Tiberius (9 page)

The legions went mad with agreement. Gray-haired ancients, tottering toward the discharge bonus that ever receded before their eyes, wept and applauded. The flogged showed their scars, the bankrupt wrapped their rags around them. Why, sure, the man was right: now was the hour to press their demands, before Tiberius became fat and safe on his throne.

The troops were mutinous. Some of them tom-catted out of the camps and terrified the surrounding peaceful countrymen with beatings and thefts; they staggered back to camp carrying their loot, and the general ordered them arrested. Arrest them? Arrest the heroes of the common soldier? It was a shame, cried one of them—a man named Vibulenus; he was lifted on the shoulders of his fellows in front of the general and sobbed out his charges:

"Who restores to my brother his life? Who gives my brother back to me? The gladiators you keep in your slave-pen, General, they butchered him! Where have you hidden his body, General?"

The mob rocked with sympathy. "Kill me," cried
Vibu
lenus, "let me cry out my g
rief and then kill me—but when
you have had me murdered, let my good comrades here bury me, for I give my life for the good of the legions." He wept, he slapped his face in uncontrollable grief, he threw himself to the ground, squalling like a child. Oh, the poor man was daft with his troubles; and the sympathies of his comrades were excited beyond control. It was true, the general did have gladiators among his slaves; well, catch them and chain them! The soldiers did. And the poor murdered brother—let his corpse be found and given the honor of
a
soldier's burial! Troops hurried to find it.

But the body couldn't be found. In fact, there hadn't been any murder. In fact, as was discovered later, Vibulenus never had a brother and the whole story was a pack of lies; but
a
mere factual correction has never been known to stop
a
good riot, and before they were through, the rioting troops had called a centurion, robbed the baggage of the officers of the legion and very nearly declar
ed w
ar between two of the legions.

It was time for Tiberius to act.

He sent his son, the thick-witted Drusus Junior. It was a smart move, because the legions would appreciate the respect paid them by sending an emperor's son, yet the boy was young enough (and stupid enough) so that there would be no need for him to make decisions on the spot. He could always say that he needed to ask his father's permission. Just to make sure Junior didn't get into trouble, Tiberius sent along his commander of the Pretorian Guard, Sejanus. It was a fortunate decision. The legions were a lot less respectful and appreciative than the Emperor had hoped; first thing, they locked the gates behind Drusus and his company;
a
second thing, they posted armed troops where they could mow down the Emperor's ambassadors to enforce their demands. Then they made the demands, and took no interest in the suggestion that Rome would have to ratify the grants; they wanted action on the spot. Then the
y began to throw rocks.

But Tiberius had the moon on his side. There was an eclipse. It scared them. Their resolution shook. They spent a worried and unrestful night, and in the morning when Drusus held out an olive branch they took it. It wasn't that they feared the moon had been devoured by a monster, like the barbarians; or that they considered Drusus a magician. But the Romans believed in omens—believed in them even when they didn't understand them, believed in them as warnings. If the gods sent word by way of a lunar eclipse that trouble was brewing, the troops would try to avert it.

So Drusus murdered a few of the rebels—Vibulenus of the mythical brother and Percennius, who had played his last part—made his small concessions to the soldiers' great wrongs, and returned to Rome.

But what of Germanicus?

In Germany the legions were waiting. They knew about the rebellions in Pannonia; what would Tiberius do about them? Time gave the answer. Tiberius sent his son—he didn't send troops to crush and kill the rebels, he only sent a few men, and he made promises. Well. That was interesting. It was time to start a little something in Germany, then, where the legions had quite the same scars and gray hairs, and had something else, too. They had the person of Germanicus Caesar.

And there were more of them.

Germanicus was no fool, and he knew who his parents were.

The man in Rome, Tiberius, was there by the favor of an aging Emperor, pressed by a determined wife; even so, Tiberius was at best the third or fourth choice of Augustus as a successor. Certainly there was no clear mandate that he should inherit the throne.

Germanicus himself, in cold blood, realized that he had a pretty good claim—maybe a better one than Tiberius. It was a fact. The legions knew it as well as he. But Germanicus was also a man of honor and one whose ambitions were always well controlled. He would not move to claim the throne.

The legions, however, diought that perhaps they could make him. Disorders began; to quell them, the generals ordered punishments; to resist the punishments, the disorders turned into riots. Soldiers seized their centurions and clubbed them to bloody rags. It was a remarkable phenomenon to see, for the rebelling soldiers maintairfed perfect discipline—against their officers. They set up patrols and guards, they policed their quarters, and they managed their housekeeping chores— without officers.

