Augustus managed the security of his provincia and order of battle through a formal organization comprising Roman officials with term-limited powers and the assistance of non-citizen allies bound by treaties. Short biographies (terminating at 14 CE) of those whose names have survived are presented here, listed in order of their family name (nomen gentile) or cognomen in the few cases the clan name is not known.
1. Romans
Many fellow citizens served Augustus as his hand-picked deputies or subordinates (legati and praefecti) and fought wars under his auspices during the period 31 BCE–14 CE. For in-depth discussions of these men’s family and political connections with Augustus, see Atkinson (1958), Syme (1939a) and Syme (1986).
(a) Deputies (Legati Augusti Pro Praetore)
Augustus personally appointed his deputies from among both the patrician senatorial class, including the nobiles (high status men of families that had served as consuls) and the novi homines (men born outside the old aristocracy) who he promoted to prominent positions. Over a lifetime’s career, a man might serve the Res Publica in a variety of official capacities with increasing responsibility. He could rise through the cursus honorum – the ‘race for honour’ or career ladder of public offices – undertaking civilian and military positions, located in Rome, Italy or overseas:
• Vigintivir: in his late teens he might be appointed to one of the twenty junior officials conducting administrative duties in Rome, such as the commission of three men (triumviri monetales) in charge of the Rome mint producing the copper and bronze coins.
• Tribunus Militum: in his twenties he could serve in the army on the staff of a legatus legionis as a military tribune; twenty-four such positions were filled annually.
• Quaestor: having reached age 25, he could be appointed as a finance officer on the staff of one of the proconsuls in a public province; there were openings for twenty posts annually.
• Tribunus Plebis: in his mid-twenties he could stand as one of the ten annually elected tribunes hearing appeals from citizens and defending their civil rights in legal cases.
• Aedilis: in his mid-twenties he could also stand for election as one of the six officials maintaining the city’s public infrastructure and markets.
• Praetor: when he had reached 30, he could stand for election to one of the twelve magistracies (the most senior of which was the praetor urbanus) responsible for chairing the public courts and organizing public games.
• Legatus Legionis: appointed personally by Augustus, in this post he would be responsible for one of the twenty-two or so legions (excluding the units in Egypt which were the responsibility of the Praefectus Aegypti).
• Consulis: when he had reached 42 (but in the case of Augustus’ family often at a much younger age through concessions), he could stand for one of the two annually elected consulships, responsible for chairing meetings of the Senate; the two consuls’ names together were used to identify the year in Roman chronology.
• Pro Consulis: as an ex-consul he could be picked by lot to govern one of the twenty-two or so senatorial or public provinces.
At any point he could be picked by Augustus as a legatus Augusti pro praetore to govern one of the nine or more ‘Provinces of Caesar’ (Dio 53.12.1–2, 53.13.4–7, 53.14.1–4; Strabo Geog. 17.3.25; Suet., Div. Aug 47). With it came responsibility for pacification of the territory assigned to him, ensuring the security of his jurisdiction, and protecting of Roman citizens living within its borders. He had the necessary military power enshrined in law (imperium) to command all the army units stationed in his provincia (Dio 53.13.5–6) ‘with Caesar’s authority to exercise full powers, including capital punishment’ (Joseph., Bell. Iud. 2.117). His tour of duty was as long as Augustus wished, but typically lasted three years (referred to as a triennium), though during the crises of 6 and 9 CE it was extended (Dio 55.28.1–2; Suet., Div. Aug 23.1). This compares to the term of the proconsul of a senatorial or public province of just one year’s duration (Dio 53.13.2–3; cf. Dio 55.28.1–2). He was entitled to a complement of five lictores – one less than the number assigned to proconsuls, emphasizing his lesser status (Dio 53.13.2–4). A serving legatus wore military regalia on duty, in contrast to the proconsul who was expected to remain in civilian attire while managing his province (Dio 53.13.3).
A highly valued honour for a victorious commander was to be voted a full triumph, in which he drove a four-horse chariot (currus triumphalis) through the streets of Rome and along the Via Sacra (Suet., Div. Aug. 25.3). His face and arms would be daubed red and he would wear an elaborately embroidered toga (toga picta) and tunic (tunica palmata). He would be preceded in the military parade by captives and war spoils displayed on floats, whose contents were explained on signboards (fercula). His officers and troops would follow. The spectacle would conclude with a sacrifice at the Capitolium. A lower grade recognition was the ovatio with triumphal ornaments, in which the celebrating commander rode a horse. The honour might be accompanied by a honorary war title (agnomen or cognomen) and, in the case of Augustus and his family members, a victory arch of marble (ianus) surmounted by statues.
The ultimate distinction for a commander was to slay his enemy in battle and to strip his body of its armour and equipment. These rich spoils (spolia opima) would be taken by the victor and dedicated to Iupier Feretrius at his temple in Rome. Many tried, including M. Licinius Crassus and Nero Claudius Drusus, but neither was recognised during Augustus’ time.
Many of these men were friends (amici), not just acquaintances, of Augustus. Some were bound to his family through marriage or adoption. Others were recognized through membership of a religious college (collegia sacerdotum), which carried with it great prestige. As important to Augustus as securing the Pax Augusta on Earth was safeguarding the Pax Deorum with the Roman pantheon. Himself Pontifex Maximus – the most important of the religious priesthoods – from 13 BCE, he held several other posts (RG 7; Dio 51.1.5). His legati could be active members of these collegia, which included:
• Augures, the second most important body of men, responsible for interpreting the will of the gods through the flight of birds;
• Quindecemiri Sacris Faciundis, the commission of fifteen men charged with consulting the Sybilline Books (Libri Sybillini) who oversaw the landmark Ludi Saeculares of 17 BCE;
• Fratres Arvales, the college of twelve ‘Arval Brothers’ responsible for the rites of the ancient cult of the Bona Dea and her sanctuary outside Rome;
• Septemviri Epulones, the college of seven men responsible for organizing banquets given in honour of the gods;
• Fetiales, responsible for negotiating treaties and reparations, and the ritual for declaring war at the Temple of Bellona – the ancient priesthood was reestablished by Augustus in 31 BCE (Dio 50.4.5) and held by him alone until 6 CE, whence he shared it with two others.
For a discussion of the status and role of legati Augusti pro praetore, see Drogula (2015), pp. 345–73, and Hurlet (1997). For their priestly offices, see Röpke (2008). On triumphs see Beard (2007) and Lange (2015).
Sex. Aelius Catus (c. 45 BCE–After 4 CE). Little is known about the background of the son of Q. Aelius Catus. Conjecturally he was praetorian proconsul of Macedonia in c. 2–3 CE. Strabo writes ‘in our own times, Aelius Catus transplanted from the country on the far side of the Ister into Thracia, 50,000 persons from among the Getae, a tribe with the same tongue as the Thraci, and they live there in Thracia now and are called ‘‘Moesi’’’ (Strabo, Geog. 7.3.10). He was elected ordinary consul for 4 CE.
L. Aelius Lamia (c. 64 BCE–After 22 BCE). A plebeian and a loyal friend of Cicero, Lamia is described by a contemporary as ‘a man of the older type, who always tempered his old-fashioned dignity by a spirit of kindliness’ (Vell. Pat. 2.116.3). At some point in his career, appointed as praetor (43 BCE), he served with distinction in the wars in Illyricum, Germania and Africa, but the lack of opportunities to display his courage denied him the triumphal insignia he might have deserved (Vell. Pat. 2.116.3). He was a legatus Augusti pro praetore in Hispania Citerior for the period 25–22 BCE (Dio 53.29.1). His religious offices included the post of quindecemir sacris faciundis (CIL VI, 37058, 41034–41041) on the commission charged with consulting the Sybilline Books. He, or his son, served a single term as consul (3 CE).
M. Aemilius Lepidus (c. 45 BCE–After 9 CE). The son of patrician Paullus Aemilius Lepidus (consul 34 BCE) and Cornelia, a contemporary wrote floridly of Lepidus that he was ‘a man who in name and in fortune approaches the Caesars, whom one admires and loves the more in proportion to his opportunities to know and understand him, and whom one regards as an ornament to the great names from whom he springs’ (Vell. Pat. 2.114.5). He rose through the cursus honorum to become consul for 6 CE. During the Great Illyrian Revolt of 6–9 CE, Lepidus led one of the army groups with ‘virtue and distinguished service’ and ‘vigilance and fidelity’ (Vell. Pat. 2.125.5), in recognition for which Tiberius assigned him command of military operations at the mid-point of the campaign (Vell. Pat. 2.114.5, 2.115.2; Dio 56.12.2). At the end of the war he was granted triumphal ornaments (Vell. Pat. 2.115.3). He went on to govern Hispania Tarraconensis (formerly Hispania Citerior) and Lusitania, ‘and the army in them were held in peace and tranquillity’ (Vell. Pat. 2.125.5). His daughter Aemilia Lepida was betrothed to Germanicus’ eldest son, Drusus, and his son Marcus to Germanicus’ daughter, Iulia Drusilla (Tac., Ann. 6.40).
