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Imperium and Cosmos Augustus and the Northern
Campus Martius 1st Edition Paul Rehak Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Paul Rehak, John G. Younger
ISBN(s): 9780299220143, 0299220141
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 4.13 MB
Year: 2009
Language: english
I  C
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the von Bothmer
Publication Fund of the Archaeological Institute of America and through the
generous support and enduring vision of Warren G. Moon.
I  C
Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius

Paul Rehak
Edited by John G. Younger

    

The University of Wisconsin Press
 Monroe Street
Madison, Wisconsin 

www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/

 Henrietta Street
London  , England

Copyright © 
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved

    

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rehak, Paul.
Imperium and cosmos: Augustus and the northern Campus Martius / Paul Rehak;
edited by John G. Younger.
p. cm.—(Wisconsin studies in classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
 --- (cloth: alk. paper)
. Campo Marzio (Rome, Italy) . Augustus, Emperor of Rome,  ..– ..—
Monuments. . Augustus, Emperor of Rome,  ..– ..—Cult. . Architecture—
Political aspects—Rome. . Power (Social sciences)—Rome. . Emperor worship—Rome.
. Rome—History—Augustus,  ..– .. . Rome (Italy)—Antiquities. I. Younger,
John G. (John Grimes), – II. Title. III. Series.
. 
´.—dc 
for my own
A U G U S TA N
family
Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Chronology xvii
Genealogical Charts xxvi

 Brick into Marble: Metaphor and Reality 

 Field of Dreams: The Campus Martius 
 Last Things First: Ustrinum and Mausoleum 
 Visualizing the Invisible: The Horologium-Solarium 
 Gateway to History: The Ara Pacis Augustae 
 Imperium and Cosmos 

Works Cited 

Index of Ancient Sources 
General Index 
Illustrations

                    
Following p. 
. Plan of the Campus Martius
. View of the city model
. Pompey’s theater, quadriporticus, Hecatostylum
. Column base of Antoninus Pius
. View of Mausoleum
. Mausoleum interior
. Colossal head of Augustus, Vatican
. Tomb of Caecilia Metella: view
. Tomb of Caecilia Metella: frieze
. Tumulus on Mount Nemrud
. Mausoleum of Halikarnassos
. Obelisk from Mausoleum
. Reconstruction of Mausoleum with obelisks flanking the entrance
. Res Gestae inscription in Temple of Roma and Augustus, Ankara
. Reconstruction of the Horologium-Solarium
. Obelisk that was once the gnomon for the Horologium-Solarium
. Modern seasonal markings at the Montecitorio obelisk
. Tower of the Winds, Athens
. Lion horoscope from Mount Nemrud

ix
 Illustrations

. Gemma Augustea

. Primaporta statue of Augustus, detail of cuirass
. Augustus as pontifex maximus
. Schematic reconstruction, Flavian pavement, Horologium-Solarium
. Obelisk that was once in the Circus Maximus
. Ara Pacis: general view
. Ara Pacis, interior and altar
. Ara Pacis: interior screen wall
. Ara Pacis: altar, inner north arm frieze
. Ara Pacis: altar, inner east frieze
. Ara Pacis: acanthus panel below “Aeneas/Numa” panel
. Ara Pacis: laurel branch in acanthus floral
. Ara Pacis: swan atop acanthus floral
. Ara Pacis: acanthus (north) with snake and baby birds
. Ara Pacis: Tellus relief
. Augustus relief, Aphrodisias
. Ara Pacis: Roma panel
. Ara Pacis: Romulus panel
. Ara Pacis: “Aeneas/Numa” panel
. Ara Pacis: south frieze—Augustus
. Ara Pacis: south frieze—Augustus, flamines, Agrippa
. Ara Pacis: south frieze—Agrippa, Julia
. Ara Pacis: south frieze—east end with children
. Ara Pacis: north frieze—first group (west end)
. Ara Pacis: north frieze—second group
. Ara Pacis: north frieze—third group
. Ara Pacis: north frieze—fourth group (near east end)

                         

