Eternal Caesars

By Tim Venning

In-depth essays on the empire that dominated classical Europe from Tim Venning.

Questions over the inevitability of the fall of the Republic, alternate successions, and even a surviving Julius Caesar: 'Hard' alternate history delivered with the academic rigour readers will have come to expect from Venning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sea Lion Press
• Release date: Apr 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393385554

Book preview

Chapter One. ‘ Roma Republica Aeterna?’: The End of the Roman Republic.

Was a monarchy in the chaotic expanding Roman state inevitable, if not Augustus’ version ? Could the Republic have survived longer, and if so how?

The notion of the establishment of a Roman ‘Empire’ to succeed the Republic is a misnomer. It was never formally created to replace the Republic – rather, the Republic continued under an unofficial new ruler, and indeed the notion of ending the Republic (which within its Latin meaning referred to the State, the ‘res publica’, not to one particular political system) was anathema to the traditionalist Romans . The Republic was revered as the only morally correct and legal way for the Roman state to be run, with the creation of a patriotic ‘history’ (probably part genuine memories, part myth) of how the only previous ‘one-man rule’ government in Rome, the monarchy before 509 BC, had ended in violence and revolution. It is unclear how far back the stories that have become ‘fixed’ as the official version of Rome’s origins, in Livy’s multi-volume historical survey written in Augustus’ time, go. The myth of a wolf suckling the twins who founded Rome, Romulus and Remus, after their grandfather (fearing an oracle that they would depose him) had them left out to die seems to have been known by the C4th BC due to the age of an early statue, and the ‘official’ list of Rome’s seven kings was probably fixed early too. Whether or not Romulus or his legendary contemporaries existed is doubtful, as very early accounts of the city’s foundation (such as the C4th BC Origo Gentis Romanae) refer to an equally eponymous ‘Romus’ not Romulus. Others claimed that the Trojan hero Aeneas, the only major Trojan figure in Homer’s epics to be accepted as escaping Troy alive, founded Rome – until it became clear from comparative studies of Greek and Riman chronology that the Trojan War must have occurred before 1180 BC and Rome was supposedly founded in the C8th BC. Not all the names on the list of early kings were always agreed either – hence the confusion over the ‘odd one out’ Titus Tatius, who was eventually squeezed onto the list as the (eventually) friendly ruler of the local Sabine people who became co-ruler with Romulus. The latter was also mixed up with the god ‘Quirinus’, who was ‘written in’ as Romulus’ divine incarnation after his death. But it was always agreed that the last of the kings, Tarquinius ‘Superbus’ (‘the Proud’), was a haughty and vindictive tyrant who abused his authority and was expelled by his subjects around 509 BC. (The date was fixed by the ‘Fasti’, the lists of the subsequent two annual consuls posted in the Forum.) The notion of a dictatorial ruler usurping authority from the old ruling class , initially in the name of justice and fair dealing but eventually turning into a despot, was in fact a common Greek one for the C7th and C6th BC and there was cultural influence on Rome from Greek settlements in Italy, so it was not implausible – and legend had it that Tarquinius’ ancestors had come to Italy from Greece.

According to the ‘official’ story written down by Livy and allegedly based on earlier historians, the misrule of Tarquinius was so bad that after his eviction the Romans vowed never to be ruled by one man again. The last ruler was regarded as an ‘awful warning’ of what absolute power could lead to, though in fact the story of him walking through a field cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies as a hint to his son of how to curb his elite was copied from Ancient Greek history and the story of his son Sextus’ rape of the noble maiden Lucretia rests on unclear evidence. Later on stories even alleged that the founder, Romulus, had turned into a tyrant after a thirty-year rule and had been hacked to death by a body of senators, though other king such as the virtuous founder of the laws, Numa Pompilius (alleged to be a follower of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras who was in fact later in date), had a better reputation. Probably a coup by frustrated or greedy noble factions, arising from some form of feud with the ruling family, was ‘tidied up’ into a matter of principle by later mythologists seeking to boost the reputation of the old nobility for just and restrained ‘moralist’ rule, and the virtues of the early Republic were certainly a ‘live’ political issue in the C1st BC as used by enthusiasts for Senatorial rule like the younger Cato against ‘tyrant’ upstarts like Caesar. From c. 510 power was divided between two magistrates appointed annually, the ‘consuls’, with one of the first two being the last king’s nephew Brutus who had allegedly been revolted by his misbehaviour. Stern and virtuous Brutus, who sentenced his own son to death for treason, was being held up as someone for his supposed descendant Marcus Brutus to emulate by killing the ‘tyrant’ Caesar over 450 years later. The consuls came from the aristocratic council of landed nobles from a small group of ancient families, the ‘patricians’, in the Senate, who shared power with them - and under them a neat hierarchical ‘career ladder’ of jobs for aspiring politicans was constructed with the consuls and some other officials dividing up military duties. Thus no one person could monopolise power, though as early as the C5th BC disturbances against the control of senior offices by an exclusive circle of aristocrats led to ‘nouveau riche’ families who had risen to wealth and prominence in recent years, the ‘plebians’, sharing these too and the interests of the public (allowed to elect officials by ballot in the popular Assembly) was represented by the strictly non-patrician ‘tribunes’. As a result Rome’s constitution appeared to have been developed to share out power among competing factions and classes and prevent a monopoly by one man or one group, and it was duly hailed for its avoidance of coups by admiring Greek writers. (The historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus even claimed unhistorically that Romulus must have deliberately created a balanced constitution to share power with the Senate.) The moral certainties and avoidance of excessive wealth or power by the virtuous early Roman nobility were also held up as what their successors should aspire to, at least as imagined in myths of ancient virtue that were circulating by the C2nd and C1st BC (and were enshrined in the history written by Livy under Augustus).

