Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

by Baker, Simon

  After Actium, the victorious Octavian was master of all Rome’s armies. Victory gave him the freedom to conquer Egypt, to provoke the suicides of Mark Antony and Cleopatra (later dramatized by Plutarch and Shakespeare), and to add to Rome’s provinces all the extraordinary wealth of that far more ancient civilization. Finally, it furnished Octavian with the greatest personal fortune in all Roman history. It was money he wasted no time in spending. His goal was to honour the promises he had made during the war, and above all to secure the loyalty of the Roman army and the Roman people. It was a goal he accomplished in lavish style.

  On his return to Rome he celebrated the closure of the civil war with three spectacular triumphs, he paid off his soldiers with generous cash rewards, and he gave a smaller sum to every Roman citizen. As if that were not enough to win unanimous popular support, the bountiful fields of Egypt’s Nile valley were now Rome’s granary and a secure, reliable source of the city’s grain dole. Octavian thus became the most powerful man in the Roman world. ‘At this point,’ wrote the historian Cassius Dio, ‘Octavian alone held all the power of the state for the first time.’5 There was a problem, though. The one thing that Octavian lacked within the Roman state was legitimacy.

  Winning this would not be the fruit of a single battle, but the great project of his entire life. The result, and the personal reward for Octavian, would be a Roman empire ruled by a single emperor. In achieving legitimacy, however, one question would baffle the ancient world as much as it has done ours. Was Octavian an evil tyrant deviously and quietly dismantling Roman liberty? Or was he indeed a benevolent statesman who, first among equals, shared power with Roman senators and had the consent of the Roman people? Was he, in short, a wicked autocrat in all but name, or a model emperor who restored if not exactly the republic, at least constitutional government? Who really held the reins of power?

  In ancient Rome, as in the government of modern states, the question is perhaps impossible to answer. In the case of Octavian the answer lies deep within poor or highly partial historical sources. The evidence that does remain (namely, Octavian’s own account of his achievements, plus inscriptions and the wealth of monuments and buildings he authorized in Rome) presents us with only a sustained, ingenious political performance – a performance from which his mask would rarely slip. Whichever view we take of Octavian, what is certain is that he cleverly robed his power in the clothes of the old republican offices. This critical strategy lies behind a meeting of the Senate on the Ides of January 27 BC.

  Before he had even entered the Senate House, Octavian had heeded the key lesson of his adoptive father’s assassination. The republic had been founded on the moment when the last of the Etruscan kings was expelled by the Roman nobility. That moment crystallized those nobles’ hatred of monarchy – their distrust of a single powerful individual who dominated the state. If you exercise supreme power explicitly, suggested the events of the Ides of March 44 BC, you paid the price with your life. If Octavian did indeed hold supreme power he knew he had to disguise it. So at the meeting of the Senate, Octavian renounced all his powers and territories and handed them over to the control of the senators and the Roman people. This extraordinary gesture, however, was highly stage-managed. Just as he had acted his part, so the senators followed suit. In response, they granted Octavian the right to stand for the consulship, and also allowed a fellow consul to put forward his candidacy alongside him. On the surface at least, power had returned to the discretion of the Senate, annual elections and the assemblies of the Roman people. The republic had, it seemed, been restored.

  Challenging that appearance, however were the facts of power. Just as in the last decades of the republic, an office holder’s power resided in his authority to command armies and the province in which he could exercise that authority. At the same January meeting, the Senate crucially granted Octavian an ‘extended’ province: Gaul, Syria, Egypt and Cyprus were all under his authority, and were to be commanded by him for no less than ten years. Not by coincidence, these territories bordered the frontiers of the empire and thus contained the vast majority of Roman army legions. Yes, it was true that senators elected to the second consulship would go on to govern provinces, but these were the peaceful ones. The militarily important provinces were controlled by Octavian and governed by his own appointed deputies. For this reason Octavian outstripped all his consular colleagues in the state.

