Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [34]
Although he was approaching his eighteenth birthday, Octavius retreated into domesticity. After the excitements of his Spanish adventure, his life became quiet and uneventful. He spent much of his time with his mother and stepfather, seldom leaving them. Occasionally he invited some of his young friends to dinner, Agrippa and Maecenas presumably among them. He lived soberly and moderately. Nicolaus reports that, unlike many upper-class young Romans, especially those with access to money, he abstained from “sexual gratification.”
Octavius’ good behavior is as likely to reflect a concern for his health as a virtuous disposition. This was an age when the principles of hygiene were little understood, surgery was life-threatening, medicines and medical advice were of uncertain value, and few illnesses were easily cured. Unsurprisingly, many Romans concentrated their attention on prevention. According to Celsus, a medical expert who wrote in the first century A.D., a healthy man “should sail, hunt, rest sometimes, but more often take exercise.” He should spend time in the countryside and on the farm as well as in town. Doctors advised that people whose health was delicate should take care to avoid any kind of physical excess. We may take it that Octavius and his ever-anxious mother did exactly that.
Caesar set in motion a flurry of important social and economic measures, but he was wearying of Rome with its tiresome and self-destructive politics. He had received reports of a conspiracy against his life. If he had ever intended to reform and restore the constitution, he now gave up the attempt. He would leave Rome to its own devices, for power lay wherever he happened to be, not in the Senate House or Forum. He was worried by the growth of a Dacian empire in the untamed region of the southern Danube. The barbarians there needed to be taught a sharp military lesson.
Also, the Parthian empire had been restive since Crassus’ failed invasion of 53 B.C. Once the Dacians were dealt with, Caesar decided to lead a great punitive expedition against it. He began to assemble an army of sixteen legions and ten thousand cavalry; six thousand troops had already crossed over to Greece and, encamped near the city of Apollonia, awaited the launch of the campaign the following March. He expected to be away for three years.
Since the victory in Spain, the Senate had awarded him ever more extravagant honors. Caesar was allowed to add the word imperator, “commander in chief,” to his name as a hereditary addition (until then it had been awarded by soldiers in the field after an important victory); likewise, his son or adopted son was to be designated pontifex maximus on his death. These two heavy hints pointed to the possible establishment of a dynasty, even if no obvious successor existed, or was even on the horizon.
The dictator loved women but begot few children; the only known offspring had been a beloved daughter, Julia, and (one assumes) Caesarion. If he had no legitimate son himself, he would have to find somebody else’s. Adoption was common in Roman life, a strategy for binding clans to one another, as well as for making good genetic deficits. Kinship and loyalty to the familia and gens were valued very highly, but little attention was paid to strict blood ties. Men often adopted the grown sons of others.
Octavius will have pondered these matters. Where, if at all, did he fit into this glorious future? Might he, at some stage, be designated his great-uncle’s heir? These were daydreams. The dictator showed no sign of leaving the stage, and even if he were to do so, Octavius was far too young and inexperienced to step into his giant shoes. If Caesar lived another ten years, and if Octavius proved himself worthy of responsibility, then, just possibly, he might be seen as a potential ruler with all the gravitas and auctoritas such a figure would have to command…. For now, though,