By the mid-late C2rd BC the responsibilities and opportunities of running an expanding and wealthy overseas empire, whose riches flowed into Italy, was putting a strain on the rigidly-fixed constitution. Nor could Rome easily ‘disengage’ or limit its ambitions, given its militaristic and expansionist tone of leadership with ambitious men who became consuls tempted to build up their and their families’ reputation by military success. Rome also reacted strongly to any setback that might have put off a more cautious ‘power’, and continued fighting until it won with a large supply of citizen soldiers available for annual service – as seen by its resolute campaigns against the warlike tribal groupings of central Italy in the C4th BC (eg the Samnites) long before it tackled non-Italian neighbours such as Carthage. The Roman elite tradition was of not letting even a major military setback constrain Rome for long – as shown by its fightbacks after crushing defeats by the Samnites at the ‘Caudine Forks’ pass in 321 BC and by Hannibal at Cannae in 216 BC - and this duly inspired generals and politicians to continue ‘hopeless’ wars against locally dominant rivals such as that against Mithradates of Pontus in the early 80s BC. But there was a problem arising from the constitution. If the senior generals on campaign (ie the consuls and their deputies) had to be changed every year on the appointed date, how could a war be run properly by competent commanders? Who was to become provincial governors, for how long, ad what if they used their accumulated wealth in buying up clients in Roman politics and corrupted the latter? Would a victorious general who (rather than the state) was his troops’ patron be able to use his army in Roman politics to grab power? All of this , as will be explored below, created an increasingly rickety and faction-ridden politics in Rome in the period after the destruction of Crtjage in 146, though cracks had begun appearing earlier. The greatest of Rome’s generals in the years around 110-100, who led the Roman armies to victory against national foes that seemed to threaten Rome’s existence like the marauding German tribes of the ‘Cimbri and Teutones’ and the Anatolian despot king Mithradates of Pontus, then turned their troops and civilian allies on the state as civil wars broke out. Ultimately the political situation could not cope with maintaining the old political system, though valiant efforts were made to preserve the Republic even after it became apparent that ‘collegiate rule’ by the Senate only led to faction and stalemate with no serious resolution of major problems. Julius Caesar, victor over the Gauls in 58-51 and over his domestic foes in the civil war of 49-45, did not scruple to rule as a perpetual dictator and made no pretence of handing power back to the Senate even when peace was restored – and he ended up assassinated as a would-be ‘king’. The result of another bout of fratricidal wars was the rule of one man, Caesar’s great-nephew Octavianus/ ‘Augustus’, and this time the change was permanent – but in view of Roman history and his great-uncle’s fate he had to pretend not to be a monarch even if it was obvious that in practical politics he was just that. Would it have been easier for him and for Rome if the state had had a more ‘positive’ image of monarchy and not had a 470-year tradition of virulent republicanism?

