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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.

The Parthian settlement was disturbed by the unexpected death of the Armenian king Dikran. Rome nominated a successor, but he, too, died, and his son ascended the throne. Once again, Armenian insurgents broke out into revolt, and Gaius saw some real fighting. While laying siege to a small town, he rashly approached the walls for a parley with the governor, who said he wished to change sides. He handed Gaius a document, then, while the Roman was looking at it, suddenly struck him with his drawn sword. The ploy was for naught: the governor was quickly overcome and killed, and the town captured.

The wounded man seemed to recover, but the injury took time to heal. According to Dio, Gaius did not enjoy strong health in the first place, and now he fell into a depression. A most surprising turn of events followed. In A.D. 4, Gaius wrote to Augustus announcing that he wanted to retire into private life; his intention was to settle somewhere in Syria. No