The Empire Under Augustus
Augustus and his successors busied Roman troops with expanding and protecting the borders of the empire. After the civil war, Augustus turned his attention to tribal invasions in the western portion of the empire. The inscription on the Trophy of Augustus, which stands 100 feet high at La Turbie in the mountains high above Monaco, records his suppression of the stubborn Alpine tribes between Italy and France. Augustus also pacified Spain, and in 12 bc his stepson Drusus (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus) conquered Germany as far as the Elbe River. Eventually Roman rule extended to the Danube River, where the new provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia stretched from present-day Switzerland through Austria, Yugoslavia, and Hungary to Bulgaria on the Black Sea.
Despite the strength of the Roman military, conquest was not accomplished without resistance. The Romans did not have a large force in the Balkans, for example, and when the Pannonians rebelled against Roman rule in ad 6, Tiberius, another stepson of Augustus, needed three years and 100,000 men to put it down. But the greatest disaster took place in Germany. In ad 9, the Roman general Publius Quintilius Varus led three legions into an ambush, and they were annihilated by a Germanic tribe called the Cherusci in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This catastrophe, the worst Roman defeat in two centuries, forced the aging Augustus to adopt a policy of caution and restraint.
The Roman Military
Once Augustus had defeated Mark Antony, he began to reduce the empire’s remaining military forces from 60 legions to 28. He then had to provide over 100,000 men with land, which was the traditional form of pension. Augustus knew that earlier seizures of land had led to insurrections, so he used the spoils of his successful Egyptian campaign against Antony and Cleopatra to purchase property for some soldiers. He settled others in 40 new colonies around the Mediterranean. These colonies provided additional security in the provinces, and eventually became important centers for spreading the Roman way of life. Augustus founded the cities of Turin in Italy; Barcelona, Spain; Nîmes, France; Trier, Germany; Tangier, Morocco, and Beirut, Lebanon.
During the republic, the general who recruited an army often armed and paid the soldiers. Augustus wanted to ensure that in the future no rebellious general could threaten the regime, so he established a central military treasury. He set funds aside for the legionaries. When they retired, they received a grant to purchase a plot of land to support their families. Augustus also tried to make his troops more professional by instituting a standard legionary command structure, system of rank, and rate of pay. Roman soldiers swore an annual oath of loyalty to the emperor. These legionaries also received their pay, bonuses, and pensions from the emperor, so they were not often tempted to follow a renegade commander.
Augustus also bound his troops to him with regular compensation rather than the prospect of booty or goods seized during war. Each legionary received an annual salary of 225 denarii, from which the military deducted the cost of food and clothing. The government supplemented these wages with an occasional bonus like the 75 denarii provided in Augustus’s will. Promotions also brought enormous salary increases. In each legion 60 centurions, noncommissioned officers who came from the ranks, each received 3,750 denarii, while the head centurion earned 15,000 denarii. After 20 years of service, a legionary received land or cash equal to 14 years’ pay to support him in retirement. Until ad 200, the military did not permit legionaries to marry, although many had unofficial wives and children living alongside the camps in makeshift towns. The land granted to the legionaries on retirement was usually located in provincial colonies where the veterans could reinforce the power of the legions.
The legionaries who made up the empire’s heavy infantry were citizens, but conquered peoples provided auxiliary troops with the skills that the Romans lacked. Cavalry from Gaul, archers from Lebanon, and slingers from the Spanish island of Mallorca (who used large slingshots to hurl rocks at the enemy) all fought for Rome, and they received two-thirds of a legionary’s salary. These colonial soldiers, who came from diverse cultural backgrounds, learned Latin and received Roman citizenship for themselves and their families when they retired. The auxiliaries helped bring Latin and Roman civilization to their homeland. In the early empire, the number of auxiliaries equaled the 175,000 legionaries. However, the empire’s 350,000 soldiers were not an enormous force to secure 6,000 miles of frontier and to ensure internal security for an empire of 50 million people.