The ‘first Emperor’ Octavianus ( ‘Augustus’from 27 BC) made clear that he was ruling within the bounds of tradition, and in his public monumental ‘documents’ such as the ‘Res Gestae’ - a list of his achievements put up in the Asia Minor city of Angora, ie modern Ankara – he noticeably portrayed himself as merely restoring and leading the Republic. This was also emphasised in our records of his formal speeches on constitutional matters to the Senate, who technically delegated part of their powers (‘imperium’) in certain matters and provinces to him. Thus technically the Republic was not abolished – far from it .[1] . Similarly, he carefully avoided any sort of ostentation in his private life and played up his living in a ‘normal’ if large and probably grandly-furnished house (that of the wealthy orator Hortensius in the ‘upper-class’ residential district on the Palatine Hill ) like a traditional magistrate, with his wife spinning the wool for his clothes [2] . Thus he met the template for a virtuous magistrate of the early Republic presented by his contemporary Livy – and played up the contrasting ‘un-Roman’ drunken decadence of his rival Marcus Antonius in the 30s BC. He also carefully avoided any form of ceremonial, ‘court’ life as opposed to the normal formalities in the household of a respected senior magistrate, or signs of excessive flattery towards himself, and used a ‘folksy’ and approachable manner to both Senate and the public – and made sure he was seen to enjoy the public’s tastes in entertainment at the Games [3]. This may have been largely ruthless ‘spin’ – to counter possible charges of arrogance and ‘un-Roman’ monarchic leanings rather than sincere modesty- but if so it worked. He duly set the scene for an initially restrained and carefully modest, populist Imperial lifestyle, and avoided the charges of arrogant monarchic delusions levelled at his great-uncle Caesar before the latter’s assassination.

The surviving fragments of the Augustan ‘palace’ show that it was expensively-decorated but not over-large; it was in contrast to the large and vulgar mansions of the era’s ‘new rich’ such as ex-general Lucullus (former commander of the 70s BC war against Mithradates of Pontus) and was meant to be such. Ironically, the term for a royal residence – ‘palace’- comes from the fact that his home was on the Palatine Hill, the name having become a synonym for the Imperial home as all the early emperors (except partly Nero) lived there. The hill had been one of the ‘original’ two inhabited hills in Rome in the C8th BC according to the mythology and propaganda current in Augustus’ time, with the semi-official history of early Rome by well-connected historian Livy citing it as where the founder Romulus had constructed his first wall round the new settlement. The government under the new ‘Princeps’ after 30 BC was carried on from officials in Augustus’ own household plus his personal friends and political allies (‘amici’), as with normal Late Republican magistrates and generals , continuing the somewhat ‘ad hoc’ nature of the latter period’s administration. This was duly to develop into the controversial ‘Household government’ of the Imperial palace freedmen under Caligula and Claudius, which was criticised for giving power to low-class ex-slaves and Imperial toadies not worthy Senators, but in Augustus’s time it was managed very carefully and non-controversially and trusted senators also assisted him.

His triumph was to secure civil and military power, authority, and influence in his person and become the controller of the all-important ‘cursus honorum’ for aspiring careerists without making all this appear a threat to all-important tradition. His accumulation of powers under the settlements of 27 and 23 combined possession of consular authority ( ‘imperium’) over the armies, direct control of those (mainly frontier) provinces with garrisons and indirect control of the others. It also included his informal influence over the Senate (his nominal partner in government) by leading business and making appointments to office, a special ‘imperium maius’ across the provinces - granted to special military commands in the past (e.g. Pompey’s against the pirates in 67 BC) - and the tribunes’ usual legislative powers and sacrosanctity [4] . He also assumed the supreme religious office of ‘Pontifex Maximus’ on the death of his ex-triumvir colleague Marcus Lepidus in 12 BC, and this was effectively annexed to the Imperial title (and has gone on to be used by the Emperors’ politico-religious heirs in Rome, the Popes) – and for good measure took full control of all literary ‘prophecies’ in circulation so no unauthorised ones attacking the new order were circulating [5] . In ancient Rome religion was more a matter of carrying out prescribed ritual to honour the gods and continue their favour than what we would think of as ‘belief’ and controlling the Roman state religion did not make him a ‘theocrat’, but it added to his supervision of public life in all potentially dangerous areas. The then current myths of ancient Rome and its neighbours (featuring a mixture of gods and heroes as in Ancient Greece and so mixed with the State religion) were carefully massaged by Augustus for propaganda value, with his adviser Maecenas’ favoured poet Vergil constructing a scene in his great epic, the ‘Aeneid’, of the Caesars’ alleged ancestor Aeneas the Trojan being shown the Augustan future by his deceased father Anchises in the Underworld. In this ‘plug’ for the new regime, Augustus was declared to be the restorer of the ancient ‘Golden Age’ of peace and prosperity to Italy – and indeed in practical terms the end of decades of political turbulence under him showed the public that single rule was essential to halt chaos and bloodshed. But there was no provocative sense of the new regime ending the treasured Republic and creating a monarchy – the nature of the new regime was not played up, but its leader’s respectable descent from well-known ‘founding hero’ Aeneas and his mother, the goddess Venus, was. By extension Augustus had the ‘auctoritas’ (authority/ prestige) of divine descent and divine blessing, but this did not descend into outright and unashamed autocracy by a ‘god-king’ – that was left to the eccentricities of his great-grandson Caligula seventy years later. The question arises of whether Augustus’ wise preference for keeping his power hidden behind a veil of modest traditionalism could have been kept up and the Senate remained as the Emperors’ loyal and treasured partners instead of falling victim to ‘tyranny’. But had the reality of how Augustus had accumulated power, ie by military might at the head of the armies inherited from his great-unlce Julius Caesar, been too apparent to observers (including the soldiers themselves and their officers) to rein in this trend to naked ‘might is right’ politics?

