Map 25. The Roman Empire, 14 CE.
C. Silius P. f. A. Caecina Largus L. Munatius L. f. Plancus
‘With seeming reluctance,’ writes Dio, ‘Augustus accepted a fifth ten-year term as head of the Res Publica.’1 The burdens of acting commander-in-chief weighed heavily on his septuagenarian shoulders. More than ever he relied on his deputies and the assistance of senators and equestrians for the day-to-day running of public affairs. Hard of hearing and unable to project his voice far, he now received diplomatic embassies from communities and kings accompanied by three consulars who, ‘sitting separately, gave audience to such embassies and answered them, except in matters in which the final decision had of necessity to be rendered by the Senate and Augustus’.2
It was clear to many that Tiberius was the uncontested heir apparent come the inevitable time that Augustus died. This year the Roman Senate and People voted him imperium equal to Augustus ‘in all provinces and armies’.3 They also renewed his tribunicia potestas for another five years, to take effect the following year.4 For maturity, talent and experience in military matters, as well as international diplomacy and domestic politics, he had no rivals. Augustus’ adopted son had been a loyal deputy from the first days he had entered the army as a tribunus militum in Hispania Citerior at the age of 16, and had been fighting his wars around the world in a great many of the years since.5
During the rotation of governorships, Augustus’ adopted grandson, Germanicus Caesar, was assigned Tres Galliae and the recently formed Germania Inferior and Germania Superior as legatus Augusti pro praetore.6 In the early months of the year, he arrived with his wife, Agrippina, children and slaves at the official residence at Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, the home of Agrippa, Augustus, Tiberius and his father before him. Soon after, he initiated a census of the Gallic population.7 The Tabula Siarensis mentions cryptically that he ‘set Gallia in order’.8 There is a hint in the extant records of incursions by Germans raiding across the Rhine into Roman territory; in another account, Germanicus is reported as having won a great victory over Germans living between the Alps and Pyrenees.9 More than that is not known. Wherever the military engagement occurred, it was the likely occasion when he garnered his first imperatorial acclamation.10
Germanicus had a greater mission, however, than to administer the sixty Gallic nations and ensure the security of the expat Roman citizens living among them. He had been given explicit instructions by the princeps ‘to finish the remainder of the war in Germania’.11 Augustus wanted the lands across the Rhine River back under Roman control. The Roman ghosts exiled at the Teutoburg Pass must be avenged.
Sex. Pompeius Sex. f. Sex. Appuleius Sex. f.
While Germanicus worked on his campaign plan, Tiberius decided to return by sea to Illyricum ‘to strengthen by peace the regions he had subjugated in war’.12 Augustus intended to accompany him as far as Beneventum on the Via Appia, whence Tiberius would continue on to Brundisium, but he was detained in Rome to hear disputes in court and had to let his adopted son travel on alone.13 Having completed his business in the city, the princeps headed south to Campania.14 ‘As he sailed by the Gulf of Puteoli,’ Suetonius relates:
it happened that from an Alexandrian ship which had just arrived there, the passengers and crew, clad in white, crowned with garlands, and burning incense, lavished upon him good wishes and the highest praise, saying that it was through him that they lived, through him that they sailed the seas, and through him that they enjoyed their liberty and their fortunes.15
In late July, he relaxed on the island of Capreae (Capri).16 After four days there, he returned to the mainland and reached Neapolis (modern Naples) in time to attend games held in his honour on 1 August.17 In the meantime, his bowels were causing him intermittent, but nevertheless great, discomfort.18 Feeling unwell, he went inland to the tranquility of his natural father’s old villa at Nola and retired to the same bedroom in which he had slept.19 He sent instructions for Tiberius to be recalled from his mission.20 In his private room, Augustus spoke with his friends, exchanged pleasantries and then dismissed them.21 He died on 19 August, having lived seventy-five years, ten months and twenty-six days; had he lived an additional thirteen days, he would have been able to mark the fortieth anniversary of his victory at Actium.22 Livia and Tiberius made arrangements to transport the corpse to Rome.23
