There was another thing: Octavian liked and trusted youth. He and his “band of brothers,” his two trusted former school friends, Agrippa and Maecenas, had set out together on their great enterprise to avenge Caesar’s murder and win power when in their late teens. The challenges they faced called forth their talent; now Octavian was looking forward to promoting the new younger generation that was about to emerge. Perhaps as early as 29 B.C., he arranged for the minimum ages of officeholders to be reduced: in the case of a quaestor, from thirty years to twenty-five; of a consul, from forty-two to thirty-seven. Senators’ sons were expected to familiarize themselves with administration; they were allowed to wear the purple-striped toga, which was the uniform of a senator, encouraged to attend Senate meetings, and given officer posts during their military service.
Sadly, Octavian and his beloved Livia were childless, although she suffered one miscarriage. It is curious that both had had children by their former spouses. Perhaps, as one classical source has it, this was a case of physical incompatibility, but more probably some illness led one or the other to become infertile.
As yet the boys were too young to help shoulder the burdens of government. That remained the task of Agrippa and Maecenas, although little love was lost between them. The former was “more a rustic at heart than a man of refined tastes,” although he admired great art and argued that all paintings and sculptures should be nationalized rather than spirited away into private collections where they were never seen. He was a collector on a grand scale, spending an astonishing 1.2 million sesterces on two paintings—one of them depicting the Greek hero Ajax and the other Aphrodite—which he installed in the public baths he built.
By contrast, Maecenas could almost “outdo a woman in giving himself up to indolence and soft luxury.” He delighted in silks and jewels; he was an epicure, who introduced to fashionable dining tables a new delicacy, the flesh of young donkeys; and he was reputed to have been the first person to build a heated swimming pool in the capital. He was married to the beautiful but arrogant Terentia. They were always quarreling, but her husband remained fond of her and invariably sought reconciliation. It was said of him that he married a thousand times, although he only had one wife.
Terentia attracted, and apparently won, Octavian’s favors, but this seems not to have affected the two men’s relationship. Although he was uxorious, Maecenas was not monogamous. He had many affairs, including one with a famous actor, Bathyllus, a freedman and friend of Octavian. Although sleeping with men was apparently not to his taste, Octavian had no objection to multifarious lifestyles among members of his circle.
Octavian used to poke fun at his friend’s precious, overelaborate style of writing, by parodying it in personal letters to him. Macrobius, a writer of the fifth century A.D., quotes an example: “Goodbye, my ebony of Medullia, ivory from Etruria, silphium from Arretium, diamond of the Adriatic, pearl from the Tiber, Cilnian emerald, jasper of the Iguvians, Persenna’s beryl, Italy’s carbuncle—in short, you charmer of unfaithful wives.”
Though his private life was colorful, Maecenas showed sleepless energy in times of crisis, and he gave excellent political advice. He did not seek public political office, preferring to operate informally, behind the scenes. As we have seen, he cultivated the finest poets of the age, ensuring that, so far as possible and without the application of censorship, geniuses such as Virgil and Horace stayed on message.
Agrippa could not stand Maecenas’ exotic and effeminate manners. Straightforward, direct, and loyal, he was the finest general and admiral of the age. He made up for Octavian’s lack of military skills, as had been tacitly acknowledged by the award of the corona rostrata for his services in the Naulochus campaign. The war against Sextus Pompeius would not have been won without him, and he had been discreetly invaluable in Illyricum. Now, as the mastermind of victory at Actium, he received the right to display an azure banner and (of more practical value) the freehold of country estates in Egypt.
Agrippa was completely loyal to Octavian and to the public service. In fact, he regarded them as one and the same, and it would be a bad day for the regime were he ever to see them as different. Completely trusted, he became (in effect) Octavian’s deputy—nearly his equal, but always a step behind when on parade.
According to a near contemporary historian, Agrippa “was…well-disciplined to obedience, but to one man only, yet eager to command others; in whatever he did he never admitted the possibility of delay. With him, an idea was implemented as soon as it was thought of.” Portrait busts show a man with hard and determined features, someone whose disapproval was to be feared—perhaps even by his friend and master? He held official posts, but was as uninterested in the trappings of authority as Maecenas, albeit for a completely different reason. While Maecenas could not really be bothered with power (being satisfied with influence), Agrippa cared for it passionately—but only for its reality.
Although no records survive of Agrippa’s private opinions, we may surmise that he watched Octavian’s growing affection for Marcellus with unease. As the young man grew up, Agrippa could well find an inexperienced heir interfering in his freedom of action, interposing himself between him and Octavian. That would not do.
The end of the civil wars brought a substantial peace dividend. A grand total of sixty legions under arms in 31 B.C. was reduced to the minimum necessary to guard the empire from external invasion. Octavian set the number at twenty-eight legions, or about 150,000 men, all of whom were Roman citizens. These were brigaded with about the same number of auxiliary troops, noncitizens recruited from the less Romanized and less militarily secure provinces (for example, Gaul and northern Africa). These auxiliaries often served near or in their homelands—a sensible policy, for it gave the provinces an active role in their own defense.
The army was permanently stationed where it was most needed: along the imperial frontiers in the east and northern Africa, Spain, northeast Gaul, and what we now call the Balkans. These dispositions were adequate, but there was no reserve to send to trouble spots in times of emergency. Intent on reducing public expenditure and seeing no great and imminent threat, Octavian was willing to take the risk of a lean military establishment.
He then turned his attention to civilian matters. According to Suetonius, he gave serious consideration after Actium to bringing back the Republic, but everything we know about Octavian—above all, his slow, undeviating pursuit of mastery—suggests that this must be a misunderstanding. What he did do was give very careful thought to the kind of polity that should now be installed. Dio imagined that a debate took place at this time in Octavian’s presence, in which Agrippa put the case for a democratic or, in effect, republican constitution, and Maecenas argued the benefits of monarchy. Though such a discussion probably never took place, it is true that Octavian found a way forward that married these two opposing positions. As usual, he took his time, and a good three years passed before he came to a conclusion.
In 28 B.C., Octavian held his sixth consulship, this time alongside Agrippa. All the acts of the triumvirs were annulled, and assurances given that there would never be a return to the terrible past. The consuls assumed censoria potestas, the powers of censors. The censors were two senior officials elected every five years. They had three main tasks: first, to hold a lustrum or general ritual purification of the people; second, to conduct a census of Roman citizens; and third, to supervise the conduct of citizens, and more especially of members of the Senate.