THE [STANDING] ROMAN ARMY OF AUGUSTUS

 

Late Republican (1) and Augustian (2,3) Legionaries.

Augustus begins the Res Gestae with a programmatic sentence: “At the age of nineteen by my own decision and at my own expense, I raised an army, with which I freed the republic oppressed by the tyranny of a faction.” It is the clearest possible identification of the source of his power and the basis on which he maintained it – namely the army.

The Roman republic would not have come to an end if the army had not become a decisive factor in domestic politics. Political power in Rome was distributed among the leaders of the different parties, and so when they fell out with one another in the late republic the army splintered into forces backing each of them. Only when Rome and the political leadership were reunited could the factional forces coalesce and become the Roman army again. This step was achieved after the battle of Actium. But Augustus’ aim had to be the establishment of lasting bonds with the army; the legitimacy of his claims to political supremacy rested on his success in ending the civil wars, and keeping the army under control was the only way to banish the threat of another civil war. Augustus certainly never considered reviving the old republican form of manning the legions, by levying them anew each year; that would have destroyed the basis of his own power. He thus became the actual founder of a standing army. That an army of this nature was necessary was no longer a point of discussion. All that remained was to determine what size of army the empire and its inhabitants would accept, particularly in terms of cost.

At the time of the battle of Actium the two opponents appear to have commanded more than 60 legions between them, in addition to auxiliary cohorts, most of which had been provided and financed by dependent tribes and client kings. The Roman legions of both sides became the responsibility of the victor. Many soldiers with long years of service behind them were expecting their discharge, and Octavian dissolved entire units in order to reduce the numbers to what he regarded as necessary – and affordable. We do not know on what he based his calculations. Presumably Agrippa had a decisive influence on the final decisions. In the end, 26 legions were retained, to which two more were added a few years later, when the kingdom of Galatia was declared a Roman province. The army remained at this strength for the remainder of Augustus’ rule. Soon, however, auxiliary units of 500 men were created in addition to the legions. These troops were usually recruited from defeated peoples immediately after their conquest, including, for example, the Asturians in northern Spain, the Breucians of Pannonia, and the tribesman of Raetia, north of the Alps. Such transfers weakened the enemy’s strength and at the same time added to Rome’s military potential. In addition, regular contingents from allied tribes like the Batavians and the Ubii played a significant role. The tribes supplied the number of soldiers stipulated in their alliance treaties, and these contingents were not officially counted as part of the Roman army. They were commanded by their own officers and paid for by their tribes, but in Roman currency. It follows, then, that the large numbers of Batavian or Ubian coins that have been found, especially in the camp at Beckinghausen on the river Lippe, a site used by the Romans during their offensive against German tribes in the area, have nothing to do with pay for the soldiers. It goes almost without saying that the auxiliary cohorts supplied by allies were under the orders of Roman commanders in any military engagements.

The total strength of the armed forces stationed in the provinces cannot be precisely determined. The 28 legions had a target strength of 170,000 men, but the number of auxiliary troops in the provinces early in Augustus’ rule is unknown. We do know that at least 80 auxiliary units fought on the Roman side in the rebellions in Pannonia between ad 6 and 9. But even if their strength in the early days was roughly equivalent to that of the legions, the army’s total numbers would still have been relatively modest given the size of the empire. Nonetheless the financial burden on the state treasury was enormous. While we have no precise figures for treasury receipts from taxes, customs duties, and tributes paid by client rulers, it is certain that the majority of this total went to the army. Even so Augustus had to resort to emergency measures to finance all of the military’s needs. The base pay of a legionary was 900 sesterces per year. Even if the entire army had consisted solely of enlisted men, their annual pay would then have amounted to at least 140 million sesterces. But in fact the figure was far higher, since the cavalry were better paid and the higher ranks of centurions, tribunes, and legionary legates earned enormous sums compared with ordinary infantrymen. On top of that came the costs for equipment, constructing camps, and maintaining the fleets in Italy and in the provinces, as well as the nine cohorts of the Praetorian Guard and the three urban cohorts, who received higher pay. As time passed the Roman budget also had to cover more and more of the costs for auxiliary troops. And finally, on occasion Augustus paid special bounties to army units or even the entire army. In his will he stipulated that 1,000 sesterces should go to each praetorian, 500 to each member of the urban cohorts, and 300 to each legionary. This one-time payment, which amounted to more than 50 million sesterces, was paid out of his personal fortune, just as during his lifetime Augustus had sometimes used large amounts of his own money for the army. In several instances he personally bought the land on which veterans were settled, paying a total of 600 million sesterces in Italy and 260 million in the provinces. In chapter 16 of the Res Gestae he stresses the fact that there was no precedent for such a practice. His aim in mentioning it was to distance himself from Sulla, but also from his own earlier practice of settling veterans on land expropriated from Roman citizens, who received no compensation after the battle of Philippi in 42 bc. Augustus does not mention that land was sometimes seized from conquered peoples in the provinces in order to pay off veterans.

