Caesar, Antony, Augustus and Tiberius - a web of intrigue!

Beginning in the eighth century B.C. ancient Rome grew from a small town on the Tiber River into an empire of 54 million people, stretching from England to Africa and Spain to Turkey. Few periods in history have had a greater impact on humankind than that of ancient Rome.

Among the many legacies of Roman dominance are the widespread use of the Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian) derived from Latin, the modern western alphabet and calendar and the emergence of Christianity as a major world religion. July was named after Julius Caesar and August was named after Augustus.

It was all about continuing the line of succession, and when that didn’t work out it became weirdly complicated.

Julius Caesar - a great fighter who became a dictator

Caesar was born in 100 B.C. to a father who governed the province of Asia and a mother who was of noble birth. His father died when he was 16 and Caesar became head of the family. He then became a priest before joining the Army and becoming a great soldier. After many successful battles he arrived back in Rome as a general, at which time Rome was in chaos. Caesar was quite charismatic and popular with the people. He conquered Gaul (France), sacked Egypt and then had an affair with Cleopatra who became pregnant. They had a son in 47 B.C. who was commonly known as Caesarion.

This is where it gets complicated.

Caesar and Cleopatra couldn’t marry because Romans were not allowed to marry foreigners at the time. Caesarion became the King of Egypt from 44-30 B.C. He was Cleopatra’s co-ruler and ascended to the throne as a child. He was killed by Octavius, Caesar’s adopted son and great nephew, who later became the first Emperor of Rome and changed his name to Augustus.

Caesar continued to be popular as he defeated rivals and made them his allies. He gave great speeches, took control of the government, instituted big changes, made himself the centre of power and became a dictator. In doing so, he antagonised the Senate.

A group of Senators surrounded him in the portico of the Basilica of Pompey the Great and stabbed him 23 times. Caesar died at the scene on March 15, 44 B.C. at the age of 55.

Mark Antony - Julius Caesar’s right hand man

Mark Antony was a Roman politician, general and an ally of Julius Caesar. He was an integral part of politics in Rome during its transition from a Republic to Empire. He became a powerful man as Caesar’s co-consul as they jointly ruled the Republic. In his will Caesar left his wealth and title to his posthumously adopted son, Octavian.

Antony was reluctant to hand his old friend’s legacy to a 17 year old and quickly became a rival of the future emperor. He too had an affair with the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, and fathered three children with her.

This is where it gets messy.

With the death of Antony’s third wife, he was pressured into marrying Octavian’s (renamed Augustus) sister. When he divorced her, she was not happy and declared war, not on Antony, but on Cleopatra. The fighting happened in western Greece, where Antony continued to lose to the brilliant naval attacks of Octavian’s general, Agrippa. Once defeated, Antony and Cleopatra’s remaining ships fled back to Egypt, pursued by Agrippa and Octavian.

On the arrival of Octavian, both Antony and Cleopatra resolved to commit suicide. Antony, thinking his lover already dead, stabbed himself with a sword. Big mistake. He was then taken to die in Cleopatra’s arms. She was captured, but managed to then kill herself with a poisonous snake bit. After Antony’s death, his honours were all revoked and his statues removed. Octavian became emperor and ruled Rome for the next four decades.

Emperor Augustus (born Gaius Octavius) - Rome’s first Emperor

Born in 63 B.C., Augustus grew up in a town 40 kilometres out of Rome. His father was a Senator and his mother was Caesar’s niece. The Roman Empire began with the reign of Emperor Augustus, when Rome ceased to be a republic ruled by a Senate of wealthy landowners.

With Augustus taking control and ending civil wars, he set in place a pattern of rule for the next 500 years. His long and triumphant reign of 40 years began a golden age of peace and prosperity. The city, with more than a million inhabitants, was decorated with Greek style statues and monumental buildings covered in marble. Rome was the marvel of the modern world.

Unlike Caesar, Augustus wasn’t a great fighter. He would often pretend to be sick on the eve of a battle, relying on his childhood buddy, Marcus Agrippa, to fight his battles. He had only one child called Julia.

This is where you have to follow closely.

With no son of his own, Augustus turned to Agrippa, his friend and general, who although 25 years older than Julia, produced three sons and two daughters with her. Augustus adopted and helped raise two of the boys. However, both died aged 23 and 19. Julia and Agrippa’s third son had apparently been full of rage and sent into exile. In those days, step out of line and you were banished to far flung places.

Tiberius was the stepson of Augustus, the son of his third wife when he married her. At the age of 23 Tiberius married his first love, Vipsania, daughter from Marcus Agrippa’s first marriage. They had a son and another on the way. However, when Agrippa died, Augustus forced Tiberius to divorce Vipsania and marry Julia, his own daughter and Agrippa’s widow. Tiberius hated Julia and was unhappy. They only had one child who died in infancy.

Tiberius - Rome’s second Emperor

Running out of options now, Augustus turned with reluctance to Tiberius, who would go on to rule Rome from A.D. 14 to A.D. 37. Augustus died in A.D. 14. We now have the second Emperor of Rome, who didn’t get there by popular choice and probably didn’t even want to be Emperor. Prior to this, he showed bravery in his early career as an impressive army general. At age 55 he became Emperor and initially was respected by the people.

When his son from his marriage to Vipsania died, he went to Capri where he would spend the last ten years of his life building twelve villas on the island and half heartedly ruling Rome. This retreat from Rome was seen by the public as a form of desertion and he soon became despised by the Romans. He became miserable, gloomy, paranoid and had a reputation for weird behaviour. He died at the age of 77.

What happened to Julia?

When Tiberius’s and Julia’s infant son died, Tiberious went into voluntary exile, leaving Julia in Rome. She was accused of leading a promiscuous life and having affairs with prominent Romans, including Mark Antony’s son - an affair considered politically dangerous. Augustus had criminalised adultery, despite being wildly unfaithful himself. He banished her to the island of Pandateria, a small island off the coast of Campania (now called Ventotene) and never saw her again. When Tiberius became Emperor he cut off her allowance and she eventually died on the island of malnutrition, aged 52.

If you are still reading, brava! And that was only the first two emperors!

Ci vediamo la prossima settimana.

Deb