  Octavian’s bold balancing act was not easy to maintain. In 23 BC, for example, his holding of the consulship year after year began to smack of supreme power. Although the evidence is murky, a genuine crisis now swiftly gathered momentum, and some senators planned to kill the new ‘king’. Octavian was quick to respond. He neutralized the threat by renegotiating his position and simply changing the legal form of words that gave him control of the armies. In winning this bout with the senatorial élite one critical factor weighed in his favour: his unrivalled popularity with the Roman people. He was, after all, the man who had brought stability to a world of chaos. However he knew that the people were fickle and that he could not rely on the vagaries of public opinion for ever. So he turned his attention to cementing his stature in the people’s eyes too.

  Octavian once again took inspiration from the forms of republican office and made a surprising demand of the Senate. He wanted, he said, the power accorded to a tribune of the people. In relation to the powers which gave him control of the army, this was a relatively modest office to wish for. Certainly it gave him the authority to propose and veto bills before the assembly of the people. That, however, was not the chief attraction of the post. Octavian had spotted its true potential. Drawing on the emotional resonance of its origin in the Roman republic, he would amplify the power of this lowly republican office and elevate it to a whole new status. With it he would become not just any old tribune of the people, but the iconic defender, protector and champion of the interests of all Roman citizens, not just in Rome and Italy, but across the length and breadth of the empire.

  Was the creation of such a position the act of a man extemporizing, seeking new ways to ensure that stable, constitutional government was restored? Or was it more sinister? Certainly taking the office of tribune of the people suggested a strategy shared by dictators throughout history: Octavian had stealthily jumped over the heads of the political élite and aligned himself directly with the hearts and minds of the people. Once again, the guise of the old republican office was the key to Octavian’s successful adoption of the post. The senatorial heads watched his great leap and consented, if grudgingly and with hatred, all the way.

  AUTOCRACY

  By 19 BC Octavian had secured the one thing that his adoptive father Julius Caesar had failed to achieve: both unrivalled power and political legitimacy. This unprecedented and deftly created status was summarized with the granting of a solemn, resonant title. Although a change of name might seem superficial, in Octavian’s Rome, as in modern politics, the power of a new brand cannot be underestimated.

  Octavian first toyed with the idea of calling himself ‘Romulus’. It neatly cast him as the new founder of Rome. In this name was both ancient tradition but also the idea of a new age. After some consideration, however, Octavian rejected it. The connotations of a man who killed his brother to found a state left an unpleasant taste. Instead, Octavian simply made up a name. ‘Augustus’ literally means ‘sacred’ or ‘revered’ but stopped short of explicitly calling him a god. That would contradict his theme of being a citizen-leader, of being ‘first among equals’ in the republic. In the name, however, was the unmistakable hint of a relationship with the gods. It is derived from the Latin word for reading divine signs – augury. It suggested that Octavian was somehow religious, holy and deserving of special, unique respect. The name change was symptomatic of the revolution. It was unobtrusive, but potent. As Augustus’s reign continued, as his grip on power became firmer, the rattle sounding the death of political freedom became louder and louder.

  It echoed, for exampl
e, at meetings of the Senate. Under the republic there was a specific order in which speakers stood up and debated the items of business at hand. Augustus maintained this routine so that everyone appeared to have a voice. Their opinions, it seemed, mattered. To some this must have been a relief. After decades of factional strife and the likes of Julius Caesar and Pompey slugging it out, life for junior senators was imaginably rosier. Ultimately, however the role-playing became tedious. The majority of the senators realized that their opinion counted for little in comparison to the wish of Augustus. To inject into senatorial discussions the show of toothsome debate, Augustus innovated: instead of hearing their opinions in a set order, he asked senators to speak on issues randomly. This made it difficult for them to agree resignedly with what the last speaker had said. He also resorted to imposing fines for non-attendance and to limiting compulsory meetings to twice a month.6