Germanicus was away—in Gaul, collecting taxes; he hurried back. It took courage to enter his own catnp. He was instantly surrounded—not with anger but with love; soldiers seized his hands and kissed them—and thrust his fingers into their mouths to feel their toothless gums; we are old, they said, we are poor and mistreated; help us, Caesar! They wrangled on for hours, recessed, and then wrangled more. Other legions were drawn in, in other camps. Across the Rhine, the German tribes were listening with sharp ears. The native auxiliary troops, always doubtful, were murmuring with wonder about the confusion in the Roman camps. It was a situation full of danger—no, not merely danger, full of the certainty of trouble. Germanicus smelled death in the air. He would face it himself, he decided, but he would send his family away.

His family included a small boy named Gaius, better known to the troops and to history as Caligula.

A couple of decades later young Caligula would himself become Emperor of Rome, and leave a stain on the principate that few could match; but he was a tiny child in the German camp; he was two years old. The soldiers loved him. The Roman soldiers were not afraid of the enemy, the Emperor of the gods, but when they found the baby Caligula being hurried away from their wrath they were ashamed; it is hard to believe, but it is true; they-broke down and wept, and pleaded with the boy's father. Germanicus let the boy stay. The mutiny flickered and died; and to wipe out its bad taste forever, Germanicus bridged the Rhine and sent the legions across against the Germans.

The light advance troops ran into heavy resistance; but Germanicus rode up crying, "Advance and turn your guilt into glory!" The mutineers roared and charged; and the stain of the mutiny was washed away with cascades of German blood.

Back in Rome Tiberius watched and was relieved, but not pleased. It was presumptuous of Germanicus to succeed so well.

X

With Tiberius begins the Pax Romana, the long-lasting, worldwide Roman peace. The Republic had thrown legions at every barbarian frontier. Julius Caesar and Augustus had continued the wars of conquest, and waged the great civil struggles that pitted Roman against Roman. Rome had a tradition of centuries of war; Tiberius put a stop to it.

His motives were not humanitarian; he was
too
good a general to fear war in itself. It was a budgetary matter. Rome had plenty of colonies already. New conquests would invoke the law of diminishing returns—already the Germans had shown themselves an expensive race. The farther the legions marched from Ro
me, the
more expensive their battles would become, the less surely the tax-gatherers would be able to return the necessary spoils. No more conquests. The Pax Romana.

There was plenty of work to be done on the existing colonies. Tax collecting was always a running sore. The system was grossly inefficient. It almost had to be. The Emperor in Rome could impose a tax on, say, the Judaeans, but as he could not himself collect it, he had to delegate that authority to someone on the scene.
That
person was perhaps the local governor or procurator, or the general of the occupying armies; who, in turn, would break down his territory into smaller areas and himself delegate authority to collect taxes in each of them. The collectors for the localities would themselves employ tax farmers to go out and bring in the actual revenue, in money or in kind.

Double-entry bookkeeping had not yet been invented, and empty pockets yawned at every step of the way. For ten pounds of gold to arrive in the imperial treasury, a hundred had to be wrung out of the dry fields of Judaea. It didn't matter if the Jews could not pay. A delinquent taxpayer was never entirely without assets; he himself could be seized
and
sold. Our modern system of the graduated income tax, the "soak the rich" spirit of campaign oratory, would have astonished the Romans. The rich were more accustomed to collecting taxes than to paying them. Often enough that was how they had become rich.

Tiberius could not do much to reform the system, but he could do a little to blunt its edge. The custom had been to shake up the administration of the colonies regularly, appoint new governors, and keep the colonial chain of command in a state of flux. Tiberius stopped that. His governors stayed in their jobs. When they were good it was a blessing to the colonies, and even when they were bad at least they grew fat and lazy.

Tiberius did not raise taxes, but he made sure that more of them reached Rome. Tiberius found only five million dollars in Rome's treasury when Augustus died, but gold silted up all through Tiberius' reign. He lived like an emperor but not a madman. He spent carefully and got bargains. At the end of Tiberius' life the treasury bulged with more than a hundred million dollars, and the budget was balanced.

It was not only taxes that came from the colonies, but food. Egypt's wheat fields fed Rome for four months of the year. Spices came from the East, queer new vegetables tempted epicures, like the German radish and the carrot that was beginning to come down from Gaul. All of this was expensive, and therefore annoying to Tiberius.