Forty praetoriani carried out the body of the deceased commander-in-chief to public view.24 As had been done for Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, M. Agrippa, C. and L. Caesar before him, the bier with the body of Augustus was carried by the leading men of each city as it passed through during the day, and then laid in the basilicas or temples at night.25 At Bovillae, the equites took charge of the corpse and conveyed it after dark into Rome – as Augustus had preferred to travel in life – placing it in the vestibule of the Palatium.26
On the following day – perhaps 4 September – the Senate met, convened by Tiberius using his authority as tribune.27 Most of the senators sat in their usual seats, but, out of respect, the consuls sat below, one on the praetors’ bench and the other on the tribunes’.28 Augustus’ will was brought from the House of the Vestals and read aloud by Polybius, an imperial freedman, since it was not considered proper for a senator to do so.29 In addition to distributions to members of his family and friends, there were gifts for the soldiers: Augustus left HS1,000 to each of the men of the Praetorian Cohorts, HS500 to each of the Vigiles, and to those in the legions he bequeathed HS300 apiece – a disbursement of HS37 million in total.30 Several sealed annexes to the will in scroll format were then brought in and read by Tiberius’ own son, Drusus Iulius Caesar.31 The first set out clear instructions for the funeral.32 The second contained the full text of his lifetime’s deeds – the Res Gestae – which was to be reproduced and displayed later as cast bronze plaques in front of his mausoleum.33 The third was a ‘breviarium of the whole empire’.34 Written ‘in his own hand’, it:
contained an account of military matters, of the revenues, and of the public expenditures, the amount of money in the treasuries, and everything else of the sort that had a bearing upon the administration of the empire.35
He had left the empire and its army in good health (map 25, table 4).
The state funeral combined ancient tradition with military pomp in the style of a triumph, outdoing even Sulla’s for its magnificence.36 A wax effigy of Augustus dressed in the clothes of a triumphator lay on a couch of ivory and gold, adorned with fabrics of purple and gold; it was mounted on the funeral bier over the coffin containing his decaying body.37 From Augustus’ house it was carried down the hill by designati (the magistrates designate for 15 CE), followed by images of the great and good – beginning with Romulus – and placed on the rostra in front of the Temple of Divus Iulius.38 There the younger Drusus read a prepared eulogy, customarily delivered by a nearest male relative.39 Then, from the old speakers’ Rostra at the other end of the Forum Romanum, his father spoke to the crowd over the body. Tiberius praised Augustus’ virtues, described how in his many public offices he had served the Res Publica and talked of the victories which had brought glory to the Roman People.40
The bier was then lifted up and carried by the designati to the head of the funeral procession.41 By decree of the Senate, the golden statue of Victoria, which Augustus had erected in the Curia Iulia after his victories at Actium and
Table 4. Dispositions of the Legions, Summer 14 CE (According to Tacitus).
| Province | Units | Legions |
| Hispania Tarraconensis | 3 | IV Macedonica, VI Victrix, X Gemina |
| Germania Inferior | 4 | I Germanica, V Alaudae, XX Valeria Victrix, XXI Rapax |
| Germania Superior | 4 | II Augusta, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina, XVI Gallica |
| Pannonia | 3 | VIII Augusta, VIIII Hispana, XV Apollinaris |
| Dalmatia | 2 | VII Macedonica, XI |
| Moesia | 2 | IV Scythica, V Macedonica |
| Syria | 4 | III Gallica, VI Ferrata, X Fretensis, XII Fulminata |
| Aegyptus | 2 | III Cyrenaica, XXII Deiotariana |
| Africa | 1 | III Augusta |
Sources: Appendix 3; Hardy (1889), p. 631; Lendering (Livius.org); Ritterling (1925); Syme (1933; 1986); Tac., Ann. 4.5.