The Romans did not normally station legions in Italy, which was protected by the special troops known as the praetorian guard. This elite force, which was responsible for the safety of the emperor, received triple pay and special bonuses. The prefect or commander of the guard controlled access to the emperor, and later prefects acquired administrative and judicial authority. The increasing power of the praetorians had both favorable and unfavorable consequences: The guards protected some emperors but murdered others.
Augustus and his successors busied Roman troops with expanding and protecting the borders of the empire. After the civil war, Augustus turned his attention to tribal invasions in the western portion of the empire. The inscription on the Trophy of Augustus, which stands 100 feet high at La Turbie in the mountains high above Monaco, records his suppression of the stubborn Alpine tribes between Italy and France. Augustus also pacified Spain, and in 12 bc his stepson Drusus (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus) conquered Germany as far as the Elbe River. Eventually Roman rule extended to the Danube River, where the new provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia stretched from present-day Switzerland through Austria, Yugoslavia, and Hungary to Bulgaria on the Black Sea.
Despite the strength of the Roman military, conquest was not accomplished without resistance. The Romans did not have a large force in the Balkans, for example, and when the Pannonians rebelled against Roman rule in ad 6, Tiberius, another stepson of Augustus, needed three years and 100,000 men to put it down. But the greatest disaster took place in Germany. In ad 9, the Roman general Publius Quintilius Varus led three legions into an ambush, and they were annihilated by a Germanic tribe called the Cherusci in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This catastrophe, the worst Roman defeat in two centuries, forced the aging Augustus to adopt a policy of caution and restraint.
The Legacy of Augustus
As the result of his long reign, Augustus left a legacy of peace and prosperity to the Roman people. He reduced class warfare in the city, and his new political system ended civil conflict for the first time in a century. Internal peace revived Roman patriotism and economic prosperity, and Augustus improved the defense of the frontiers and the administration of the provinces. Some senators lamented the loss of their “freedom,” but the benefits of Augustus’s rule far outweighed the costs to senatorial privileges. His new political system, which is known as the Roman Empire, brought peace and prosperity that lasted, with the exception of the brief civil war of ad 69, for two hundred years.
On his deathbed at the age of 76 in ad 14, Augustus asked those assembled around him if he had played his part well in the “comedy of life.” Augustus had played many roles well. He had begun as the dutiful heir of Caesar and then transformed himself into the ruthless young military commander, the self-righteous moralist against Antony, and the shrewd politician of reconstruction. Augustus was also a generous patron of literature and art and, in his final decades, the father figure who provided food, entertainment, and security to the Roman people. The Greeks had called Augustus a god in his lifetime, and at his death the Romans deified him as well. The rule of Augustus brought social stability, economic revival, and efficient administration to Rome, but it was unable to ensure the future. Augustus seemingly owed his power to the Senate and Roman people; in fact, his power came from his personal authority, and there was a real possibility his death might trigger a renewed civil war. For decades, Augustus watched his chosen successors die until only his stepson, Tiberius, remained. His selection of an heir outside of his immediate bloodline set the precedent for the future; struggles for power once fought on the battlefield were now waged in the imperial palace.
Augustus hoped to retain power within the Julian family, while disguising the fact that he had established a monarchy. He had only one child, a daughter Julia by his first wife, and his 51-year marriage to his third wife, Livia, brought him much personal happiness and a remarkable political partnership, but no further children. Livia had two sons, Tiberius and Drusus, from a previous marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero. Tiberius and later Drusus’s son Claudius became emperors of the Claudian line. Julia’s grandson Gaius-Caligula and her great-grandson Nero eventually reached the imperial throne. Together these rulers made up what came to be known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
Tiberius (ad 14-37 ) was a successful general in Germany and a fine imperial administrator. He lacked the charisma of Augustus and alienated senators with his personal moodiness. He finally withdrew to his villa in Capri and placed the Roman government in the hands of his praetorian prefect, Aelius Sejanus. Despite his weaknesses, Tiberius left the empire with secure boundaries and a healthy treasury.
