same places.

We can imagine the ol
d man droning his reminiscences to
the slave, listening critically as passages were read back. "At nineteen years of age I equipped an army, on my private judgment and at my private expense, by which I restored to liberty the public oppressed by the domination of faction." That was the beginning. Nineteen! That was a lifetime ago; now he had all but lost the sight of one of those godlike eyes; now his few remaining teeth were rotted stumps. "Those who had slain my father I drove into exile, avenging their crime." It was his stepfather he meant, Julius Caesar. "I have captured six hundred ships, besides those smaller than triremes. Twice I have triumphed with an ovation." And one of those triumphs was the triple triumph after Actium, when the young Tiberius was only a child riding the trace-horse of his chariot. "Four times I aided the treasury with my money, so that I transferred 150,000,000 sesterces to those who had charge of the treasury." His had not been a saving reign; there would be little in the
fiscus
for Tiberius to inherit. But he had never allowed Rome to go without money. "I built a Senate
-
house, and near it a temple of Minerva
...
a sacred couch at the Circus Maximus, temples of Jupiter the Vanquisher and of Jupiter the Thundering on the Capitol, a temple of Quirinus, temples of Minerva and Juno the Queen and Jupiter of Liberty on the Aventine, a temple of the Lares on the summit of the Sacred Way, a temple of the gods' Penates on the Velian, a temple of Youth, a temple of the Mighty Mother on the Palatine." He had always been a religious man—at least outwardly.

Nor had he neglected his people's comforts. "Three times I have given gladiatorial exhibitions in my name, and five times in the name of my sons or nephews; at which exhibitions there fought about 10,000 men. Twice I have furnished the people in my own name a spectacle of athletes, summoned from all quarters, and a third time in the name of my grandson.
...
I gave the people in my name, or those of my sons and grandsons, twenty-six hunts of African beasts, either in the circus or in the forum or in the amphitheaters, in which about 3,500 beasts were brought together. I gave the people the spectacle of a naval battle across the Tiber, in the place where now is Caesar's Grove, a place having been excavated 1,800 feet long, 220 wide; in which thirty beaked ships of two and three banks of oars, and a larger number of smaller ones, fought with each other. On these fleets there fought, besides the rowers, about 3,000 men."

On and on . . . "I have freed the ocean from pirates . . ."
"I
have enlarged the bounds of all the provinces..." "I added Egypt to the empire of the Roman people .
. ." "I
have recovered many military standards lost by other commanders
. . ." "I
was by Senate decree styled 'The August,' and the pillars of my temples were publicly bound with laurel. . ."

And: "When I wrote this, I had attained my seventy-seventh year."

That was finished; that was the last big job.

In the summer of the year 14
a.d
. th
ere were signs and portents. Lightning struck one of his statues, burning off the letter "C," leaving the word "AESAR." The meaning was clear—especially to Augustus, who understood omens very well and who feared lightning all his life. It had nearly killed him once, on the march; even now he carried a sealskin amulet as protection against it, and hid in the cellar during thunderstorms. Lightning had something to tell him. What? Well, "C" was the Roman 100. "Aesar" was the Etruscan word for "God." Put them together, and the meaning is: In 100 days Caesar will become a god.

Did anyone need confirmation? Very well. An eagle circled around old Augustus on the Field of Mars. The bird flew away to Agrippa's Pantheon and perched on the stone carving just over the letter "A" in Agrippa's name. "A" also stood for "Augustus." And there was a comet. Comets were carefully studied by Roman stargazers. There were fiery comets and bearded comets, comets like torches and comets like cypress trees. Each one held its own meaning, and, when this one was analyzed, the astrologers saw at once that it could mean only the death of a great man. The stars agreed. All the signs conjoined. It was time. The
re was only one task left for th
e old man to do, and that was to die.

Once, years before, Augustus had chanced to visit the island of Capri.

Many thousands of Americans know Capri well. It was a rest camp for American soldiers during the Italian fighting of World War
II.
It lies in the Bay of Naples, or just outside it, under Vesuvius' feathery plume of smoke. All of the Bay is beautiful, with the horseshoe-shaped sweep of the shore, blue water, green hills, blue sky. Perhaps Capri is most beautiful of all. It was a fine place for a serviceman tired of dirt and danger. It was a wonderful playground for Emperors a couple of thousand years earlier.

