Divus Augustus Pater: Tiberius and the charisma

414 Pages·2005·8.22 MB·English

DIVUS AUGUSTUS PATER:
TIBERIUS AND THE CHARISMA OF AUGUSTUS

Rebecca Edwards

Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Classical Studies
Indiana University
December 2003
Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

______________________

Eleanor Leach, Ph.D.

______________________

James Franklin, Ph.D.

_____________________

Betty Rose Nagle, Ph.D.

November 14, 2003

_____________________

Julie Van Voorhis, Ph.D.
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© 2003
Rebecca Edwards
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Acknowledgements
This dissertation could not have arrived at its final destination without the support
and commitment of the members of my committee—James Franklin, Betty Rose Nagle,
and Julie Van Voorhis. I appreciate their careful criticism of my work and take sole
responsibility for any remaining flaws. I also would like to thank Yvette Rollins and
Derek Vint for taking care of the administrative details which confounded my already
overtaxed brain. Most importantly, I would like to thank Eleanor Leach for her constant
guidance and her unswerving faith in me, even when my own self-confidence was being
challenged.
On a more personal level, I must acknowledge the friends and family who have
kept me sane this past year, even though I had all but abandoned them for the sake of my
work—to my parents, who have never told me that there was anything I could not do; to
my grandmother, who has always stood behind me, no matter how blindly I charged into
things; to Kris, who has never failed to remind me that life is meant to be lived—and all
the others who have been there for me. I hope one day I can repay my debts with
interest. Finally, I must declare my greatest debt—to John, for being there.
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Rebecca Edwards
DIVUS AUGUSTUS PATER:
TIBERIUS AND THE CHARISMA OF AUGUSTUS
According to Max Weber, revolutionary transformation results from charismatic
leadership. This charisma is defined as “a certain quality of an individual personality by
virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural,
superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (Economy and
Society I.241). No one can deny that Augustus’ “Roman revolution,” to borrow a phrase
from Syme, required such charisma. But while other Republican leaders had possessed
the same quality (e.g. Marius, Sulla, Julius Caesar), Augustus’ revolutionary measures,
unlike theirs, outlived the charismatic leader. In Weberian terms, this resulted from the
routinization of charisma.
This dissertation examines several key issues of the development of the
principate. Why does Tiberius accept responsibility for consolidating a hereditary
monarchy? And more importantly, how does an unpopular ruler like Tiberius secure the
acceptance of Augustus’ position in the state as a hereditary position? Is Tiberius
consistent throughout his reign in following Augustus’ facta dictaque vice legis (Tac.
Ann. IV.37)? Finally, how does Tiberius routinize the charisma of Augustus into a
system which would survive no matter how uncharismatic the emperor might be?
Beginning with an inspection of the assumption of power by Tiberius (chapter
one), this study continues (chapter two) with an analysis of the imperial cult as it
developed into an institution under Tiberius. Although the ideology of Tiberius’ reign
consistently promoted the image and ideals of Augustus while Tiberius himself remained
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in the background (chapter three), Tiberius nonetheless established stability in a
previously unstable system (chapter four) by confirming the charisma of Augustus in its
depersonalized form. Although forced to confront the problematic legal issues in
preserving Augustus’ maiestas and that of the principate, Tiberius nevertheless protected
the image of the domus Augusta and ensured the peaceful succession of Caligula (chapter
five). As a result, the image of Augustus as the ideal ruler continued to justify the office
of the principate long after the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (chapter 6).

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Divus Augustus Pater: Tiberius and the charisma of Augustus

I. Introduction 1
A. Background and definition of charisma 3
B. Succession
1. rivals 11
2. rituals 15
C. Overview of study 21
D. Review of previous scholarship 26
E. Conclusion 32
II. Tiberius and the Imperial Cult 34
A. Concordia Augusta 35
B. Deification of Predecessor
1. Augustus and Julius Caesar 49
2. Tiberius and Augustus 73
C. Refusal of divine honors 97
III. The Power of Augustan Images in the Age of Tiberius 107
A. Sculpture
1. statuary 110
2. relief sculpture 122
3. decorative pieces 130
B. Coinage 138
C. Building projects 158
D. Public inscriptions 163
IV. Tiberius and Augustan consilia 186
A. Foreign policy 188
B. Domestic policy 222
1. elections 223
2. socio-economic policies 239
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V. Tiberian Raison d’état
A. Maiestas 254
B. Succession
1. Germanicus 304
2. Drusus 317
3. Sejanus 321
VI. Conclusions 337
Bibliography 346
Image Sources 378
Images for Chapter 2 379
Images for Chapter 3 381
Images for Chapters 4 and 5 401
Map of Eastern Frontier under Tiberius 402
Map of Northern Frontier under Tiberius 403
Family Tree of Augustus 404

