Explanation: Augustus’s reign was filled to the brim with propaganda, which seeped through every aspect of the average Roman’s life — politics, literature, coinage, imagery, and, of course, religion. The temple of Janus in Rome had its gates open in times of war and closed in times of peace and, as you can imagine, Romans being a very contentious people, they were open for most of their civilization’s history. Well, Augustus made a big deal of closing the temple’s gates in 29 BC (only the third time it was done up to that point that we know of), which I’ve seen proposed as one of the conventional beginnings of the Pax Romana/Pax Augusta (Roman Peace/Peace of Augustus). The Pax would last until the end of Marcus Aurelius’s reign.
… Wait, does that mean that Rome was at peace for 200 years? Well, yes, but actually no. It wasn’t at peace even during Augustus’s reign, who had to close the damn gates two more times—in 25 BC and 13 BC, respectively. Can it be really considered a peaceful time if you keep interrupting it with war?
Of course, Augustus wanted the Pax to last, and he recognized that, for there to be peace, the empire needed stability and continuity, so he immediately set about finding a worthy heir. What could go wrong? Well, as it turns out, pretty much everything.
At first, he had high expectations for his sister’s son, Marcellus, who died in 23 BC, and his second-in-command and son-in-law, Marcus Agrippa, who died in 12 BC; he then fixed his priorities on Agrippa’s sons, Lucius and Gaius, who died in AD 2 and 4, respectively; he briefly considered Agrippa’s third son, Agrippa Postumus, but then promptly banished him in AD 7 (he was later assassinated in unknown circumstances); luckily, Augustus also had two stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius. The former died in 9 BC, and the latter would eventually become emperor by virtue of being the only survivor of Uncle Gus’s fetch quest.
Tiberius went on to become one of the most painfully milquetoast Roman emperors of them all (but that’s a talk for another day), and he would also survive his own sons, Germanicus and Drusus, who died earlier than anticipated in AD 19 and 23, respectively. Golly, so many deaths so early in the empire’s peaceful history! Some would say that the empire was doomed from the start, but not me! Roma Invicta!“The best part about peace is crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women!” - Romans, probably
We’ll get peace with the Parthians aaaaany day now!
I was surprised when you called Tiberius milquetoast. Then I realized I was thinking of Trajan.
Yeah, Tiberius is the guy who didn’t want to be emperor, fucked off to a remote island and let his BFF Sejanus run the empire for him (and fuck things up for centuries to come). Like, he was there. He was emperor, at some point. Nobody noticed, and there are countless other emperors who had a bigger (for better or for worse) impact on the principate. Christianity was born during his reign and he almost certainly didn’t even notice. But the empire was a bit more peaceful under him, and he didn’t squander the treasury like many other emperors, so he wasn’t the worse?
I can’t say he was a good emperor, because he really wasn’t. But I also can’t bring myself to hate him, and I do have some sympathy for how his life unfolded — mostly ignored by his father, eventually chosen for succession as a last resort after everyone else had already died, forced to terminate a happy marriage for political reasons, and lost every person dear to him, including his wife, his brother and his sons. He was, at some point, one of the most powerful and influential individuals of his lifetime, but he had no control over his own life.
