Rome's Greatest Defeat

by Adrian Murdoch

  Returning to politics and the consulship, in 13 BC the brothers-in-law served together as consuls. It was becoming clear that Varus shared none of his father’s Republican leanings. His most high-profile achievement during his year in power was overseeing the dedication of the Altar of the Augustan Peace, the Ara Pacis Augustae. Decreed on 4 July 13 BC, what is arguably the most impressive Augustan monumental sculpture in Rome was built to celebrate Augustus’ safe return from three years spent clearing up Gaul and Spain. The altar took three and a half years to finish before it was finally dedicated on 30 January 9 BC.

  In an incredible feat of archaeological reconstruction, it was put back together again in 1938 from hundreds of fragments and, more recently, in 2006, rehoused in a controversial new museum designed by US architect Richard Meier, on the east bank of the Tiber river near the Ponte Cavour. Originally, it stood facing the Flaminian Way, the road that linked Rome to northern Italy, and the route by which the emperor re-entered the city. Indeed it is likely to be the spot where the Senate formally welcomed Augustus back from his travels.

  The sacrificial altar was the centrepiece of the monument, enclosed by a structure decorated with images of gods or heroes of the Roman people. Representations of Romulus, Aeneas and the goddess Peace all supported Augustus’ state-sponsored notion of the return of the Roman Golden Age.

  The most intriguing part of the structure is the frieze on the southern wall: a procession or parade of men and women, three-quarter size, celebrating the emperor’s safe return from the West. Fortunately the original heads have survived and several of the figures are tentatively identifiable. There is Marcus Agrippa, his head covered by the end of his toga in respect, and a typically determined-looking Livia. But at the front – between a damaged Augustus (only his head and half of his body survive) and the city’s four leading priests, distinguished by their spiked leather caps – are two consular figures. The leading one, his body half-turned outwards, with his left hand touching the emperor’s toga, is Tiberius. The second consular figure, with his back to the emperor, facing the rest of the procession and partly blocked by Tiberius and the first of the priests, has been plausibly identified as Varus, though the image is too indistinct to allow any trace of personality to be distinguished. That he stands next to Tiberius emphasises the close political and familial relationships between the two, while the placement of Varus in the background is hierarchically appropriate.11

  After his stint as consul, it was time for Varus to take up the first of what would be three foreign postings. In 8–7 BC, now in his early forties, he became governor of Africa, headquartered in the new provincial capital of Roman Carthage. The only other representations of Varus known today date from this period of his life: a profile from coins minted in the towns of Achulla and Hadrumentum. Unfairly one modern historian sees in this a ‘weak and smirking face’ that ‘reveals no hint of soldierly disposition’.12 Objectively, we see quite a heavy-set man with a nose more reminiscent of Rembrandt than the traditional Roman aquiline proboscis. His hair is cut in the same loose, slightly shaggy manner of Augustus and his mouth is slightly turned down.

  Although the province was still fledgling, a long way off from its imperial grandeur of later years and with an area not much larger than modern-day Tunisia, the appointment was an indication of confidence in Varus’ capabilities. Any governor of Africa was the servant of two masters and Varus’ appointment had unique political and economic ramifications.

  Since Africa was an administrative anomaly, Varus had to walk a political tightrope. Most provincial governors were directly responsible to the emperor, a status quo from which Augustus never showed any sign of deviation. What the emperor gave, he could also take away. Africa, however, had become a public province twenty years previously and technically was administered by the Senate. An even greater peculiarity was that the governor of Africa also commanded a legion, Legion III ‘The Emperor’s Own’, which from 30 BC onwards had been permanently stationed in Africa, either at Carthage or at Ammaedara, modern Haïdra in north-west Tunisia. After the conclusion of years of civil war only a generation previously, this was a remarkable amount of administrative and military latitude to allow a governor. Of course, in reality no governor would have been sent against Augustus’ express wishes but Varus had to maintain imperial favour without alienating his peers in the Senate.

  As one of the empire’s great grain producers, Africa had a disproportionately large economic influence. According to the great Republican orator Cicero, it was one of the ‘major granaries’ of the Republic, supplying two-thirds of Rome’s grain. It was so important that Julius Caesar pointedly boasted about acquiring a province that was ‘large enough to furnish for the public treasury eight thousand tonnes of grain and one million litres of olive oil annually’. And Augustus claimed that the province saved Rome from starvation on several occasions.13 A rebellious governor in Africa had the potential to cause major disruption.

  Circuses were a matter for the emperor, but Varus was in charge of the bread. Varus’ main brief, then, will have been to maintain the flow of grain on which the empire was already dependent and to make sure that there was no disruption from the Berber tribes to the south. Although the natives had been comprehensively humiliated a decade previously, guerrilla threats were a permanent, nagging danger. The troubles in the region that hit the province during Tiberius’ reign caused rapid price-rises in Rome and it is some indication of Varus’ competence that we know of no major disruption in Africa until at least AD 2.14

  Africa appears to have been a dry run for something bigger, and Varus passed the test with flying colours. By September 6 BC, Varus, now in his mid-forties, was made governor of Syria. At first glance, this might have appeared a cushy posting. He was based in Antioch, the East’s boom town, a military centre and headquarters of the provincial government and an international trading hub. It had benefited aesthetically and in employment terms from a major imperial building programme since the time of Julius Caesar. The city was de facto capital of the East. Only Alexandria, further south in Egypt, was larger.