The great-nephew of Tiberius and his chosen successor, Gaius (ad 37-41), grew up on the German frontier where his father’s soldiers nicknamed him Caligula (“Little Boot” in Latin) because of his tiny military boots. A great-grandson of both Augustus and Mark Antony, Caligula was a popular choice for the imperial throne. He abolished the sales tax and sponsored frequent public athletic games and spectacles, but a severe illness transformed him into a vicious tyrant. Caligula murdered senators for their property and their wives, gave away Rome’s provinces to his boyhood playmates, considered making his horse consul, and demanded to be worshiped as Jupiter. Not surprisingly, one of his own guards murdered him.
In the confusion following Caligula’s assassination, some senators decided they might dispense with emperors and debated the return of the republic. The praetorian soldiers, who had profited under imperial rule, wanted a new emperor. The traditional story is that they found the only plausible candidate, Caligula’s uncle, hiding fearfully in the palace and gave him the imperial throne. Polio in childhood had left Claudius I (ad 41-54) with a limp and a stammer, but he ruled well and added Britain to the Roman Empire. He showed both intelligence and compassion in his grants of citizenship, his admission of Gauls to the Senate, and his humanitarian legislation on debt and the treatment of slaves. His fourth wife Agrippina (known as Agrippina the Younger) poisoned him to ensure that her son Nero would inherit the throne.
The 15-year-old Nero (ad 54-68) began his reign amid predictions of a new Golden Age for Rome, but fawning courtiers encouraged his despotic tendencies. He murdered both his mother and his wife at the urging of his mistress. In ad 64 a fire devastated much of Rome. The historian Tacitus suggests in his writings that Nero blamed the fledgling Christian community for the blaze. According to some sources, his persecution of Christians resulted in the deaths of two of Christianity’s most influential apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Nero had a childish need for applause, and he gave vocal concerts at Greek festivals. The spectacle of a singing emperor disgusted the Romans. The neglected legions became restless, and rebellions erupted throughout the empire. All four Julio-Claudian emperors lived in the shadow of Augustus, and none felt secure on his throne. Insecurity brought tyranny, which then provoked conspiracies in the Senate and in the palace. Finally, even the army turned away from the dynasty that had created the empire.
Civil War
Civil war returned to Rome as one person after another claimed the throne and marched on the capital. In ad 69, known as the Year of the Four Emperors, a savage contest for power exploded the myths adopted by Augustus to hide his dictatorship. The secret of the empire was now clear. Augustus had pretended to follow Roman republican tradition by seeking the Senate’s confirmation of his actions, but in reality the emperor’s authority derived solely from his control of the army.
The savage civil war of the Year of the Four Emperors concluded with the triumph of Vespasian (ad 69-79 ), a plainspoken and practical soldier from the Italian middle class whose style contrasted with the eccentricity of the noble Julio-Claudians. As commander of the Roman armies in the East, Vespasian crushed the Jewish rebellion in Palestine. He then returned to Rome and left his son to destroy both the city of Jerusalem and in ad 73 to conquer Masada, the hilltop fortress near the Dead Sea where the Jews made their last stand. Vespasian’s thriftiness restored the economy after the lavish expenditures of Nero. He recruited senators from among western provinces and also carefully ensured the loyalty of the military to the new dynasty he created, called the Flavians.
Flavian and Antonine Emperors
Ancient sources provide very different pictures of Vespasian’s sons. The brief reign of Titus (ad 79-81) was extremely popular, while the Roman people only remembered his brother Domitian (ad 81-96) as a tyrant. Domitian conducted successful military campaigns in which he established a network of forts and palisades (defensive barriers) between the Rhine and Danube rivers. However, he distrusted the Senate and persecuted his opponents in a reign of terror. Historians describe the reign of Domitian as an age of spies, secret denunciations, and executions. Domitian himself was murdered in a palace conspiracy that included his wife Domitia.
