Part 12

The battle was fought on the second of September 721. This ought to have refuted those later writers, like Gellius and Macrobius, who did not see with their own eyes, and who would have it that the old rule was still held, that no battle could be fought on the days after the calends, nones, and ides, without its being unlucky for Rome. At that time, the whole state of affairs was unpropitious; but yet, all circumstances considered, the victory of Octavian over Antony was the most fortunate thing that could have happened. What Horace says of it, is perfectly just; and no man of sense, let him think of Octavian what he will, could have had any other wish than that he should conquer.

Eleven months passed before the war was quite over. Octavian went back to Italy, where new commotions had broken out; for the veterans, who were as unruly as ever, were again crying out for allotments of land. Agrippa took possession of the eastern provinces; but it was not until the spring of the following year, that Octavian marched through Asia Minor and Syria to Egypt, so as to force the _claustra_ of the country, near Pelusium. There was probably a secret order from Cleopatra to open the gates of the place, as she was afraid of war: it is very likely that as a vain woman she felt sure that she should be able to enslave Octavian, even as she once did Cæsar who was so much against her. The only thing that she seems to have been afraid of, was that the war would be prolonged, and that Octavian would come to Alexandria quite implacable. But Octavian made an attack likewise from the other side, from Parætonium in Libya. This, however, was not feasible for a large army; for although there were fortified towns in that quarter, the country between Cyrene and Alexandria is one of the most inhospitable regions in the world. Here Antony had still a number of Roman soldiers, both cavalry and infantry, with which he wanted to make a sally; but the troops went over to the enemy, all but a few who had no hope left, like Cassius of Parma, one of the murderers of Cæsar. Antony therefore made up his mind to die; but his end was cowardly and pitiful: the deadly thrust was not strong enough, and he lingered on for a considerable time, slowly bleeding to death. Cleopatra had shut herself up in her palace with all her treasures: Octavian wished very much to get her alive for his triumph; but it was feared that she might choose the death of Sardanapalus. On the first of August 722, the day that Antony died, Alexandria capitulated; and on the morrow, the gates of the town were opened to the Roman army. Cleopatra kept the dead body of her lover in her room: she wavered between the hope of gaining Octavian, and the feeling that she ought not to live any longer. Proculeius, an officer of Octavian, of whom also Horace makes honourable mention, gave her his word that her life should be spared, and tried to persuade her not to do any harm to herself: but when she saw that Octavian would not on any account let her come before him, but treated her like a slave; when she got no answer to her prayers, that she might still have the countries given to her by Antony,—for Egypt, for her treasures, nay even for a life of freedom,—then it was, that after having tried several sorts of poison, or not having ventured to try them, she put the asps on her bosom, and so killed herself.

Thus ended the civil war and the triumvirate: in fact, there had for the last years already been no more triumvirate, as Lepidus had been set aside. Augustus was now sole ruler of the Roman world. The first of August was by a decree of the senate appointed for ever as a holiday, under the name of _Feriæ Augustæ_:[25] the month of Sextilis henceforth had the name of August, even as Quintilis, in which Julius Cæsar was born, had been called after him July. Augustus would have liked better to have had September, in which he was born, named after him; but as all the great events of his life had happened in August, and in that month he had also first entered upon the consulship, the preference was given to it. These Feriæ were celebrated with banquets, festivities, garlands of flowers, and the like, and were still observed in the days of Placidia, and even down to the reign of Pope Leo the Great. It was in fact a political festival, but accompanied with libations and other religious ceremonies, all of which were kept up on that day to the latest times. For this reason, the festival of Vincula Petri[26] was (according to Beda and Biondo of Forli) appointed for the first of August. In the church of S. Pietro in Vincola on the Esquiline, in the baths of Trajan, the chains with which the apostle St. Peter was bound in Rome, as well as those which he wore at Jerusalem, are deposited; and the public secular holiday, with its feasting and revelry, still remains, just as it was on the _Feriæ Augustæ_ of old. Even now, whoever is in any sort of clientship in the later meaning of the word, visits his patron on this day; the servants in the houses of acquaintances have presents given them, as it is with us on the first of January; and the people spend the money which they get in treating themselves. When first I lived in Italy, I was very much annoyed at this impudence, until I found in Biondo that it was the keeping up of a most ancient custom. There are many of these usages in modern Rome, which have their origin from the remotest antiquity. Down to the last century, it was still the practice to carry a carved image of the Virgin on a certain day out of the city, and to wash it in the river Almo, as was formerly done with the image of Cybele. A number of such old customs are now become obsolete; for instance, an image was carried from one church to another, and back again, by way of paying a visit. The festival of the first of August has been called, all through the middle ages to this very day, _Feragosto_.