Nevertheless it would be a mistake to assume that Augustus paid most of the day-to-day expenses for the army out of his own pocket. Even though his income was enormous, it would not have been sufficient. He was able to spend “private” funds for the veterans’ settlements in Italy and elsewhere at certain times only because war booty was considered his personal property. The running costs for maintaining the army were paid from the state treasury (aerarium Saturni), into which all state income, including taxes from Augustus’ own provinces, was declared to flow for legal and accounting purposes. Soldiers’ discharge bounties were also supposed to come from the state treasury. Probably from ad 5 on, every legionary received 12,000 sesterces at the end of his service, and a praetorian received 20,000. Although we do not know how many soldiers from the legions and praetorian cohorts reached the end of their term of service and became eligible for discharge bounties, the total must have come to at least 50 million sesterces per year, and was probably far higher.

As soon as Augustus shifted the basis of the veterans’ discharge bounties from land grants to cash payments – a step that seems to have occurred in 13 bc – he faced the problem of liquidity. For the stability of his rule it was extremely important to give the soldiers the impression, and not only in public pronouncements, that payment of the expected discharge bounties was secure. This very question had often been the subject of political disputes in the late republic. Because the Senate had usually refused to make the necessary provisions, first the veterans and then the soldiers on active duty became the instruments of their commanders in the political struggle to get what had been promised to them. Augustus had to prevent such dangerous discontent from arising again. He experimented with various approaches; in the years 7 bc, 6 bc, and 4–2 bc he paid the discharge bounties from his own inheritance, hardly a permanent solution. The answer was finally found in ad 6, when a general financial crisis had made more demands on the state treasury than usual. With the reforms he introduced at this time Augustus made it clear that his solicitude as ruler could no longer be limited to the concerns of Roman citizens; he also had to take into account the limits of what could be squeezed out of subject peoples. And it was they who bore the costs for the standing army, since Roman citizens in Italy, and also in the colonies which both Julius Caesar and Augustus had founded in the provinces for veterans and landless Italic peoples, paid no regular taxes.

Should these conquered peoples now pay to support the veterans of the legions in their old age as well, when the soldiers were all Roman citizens? Augustus decided against such a solution and demanded that the senators, who as Roman citizens paid no taxes themselves, devise a way for Romans to share in the costs of defense both at home and abroad. When the Senate failed to come up with a realistic proposal, Augustus carried out a plan of his own. He imposed a 5 percent tax on all inheritances and bequests, known as the vicesima hereditatium. Small legacies to close relatives remained tax free, but larger bequests, which members of the upper classes traditionally made to numerous friends and clients, became taxable as a rule. In order to convince property- conscious Romans that it was for a good cause, Augustus created a separate treasury, the aerarium militare, or “military chest.” Despite this name, however, the money did not go to finance the standing army, which continued to be paid out of the state treasury, but only to support veterans. The three senators named to serve as prefects of the military fund were dependent on Augustus, at least in practice if not theory, as it was he who made the first deposit of 170 million sesterces to start the fund going. Augustus made a point of mentioning it in chapter 17 of the Res Gestae. He did not ask for or accept contributions from others, suggesting that he was keenly aware of the propaganda effect his gesture would have on the troops.