Map 25. The Roman Empire, 14 CE.
Alexandria, was placed first in the line.42 On their way along the Via Sacra to the Campus Martius, they were followed by the images of the ancestors, the family mourners, priests, state officials and a golden statue of Augustus mounted on a triumphal four-horse chariot.43 An imago of Pompeius Magnus was also included, as well as figures to represent all the nations he had acquired. The procession passed through the Porta Triumphalis – symbolically moving in the reverse direction taken by a commander celebrating his triumph, indicating that he was leaving the world where civil law ruled and out beyond the city’s ancient walls where military law applied.44
Having arrived at the crematory erected beside the Mausoleum, the bier was lifted onto the awaiting pyre.45 All the priests of the colleges encircled it, and then the cavalry and infantry of the Praetorian Cohorts performed a final decursio for their commander.46 After their parade, they tossed the military awards they had received from Augustus – their armillae, phalerae, torques, coronae – upon the heap.47 With flaming torches in hand, a group of centurions lit the combustible material and the body was soon engulfed by fire.48 Livia remained at the site for five days with the leading equites, who wore unbelted tunics and went about barefoot; then they gathered up the bones into a casket and placed it inside the tomb Augustus had built for himself and his family.49
This was a delicate, potentially high-risk, moment in the long history of Rome. As a precaution – just as his forebear had done before him – Tiberius surrounded himself with ‘a guard of soldiers’ against any attempt on his life.50 Some in the Senate urged him to assume the position of first man, but he refused the title of princeps.51 In front of Augustus’ golden statue of Victory in the Curia, several senators implored Tiberius to rule.52 He was an autocrat in all but name, having already the same political and military powers as the late Augustus, vested in him by successive decrees of the Senate and sanctioned by the People’s assemblies – and to acquire them he had been promoted by Augustus.53 With reluctance, Tiberius gradually yielded to the entreaties of the Conscript Fathers – but two years would pass before he felt his position as the first citizen of the Res Publica was secure.54
Tiberius sent news of Augustus’ death to the legati Augusti, legionary commanders, auxiliary prefects and the allies; having the imperium proconsulare maius, he was still in charge of the Provinces of Caesar and the armed forces there. Any potential threat to his position from Agrippa evaporated with his death by the tribune appointed to guard over him; despite the man’s claims, Tiberius denied issuing the order for his execution.55 A man called Clemens, who was the slave of the late Postumus, gathered together a mob intent on avenging his master’s death, but he was intercepted and liquidated.56 L. Scribonius Libo, one of the nobiles, was alleged to have secretly hatched a plot to lead a revolution, but it amounted to nothing.57 The other potential challenger was Tiberius’ adopted son, Germanicus Caesar, who was still in Tres Galliae. A deputation was sent to him in Tres Galliae to formally deliver the news of Augustus passing, to convey its condolences and assure his fidelity.58
Germanicus’ loyalty was never in doubt. It was tested soon after Augustus’ death. While the Legiones II Augusta, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina and XVI Gallica of Germania Superior under C. Silius remained steadfastly true to their military oath, the troops at the army bases in Germania Inferior under A. Caecina Severus – the suffect consul of 1 BCE and former legatus Augusti of Moesia – protested and mutinied59 (see Order of Battle 5). Accompanied by his adjutants, Germanicus immediately set off to deal with the insubordination of Legiones I, V Alaudae, XX Valeria Victrix and XXI Rapax, who were in their summer camps (in aestivis).60 Several centurions had been assaulted and their bodies cast into the Rhine River by the mob for having run what amounted to protection rackets – assigning less arduous duties to those who had paid bribes, while those who objected felt the vine staff.61 One named Septimius had pleaded with Caecina for his life but, fearful of repercussions if he did not surrender the man, the legate refused: the centurion was summarily executed by his captors. The senior officers, including the praefectus castrorum, meanwhile, had been arrested and confined. There was even talk of a march on Ara Ubiorum to sack it and then raid into Belgica.62
Germanicus’ arrival at the joint camp of Legiones I and XX was met with a frosty welcome.63 Almost ignored as he entered the camp, he climbed up onto the tribunal at the centre of the enclosed space and called the men to order. They milled around in disarray. Germanicus insisted that the legionaries form up in their centuries and cohorts. The men refused, protesting their rough treatment at the hands of cruel centurions, while others complained they were still obligated to serve even though they had completed their contractual terms of service, and all were angry at the poor rates of pay.64 Some were in a wretched state, with teeth missing and joints worn out by years of toil. The reality was that most had joined the legions, not out of love of their country or fervour to live a military life, but because it was a stable job with an income, there were prospects of a share of booty and a bonus at the end of their career. For years these men felt they had been abused, and now was the time for action.