Augustus’ accumulation of authority was by ‘legitimate’ delegation by the proper constitutional bodies, and technically was a ‘one-off’ revocable at will – though his control of patronage and military force meant that he could not be challenged and by acquiring these powers he denied them to anyone else. He directed the Senate through his privileged position there, with the right to have a privileged seat and to initiate debates, and his informal control of patronage, and he denied potential rivals the control of armies or ability to initiate policy against his wishes. But after an initial period he did this without occupying the consulship frequently or using a long-term ‘dictatorship’ that would make the actuality of emergency rule too obvious – both of which Julius Caesar had not bothered to avoid. He held the consulship regularly in his early years of sole power from 30 to 23 BC – with a variety of trusted allies such as his nephew Sextus Appuleius (29), his most senior general and closest friend Marcus Agrippa (28), Statilius Taurus (26), Norbanus Flaccus (25), and Caius Norbanus (24) – but from his ‘Second Cosntitutional Settlement’ in 23 only held it rarely, thus allowing more ambitious politicians to achieve it and so stilling grumbles about him monopolizing the office (as Julius Caesar had done). He even allowed his ‘neutered’ fellow-ex-triumvir Marcus Lepidus to hold it in 21, and the son of the anti-Caesarean republican admiral Ahenobarbus of the 30s (now married off safely to Augustus’sister’s daughter) to hold it in 16 and Marcus Antonius’ son Iullus Antonius to hold it in 9. In reality, however, from 23 Augustus held the consular powers of ‘imperium maius’ (supreme authority over all local provincial governors and military officers) so he did not need the actual consulship, whose holders became increasingly politically impotent – though they did include assorted younger realtives of Augustus’ as a stepping-stone to senior regional military commands, eg his stepson Drusus in 9 BC, his stepson Tiberius in 7 BC, and his grandson Caius Caesar in AD 1. He was thus at the centre of a hidden but ruthlessly controlled network of power, which operated through the existing political system. He had had predecessors in possession of sole supreme authority, Lucius Cornelius Sulla from 83-0 BC and Julius Caesar from 49-4, who had controlled government for more than a brief – legally acceptable – period through using the ‘emergency’ institution of the dictatorship rather than the usual office of the consulship. Sulla, the successful champion of the ‘old order’ of rule by established aristocratic families via the Senate in the violent struggles and coups in Rome in the early-late 80s, had had a defined ‘programme’ and had re-established the old political system after massacring its opponents; Caesar’s long-term plans (if any) are still a matter for debate. Sulla’s democratic rival Marius had also effectively held sole supreme power briefly in 87-6 as consul after conquering the capital by armed insurrection, but had died quickly; his successors, Cinna, Octavius, and Carbo, in 86-3 had shared power as consuls. They had also operated within the old constitution, but their achievement of power by factional massacre and exiles had been conducted with less careful ‘spin’ than Augustus’ rise and had left enemies at large abroad who could overthrow them. As will be seen below, the earlier attempts by leading politicians to ‘manage’ the creaking Roman constitution had not been successful and had usually ended in a bloodbath.

A missed chance or a dire warning of what to avoid? The First Triumvirate.