Here ends the old Roman history: the last contest was the death struggle, and from henceforth the history changes its character. Here I hope also to end my (large) work. The events which followed, down to the fall of the empire, may most suitably be divided into the histories of the several emperors, the first of whom the ancients themselves quite rightly deemed Augustus to have been; for Augustus he was now already called. Yet there is still to be described the transition from an usurped _tyrannis_ into a regularly constituted monarchy.

ROME A MONARCHY. EASURES OF AUGUSTUS FOR THE CONSOLIDATION OF HIS POWER.

Augustus had already been more than once invested with the consulship. His first was in 709; the second, which he immediately afterwards resigned, was ten years later; two years afterwards came his third; the others, down to the eleventh, followed year by year: he was altogether thirteen times consul. It was soon after the end of the war of Actium, that he behaved as if he wanted to lay down his power as dictator. This was, as every body knew, a farce; nor could he have been taken at his word, as the whole army had sworn obedience to him, and besides the soldiers, no citizens were under arms. And no man in his senses could have wished him to resign his authority: for, if under far more favourable circumstances, when very many eminent men were living, and people were still quite accustomed to the republic, the free constitution had not been able to stand its ground, and the state was ruled by individuals; how should it now have held its own, if Augustus had given up his power: some one else, and very likely some more unworthy person, would have been placed at the helm; and thus there would only have arisen new civil wars. The senate therefore may have been quite in earnest when beseeching him; and Augustus may also have put on a serious face, as he hoped thus to have his former cruelties forgotten. To show the exact date of the rise of his power might be impossible, or at least very difficult. The name of _Imperator_ was now—this was a peculiar form of flattery—given him as a _prænomen_; so that instead of C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus, he was now called Imperator Julius Cæsar Octavianus: from thence, _Imperator_ was always the _prænomen_ of the Roman emperors; as we may see from the coins. In the second century, this was forgotten: in official style indeed one said Imperator Antoninus Augustus, but otherwise Imperator M. Antoninus Augustus as well. Octavian in fact wished to have Romulus as a kind of _agnomen_; but as some took umbrage at this, it was resolved on the motion of L. Munatius Plancus—who now distinguished himself by his flatteries, just as had been done among the Greeks with regard to their Macedonian rulers—to call him Augustus, which the Greeks at once translated into Σεβαστός. The dictatorship was offered to him; but he declined it: this may have been owing to superstition, from which he was not free. It is possible that Sylla’s and Cæsar’s ends frightened him; but perhaps also, the thing seemed to him to be too straightforward, and it pleased him as it were to play with it. But he was named consul every year, if he chose: they wanted to make him sole consul; but he refused it, and rather wished to have two consuls to help him: this again was opposed by the senate; “one besides him was already too much.” At the same time, the proconsular power out of Rome was given him over the whole of the empire, and he could always exercise it by deputy; so that he was enabled to give away the provinces at his pleasure. With the censorship, he got the privilege of excluding from the senate, or calling into it, any one whom he chose. By virtue of his office of tribune, he could annul the decrees of the senate, and interfere with every act of all the magistrates: moreover it gave him the _provocatio_ from all judicial decisions, which is the source of the modern appeal. He was tribune for life, and as such had the right of calling the senate together, of making motions, and of putting matters to the vote: this first began in the seventh century, and no one was now startled at it.[27] To Lepidus he left indeed the name of _pontifex maximus_; but after his death, he had that dignity also conferred upon himself, and thus he engrossed the whole authority of the spiritual law. Moreover, he had, by means of the tribunician and censorial powers, the supreme control over the _ærarium_; so that, by an artificial accumulation, all the powers of government, with the exception of the administrative ones of the præetors and consuls, were concentrated in his person.