Order of Battle 5. Germania Inferior and Germania Superior, 14 CE. Several units of ethnic auxilia are recorded as having served under Germanicus Caesar, though it is unclear into which provincial command they reported in AD 14: Cohors Batavorum, Cohors Gallorum, Cohors Raetorum, Cohors Vindelicorum and probably Cohors Sugambrorum and Cohors Ubiorium. There were other alae, including Chauci and possibly Cananefates.
Eventually the men lined up. Germanicus appealed to their better natures, but when one soldier called upon him to be the successor of Augustus in place of Tiberius, the young commander leapt down from the tribunal and firmly rejected the plea.65 He had no wish to be princeps, he said, and every intention of staying loyal to his adoptive father. Returning to the subject of the men’s grievances, he offered honourable discharges for those who had served twenty years, releases with conditions for those with sixteen years, and settlement of outstanding pay and bonuses for all.66 The mutinous troops of V and XXI rejected the deal outright. Fomenting the discord among the ordinary soldiers of these two units was ‘a rabble of city slaves’ who had been freed and conscripted into the Cohortes Voluntariorum.67 Germanicus eventually acceded to their demands for better compensation – using money from his own and officers’ savings – and agreed to improved terms and discharges for those eligible veterans.68 Satisfied with their new deal, the troops assembled and marched to their winter camps (in hiberna) carrying the pay chests, with a humiliated Caecina riding at the head of his column.69
On the Danube, the legions were in a state of mutiny too.70 Receiving the news of Tiberius’ succession, the Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore Iunius Blaesus had allowed discipline to slip.71 One caligatus named Percennius incited his peers to strike over terms of military service. Blaesus’ appeals for order contained the situation only when he agreed to consider their grievances and sent his son, a tribunus militum, to Rome with the mutineers’ demands.72 A particular focus of the soldiers’ rage was the brutal way Praefectus Castrorum Aufidienus Rufus treated the troops; he was a stern disciplinarian who had risen through the ranks.73 The troops constructing roads and bridges in Nauportus beat up the senior officer and ridiculed him.74 When those soldiers returned to camp, they were arrested, flogged and imprisoned, while inciting the others to violence.75 Outnumbered, the officers and centurions lost control of the situation. The mutinying troops freed the prisoners, ejected the tribunes and the camp prefect and plundered the baggage of the fugitives. They also killed Lucilius, a centurion the soldiers nicknamed Cedo Alteram (‘Bring Another’) because, when he had smashed one vinestaff (vitis) on a man’s back, he would shout out his demand for a replacement.76 At the climax of the troubles, two legions, VIII and XV, drew swords against each other, the former demanding the death of a centurion nicknamed Sirpicus, while the men of the other defended him.77 The situation was only calmed when the soldiers of Legio VIIII intervened.
