Ruthlessness and Ruin

The most powerful man in the world used his family and friends ruthlessly, decade after decade, in schemes to secure his political dynasty.

Augustus, who famously said, “Let them hate, as long as they fear,” permanently exiled his daughter for sexual transgressions. He forced his stepson to divorce a woman he loved and marry a woman he loathed. He may even have inadvertently turned his wife into a serial poisoner.

“Over the years, the princeps had allowed his household to be corrupted into a court where a family’s ordinary loves and tiffs gradually mutated into a political struggle,” wrote Anthony Everitt. “Maybe this was an inevitable development, but it was Augustus who set the inhumane tone. His insensitivity to the feelings of others (one thinks of Tiberius’ thwarted love for Vipsania), his treatment of his relatives as pawns, created a deadly environment. It would not be surprising if, in time, blood relations came to bloody conclusions.”

The irony is that all Augustus’ political scheming, for which he paid everything, came to nothing. The lesson is that ruthlessness in the name of power finally consumes everything of value that the power was supposed to protect. To exercise power without humanity is to erect an imposing palace on quicksand.

Source: “Augustus” by Anthony Everitt

Augustus and the Eels

Even the emperor Augustus had limits to how much cruelty he would put up with.

Yes, the emperor Augustus was a ruthless bastard, but he wasn’t the worst of the Roman lot.

“Vedius had tanks where he kept giant eels that had been trained to devour men, and he was in the habit of throwing to them slaves that had incurred his displeasure,” wrote biographer Anthony Everitt.

“Once, when he was entertaining Augustus at dinner, a waiter broke a valuable crystal goblet. Paying no attention to his guest, the infuriated Vedius ordered the slave to be thrown to the eels. The boy fell to his knees in front of the princeps, begging for protection. Augustus tried to persuade Vedius to change his mind. When Vedius paid no attention, he said: ‘Bring all you other drinking vessels like this one, or any others of value that you possess for me to use.’

“When they were brought, he ordered them all to be smashed. Vedius could not punish a servant for an offense Augustus had repeated, and the waiter was pardoned.”

The moral: Contrary to the Republican mythology, it’s not the poor but the rich and the powerful who develop a sense of entitlement, and its potential enormity apparently has no limits.

Source: “Augustus” by Anthony Everitt

Fortune and Misfortune

Bronze statue from the first century B.C.

In 43 B.C., a Roman teenager named Atilius was newly rich, having just come of age and inherited a fortune from his late father.

He and his friends were celebrating, making sacrifices in temples near the Forum, when he saw his name on the white boards there, and went white himself.

In the shifting civil unrest that prevailed since the assassination of Julius Caesar, former foes Mark Antony and Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) had met under truce on a small river island to pool their power.

They and Antony’s friend Lepidus had formed the Second Triumvirate, essentially a shared five-year dictatorship. They needed to raise money for armies to oppose the forces of Caesar’s assassins, but how?

The answer was proscription — declaring on white boards in the Forum the names of those citizens who were to be killed, with their lands and fortunes seized. The three of them haggled to create a list of political and personal enemies they wanted to see liquidated. Anyone who informed on one of the proscribed persons or helped to kill him got a cut of the loot.

The young Atilius’ only crime was having a fortune worth stealing. His friends and slaves immediately deserted him, and he went to his mother, who was too frightened to hide him and turned him away.

Alone, Atilius fled to the mountains. But the rich boy was eventually forced by hunger to return to the road, where a highwayman kidnapped and enslaved him. In chains, he managed to escape to a main road where he identified himself to passing centurions. Unwisely, as it turned out.

They killed Atilius and probably cut off his head. After all, why drag a whole body back to Rome for the reward when all you need is the head?

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love,” wrote Marcus Aurelius, the stoic philosopher who was also a Roman emperor. “Do every act of your life as if it were your last.”

The idea of taking nothing whatsoever for granted may seem unduly harsh to us now, but the Romans had their reasons.

Sources: “Augustus” by Anthony Everitt; “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius

Augustus and the Ravens

I could hardly resist a couple of anecdotes about Augustus Caesar’s two ravens, could I? Both trickster tales, synchronistically enough.

“Among those who welcomed Augustus on his return in state from his victory against Antony at Actium was a man with a raven that he had taught to say: ‘Greetings to Caesar, our victorious commander.’ Augustus was charmed by this compliment and gave the man twenty thousand sesterces for the bird. But the bird's trainer had a partner, and, when none of this large sum of money had come his way, he told Augustus that the man had another raven and suggested that he should be made to produce it as well. The bird was produced and repeated the words which it had been taught to say: they were: ‘Greetings to Antony, our victorious commander.’

“Augustus, instead of being angry, was amused. He just told the first man to share the money with his mate.

“These events encouraged a poor cobbler to try to train a raven to repeat a like form of greeting, but the bird remained dumb, and the man, who was ruined by the cost incurred, often said to it: ‘Nothing to show for the trouble and expense.’

“One day, however, the raven began to repeat its lesson, and Augustus heard the greeting as he passed. ‘I get enough of such greetings at home,’ Augustus replied. But the bird also recalled the words of his master's customary lament and added: ‘Nothing to show for the trouble and expense.’ This made Augustus roar with laughter, and he ordered the bird to be bought, giving more for it than he had given for any of the others.”

Augustus

You just have to cut some slack for a dictator who had a sense of humor. Here’s another example of it: “A man who had been struck by a stone when on active service and had a noticeable and unsightly scar on his forehead was bragging loudly of his exploits and earned this bit of wit from Augustus: ‘Never look round when you are running away.’” 

But Augustus’ interactions with the family Corvidae weren’t all amusing. In fact, he must have found one of them particularly ominous — and omen-ish.

When Augustus’ best friend and military right arm, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, died unexpectedly in 12 BC, the blow was both personal and national — a fact that seemed to be underlined when the Palatine hut said to have belonged to Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, burned down.

It had been set afire by crows, the messengers out of myth, which had apparently dropped burning bits of meat snatched from some sacrificial altar.
Source: “Augustus” by Anthony Everitt