Tiberius (23 page)

It was great fun. I assure you, Tiberius, I saw one of the poor fools touch his nose, as if feeling the ring they were leading him by.

If Drusus has a fault it is the reflection of his noble and generous nature. That's why I insisted that the ringleaders should be dealt with in summary fashion as soon as the bulk of the men had returned to their senses, for it would only have required a fresh puff of wind to drive them mad again. He hesitated, fearing that punishment of their delinquent leaders would dismay the men. But I knew better. I knew it would please them, and at the same time frighten them. So, without telling Drusus and disturbing his conscience, I sent a contingent of guards to arrest Percennius and Vibulenius, and had them executed. Their bodies were put on show and the effect was remarkable. Some of the other chief men in the mutiny tried to run away, and were easily picked up by my guardsmen. Others were actually surrendered voluntarily by their units, who were only too anxious to disassociate themselves from these wretches.

It is astonishing how a combination of sympathy and terror can undermine even the most formidable-seeming of movements.

Drusus was at first not entirely content with my decisive action, but he was pleasingly appreciative when he saw how effective it had been.

The news from Germany is distressing. I am sure you can trust your nephew, but I receive reports which make me uncertain about some of his methods.

I trust you are taking care of yourself. The health of Rome and the empire depends on the preservation of yours. I pray that you are not suffering from migraines, when your devoted servant is not there to ease them away.

The news from Germany was indeed worrying. The mutiny took a different form there, for some of the men clamoured for Germanicus to lead them. If he wanted the throne, they said, then they would back him. This was more rebellion than mutiny. Germanicus was tempted. He admitted that later. A report from a young knight, Marcus Friso, whom I had attached to his staff, convinced me of this. But either his loyalty held, or he deemed the risk too great and lacked the nerve to play the part of Caesar or Sulla. At any rate, he behaved as if they had insulted him, shouting that death was better than disloyalty. Friso reported that:

He pulled his sword from his belt and pointed it at his own throat. "You will force me to kill myself if you press these demands," he cried. Not everyone was convinced that he meant it. One private soldier named Calusidius called his bluff, for he drew his own sword and offered it to the general remarking that it was a good deal sharper. I can tell you Germanicus turned pale at the offer, and what would have happened next must be uncertain, if some of his friends hadn't managed to hurry him away. It was not an edifying scene.

Naturally Friso's report disturbed me. I couldn't but reflect how ashamed my dear brother Drusus would have been of his son's theatrical display.

And the next day Germanicus made another absurd speech in which he proclaimed:

"When you pulled away the sword I was preparing to thrust into my heart" (it had actually, according to reports, been aimed at his neck, where more soldiers could see it) "your friendly care for me was unwelcome. A better, truer friend was the man who offered me his own sword, for I should then have died with my conscience free of the crimes my own soldiers have committed and are contemplating."

Then he called on the gods, and invoked the memory of Augustus and his own father Drusus and, in Friso's words, " . . . spouted windy rhetoric about washing clean the stain of criminal disloyalty
...
I tell you it again made me ashamed to listen to him . . ."

And yet he had already by chance delivered the master stroke which brought the soldiers to their senses. Some of those who were present have told me he did it through timidity, others have praised his policy. In such matters there is seldom unanimity of opinion, for no man knows the secret impulses which determine men's actions. He himself ascribed it (naturally) in his letter to me as policy. Perhaps it was. By his account then:

It had become apparent to me that my wife, my dear Agrippina, though she has the heart of a lioness, was not safe in the camp, and neither were my beloved children. So I determined to send them away under heavily armed escort. Agrippina was loth to go. As you know, her courage is matchless. She reminded me that she was the grand-daughter of the divine Augustus and the daughter of the great Agrippa, and would be worthy of her blood, whatever the danger. But I could not permit her to stay, in her condition (she is with child again, you will be delighted to hear) and with our youngest son, little Gaius, in attendance. So I insisted.

Then a miracle occurred. A miracle — I say without boasting — which I had foreseen. As soon as I had convinced my wife that she must depart, she burst out into tears of lamentation which rang through the camp, as the wails of Andromache, crouching over the murdered body of her lord, Hector, echoed over the plains of windy Troy. Why did she weep? I answered that she wept because I could no longer trust her or our son, little Gaius, born in the camp and the soldiers' darling. (They call him Caligula - little boots - you know - isn't it charming?) I could no longer trust them, I repeated, to the care and protection of Roman soldiers, but must send them forth, to our allies, the Treviri.

This, as I had guessed it would, broke the men's hearts. "Will Caligula go?" they cried. "Can we not be trusted to care for our little darling?"

"No," I said, "you cannot. Not while you act as ravening wolves rather than Roman soldiers." I held my ground. I did not know I had such words in me . . .

So judgment or fortune favoured him. The men submitted. Then followed an extraordinary scene. They themselves arrested the leading rebels and punished them in their own ferocious manner. The men, with drawn swords, s
tood in a circle. The prisoners
were paraded in turn on a platform. If the soldiers shouted guilty, their victim was thrown to them and butchered on the spot. The men revelled in the massacre; it seemed, Friso said,
"...
as if it purged them of their former guilt. Germanicus meanwhile did nothing. My opinion is that he judged that when the men grew ashamed of this latest manifestation of their own savagery, he would escape blame, though he benefited from it."

There was much that was disquieting in these accounts. Germanicus had triumphed. The result was good. But the manner of its achievement did not inspire me with confidence in my nephew and, by Augustus' will, prospective heir. Certainly his histrionic behaviour contrasted unfavourably with the calm good sense and resolution displayed by Drusus and, of course, Sejanus.

