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Augustus' death.

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

3 – Augustus’ death.
The marriage of the couple was very happy and lasted for 52 years, a very long time during which Augustus was always passing from an illness to another. Very strong he never had been and at a certain age he began to develop arthritis and trouble with his hip. So he was often seen limping around. Then he also got mallet finger (Segond injury) that blocked his right hand forefinger, so, to be able to write he was obliged to keep it straight with a horn band. Moreover he got stones in his bladder, trouble with his liver and was full of all kind of aches and pains that among all the rest made him suffer both from heat and cold. In short he was the kind of weak man who was always obliged to take care of himself. Thus in summertime he was obliged to wear a hat, and in wintertime he was forced to put on 4 tunics, one over the others, and, as all this was not enough, he had had also to wear a body belt and even panties (called in Latin “feminalia” because only women wore them) a fact that is told to us by Suetonius (The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Augustus, 82) and here I am obliged to cite the passage because, as I discovered, many of my colleagues never heard about it and were sure that I had just made it up. To sum it up Augustus was the kind of person that we call a “crock” and as all the other “crocks” of this world who give always the impression to be on death point, he buried nearly all his generation..
Thus passed the 52 years of their very long and happy marriage. Livia was always at his side and cared for him. But no one could last for ever and also for Augustus came the time to die. He got the first symptoms of the infirmity that brought him to his end when he was in Campania and at Capri. However he was still able to leave the island, and, going on with his journey, he reached Naples, where he still had the force to assist to a quinquennial gymnastic contest that was held in his honour. Then, accompanied by Livia, he arrived to Nola and there his health declined so rapidly that after this moment it was impossible to move him any further.
The end was approaching, and, if the birth of Augustus had been announced by the usual amounts of ominous dreams and portents related to all the great men’s birth, many more accompanied his last days. Not only Suetonius, but also another amateur of those kind of phenomena, the historian Dio, did not lose the occasion to register all the happenings and all the unequivocal signs that were seen before Augustus’ death. Of course the usual solar eclipse could not fail to be there, and moreover, when it was finished, the sky had been lighted by a mysterious radiance, a phenomenon never seen before, while firebrands traced the heaven’s vault. How comets could miss such a scene? Naturally also them were there and rose from all the parts of the orizon shining with a dark reddish light that make more clear their ill-omened meaning.
Seeing all these ill starred signs the senators decided to convoke an extraordinary meeting to pray for the emperor, but when they got to the “Curia” they found it closed and were only received by an owl, which, perched on its roof, gave out lugubrious laments.
At last, as a final touch, Iovis pater hit with a thunderbolt the Capitol’s statue of Augustus, and with this drastic system made the letter C of Caesar fall down from its base. This made everything clear: the augurs explained that the letter C. which for the Romans meant a hundred, made clear how many were the days before Augustus would reach his place among the gods. That he would become a god was a sure thing - declared the augurs - because in the Etruscan language the word Aesar that was left on the statue’s base signified “God”.
Omens or not omens Augustus was slowly passing away. Strangely in the day in which he died, the emperor that, as we did know, always overlooked his aspect, asked that his hair would be combed and put in order, and in this act there is all the sense of propriety of Augustus: when he was in good health he never cared for his looks, but now, in this solemn moment, he couldn’t accept to be seen in disorder.
When he had finished his toilet, he turned himself to the people staying there and asked them if they didn’t agree that he had well acted his role in the comedy of life, and, just as an actor leaving his audience, he declaimed in Greek the verses that at the end of each play interpreters used to direct to the public:
“And now, if everything went well, clap your hands to our play and acclaim us”
And with these words he made them go away from his room, and he remained alone with Livia. Augustus was now very old and knew he could not last much more. The day before dying – writes Suetonius – he made Tiberius come to his room. When he arrived the emperor, after having sent all the others away, spoke at length and in private with him.
In his Histories Suetonius writes.
