Augustus: Managing an Empire Part 1

In his official autobiography, Res Gestae, Augustus pridefully stated: "I englarged the territory of all provinces of the Roman People on whose borders were people who were not yet subject to our imperium. This line of thinking does not quite gibe with what he said after returning to Rome from his negotiations with King Frahata of Parthia in the east in 20 BC., which was that he had no intentions of adding to Rome's provinces. Augustus declared "the existing number was exactly sufficient," also writing his judgment of this to the Senate.

We can see that the statement made in his autobiography is much closer to the truth. For Augustus was truly an aggressive imperialist and expanded Rome's imperium more than any other ruler in a comaparable timeframe in all of Rome's previous history.

And the Roman people gave their blessing to this imperial expansion--even expected it. It is true that Republican law had made it illegal for the Senate to declare war without a provocation. Also Rome had secured much of its eastern empire without totally meaning to do so, such was the case in 133 BC, when the king of Pergamum died and willed his entire kingdom to Rome. The conviction that Rome had an imperial destiny was fixed in the minds of the Roman people, much like "Manifest Destiny" in the United States and British imperialism 2,000 years later. Indeed, empire was one of the methods that the Augustan regime legitimized its existence in the Roman mind.

The reign of Augustus was actually the last great age of Roman expansion. Slightly before he died, Augustus left his successor (and stepson) Tiberius the advice not to expand the frontiers of the empire. After Augustus there were only two major military campaigns that led to permanent acquisitions. These were Britain in 43 AD under Claudius and Dacia in 105-106 AD under Trajan. Trajan's other conquests in Armenia, Mesopotamia and south to the Persian Gulf in the campaigns of 113-117 AD were falling apart before his death, and were formally renounced after his death. However, a new province--Mesopotamia (again) was finally brought into the orbit of Rome after the Parthian wars of Marcus Aurelius' co-emperor, Lucius Verus, in 162-166 AD and of Septimius Severus in 194-198.

"But even the relativlely peaceful period up to the 220s was filled with constant change and development in the disposition and function of the army, and the nature of the frontiers. At the beginning of the period indeed it could hardly be said that recognizable frontiers existed. In the West there were still three legions in the interior of Spain, finally conquered only in 26-19 BC. Legionary camps were grouped along the Rhine, but no permanent forts had yet been established beyond it. The land between the headwaters of the Rhine and Danube was not yet occupied, while the first legionary camp on the Danube itself-Carnuntum in Pannonia-was established only in about AD 15; on the lower Danube towards the Black Sea, Roman control was still episodic in the early years of Tiberius." Fergus Millar, The Roman Empire and its neighours, p.104.

As far as the idea of Roman frontiers is concerned, this brings to to mind how very blurry and indefinite those frontiers must have seemed at the time. There was no accurate navigational equipment at the time, and most explorers (who were usually merchants and traders) didn't quest very far from the Meditteranean.

The Romans thought that all of the world's landmass was contained in a semi-circular disk made up of only Asia and Europe. They thought the island of Britannia to be at the northwestern edge of this disk and that the whole landmass of the world was completely encompassed by a vast sea--Oceanus. As the Roman Empire already took such a great portion of the land, they believed was all that was there, it must have been greatly enticing for Roman rulers to believe that they would one day be the masters of it all.

The first world maps that we know of came from fifth-century Athens. The Romans, with their imperial obligations valued the importance of cartography. Julius Caesar had commissioned a world-map that most likely was a part of a triumphal monument he had constructed on the Capitoline Hill. Augustus wanted a more refined and detailed map, so he commissioned his indispensible deputy, Agrippa, to make the orbis terrarum or "globe of the earth." This depicted hundreds of cities linked together by Rome's marvelous network or roads. It was fashioned from reports by Roman governors, generals and travelers. The result that emerged from this was a largely recognizable picture. However, the distances between places and the shapes of them became less accurate the further they were from Rome.

The most important job of the orbis terrarum was to assist military commanders, imperial governors and administrators. It was also an impressive synbol of Roman power. The map was displayed--either by painting or engraving--on the wall of the Porticus Vipsania, a collonade erected by Agrippa's sister as a permanent public display. Papyrus or parchment copies of the orbis terrarum were also made for travelers.