In ad 96 the Senate proclaimed Nerva (ad 96–98), who had no children, as emperor. He adopted Trajan, the respected governor of Germany, as his successor and began a new imperial line known historically as the Antonines. During this time, Roman rulers did not rely on heredity to determine which family members would succeed them, but instead adopted successors. Generally these adopted emperors governed the empire far more effectively than their predecessors.
Trajan (98-117) was a distinguished soldier who became one of Rome’s most beloved monarchs. He was the first emperor born in the provinces and was of Spanish origin. He devoted much of his energy to aggressive wars that extended Roman rule across the Danube River to Dacia (present-day Romania) and into Mesopotamia. Conquering Dacia was important economically, since its rich gold mines accounted for much of Roman wealth in the 2nd century ad. Trajan’s other great campaign, an invasion of the east, was less successful. Although he conquered Arabia, Armenia and Parthia (now part of Iran and Afghanistan) on his way to the Persian Gulf, Trajan overextended himself, and the recently conquered Parthians rebelled and forced him to withdraw.
Trajan made other contributions that show his common sense, administrative skill, and genuine human compassion. He initiated an impressive building program throughout the empire. Both public monuments and private documents reflect Trajan’s concern for social welfare programs, like the distribution of food to poor children. In letters to his special agent Pliny the Younger, he discussed topics such as local finances and dissident Christians in a fair and open-minded way. Trajan was a man with few personal pretensions who treated senators as equals and earned the title of Optimus Princeps (Best of Emperors).
Trajan’s cousin and successor Hadrian (117-138) was a restless traveler whose passion for Greek culture and prickly aloofness greatly displeased the Senate. Despite these traits, he administered the empire well. Hadrian reformed the civil service, suppressed a Jewish revolt, and continued the construction of military highways that enabled troops to march quickly towards the walls or palisades marking the empire’s frontiers. The most famous of the emperor’s building projects, known as Hadrian’s Wall, stretched across 117 km (73 mi) of northern England.
Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius (138–161), had a peaceful reign, but the inactivity of the legions during this prolonged peace caused trouble for his successor as they were ill prepared for fighting. Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180), who followed his uncle Antoninus Pius to the imperial throne, was a humane and energetic leader, but war dominated his reign. He fought hard against the German tribes who crossed into the empire when a devastating plague weakened Rome’s western provinces. Marcus Aurelius was also a philosopher who followed the ethical principles of Stoicism, which taught that good is determined by the state of the soul. While Marcus Aurelius led Roman forces on the northern frontier, he wrote part of his famous work, Meditations, which included his Stoic reflections on the virtuous life. When he chose his successor, Marcus Aurelius relied on family ties and designated his son Commodus, known for his vicious behavior, as heir to the throne.
Historians have called the five emperors from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius the “good emperors,” and many feel their reigns represented the high point of the Roman Empire. However, during this same time millions of slaves were denied human rights, and women received no political ones. Plague killed one-third of the population of the western provinces, and the Romans executed Christians and drove the Jewish people from their homeland. Nonetheless, the emperors during this period were effective administrators who promoted prosperity, avoided civil war, respected senators, and supported intellectuals and the arts.
Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus (180-192) was a startling change for the Romans after the series of good emperors. The historian Dio Cassius wrote that Commodus, dressed as a gladiator in the arena, once killed an ostrich and held up its head to the senators “to show that he had the same fate in store for us.” Commodus liked to exhibit his strength and found the games more interesting than the business of empire. Commodus survived many attempts on his life, but eventually his wrestling partner strangled him. Soon after his death, the praetorian guard auctioned off the imperial throne to the highest bidder, and the outraged legions began the first civil war in more than a century.
The Peoples of the Empire
The Roman Empire was composed of many ethnic groups, who spoke dozens of languages. Celts, Italians, Berbers, Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks could all become citizens of the Roman Empire if the emperor chose to grant that status. The term Roman was not an ethnic description but a political one. Rome successfully assimilated many different groups and gradually extended Roman citizenship to conquered peoples. In ad 14 there were about 5 million citizens among the 50 million inhabitants of the empire, and that number grew continually through the 1st and 2nd centuries ad. Citizenship did not include the right to vote except at the local level, but people highly valued the legal and economic privileges of being a citizen.