The so-called ‘First Triumvirate’ between Pompey, Marcus Crassus, and Julius Caesar in 60 was a more informal affair than the Second involving Octavianus, Marcus Antonius, and Lepidus in 42, and crucially at this juncture the principal characters involved still operated within the established republican constitution rather than shamelessly violating it as the Second Triumvirate was to do in and after 42. Logically they had to be more careful, as the ‘old order’ had been ostentatiously restored and its opponents massacred by Sulla in 82-0 and the idea of overturning this ‘national saviour’s laws would have enraged conservative nobles and offered a propaganda bonus to the Triumvirs’ enemies. Pompey, indeed, had to tread carefully in politics given that he had been allowed unconstitutionally to hold civil office at an early age by his patron Sulla to senatorial disquiet, though Crassus and Caesar (the latter the nephew of Marius’ wife) had not been ‘Sullans’ and both had barely escaped Sulla’s purge with their lives by hiding. Would a successful experiment in this vein by the First Triumvirate have impelled the main players in the turbulent and already violent world of Roman politics to act with similar restraint in future? (Or at any rate as long as they could achieve their aims by bending not breaking the constitution?) This unofficial division of power and influence saw the trio’s mixture of money, clients, military or ex-military backers, and unofficial influence combined to ‘cut out’ their rivals and achieve the legislation and promotion that they sought. At that point there was no suspension of the usual constitution by a special seizure/ grant of powers to the trio, unlike with the Second Triumvirate in 42, or any massacres like Sulla’s or the Second Triumvirate’s. The three leaders just unofficially manipulated the ‘system’ to get what they wanted - ie Pompey acquired official grants of land in Italy to settle his military veterans from his recent campaigns in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, rising millionaire ‘wheeler-dealer’ Crassus got respectability and access to authority to add to his money, and thrusting but impecunious aristocrat Caesar got a consulship and later a major military command in Gaul. All those three had been resented political ‘outsiders’ disliked by the majority of the Senate and in particular by the clique of senators of ancient family and influence, the ‘optimates’ (‘best people’) such as Cato the Younger, who regarded Pompey – the son of a middle-ranking general, Pompeius Strabo, who had been employed by the Senate to fight Rome’s rebellious Italian ‘allies’ in the early 80s BC - as a ‘dodgy’ character. Pompey might be Rome’s best general and hugely popular with the masses and his soldiers, but he had achieved office too young by the deplorable means of seizing control of his late father’s army and taking them to assist the exiled aristocratic general Sulla in his invasion of Italy in 83-2. Sulla had then allowed him to achieve high office at under the usual age-limits. For all his victories over the demagogue Marius’ rebel’ ally Sertorius in Spain in the mid-70s and later the eastern Mediterranean pirates and Kings Mithradates of Pontus and Tigranes of Armenia Pompey was still regarded with hostility in the Senate as a man who had forced his way to power by military means; ‘self-made’ multi-millionaire businessman Crassus was regarded with snobbish ‘hauteur’ as a vulgar and greedy ‘arriviste’ and the younger and less successful but equally aggressive Caesar was disliked despite his ancient family as being what would now be called ‘pushy’ and ruthless. Caesar and Crassus came under suspicion of having an equivocal attitude to the alleged attempted coup plotted by frustrated and unscrupulous Senate ‘outsider’ Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline) in 63, though the frenetic mutual ‘smearing’ by political rivals at the time means that nothing is certain and allegations could easily be invented (and believed). All three of the ‘triumvirs’ needed allies to achieve their political aims in 60, and Caesar needed a major office and thence a military command to rival Pompey and Crassus as a general (and thus as a wielder of influence via his soldiers). Indirectly this led to Caesar seeking a ‘fresh field’ to achieve impressive conquests and acquire loot and a loyal military clientele in the 50s and hence settling on the conquest of central and northern Gaul, which might otherwise have stayed outside Roman influence longer – though it was a tempting target for ambitious generals and was unlikely to stay independent in the long term.Luckily for Caesar, the latest of a series of trans-Rhine migrations was occurring as he arrived in 58 and so he could use that excuse to intervene to prevent the alleged threat of the Germanic intruders invading Italy later if they were not stopped in Gaul, as the Cimbri and Teutones had done in the 100s. Caesar then proceeded to take over the lands of tribe after tribe as far as the Rhine and the Atlantic, bringing Roman power across NW Europe and even ‘probing’ southern Britain in 55 and 54 - though logically the expanding Roman province needed a secure geographical border to make defence easier and there were none until Roman troops reached the great river and the sea.

The Senate, centre of grants of office and power in the constitution and restored to its old status by Sulla’s brutal repression of its democratic rivals in the civil war of the 80s, had revived in confidence since then and (led by the then consul, ‘new man’