M. Agrippa (né M. Vipsanius Agrippa) (c. 64/63–March? 12 BCE). The son of L. Agrippa, Marcus was a novus homo descended from the obscure plebeian gens Vipsania. For reasons unknown, in his own lifetime he preferred to be called plain M. Agrippa. He was the life-long friend of Augustus and his right-hand man. Key military victories can be directly attributed to him which established Augustus as the supreme commander of the imperium of the Roman people. When and how they met is not recorded. Agrippa may have been with him when Iulius Caesar’s great nephew went to Hispania to take part in the war against Pompeius Magnus in 45 BCE (Nic. 11). He was certainly with his friend in Apollonia, Illyricum in March 44 BCE when news of the dictator’s murder arrived (Nic. 16; Suet., Div. Aug. 94). He was one of the small group advising him (Nic. 30) and a close and active supporter of Imp. Caesar – he helped him recruit troops in Campania (44 BCE), successfully prosecuted the conspirator C. Cassius Longinus in 43 BCE (Dio 46.49.3) and was at Philippi in 42 BCE nursing his friend back to health (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 7.148). His talent for military leadership and strategy emerged during the Perusine War, notably at Fulginiae (App., Bell. Civ. 5.35) in 40 BCE against L. Antonius, brother of triumvir M. Antonius. He was rewarded for his achievement and loyalty with the post of praetor urbanus (Dio 48.20.2). In that role he successfully saw off raids on Italian coastal towns and installations by marines operating under the command of Sex. Pompeius, the son of Pompeius Magnus. He went to Gallia Comata, where he quelled a rebellion of Aquitani in 38 BCE (App., Bell. Civ. 5.92), for which he was awarded a triumph, and the following year crossed the Rhine – only the second commander since Iulius Caesar to do so (Dio 48.49.3) – to assist the Ubii, for which he was rewarded with the consulship the following year. Agrippa served as consul for 37 BCE. In preparation for the full-blooded war against Sex. Pompeius the same year, Agrippa supervised operations to build a double harbour (Portus Iulius) beside the Bay of Pozzuoli for outfitting the hundreds of ships and training thousands of crewmen (Vell. Pat. 2.79.1; App., Bell. Civ. 5.96). His warships were equipped with several innovations to improve their chance of success against the enemy’s agile vessels. With this fleet, in 36 BCE he won the crucial naval battles of Mylae (Dio 49.2.1–4; App., Bell. Civ. 5.106–108) and Naulochus (App., Bell. Civ. 5.119–121) off the coast of Sicily that eliminated the threat posed by the son of Pompeius Magnus, and for it he was rewarded with the corona navalis, a unique golden rostral crown (Dio 49.14.3; Livy, Per. 129;Ver., Aen. 8.683–684). In 35 and 34 BCE, he was in action again with Imp. Caesar in Illyricum to crush resistance to Roman occupation and to expand territory from the Sava River to the Danube (App., Ill. 16–22). In 34 BCE, Agrippa was elected aedile in Rome (Dio 49.42.2) and used his period in office to make substantial repairs to the decaying fabric of Rome’s ancient infrastructure, including the Aqua Marcia and Cloaca Maxima. Appointed by Imp. Caesar to lead operations during the Actian War (Dio 50.9.2–3, 50.14.1–2) against M. Antonius and Kleopatra VII of Egypt, Agrippa commanded ‘seek and destroy’ missions along the western Greek coastline, culminating in his victory on 2 August 31 BCE at Actium (Dio 50.33–35; Florus 21.6; Plut., Ant. 65.2, 66.1–2). His reward was a blue vexillum pennant (Dio 51.21.3) to be flown on his flagship. In the aftermath of the war he returned to Italy and oversaw the demobilization of as many as half the extant civil war legions (Dio 51.3.5). Popular with the plebs, he was much disliked by the nobiles. Nevertheless, he was elected consul for both 28 and 27 BCE, a consequential period when the so-called ‘constitutional settlements’ were agreed that defined the division of provinces between Augustus and the Senate and command of the army in them (Dio 53 11–13). He was censor with Augustus and purged the Senate (Dio 52.42.1). In Rome from 29–23 BCE, Agrippa commissioned several public buildings (paid with his own funds) in the Campus Martius, including the Diribitorium, Saepta Iulia, a new aqueduct (Aqua Virgo), the city’s first large-scale integrated baths, a park, artificial lake and the Pantheon (Dio 53.27). Receiving imperium proconsulare as governor praepositus Orienti, or governor general in the East (23–21 BCE), he drove efforts to reconcile with communities formerly supportive of M. Antonius, and befriended Herodes of Iudaea as well as other allies in the region (Joseph., Ant. Iud. 15.10.2 and Vell. Pat. 2.93.2; cf. Suet., Div. Aug. 66.3 and Pliny, Nat. Hist. 7.149). Speculatively, he may have laid the diplomatic groundwork which led to the return of signa and prisoners of war captured at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE and since held by the Parthians. On his return to Rome, Agrippa married Iulia Caesaris (Dio 54.6.5), the only daughter of Augustus, in 20 BCE and she later bore him three sons – Caius, Lucius and Postumus – as well as two daughters – Vipsania Iulia (Iulia the Younger) and Vipsania Agrippina (Agrippina the Elder). In the West, he oversaw the repatriation of the Ubii to Roman territory (Strabo. Geog. 4.3.4; Suet., Div. Aug. 21.1). In 19 BCE, after raising the morale of the despondent troops, he was instrumental in concluding the Cantabrian and Asturian War, ending the 200-year struggle to annex and pacify the entire Iberian Peninsula (Dio 54.11.2–6). For this achievement he was rewarded with a golden mural crown (corona muralis) and a second triumph, which he refused. He was in Rome in June to attend the Ludi Saeculares, presided over the events of the first day and later that month held chariot races (CIL VI, 32323.165). In the East again (17–13 BCE), he visited Herodes in his homeland (Joseph., Ant Iud. 16.14–16) and developed an empathy for the Jews, writing to the officials and magistrates to ensure they were treated according to law and that their legal priviliges were respected (Joseph., Ant. Iud. 16.165, 167–169). On the return, he detoured to Sinope to oversee operations to quell the Rebellion of Scribonius in the Cimerian Bosporus in 14 BCE, in which he was supported by Herodes of Iudaea and Polemon of Pontus (Dio 54.24.6; Orosius 21.28). Thereafter he no longer sent his war report to the Senate but to Augustus alone (Dio 54.24.8). In 13 BCE, Agrippa’s imperium was extended as maius and, in addition, he received tribunicias potestate, making his powers equal to Augustus; only in his auctoritas was he the lesser figure. When the Pannonii rebelled in 11 CE, 50-year old Agrippa went to Illyricum to help M. Vinicius restore order (Dio 54.28.1–2). He achieved the result, but in doing so may have overexerted himself or contracted a fatal disease. He returned to Italy in 12 BCE and died in Campania (Dio 54.28.2–3). M. Agrippa received a state funeral in Rome, at which a bereft Augustus gave the eulogy, a Greek translation of which survives in part (P. Köln VI 249 or Inv. Nr. 4701 + 4722 Recto; EJ 366).
His ashes were placed in the Mausoleum of Augustus (Dio 54.28.5). The sources agree on his loyalty (Dio 49.4.1–2, 54.29.3) and impatience (Suet., Div. Aug. 66.3). He was Augustus’ ‘good soldier and partner in victory’ (Tac., Ann. 1.3), ‘a man of distinguished character’ (Vell. Pat. 2.96.1) and ‘the noblest man of his day’ (Dio 54.29.1), but another view portrays him as ‘a cunning fox imitating a noble lion’ (Hor., Serm. 2.3.186). The younger Seneca calls him a ‘great souled man’ (Ep., 94.46) and records that he lived by the proverb ‘harmony makes small things grow; lack of harmony makes great things decay’ (Ep. 94.46). In later life he suffered intense pain in his leg, which may have been gout (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 23.58). His death led to the advancement of Tiberius as Augustus’ right-hand man.
C. Antistius Vetus (c. 70 BCE–After 6 BCE). The Antistii were a plebeian branch of the gens Antistia. C. Vetus was likely the son of the proconsul of Hispania Ulterior (c. 60 BCE), who was the commander to whom reported the young quaestor C. Iulius Caesar (Vell. Pat. 2.43; Plut. Caes. 5.6; Suet. Caes. 7) early in his public career. In December 57 BCE, he was tribunus plebis supporting Cicero in his case against P. Clodius Pulcher, deeming it a priority (Cic., Ad Q. Fr. 2.1; Ad Att. 14.9.3). As a supporter of Caesar, Vetus’ son went to Syria as quaestor (45 BCE), and a year later fought one of the sympathizers of the assassination, Q. Caecilius Bassus, proconsul of the province. Vetus besieged Bassus in his stronghold at Apameia, and only withdrew when the Parthians arrived; nevertheless, Vetus was acclaimed imperator by his troops. Encountering Brutus on his return to Rome at the end of 44 BCE, Vetus was persuaded to hand over the revenues he had withdrawn from the province, and also to join the side of the ‘liberators’. After spending several months in Rome he rejoined Brutus, serving as his legatus legionis. He was at Philippi (October 42 BCE), but having been defeated, he surrendered and reconciled with the victors. In 35 BCE, Vetus was placed in charge – perhaps as proconsul of Gallia Transalpina – of prosecuting the Salassian War (Appian, Ill. 17); however, he failed to reduce the Salassi in the Alps. He was suffect consul (30 BCE) with Caesar’s heir. Four years later, he went to Hispania Citerior as legatus Augusti pro praetore, prosecuting the Cantabrian War (26–25 BCE) with P. Carisius under Augustus, who was in the field in person (Vell. Pat. Pat. 2.90.4; Dio 53.25.1; Florus 2.33.51, 56; Orosius 6.21). When Augustus fell ill and had to retire to Tarraco, Vetus assumed command of combat operations and ‘fought against them and accomplished a good deal, not because he was a better general than Augustus, but because the barbarians felt contempt for him and were defeated’ (Dio 53.25.7–8). His, or his son’s, name appears as tresvir monetalis on a low denomination coin minted in 16 BCE (e.g. RIC I 367; RSC 348). He, or his son, was elected consul for 6 BCE (Dio 55.9.1).
Sex. Appuleius (II) (c. 65 BCE–c. 5 CE). Plebeian-ranked Sextus was Augustus’ nephew by virtue of being the son of novus homo Sex. Appuleius (I) and Octavia Maior, the princeps’ elder half-sister. Sextus was consul with his half-uncle in 29 BCE (Dio 51.20.1). As proconsul, he went to Hispania Citerior and, having achieved victories there, was awarded a triumph held on 26 January 26 BCE (Fast. Capitol.). He then went as governor to Asia (23–22 BCE) and later served in Illyricum (8 BCE – Cassiodorus, Chron. Min. 2.135). Sextus was an augur (ILS 894 (Aesernia) dated to after 27 BCE) and perhaps also an arvalis by the time he was consul. He was married to Quinctilia, sister of P. Quinctilius Varus (AE 1966, 422).
L. Apronius (c. 45 BCE–After 28 CE). Apronius was a novus homo from one of the Italian municipia. He accompanied Vibius Postumus, perhaps as a legatus legionis, during the Great Illyrian Revolt (6–9 CE) and served with distinction, sharing in the triumphal ornaments granted by the Senate to the victorious commanders (Vell. Pat. 2.116.2–3). He is described by a contemporary as having ‘earned by the distinguished valour which he displayed in this campaign also, the honours which he actually won shortly afterwards’ (Vell. Pat. 2.116.3). He was suffect consul for 8 CE. Apronius was father-in-law of Plautius Silvanus.
L. Arruntius (L. Arruntius the Elder) (c. 60 BCE–c. 10 CE). Born a plebeian, Arruntius was one of the ‘illustrious men’ (Vell. Pat. 2.77.3) who was proscribed in 43 BCE, and then left Sex. Pompeius to join the heir of Iulius Caesar after the signing of the Treaty of Misenum (39 BCE). Under M. Agrippa, he commanded the central block of ships at the Battle of Actium (Plut., Ant. 65.1, 66.3); in 29 BCE, he was rewarded by being raised to patrician rank. He was consul for 22 BCE. He attended the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BCE as a quindecemvir sacris faciundis (CIL VI, 32323.151 = ILS 5050). He, or his son (consul 6 CE), is known to have written a history of the Punic Wars in the prose style of Sallust (Seneca, Ep. Mor. 114.17).
[?]. Articuleius Regulus (c. 35 BCE–After 14 CE). Regulus is known from an inscription (ILS 929) as the ‘Leg. Imp. Caesaris Aug.’ of Lusitania, serving sometime between 2–14 CE.
C. Asinius Gallus (41 BCE–33 CE). Gallus was the son of C. Asinius Pollio, the senator and historian. Raised to patrician rank some time around 29 BCE, in 22 or 21 BCE he was appointed as a tresvir monetalis, one of the board of three commissioners supervizing the mint in Rome. He was known for his oratorical skill (Seneca, Controv. 4.4), some of it fierce (Tac., Ann. 1.12), and he wrote a book comparing his father to Cicero (Pliny the Younger, Ep. 7.4.3, 6). He attended the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BCE as a quindecemvir sacris faciundis (CIL VI, 32323.151 =ILS 5050). He was elected consul in 8 BCE with L. Marcius Censorinus – one of the two senators (or his son) who had tried to defend the dictator as he was struck down; there were allegations of bribery during his election, but Augustus refused to investigate them (Dio 55.5.3). During his term in office, repairs were carried out to the banks of the Tiber River (CIL VI, 1235). From 6 (or 5) BCE, he held the office of proconsul of Asia, and later (perhaps from 1 CE) he may have been governor of Hispania Tarraconensis. Upon the death of Augustus, C. Gallus was one of the leading senators alleged to have desire to rule (he is described as ‘ambitious and incapable’ in Tac., Ann. 1.13); but he was loathed by the new princeps Tiberius because, in 12 BCE, he had married his former – and beloved – wife, Agrippina Vipsania, daughter of M. Agrippa (Tac., Ann. 1.13).