The Romans insisted that “barbaric” peoples learn Latin before they became citizens, but they freely extended citizenship to Greeks, whom they considered civilized, although they knew no Latin. Three centuries earlier, Roman statesmen like Cato the Elder had scorned Greek culture, but the Roman elite during the empire spoke fluent Greek and directed their contempt toward other eastern peoples, like Jews and Syrians. Greek philosophers, Asian orators, African religious scholars, Syrian satirists, and Saint Paul himself all boasted Roman citizenship, although they all wrote in Greek. It is not easy to generalize about the Roman influence; it can best be seen in the effects of conquest on specific peoples.
Gaul
The warlike Celts spread from central Europe to northern Italy, Spain, Britain, and Ireland. Since they left no written documents, their history is recorded only by Greek and Roman writers and in archaeological remains. The Romans in the west absorbed the Celts so thoroughly that Celtic languages survive today only where Romanization failed: Ireland, Wales, the highlands of Scotland, and Brittany (or Britanny) in northwest France. The Romans called the Celts of northern Italy and France Gauls, and they became the most Romanized people of the provinces. In the 2nd century bc Rome moved across the Alps into southern Gaul; by 50 bc Julius Caesar completed the conquest of all Gaul, which included all of modern France. Roman roads and cities appeared everywhere, and southern Gaul was so strongly influenced by the Romans that its residents called it “The Province,” and it is today still known as Provence.
The Gauls intermingled with the Romans and adopted Roman traits so quickly that it is difficult to identify which Romans actually had Gallic blood. The poets Catullus and Virgil and the noted historian Livy all came from northern Italy and were possibly Gauls. Southern Gaul produced the historian Tacitus and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Gallic elite built many amphitheaters, theaters, and temples in the Roman style. Autun, a city of 80,000, boasted a theater that was the fourth largest in the Roman world and held over 30,000 people. The amphitheater at Nîmes still survives and is used as an arena for bullfights.
Conquest by Rome cost the Gauls their freedom and the wild, warlike spirit that once so terrified their enemies. The Gauls first served as auxiliary cavalry for the Roman army and later were made soldiers in the legions. Rebellions in ad 21 and ad 68 were short-lived, and Gaul continued to prosper. As Roman subjects, the Gauls welcomed the art, religion, and literary culture of Italy. They turned their efforts to agriculture, metalwork, and pottery, which decorated and enriched their cities. Imports of Gallic glass, pottery, and wine replaced local production in Italy and brought great wealth to some Gauls. These wealthy merchants and landholders lived in large villas, one of which had 200 rooms. Such villas became self-sufficient communities during the chaos that marked the last years of the empire. The Gauls became Romanized quickly and contributed their energy and spirit to Roman civilization rather than many specific Celtic traditions.
Spain
The North African city of Carthage had conquered the Celtic peoples of coastal Spain during the 3rd century bc. After Rome defeated the Carthaginian general Hannibal in 202 bc, it made Spain into two provinces. Almost two centuries later Augustus assembled seven legions in Spain to fight against rebels in the mountainous interior and in the Pyrenees. Augustus established new cities with Roman citizens (including retired veterans) and extended citizenship rights to existing cities. Banditry continued in the mountains, but the people of southern and eastern Spain were peaceful and highly urbanized during the two centuries after Augustus. All of Spain accepted the Latin language except the Basques, who lived in remote areas of the Pyrenees.
Peace also brought considerable prosperity to Spain, with its fertile agricultural lands and rich mines. One scholar estimates that 45 million quarts of Spanish olive oil reached Rome every year from ad 15 to ad 255. Spaniards went to Rome, where some served in the Senate or at the imperial court. There was also a Spanish intellectual circle, including the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial and Lucan. One emperor, Trajan, and possibly another, Hadrian, were born in Spain, although they both traced their ancestry to Italians colonists who had settled in the province.