Genealogical Chart . Augustus’s immediate family xxvi

Genealogical Chart . Mark Antony’s other descendants xxvii
Table . Sequence of buildings in the Campus Martius 
Table . Works of art displayed in the Campus Martius 
Table . Zodiacal signs and dates 
Table . Augustan obelisks 

x
Preface

Every generation finds its own Augustus. On the eve of World War II, Sir Ronald Syme
reinvigorated the field of Augustan studies with his groundbreaking work The Roman
Revolution (), which contextualized the first emperor against the fascist and total-
itarian regimes that were coming to dominate Europe. In the years since then, there
has been no shortage of other interpretations of Augustus and his principate. Fifty
years later, three landmark studies appeared almost simultaneously. Kaiser Augustus
(Hofter et al. ) is a remarkably detailed exhibition catalogue with accompanying
essays, produced by a constellation of European, mostly German, specialists. Paul
Zanker’s seminal book, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (; trans. ),
argued that Augustan values were propagated through a dialogue between ruler and
ruled, and not simply imposed from the top down. And Claude Nicolet, in Space,
Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (; trans. ; reviewed Purcell
), focused on the contemporaneous shift in mentality from Rome the city to
Rome the ecumenical empire that incorporated the inhabitable world (oikouménē).
Our own day has seen the emergence of a “kinder, gentler” Augustus, as revealed by
Karl Galinsky in his recent survey of Augustan Culture and by Diane Favro’s The Urban
Image of Augustan Rome, both published in  to mixed receptions (e.g., Simpson
; Kellum ; Hardie ). Other studies are numerous: D. Kienast  includes
immense bibliography and an important treatment of Augustus’s imperial philosophy
(Reichspolitik); and Galinsky conducts useful overviews of scholarship (, ).
There have also been several important conferences (Winkes ; Raaflaub and Toher
; and Habinek and Schiesaro ). Other studies chart changing views of the

xi
 Preface

princeps and the Augustan age as both continuity and innovation (e.g., Levi ;
Salmon ; André ; Wallace-Hadrill ; Simon a; Eder ; Crook b;
and Lacey ).
Yet Augustus the man and his achievements remain elusive. In large part, his
enigmatic quality can be attributed to his exceptional longevity and the conditions of
the time in which he lived. Virtually unknown as a teenager before his adoption by
Julius Caesar, he managed not only to survive the succeeding decades but eventually
to emerge as the “last man standing” after the Civil Wars at the end of the Republic.
By creating for the public the palatable fiction of restoring the Republic or reasserting
liberty and peace (Judge ), he invented a new name and role for himself and
his successors, and presided over a remarkable transformation in Roman politics and
society. By the time of his death at the age of seventy-six, he had reinvented himself
several times; he even attempted to legislate how posterity would evaluate him
through his last testamentary autobiography, the Res Gestae, which was read aloud and
inscribed in various locations, even in front of his tomb. But clearly the young man of
the Civil Wars was a very different man from the aged ruler of the early empire.
The question, then, still remains: how can we come to terms with Augustus?
Scholars have approached the mass of surviving evidence from a variety of valid per-
spectives, but recently there seems to have been a move away from Augustus the indi-
vidual in order to consider broader cultural issues. To choose just a few examples, the
portraiture of the princeps and the members of his family has long been a mainstay
of art historical studies, but in recent years the focus has shifted to the circumstances
under which certain images were selected, the nature of the messages these carried,
and the ways in which the images were disseminated to—and understood by—the
Roman public in various parts of the empire (MacMullan ). Individual works,
like the Boscoreale cups (Kuttner ), have been examined not only as works of art
but also as lenses through which we can view the political issues of the period and
as aids in reconstructing monuments now lost. And many scholars are now crossing
old and established disciplinary boundaries to aid in our understanding of the period.
Literary critics like C. Edwards () and my colleague at Kansas, Tara Welch, for
example, are using early imperial poetry to help us understand the physical growth
and development of the city of Rome.
The study of individual buildings in Rome and in the provinces has often merged
with our wish to understand the broader implications of architectural programs, the
creation of urban spaces, and the spread of “Romanitas”—or resistance to it. A sig-
nificant part of the Augustan legacy was the architectural transformation of Rome
(Coarelli ; Favro ; Purcell ). His building record elsewhere in the empire
was equally impressive and far-reaching (Gros ; D. Kienast ; Hänlein-Schäfer
; Mierse ; Kästner ). Yet significant questions remain about the nature and
purpose of these programs. To what extent did they form part of a unified vision, and
can we identify the personal participation of the princeps in the choices of building