L. Autronius Paetus (c. 70–After 28 BCE). The son of P. Autronius Paetus (the unsuccessful candidate for consul of 65 BCE), and a novus homo, L. Paetus was an early supporter of Caesar’s heir and replaced him when elected suffect consul for 33 BCE. In 29/28 BCE, he was appointed proconsular governor of Africa (CIL I2, 77); during his term in office there, he led his troops successfully in an unspecified military campaign and was acclaimed imperator, in recognition of which he celebrated a full triumph on 16 August 28 BCE (Fast. Capitol.).
Q. Caecilius Creticus Metellus Silanus (c. 35 BCE–After 17 CE). Son of patrician M. Iunius Silanus, Q. Silanus rose up the cursus publicus to become consul for 7 CE. He went to Syria in 13 CE and was succeeded by L. Calpurnius Piso in 17 CE (Tac. Ann. 2.43). His young daughter, Iunia, was betrothed to Germanicus Caesar’s eldest son, Nero (Tac. Ann. 2.43; ILS 184 Rome).
A. Caecina Severus (c. 50 BCE–c. 25 CE). Severus was a novus homo descended from a prominent family of Volaterrae (Volterra) in Etruria. He rose through the cursus honorum to become suffect consul for 1 BCE. He was appointed to Moesia as its first legatus Augusti pro praetore when it was created around 5/6 CE (Dio 55.29.1; AE 1937, 62); he led his troops into neighbouring Illyricum in the Great Illyrian Revolt of 6–9 CE (Dio 55.29.3–30.5). After a major setback, he proved a competent commander (Vell. Pat. 2.112.4–6; Dio 55.32.3–4). He may have been proconsul of Africa for 8–13 CE (AE 1987, 992), but in 14 CE he was Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore of Germania Inferior in charge of Legiones I, V Alaudae, XX Valeria Victrix and XXI Rapax (Tac., Ann. 1.31, 1.37). In 15 CE, he reached his fortieth year of service with the army (Tac., Ann. 1.64). He had strong views on wives and the military, arguing that commanders should not be accompanied by their spouses on tours of duty (Tac. Ann. 3.33).
C. Caetronius (c. 30 BCE–After 14 CE). Caetronius was Legatus of Legio I (Tac. Ann. 1.44) stationed in Germania Inferior in 14 CE, reporting to A. Caecina Severus. He was instrumental in restoring order after the mutiny of the Rhine Legions.
Cn. Calpurnius Piso (c. 44/43 BCE–November? 20 CE). Descended from the old plebeian nobility of the gens Calpurnii, Cn. Piso was son of Cn. Calpurnius Piso (consul for 23 BCE) and brother of L. Piso (Piso the Augur). He was likely a tribunus militum in Hispania (inferred from Tac., Ann. 3.16.4), serving with Tiberius during the Cantabrian and Asturian War (26–25 BCE). In 23 or 22 BCE, he was appointed as triumvir monetalis to the commission supervizing the mint in Rome. He likely became quaestor in 19 or 18 BCE, which gave him a seat in the Senate. He may have gone to Achaea – where a legal wrangle caused him to bear an enduring grudge against the Athenians (Tac., Ann. 2.55) – or he may have accompanied Tiberius during the Alpine War (15 BCE) and/or his subsequent campaigns in Illyricum (11–9 BCE). He had an unpleasant temperament, being ‘a man of violent temper, without an idea of obedience, with indeed a natural arrogance inherited from his father Piso’ (Tac., Ann. 2.43). He was elected consul for 7 CE with Tiberius. Thereafter he went to Africa as proconsul (7/6 BCE, 4/3 CE or 6/5 CE), likely replacing Africanus Fabius Maximus; he told Strabo in person that the country was ‘like a leopard’s skin; for it is spotted with inhabited places that are surrounded by waterless and desert land’ (Strabo, Geog. 2.5.33). He was in Hispania Tarraconensis in 5 or 6 CE. Appointed pontifex no later than 2 CE (AE 1949.9), on Augustus’ death he replaced the princeps as magister in the college of the Fratres Arvales (CIL VI, 2023a) and may have joined the Sodales Augustales. He married Munatia Plancina (perhaps granddaughter of L. Munatius Plancus, consul 42 BCE, censor 22 BCE) and had two sons, Cnaeus (who changed his name to Lucius) and Marcus (Tac., Ann. 3.16). He would become infamous for his fraught relationship with Germanicus Caesar and allegations that he was implicated in his death (Tac., Ann. 2.55–58, 2.60, 2.69 (cf. Suet., Calig. 3), 2.70, 3.8–19; Sen. Con. Cn. Piso patre).
Cn. Calpurnius Piso (c. 70–After 23 BCE). Descended from the old plebeian nobility of the gens Calpurnii, Cn. Piso fought on the side of Pompeius Magnus in Africa (Caes., Bell. Afr. 3.1, 18.1) and then, after the assassination of Iulius Caesar, joined M. Brutus and Cassius Longinus before Philippi, before supporting Sex. Pompeius in Sicily (Tac., Ann. 43.3; Appian, Bell. Civ. 5.2.4ff). Despite his strongly anti-Caesarian politics, he was finally persuaded to stand for the consulship and was elected for 23 BCE – replacing A. Terentius Varro Murena, the consul designate, who died before taking office – with Augustus himself. When the princeps fell seriously ill that year, and later seemed to be actually facing death, Augustus resigned the consulship and passed over to Piso his official documents (including an account of the public finances and a roster of the army units in his provinces), inferring it was his intention that the co-consul should assume responsibility for the functioning of the state for the remainder of his consulship (Dio 53.30.1–2). However, Augustus passed his personal signet ring to M. Agrippa in a subtle, but clear, indication that the army was to actually obey Agrippa, not Piso (Dio 53.30.2). He was father of Cn. Piso (consul for 7 BCE) and L. Piso (Piso the Augur). His sons inherited from him his stubborn nature and irascible temperament (Tac., Ann. 2.43.3).
L. Calpurnius Piso (Piso the Pontifex) (48 BCE–32 CE). Descended from the old plebeian nobility of the gens Calpurnii, L. Piso was the son of L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (consul 58 BCE) and brother of Calpurnia Pisonis, wife of the dictator C. Iulius Caesar. Promoted to patrician rank around 29 BCE, he was an independent-minded man whose virtue, tact and achievements were widely lauded: Horace dedicated his Ars Poetica to him (Carm. 2.12) and Antipater of Thessalonika dedicated several Epigrams to him; Tacitus remarks, ‘never had he by choice proposed a servile motion, and, whenever necessity was too strong for him, he would suggest judicious compromises’ (Tac., Ann. 6.10). He served as consul for 15 BCE and is recorded as having presided over a murder trial in Mediolanum (Milan) (Suet., De Rhet. 6). During the years 12–10 BCE, he was governor of Galatia-Pamphylia, and as legatus Augusti pro praetore led an army to Thrace in 11 or 10 to quell a rebellion of the Bessi and Sialetae, the former fleeing as soon as they heard of Piso’s imminent arrival (Dio 54.34.5–6). After initial setbacks, over the three years of the Bellum Thracicum (13–11 BCE) he gradually overwhelmed those who stood against him (Livy, Per. 140) – Augustus is reported as having trusted him with secreta mandata, ‘secret orders’ (Seneca, Epp. 83.14), perhaps to supersede the imperium of the proconsul of Macedonia – and for his victories the Senate voted him triumphal ornaments and thanksgivings (Dio 54.34.7; Tac., Ann. 6.10). He may – but not with any certainty – have been proconsul of Asia, and then served as legatus Augusti pro praetore of Syria, replacing Quinctilius Varus (the alternative candidate being Piso the Augur). Piso was made a pontifex and in 14 CE he was a member of the priestly college of the Fratres Arvales (CIL VI, 2023a), perhaps joining as early as 15 BCE. He was author of several poems, short and epic (Anth. Pal. 9.428, 10.25). From 13 CE, as praefectus urbi he was invested with the powers necessary to maintain peace and order in the city of Rome; he proved so popular in the position that it was made a life-long appointment and it was said that ‘his chief glory rested on the wonderful tact with which, as praefectus urbi, he handled an authority’ (Tac., Ann. 6.10). Consul for a second time in 15 CE, Seneca confirms that ‘he applied himself most diligently to his official duties’; however, he also observes that he ‘was drunk from the very time of his appointment; he used to spend the greater part of the night at banquets, and would sleep until noon’ (Sen., Epp. 83.15). For all his overindulgence in drinking, Tacitus remarks that he ‘died a natural death, a rare incident in so high a rank’ (Tac., Ann. 6.10).
L. Calpurnius Piso (Piso the Augur) (c. 50 BCE–24 CE). Descended from the old plebeian nobility of the gens Calpurnii, he was the son of Cn. Calpurnius Piso (consul for 23 BCE) and brother of Cn. Calpurnius Piso (consul for 7 BCE). Himself consul for 1 BCE with Cossus Cornelius Lentulus, Piso – others prefer Piso the Pontifex – went to Asia (ILS 8814 Mytilene). If the theory about Piso the Pontifex is wrong, then Piso the Augur may have been the L. Calpurnius Piso who assumed governorship as legatus Augusti pro praetore of Syria after Quinctilius Varus. Sharing the family trait, he is described as ‘likewise an intractable fellow’ (Tac., Ann. 2.43.3).
C. Calvisius Sabinus (c. 80–After 27 BCE). Sabinus was a novus homo who had served as an officer under Iulius Caesar, commanding five cohorts and some cavalry in Greece, where he ‘was well received by the Aetolians, and having driven the enemy’s garrisons from Calydon and Naupactum, possessed himself of the whole country’ (Caesar, Bell. Civ. 3.34–35, 56). On the Ides of March 44 BCE, he was one of only two senators who tried to defend Iulius Caesar from his assassins (Nic. 96): an inscription (ILS 925 Spoletium) commemorates his pietas for his selfless action. He was elected consul along with L. Marcius Censorinus – the other senator who had tried to defend the dictator – for 39 BCE. He sided with Caesar’s heir and was likely one of his admirals in Sicily during the war against Sex. Pompeius. As proconsul of Hispania Ulterior, Sabinus carried out military operations in the territory that were yet to be subjugated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, for which he was granted a triumph, celebrated in Rome on 26 May 28 BCE (Fast. Capitol.). He later oversaw repairs to the Via Latina (ILS 889).
C. Calvisius Sabinus (c. 40 BCE–After 1 BCE). Son of C. Calvisius Sabinus who had fought in the Civil War (49–45 BCE) on the side of Iulius Caesar as a legatus and was consul of 39 BCE, he was himself elected consul for 4 BCE with L. Passienus Rufus. He may have served as governor of Hispania Tarraconnensis late in Augustus’ principate. Among his religious appointments, Sabinus was septemvir epulonum and curio maximus (ILS 925 Spoletium).