  Despite these efforts, the old systems of the republic lost their vigour and gave way to autocracy. Indeed, Augustus grew to rely less and less on the Senate for formulating policy. Quite early in his rule, he formulated an advisory body of consuls and senators chosen by lot. They met in his imperial palace and not in the Senate House. As this body grew in importance, so too did the suspicion of those who were left out of it. Under future emperors, similar councils would become the target of a stock accusation: the empire was run not in tandem with the Senate, but by the emperor’s cronies, friends and freedmen. Indeed even by the end of Augustus’s life, critical information was kept from the Senate. In his will Augustus left a note about where information could be found relating to the state of the empire, to the numbers and location of Roman soldiers and to the state’s financial accounts. ‘He added the names of his freedmen and slaves from whom details could be obtained.’7 Most senators, it seemed, clearly did not know about the fundamental workings of the empire. This top-level information was now out of their hands. Such instances hint at how the substance of the republic ebbed away. Appearances, though, were scrupulously kept up.

  Office holders, be they tribunes or consuls, continued to be chosen, but even if they were formally elected, they were at least nominated by Augustus. By AD 5 the lists of candidates for office brought before the people at election time contained only the names of yes-men senators whom Augustus could trust not to rock the boat. When an independent candidate stood of his own free will, Augustus’s response was methodical, befitting the unspoken logic of the new regime. A young senator called Egnatius Rufus, for example, won considerable popularity for successfully establishing a private fire-fighting service manned by his slaves. When he refused to withdraw his name from the list of candidates for the consulship, the consequence was fatal. Rufus was tried for ‘conspiracy’ and executed. The cherished, seminal power of the Roman citizen’s electoral vote was reduced to a hollow gesture.

  In the administration of the empire the signs of the silent revolution were evident too; power sharing was another carefully coded performance. Men of ambition and standing could, ostensibly, have a legitimate career. Augustus scrupulously maintained the licence of individuals to pursue office in the controlled elections: giving the senatorial élite a role in government was one way to keep potential rivals at bay and, more importantly, he could not manage the empire alone. He needed the experience and the sheer manpower of senators and knights to hear and adjudicate legal cases in the city, to govern the provinces abroad, and to oversee the exaction of taxes. He also needed commanders to fight wars; under his rule the size of the Roman empire’s provinces nearly doubled. There was, however, a very fine line circumscribing office holders’ power. Those who crossed it, and thus dared to rival Augustus’s authority, paid the price for forgetting their lines. In reality, the skills now required of office holders were closer to those of a bureaucrat or a loyal deputy of Augustus. Though their ambitions were perhaps satisfied by the appearance of authority, the élite knew that the real power lay elsewhere.

  It was a fact to which the senators and knights slowly grew accustomed. Naturally, the stars of those loyal to the new regime rose; office in the administration, albeit of limited responsibility, made them acquiescent. Those of a more independent leaning simply withdrew and bided their time. Perhaps they consoled themselves that this unhappy state of affairs was temporary, a symptom only of Augustus’s personal dominance within the state. At some point in the future he would be gone, they perhaps thought, and at that time there would return both the glorious republic and political freedom. For the time being, they were prepared to play along to keep the ideal alive. Augustus, however, had other ideas.

  The old, idealized republic, if it had ever existed, was dead and gone for ever. Dead too was the rivalry among the senatorial élite, and the search for glory in the eyes of the Roman people, which many believed defined it. Just to make sure, in AD 6 Augustus set about implementing the most influential reform of his entire rule.

  REFORMING THE ARMY

  The reform of the Roman army was the key to stabilizing Augustus’s position and the age of emperors to come. The army had always been the source of the empire’s security. In the last decades of the republic, however, it had also been the chief source of conflict. This was because it had been in legionaries’ interests to go to war even if it meant fighting another Roman army. Recruited and groomed by ambitious generals with the offer of wealth, booty and land, their loyalty had been detached from the Roman state, but had become fatally up for grabs to the highest bidder (as under Julius Caesar). Augustus knew this better than anyone. In the civil war he had repaid his followers in the Roman army by forcibly booting humbler citizens off their Italian countryside properties in order to settle soldiers on them.