When Augustus first saw it, Capri knew nothing of Emperors or GI's. It belonged to the City of Naples; but it caught his eye, just as Livia once had, and he appropriated it—just as he had Livia. It was not only the beauty of the island that attracted him. There was a dying oak on the island; but while he was near it suddenly began to turn green, the limp branches lifted, the tree regained its strength. Of course it was an omen. Augustus had to have this island, and he traded Ischia to the Neapolitans for it.

Augustus slept nearly every night for forty years on the same plain bed in his plain Palatine home; but he did allow himself a few vacations, and often it was to Capri that he went. He had a collection of fossils there—they called them "Giants' Bones," but he knew that they were really the skeletons of animals. He thought Capri was a lazy place—he called it "Lubberland"—and a lazy place was just what he wanted, once the autobiography was out of the way and Tiberius seemed to have everything else in hand.

After the warnings of the lightning and the eagle, Augustus went to Capri to wait for the end. Tiberius was there, with Thrasyllus, his pet astrologer. The Emperor was not much in the mood for astrology. He already knew what he had to know, so he used Thrasyllus mostly as a target for his wit. "Name me this poet," he said to Thrasyllus, and recited a couple of lines in Greek. The astrologer was baffled. It was very good poetry, he mumbled, but what master had written it he could not say.

It was the right answer, because the lines had been composed extempore by Augustus himself, who laughed and felt cheered.

They lingered on Capri for a while. But Tiberius had work to do, even if the old man didn't; he couldn't stay. There were some matters that had to be settled in the province of Dalmatia—the home of the spotted fire-dog, next to Pannonia which Tiberius himself had subdued.

Tiberius started the trip to Dalmatia, and old Augustus joined him, at least part way, as a mark of respect. (Formal courtesies were very important now. There must be no doubt in Roman minds that Tiberius was the favorite of the old man.) They tarried for a celebration at Naples, went on to Benevento, parted there; and Augustus started back.

He got as far as the town of
Nola. (It happened that his own father—not Julius Caesar, but his real father—had died at Nola.) There he fell ill and went to his father's house to rest. (His father had died in the house.) He was put to bed in the room his father had died in.

And there Augustus died.

As soon as it was clear that the old man was going, Livia sent swift messengers to Tiberius. Come back, come back!

There was still no law of succession. Indeed, the fiction still existed that there was no throne to succeed to. Augustus had done everything he could, and there was no Roman alive who didn't know that Tiberius was Augustus' choice. Certainly no one else had half so good a claim.

Yet something might go wrong. If Livia's son
was to rule Rome, the only safe
thing was for him to be on the spot at the moment when the rule passed to him. You could not be sure of the legions, not even of the Pretorian Guard, if he was away. Someone might bribe them or win their hearts; some accident might happen; even, though it was a fantastic thought, the Senate might remember its manhood and refuse to take another Caesar to lead them by the nose.

Livia took what steps her conscience ordered.

While the messengers were speeding after Tiberius, Livia had armed guards surround the house in which the old man lay. It was sealed off; no one was allowed in or out. Hourly bulletins were given to the world on Augustus' condition, like the television coverage of the illness of an American president. But no one was allowed to see him.

Tiberius hurried back.

As soon as he arrived, he went at once to the room of Augustus. He stayed there for a long time.

When he came out he told the world that Augustus was dead. He had had a long talk with the old man, who had expressed himself as content to die now that Tiberius was there, and who had given all of Rome into Tiberius' hands.

And Tiberius displayed the corpse. It was three o'clock in the afternoon of the 19th day of August—August, the month that Augustus had named a
fter himself when he reformed th
e calendar.

There was no doubt that Augustus was dead. Everyone could see it.

What was less easy to see was that all the rest of the story was a pack of lies; Augustus had been dead for some time; the whole protracted wait was a hoax; the bulletins were fictions, contrived by Livia to give Tiberius the time he needed in order to return and claim his throne.

A senator named Numericus Atticus came forward to swear that he had seen the divine spirit of the dead Emperor ascending to heaven. Perhaps he did see something, or perhaps that was a lie too. If it was, it was a convenient one; it gave the Senate the excuse they needed to vote Augustus a god. The smoke of his funeral pyre had hardly blown away when a temple was being erected to his worship.

IX

In the crushing pyramid of the Roman world, built on tens of millions of writhing slaves, there was room for only one man at the top. Tiberius stood there now. He was supreme. He had no master. He was past fifty, still with the abundant physical health he kept all his life, still strong. He walked stiffly, with his head poked forward, and he still spoke like the tolling of a slow bell. But it was only his way. Age had not touched him. He had never been healthier.