L. Caninius Gallus (c. 45 BCE–After 8 CE). A member of the plebeian gens Caninia from Tusculum, his grandfather married a first cousin of M. Antonius (Val. Max. 4.2.6); his father was elected consul for 37 BCE with M. Agrippa. An L. Gallus is recorded as having ‘conquered the Sarmati . . . and driven them back across the Ister’ (Dio 54.20.3) in 17/16 BCE. L. Gallus was a tresvir monetalis on the commission supervising at the mint in Rome in c. 12 BCE (e.g. RIC I 416 =RSC 383). He was elected suffect consul for 2 BCE, replacing M. Plautius Silvanus, and for part of his term served with Augustus himself. As proconsul, he went to Africa around 7/8 CE, perhaps directly after Cossus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus. His priestly offices included quindecemvir sacris faciundis.
P. Carisius (c. 70–c. 10 BCE). Carisius was an early supporter of Iulius Caesar’s young heir, taking an active command role in the war against Sex. Pompeius (App., Bell. Civ. 5.111.1). He was legatus Augusti pro praetore in Hispania Ulterior for 27–22 BCE (Dio 53.25.5, 8; Orosius 6.21), during which time he engaged the Astures who were rebelling against Roman rule (Florus 2.33); he subdued them at Lancia – reportedly with some assistance from C. Furnius (Dio 54.5.1–3) – but showed them clemency after having heard ‘the plea that it would form a better monument of the Roman victory if it were left standing than if it were burnt’ (Florus 2.33). He founded Emerita Augusta in 25 BCE for veterans of Legiones V Alaudae and X Gemina, and the mint there issued a series of coins proudly displaying his name and official title along with images of war spoils (e.g. RIC I 2, 4, 10, 15). He was considered cruel and given to indulging his taste for luxury, which was a causal factor in the uprising of the Astures and Cantabri in 20/19 (Dio 54.5.1).
C.[?] Carrinas (c. 45–After 28 BCE). The son of C. Carrinas, who had been executed on the orders of Sulla (Dio 51.21.6), his gens is not preserved. In 45 BCE, he was dispatched by Iulius Caesar to lead the war against the sons of Pompeius Magnus, a task in which he was unsuccessful (Appian, Bell. Civ. 4.83–84). He was suffect consul for 43 BCE (Dio 47.15.1) and two years later Caesar’s heir sent him to Hispania Citerior to deal with Sex. Pompeius – whose supporters included Bocchus II (king of Mauretania) – but his performance fell below expectations and he was replaced by Asinius Pollio (App., Bell. Civ. 5.26). In 36 BCE, he went to Sicily in the ongoing war with Sex. Pompeius (App., Bell. Civ. 5.112). Carrinas was proconsular governor of Gallia Comata (31–28 BCE), during which time he quelled a rebellion of the Morini and their allies, and drove back over the Rhine a band of Suebi raiding from Germania, earning him a triumph, which he celebrated on 30 May 28 BCE (Fast. Capitol.): ‘Not only did Carrinas, therefore, celebrate the triumph . . . but Caesar also celebrated it, since the credit of the victory properly belonged to his position as supreme commander’ (Dio 51.21.6).
Nero Claudius Drusus (Nero Drusus, Drusus Germanicus, Drusus Maior, Drusus I, Drusus the Elder; posthumously Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus) (13 January 38–? September 9 BCE). Born Decimus Claudius Drusus in Rome in 38 BCE, son of patricians Ti. Claudius Drusus and Livia Drusilla (Suet., Claud. 1.1, Tib. 3.1, 4.1, 4.3), he was younger brother of Ti. Claudius Nero (Suet., Claud. 1.5). Later in his youth, as his praenomen he took the name Nero (Suet., Claud. 1.1), a Sabine word meaning ‘strong and valiant’ (Suet., Tib. 1.2). He was popular and affable in nature, described effusively by a contemporary as ‘a youth of as many and as great virtues as human nature can cherish, or industry acquire; and whose genius it is doubtful whether it was better adapted for the arts of war or of peace’, while ‘his sweet and engaging manners, his courteous and unassuming demeanour towards his friends, are said to have been inimitable’ (Vell. Pat. 2.97.2–3). Displaying the Claudian trait for stubbornness, he was unwilling to give up easily when tested: in a letter to Tiberius describing a game of dice, Augustus writes, ‘your brother made a great outcry about his luck, but after all did not come out far behind in the long run; for after losing heavily, he unexpectedly and little by little got back a good deal’ (Suet., Div. Aug. 71.3). Nero Drusus was also willing to take great risks with his own life, recklessly seeking the spolia opima of his opponent on the battlefield (Suet., Claud. 1.4). He enjoyed a close relationship with Augustus, who ‘loved him so dearly while he lived that he always named him joint-heir along with his sons, as he once declared in the Senate’ (Suet., Claud. 1.5), though there were unproven rumours circulated at the time that – on account of him holding the view that the princeps should step down and restore the free elections of the Res Publica (Suet., Tib. 50.1) – Augustus sought his demise (Suet., Claud. 1.5). On account of his brother’s success in the East, the reward was extended to Drusus, who was permitted to stand for public office five years before the stipulated qualification age (Dio 54.10.4): in 19 BCE, he became quaestor (Suet., Claud. 1.2) and, by decree, was promoted to praetor when Augustus left for the West in 16 BCE (Dio 54.19.6). In 15 BCE, at the age of 23, he led a campaign in Gallia Transalpina, first against the Carni and Taurisci (Strabo, Geog. 4.6.9), then prosecuted the Alpine War against the Raeti via the Reschen Pass (Strabo, Geog. 4.6.9; Dio 54.22.1–3), culminating in the siege of the main oppidum of the Genauni nation on 1 August (Horace, Carm. 4.14.34–38). Assisted by his older brother, he annexed the Kingdom of Noricum and defeated the Vindelici (Florus, 2.22; Dio 54.22.4–5; Horace, Carm. 4.4), establishing a new colonia at Augusta Vindelicorum. In 14 BCE, he became Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore of Tres Galliae (replacing Tiberius), based at Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, where he established the Concilium Galliarum, the council of all the nations of Gaul (Dio 54.32.1), and conducted a census (Cassiodorus, Chron. 385D). His primary mission, however, was to lead a war to conquer Germania (Dio 54.25.1; Eutropius, Brev. 7.9; Florus, 2.30), which was prompted by the invasion of tribes led by Maelo of the Sugambri while M. Lollius was governor (Strabo, Geog. 7.1.4; Dio 54.32.1, cf. Dio 54.20.5–6) in 17 BCE. In support of the coming campaign, Nero Drusus supervized a massive build-out of military infrastructure along the Rhine River, including a canal (fossa Drusiana) and a fleet (Suet., Claud. 1.2; Tac., Ann. 2.8). A unit of measurement – the pes Drusianus, the ‘Drusus Foot’ – was named after him (Hyginus, Ag. 11). In 12 BCE, he commenced the German War, which would last four years, beginning with an amphibious invasion from the Rhine, first devastating the lands of the Sugambri, then crossing Lacus Flevo (Dio 54.32.2; Pliny, Nat. Hist. 16.1–2) and sailing down the Ems River (Dio 54.32.2), during which the Bructeri launched an unsuccessful attack on the Roman ships (Strabo, Geog. 7.1.3) – though on the return his fleet ran aground on the Frisian coast and had to be rescued (Dio 54.32.2–3). For his victories he was made praetor urbanus for 11 BCE (Dio 54.33.2). During the campaign of that year, his army sailed up the Lupia and by land reached the Visurgis River (Dio 54.33.1–4), established a fort at Aliso, then on the return narrowly escaped disaster at the hands of the Cherusci at Arbalo (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 11.18). The army acclaimed him imperator, an honour promptly denied by Augustus, who granted him an ovatio instead (Suet., Claud. 1.3; Dio 54.33.5). In the spring of the following year, Drusus fought the Chatti (Dio 54.36.3). He returned to Colonia Copia Felix Munatia in the summer to open the new federal sanctuary for the Gallic Council and altar dedicated to Roma et Augustus, an event attended on 1 August by both Augustus and Tiberius in person (Dio 54.36.3–4; Suet. Claud. 2.1). A fleet reached Jutland, home of the Cimbri (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 2.167) and was acclaimed as ‘the first of Roman duces to sail the Northern Ocean, and beyond the Rhenus’ (Suet. Claud. 1.2), an achievement of which Augustus was proud to include in his biography (RG 5.26). Drusus was elected consul in 9 BCE and, despite ominous portents, nevertheless returned to Germania to lead the campaign (Dio 55.1.1–2). That year, his army reached the Albis River and his men erected a tropaeum of captured arms and armour (Dio 55.1.3; Florus 2.30; Val. Max. 5.5.3; Ptolemy, Geog. 2.10). He was one of the commanders who fought to win the spolia opima, but the wording in the one extant account (Suet., Claud. 3.4) is ambiguous about whether he was successful. However, at the end of the season’s campaign Drusus fell in a riding accident (Livy, Peri. 142); on Augustus’ orders, his brother Tiberius raced to join him, but he arrived only just in time to hear his last words (Dio 55.2.1; Pliny, Nat. Hist. 7.20). He died, aged 29, at a place his men called Castra Scelerata, ‘Accursed Fort’, located between the ‘Albis and Salas’ Rivers (Suet., Claud. 1.3, 2.1; Strabo, Geog. 7.1.3). An altar dedicated to him, the Ara Drusi, was also erected (Tac., Ann. 2.7). Tiberius accompanied the body on foot from Germania to Rome (Suet., Tib. 7.3; Dio 55.2.1) in an act considered as supremely pious (Val. Max., Factorum et Dictorum 5.5.3), while crowds assembled along the road to pay their respects (Seneca, Ad Marc. 3.1–2). After being laid in state, the body was presented in the Forum Romanum and euloguized by Tiberius. Augustus then gave a eulogy at his funeral in the Circus Flaminius, describing him as ‘a role model (exemplum) for the Caesars [himself, Caius and Lucius]’ (Suet., Claud. 1.5). His ashes were placed in the Mausoleum of Augustus, where the princeps affixed beside the nîche a laudatory inscription he had himself composed, and later wrote a prose memoir of his stepson’s life (Suet., Claud. 1.5). His reputation was forever after tied to his military exploits in Germania (Ovid, Fasti 1.597–598). Posthumously, the Senate granted Nero Drusus the hereditary battle title Germanicus – meaning ‘The German’ or ‘of Germania’ – as well as a triumphal arch on the Via Appia and statues (Suet., Claud. 1.4; Tab. Heb.; Tab. Siar.). In Mogontiacum, the Rhine Legions erected a cenotaph in his honour and held annual races there (Suet., Claud. 1.3). King Herodes named a tower in his harbour at Caesarea Maritima the Druseion in his honour (Joseph., Bell. Iud. 1.411–413). Several decades later, when serving as praefectus equitum, Pliny the Elder claimed that, while he slept in his room at army camp, he was visited by the ghost of Drusus; it implored Pliny to record his story and said that he feared his achievements might ‘fade into oblivion’, out of which came a twenty-two volume Bella Germaniae, ‘History of the German Wars’ (Pliny the Younger, Ep. 3.5; Tac., Ann. 2.69). His priestly offices included augur, probably from 19 BCE, and arvalis from 12 BCE (AE 1926.42, 1934.151; CIL IX, 2443). He married Antonia Minor (Plut., Ant. 87) in 18 BCE, to whom he remained faithful all his life (Val. Max., Factorum et Dictorum 4.3.3), and had several children by her, of whom only Germanicus, Livilla and Claudius survived (Suet., Claud. 1.6). After his death, his memory was cherished ‘and it was believed that, had he succeeded, he would have restored the age of liberty’ (Tac., Ann. 1.33).