To be sure, the army itself had to pay a share of costs for the veterans, too. After Augustus had fixed the terms of service of the praetorians at first at 12 years, and of the legionaries at 16 years, making them shorter than before, he let the terms stand for about two decades. Then, however, as he was seeking a financially stable arrangement in ad 5, he extended them again, to 16 and 20 years respectively. Furthermore the legionaries did not receive a full discharge at the end of this term, but had to serve in an emergency reserve for several more years. When Augustus died in ad 14, troops stationed on the Lower Rhine and in Dalmatia mutinied, protesting that after being forced to serve for 30 or 40 years, legionaries were still not allowed to go home, but had to continue serving in special units. Some of these complaints were exaggerations, but the deep-seated resentment had arisen from concrete causes. It had apparently not been possible to make the soldiers understand the overall situation, particularly the shortage of cash to pay their discharge bounties. They made their contributions to the total financing of the armed forces – through postponement of their discharge – as unwillingly as the senators paid their own share in the form of inheritance taxes.

Despite all the imperfections of the system, Augustus nevertheless made an effort to meet soldiers’ expectations of a fixed term of service with a reliable financial settlement at the end of it. Mutinies were thus rare during his reign. In one such case, when soldiers who had experienced the civil wars mutinied in Spain in 19 bc, Agrippa gave them dishonorable discharges, meaning that they received no bounty. Politically this was possible because Augustus had no rivals left who could or would have exploited the soldiers’ discontent for their own purposes.

Augustus was not the commander-in-chief of the entire Roman army. Legally, as we have seen, a proconsul in one of the provinces of the Roman people was an independent commander of the troops stationed there. Tiberius, Augustus’ successor, once found it necessary to remind a proconsul of Africa, for instance, that he, the proconsul, as governor was responsible for distributing medals and decorations to the troops in his province and did not need to ask permission from the princeps. As this case reflects, the overall supremacy of the princeps developed more from the political subservience of the senators than from any legal reforms. Of course even in military matters Augustus could impose his will on proconsuls on the basis of his imperium, which was superior to that of the proconsuls in the case of differing opinion or in times of military conflict. But his imperium was not fundamentally conceived as a blanket supreme command over all troops in the Roman Empire. Sometimes a proconsul could be placed under Augustus’ auspicia or command, as in the case of Cornelius Lentulus, who as proconsul of Africa between ad 6 and 8 finished a war against the Gaetulian tribe on this legal footing. Passage of a special decree by the Senate had been necessary to create it, however. Normally the auspicia were the particular prerogative of a proconsul. Even the right to a triumph was never taken away by legal decree from senatorial commanders who had their own independent imperium; this right was instead allowed to lapse and substitutes were introduced instead. When a senator won a victory after this time, he did so as the princeps’ legate. If Augustus considered that a particular victory merited a triumph and accepted acclamation as a commander, then on the basis of a Senate decree he could award the triumphal insignia to the successful field commander and thus allow him to share public recognition for the victory. The actual victor received another reward in the form of a bronze statue in the Forum of Augustus in the center of Rome.

In practice Augustus had the entire Roman army effectively under his control. In almost all provinces it was also formally under his command, after the proconsul in Illyricum was replaced by a legate of Augustus and after the legions were withdrawn from the province of Macedonia, which continued under the rule of a proconsul. He appointed his legates as well as the commanders of the various legions; their powers were derived from the imperium of the princeps. This fact affected the attitudes of both the commanders and their men, who knew that the powerful senator at the head of the provincial army was himself dependent on the princeps. Moreover some of the centurions and many tribunes owed their position in the army to Augustus’ direct influence. All of them had sworn an oath to him, which they renewed every year. Both centurions and tribunes in particular received generous pay, and these circumstances, in addition to the prospect of further promotion, created a strong network of loyalty to the imperator, in which the senatorial legate was also bound. Augustus made great demands on his troops; the wars of conquest in Spain, the Balkans, and Germany required enormous efforts and caused heavy losses. But for many soldiers the memories of battle and its hardships may have soon paled beside their pride in what they had achieved under Augustus’ leadership. Numerous inscriptions on graves and the pedestals of honorary statues show that contemporaries were kept informed of the military honors he had awarded. And every award also testified to the victories won by Caesar Augustus.