He had everything a Roman could dream of, but it had all come too late. Wine turns sour. Dreams grow stale. At thirty, with Vipsania for a wife, Tiberius might have made a greater Emperor than Augustus, but at fifty-six the master of the world was an unhappy man. Work was still good, but it had been so much easier when Augustus was on the throne! Now that Tiberius had the' name as well as the power there were endless interruptions; his time was not his own; everything conspired to keep him from doing what he wished with the Empire. Tiberius became bored. He became annoyed and resentful, and rather quickly he became afraid.

Now that he had the throne, it was certain that someone would want to take it from him.

A day in the life of an Emperor!

Tiberius wakes in the morning and spends an hour or so lounging in bed, while hordes of "clients" pay their respects. For the Emperor, his clients are senators, ambassadors and kings. Then, perhaps at about eight o'clock, there is breakfast—not alone, of course. Nothing the Emperor does is ever alone. After breakfast there are more social duties. Between nine and noon the visitors are of a more advanced rank— relatives, men of great wealth, important officials of the Empire, great generals.

Then it is noon, and time to be up and about.

An Emperor was considered to be the first and greatest of the senators, but only a senator all the same. That was the fiction. It did not prevent an Emperor from having the power of life and death over any senator on any whim, but in order to preserve the fiction even a Tiberius found it necessary to attend the ceremonial events in the lives of his chief associates. (An Emperor had thousands of close associates.) Velleius Paterculus has completed a new chapter in his history of Rome and invites a few friends to hear it read. A funeral oration is to be spoken for Patuleius. An aedile's son is to try his first case at law, a tribune's daughter announces her engagement. At such rites even an Emperor must appear.

In the afternoon the Senate will be in session. That is part of the Emperor's duties. He will preside, or perhaps he will take an actual part in the deliberations. The Senate has become only a rubber stamp for the imperial will, but it must go through the form of considering the welfare of the colonies, alleviating a famine, authorizing a punitive force of soldiers to put down a rebellion. The Emperor's views are necessary. (One Senator dares to chide Tiberius for being slow to give them. "Why do you wait until last to speak? Give us your opinions at the beginning of the debate, so we can know what we are supposed to say.") The Senate is also a court. Criminal cases are heard there; so are civil suits, if they are important enough. Sometimes Tiberius is judge, sometimes he prosecutes. Sometimes he is attorney for the defense, if the defendant has a claim to his favor.

With his rank also goes a religious obligation. The obligation is not to believe—what Roman except the commons
believes
this nonsense of Olympian gods and deified dead Emperors? Belief has nothing to do with it. But as the Olympian religion is thought to help keep the commons in check, Ramans of high rank are required to give it hp service. The lip service can make heavy demands on an Emperor's time. He nominates the priests, he dedicates the temples. When an important sacrifice is to be made, he slits die goat's throat or disembowels the hen.

Later on in the day the Emperor's time is given over to pleasures. But as they are compulsory pleasures they are indistinguishable from work. Perhaps there are games, and the Emperor must be in the ornate box as the gladiators murder each other on the sand. (Tiberius permitted very few games in Rome, partly because he didn't think them as necessary as other rulers did, partly because he was too penurious to foot the bill.) Lacking any such formal occasion, each day, perhaps several times a day, there is time for a sojourn at the baths. (The Roman toleration for bad smells did not extend to their persons.) And in the evening, dinner is a very important event. It lasts for hours, the Emperor reclining on his belly until it is full, then rolling over on his side to signify that the eating aspect of the occasion is at an end. There are guests for dinner, of course, but Tiberius has a little more freedom here. Sometimes the guests are Greek poets or astrologers, for Tiberius always finds their talk rewarding.

But if the dinner is the bright spot, the rest of the day is dull. It is all very wearing, and all very boring.

Tiberius had been withdrawn and cold as a private citizen; as an Emperor he did not change. Fighting a war was worth doing. Laws had to be prepared. But how he must have hated the endless, polite probing with ambassadors, the priestly rites, the bickering in the Senate!