xii
 Preface

types and schemes of architectural decoration? How do choices about the planning
and construction of buildings reflect the social and political changes of the time?
The present study draws on all these and other areas, but my focus in this book is
on the Augustan transformation of a single geographic area of Rome, the Campus
Martius, from a center of display and competition among the old Republican families
into a kind of Augustan “theme park” that evolved over time, celebrated his major
achievements, and prepared for his death and eventual deification. In choosing the
transformation of the Campus Martius as my main subject, I shift away from some
other areas of the city that have been well studied of late: the re-creation of the Forum
Romanum as a Julian monument, the architectural changes that took place on the
Palatine Hill as it became an imperial residence (Gros a; Nielsen ; Royo ;
Tomei a, b; Quenemoen ), and the creation of the Forum of Augustus
(La Rocca b; Ungaro a).
My thesis is that the development of the Campus Martius represents something
fundamentally different and new in the process of Roman urbanization and personal
self-promotion. The erection of Augustus’s tomb (the Mausoleum), the site of his cre-
mation ceremony (the Ustrinum), and the creation of a giant sundial (the Horologium-
Solarium) and associated Altar of Augustan Peace (Ara Pacis Augustae), all mark
experiments in the creation of a new world capital. While these general types of mon-
uments—tombs, sundials, and altars—were already known and used by the Romans
and other Mediterranean cultures before the early imperial period, the structures
actually erected in the Campus Martius in each case represented something novel and
different. There are no direct precedents for any of these monuments in terms of their
scale, elaboration, and arrangement in space, and, interestingly, the structures seem
to have inspired few direct successors. In each case, however, I argue that, although
Pompey and Caesar employed eastern monarchical symbols (A. Alföldi , ,
), Augustus’s monuments in the Campus Martius reveal unambiguous imperial
and monarchical themes to a greater extent than has generally been credited by
scholars. That the structures succeeded in conveying these cosmic messages of royal
power in acceptable forms is due to their use and transformation in each case of an
existing architectural and conceptual vocabulary in order to carry new messages. The
buildings thus “speak” a language of power (imperium) that was understood by the
public two millennia ago, a language that we are still capable of understanding today.
Finally, I argue that such an ambitious sequence of buildings is only possible if we
assume the direct participation from the very beginning of the princeps who author-
ized them, whatever public disclaimers he, his planners, or his advisors and associates
may have made.
Like the Campus Martius itself, but on a lesser scale, this book has changed and
expanded over time. It began as a study of the Ara Pacis in two seminars on Roman
sculpture held at Duke University in  and . Over the last two years it has grown
to include the Mausoleum, Ustrinum, and Horologium-Solarium. I am grateful to the

xiii
 Preface

students in my seminars for their insights and observations: Ali Balfour, David Bediz,
Marshall Brandt, Albert Caruana, Jill Chmielewski, Eleni Eliades, Carrie Lancaster,
Rebecca Lipschutz, John Long, Meredith Mewley, Margo Rettig, Ileana Serrano, Rupert
Shaw, Rachel Sommers, Dorian Statom, Torry Thomas, Margaret Thompson, Ethan
Timm, and Shaheen Wirk.
The extent to which my own thinking has been influenced by the recent stimulating
work of other scholars should be apparent throughout: especially influential is the
work of David Castriota, Robert Cohon, Diane Conlin, Ann Kuttner, Adriano La
Regina, John Pollini, Brian Rose, and Erika Simon. My colleagues in the Department
of Classics at the University of Kansas have unfailingly provided encouragement for
my work, and the fine staff of the library system has managed to obtain a number of
publications that are difficult to access.
I also owe a considerable debt to colleagues who have read and commented on
aspects of the material presented here, though they do not necessarily agree with all
of my conclusions: Darius Arya, Elizabeth Bartman, Mary T. Boatwright, Peter Burian,
Nancy de Grummond, Melanie Grunow, Gerhard Koeppel, Eugenio La Rocca, Nancy
Ramage, Brunilde S. Ridgway, Steven Tuck, Annabel Wharton, and Ann Wilkins. Robert
Cohon and Lawrence Richardson generously read this manuscript in its entirety, and
have saved me from many pitfalls, though they are not of course responsible for any
errors that remain. The two reviewers for the University of Wisconsin Press likewise
helped with their insights and judicious comments. I am most grateful to John G.
Younger, who has offered support and encouragement at every stage of this process.
Some of the material in chapter  was presented in lectures for the Department of
Classical Studies at Duke University (April ), at a lecture for the Archaeological
Institute of America in Detroit (November ), and at the annual meeting of the Col-
lege Art Association in New York (February ). Portions of chapter  were presented
at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Dallas (Rehak
), to the Department of Classics at the University of Kansas (), and at the
April  conference in Boulder, Colorado, on Marble in Antiquity. My identification
of “Aeneas” on the Ara Pacis as King Numa (a) and my discussion of the flamines
on the same monument (b) have, since their first publication, been refined.