Italy could have fed its people well enough. Its soil was deep and rich, its climate was fine. What prevented it was pride. "The best thing to do with land is to use it for pasturing herds at a fine profit. The second best thing is to use it for past
uring herds, at little or no pro
fit. The third best thing is to use it for pasturing herds at a loss. The fourth best thing is to plow and grow food." Hardly any other problem of Roman administration vexed Tiberius quite as much as this, but he was never able to solve it, though he tried for years. He tried speeches, and Rome turned a deaf ear. He tried laws like Augustus', and Rome found ways to avoid them. He tried that ultimate weapon of the legislator, a money regulation: Every banker in Rome, he ordered, was immediately to invest two-thirds of his cash in Italian properties. It was a toothed law that Romans could not flout, so they did the next best thing. They began very rapidly to go bankrupt. Investments from the colonies were hurriedly liquidated, Italian land began to soar in price. Investments became worthless, banks closed. A money panic struck Rome. Tiberius, with what horror and anger we can only guess, had to dig into his imperial purse for a free gift of a million dollars to bolster up the staggering economy; and he never tried that again.

In his first few years on th
e throne Tiberius worked hard and intelligently. He had to labor to avoid the appearance of monarchy—reproving a senator who fawned on him as "Lord
and Master," refusing to let th
e Senat
e name a month after him, as th
ey had for Julius and Augustus. ("And what will you dp if there should happen to be thirteen Caesars?") He had to labor even harder to secure the fact of rule. There were always threats. The throne was hard work and constant irritation, but there was always someone who wanted to take it from him.

In the Italian cities and in the colonies the stone-cutters were working day and night, chipping out statues, reliefs, and busts of Tiberius, but that was custom, not love. Tiberius could not rely on the love of his subjects. He was doing his best to be a wise and just Emperor, but he could never be a beloved one. He hadn't the manners for it. Stiff, sulky, forbidding; a Roman never knew just where he stood with Tiberius, and it was always easy to fear that one stood badly. His queer habits were worrying—what decent Roman served yesterday's half-eaten roast to today's guests? Tiberius did. He could be mild and forbearing, as when he refused to let the Senate open a new list of citizens who spoke badly of him. Or he could flash into killing temper. One man made a joke where Tiberius could hear it; Augustus had directed that out of his estate some gratuities should be given to the common citizens of Rome, and Tiberius had not yet nerved himself up to parting with the money. A funeral procession was passing through the streets and the humorist called to the corpse: "Hi, there! Tell Augustus that his bequests haven't been paid yet." Tiberius ordered him dragged off to jail, tried him, convicted him, sentenced him. "Go to my father yourself and tell him the truth about those legacies," he said, ordering the man strangled. "Mud, kneaded with blood."

Tiberius knew what he was. He had not the talent to inspire love, and he did not even have the time. There was hardly time for all the necessary things. The provinces cried for a visit from the Emperor—it would help keep the legions quiet, it would combat the rising popularity of Germanicus—but how could he get away? He made plans again and again— arranged for ships, ordered the colonial towns to prepare for his arrival—and again and again called off the trip. The Romans began to call him "Callipedes" in a snickering whisper—Callipedes was a comedian whose funniest act was an imitation of a long-distance runner. What made it funny was that Callipedes never moved from the spot. But there were laws to write and trials to judge. Fire struck some of the Roman hills, and only the Emperor could arrange for rebuilding the demolished quarters of the city. The Tiber continued to silt up—causing floods, causing tragedies—and dredging had to be ordered. And overseen.
Tiberius' helper
s could take some of the burden off his sho
ulders. Particularly Sejanus, th
e commander of the Pretorian Guard, became the Emperor's all-seeing eye and omnipresent voice. But Tiberius hadn't the personality to win the loyalty of a corps of aides, any more than he could win die love of an Empire; he could appoint assistants, but except for Sejanus he could not trust them.

He dared not create an Agrippa, who might become a challenge to his rule. There were enough challenges already. Apart from Germanicus, whose intentions Tiberius could not read and whose personality he feared, there were encroachments visible close to hand. One was his own mother, Livia. She had put Tiberius on the throne, she felt, through a lifetime of cajoling old Augustus. She intended to keep him there. She saw no better way of insuring his reign than to have him share it with her. His first decrees bore two signatures, his mother's and his own. Favor-seekers fawned on Tiberius, but the wiser among them made sure they fawned on Livia as well. When the Senate offered to change the name of September to Tiberius, they proposed to change the name of October to Livius as well; perhaps they thought Tiberius would be flattered; they were wrong.

But Livia was only an annoyance. She was not a physical danger; she might nag Tiberius, but she was hardly likely to assassinate him.

Plenty of persons were available who would, if they had the chance. Some proposed to do so by
force majeure.
There was a slave named Clemens; he had been the property of
the murdered Agrippa Postumus, and had enough loyalty to his dead master to recruit a large slave army whose aim was to murder Tiberius for revenge; it took troops and guile to put down this rebellion. Other assassins were closer to home.