Tiberius began to cast around for Romans who might be well-born enough, and adventurous enough, to threaten him on the throne. The two most likely candidates had been good enough to die—his own former stepsons, Gaius and Lucius, the children of Julia and the admiral Agrippa. But Agrippa had left Julia pregnant at his death—when the baby was born it was a boy, and for apparent reasons he had been named Agrippa Postumus. Postumus was an unpleasant boy. He was good at killing things, but nothing much else seemed to interest him. Probably he was a little feeble-minded. Tiberius sent an army officer after him and, although the centurion caught Postumus unarmed and by surprise, the muscular young lout put up a good fight. The assassin finished him off, but retained scars for the rest of his life.

So much for one threat.

A second threat, though an indirect one, obliged Tiberius by removing itself. That was his ex-wife, Julia. When Augustus died she begged Tiberius for forgiveness. Tiberius refused. Perhaps it broke her heart; at any rate she grew ill and faded. She had lived more than ten years on one of the bleakest islands in the Roman world, eadng coarse food and permitted only the company of her keepers or such few incompetents as her keepers would admit to her. There was not much for her to live for, with her youth and beauty gone, and she died.

A third threat was the Senate itself.
i

It was preposterous to think that they could defy Tiberius, but Tiberius had become very cautious. The Senate would not move against him, but they might grow bold enough to assist some daring man. It was necessary to keep them harmless.

For a first step, Tiberius took the Pretorian Guard and gave it to a man named Sejanus. The Guard was a late invention of Augustus, the only real force of soldiers on the Italian peninsula. It was, not popular with the Romans, who correctly saw in it a sword pointed at their own throats. To keep the peace, Augustus had scattered its cohorts all over the map, a few in Rome, a few around Naples, a handful in the north. Tiberius gave Sejanus orders to bring them all to Rome. They set up a camp at Rome's gate, where senators could see it as their litter-bearers carried them into the city. Pretorian detachments stamped through the city, armed and stern.

Tiberius did not need to threaten the Senate; the constant presence of the Pretorian Guard was threat enough.

However, Tiberius was wise enough to sugar-coat the pill. The world was his; but in order to keep it, he chose to appear to thrust it away. He called the Senate into session, four weeks after the death of Augustus. Sirs, he said, I beg you, relieve me of this terrible burden. Restore the Republic. No mere man can wield the power of the Divine Augustus. Let me give up the throne and be merely a senator among you.

The senators were wise enough to swallow the pill. They refused". They knew enough to do what Tiberius wanted, not what he asked.

But there was still one threat on the horizon serious enough to keep a nervous Emperor alert.

Tiberius had two sons—one his own by virtue of blood, Vipsania's boy, Drusus Junior. Unfortunately he was a negligible lout somewhat like his distant relative, Agrippa Postu-mus. The other was Germanicus, whom Tiberius had adopted under the orders of Augustus.

Germanicus was young, but he was a soldier. He was off in Germany, where he had been earning great honors for himself, expanding the Roman frontier. As a field commander, he had die loyalty of his legions. As the son of Tiberius' beloved brother, Drusus, and the great nephew of the late Emperor, Germanicus might be thought by some to have a pretty good claim to die Empire.

Tiberius gave a great deal of thought to Germanicus. Probably the boy was loyal enough, but suppose something happened to stir up trouble? Germanicus would be in an excellent position to profit, if he chose. And trouble was in the air, for die legions were in a turmoil.

The troubl
e in the legions reached its peak
when Augustus died. It made no difference to them whether Tiberius or Augustus was on the throne, except that perhaps there might be some profit in the change. But the legions had grievances. They were starved, poor, and worn out. They had been presenting demands to Rome for years, and no one had cared to listen; now, with a new, weak Emperor on the throne, perhaps they could get justice.

A former actor, now a private in one of the legions in Pannonia, was a man named Percennius. He made a speech:

"When will you dare to demand relief, if you do not go with your prayers or arms to a new and yet tottering throne? We have blundered enough by our tameness for so many years, in having to endure thirty or forty campaig
ns till we grow old, most of us
with bodies maimed by wounds. Even dismissal is not the end of our service, but, quartered under a legion's standard, we toil through the same hardships under another title. If a soldier survives so many risks, he is still dragged into remote regions where, under the name of lands, he receives soaking swamps or mountainous wastes. Assuredly, military service itself is burdensome and unprofitable; ten asses a day is the value set on life and limb; out of this, clothing, arms, tents, as well as the mercy of centurions and exemptions from duty have to be purchased. But indeed of floggings and wounds, of hard winters, wearisome summers, of terrible war, or barren peace, there is no end."