I had myself to endure much criticism for remaining in Rome while these troubles were afoot. Two half-grown boys, men muttered, could not control these mutinous soldiers. I should have gone myself to confront them with the imperial dignity. Or I should have despatched an experienced marshal. I was aware of what was said, saw no cause to answer my critics. If they could not see that I might inspire more awe at a distance, while I could also without deceit revoke any unwise concessions the young generals granted, as soon as it was safe to do so, well, I could not be blamed for my critics' lack of perception. As for the suggestion that I should have sent an experienced marshal, it wasn't for me to point out the danger of such a course. Not on your life. But I had read Roman history if my critics hadn't, and I wasn't prepared to set up a new disturber of the peace, a new Caesar or Antony, backed by an army which he had bribed to return to order by lavish promises of future rewards and favours. I had learned from Augustus to distrust generals who had contrived to extract personal oaths of loyalty, and I saw only too well the danger that such men might offer to the state. Our equilibrium was precarious. I wasn't going to disturb it by offering the opportunity for new dynasts to emerge.

And my strategy worked. The mutinies were suppressed. The frontier was secure again. All the same, I couldn't escape the awareness that Germanicus himself, for all his protestations of loyalty, would have to be watched. There was a rashness, an intemperance about his behaviour which I could not approve.

I remembered Sulla's prescient comment when he was persuaded to allow the young Julius Caesar to escape his proscription and so escape the fate of the other followers and connections of Gaius Marius: "In that young man there are many Mariuses . . ."

Yes, Germanicus would have to be watched. Fortunately, I had young Friso to hand; and Sejanus in reserve.

3

I
was in my middle fifties when the burden of empire was laid upon me. Naturally I looked for assistance; to my regret I failed to find it. Nobody who has not been responsible for the administration of such a vast and unwieldy body as the Roman Empire can imagine the demands it makes. Augustus had frequently complained of his labours; but, unlike me, he had sought his position. He was a man who would have been lost without power. I am different and not a day passed when I did not groan at my responsibilities, when I did not look back with nostalgia to the years of my retirement on Rhodes and forward with longing to the day when I could relinquish the reins and be myself again.

The hope was vain. I knew that from the start. I had accepted a commission which I could not lay down.

Livia did not understand my repugnance. She assailed me with suggestions and advice, warnings and encouragement. I grew to dread the sound of her voice, the announcement of her arrival, the summons to her house.

I felt myself alone. A few weeks after Augustus' death, while I was still wrestling with the consequences of my inheritance, Julia died on the island of Pandateria to which her father had consigned her. We had had no communication for years; what could we have said to each other? Could I have apologised for the destruction of her life which had not been my work? Could she have brought herself to ask my forgiveness? Nevertheless
1
ordered that her ashes be brought back to her father's mausoleum. I owed her that, but I made certain that they would be consigned there secretly and without ceremony.

Hoping to please me, the G
overnor of North Africa, Lucius
Nonias Asprenas, arranged for the execution of Julia's lover, Sempronius Gracchus, who had spent fourteen years imprisoned on the African island of Cercina. He thought to please me by this action, but the only pleasure I derived was in the news that Gracchus had died in a manner more worthy of his ancestors than he had lived.

These two deaths drew a line under the past.

Yet the past would not let go. Germanicus had resumed war with the Germans. I approved this for two reasons: it was necessary to strengthen the Rhine frontier, and it would be good for the lately mutinous legions to be engaged in real soldiering. Moreover, there was a case for reminding the Germans of the power of Rome, for they were still flushed by their triumph over Varus six years previously.

Germanicus therefore advanced deep into the forests and, driving the divided enemy before him, approached the Teutoberg Wood where Varus had been destroyed. They came to the defeated general's first camp, and then to a half-ruined breastwork where the remnants of the legions had fought. The day was wet and windy, as it had been then. Around them the desolate marshes mocked the ambition of mortals. Beyond a shallow ditch were whitening bones, ghastly in the failing light, which showed where Romans had fallen; there were little heaps where scattered troops had come together and made a last stand. Fragments of spears, abandoned armour, and horses' limbs lay about, and there were skulls fastened to tree-trunks by the barbarians. They even found the altars at which Roman officers had been slaughtered in a parody of religious ceremonies.

My nephew gave orders that the bones should be interred, an order which I subsequently and naturally approved. He cut the first turf himself, even though, as a member of the ancient priesthood of Augurs, he should not have handled objects belonging to the dead, as he did. Nevertheless I approved this also; it showed a proper reverence. I was less pleased to be informed by Friso that Germanicus had not only lamented the long years in which the bodies had lain unburied, but had added that the failure to make the attempt to penetrate the forests to accord them decent burial was, as he put it, "shameful". He had little idea of course of the extent of the disaster and of the difficulties I had experienced in trying to restore a modicum of stability on the Rhine frontier, or of the impossibility, in the circumstances of the time, of doing what he thought ought to have been done.

Some of those who heard his words were shocked to realise the limits of his understanding, and disapproved his implied criticism of my own conduct, which, for my part, I attributed to his youth rather than to any more sinister cause.

His ambitions were, however, worrying. He believed that it was desirable that we should bring all the Germans residing to the west of the Elbe within the empire. I could understand the attraction of the proposal, for I had felt it myself, years ago. Both Augustus and I had become convinced of its impracticality. We feared too that the conditions were such that any commander might experience the same fate as Varus, a fate which Germanicus himself only narrowly escaped the following year.