There was a young popinjay named Libo, rich, well-born, a daily visitor at Tiberius' court. Libo was quick but not intelligent. Still, he would do to kill a tyrant, and some of Tiberius' enemies cultivated him. He was coached in extravagance and in hate. Senators helped him, with parties and follies, to dissipate his fortune, and then loaned him more. They bribed fortune
-
tellers to discover a great future for him —he could be rich again—he could be powerful—
why,
he could even be Caesar! All that was necessary was to murder the present incumbent.

The case of Libo is interesting, not because it is unique but because it set a prece
dent in Roman law. Tiberius dis
covered early that Libo had designs against his life. It would have been reasonably easy to get rid of Libo, but it would not have been convenient to do so without a trial and conviction. First, Tiberius wanted Libo to serve as an example—having him murdered on a pretext would not accomplish that. Second, the fellow might have accomplices.

Tiberius held his blow for a year. He took precautions. At religious observances, where Libo (who was a priest) was to make die sacrifice, Tiberius had the sharp sacrificial knife replaced
with a blade of lead. When Libo
came to visit, Tiberius made sure never to receive him alone—even when guards were dismissed, Tiberius' son, Drusus, stayed in the room. The lout was strong and loyal, and alert. To make doubly sure, Tiberius complained of feeling faint and leaned on Libo's arm—the knife-wielding arm. Meanwhile, Tiberius'. informants and personal spies sought for evidence and names. They got nothing. There was no evidence to be found, th
ough all Rome buzzed now with th
e story of what Libo was about,
and only Libo himself was unconscious that Tiberius also knew.

The problem was that the only reliable witnesses would be Libo's own slaves. And they could not be used.

In Roman courts verdicts went to the best actors, and if witnesses did not perjure themselves it was because the crime of perjury had not been invented. A favorable verdict was really a sort of good review. Testimony under oath was in no way more reliable than an unadorned statement. A Roman might swear an oath to the gods to perform an act, and then do his best to accomplish it; but he would not feel obliged to be truthful because of an oath. Why should the gods care whether he told the truth or not?

The common Roman beliefs about his Olympian gods can be summed up in four brief statements:

First, they are no better than I am, only stronger;

Second, they can be bribed with sacrifices but they cannot be won over by good works;

Third, they are not much interested in mortals; and

Fourth, there probably aren't any gods anyway.

In order to give validity to trial proceedings, though, some sort of evidence was necessary. Physical evidence was best— a letter, a vial of poison. Lacking that, Roman justice needed a guarantee that the spoken word was true; and as they could not rely on an oath, they found that guarantee in torture.

Torture was a terribly ordinary event in Roman life. As in all Roman affairs, a man's prospects of being tortured were closely related to his class standing. The highborn might hope to avoid it entirely—not because they were exempt, but because only a superior could apply it, and they had relatively few superiors. But the lower one went, the better the odds; a slave could pretty much count on it if anything went wrong.

Slaves were always being questioned in times of trouble, and "questioned" always meant "tortured." There simply was no other way to do it. it didn't do a slave any particular good to blurt out whatever he thought his questioners wanted to hear before the hot iron touched him, either. Very well, the questioners said, nodding, yes, that's interesting, but now let's see if you're
sure.
Then the hot iron. Or the screws,
or the whip, or the rack, or—the devices were endless.

Torture was so common that it was not even particularly feared—not enjoyed or looked forward to, of course; but its probable approach evoked no crawling dread. The whole Roman attitude toward any sort of pain was unlike ours. Their world contained much more of it. The 20th century has resolu
tely fled pain, through anaesth
etics, nerve blocs, painless dentistry, hypnosis for childbirth, the abolition of the flogging post, the end of the teacher's ruler. We spend fortunes to execute murderers gendy. Our diplomats haggle endlessly, between wars, over conventions to soften the next war's sting. A few years ago we fought what was almost a holy war a
gainst th
e Germans, and the things that i
nflamed us against them were th
ings like ripped-out thumbnails, the hot pokers of the Gestapo, the bestiality of the concentration camps.

No Roman would have dreamed of fighting for such a principle. The Golden Rule had not yet been invented. A Roman might have said in its place something like: "Do unto your inferiors whatever may serve your convenience." It is property rights again. And also a Roman didn't need to be tortured to experience pain; a decayed tooth was agony, sickness was pain, dying almost always hurt terribly. Even an emperor might admit that, of all boons, that which he would like most was a quick and painless death. Augustus did.