The Successor

Tiberius and the Triumph of the Roman Empire

Willemijn van Dijk, Kathleen Brandt-Carey, Kathleen Brandt-Carey

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781481310482
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Roman Ancient History
• Index: History

Politics, prestige, power—monster, angel, emperor.

Tiberius' unique position as the unrivaled leader of the ancient Roman Empire has not prevented him from being pushed to the sidelines of historical interest. In The Successor, Willemijn van Dijk seeks to remedy this relegation in her compelling portrait of a complicated ancient ruler.

Tiberius inherited power from the legendary Augustus as the Roman Empire's first successor. His influence stretched from northern Africa to the southern Netherlands and from Spain to Syria. Yet despite its many challenges, this vast area would not remain unmanaged for long. In his twenty-three-year reign as emperor, Tiberius consolidated power in the new form of government his adoptive father had founded, and in doing so he established the Julio-Claudian dynasty, a line that would rule Rome for half a century.

The story of Tiberius is one of intrigue. Van Dijk draws readers onto backstreets and into back rooms, bringing Rome to life with vivid portrayals of what it was like to stand on the great Palatine Hill or by the banks of the Tiber. Against this vibrant urban tapestry, van Dijk weaves together the gripping narrative of Tiberius' rise—a complicated game of power, politics, and conspiracy. Van Dijk strips away the varnish of myth to paint an accurate, incisive picture of a man who at the late age of fifty-five became the greatest commander-in-chief of his day.

Vivid, scandalous, and thought-provoking, The Successor tells the story of a somber man—a figure neither wholly sympathetic nor entirely repulsive—who became an emperor, and of an emperor who became a tyrant.

I

The Longest Breath

When I hear and read that you are worn out by constant hardships, may the Gods confound me if my own body does not wince in sympathy; and I beseech you to spare yourself, that the news of your illness may not kill your mother and me, and endanger the Roman people in the person of their future ruler.

—Augustus, in a letter to Tiberius1

1

Rome, June 3, 17 BCE

The Tiber’s waters flow southwards, now gray, now in tints of reddish-brown, littered with the city’s garbage. The river meanders past the impressive gravestones and obelisks lining the Via Flaminia. There are no artificially raised riverbanks here yet; both sides of the river bear the scars of flooding. Thick, hazy smoke, heavy with the smell of charred meat, rises from the eastern bank of the bend that encircles the Field of Mars. Heaps of old ashes—the remnants of ceremonial sacrifices—surround a marble altar; extinguished torches lay strewn about the ground. A pregnant sow was sacrificed on this altar in the dead of the previous night.

Between here and the city walls, the glittering spectacle of the approaching metropolis gradually begins. First comes Augustus’ stately mausoleum—that family monument to which, in the year 23 BCE, an urn had so suddenly and unexpectedly been committed. Then Agrippa’s Pantheon and bathhouse, and also the Saepta Julia, where eleven days ago an excited and expectant Senate convened to organize the festivities that are now in progress. Between the monuments gurgles the cool water of the Aqua Virgo—the aqueduct which, thanks to Agrippa, first brought water to the city exactly two years earlier. Here and there one sees construction sites and buildings where restorations are being carried out; but on this day the sites are abandoned and the tools silent. The daily life of Rome is at a standstill.

After the Theater of Pompey, the largest in all of Rome, follows that of Marcellus. Then Apollo’s temple and Octavia’s portico. The new leading figures of Rome, all from the house and inner circle of Augustus, have already found ways to immortalize themselves in stone. Once inside the city walls we enter the oldest part of the metropolis. There is the Forum Romanum, normally thronged with people, now silent and deserted. All trade and legal business is, like the construction, closed for the duration of the festivities. Even women who a few days ago were clad in black due to the loss of a husband or child have been requested to put off their mourning for the festival. The normal daily life of the community is on hold: Rome has embarked upon three days and three nights of religious ceremonies and festivities in which the entire community takes part. For the first time in a long while, Rome feels united again.

