Roman Empire: A Captivating Guide to Imperial Rome and Pax Romana by History Captivating

Author:History, Captivating
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Death of the First Roman Emperor

But finding an heir was not easy. Augustus had no sons, despite being married three times. His only biological child and, therefore, his only bargaining chip regarding the succession was his daughter, Julia the Elder. In 25 BCE, he married Julia off to Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the son of Augustus’s sister, Octavia Minor. Interestingly, there was a bit of controversy with this marriage, as Augustus caught a serious illness in 23 BCE. In his will, he designated his friend and general Agrippa since Augustus saw him as the only man capable of taking the reins of power and actually keeping Rome together. Nevertheless, Marcellus was groomed to be the heir, receiving a decent education alongside Tiberius and even going on military campaigns with him under Augustus’s command. However, in an odd twist of fate, the same illness that afflicted Augustus would actually claim Marcellus’s life; he would die in 23 BCE at the age of nineteen.

The next step was obvious for Augustus. He married his daughter to Agrippa. Though Agrippa would die in 12 BCE, the union was fruitful. Despite having a large age difference (there was at least a quarter of a century between the two), the couple produced five children. They had two daughters—Vipsania Julia (also known as Julia Minor) and Julia Agrippina—and, more importantly for the case of succession, three sons named Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, and Agrippa Postumus. Each of Agrippa’s sons would become officially adopted by Augustus, with Augustus even gaining the position of consul twice (in 5 and then in 2 BCE) so that he could elevate his two elder grandsons-turned-sons’ political careers. Unfortunately for Augustus, they would not live to succeed him. Lucius fell ill in 2 CE and died soon after; he wasn’t even nineteen years old. His older brother Gaius died a mere eighteen months later from a wound he received while fighting in Armenia. He was twenty-three when he died.

Augustus, an elderly man who was still an active emperor, once again had a succession crisis on his hands. He had been reduced to two choices for a suitable heir. One would be his only remaining blood relative and youngest grandson-turned-son, Agrippa Postumus. The other would be the son of his wife Livia from her previous marriage, Tiberius. Of the two, Tiberius was the more prudent choice, despite not being related by blood to Augustus. Tiberius’s brother Drusus was also considered an heir, but he would die in 9 CE. Tiberius shared a lot of the same powers and privileges that Augustus did, though he would eventually relinquish them and set off for Rhodes. Postumus was still a candidate for becoming the heir, but that would soon end when Augustus had the young man exiled to the island of Planasia (modern Pianosa in Italy). According to historians and contemporary authors, Postumus was a brutish young man with little interest in politics and a violent, crass personality. Though we can’t say for sure why Augustus banished

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