Tiberius (5 page)

Any common Roman legionary would gladly die to keep his standard safe. There was no question about it. If a standard bearer fell, the nearest man must seize the eagle and carry on. That meant he could no longer fight well enough to protect himself, in the hand-to-hand combat that was common in that sort of war. That meant death. But no one faltered.

If troops ever allowed their standards to be taken, or retreated leaving their standards on the ground, they were hopeless outcasts forever. There were very few such troops. In fact, so deep was the devotion of the soldiers to the bronze images that a favorite tactic of some officers, when things looked worst, was to fling the standard into the heart of the enemy. They knew that their tired and wavering troops would get the standards back or die.

What made Tiberius' mission .important was that those Roman standards in Parthia had been lost for thirty years. He carried the mission off successfully, but it was a little disappointing. The Parthians didn't resist. They offered a bargain; there was a Parthian named Tiridates who had tried to organize a revolt against the Parthian king," failed, and fled to Rome. The standards for the traitor. Tiberius glumly made the deal (he was probably not as glum as Tiridates, at that). He sent the long-lost standards back to Rome and was applauded, but he was cheated of a triumph.

For his triumph he had to look elsewhere, and he turned to the barbarian frontiers to the north.

North of Rome lay the trackless European forests of the Gauls, the Germans, the Pannonians and the other hairy illiterates who fought for pleasure, built no cities to be taken, lived chaste lives with a single wife, and countered the superb disciplined and sophisticated tactics of the Roman legions with a fierce talent for ambushes. Rome had bitten many a piece out of Europe already. Yet reputations could still be made, fighting against the savages; it was the right place for Tiberius.

In 12
B.C.
Tiberius asked for and got the job of pacifying Pannonia.

This is country close to Italy, lying along the eastern Adriatic sea. Modern Jugoslavia is part of it. The fact that it was still wild while far Spain and the countries along the southern rim of the Mediterranean were long since conquered is a good indication of the fighting abilities of the Pannonians. A war against those barbarians was like a war against smoke. There was nothing to strike against; but out of the smoke came arrows and yelling warriors when you least expected them.

To beat the P
annonians a general had to be cautious and bold, flexible and sure. Tiberius was all these things. He was careful of ambushes; he was daring in pursuit of a fleeing foe; he held back his men until the time was right, and then he struck hard. He was a very good general. He was even liked, for once in his life. His fellow officers joked with him; they called him Biberius Caldius Mero (instead of Tiberius Claudius Nero), which in Latin means something like: "Drinker of wine with no water added." It seems to have been a friendly joke, die kind of man-to-man joke one might hear in an officers' mess. Tiberius was one Roman general who took some thought for the soldiers who were wounded. Heaven knows what poisonous messes the physicans prescribed, but at least Tiberius tried to have physicians present, and Utters and carriages for the casualties, too.

For himself, Tiberius in the field was almost Spartan. He would not use a litter but traveled on horseback; he would not carry couches and divans with him, and ate sitting up. Romans hated to eat sitting
up. It was crude and it wasn't
comfortable.

Tiberius was a model general, and he fought like a Robert E. Lee. He found the enemy and destroyed them. He ended the revolt. He brought captives home to Rome, and he was awarded that dearest of wishes, a triumph.

No more riding the trace-horses for another's glory! Now the triumph was all for Tiberius, the cheering crowds and the processions, the games and the festivals! He had earned them all fairly.

Tiberius had nearly everything he could want, including happi
ness; but now he began to lose hi
s dearest possessions, one by one.

First there was his brother, Drusus the Elder.

Drusus was four years younger than Tiberius, but the boys had been very close; as men, they shared a strong brotherly love. Drusus was also well married and also a general. Both young men were doing great things on the frontiers.

The arena for Drusus was Germany. What Tiberius had faced in Pannonia, his brother faced in Germany. If anything, Drusus had the harder job, for there was more of it. To the Romans, "German" included nearly all of Europe north of the Alps. It was not possible for armies to occupy all that vast area, not even Roman armies. The problem was to know where to stop. There weren't any cities to take. There were not even villages of any size worth mentioning. The barbarians built their homes where they chose; it was rare for one house to be within eyeshot of another. Egypt had fallen when Alexandria was taken; there was nothing to take m Germany. The Germans would be defeated only when the bulk of their fighting men were dead.

As a starter, Drusus looked for a river to serve as a frontier, found it in the Elbe, and pushed his troops toward it, killing as many Germans as possible in the process.

He succeeded, but he paid with his own life.

No barbarian killed Drusus. He fell from his horse.

It was a minor accident, but Drusus hurt himself internally and he died of it. The Romans knew nothing of stopping internal bleeding and had only the dimmest appreciation of what the various organs were for. Drusus had what care was available in those times, but it did not good. He lingered on for a while and died.

The news reached Tiberius in the field. He dropped his campaign and rode day and night through the forests to Germany. It was four hundred miles, and he rode it in four days, reaching Drusus just in time to see him die.

All that Tiberius could do for his younger brother was to bring his body home to Rome.

Tiberius walked in front of the coffin all the long way. If he had always seemed dour, now he was tragic. What love Tiberius was capable of he had given to two people, his brother and his wife. Now he had lost one of them.