C. Claudius Marcellus (42–23 BCE). Son of Octavia and C. Claudius Marcellus (cos. 50 BCE), the young man was much favoured by his uncle Augustus (Tac., Ann.1.3; Suet., Div. Aug. 66), with rumours circulating that he was marked out as his successor (Dio 53.30.2). He was betrothed to the daughter of Sex. Pompeius but married Augustus’ only daughter, Iulia Caesaris (Suet., Div. Aug. 63). In 26 and 25 BCE, he accompanied Augustus and Tiberius to Hispania Citerior as tribunus militum (Suet., Tib. 9.1), where they arranged exhibitions – perhaps decursiones – for the troops at their camps (Dio 53.26.1). Pleased with his performance in the field, Augustus arranged for permission to be granted for Marcellus to stand as aedile ten years before the qualifying age (Dio 53.28.3) and to receive other honours (Dio 53.31.2). Aged 19, he commissioned a theatre in Rome, which was named after him (Suet., Div. Aug. 29; Dio 53.30.6), and he laid on lavish entertainments in the Forum Romanum, during which he ‘sheltered the Forum during the whole summer by means of curtains stretched overhead and had exhibited on the stage a dancer who was a knight, and also a woman of high birth’ (Dio 53.31.2–3). Despite treatment from Augustus’ own physician, Musa, he died – perhaps from typhus – at Baiae (Baia); he was given a public funeral in Rome with eulogies and his ashes were placed in Augustus’ own mausoleum (Dio 53.30.5). His memory was celebrated by Vergil in the Aeneid, during a private reading of which his mother Octavia fainted at hearing his name (Suet., Verg. 32).
L. Cornelius Balbus (Balbus the Younger) (c. 65–After 13 BCE). Nephew of L. Cornelius Balbus (Balbus the Elder, suff. cos. 40 BCE), the younger Balbus was a native of Gades in Hispania Ulterior, not a Roman citizen by birth (Vell. Pat. 2.51.3; Strabo, Geog. 3.5). He showed courage and daring from a young age: during the war between Caesar and Pompeius Magnus, at incredible risk to himself he entered the camp of the enemy at Dyrrhachium and held several conferences with the consul Lentulus, boasting ‘his only doubt was what price to put upon himself’ (Vell. Pat. 2.51.3). Through such acts of derring-do, he came to prominence. In 43 BCE, he was quaestor to C. Asinius Pollio (consul 40 BCE) in Hispania Ulterior, where he allegedly amassed a large fortune by despoiling the local population. That year he crossed over to Bogud, king of Mauretania. By 39 BCE, he was a pontifex. His whereabouts are not recorded again until 21 BCE, when he is found in Africa. During his term of office as proconsul he scored a noted victory over the Garamantes (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 5.5) for which he celebrated a triumph on 27 March 19 BCE (Fast. Cap.; Vell. Pat. 2.51.3) – it was the first given to a non-Roman by birth, and the last ever celebrated by a senator. Balbus fancied himself as a man of the arts. Cicero records (Ad. Fam. 10.32.5) that Cornelius Gallus had a dramatic poem of young Balbus in his possession. He wrote a play about his risky encounter with consul Lentulus and another dealing with the gods and their worship (Macrobius, Saturnalia, 3.6). He built a theatre in Rome (Suet., Div. Aug. 29.5) in 19 BCE in honour of his military victories – funded by proceeds from the war (Tac., Ann. 3.72) – and dedicated it in 13 BCE (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 36.12.60), but which was inundated when the Tiber burst its banks (Dio 54.25.2). Dio notes, Balbus was so proud of the spectacles he laid on that he ‘began to put on airs, as if it were he himself that was going to bring Augustus back [from Gaul]’ (Dio 54.25.2; RG 2.12). One of his daughters was married to C. Norbanus Flaccus.
P. Cornelius Dolabella (c. 40 BCE–After 27 CE). A patrician, Dolabella is described as ‘a man of noble-minded candour’ (Vell. Pat. 2.125.5). As consul for 10 CE, he reconstructed the Arch of Dolabella (perhaps formerly the Porta Caelimontana) in Rome. Subsequently, he was a septemvir epulonum and a soldalis Titii (CIL III, 1741 (Ragusae) = ILS 938). In 14 CE, Dolabella was Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore of Dalmatia, displaying loyalty and vigilance in carrying out his duties, and is credited with building the road network which interconnected the province’s cities.
Cn. Cornelius Lentulus (Augur) (c. 55 BCE–25 CE). Son of Cnaeus, Cornelius Lentulus was consul ordinarius for 14 BCE. He may have succeeded Calpurnius Piso in Thracia Macedioniaque and stopped incursions of the Daci and Sarmati who had crossed the Danube in 11 BCE (Florus 2.28; Dio 54.36.2). He was in Asia as proconsular governor in 2/1 BCE, and Illyricum in 1–4 CE. He may have received triumphal ornaments for a victory over the Getae (Tac., Ann. 4.44). When exactly he was appointed augur is not recorded (Tac., Ann. 3.59). He was arvalis in 14 CE. He was notorious for his immense wealth (estimated at HS400 million), stupidity and slowness of speech (Sen., De Ben. 2.27; Tac., Ann. 4.44).
Cossus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus (c. 42 BCE–c. 25 CE). Born into the patrician gens Cornelia, Cossus advanced through the cursus honorum to become consul for 1 BCE with L. Calpurnius Piso (Piso the Augur). As proconsul of Africa (5–6 CE), Cossus came to the aid of King Iuba in fighting the Gaetuli (Flor., 2.31; Dio 53.26.2), earning for himself the honorific agnomen Gaetulicus and triumphal ornaments, which he celebrated with L. Passienus Rufus in 6 CE (Vell. Pat. 2.116.2; Orosius 6.21.18; Dio 55.28.3–4; ILS 120 El-Lehs; IRT 521, 301 Lepcis). Of the agnomen, Florus writes it was ‘a title more extensive than his actual victory warranted’ (Florus 2.31). Of his character, Tacitus writes he was a ‘noble man’ and ‘it had been the glory of Lentulus, to say nothing of his consulship and his triumphal distinctions over the Gaetuli, to have borne poverty with a good grace, then to have attained great wealth, which had been blamelessly acquired and was modestly enjoyed’ (Tac., Ann. 4.44). He was a member of the college of quindecemviri sacris faciundis. One extant source describes him as a great orator (Quint., Inst. 10.1.128).
L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (c. 55 BCE–25 CE). The Ahenobarbi (meaning ‘red beards’) formed a plebeian branch of the old and noble gens Domitia. Lucius was the only son of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (Vell. Pat. Pat. 2.72.3), considered the best of his family (Suet., Nero 3). In his youth he was famed as an accomplished chariot-driver (Suet., Nero 4). He supported Sex. Pompeius, but then surrendered to M. Antonius, only to defect to Caesar’s heir before the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE (Plut., Ant. 63; Tac., Ann. 4.44). At the treaty meeting in Tarentum (36 BCE), Lucius was betrothed to the younger Antonia (Tac., Ann. 4.44), the daughter of M. Antonius. He was elected aedile (22 BCE), praetor (c. 20/19 BCE), consul (16 BCE) and proconsul of Africa from (13/12 BCE). He was Legatus Augusti in Illyricum (before 1 BCE). He ‘led an army across the Elbe [1 CE], penetrating further into Germania than any Roman before him’ (Tac., Ann. 4.44), where he engaged the Hermunduri and settled them in the land formerly occupied by the Marcomanni (Dio 55.10a.2). Immediately after, he assumed command of all Roman forces in Germania (1 CE) and established provincial capital at Oppidum Ubiorum with a cult altar to Roma and Augustus (Dio 55.10a.2–3), for which reason it became known as Ara Ubiorum. In an undisclosed region between the Rhine and Ems Rivers, he constructed a plank roadway across marshland called the Pontes Longi (Tac., Ann. 1.63.3–4). For his exploits in Germania he received triumphal insignia (Suet., Nero 4; Tac., Ann. 4.44). As for his personality, ‘he was haughty, extravagant and cruel’, which extended to his taste for extreme blood sports, and the violence of his beast hunts and gladiatorial games displayed ‘such inhuman cruelty that Augustus, after his private warning was disregarded, was forced to restrain him by an edict’ (Suet., Nero 4). His disdain for social rank or good manners was exhibited when, as an aedile, he ‘forced the censor L. Plancus to make way for him on the street’, and later, when he held the offices of praetor and consul, he brought men of the equestrian order and matrons together on a public stage to act in a farce (Suet., Nero 4). In 14 CE, he was a member of the college of the Fratres Arvales (CIL VI, 2023a). He was the paternal grandfather of the future Emperor Nero and the maternal grandfather of Valeria Messalina, third wife of the future Emperor Claudius (Suet., Nero 5).
Paullus Fabius Maximus (c. 55 BCE–14 CE). Perhaps a distant relation of the famous general of the Second Punic War, P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, he was the older son of Q. Fabius Maximus (suff. cos. 45 BCE) and brother of Africanus Fabius Maximus. He is described as a most noble man, a fine public speaker, as well as handsome and wealthy (Seneca, Controv. 2.4.11). Like Quinctilius Varus, his career began when he served as quaestor in the East, from 22–19 BCE (IG II2. 4130 Athens). Likely praetor (but unattested) in c. 15 BCE, and arvalis thereafter, Paullus is next recorded as consul in 11 BCE and proconsul of Asia (10/9 BCE, 9/8 BCE or 6/5 BCE), where he is known for reforming the Roman calendar in that province (SEG 4.490). He was Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore (‘Legat. Caesaris’ on an inscription) of Hispania Taraconnensis in 3/2 BCE (ILS 8895 Bracara; AE 1974, 392 Bracara; AE 1993, 01030 Lucus Augusti; CIL II, 02581 Lucus Augusti). Paullus was a pontifex (ILS 919) and member of the Fratres Arvales (CIL VI, 2023a). An orator of modest talents (Seneca, Controv. 10), he was a patron of poets (Juvenal, Saturae 7.95): Horace mentions him by name in one of his works (Horace, Odes 4.1.10–11) and Ovid wrote to him while in exile (Ovid, Ep. Ex Ponto 1.2 and 3.1). Paullus married Marcia (ILS 8821 Paphos), daughter of L. Marcius Philippus (suff. cos. of 38 BCE) and Atia (a maternal aunt of Augustus) – Marcia was, thus, a first cousin of the princeps. He was a confidant of Augustus in his later years and accompanied him as his only companion on his secret trip to Planasia to meet his adopted son Agrippa Postumus; the secret visit became known to Augustus’ wife when Paullus told Marcia, who informed Livia (up to that point unaware of the trip), and the princeps allegedly felt betrayed by the breach of trust (Tac., Ann. 1.5.2). Maximus died – some at the time believed it was by suicide – in the summer of 14 CE, just before Augustus’ own death (Tac., Ann. 1.5.2; Ovid, Ep. Ex Ponto 4.6 ff).
