Читаем Augustus полностью

The display of force had its intended effect on the Parthians, although Frahâtak began by blustering. He sent a delegation to Rome to give his version of events in Armenia and, as a condition of peace being restored in the kingdom, demanded the return of his brothers who were being brought up at Rome. The princeps replied with a sharp note addressed merely to Frahâtak, without using the title of king. The Parthian wrote back, tit for tat, referring to himself as King of Kings and to Augustus by his ordinary cognomen of Caesar.

The impasse was broken by the death of Rome’s nominee for the Armenian throne. Presumably with Parthian approval, his rival, Dikran (one of the numerous members of the royal family called by this name, and not the same person as the aforementioned Dikran II), wrote to Augustus, not applying to himself the title of king and asking for the right to the kingdom. The princeps accepted Dikran’s gifts, confirmed him as monarch, and advised him to visit his son in Syria, where he was cordially received.

In A.D. 2, Gaius and Frahâtak, also a young man, accompanied by equal retinues, held a carefully orchestrated conference on an island in the Euphrates (did Augustus advise on this arrangement, recalling the long-ago discussions among the triumvirs on the river island at Bononia?). They exchanged pledges and banquets. The Parthian recognized Armenia as within the Roman sphere of influence and dropped his request for the return of his brothers.

For his part, Augustus renewed amicitia between the two empires, silently agreeing to leave Parthia alone and accepting the Euphrates as marking the furthest extent of Rome’s legitimate concerns. He had reason to be pleased; with the Parthian princes still under his control at Rome, he had won the game on points, with not a drop of blood spilled. All was well, and it would not be too long before the victorious commander returned home.

“Dis aliter visum,” as Virgil wrote in the Aeneid. The gods had different ideas.

A fond, anxious, and proud princeps kept a distant but sharp eye on his adopted son’s progress. On September 23, A.D. 1, his sixty-third birthday, he wrote a letter to Gaius that gives a flavor of his love for the young man:

Greetings, my Gaius. My darling little donkey, whom Heaven knows I miss when you are away…I beg the gods that I may spend however much time is left to me, with you safe and well, the country in a flourishing condition—and you and Lucius playing your part like true men and taking over guard duty from me.

Augustus will have been worried by a surprising development. At their island meeting, Frahâtak revealed to Gaius that Lollius had been taking bribes from kings throughout the east and, according to Velleius Paterculus, who was a military tribune on the expedition, had “traitorous designs.” Gaius dismissed Lollius from his amicitia, his list of official friends, and the disgraced man drank poison to avoid the confiscation of his estate.

One day at a dinner party attended by Gaius, Tiberius’ name came up in the conversation. A toadying guest promised that, if his general were only to say the word, he would sail straight to Rhodes and “fetch back the exile’s head.” Gaius declined the offer, but someone reported the incident to Tiberius, who, realizing that his position had become perilous, wrote again to Rome pleading to be allowed to come back. Livia backed him up with passion, and at last the princeps yielded, on the strict condition that Tiberius should take no part, and renounce all interest, in politics.

However, Augustus insisted that the final decision be left to Gaius. Had Lollius still been in place, he would have opposed the concession, but his replacement as adviser was well disposed toward Tiberius, who was allowed at last to leave an island that had once been a refuge but had become a prison. He slunk back into the city, sold his grand town house, and bought a discreet residence in a less fashionable district, where he lived in strict retirement.

The good news from the east was more than balanced by terrible news from the west. The nineteen-year-old Lucius had been sent to Spain, probably to gain military experience. On August 20, A.D. 2, he succumbed to a sudden illness at Massilia en route to taking up his commission. To show family solidarity, Tiberius wrote an elegy to his stepson. We do not know the cause of death, nor the impact it had on the divine family. It will have been only too bitterly clear, though, that Augustus’ dynastic plans now hung by the thread of a single life.