It would appear that a well-defined "program" was also mapped out in the years after Actium by Augustus and Agrippa. The two spent many years abroad putting down revolts, inspecting (and reforming if necessary) local administrations, and superseding these tasks, consolidating and expanding the empire. Augustus was in Gaul and Spain from 27 - 24 BC, in Greece and Asia between 22 and 19 BC, and again in Gaul from 16 to 13 BC. Agrippa went east from 23 to 21 BC and Gaul and Spain in 20 to 19 BC. During this time the eastern provinces and client kingdoms were reorganized, and the frontier of Egypt was expanded southwards; contact with the Ethiopians resulting from this. Gaul and Spain were pacified, and negotiations with the Parthians were successfully concluded.

The orbis terrarum revealed three problems that had yet to be vanquished. 1) With the Alps being controlled by a group of untamed tribes, it was impossible to reach the eastern provinces by land around the top of the Italian peninsula. 2) Macedonia's frontier was hard to defend and ill-defined. 3) The Germanic tribes were putting up constant challenges along the river Rhine which formed the Gallic frontier from the North Sea to the Alps from the western side.

The best solution to these problems would be to gain control of the Alps and then proceed north and create a defensible frontier lined with legions along the river Danube. By doing this Italy and Macedonia would be protected from direct assault from buffer provinces in the north.

There was a problematic area if the Rhine and Danube rivers were to indicate the empire's permanent boundary. A salient was created by the heads of the two rivers at the apex, where modern Basel, Switzerland is. Germanic tribes hostile to Rome could use the salient to run interior lines, allowing them a huge military advantage. Thus the final procedure of the plan would be to invade Germany and create a new frontier at the river Elbe. This would take care of the salient and form a border that would be a roughly straight line between the North Sea and the Black Sea. There was an added advantage to this plan because the annexed territory would protect Gaul from eastern invaders. The well-thought out completeness and the interdependent elements of this three part plan would suggest that it was the brainchild of the steadfast, loyal Agrippa--the man solely responsible for winning all of Augustus' wars for him.

The link here will explain the image--I tried to find what some scholars think the actual orbis terrarum may have looked like and will continue searching. I think I have enough time to do one more article here on my new "schedule"--hopefully it will be here in a two or three days. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by! The research materials I used for this article are Anthony Everitt's Augustus published in 2006 and Fergus Millar's The Roman Empire and its neighbours published in 1967.

Augustus: Life at Court

Now that we are going back to Augustus I would like to post some information from Anthony Everitt's Augustus (p.256), that give a little more insight into his character and what life at his household and court was like: "The princeps took a friendly interest in professional entertainers of all kinds and got to know some of them personally. However, there were limits of propriety on which he insisted; he banned gladitorial contests sine missione, that is where a defeated fighter could not be reprieved and so had to be killed by his opponent. Augustus wanted to see bravery, but disliked pointless bloodshed. He also severely punished actors and other stage performers for licentious behavior. Women were not allowed to watch athletic contests (competitors did not wear clothes), and Augustus banned them from sitting alongside men at other entertainments; they were banished to the back rows."

In these articles about our powerful subject-Augustus-it has been stated before that he tried to project a public image of virtue, diligence, enterprise, thrift, modesty, and clemency. However, there are very few (if any) public personaes that strong rulers have promulgated that transmit the whole truth, and Augustus is in this group. Outside of Rome and the public eye, Augustus and his family lived a luxurious-even extravagant lifestyle.

There is a rocky island called Pandateria in ancient times (modern Ventotene) around 30 miles west of Naples, where Augustus built a grand palace, the site of which is currently being excavated. There is a huge building with many rooms here that previously housed servants, slaves, and guards. From here, the ground curves and narrows into a small valley, where fountains would have gurgled sumptuously among a colonnaded portico with plenty of seats that would have created a delightful sylvan area for family and guests to engage in conversation. The main house stood on a rocky promontory, where it overlooked steep cliffs. This massive, horseshoe shaped building would have had a beautiful central garden area. A breathtaking vista of sea and sky would have been offered by a viewing platform at the very tip of the promontory.

Among the magnificent splendour, Augustus could play host to his guests-all of them wealthy and powerful-but some of far more agreeable temperment than others-even disreputable folk-thus the need for privacy away from the prying eyes and chatting mouths of Rome's citizenry. Men like his strong, loyal, and capable general and friend, Agrippa, or the sybaritic but civilized Maecenas wouldn't have had any of what we would think of as "image" problems these days with Rome's populace. The same could not be said of a man such as Publius Vedius Pollio, the son of a wealthy freeman. Vedius had tanks where he kept giant eels. He also had the very evil and unpleasant habit of putting slaves in these tanks who had made him angry-the eels had been trained to become maneaters.