Africanus Fabius Maximus (c. 50 BCE–After 5 BCE). Perhaps a distant relation of the famous general of the Second Punic War, P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, he was the younger son of Q. Fabius Maximus (cos. 45 BCE) and brother of Paullus Fabius Maximus (cos. 11 BCE). Maximus was consul in 10 BCE, proconsul of Africa in 6/5 BCE (AE 1953.40) and a septemvir epulonum.
C. Furnius (C. Furnius the Younger) (c. 60–After 17 BCE). Furnius is first mentioned as a man who had appealed to Augustus to save the life of his father, who had backed M. Antonius, reportedly saying ‘one wrong alone I have received at your hands, Caesar; you have forced me to live and to die owing you a greater debt of gratitude than I can ever repay’, an act which greatly endeared him to Augustus (Seneca, De Ben. 2.25.1 (Furnius)). He was rewarded with an enrollment in the ex-consuls (Dio 52.42.4). He had not long arrived in Hispania Citerior as Legatus Augusti in 22 BCE when the local Cantabri rose up in rebellion (Florus 2.33.51); but they had underestimated his resolve and were defeated by him, and Furnius was able to provide assistance to P. Carisius in the subjugation of the Astures at Lancia (Dio 54.5.1–3; Florus 2.33.56). Furnius was elected consul for 17 BCE (Dio 54.18.1).
C. Iulius Caesar (C. Caesar; C. Vipsanius Agrippa prior to 17 BCE) (14 August/ 13 September 20 BCE–21 February 4 CE). Born C. Vipsanius Agrippa to M. Agrippa and Iulia, Caius was adopted as a son of Augustus (14 June/15 July 17 BCE) – his maternal grandfather – and thereafter bore the name of Caesar (Suet, Div. Aug. 64.1; Dio 54.18.1). He was doted on by his adoptive father, who taught him reading, writing and swimming (Suet., Div. Aug. 641.1) and addressed him affectionately as ‘my darling little donkey’ in letters (A. Gellius, Noc. Att. 15.7.3). At just 14 years of age, he was taken with Tiberius and his troops on their exercises in Germania (Dio 55.6.4), and coins minted at the time – RIC 198 (aureus) and 199 (denarius) – show C. Caesar wearing a boy’s bulla galloping right past an aquila standard beside two signa. In 5 BCE, he was made princeps iuventutis (ILS 134 Spoltore; EJ 63a = CIL V, 899 þ 39207) and permitted to attend meetings of the Senate, despite his young age (Dio 55.9.9; Suet., Div. Aug. 26.2). The following year he was made pontifex (ILS 131 Rome), and in 2 BCE, with his brother, was permitted as duumvir aedibus dedicandis to consecrate a temple of Mars Ultor ‘and all such buildings’ (Dio 55.10.6). Augustus allowed him to sit in the meeting in Rome in which Herodes’ sons Antipas and Antipater each argued that Iudaea should be give to him, not Archaelaus (Joseph., Ant. Iud. 17.9.5). With all the public adulation, Caius was growing up to be a spoiled brat, an unintended outcome which Augustus belatedly attempted to correct (Dio 55.9.1–2). His military service began with a posting to the Danube, but he refused to lead his men in person: ‘indeed, he fought no war, not because no war broke out, but because he was learning to rule in quiet and safety, while the dangerous undertakings were regularly assigned to others’ (Dio 55.10.17). Augustus decided to redeploy him following the inauguration of the Forum Augustum in 2 BCE. The following year he was appointed praepositus Orienti with imperium proconsulare and sent to the East (Dio 55.10.18–19). Before he departed, he married his relative, Livilla (Dio 55.10.18), daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor, sister of Germanicus. This command role seems to have better suited him as he ‘was everywhere received with marks of distinction, as befitted one who was the emperor’s grandson and was even looked upon as his son’ (Dio 55.10.19). While on tour, he was made consul for 1 CE (AE 1967.458). On his mission, Augustus entrusted M. Lollius as Caius’ comes et rector, ‘companion and guide’ (Suet., Tib.12.2). In the East, he conducted negotiations with King Phraates V of Parthia (Dio 55.10.20–21). When the Parthian informed him that Lollius had accepted bribes, the two Romans fell out when Caius accused him of extortion and treachery (Suet., Tib.12.2; Pliny, Nat. Hist. 9.58). His mission involved military action in Armenia. He besieged Artagira and, when it finally fell, was acclaimed imperator (Dio 55.10a.7), but on 9 September 3 CE, while close by the city’s walls, Caius was wounded (Fasti Gabini; RG 27; Florus 2.31; Dio 55.10.19 says it occurred in Syria). With a weak physical constitution, he wrote to Augustus that year, resigned his commission and boarded a merchant vessel bound for Rome (Dio 55.10a.8–9); en route, Caius died on February 21, 4 CE, aged 23 – just eighteen months after his brother – at Lycia (Fasti Gabini; Suet., Div. Aug. 65.1; Dio 55.10a.9), where a cenotaph was erected to him (a fragment of which is now on display at the Archaeological Museum at Antalya). Caius’ body was ‘brought to Rome by the military tribunes and by the chief men of each city, and the golden shields and spears which he had received from the equites on entering the class of youths of military age were set up in the Senate House’ (Dio 55.12.1). His ashes were laid in the Mausoleum of Augustus (Strabo, Geog. 5.3.8).
Drusus Iulius Caesar (Drusus Minor, Drusus II, Drusus the Younger; Nero Claudius Drusus prior to 4 CE) (7 October 16 or 15 BCE–14 September 23 CE). Born in Rome, Drusus was the son of Ti. Claudius Drusus (Tiberius) and Vispania Agrippina and was named after his famous uncle (Suet., Tib. 7.2). On account of his father’s adoption by Augustus on 26 June 4 CE (Suet., Tib. 15.2), he joined gens Iulia and became a Caesar and brother of Germanicus, with whom he enjoyed good filial relations (Tac., Ann. 2.43). Possibly the following year, he married Livilla, youngest daughter of his uncle (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus) and aunt (Antonia Minor). A largely absent father, Tiberius appears to have been unloving towards his son, ‘being exasperated at the former’s vices; and, in fact, Drusus led a somewhat loose and dissolute life’ (Suet., Tib. 52.1). He earned a reputation for licentiousness and cruelty – he was ‘so cruel, in fact, that the sharpest swords were called ‘‘Drusian’’ after him’ (Dio 57.13.1). When his father returned to Rome from self-imposed exile in 2 CE, Drusus was formally introduced to public life (Suet., Tib. 15). He was a pontifex, probably from 4 CE (ILS 107). Following the quelling of the Great Illyrian Revolt in 9 CE, though he had undertaken no active role in the war, Drusus ‘was granted the privilege of attending the sittings of the Senate before becoming a member of that body and of voting ahead of the ex-praetors as soon as he should become quaestor’ (Dio 56.17.3). He served as quaestor in 10 CE, and that year also became an augur. Three years later, Drusus was selected to join the Fratres Arvales (CIL VI, 2023a). Upon the death of Augustus, Drusus – then consul designate for 15 CE (Tac., Ann. 1.14) – read part of his father’s speech to the Senate (Suet., Tib. 23) and became among the first men appointed as sodales Augustales (ILS 168 Rome). Also in 14 CE, now 30 years old, he was dispatched to join the legions in Germania Superior on his first military assignment (Tac., Ann. 1.24).
Germanicus Iulius Caesar (Germanicus Caesar; Nero Claudius Drusus before 9 BCE; Germanicus Claudius Drusus before 4 CE) (15 May 16 BCE–10 October 19 CE). Born Nero Claudius Drusus in Rome in 16 BCE, he was the son of Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus and Antonia Minor (Suet., Calig. 1.1), and was the maternal grandson of M. Antonius (Plut., Ant. 87.3). Upon his father’s death in 9 BCE, he adopted the honorific war title Germanicus as his praenomen (Suet., Claud. 1.3). He was educated by the rhetor Salanus, a teacher known to poet Ovid who credited him with developing the young man’s talent for fiery public speaking (Ovid, Ep. Ex Pont. 2.5.5–8, 41–46). Like his father, he was affable and well liked: ‘it is the general opinion that Germanicus possessed all the highest qualities of body and mind, to a degree never equalled by anyone; a handsome person, an unequalled valour . . . and a remarkable desire and capacity for winning men’s regard and inspiring their affection’ (Suet., Calig. 3.1; cf. Dio 57.18.6–8 and comparison to Alexander the Great by Tac., Ann. 2.72–73). Also like Nero Drusus, he would engage in direct hand-to-hand combat (Suet., Calig. 3.2). Augustus was fond of the young man (Dio 56.25.2): indeed, one source states the princeps actively considered him to be his immediate successor (Suet., Calig. 4), though it seems Livia dissuaded him to formalise it. On account of his adoption by Tiberius at Augustus’ request on 26 June 4 CE, he joined gens Iulia and became a Caesar, and the third in line of succession (Suet., Tib. 15.2). He enjoyed good filial relations with his adopted brother, Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus the Younger (Tac., Ann. 2.43). He was appointed quaestor in 7 CE. After the premature deaths of Caius and Lucius Caesar, he was adopted by his uncle Tiberius, becoming a potential successor of Augustus. He was appointed princeps iuventutis (‘the first of the youth’) in 1 BCE or 1 CE (Ovid, Ex Pont. 2.5.41). During the emergency of the Great Illyrian Revolt, Germanicus was put in charge of cohors voluntariorum, which he recruited and trained in 6 CE, and took to the combat zone (Dio 55.30.1, cf. 55.32.1). At 23 years old, he led his contingent to success against the rebel Pannonian Mazaei nation in 7 CE (Dio 55.32.2–3). The following year, Germanicus was given command of an army group including legions, conducting operations in the Dinaric Alps, successfully besieging Splonum and Raetinum (Dio 56.11.1–7). In 8 BCE, he accepted joint command with Tiberius of one of the three army groups moving against Bato, the remaining rebel leader (Dio 56.12.2). In 9 CE, Germanicus was instrumental in concluding the counterinsurgency in central Illyricum, taking Arduba (Dio 56.15.1–3), and led the acclamation of Tiberius as imperator; he was granted triumphal ornaments with the other commanders (Dio 56.17.1; Vell. Pat. 2.116.1) and promoted to the rank of praetor (Dio 56.17.2). Following news of the disaster befalling P. Quinctilius Varus, he may have accompanied Tiberius on his trip to Rome or been placed in charge of operations on the Rhine while awaiting Tiberius’ return with reinforcements (Suet., Tib. 17.2–18.1). When the feared German invasion did not transpire, he returned to civic life and performed advocacy in the courts, for which he earned great popularity (Dio 56.24.7). In 11 CE, he joined Tiberius on a low-risk raid across the Rhine into Germania (Dio 56.25.2), staying long enough to symbolically hold races on Augustus’ birthday (23 September) on German soil (Dio 56.25.3). He was elected consul for 12 CE (Suet., Calig. 8.3), and in 13 BCE was appointed legatus Augusti pro praetore of Tres Galliae (Tac., Ann. 1.3) and initiated a census soon after arriving; he was at work in his province when news of Augustus’ death arrived (Tac., Ann. 1.14; Suet., Calig. 1.1; Dio 57.3.1). His religious responsibilities included augur (ILS 173 Apamea in Bithynia; Tac., Ann. 2.17), perhaps dating from the same time he was appointed as quaestor, and arvalis perhaps as early as 4 CE. A multifaceted man, Germanicus was lauded for his oratory (Tac., Ann. 2.83.3) and skill as a writer of poems – including one composed in honour of Augustus’ deceased horse (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 8.62) and possibly Phaenomena, a Latin translation of the original Greek work by Aratos – and comedies (Suet., Claud. 15.2). He is recorded as having had alektorophobia, a fear of chickens (Plut., De Invid. et Od.). He married M. Agrippa’s daughter, Agrippina Maior, in 5 CE and had nine children by her, of whom his sons Drusus, Nero, Caius (also known as Caligula), and daughters Iulia Agrippina, Iulia Drusilla and Iulia Livilla survived (Suet., Calig. 7; Tib. 54.1).