            ,     ,               

Gaius Octavius (Octavian) was legally called Gaius Julius Caesar after his great uncle,
Julius Caesar, adopted him in his will in  BCE. After the Senate deified Caesar in ,
Octavian had the right to add “son of a god” (divi filius) to his name, as well as Imper-
ator Caesar. After  (January), his official name was Imperator Caesar Augustus (Syme
; Rubincam ; Simpson b). For the sake of simplicity rather than absolute
correctness, I refer to him as Octavian until January of  and Augustus thereafter.

xiv
 Preface

All dates are BCE unless otherwise indicated. General descriptions of the various
monuments can be found in Platner and Ashby , L. Richardson , Steinby
– (LTUR), and Claridge ; specific references to these volumes are not usu-
ally included in the bibliographical citations. All illustrations are either by the author,
adapted by the author (with source specified), or reprinted with permission from the
original source; translations, unless otherwise attributed, are also by the author.
Finally, a note should be made about the title of this book. In , P. R. Hardie pub-
lished a literary study, Vergil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium. Although I have inverted
the two words in his subtitle for the title of my book, we are obviously dealing with
related—but different—issues.

      ’      (          )

On  April , Paul Rehak gave his last paper on the Ara Pacis at the annual meet-
ing of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) in St Louis:
“Women and Children on the Ara Pacis Augustae.” He was able to include some of this
paper in chapter  before suffering the heart attack that led to his death on  June. In
editing this book for publication, my main concern has been to preserve the text that
Paul wrote while trimming it down to a readable size; I deliberately did not include
some of the most recent and appropriate publications in order not to overstep, or
out-guess, Paul’s original intentions. I was fortunate to have been in on this project for
over ten years. In that time Paul took several groups of students around Rome, and I
was able to tag along and listen to him bring Augustus to life as we toured his monu-
ments of the Campus Martius, went inside his Mausoleum, gawked at the paintings in
his study on the Palatine, and “hunted down” all the obelisks in Rome. It has been a
joy and an honor to bring to light this project—one of Paul’s many inspired visions
of Rome.

xv
Chronology



 Birth of Pompey

 Birth of Julius Caesar
 Sulla greets Pompey as imperator
Birth of Mark Antony ( January)
 First triumph of Pompey ( March)
 Pompey triumphs over Spain
 Birth of Octavian; Caesar pontifex maximus
 Triumph of Pompey over three continents; claim of world conquest
 Caesar consul
– Caesar proconsul of Gaul
 Dedication of Pompey’s theater complex
 Death of Caesar’s daughter, Julia; break between Caesar and Pompey
 Defeat of Crassus at Carrhae, Parthia
 Octavian gives funeral oration for his grandmother, Julia
 Death of Pompey in Egypt; Octavian assumes the toga virilis
(/ October)
 Caesar makes Octavian pontifex
 Caesar’s triumph; Temple of Venus Genetrix dedicated ( September)
Statue of Caesar as world conqueror set up on Capitoline
Caesar, accompanied by Octavian, goes to Spain to fight sons of Pompey

xvii
 Chronology

– Caesar dictator

 Octavian at Apollonia (with Agrippa) for study, hears his future foretold
 Assassination of Julius Caesar; Octavian adopted by will; Octavian returns
from Apollonia
– Sicilian War
 Octavian’s first consulship
Senate votes Octavian a gilded equestrian statue ( January)
First grant of imperium
First victory ( April); proclaimed imperator first time
Death of Cicero
Death of Octavian’s mother, Atia
 Deification of Julius Caesar by Senate
Birth of Tiberius
Death of consuls Hirtius and Pansa at Mutina
Battle of Philippi
 Siege of Perusia
Antony invades Parthia; meets Cleopatra at Tarsus
 Octavian captures Perusia and Lucius Antonius (consul), brother of
Mark Antony
Octavian marries Scribonia; Antony marries Octavia Minor
Treaty of Brundisium between Octavian and Antony
 Birth of Julia Major
Treaty of Misenum between Octavian, Antony, and Sextus Pompey
 Octavian divorces Scribonia and marries Livia ( January)
Drusus Major (son of Livia and Tiberius Claudius Nero) born three
months later ( March?)
– War against Sextus Pompey
 Treaty of Tarentum
 Defeat of Sextus Pompey and Lepidus in Sicily ( September)
Octavian refuses to succeed Lepidus as pontifex maximus
Antony invades Parthia and is defeated there
– Dalmatian war
 Antony annexes Armenia
Triumph of Statilius Taurus
Aemilius Lepidus Paullus restores the Basilica Aemilia
Agrippa restores the Aqua Marcia
 Octavian’s second consulship; Agrippa aedile; sewer system repaired
 Antony declared public enemy
Italy’s oath of allegiance to Octavian
 Octavian’s third consulship
Battle of Actium ( September); Octavian winters in Samos and Syria