The ancient temples dedicated to the great Jupiter and Juno Moneta are no longer the only structures to grace the sacred Capitoline Hill: a number of wooden stages, specially constructed for the festivities, have sprung up around them. Here, too, the ground is littered with smoldering piles of ashes, burned-out torches, and charred remains: vestiges of the preceding feast day, when two beautifully decked-out, whitewashed cows were ritually slaughtered for Juno. These ceremonies have been continuing night and day throughout the preceding days. Rome’s inhabitants had taken part in religious celebrations before, but no one had ever experienced anything like this. And, due to the nature of the celebration, no one ever would again. Rome was celebrating the Ludi Saeculares: the Centennial.

On the other side of the Forum Romanum, on the Palatine Hill, fifty-four boys and girls from Rome’s most prominent families throng nervously together around Apollo’s temple. They are preparing for the Centennial’s magnificent finale. After some shoving and rearranging, they finally fall into the right formation. The pipers strike up. Gradually, the group calms down. They have been practicing for this for days. The procession moves out.

Augustus walks in front, his head, as befits that of a priest in the execution of his duty, covered with the fine, light material of his toga. The emperor—who prefers to call himself “princeps”—plays a leading role in the ceremony, just as he has in every ceremony over the course of the preceding days. Now and again, as he walks, the gleam of a burnished steel knife flashes from under his robe.

In Augustus’ wake come the consuls, Gaius Furnius and Junius Silanus, in their purple-embroidered togas. Then the high priests, members of the so-called College of Fifteen, led by Augustus’ good friend and right-hand man, Marcus Agrippa. They are followed in turn by the striking, mysterious women called Vestal Virgins, in their veils of fine white wool. The Vestals’ appearance has been stage-managed with meticulous dedication: across each left shoulder a palla has been artfully draped and is held perfectly in place with a magnificent pin.

One hundred and ten women walk behind the Vestal Virgins: the exact number of years that, according to the official count, must pass between each celebration of the Centennial. These are the matrones of the city’s most powerful families, each one a model of virtuous Roman family life. Augustus’ sister, Octavia, and his wife, Livia, lead the women’s procession, impeccably dressed and with their hair drawn up in buns. Julia, Agrippa’s wife and Augustus’ daughter by his first marriage, is too young to accompany her stepmother and aunt, besides which she has just given birth to her second son, Lucius Caesar. She watches the procession, in which her stepbrothers, Tiberius and Drusus, will walk at the head of Rome’s preeminent young men, from the sidelines.

Tiberius, Drusus, and Julia: they are the young people who hold the fate of Augustus’ Rome—welfare and prosperity for which are being entreated during these feast days—in their hands. Or, in Julia’s case, in her arms. It will not be long before all three claim their places in the center of world power.

Meanwhile Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), the thirty-seven-year-old poet and audiences’ darling who is directing the choir, has given the signal. Twenty-seven boys and twenty-seven girls, all in snow-white tunics, their young heads lavishly crowned with flowers and laurel wreaths, break the silence with song. From its first note their song moves the spectators, filling them with a feeling of community, of oneness—a feeling they thought had deserted them long ago:

O goddess, be pleased to rear our young, and to grant success to the Fathers’ edicts on the yoking together of men and women and on the marriage law for raising a new crop of children, so that the unfailing cycle of ten times eleven years may bring round singing and games that are thronged with people three times by daylight and as often in the pleasant time of night.2

Horace leads his singing choir slowly down from the Palatine Hill and through the Vicus Apollinis to the summa Sacra Via, the top of the Capitoline Hill several hundred yards away. This is the first time his Carmen Saeculare, the hymn he composed specially for the Centennial, has been performed in public. At Augustus’ sign the procession comes to a halt in front of Jupiter’s temple atop the Capitoline. The pipers play softly while the fifty-four young voices, as clear and pure as the cloudless June sky, sing on tirelessly from the wooden stage, entreating security, welfare, and prosperity for Rome:

O ye gods, give sound character to a young generation enabling them to learn; give rest to the old ensuring their contentment; and to the people of Romulus as a whole give wealth and children and every blessing.