L. Iulius Caesar (L. Caesar; Vipsanius Agrippa prior to 17 BCE) (14 June/15 July 17 BCE–20 August 2 CE). Born L. Vipsanius Agrippa to M. Agrippa and Iulia Caesaris, Lucius was adopted as a son of Augustus (14 June/15 July 17 BCE) – his maternal grandfather – and thereafter bore the name of Caesar (Suet, Div. Aug. 64.1; Dio 54.18.1). He was doted on by his adoptive father, who taught him reading, writing and swimming (Suet., Div. Aug. 641.1). Following the precedent established by his older brother, on coming of age in 2 BCE he was made princeps iuventutis and granted the same privileges (Dio 55.9.10; Suet., Div. Aug. 26.2): marking the event, Lucius and his brother are shown standing togate beside round shields and spears on widely circulated contemporary coins (e.g. RIC 206 (aureus), 207–212 (denarius)). Also in 3 or 2 BCE, Lucius was made augur (ILS 132 Rome) and the following year, with his brother, he was permitted to consecrate a temple of Mars Ultor ‘and all such buildings’ (Dio 55.10.6), likely as duumvir aedibus dedicandis. While his older brother was away on operations, ‘it was his custom personally to read the letters of Caius in the Senate’ (Dio 55.10a.9). For his first military assignment he was sent to Tres Galliae, where ‘he, too, was being trained to rule by being dispatched on missions to many places’ (Dio 55.10a.9). He died ‘due to a sudden illness’ (Dio 55.10a.10), aged 19 (Fasti Gabini), at Massilia (2 CE), where a cenotaph was erected to him (Suet., Div. Aug. 65.1; Dio 55.10a.9). Lucius’ body was ‘brought to Rome by the military tribunes and by the chief men of each city, and the golden shields and spears which he had received from the equites on entering the class of youths of military age were set up in the Senate House’ (Dio 55.12.1). His ashes were laid in the Mausoleum of Augustus (Strabo, Geog. 5.3.8). Tiberius wrote a lyric poem in his honour (Suet., Tib. 70.2).
Ti. Iulius Caesar (Tiberius; Ti. Claudius Nero prior to 4 CE) (16 November 42 BCE–16 March 37 CE). Born in Rome, Tiberius was the son of Ti. Claudius Drusus and Livia Drusilla and older brother of Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (Suet., Tib. 4.1). His early years were traumatic, as his parents sought protection during the war against the murderers of C. Iulius Caesar (Suet., Tib. 6.2). His mother divorced the boy’s father and married the man who would become Augustus; the two sons – Tiberius, 4, Drusus, just days old – went to live at the house of their father until he died five years later (Suet., Tib. 4.3). Tiberius delivered the eulogy at the funeral (Suet., Tib. 6.4). He also sponsored gladiatorial games in honour of his natural father and grandfather (Suet., Tib. 7.1). In 33 BCE, he was betrothed to Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of M. Agrippa, and later they were happily married (Suet., Tib. 7.2). During the Triple Triumph celebrating Actium, on 14 August 29 BCE, Tiberius rode the left horse pulling the triumphator’s chariot (Suet., Tib. 6.4). He was educated by the rhetor Theodorus of Gadara, who apparently first detected his pupil’s penchant for cruelty and often referred to him as ‘mud kneaded with blood’ (Suet., Tib. 57.1). Just a year after coming of age, in 26 BCE, now 16, he accompanied Augustus and C. Claudius Marcellus to Hispania Citerior as a tribunus militum during the Cantabrian and Asturian War (Suet., Tib. 9.1). There he arranged with Marcellus to put on exhibitions – perhaps decursiones – for the troops at their camps (Dio 53.26.1). In 23 BCE, he was appointed as quaestor, initially supervising the grain supply (annona), then later investigating slave-prisons across Italy whose owners had gained a reputation for also kidnapping unsuspecting travellers and concealing those seeking to avoid military service (Suet., Tib. 8). In 22 BCE, in the trial by jury of Fannius Caepio, the instigator of an assassination attempt on Augustus, Tiberius presented the prosecution case (Suet., Tib. 8.1; cf. 54.3.5–6; Vell. Pat. 2.91.4). In 20 BCE, he went with Augustus to Syria and Armenia, where he played a key role in restoring the kingdom to Tigranes (RG 5.27) and received back from Phraates of Parthia the signa lost by M. Crassus in 53 BCE (RG 5.29; Suet., Tib. 9.1). Following the Lollian Disaster (17 BCE), he went to Gallia Comata as Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore to replace M. Lollius in 16 BCE (Suet., Tib. 9.1), which soured relations between the two men. He was appointed praetor (16 BCE) and consul ordinarius (13 BCE) five years before the qualifying age (Suet., Tib. 9.3; Dio 54.10.4). Mobilizing troops from Gallia Comata, he assisted his younger brother during the Alpine War of 15 BCE (Suet., Tib. 9.1–2), crossing Lake Geneva or Lake Constance with his troops (Dio 55.22.4), and then heading to Noricum before transferring to Illyricum (Suet., Tib. 9.1–2), where he commanded the Roman forces during the Pannonian War (12–9 BCE). Following the death of M. Agrippa in 12 BCE, Tiberius and his brother each took on the role of executor of Augustus’ military policy. Augustus insisted Tiberius divorce Vipsania Agrippina and marry Iulia Caesaris, a request he protested against but reluctantly acceded to – it was a life-changing event which forever after haunted him (Suet., Tib. 7.2–3). While visiting Augustus in Ticinum in the summer of 9 BCE, he received news of his brother Drusus’ accident and raced to be with him: despite insinuations that Tiberius was jealous of his younger brother (Suet., Tib. 50.1), he accompanied the body on foot from Germania to Rome (Suet., Tib. 7.3; Dio 55.2.1) in an act considered as supremely pious (Val. Max., Factorum et Dictorum 5.5.3) while crowds assembled along the road to pay their respects (Seneca, Ad Marc. 3.1–2). He took over the military operations in Germania to conclude the war in 8 and 7 BCE (Dio 55.8.3), during which ‘he brought forty thousand prisoners [of the Sugambri nation] over into Gallia and assigned them homes near the bank of the Rhenus’, for which he was granted triumphal ornaments (Suet., Tib. 9.2; ILS 95). In 7 BCE, he was elected consul for a second time and was given tribunicia potestas the following year. Over a decade, Tiberius had proved a highly competent commander, displaying virtus on numerous occasions. He was a strong disciplinarian, ‘reviving bygone methods of punishment and ignominy, and even degrading the commander of a legion for sending a few soldiers across the river to accompany one of his freedmen on a hunting expedition’ (Suet., Tib. 19), but displayed compassion when he made available his own horse-drawn cart or litter for use by wounded soldiers (Vell. Pat. 2.114.1–2). His weakness was wine: it is reported that ‘even at the outset of his military career his excessive love of wine gave him the name of Biberius, instead of Tiberius, Caldius for Claudius, and Mero for Nero’ (Suet., Div. Aug. 42.1). Yet his men respected him and he inspired deep loyalty (Vell. Pat. 2.104.4). He was physically fit and strongly built, yet his personality was intense, unsettling to many, not least Augustus: ‘he strode along with his neck stiff and bent forward, usually with a stern countenance and for the most part in silence, never or very rarely conversing with his companions, and then speaking with great deliberation and with a kind of supple movement of his fingers. All of these mannerisms of his, which were disagreeable and signs of arrogance, were remarked by Augustus, who often tried to excuse them to the Senate and People by declaring that they were natural failings, and not intentional’ (Suet., Tib. 68.3; cf. 21.2). Perhaps exhausted by his exploits, in protest at the favouritism shown C. and L. Caesar (the sons of M. Agrippa) as his heirs, or eager to escape a deteriorating marriage, he resigned all his powers and retired to Rhodes with his astrologer Thrasylus (Suet., Tib. 10.1–2). Later, while in exile, he negotiated to ‘have the title of legatus of Augustus, so as to conceal his disgrace’ (Suet., Tib. 12.1). His attempt to reconcile with C. Caesar while visiting Chios in 1 BCE was rebuffed (Dio 55.10.19) because the young man chose to believe certain slanders made by M. Lollius (Suet., Tib. 12.2). Eight years later, Tiberius returned from self-imposed exile to Rome as a private citizen in 2 BCE (Suet., Tib. 12.2). In 4 CE, he accepted the tribunicia potestas (Suet., Tib. 16.1), explaining he did so ‘for the good of the Res Publica’ (Vell. Pat. 2.104.1). After the deaths of C. and L. Caesar, Augustus adopted Tiberius as his son on 26 June 4 CE and he, in turn, adopted Germanicus (Suet., Tib. 15.2; Dio 55.13.2) – the indication was clear that Tiberius was now the intended heir apparent. Rebellion in Germania took Tiberius back across the Rhine in late 4 and again in 5 CE, ending in success for the Romans (Vell. Pat. 2.104.3, 5–7; Suet., Tib. 16.1; Dio 55.13.1a). A keen strategist, he masterminded a campaign against the Marcommanic king Marboduus beginning in 6 CE (Vell. Pat. 2.109.3–5), co-ordinating army groups approaching from three directions (one led by Sentius Saturninus, another by Tiberius in person), but the invasion had to be aborted, and a hasty treaty agreed with Marbouduus when the Breuci and Deasidiates rose up in Illyricum (Vell. Pat. 2.110.1–2; Dio 55.29.1–4). Tiberius ‘was transferred to the charge of a new war, the most serious of all foreign wars since those with Carthage, which he carried on for three years with fifteen legions and a corresponding force of auxiliaries, amid great difficulties of every kind and the utmost scarcity of supplies’ (Suet., Tib. 16.1; cf. Vell. Pat. 2.110–116). Under his command were Aemilius Lepidus, Caecina Severus, Plautius Silvanus, Valerius Messala Messallinus, Vibius Postumus and Germanicus Caesar, and the Thracians Raiskuporis and Roimetalkes (Dio 55.30.1–6). Though Dio alleges the princeps was frustrated by the slow rate of progress in quelling the insurgency (Dio 55.31.1), Suetonius quotes extracts of letters Augustus wrote to his adopted son on campaign with words of encouragement, addressing him as vir fortissime et dux nomimv´tate, ‘most charming and valiant of men and most conscientious of generals’ (Suet., Tib. 21.4). After four brutal campaign seasons, the rebellion collapsed. ‘He reaped an ample reward for his perseverance, for he completely subdued and reduced to submission the whole of Illyricum’ (Suet., Tib. 16.2), and he and his generals were awarded triumphal ornaments. Receiving news of the Varian Disaster (end of summer of 9 CE), Tiberius sent troops ahead under Germanicus while himself making directly for Rome to receive instructions from Augustus (Vell. Pat. 2.117–122.2; Suet., Tib. 17.1), though he entered the city as a triumphator (Suet., Tib. 17.2). Subsequently, Tiberius led a low-risk raid across the Rhine into Germania in 11 CE (Dio 56.25.2), staying long enough to symbolically hold races on Augustus’ birthday (23 September) on German soil (Dio 56.25.3). In 12 CE, he returned to Rome to celebrate his Illyrian triumph on 23 October (Suet., Tib. 20). When Germanicus set off for Tres Galliae in 13 BCE, Tiberius headed for Illyricum (Suet., Tib. 21.1; Vell. Pat. 2.123.1). He was recalled by his mother to be with Augustus just as he was entering Dalmatia, and was with the princeps when he died at Nola on 19 August 14 CE (Tac., Ann. 1.5). A contemporary wrote that Tiberius was ‘the champion and the guardian of her empire’ (Vell. Pat. 2.104.2) – titles he would be called upon to demonstrate as Augustus’ successor.