When Augustus, after the battle of Actium, tried to give a new form to the state, he, for the sake of appearance, went back in everything to the ancient form. Cæsar took into his own hands half of the elections, and at last even all of them; but Augustus restored the elections which were held by the _comitia_, though the _Candidati Cæsaris_ now stood, of whom it was an understood thing that they were to suffer no _repulsa_. The poets of that time, for instance Horace, speak of the _ambitio Campi_, and of the uncertainty of the elections, in language which one could only have used in the days of the republic; and there is some truth in it: for Augustus did not give himself the trouble, or did not take it upon himself to meddle with all the elections. This was so much the case, that owing to Egnatius Rufus in particular a tumult arose; as the latter, in defiance of the person who represented Augustus, and in violation of the _leges annales_, stood for the prætorship, just after he had been ædile; and also, immediately after his prætorship, for the consulship: to such a degree was the show of liberty kept up! Yet, after all, assemblies of the people were in reality confined to those elections. Of _plebiscita_ no mention is made in earnest in the reign of Augustus: for we cannot reckon that to be one, which Pacuvius, a tribune, brought forward to have the month of Sextilis called August. Of laws, there were several passed: the form in which this was done, was that a decree of the senate was laid by the consuls before the centuries, and approved of by the latter. This, as there is reason to believe, may have lasted until some time in the reign of Tiberius, to judge from the _Lex Julia Norbana_: afterwards we do not hear any more of laws properly so called.

Cæsar had already introduced a host of adventurers into the senate, and Antony a great many more; and it was just the same in the times of the triumvirate. Augustus now caused it to be made known, that those who felt that they were not fit for the senate, had better to leave it of their own free will; so that he might not have to strike them off the list: whoever acted thus should be treated in the most considerate manner. A few only, not more than about fifty, did so. As this was not enough, he put out a great many more: but not to hurt their feelings, and because he feared for his life from their offended vanity, he left to them the _latus clavus_ and the first seats in the theatre; which was a great consolation for those wretches. He raised the _census senatorius_, which for an indefinite period had been double the _census equestris_, to a million sesterces: at the same time, he behaved liberally, and to those whom he wished to keep in the senate, he made up what was wanting from the public means. The senate had until then its regular sittings three times a month, and extraordinary ones only when summoned; Augustus reduced these to two, and gave it holidays during the months of September and October. Even now, the whole of October is still the vacation time at Rome; after the end of September, no more business can be done: under the emperors, all the courts of law had vacations in the autumn, which was a thing quite unknown in the days of the republic. In the senate, nothing else could be taken in hand but what the consul laid before it, as to him belonged the _jus relationis_. Augustus, however, was also _princeps senatus_; and as such he revived the claim he had by the old forms to the _jus relationis_, a right which had been dropped in the later times of the republic. He now formed for himself another and more select council of state, which had previously to discuss all those matters that were to be brought before the senate. Anything like a debate in the senate is no more to be thought of: all that was proposed, was sure to pass; there was nothing else done but making fine phrases and compliments.

The extraordinary powers which Augustus had, he caused to be given him, after the battle of Actium, first for ten years; then, for five; then, once more, for five; then, three times, for ten years: in the very beginning of the third decennium, he died. The tribunician authority he had given him for life. The senate had formerly been, for their Roman subjects, the supreme court to judge political crimes; and this privilege Augustus left to it, so as to shift the odium thereof from himself upon the senators: it afterwards became their chief business. With the taxation, the senate had nothing whatever to do, as Augustus had the control over the finances of the whole empire, and could raise or lower the taxes. In Italy itself there was no land-tax, even as with us there is none on the seignorial estates; but indirect taxes were paid, and of these there was a variety, as, for instance, on legacies and bequests, and when slaves were made free. Even as the hereditary Stadtholder of Holland was Captain General and high Admiral, so was Augustus master of the whole army, that is of the forty-three or forty-seven legions, and of the innumerable _auxilia_, about 400,000 men in all: over these, the senate had not the slightest power, not even over the enlistment of them. The provinces in which no troops were regularly stationed, and which therefore did not belong to the military department, (Italy, as the country of the sovereign people, was excepted from all these regulations,) came under the care of the senate: these were Asia, Africa (so far as it was not subject to Juba), Gallia Narbonensis, Hispania Bætica, Achaia, Macedon, Bithynia, Cyprus, Crete, and Cyrene.[28] For himself, Augustus kept by far the larger and richer share, namely, Spain, all but Bætica; Gallia Lugdunensis and Aquitaine; the countries north of the Alps, Rhætia, and Vindelicia; Dalmatia, Pannonia, (Thrace had a king,) Mœsia; Pontus, (Cappadocia had a king,) Cilicia, Syria, and Egypt: the revenues of these provinces may have hardly been sufficient to keep the armies which lay there in fortified camps. The senate had two proconsular and ten pro-prætorian provinces; but it was not until five years after a man had been consul or prætor, that he could be admitted to cast lots with those who were to preside over the provinces. Augustus made some wholesome changes with regard to the arbitrary rule which was exercised in the provinces; certainly in his own provinces, yet very likely also in those of the senate. Until then, all governors had unchecked power to take whatever they pleased: he was the first to assign fixed appointments to these functionaries. His governors, whom he chose indiscriminately from the senators, _viri consulares_, _prætorii_, and knights, were called _legati Augusti_: as we learn from coins and inscriptions, their official title was _legati pro Consule_, _Prætore_, and so forth. The senatorial governors were as before, for one year; those of Augustus, for an indefinite period; for four, five, or even ten years. This was a very happy change for the provinces; yet the ones which had an imperial governor, were much better off than those which were senatorial: in these last, we are sorry to meet with _actiones repetundarum_; even as late as the second century; in fact their whole establishment was but a pageant for which the subjects had to pay dearly. There was a double _ærarium_, that of the senate, and that of the emperor: how far the latter had also the disposal of that of the senate, is more than we can tell. Among the proofs of Augustus’ thoughtfulness, are to be reckoned measures like the _Lex Ælia Sentia_, by which a stop was put to those disgraceful emancipations which brought down the franchise to the very lowest slaves. The way in which the Roman citizens were spread far and wide, was prodigious: the franchise reached much beyond the frontiers of Italy, and Narbonnese Gaul, and a great many places in Spain, had likewise the privileges of citizenship. Such provincials could not, however, get into the senate. Yet even to this rule there were exceptions: as early as in the days of Cæsar, some of them had been brought into it; and under Augustus there were yet more, especially from Provence, where Latin was spoken very early, so much so indeed that the country itself was called _Italia altera_.[29] The number of the _capita civium_, as is given at that time,—somewhat more than four millions,—seems to us frightfully small; for we are not to look upon it as that of the fathers of families, as all free men who in their sixteenth year had put on the _prætexta_ must be reckoned therein. One quite shudders at the falling off of the population, and by this again we learn how great was the rage and fury of the civil wars.