Augustus was the dinner guest of Vedius one evening when a slave broke a valuable crystal goblet at dinner. The enraged Vedius ordered the hapless young man thrown to the eels. Falling to his knees before Augustus, the boy begged for his life. Augustus then tried to reason with Vedius to have mercy on the slave. Vedius ignored Augustus, which in turn made the sole ruler of the Roman Empire angry. Augustus told Vedius: "Bring all your other drinking vessels like this one, or any others of value that you possess for me to use." Once this was done, Augustus ordered every last one to be smashed. This put Vedius in his place as he certainly couldn't order Augustus thrown to the eels! The slave-boy was pardoned from what would have been a gruesome fate.

Augustus publicly endorsed strict private morals, and history shows yet another fascinating aspect of this multi-faceted man. Going from the records from his time, Augustus apparently had a diverse and strong sexual drive. Ovid wrote that his house "though refulgent with portraits

of antique heroes, also contains, somewhere,

a little picture depicting the various sexual positions

A friend and slave dealer, Toranius, is said to have aided the emperor in his sexual conquests and would have women stripped of their clothes so Augustus could inspect them and choose among them. As an elderly man Augustus is said "still to have harbored a passion for deflowering girls, who were collected for him from every quarter, even by his wife!"

The cena or main meal of the day started about 3 in the afternoon for most Romans. This was so much more than our lunch or average dinner hour of modern times. The cena wasn't only for family and guests were often invited. Many various clubs and societies held regular feasts. The patrician class invited one another to an annual cena. Augustus and Livia would have their cena after a regimen of excercise and a bath.

The triclinium was a dining room with three communal couches covered by mattresses, arranged along three sides of a room with a table in the middle. This is the area where dinner parties were held, and for larger functions the same layout was repeated. Reclining to eat a meal was a highly-valued luxury, and up to three diners per couch lay alongside one another, with their heads nearest the table and their left elbows propped on cushions. Women would sit on chairs but by the time of Augutus it was becoming popular for them to recline with the men. Children would sit on stools in front of their fathers' places if they were allowed to be present.

Augustus held extravagant dinner parties and great care was taken with the guests social standing and providing a good variety of personalities at these meals. However, the Emperor himself was often not interested in eating and would arrive late and leave early-and of course no displeasure was expressed about his habit!

The meal would begin with the gustatio tasting, during which appetizers were served. These could be anything from pickled fruit, vegetables, cabbage in vinegar, heavily spiced concoctions such as nettles, sorrel, cider, and snails, clams, and small fish. A favorite delicacy was stuffed and roast dormice. A wine-and-honey mixture accompanied the gustatio. The main course would be a variety of meat dishes-anything from wild boar, turbot, chicken, sow's udders, and pork (50 different ways of preparing pork were known). The Romans added a sauce called garum or liquamen to almost everything. This was made from slowly decomposed mackerel intestines (yummy;-). The closest modern sauce to garum (alhtough still quite different) would be Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Dessert would be honey-soaked cakes, fruit and nuts.

Of course, wine was served with the meal, but heavy drinking would commence only when the meal was over. The Romans took this part of the evening quite seriously too. A roll of the dice would determine the rex bibendi ("king of what is to be drunk"). The rex bibendi was put in charge of mixing the wine and coming up with the number of toasts which everyone had to drink.

Augustus was a superb host and many times brightened his guests' evening with performances by story-tellers, circus acts, musicians, and actors. He also had the ability to make his guests feel individually valued and was able to engage with the shyest of them.

One publicly proclaimed virtue that Augustus did follow through with in his private and public life was hard work. Most Romans went to bed early but their ruler would still be found attending to matters of state. He would retreat to his study and dictate letters to secretaries, read dispatches and give advice or orders to be followed. Finally, by 11 p.m. he would retire but as a light sleeper woke up 3 or 4 times during the night; sleeping a maximum of 7 hours. Many times he found it hard to go to sleep again and would send for readers or story-tellers until he was able to drift off.

To anyone who reads or follows this blog- I apologize for such a lengthy interim between posts here! I am putting myself on a kind of schedule for the things I enjoy and like to blog about. For this blog and My Favorite Monsters, hopefully there won't be any more long periods between articles--two to three weeks at a very maximum--and hopefully much less. I am also going to work on my fiction writing on this schedule so I also hope to start posting at Beyond the Baryon Wall when I have a complete story written. The research credit for this article goes to Anthony Everitt's Augustus, in the "Life At Court" chapter (pp 245-260). The image at top is of the Arch of Constantine. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!