Tiberius ordered his son to break the mutiny.78 When Drusus reached the camp, the troops initially disrespected his rank, but he managed to get their attention.79 He addressed them, talked of their pay and conditions, and tried to appeal to their sense of patriotism, but the men reacted violently and he had to withdraw for his own safety.80 It was a lunar eclipse, which occurred at the same time, that allegedly prevented further conflict.81 Interpreting it as a bad omen caused by their own insubordination, sanity gradually returned and the mutiny ended.82 The instigators were identified, taken into custody and executed by centurions and soldiers of the Cohortes Praetoriae who had accompanied Drusus to the frontier.83
In Germania Inferior, the situation that seemed to have been contained now spiralled out of control. A deputation led by Munatius Plancus had arrived in Ara Ubiorum, where Germanicus had retired for the night.84 A mob of angry soldiers surrounded the visitors, believing them to have come to revoke their agreement, then stormed the building in which Germanicus slept, and demanded to be given the legionary eagle standard. In one account, they seized his wife Agrippina and his young son Caius.85 Having heard the commander plead for their release, the men let his wife go, but insisted on keeping the boy as a hostage. Withdrawing with their hostage, the men encountered the visitors from Rome. To avoid being assaulted, Plancus fled to the camp of Legio I and hid in the strong room of the base’s principia.86 He would have been killed had not the legion’s aquilfer Calpurnius intervened to stop them.
Next day, Germanicus addressed the soldiers again from the tribunal and berated the troops, in particular of Legio XX who he said had disgraced themselves with their behaviour.87 Plancus and his deputation were allowed to leave under escort of a cohort of auxiliaries rather than the customary legionary ala – since the citizen riders had sided with the mutineers. Agrippina was to follow with her child and relocate for their safety to Augusta Treverorum. As retold by Tacitus, when the men watched Germanicus tearfully embrace his family and bid them farewell, the men responded. The emotional scene caused many to question how they had reached this low point.88 Germanicus continued with his speech. By the end of it he had persuaded the men to suspend their action. The ringleaders of the mutiny in Legio I were quickly identified and brought before the legionary legate. In a makeshift court under martial law, when each man was charged a military tribune turned and asked the soldiers if he was guilty. If affirmed, the defendant was thrown off the tribunal and stabbed to death by the men standing ready below.89
Among Legiones V and XXI, the justice meted out was particularly brutal. Germanicus agreed a plan with Caecina to arrest the men behind the mutiny.90 Caecina discreetly issued orders by letter to his officers that the loyal men were to turn on the others who had led the mutiny. But the plan backfired. The tribunes moved ahead without Caecina being present and gave the signal for the assassinations to begin. Several fought back and killed their attackers, so that the blood of the innocent and guilty alike was spilled. When Germanicus finally arrived at the camp, he was mortified by the scene of slaughter that he found.91
With order re-established, Germanicus needed a target to restore – and prove – the men’s sense of duty. In the late summer, Germanicus took his men across the Rhine in a punitive raid. Accompanied by Caecina Severus, he led a force of 12,000 men drawn from Legiones I, V, XX and XXI, along with twenty-six cohorts of auxiliaries and eight cohortes equitata. 92 Novellius Torquatus Atticus was military tribune of the vexillatio comprising these four legions.93 Cutting their way through the Caesia Silva, they reached the fortified entrenchment constructed by Tiberius four years before and set up camp.94 From there they sacked villages of the Marsi. Germanicus was in no mood to take prisoners. To stir up the Roman fighting spirit, German blood would be spilled. His soldiers slaughtered any men, women and children they found without mercy.95 Back in their bases on the Rhine, the re-energised troops, eager for another chance at glory, spent the winter preparing for a new war against the Germanic peoples the following year.96
Germanicus returned to Rome to a hero’s welcome. Despite being ordered to remain in barracks, the praetoriani still turned out in force to greet him.97 He presented the soldiers’ demands to his adoptive father. Tiberius agreed to the increase in pay to the armies of Germania and Pannonia, but insisted on keeping the extended service term at twenty years.98 As Augustus had done decades before, Tiberius Caesar needed to establish his legitimacy by asserting unequivocally that he was the commander-in-chief.