And when he returned to Rome he lost the other.

The history of the Roman emperors is full of repetitions, events that echo other events decades past.

Tiberius had seen his own mother, pregnant with Drusus, snatched away from her husband because Augustus willed it.

Now Augustus willed th
at Tiberius lose Vipsania Agrip
pina. Vipsania was also pregnant again.

But the will of Augustus was the law of Rome. Agrippa was dead. Julia was widowed. The year of mourning had passed, and now Julia needed a husband to quiet her passionate nature.

Tiberius was elected.

It was essential to the plans of Augustus for his succession that Julia find a suitable husband. Tiberius was not the kind of man Augustus would choose as a successor, but he would do to raise one. Agrippa had been decent enough to leave half-a-dozen children when he died, three of them boys. They were young. But time would correct that. And if Augustus died before they were of ripe age, Tiberius could care for them and preserve them for the throne.

So Augustus hoped. It was not a very good hope, but it was the best he had. Agrippa had been his first choice to succeed, and he died; Drusus had been his second choice, and he died; there was no third choice except the baby grandsons. Augustus had to work with what he had.

Then, Julia may have had something to do with the choice of Tiberius.

Roman gossip said that even while she was Tiberius' step-mother-in-law, she nursed an incestuous passion for Tiberius. It sounds reasonable. Roman gossip, largely borne' out by history, said that she nursed some sort of passion for almost everyone else. Why should Tiberius be an exception?

VI

Julia was a child of light, but in the first year or two of marriage she tried to be a good wife to Tiberius. He was a stick. But he was a young stick, and therefore a considerable improvement over the previous incumbent. She even went with him to subdue the Dalmatians, who were acting up again. She lived with him in the field, in the great scarlet tents proper to a Roman general's wife. She bore him a child, a little boy who died.

Even in scarlet tents, with slaves and entertainers, the Dalmatian coast was nothing like Rome. Julia liked to laugh, she liked to be free. She was twenty-seven years old when her father married her to Tiberius. She was twice a widow and she had borne five childr
en, but she wasn't ready to settl
e down. Not a bit.

Julia was a pretty and cultured woman, and in the very high Roman circles into which she was born a woman could assert her independence, within reason. Julia had a great deal of independence. She liked to wear fine immodest silks instead of proper homespun—shocking stuff, the silk, it clung to the figure. Julia was not ashamed of her figure. She liked to mingle with bright young people, even bright older people like the poet Ovid. She dined with companies of men, which was a scandal; a Roman dinner party was for men only; women were present, but only as servants, dancers, and the like. Julia didn't care.

Perhaps Marcellus could have handled her, for they were very much alike. But Marcellus was dead. Agrippa handled her well enough too, in a way; with that enviable talent of his for staying out of die way, he managed to close his eyes to what his wife was doing. The five children she bore him all resembled him, and that was a subject for racy jest at Julia's cheerful parties. She joked back at her guests: "I never take passengers on board until the cargo is in my hold." In
her circle of lightheads and gay blades her jest was widely quoted. Perhaps even Agrippa appreciated it. At any rate, he didn't divorce her, as he easily could have; and married to him, Julia was more or less happy. But Agrippa died too.

When Julia married Tiberius she must have thought that her happiness was assured. He was young and good-looking; maybe she would have another playmate like Marcellus. At worst, as Tiberius was somewhat solemn and somewhat slow, she could turn him into an indulgent wedded father like Agrippa. A year on the Dalmatian coast showed her the error of her ways; and then they returned to Rome and she discovered her mother-in-law.

Livia was the leading woman in Rome. As Julia's stepmother she had been no particular problem, but as a mother-in-law she suddenly became a partisan in the enemy camp. Tiberius and his new bride did not get along. Livia took her son's part.

Empires tremble when women quarrel, especially when the women are the Emperor's loved wife and the Emperor's loved daughter. As with Marcellus and Agrippa, the conflict was between two persons neither of whom could lose. They were too powerful. They were utterly secure. Livia was Augustus' co-regent—the Senate had even voted to change her name to "Augusta" to mark the fact that she shared his rule. Augustus leaned on her for advice, needed her to run his palace, loved her for her beauty and her wisdom. She surely was wise— not only in the business of running an Empire, but in handling a husband. She explained to a friend how she kept Augustus' love: "By being scrupulously chaste, cheerfully doing what my husband wishes, never meddling with his affairs, and pretending to know nothing about his women." And Julia was quite as secure. She was loved deeply by Augustus, as she was loved by half the men in Rome—because she was meant to be loved.

Around the women conflicting parties formed. Livia, with Tiberius and the Romans of good old family and position, took the side of decency, order, tradition. Julia's circle was the young, hard-living set. The Emperor was somewhere in between. When Livia was with him he could thunder against immorality, pass laws against adultery, forbid the waste of money on foolish frills. When Julia was with him he could see nothing but Julia.