“ But on his journey back to Rome his infirmity worsened and at Nola he was seriously ill. Here he called Tiberius and he kept him in his room with secret talks, and this done he relaxed and didn’t attend to any other problems”
It is highly probable that he was giving to Tiberius precise instructions on what to do for his succession. For the moment he had left Tiberius on the throne. He was sure of him and he had no doubt on the fact that he will put all in order and then pass the sceptre to his designed heir. We don’t have any proof that this was what happened but everything that Tiberius did after his stepfather death points to it.
As long as Drusus had lived no problem had existed. Augustus would have left to his natural son his throne. But Drusus had died and now Augustus wanted to be sure that the empire would pass to his son’s sons. He had full confiance on Tiberius a man that he had chosen as his colleague in the empire. His stepson had always been his right-hand man and had always behaved extremely well. There could never be any doubt on his uprightness, and one could be completely sure that as a man of his word as he was, he would always maintain the task he had undertaken. Leaving Tiberius at his place Augustus could be certain to have arranged everything in such a way that the throne would go to his direct heirs.
What Tiberius did after the emperor’s death made clear that Augustus wanted Germanicus as his successor. If this was not the case there would never be any reason for Tiberius to prefer Germanicus, an adopted son, to his own child Drusus. Apart of all this we can see that, when the Senate wanted to decree great honors to him and Livia, he refused all this with resoluteness, but at the same time he requested for Germanicus the lifetime “proconsular imperium”, a charge that preluded the election to the empire. At the same time very indicative was the fact that while he was asking those powers for Germanicum, nothing he asked for his son, Drusus Minor. It was also always to Germanicus that he sent the envoys. and not only to announce him this important honor, but also to console him of his grandfather loss, just as if had been the person by blood more tied to him and then the one that more needed to be comforted.
Tacitus, who was still persuaded that to bring at his home the 6 months pregnant Livia whom, for the historian, Augustus had just met was perfectly normal, was overcome with surprise with what was now happening and considered all this as the result of aberrations. The historian, who had already been shocked by the fact that an old Augustus, had made Tiberius adopt Germanicus the son of his brother Drusus could absolutely not understand that he not only had adopted the young nephew but was preparing to pass him the empire, and this
“notwithstanding the fact that Tiberius had a young son”
Tacitus was sure that Augustus had nothing to do with Drusus and also he did not doubt that Tiberius ignored everything, and yet everything that the dying emperor had done made clear that he was preparing to put Germanicus on his throne and that after his death Tiberius would pass to him the sceptre.
After this private talk with Tiberius, Augustus relaxed and received the visit of some friends coming from Rome and he wanted to see them also because he wanted to inquire on the health of one of his grand daughter, that at this moment was ailing It was just when they were talking and he was asking how she was that his strength abandoned him and he collapsed in Livia’s arms: she immediately understood that the farewell moment had come. Augustus dying but perfectly conscious could still able to talk and his last words were for her
Fifty two years had elapsed, fifty two long years, but for the couple of lovers they had flown away like a dream. Dying Augustus was not thinking to the empire that he had created, nor to the greatness of Rome that had been reinforced in his peace. His last words were not for his fellow-citizens, not even to the future generation or to he history to which, as he well knew, he belonged. In this supreme moment, fronting the death when a man is alone and naked in front of the eternity, when everything is looked through new eye, he saw only his wife. They were the only two persons who counted, and he knew that what they had been the one for the other could not die with him. Till then Livia had lived and was in this world that fire that had warmed all their life would never fail. When also her would be gone nothing would matter anymore, but until one of them would live the tie that had united them from the times in which they were very young would still exist. He wanted to tell her all this, the last farewell and the last recommendation.
“Livia, remember our love. Remember it in each the days of your life.”
And it was with this last token of an union that nothing could ever undermine that Augustus went to eternity.

Bibliography
Scientific popularization
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, L'amore a Roma in Archeo, VII, 10 (92) October 1992, pp. 54-99

Books
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - Amori ed amanti tra la repubblica ed il principato, Editore. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, 1992