  Now, however, that relationship changed, and the umbilical cord between commanders and troops was cut. The Roman army was at last taken out of politics and nationalized. Citizens were offered a professional career in army service, a salary and a chance for promotion. The legions, for example, were fixed by law at a core twenty-eight regular units. These were spread along the frontiers of the empire, while a new, 9000-strong élite ‘Praetorian’ army was stationed in Italy and Rome. Its men were paid three times as much as ordinary soldiers and would with time become the personal bodyguard of the emperor. For the many who chose a career in the regular army, military service was eventually set at twenty years, and, from AD 6, a fixed annual salary of 900 sesterces was decreed, but with the promise of 12,000 sesterces pension upon retirement from the army. (The minimum subsistence for a peasant family is reckoned at 500 sesterces per annum.) At first Augustus paid for the army out of his own personal wealth; his proconsular power did, after all, make him commander of most of the Roman army, and this patronage again underlined his supreme position. In AD 6, however, he took the professionalization of the army to its logical conclusion and created a military treasury, endowed it with a massive initial grant, and then funded it through taxation.

  Although Augustus had improved the stability of his own position, the reform of the army was also highly risky. At the end of Augustus’s rule the legions in Gaul and Pannonia (modern-day Hungary and the Balkans to the south) seized the opportunity of the emperor’s death to renegotiate their terms of duty. Of course there were the usual gripes. They were fed up with their low pay, corrupt superior officers and the paltry prospect at the end of their service, should they live to see it, of some thin-soiled plot of land tucked far away from home; the rewards just weren’t as appetizing as they had been under the likes of Julius Caesar. What sparked the mutinies, however, was one grievance above all. Soldiers were being kept on beyond their agreed length of service; the reforms were so expensive that the Roman authorities were desperately trying to save money by delaying payment of the legionaries’ retirement bonus.

  It is very hard to make financial comparisons across time, but one modern historian has valued the minimum annual state budget at 800 million sesterces. We can calculate that expenditure on the army was in the order of 445 million sesterces ea
ch year. This means that the army wiped out roughly half the empire’s annual budget.8 Augustus’s initial grant to the treasury was bountiful, but later emperors would not always find it possible to be as generous. An emperor’s ability to sustain the professional army would be the critical factor in the future security of the frontiers. Augustus had drawn the sting from the army by destroying its dependency on ambitious, big-hitting generals pursuing their own political objectives. In doing so, however, he had also created the empire’s Achilles heel, then and throughout the next five centuries.

  If the first lesson of the civil war had been that the Roman army needed to be taken out of the control of ambitious generals, a second lesson followed from the first. In order for the emperor to maintain his ability to pay for the new professional army of the state, he needed to maintain the security of the tax revenues. No longer could the empire afford to allow the wealth of the provinces to fall into the hands of the generals who governed them and lined their own pockets. It was essential that taxes flowed smoothly from the provinces to the centre – to Augustus’s imperial coffers. Understanding this was key to the success of an emperor’s rule, both for Augustus and for emperors to come.

  Even with such a system in place, however, twenty-eight army units were all that Rome could afford. Augustus learnt this lesson too, and it was one he learnt the hard way. For the best part of his rule, his generals had been arduously campaigning to bring Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe under Roman control. That policy appeared to be paying off. Then, in AD 9, disaster struck. As the general Quintilius Varus was concluding a successful campaigning season and returning his army to winter quarters on the Rhine, he took a route through the Teutoberg forest. Within that eerie wood, however, lay a venomous snake: an army of German warriors appeared like ghosts from behind the trees, descended on the Romans and massacred no fewer than three Roman legions. Augustus is said to have been so completely shaken by the news that ‘for months at a time he let his beard and hair grow and would hit his head against the door, shouting, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”’9