Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [156]
In 17 or 16 B.C., hostilities opened when the governor of Illyricum launched an attack on a couple of Alpine tribes, probably inhabitants of the region between Como and Lake Garda. Then in 15 B.C., to avenge some alleged atrocities on Roman citizens, Tiberius and Drusus headed a two-pronged attack into Raetia, an area covering today’s Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and western Austria, and into the lands of the Vindelici, in southern Bavaria. It seems to have been an easy victory, for the young commanders achieved all their aims in a single summer campaign. In the following year, Roman forces conquered and annexed the Maritime Alps.
As a rule, Roman armies won their wars against “barbarian” tribes in Spain, Gaul, or Germany by a preponderance of force, but they found it very difficult to stamp out the last embers of resistance. Time and again the enemy recovered, regrouped, and returned to the offensive, often using guerrilla tactics. Tiberius and Drusus decided to prevent a future Alpine revolt by a simple but brutal means: mass deportations of men of military age. Enough people were left behind to keep the area inhabited, but too few to launch an uprising. The new province of Raetia came into being. The geographer Strabo visited the region a generation later and reported a continuing “state of tranquillity.” If so, it was the tranquillity of desolation.
Not only had stage one of the military strategy been swiftly and brilliantly completed, but in the process stage two had been launched. This was because Raetia’s northern border was the river Danube, and a little additional fighting led to the acquisition of the neighboring territory of Noricum to the east (roughly the rest of Austria). Noricum abutted Pannonia, whose tribesmen had been defeated in Octavian’s Illyrian wars; although the Pannonians had been neither conquered nor occupied, for the time being they were quiet.
On Pannonia’s eastern borders, Moesia had already been subdued, although it was not felt necessary to turn it into a formal province for a generation or so. Pannonia was a lurking problem that would sooner or later have to be solved, but for the first time in its history Rome faced no direct threat south of the Danube.
This was a real and permanent achievement, and Augustus was well pleased. He commissioned a huge celebratory monument, the Tropaeum Alpium (Trophy of the Alps). Fifty feet high, it was a great square stone edifice, which supported a wide circular tower surrounded by columns and topped with a great stepped roof, like a squat spire. On the apex there probably stood a statue of the princeps. The monument’s still impressive remains can be seen at La Turbie, near Monaco.
In 13 B.C., the state’s two leading men returned to Rome, the princeps from Gaul, Agrippa from the eastern provinces, where he had spent the last three years. Augustus apparently recognized that the burden of empire demanded two co-rulers; Tiberius and Drusus were emerging as effective deputies. When they grew up, little Gaius and Lucius, in whom the genes of Augustus and Agrippa were mingled, would be the final inheritors of the Roman state.
It was an ingenious and ruthless scheme. However, its success would depend on the survival of all the parties; also, on the willingness of Tiberius and Drusus, after years of power and fame, to step aside at the right moment, remaining forever in second place. It would be asking a lot of their generosity, but Augustus was always implacable where the interests of the state and the “divine family” were at stake.
The Theater of Marcellus was finally dedicated by Augustus; the associated festivities included a performance of the Troy Game, an elaborate cavalry display. Boys of good birth joined societies that offered training in horsemanship, and they showed off their prowess in a mock battle between two groups of teenaged riders.
In what was