The Twelve Caesars by Matthew Dennison Read Free Book Online

to weaving, carefully displayed for public consumption. His greatest monument, the Ara Pacis Augustae,
dedicated in 13 BC and celebrating that settlement he imposed empire-wide, is decorated with friezes carved with images of his extended family. They preserve in marble the dramatis personae of the Augustan spectacular.
    In the drama of his life, the comic impulse was balanced by something darker (intimations of tragedy); offenders included his daughter and his granddaughter, both Julias. For his part Augustus
donned the mantle of epic heroism crafted in his service by unrivalled poets, patrons and scribblers united in their vision of a new Golden Age. His own happy ending, which bestowed on Rome and her
empire the singular gloryof the pax Augusta , was seldom rivalled in the reigns of his successors, though the strength of that peace was such that it survived through
generations. In Augustus’ life, statecraft and stagecraft combined. Even the decoration of his houses included an element of theatrical fantasy. In preference to costly paintings or statues,
rooms were full of ‘the monstrous bones of huge sea monsters and wild beasts, called “the bones of the giants” and the “weapons of the heroes”’, a topsy-turvy
visual idiom which challenged distinctions between appearance and reality and created an environment of super-scaled make-believe in which Augustus reigned supreme as a mythic conqueror at home
with heroes and giants. The creation of the principate was a magnificent piece of improvisation. As with any theatre, it depended for its success on a suspension of disbelief among its audience,
the challenge not only for Augustus but for each of his successors.
    Augustus’ story reverses the pattern that will emerge in the course of our survey. For the record of those Caesars who follow him is one of decline over the passage of time; reigns which,
joyful at the outset, end in personal disillusionment, the evaporation of early hopefulness succeeded by bloodshed, brutality and the unthinking pursuit of self (Vespasian and Titus are
exceptions). Augustus, by contrast, who first contemplated world domination in his teens, embarked on that unthinkable course with a ruthless single-mindedness which made few concessions to finer
scruples; benevolence came later. This giant of world history is described by Suetonius prior to his emergence as princeps as having ‘incurred general detestation by many of his
acts’. If we believe Suetonius’ account, that loathing is well founded. One day the praetor Quintus Gallius approached Augustus with folded tablets concealed among his clothes.
Augustus’ suspicions immediately descried a hidden sword.Gallius was removed from the gathering and tortured: of course no confession of intended wrongdoing emerged.
Still Augustus ordered his execution. For good measure, first he ‘[tore] out the man’s eyes with his own hand’. It is a vigorous contradiction of the author’s subsequent
assertion that ‘the evidences of his clemency and moderation are numerous and strong’. We will discover that clemency is the luxury of the autocrat, a benignity available to those whose
position of superiority is unassailable. At the end of his life, Augustus was able to bequeath just such a position to his heirs. Behind that legacy lay a scramble for supremacy which concealed
ugly and discreditable truths. There were good reasons why the future emperor Claudius was persuaded to exclude from his history of Rome an account of Augustus’ rise to power. Unlike those of
Julius Caesar, Augustus’ illegalities never seriously threatened to find him out. Among his manifold achievements that were denied Julius was longevity: he survived long enough to outlive the
memory span of many of his contemporaries.
    Suetonius endows Augustus with a supernatural endorsement of unparalleled richness, beginning with the ‘warning that nature was pregnant with a king for the Roman people’ which