  But it was anything other than a soft billet. In some ways, this was an unenviable position and clearly not one to be given to a political ingénue. It was a job that required discretion and guile. Although the province was technically at peace, the governor supervised several vassal kingdoms which were ruled by princes, aptly described by one modern historian as ‘arrogant, conceited or insidious’.15 More pertinently from a military point of view, Syria faced the Parthian Empire. Varus will have been all too aware of the threat posed by this looming presence to the East. Crassus’ defeat, only a generation previously, had been more than a blow to Rome’s prestige and confidence. It had left the empire dangerously exposed.

  It was a distinct sign of imperial favour that Augustus considered Varus a safe pair of hands. For simple geographical reasons, governors could not hide behind Augustus’ apron strings in this posting. Dispatches could take several months to get to Rome, especially during the winter months when all sailing pretty much stopped. The governor was on his own. As well as the diplomatic responsibility that went with the job, few could have forgotten that the region had been Mark Antony’s stamping ground. Even twenty-five years on, Augustus would not have entrusted the province to anyone other than a member of his inner circle. Indeed he never did. It is no coincidence that Augustan governors of Syria included Varus’ father-in-law Marcus Agrippa and, a few years after Varus, the emperor’s grandson Gaius.

  If an indication were still needed that the position had its difficulties, the brigades that were based there underline the region’s internal and external security considerations. Varus found himself in charge of four legions: Legion X ‘Of the Sea Straits’ permanently stationed as a guard against Parthian incursions at Cyrrhus, 100km to the north-east of Antioch; Legion III ‘The Gauls’ and Legion XII ‘Lightning’ at Antioch; and Legion VI ‘Ironclad’ at Raphanaea, between Antioch and Damascus.

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p; Varus’ time in Syria should have been spent managing the larger cities, keeping an eye on religious festivals and checking banditry. In fact his stint in the East was dominated by one man and one region: Herod I and Judaea. Almost as soon as he had disembarked at Antioch, Varus had to head down to Jerusalem. Because the region of Judaea dominated so much of his time, in many ways this is the most visible period of Varus’ life. The historian is fortunate to have a witness for Varus’ governorship of Syria. Flavius Josephus, priest, soldier, historian and traitor who sold out his Jewish compatriots, was born just forty or so years after the events discussed. The main theme of his The Jewish War is the revolt of AD 66, a campaign that ended with the sacking of Jerusalem by the Emperor Vespasian, but Josephus does write eloquently and at some length about the previous hundred years, including, of course, Varus’ governorship.

  Rather like Varus, Herod the Great is unfairly known primarily for one event, the Massacre of the Innocents, an event which occurred only in the fevered imagination of St Matthew. Although the last few years of his life were overshadowed by palace intrigue and Stalinist-style purges, Herod had dominated Judea for the past thirty-seven years, skilfully managing the region’s tendency towards violent nationalism and religious extremism and at the same time building a modern state. His success is an achievement the more remarkable not just because he owed his status, position and authority entirely to Rome, but because he was not a Jew.

  Now in his late sixties, Herod’s obsession was the question of succession, an issue that was to plague his remaining years as much as his health. After uncovering a plausible assassination plot by the sons of his beloved second wife Mariamme, he had them executed. His eldest son by his first wife was now named heir. In his forties, Antipater was, inevitably, given the environment in which he had grown up, an experienced and callous politician; but not quite ruthless enough. With the climate of paranoia at the court, it was almost inevitable that Antipater himself would be accused of plotting against the king. This is precisely what happened on his return from a trip to Rome. As he seemed unsure what steps to take against his son, Herod called on Varus to mediate.

  It cannot have been a comfortable case for Varus. New to the region, he did not wish to alienate Herod. The king had been a particularly close friend to Marcus Agrippa – a grandson and a great-grandson had been named in honour of the Roman general. It is clear that Augustus had appointed Agrippa’s son-in-law to the region because his voice would carry some weight. At the same time, Varus must have known Antipater from Rome. Herod’s son was certainly unpleasantly ambitious, but it is by no means certain that he was planning murder. In an echo of one of his successors, Pontius Pilate, Varus washed his hands of the affair. Although it later came out that Varus’ private advice was to banish Antipater, the governor left Jerusalem without making any public statement on the matter.16

  Herod’s death in Jericho at the end of March in 4 BC, triggered the inevitable crisis of succession. The king had finally succumbed to the chronic renal failure compounded by Fournier gangrene of the scrotum (which would account for the ‘worms in the privy parts’ that Josephus mentions) from which he had been suffering for several years.17

  Herod had not listened to Varus’ advice and Antipater was executed five days before his father’s death. The struggle for supremacy at court inevitably dissolved into factional chaos. Under the terms of what was a muddy and unclear will, Herod’s 19-year-old son Archelaus was named principal heir, while his two brothers were to become subordinate rulers of territories surrounding Galilee and the Golan Heights respectively. Archelaus was a disastrous choice and it was thanks to him that Judaea segued from client kingdom to province.18

  But, and it is a crucial point, Augustus had to rubber-stamp the succession before Archelaus could formally take the throne. The king-elect anticipated a rapid imperial sign-off on his new status from Rome, though as a precaution he cannily refused the title or insignia of his father until he had heard from Augustus. In the meantime, however, he jumped headlong into a massive domestic crisis that he had inherited from his father.

