8 Liebeschuetz 1986 (c 163); cf. Tac. Ann. i.i i: 'partem curarum'.
executed, by Caligula; Lucius Arruntius (also cos. a.d. 6) was the son of one of Octavian's commanders at Actium, and adopted as his own son Camillus Scribonianus, who was to rebel against Claudius in 42; and various Julio-Claudian emperors felt themselves threatened by men called Piso. Whatever lies behind the anecdote, it raises the question what the source would be from which an alternative leader might derive his authority. Tacitus' account is intended to suggest that at the beginning of Tiberius' reign, there still existed political figures whose power was independent of the backing of the princeps. The fourth man named was the Asinius Gallus who took up Tiberius' question as to whether the cura borne by Augustus ought to be divided. He was the son of Asinius Pollio, one of the early generals of Octavian during the 40s and 30s B.C., but by no means a constant and unquestioning supporter. Virgil had dedicated the Fourth ('Messianic') Eclogue to Pollio; and Gallus is said to have told the literary critic Asconius Pedianus that he himself was the promised Messiah. According to Tacitus, it was Augustus' opinion that Gallus was incapable of exercising imperial power, but avid for it. Tiberius could not forget that after Augustus had forced him to divorce Vipsania, a woman he genuinely loved, in favour of Augustus' own daughter Iulia (and that was not a happy marriage), it was Gallus who married Vipsania.9
Gallus had implied that Tiberius could not shoulder Augustus' responsibilities alone. Tiberius could not conceal his displeasure; Gallus backtracked by pretending that he had made the point only in order to prove that imperial power could not in fact be divided. The episode raises the question of Tiberius' honesty in claiming that he did not want the imperial office. Contemporary evidence shows that Tiberius himself was worried about his reputation for disguising his real intentions, dissimulatio, a quality without which he might well have failed to live through Augustus' reign.10 Later emperors at their accession went through a pretence of rejecting the offer of imperial power; in Tiberius' case, such a recusatio imperii might have been misunderstood because there was no precedent for it. If Tiberius was genuine in not wishing to take on all Augustus' responsibilities, this is hardly likely to have been because he was afraid that his claims would be disputed by one, or possibly several, other candidates. Velleius Paterculus tells of the fear and uncertainty that filled Rome at the time of Augustus' death; not everyone believed that the transfer of power would run smoothly. But Velleius also makes it clear that the three main concentrations of legions, in Spain, the Balkans, and on the Rhine, were all in the hands of generals
' 'Capaces imperii': Tac. Ann. 1.13.2. Gallus: Oliver 1947 (c 582); Shorter 1971 (c 393). On M. Lepidus, Syme 1970 (в 178).
10 On the Tabula Siamsis and Tiberius' dissimulatio-. Gonzalez 1984(8 234); Zecchini 1986 (в 301).
loyal to Tiberius. In Spain there was Marcus Lepidus (the consul of a.d. 6), who had been Tiberius' legate in putting down the Pannonian revolt between a.d. 6 and 9; in Pannonia, Tiberius had his own legates, in particular Iunius Blaesus, and Germany was governed by Tiberius' adopted son Germanicus. Tiberius had nothing to fear from any of these generals; the soldiers themselves were not to transfer their allegiance without trouble, but that was a question of discipline, not of high politics. Even if Tiberius had already heard of the mutinies in the Pannonian army which broke out as soon as the troops heard of the death of Augustus, the commander to whom they had taken their oaths of military service, it does not follow that such a threat of rebellion would have been a real reason for declining the imperial office.
The Senate duly confirmed Tiberius' succession to the cura bestowed on his predecessor (and also granted him the title Augustus). Tiberius' were not the only powers the Senate was required to confirm. On the occasion when Augustus had adopted Tiberius into the Julian household, he had also made him adopt Germanicus, the son of Tiberius' younger brother Drusus and of Antonia, daughter of Mark Antony and Augustus' sister Octavia. This formally made Germanicus Tiberius' eldest son. Tiberius, in a.d. i 4, was fifty-five. Should anything happen to him, it would be Germanicus who would succeed as head of the domus Caesaris.
The same session of the Senate also proposed to vote honours to Livia; Tiberius expressed reservations about these, possibly because he was embarrassed by suggestions that he derived his position from his mother's influence over Augustus. Other decisions relating to the extent of Tiberius' cura for the state were taken at the same meeting; in particular, Tacitus says that Tiberius proclaimed a change in the procedures for nominating candidates for magistracies. In future, the list of nominations would be discussed by the Senate; four of the praetor- ships would be filled by persons recommended by Tiberius, the other places would be open to any candidates selected by the Senate (though clearly the support of; the princeps would be decisive here too). Formally, the list would then go before the comitia centuriata for approval, just as had happened in republican times; but competition for the votes of the people now became a pure formality for candidates for the praetorship (as it had been for candidates for the consulship since the time of Julius Caesar). Candidates needed the support only of the emperor and of the Senate. An important effect of this was to make it unnecessary for quaestors and aediles who had an eye on a praetorship to win the favour of the Roman plebs by putting on spectacular games. The giving of games was one of the principal ways in which those who participated in public life advertised their prestige. The poverty of such spectacles under Tiberius is an aspect of the concentration of power in the hands of the princeps, to the detriment both of the senatorial elite and of the people.[410]
Apart from the imperial household, the Senate and the people, the emperor also had to control the army: as we have seen, Tiberius' first act after Augustus' death was to inform every provincial army. Tacitus describes in great detail the mutinies of the two most powerful groups of legions, on the Rhine and the Danube; but we should not assume that they were a serious threat in the same way as apparently similar events were in a.d. 69 and a.d. 97. Augustus' death gave the Roman conscripts serving in Pannonia and Germany an opportunity to express their long- repressed resentment at their terms of service.The Roman soldier's oath of loyalty was not only to the res publico, but to the individual imperator who had called him up for that particular campaign. This was the first time in almost half a century that an imperator had died and needed to be replaced by a new one — albeit one who had seen many years' service both in Pannonia and Germany. It was an appropriate occasion to demand improvements in conditions of service. Tacitus describes these events as a complete collapse of discipline, and maximizes both the moral disgrace and the potential danger to Tiberius. He and other historians following the same sources (probably Pliny the Elder's Histories of the German Wars and the younger Agrippina's memoirs) agree that the Pannonian mutiny was comparatively easy to control. The mutiny on the Rhine was politically more significant because of the presence there of Germanicus, whom these sources wish to represent as a potential alternative emperor.[411]