Among the praiseworthy regulations which he made, are also those about the police of Rome. The state of the capital was awful. Since the days of Sylla and the proscriptions, no one at Rome was sure of his life, nor was there any kind of police: to see this, we have only to read the orations of Cicero _pro Cluentio_, _pro Milone_, _pro Sexto Roscio Amerino_; in Suetonius, we meet with accounts of bandits (_grassatores_) openly showing themselves in Rome with their short swords. Augustus, with great determination, put that down. We see what consequences will arise, when old institutions are allowed to go on without being modified according to the wants of the times: that which at first was wise and expedient, in after days becomes perverted and mischievous. Augustus made a new division of the city. Rome had kept all its municipal arrangements even as Servius Tullius had left them: it had four regions, and also the liberties of the Aventine, as a sort of suburb: the real suburbs were quite neglected. These four regions had _vici_, and this perhaps was also the case with the other districts: all police matters there were under the charge of the _ædiles plebis_, which was quite insufficient. Augustus, without troubling himself about what was old town, new town, _pomœrium_, and so forth, now divided the whole extent of the city, as it was then really inhabited, into fourteen regions: over each region he placed a magistrate, and it had likewise a number of _vici_, every one of which was presided over by a _magister vici_. This division proved excellent, and by it security was restored in Rome. Owing to the extension of the empire, the Roman magistrates, who at first had been the magistrates of a city, could now no longer give their time to city business; and therefore several _magistratus minores_ had been established: but these offices had no authority, and they were in the hands of freedmen, as no man of any rank would have anything to do with them. Some years after the battle of Actium, Augustus instituted a _præfectus urbi_ in whom the whole of the city administration was concentrated: this place he bestowed according to his own pleasure; L. Piso held it for twenty years. The good done by this magistracy, and his most happy choice of the person who filled it, was one of the chief causes which gained for him the affection of the inhabitants of the capital. Moreover he set up a sort of _Gensd’armerie_, _vigiles_, _cohortes urbanæ_, which had to act and to be at hand whenever it was wanted; as when there was a riot, a fire, in short, anything serious. The men were in barracks, thus forming a sort of garrison which he might keep without its making any show. He also established a _præfectura ærarii_, very likely, not only for his own _ærarium_, but also for that of the senate: at least, the imperial treasury afterwards absorbed the other which had formerly been managed by quæstors. For all these offices he chose, from a εὐπρόσωτος αἰτία, _equites Romani_, not senators: these last, cringing and fawning as they were, still had a mighty opinion of their own dignity.