  The incident of the golden eagle had been one of the low points of the final weeks of Herod’s life. Two priests had ‘struck a blow for God’ and hacked off a gilded stone sculpture of an eagle, a low relief above one of the gates to the temple in Jerusalem.19 It was both a religious and a political gesture, a blow for the Jewish law which forbade images of living creatures and a statement against Roman domination of their state. The priests and their forty partners in crime were promptly arrested and, on 13 March, the ringleaders were burned alive.

  Once Herod had been safely buried, Archelaus was inundated with petitioners who were hoping to benefit from the change in king. He played the perennially populist cards of promising to lower taxes, to remove duties from manufactured goods and to issue an amnesty. With the perception that these concessions indicated general affability, calls then came for Archelaus to remove his father’s lackeys from positions of power, specifically those, like the high priest, who had been involved in the eagle incident. As the Passover festival approached, both sides entrenched: Archelaus refused to give in, while demands became more insistent.

  During the festival, the king sent out troops to temper what was becoming increasingly ebullient mourning for the two rabbis. Grief escalated, a riot ensued and, according to Josephus, some 3,000 people lost their lives.20 To this background of civic unhappiness, Archelaus prepared to travel to Rome to claim his throne.

  Varus headed south to meet Archelaus before he set sail. This time the governor landed in Caesarea Maritima, later the Roman capital of Judaea.21 What Shanghai was to the China of the 1920s, Caesarea was to Judea: a westward-looking melting pot of commerce and money. Although it was a new city – it had been twelve years in the building and had been finished only six years previously – the population had already grown to 100,000. Varus arrived at Sebastos, a massive 16-hectare dock, even larger, according to Josephus, than Athens’ harbour, the Piraeus.22

  Although only a tiny amount of the site has been excavated to date, it is already possible to get an impression of the city’s majesty and beauty. Mosaic pavements flanked by marble columns of every possible colour – from Italy, from Greece, from Egypt – lined the streets. In front of Varus as his ship passed through two massive, 60m-wide breakwaters, he was faced with the Temple of Augustus, raised on an artificial mound. The discovery of a metre-long, white, marble foot gives some indication of the size of the two statues that the temple housed.

  More prosaically, but much more importantly, the wall of warehouses along the southern breakwater, each 30m long, was the city’s economic engine. Analysis of amphorae containing traces of garum, the ubiquitous Roman fish sauce, wine and olive oil as well as manufactured goods such as nails, testifies to the health of the city’s commerce, while the presence of Chinese porcelain is a witness to its reach.

  It is a sign of the governor’s equanimity that Archelaus boarded a ship for Rome accompanied not only by his rivals but also by a delegation of diplomats who were demanding the incorporation of Judaea into the empire. History does not relate what the heir presumptive thought of this even-handedness, though he must have been less than impressed. With Archelaus en route to Rome, Varus might have been forgiven for believing that he had bought himself a few months’ grace. It was not to be. The empire was faced almost at once with a danger that emerged neither from Archelaus’ heavy-handedness nor even from outside the empire: it came from Sabinus, Varus’ own financial officer.

  ‘A shining example of the self-important minor official’ in the words of one modern historian,23 Sabinus had proposed the impounding of Herod’s entire estate – his money, his property and his fortresses – while the will was being debated. Varus forbade this until Augustus had passed judgement on the Judaean question. As Archelaus set off for Rome, he and Sabinus headed down from Caesarea Maritima to Jerusalem, where Varus secured certain points in the city and garrisoned it with a legion
before returning to Antioch.

  The moment that the governor’s back was turned, Sabinus countermanded his commander’s orders, set himself up in Herod’s palace in Jerusalem and tried to commandeer his other fortresses into the bargain. Using the troops that Varus had stationed there as well as his own gang of thugs, he attempted to round up as much of Herod’s money as they could find. Aside from the fact that he was countermanding a superior’s orders, it was a stunningly insensitive move on Sabinus’ part, one that would have immediate and violent repercussions.

  On the eve of Pentecost, what was obviously a revolt began to play out. Crowds, nominally pilgrims, began to converge on Jerusalem even from outside the kingdom, from as far away as Idumaea to the south and Galilee to the north. This was an organised uprising. The rebels blockaded the city and took up three strategic positions: one group to the north of the temple; one near the palace in the west; and the third to the south. Sabinus found himself not only blocked in; he was isolated from his troops which were stationed on the citadel.

  With a growing realisation of the danger he was in, Sabinus sent a stream of messengers to what must have been a deeply irritated Varus, first requesting, then begging for help. In the meantime, Sabinus signalled to the legion to try and push through to the Temple.