Tiberius seethed, suffered, and went out to fight wars. He was a good general, though a plodder, and he usually won, but even more important, this kept him from tangling with Julia. That suited Julia very well. -

It was all fun to Julia. She would have got along very well with Mark Antony. Too bad that the Inimitable Liver died before her time. A change in
husbands
made no change-in Julia's ways. She flirted and flighted on a grander scale than before.
Tiberius
mourned.

Once, in Rome between battl
es, he happened to meet Vipsania at the home of a friend.

She was lost to him forever—Augustus could not have her left available, so he arranged her remarriage immediately to Asinius Gallus, a fine Senator—but Tiberius fell dumb when he saw her. His awkward, hesitant speech dried up entirely. It was embarrassing to everyone; Vipsania left, as gracefully as she could, but Tiberius followed her through die streets, weeping.

The Emperor heard about it, and frowned. He disliked the scandal. No one had dared tell him, quite, about the scandals of his own daughter. He knew
she was light-hearted, but he
didn't know that she was seen carousing drunkenly through the streets late at night. The Emperor called in Tiberius and laid down the law: As he couldn't control himself, he was never to see Vipsania again.

Of course, Tiberius could have ended his troubles at any time, if he chose. There was a remedy in law close at hand.

With Livia behind him, Augustus himself had put forth a law to control adultery. It was not his only attempt to reform Roman morals—he had legislated against extravagant dress and other wastes—but this law had more teeth in it than the others.

The la
w was called "the Julian Law on a
dultery"—named after Julia herself, joked the scurrilous gossips. But it wasn't. It was named after the family of Augustus, the Julian family. It provided severe penalties for unchaste wives, and even for their lovers. It proclaimed the responsibility of the husband to denounce his erring wife to the courts; and if the husband failed to do so within sixty days, it became the duty of the adulteress's father. If the father likewise failed, any Roman could bring the miscreant to justice.

How Tiberius must have hoped that some Roman would!

The law was there. Why didn't someone use it? But no one did, for the same reasons that bound Tiberius. Julia was the daughter of one Emperor, and it was all but certain that she would be the mother of the next. The law could be used to crush her, but the man who wielded it would earn the sure hatred of the mightiest men in Rome.

Tiberius' best escape was war. He went to Germany, and in a long, bloody campaign finished the work his brother had started. But victory brought him only glory. He was still young enough.—and he was still human enough—to want happiness. But that was gone. Tiberius reached majesty before he died, but the golden years of simple, human pleasures were already behind him.

If war gave Tiberius a job to take his mind off his troubles, it gave Julia something too. It gave her more freedom than before.

Not privacy; she could never have that, for it did not exist in Rome. All of Rome's intrigues and adulteries were carried on in a noonday brightness of publicity, always. Every Roman home of the upper class was crammed with people. One cannot own a thousand slaves and ever get very far from slave eyes and ears. Besides the slaves, there were the "clients"— the hangers-on, the moochers and leeches; the legacy-hunters and the frank beggars for bread. The more high-ranking the household, the greater its size. Every slave and client had a mourh. Fear made slaves careful, but nothing could keep them quiet.

So Julia frolicked, and Rome buzzed with talk.

It was a galling life for a proud, sullen man. Tiberius resented it. Even more he resented the fact that he was helpless to end it.

And he seemed to be losing what favor he had in the eyes of Augustus. Julia did that to him too; once Tiberius had showed her that he would not be as blind as Agrippa, would not pretend to a happy home, Julia began to make it her policy to ruin die man she had married. It wasn't hard. Augustus had a
lways found Tiberius hard to lea
ve. The old Emperor admitted that Tiberius was a great general, but he didn't like him. He acknowledged that Tiberius gave good advice and counsel, but found him a crashing bore. "Mud, kneaded with blood." The man had no presence and no popularity with the crowds.

Tiberius was not shunned entirely; in fact, he received many honors. He earned them. He was made a tribune, one of the highest offices in Rome, and given die office not for the customary one year but for an almost unheard-of five. More glory; it was not what Tiberius wanted. And, as it was all at the pleasure of Augustus, Tiberius knew that it could all be taken away.

With a thoroughly unfaithful wife, a cooling stepfather, and stepsons who might soon have power of life and death over him, Tiberius became more moody and more queer. He kept to himself when in Rome; he stayed out of Rome as much as he could; he was trying to find a way out.

It occurred to Tiberius that there was one move he might make.

Suppose he left Rome. Suppose he took himself far enough from Julia that she would have no fear at
all of what he might say or do.
Suppose he gave up his armies and stayed away from the Emperor's councils. Wouldn't that have a good effect? Surely Julia would go too far, so far that Augustus would have to a
ct and punish her. And surely th
e Emperor would miss him.

It was a perfectly reasonable plan, but what was wrong with it was Augustus. In the year 6
B.C.
Tiberius abruptly pulled up stakes and sailed for die island of Rhodes. He left all his problems behind him. He left Julia to do as she liked—knowi
ng perfectl
y well what that would be. He left his mother Livia, who was aware of his problems but powerless to help; and he left the Emperor—who was unaware, and furious.

What was the lout trying to do? Steal out of Rome like a fugitive, turn his back on Rome's problems, take away Rome's best military leader? Augustus fumed, raged, cooled off, and made his decision. Very well, let him go; but he could never come back.