The audience listens as the pleas rise skyward—pleas for the mother city and all her progeny; for themselves and their families. This, the culmination of the countless smaller ceremonies of the past few days, is a one-of-a-kind spectacle, and one that has been impatiently awaited by the citizenry of Rome. Their participation over the whole of the Centennial entailed quite a lot of preparation. They had shown up in large numbers on May 26, 27, and 28 at one of the designated distribution points to collect their sulfur and tar for the ritual cleansing that must precede the religious activities; then they had come back for the grain, wheat, and beans that would enable them to take part in the sacrificial ceremonies. Rome has been eagerly laboring over this “party of the century” for days.

The procession sets off back in the direction of Apollo’s temple on the Palatine Hill, still accompanied by the choir’s singing and the music of the instruments. The plume of smoke from the sacrificial fire on top of the hill rises steadily into the air. The chorus invokes Apollo:

Phoebus the prophet, arrayed with his shining bow, who is dear to the nine Muses, and by his healing art relieves the body’s weary limbs—he, if he looks with favour, as he does, on the altars of the Palatine, prolongs Rome’s power and Latium’s prosperity for another cycle and another ever improving age.

Here atop the Palatine Hill awaits the final sacrifice, the Centennial’s grand finale. There are no squealing sows and decorated cows this time: for this last ritual Augustus will personally offer twenty-seven specially baked ceremonial loaves of bread to Apollo and Diana. The air quickly fills with a penetrating mixture of smells: spices and burned cake. Slowly, like the fires, the Centennial dies out.

For three days and three nights Augustus, the princeps, or leader, of the Roman State, led all the Centennial processions and stood with bared knife at all the sacrificial altars. It had gone exactly as he had imagined it, back in February when he, together with Agrippa, had submitted the request to the Senate to organize the festivities.

Their aim had been to symbolize a turning point in history—to bring the entire Roman community together, and with them to gaze backwards and forwards at the same time, like the two-headed god Janus. Now, after the long years of power struggles, bloodshed, and civil war in Rome, they could finally invite the gods back to a city that, thanks to their own efforts, was safe and peaceful again. It went without saying that Augustus, Agrippa, and the rest of their family would play a prominent part in the ceremonies. But beyond increasing the family’s prestige, the festivities were intended to infuse new vigor into the religious life of the Empire’s capital, which had finally regained her dignity.

It was only ten years earlier, in 27 BCE, that Augustus, then using his birth name Octavius, had brought an end to the civil wars that for generations had torn apart the lives and families of Rome. He had avenged himself upon the murderers of his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, who had died, the victim of a conspiracy, in a pool of blood on the Senate floor. Then he had defeated the last enemy of the State, Marc Antony, and Marc Antony’s formidable lover, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. And so Augustus, as the lawful heir of Julius Caesar, had restored the honor of the Roman republic, and then had deferentially restored to the Senate all the special powers granted to him for the task. He was, after all, no tyrant lusting after absolute power. All Augustus had ever wanted was for the authority in Rome to be restored to the ancient, respected republican institutions such as the Senate and the consuls. All he had ever done, he had done in service of a republic in distress. Or, at least, so he made it appear.

On the other hand there had never, in fact could never, have been any real question of his standing down. If the republic were to flower once more it would need protection—that much the Senate understood. Despite the blood that Augustus had been forced to shed on his way to the top, most agreed that the State of Rome would be in good hands with him. Singular marks of honor were therefore conferred upon Augustus by the Senate. He would henceforth not only be annually appointed one of Rome’s consuls, but was also given a special title: princeps. Technically a citizen like all others, but the most eminent of all. First among equals.

But even as princeps Augustus—modest as he was, or as he wished to appear—preferred to be seen as patron rather than monarch. The majority of senators stood behind him, a sharp contrast to how they had felt about his stepfather, Julius Caesar; and in gratitude for the respect he had accorded them as an institution, they rewarded him with an almost divine epithet: Augustus. The exalted one.

Whether that respect was genuine or just a façade was no longer an issue. The occupant of many a Senate seat was engrossed by one thought, and one thought only: let us, for the gods’ sake, restore peace and security. Let suspicion and murderous intent depart from Rome for good; let us keep the legions under the authority of this man, who—in contrast to ambitious opportunists like Pompey, Caesar, and Marc Antony—has proven that he has at least a modicum of deference for the old institutions of Rome.