Q. Iunius Blaesus (c. 35 BCE–31 CE). In 14 CE, Blaesus was Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore for Pannonia (Tac., Ann. 1.16) with three legions under his command (VIII Augusta, VIIII Hispana, XV Apollinaris). He is described as ‘no ordinary helper, a man whom one does not know whether to consider more useful in the camp or better in the toga’ (Vell. Pat. 2.125.5). Blaesus would be the last Roman citizen outside the imperial family to be permitted the acclamation imperator in 23 CE (Tac., Ann. 3.74; Vell. Pat. 2.125.5). He was the maternal uncle of L. Aelius Seianus, the notorious Praefectus Praetorio under Tiberius. His son was a tribuus militum at the time of the mutiny in 14 CE (Tac., Ann. 1.19). He is not to be confused with the suffect consul of 10 CE.
M. Licinius Crassus (Crassus the Younger) (c. 70–After 29 BCE). Grandson of the immensely wealthy triumvir M. Licinius Crassus, the younger Crassus fought on the side of Sex. Pompeius and later M. Antonius. Though he had not yet served as praetor, he was elected consul for 30 BCE with Iulius Caesar’s heir. The following year, as proconsul, he went to Macedonia and Greece. From 29–27 BCE, Crassus waged a war against the Bastarnae, Moesi, Thraex and other nationes (Livy, Peri. 134–35), driving them back across the Danube (Dio 51.23–27). He was one of the commanders who fought to win the spolia opima: during the war he duelled with King Deldo of the Bastarnae, killing him and stripping him of his arms and armour (Dio 51.24.4). He would normally have expected to receive the public honour of taking the spolia opima to the Temple of Iupiter Feretrius on the Capitolium (Nepos, Atticus 20.3), but it was blocked by Augustus, who also assumed the acclamation of imperator (Dio 51.25.2). Instead, Crassus was granted a triumph, which took place in Rome on 2 July 27 BCE (Fasti Triumphales).
M. Lollius (c. 55 BCE–2 CE). The man who would come to be one of only two men under Augustus to lend their names to military disasters (Tac., Ann. 1.10) was a member of the plebeian gens Lollia and a novus homo. He may be the Marcus who Appian says was the legatus of M. Iunius Brutus at the Battle of Philippi (App. Bell. Civ. 4.6.49): after the battle, this Marcus, now a proscribed man, disguised himself as a slave to avoid capital punishment and was bought by a man named Barbula, before he was taken to Rome where his true identity was revealed by a friend who appealed to M. Agrippa, through whose intercession Marcus’ name was removed from the proscription list. This Marcus became a friend of Iulius Caesar’s heir and some time later served as his legatus, fighting against M. Antonius at the Battle of Actium (App. Bell. Civ. 4.6.49: the story continues that when Barbula – who was fighting on Antonius’ side – was captured at Actium, he pretended to be a slave and was recognised by Marcus, who bought and freed him). Following the death of King Amyntas in 25 BCE, Lollius went to Galatia as first governor (Dio 53.26.3; Eutrop., 7.10.2) and began the process of its integration into the Roman Empire, including its army – Legio XXII Deiotariana (after Amyntas’ father Deiotarus) – and the foundation of a new colonia. In 21 BCE, Lollius was elected to the consulship in a controversial year, during which only he served as consul, because Augustus declined to stand and the rival candidates squabbled in public; Agrippa was sent by Augustus to deal with the disorder (Dio 54.6.1–4). One of his deeds was to commission repairs to the Pons Fabricius (CIL VI, 1305, VI, 31549). During 19–18 BCE, Lollius was in Macedonia where he came to the aid of Roimetalkes of Thracia against the Bessi and won (Dio 54.20.3; an inscription places him in Philippi (AE 1933, 85)). He was at the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BCE as quindecemir sacris faciundis (CIL VI, 32323.151 = ILS 5050). His next assignment was a Legatus Augusti of Gallia Comata (17–16 BCE): it was here in 17 BCE that he fatefully encountered a band of marauders – comprising Sugambri, Tencteri and Usipetes – from across the Rhine River, and in the ensuing mêlée Legio V Alaudae lost its aquila, an event which came to be known as the clades Lolliana, ‘Lollian Disaster’ (Dio 54.20.4–5; Suet., Div. Aug. 23.1). The embarrassment prompted Augustus to go to the region in person in 16 BCE – despite Lollius having since recovered the legion’s eagle standard (RG 5.29) – and replace him with his own stepson, Tiberius (Dio 54.20.6; Suet., Div. Aug. 21.1 and Tib. 9.1; RG 2.12 and 5.29). Lollius was given no other military commands after 16 BCE, yet – and despite the mishap in Gaul – Augustus still liked him well enough to entrust him as a ‘companion and guide’ (comes et rector) to C. Caesar on his mission in the East (Suet., Tib. 12.2) from 2 BCE alongside L. Aelius Seianus, P. Sulpicius Quirinius and M. Velleius Paterculus. The two men fell out when Phratakes V of Parthia accused him of accepting bribes from kings of the East, extortion and treachery (Vell. Pat., 2.102.1; Suet., Tib.12.2), and he was struck off the list of friends of Augustus (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 9.58). About his character, the account of a contemporary describes him as having ‘a crafty and deceitful mind’ (Vell. Pat. 2.102.1; cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 9.58), while another portrays him as model of reliability and a man above avarice (Horace, Ode 4.9, 34–44). He was generally disliked by the Roman people, who received news of his death – perhaps suicide by poison (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 9.58) – in 2 CE with ‘joy’ (Vell. Pat. 2.102.1). His granddaughter, Lollia Paulina, would marry Emperor Caius, better known as Caligula (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 9.58).
M. Lurius (c. 70–After 31 BCE). Lurius, perhaps originally from Illyricum, was proconsul of Sardinia during the war against Sex. Pompeius (37–36 BCE): he was attacked by Menas and, after an initial victory, was routed in a second engagement and forced to abandon the island (Dio 48.30.7). He is best known for his role in the Battle of Actium (2 September 31 BCE), where ‘the command of the right wing of Caesar’s fleet was entrusted to M. Lurius’ (Vell. Pat. 2.82–87). He never served a term as consul.
C. Marcius Censorinus (c. 50 BCE–2/3 CE). The Censorini were a plebeian branch of gens Marcia. Caius was son of L. Marcius Censorinus, one of the friends of Q. Tullius Cicero when he was in Asia (Cic., ad. Q. Fr. 1.2.13), and perhaps the same man who was also the fierce supporter of M. Antonius, proconsul of Macedonia, and consul for 39 BCE. C. Censorinus served a term as triumvir monetalis on the commission supervising the mint in c. 18/17 BCE and appointed augur at about the same time (RIC I 85–86). It is possible he was a quaestorian legate under Agrippa and accompanied him in 14 BCE to Sinope at the time of the Rebellion of Scribonius in the Cimmerian Bosporus (Dio 54.24.6); when Agrippa departed, he may have remained there through 12 BCE, where an inscription hails him as ‘protector of the city’ and Legatus Caesaris, but not pro praetore (AE 1906.1) – though some historians argue this refers to a relative, perhaps an uncle. Censorinus was consul in 8 BCE (Dio 55.5.1; Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 33.10.47) and apparently subsequently served as Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore of Syria (Joseph. Ant. Iud. 16.6.2), where he secured certain immunities for the Jewish population. He was wealthy: for a while he owned a house on the Palatinus Hill which had been once owned by M. Tullius Cicero (Vell. Pat. 2.14.2). Described as ‘a man born to win the affections of men’ (Vell. Pat. 2.102.1), he was immensely liked by the Roman people. When attending C. Caesar (Augustus’ adopted son) in 2 or 3 CE on a visit somewhere in the East – possibly Galatia – he died; his loss was personally felt by Augustus and the Roman People, who received the news with deep sorrow (Vell. Pat. 2.102.1).
L. Munatius Plancus (c. 87–After 15 BCE). Son of C. Munatius Plancus, Lucius came to the attention of Iulius Caesar and served him as one of his legati during the Gallic War (e.g. Caes., Bell. Gall. 5.24, 5.25). Plancus subsequently fought on Caesar’s side in the Civil War, where he successfully led attacks at Ilerda (Caes., Bell. Civ. 1.40) and in Africa (Caes., Bell. Afr. 4; he may have authored the commentarius of the Bellum Africanum). In 45 BCE he was praetor. He was governor of Gallia Comata in 44–43 BCE, where he founded a colonia, strategically situated on the Fourvière heights west of the confluence of the Rhône and Saône Rivers, and named it Copia Felix Munatia, later known as Lugdunum (Strabo, Geog. 4.3.1–2). He was elected consul for 42 BCE. A correspondent of M. Tullius Cicero (Cic., Fam. 10.1–24), Plancus was a fair-weather friend, switching sides whenever it suited him (Vell. Pat. 2.63.3). After Iulius Caesar’s assassination, he joined Dec. Brutus, before betraying him (Vell. Pat. 2.64.1); had his own brother Plancus Plotius added to the list of proscribed men (Vell. Pat. 2.67.3); then joined M. Antonius in Egypt, where, having revealed the triumvir’s secrets to Imp. Caesar, he contributed to his downfall (Vell. Pat. 2.83.1–3). In 27 BCE, it was Plancus who proposed to the Senate that Imp. Caesar be granted the honorific title Augustus (Vell. Pat. 2.91.1). He was censor in 17 or 16 BCE, in which role he was largely ineffectual (Vell. Pat. 2.95.3). He was epulo in 40 BCE or earlier (inferred by the image of a lituus and pitcher on a denarius announcing Munatius as proconsul with M. Antonius: Sydenham 1190, Sear Imperators 253, Crawford 522/2) and initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis at the end of the same decade (IG 22.4112). A statue with an inscription was erected in his honour by grateful Greek and Italian traders of Delos (CIL I2 831 = InsDelos 1696 = ILLRP 360 = ILS 8961b). He restored the Temple of Saturn in the early 20s BCE (CIL VI, 1316; Suet., Div. Aug. 29.5). His grand mausoleum on top of Monte Orlando, which overlooks the city of Gaeta, is considered to be the most complete Roman tomb to have survived in all of Italy.
L. Nonius Asprenas Torquatus (c. 35 BCE–After 20 CE). Asprenas was the son of plebeian L. Nonius Asprenas and Quinctilia, sister of P. Quinctilius Varus.