Augustus
(From a cameo)
Though the Jewish nation had more liberty to manage its domestic concerns under Roman rule than under the Herods, it found small relief from the burden of taxes and customs. The Romans exacted a property tax (a poll tax and ground rate), a duty on houses, market produce, and many other imposts. The temple tax, on the other hand (assessed at two drachmæ), was regarded as a voluntary rate and collected by priestly officials, the Romans not concerning themselves about it. A general census which Augustus caused to be made by P. Sulpicius Quirinus, knight and proconsul, after he had taken possession of the country (about 10 A.D.), with a view to finding out how much the country could annually yield to the revenue in proportion to its population, the acreage under cultivation, and other circumstances, was the first thing that gave deep offence to the orthodox among the Jews.
The small dominions which Augustus and his family left to be administered as vassal states by the Herod family—such as the northeastern district with the old town of Paneas, first ruled by the upright and able Herod Philip, who expanded Paneas into the great city of Cæsarea (Philippi); and Galilee and Perea, the heritage of the subtle and greedy tetrarch Antipas, (commonly called Herod) the fulsome flatterer of the Romans, and founder of the cities of Sepphoris (Diocæsarea) and Tiberias—were merged into the Roman world-empire some decades later by the failure of heirs to the subject dynasty. On a journey to Jerusalem the last-named prince, Antipas, the Herod of the Gospels, became enamoured of Herodias, the beautiful wife of his half-brother Philip, herself a member of the Herod family, and prevailed upon her to leave her husband and bestow her hand upon himself.
This criminal marriage bore evil fruit for the tetrarch. His former wife fled to her father, the Arab prince of Petra, and urged him on to make war upon her faithless husband, who allowed himself to be led in all things by Herodias, and heeded the sullen disaffection of his people as little as the open rebukes of the preacher of repentance, John the Baptist. In the reign of Caligula, Antipas was deprived of his kingdom on the indictment of his cousin and brother-in-law Herod Agrippa, and banished with his wife, Herodias, to Gaul, where they both died. Under the emperor Claudius, however, Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, who had been brought up at Rome, again gained dominion over Judea and Samaria, and maintained his authority for three years (41-44). An adventurer and soldier of fortune, and a favourite and flatterer of the Cæsars by turns, he was smitten with a horrible disease while looking on at the games in the circus, shortly after a persecution of the Christians, and succumbed to it in a few days.
The deserts in the southeast of the province of Syria were inhabited by free Arab tribes, which from the earliest times had led a roving and predatory life. Augustus acted as Pompey had done before him; he concluded a treaty and alliance with Malchus of Petra, the Nabatæan prince and successor to Aretas, and with the chieftain Iamblichus of Emesa, whose father, another Iamblichus, had been executed by Antony, guaranteeing to them the possession of their paternal inheritance on condition that they should ward off the predatory incursions of the sons of the desert. An attempt made by Ælius Gallus, governor of Egypt, to subjugate Arabia Felix in the year 24 ended miserably. The glare of the sun and the perils of the climate soon scared the invaders away and protected the natives from the Roman swords. The general of the Nabatæan prince, who had conducted the desert campaign, paid for his supposed treason with his life; but the disloyalty of the servant was not laid to his master’s charge.
Rome had still an affair of honour to settle with the Parthians; the day of Carrhæ was not yet requited and the blood of Crassus and his comrades cried for vengeance. Augustus nevertheless cherished no desire to expose himself and his legions to the darts of the iron horsemen. In this instance fortune again proved his ally. Parthia and Armenia, which at that time stood in intimate relations with one another, were distracted with quarrels over the succession. Tigranes, son of the unhappy Artavasdes, appealed for Roman aid against Artaxias, the nominee of the Parthian king. Tiberius invaded Armenia with an army, and bestowed the throne on the protégé of Rome, Artaxias having been slain by the natives at the general’s coming (20 B.C.). This catastrophe filled the Parthian king with apprehensions that the Romans might declare for the pretender Tiridates, and procure for himself a like fate with Artaxias. He therefore complied with the demands of Augustus and restored the Roman ensigns and the prisoners who had been detained in the far East ever since the disaster of Carrhæ. The emperor celebrated the restoration of the eagles by a sacrificial feast, as if it had been a victory, and dedicated a temple to Mars the Avenger.
But Armenia attained to no lasting tranquillity; at one time it was dominated by Roman influence, at another the Parthians gained the upper hand; kings were installed and exiled, quarrels for the throne and party feuds filled the land. Under Nero, the Parthian king Vologeses I set his brother Tiridates on the throne of Armenia, and thus fanned the embers of war between the Romans and Parthians to a blaze.
The perfidious Armenians themselves supplied occasions of strife by invoking the aid of Rome on the one hand to save themselves from falling completely under the sway of their eastern neighbour, and favouring the Parthians on the other, lest they should be oppressed by Rome. In local situation and similarity of manners they were, as Tacitus observes, more closely akin to the Parthians, with whom they intermarried freely; and were inclined to servitude by reason of their ignorance of liberty. At this time Domitius Corbulo won great renown and revived the terror of the Roman arms, even under the vilest of the emperors. Having restored discipline among the legions, he victoriously invaded the mountain country, took its principal towns, Artaxata and Tigranocerta, and set up a certain Tigranes as a Roman claimant to the throne and a rival to the Parthian pretender (58 B.C.). Tigranes and his successor, a scion of the Herod family, held their ground for five years by the aid of Rome; then the Parthians regained the ascendency and again bestowed the throne on their own candidate Tiridates, Cæsennius Pætus, Corbulo’s successor, being powerless to prevent this revolution. But when Corbulo himself advanced once more into Armenia with his army the Parthians despaired of being able to hold their own in defiance of Rome. They therefore effected a compromise. In an interview with Corbulo, Tiridates consented to lay down his royal fillet before the emperor’s image and to receive it back from his hand at Rome. From that time forward the peace of the Eastern provinces long remained undisturbed.
In the province of Asia little alteration was made in the existing state of things, the privileges of certain cities were increased or curtailed according to the position they had taken up during the civil wars, and restrictions were imposed on the right of sanctuary of the Ephesian Diana, which had made the city a harbourage for criminals. The fresh vigour which Augustus infused into the disordered commonwealth produced a splendid aftermath of prosperity in the ancient seats of civilisation. Under the sway of order, that “bounteous daughter of heaven,” the peaceful arts rose to fresh glory, and in the first century of the empire the province of Asia contained five hundred populous cities. From the Greek islands the Romans imported articles of luxury and sensuous enjoyment; Parian and Phrygian marbles for their gorgeous buildings; the wine of Chios, the sea fish of Rhodes, and the game of Asia Minor for their epicurean banquets. Ephesus and Apamea were the marts and emporiums for the produce and artistic productions of the East. Thence the Roman merchant brought his fine Babylonian tissues, his Arabian and Persian incense and ointments, his robes of Tyrian purple. In the island of Cos were made the fine female garments which displayed rather than concealed the limbs, the “Coan robes” against which Seneca so vehemently inveighs.