Rome’s new order allowed for the traditional justice system, but was, as a whole, controlled by Augustus. It was a veiled form of dictatorship, unworthy of the old republic, but most senators preferred it to a life of constant fear. Almost all of them had blood-curdling recollections of the times when their own names, and those of their fathers or best friends, had appeared on the public list of the condemned.

All that was now in the past. No one had to fear for his life anymore. Roman no longer had to fight against Roman. Rome’s strife-torn heart was healed and could once again focus its attention on maintaining peace and security throughout the Empire—which, thanks in part to the leaders of the previous decade’s civil wars, had continued to expand. The Forum Romanum was once again a model of order and uprightness, of old-fashioned values, and of the rule of law, as well as of renewed religious diligence. Temples had been rebuilt, expanded, or refurbished. In order to teach Rome a lesson, Augustus had even introduced a number of marriage and morality laws; these came into effect shortly before the Centennial and were designed to stimulate marriage and childbearing and to discourage adultery and other frivolities. He had in large measure restored the Empire’s hegemony as well. Any still-smoldering conflicts and rebellions in the provinces were forcefully dealt with and Rome’s honor was gradually reestablished to the farthest corners of the Empire.

Horace managed to capture this fresh, hope-filled spirit in the new hymn that was sung by fifty-four Roman children on June 3, 17 BCE. Finally, the gods could safely return to a Rome who welcomed them, and whose very streets radiated trustworthiness.

Yet this was no time for complacency. Even during the Centennial Augustus, as commander of the Roman legions, was pestered by new threats of border conflicts and rebellious tribes in the provinces. The Golden Age was within reach, as the choir sang, but the gods must not abandon Rome now. Over three days and three nights of continuous religious ceremonies, Rome pleaded with the all-powerful ones to side with the Romans—to stand by them, now and in the uncertain future.

2

The Alps formed the natural northern boundary of the Roman Empire following the Centennial. Those same Alps were a symbolic border: a no-man’s-land separating the civilized world from the unknown. Beyond them lay dark forests inhabited by hostile, barbaric tribes: a wilderness filled with wild, robust men with reddish hair and uncouth beards.

That this majestic mountain range offered Rome not nearly enough protection against those sinewy barbarians was a lesson from the city’s early history. Almost four hundred years ago brazen tribes from the north had boldly conquered the snow-topped mountains, only to march on, undaunted, to sow terror in the very streets of Rome. The mountains had also failed to stop doughty Hannibal and his Punic army, which in 218 BCE had given the fledgling Roman Empire the most anxious days it had yet experienced. And peril from the north had come close a third time, towards the end of the second century BCE, when Roman legions at the Empire’s borders found themselves face to face with advancing tribes of Cimbri and Teutones.

All these invasions now belonged to the distant past. By 17 BCE Rome had long been undisputed lord and master of the entire Mediterranean. The Empire’s land borders had, several decades earlier, been substantially pushed back by Julius Caesar: all the way to the Rhine. And yet the fear of the unknown and unpredictable nature of what lay beyond those natural borders—beyond the river, over the mountains—had always remained.

Friend and enemy alike had been impressed when Caesar, forty years earlier, had dared to cross the Rhine with an expedition from Gaul: hardly anyone had dared to set foot in the Germanic forests before. The stay-at-homes in Rome had lapped up Caesar’s detailed personal report from Gaul, delivered practically live, like little boys reading an adventure story—all of which had enabled the great general to handily mold public opinion on the entire undertaking.

The land where he fought his Gallic Wars was separated from the dreaded Germanic territory in the east by the Rhine River—that was how Caesar had explained it to the home front. The reality, however, was much more complex than Caesar made it appear. Beyond the opposite bank of the Rhine lay an unseen patchwork quilt of people with widely diverse languages and cultures, but it was easier to label them all “Germans.” In this manner Caesar made the unknown world comprehensible and orderly for his Roman audience, with the newly conquered Gaul on one side of the river a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• I. The Longest Breath
• II. The Succession
• III. Out of the Shadows
• IV. The Fall
• V. The Last Breath
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Family Tree
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index