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Chapter 1
Introduction
In the year 14 A.D., after a long and relatively peaceful reign, Augustus died at
the ripe old age of 76. He had no son of his own blood. His adopted sons—his
grandsons by his disgraced daughter Julia—had died over a decade prior. After their
deaths, he had adopted his stepson, Tiberius, having compelled Tiberius first to adopt his
own nephew Germanicus. The Republic de facto had died many years before, and as the
series of military despots and civil wars which preceded the rule of Augustus had proven,
the security of Rome rested upon a smooth transition between Augustus and his
successor. And yet things could have gone another way—another triumvirate, another
civil war. The testimony of Velleius Paterculus indicates the sentiment felt at the time:
Quid tunc homines timuerint, quae senatus trepidatio, quae populi confusio, quis
urbis metus, in quam arto salutis exitiique fuerimus confinio, neque mihi tam
festinanti exprimere vacat neque cui vacat potest. Id solum voce publica dixisse
satis habeo: cuius orbis ruinam timueramus eum ne commotum quidem sensimus,
tantaque unius viri maiestas fuit, ut nec pro bonis neque contra malos opus armis
foret. Una tamen veluti luctatio civitatis fuit, pugnantis cum Caesare senatus
populique Romani, ut stationi paternae succederet, illius, ut potius aequalem
civem quam eminentem liceret agere principem. Tandem magis ratione quam
honore victus est, cum quidquid tuendum non suscepisset, periturum videret,
solique huic contigit paene diutius recusare principatum, quam, ut occuparent
eum, alii armis pugnaverunt. (II.124)

This lengthy passage from the contemporary historian is our only eyewitness
account of the transition between the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. Despite Syme’s
claim that “the assertion is negligible, no more meriting credence than what the same
person has to relate about the phenomenal virtues of the Tiberian regime,” there seems
little reason to doubt Velleius’ veracity in expressing the anxiety felt after the death of
1
Augustus.1 Due to the length of Augustus’ reign, many in 14 A.D. may have not lived
through the chaos of the civil wars themselves, but the cultural memory of those years
was still strong enough to generate the fear that the same strife which followed the death
of Julius Caesar would engulf the Roman world yet again. Indeed, at the opposite end of
the historiographic spectrum, Tacitus, perhaps the most potent critic of the Tiberian
regime, states that on the death of Augustus, pauci bona libertatis in cassum disserere,
plures bellum pavescere, alii cupere (Ann. 1.4.2).2 What if Tiberius had actually refused
to assume absolute power? Tacitus states that Augustus in his last days had considered
four men besides Tiberius as each being capax imperii (Ann. 1.13). Germanicus was not
one of them. Furthermore, neither Germanicus nor any one else held the proconsular
imperium and tribunician potestas conferred upon Tiberius by Augustus during the last
years of his reign. Indeed, at the time of Augustus’ death, only Tiberius held the
sufficient powers to place him in the position of princeps civilis.
The question of Augustus’ immediate successor is of vital importance in
examining the duration and nature of the Roman Empire. Had Augustus been succeeded
by another military despot intent on wiping out his reforms, he would have stood in a
long line of late Republican figures who possessed power and charisma, a concept to
which we shall return shortly, but whose revolutionary reforms had no lasting effect on
the nature of government. In order for the power and charisma amassed by Augustus
during his lengthy reign to outlive their creator, it was necessary that his successor adopt
the same policies and promote the same ideology. In other words, the true test of the
power of the principate was not the reign of Augustus, but that of Tiberius.

1 Syme, Tacitus 1.367.
2 Syme, who rejects Velleius' account of the fear following the death of Augustus, cites this passage from
Tacitus but summarily dismisses it as exaggeration, ibid. 1.370, n. 1.
2