xviii
 Chronology

 Octavian’s fourth consulship

Conquest of Alexandria ( August); death of Antony and Cleopatra
Annexation of Egypt
Gallus sets up the Alexandria obelisk
Birthday of Octavian celebrated publicly
Octavian winters in Samos
Senate votes Octavian tribunician power beyond the pomerium
 Octavian’s fifth consulship
War ends and Janus is closed (first time under Octavian; third time
since Romulus)
Octavian returns to Rome
Triple triumph (– August)
Gallus becomes prefect of Egypt ( January)
Dedication of Temple of Divus Julius; Troy Games
Cult of Roma and Caesar established in Bithynia and Asia; cult of Roma
and Octavian at Pergamon and Nicomedia
Statilius Taurus builds and dedicates first stone amphitheater in Rome
L. Marcius Philippus (stepfather of Octavian) restores Hercules Musarum
and builds the Porticus Philippi around it
– Octavian and Agrippa conduct census, purge of Senate
– Construction of victory monument at Nikopolis, Greece
 Octavian’s sixth consulship
Construction of Mausoleum begins?
Temples of Apollo Palatinus and Medicus in Circo (“Sosianus”) dedicated
Octavian praetor urbanus
Egyptian rites prohibited within the pomerium
Major restoration of temples throughout Rome
 Octavian’s seventh consulship
“Restoration of the Republic”: Senate decrees corona civica for his house
( January)
Octavian becomes Augustus ( January)
Augustus granted titles of consul, proconsul, imperator
Imperial and senatorial provinces established
Tiber floods city
Via Flaminia repaired
Augustus visits Gaul and Spain
 Augustus’s eighth consulship
Saepta dedicated; Augustus in Spain (remains until )
 Augustus’s ninth consulship
Agrippa builds Pantheon, Basilica of Neptune, Baths of Agrippa
Expedition of Aelius Gallus to Arabia; war in Ethiopia; Galatia annexed

xix
 Chronology

Augustus has Janus closed for second time

Julia Major marries Marcellus
Agrippa sets out for east via Lesbos
Tiber floods city
 Augustus’s tenth consulship; returns to Rome from Spain after illness
 Augustus resigns the consulship (his eleventh) and receives tribunician
power; granted proconsulship for life
Agrippa receives imperium proconsulare for five years
Narbonensis and Cyprus become senatorial provinces
Augustus seriously ill; death of Marcellus and burial in Mausoleum
 First tribunicia potestas; Augustus to Sicily
– Augustus in the east
 Second tribunicia potestas; Augustus in Greece and Sicily
Agrippa marries Julia Major
Egyptian rites again forbidden within city and for one mile outside
pomerium
Birthday of Augustus celebrated
 Third tribunicia potestas; Augustus in Samos, Asia, Bithynia, Syria
Birth of Gaius Caesar, son of Agrippa and Julia Major
Return of the Parthian standards
Tiberius installs king of Armenia
 Fourth tribunicia potestas; triumph of L. Cornelius Balbus over the
Garamantes
Death of Vergil
Augustus returns to Rome; Ara Fortunae Reducis voted; altar dedicated
( December)
Agrippa goes to Gaul and Spain
Augustus renews tribunician power; Agrippa granted tribunician power
for five years
Augustus receives imperium consulare for life
 Fifth tribunicia potestas; Sibylline Books redacted; purge of Senate
Birth of Julia Minor, daughter of Agrippa and Julia Major
Laws on adultery, marriage, luxury
Revision of Senate
Agrippa receives imperium proconsulare and tribunicia potestas for
five years
 Sixth tribunicia potestas
Birth of Lucius Caesar, son of Agrippa and Julia Major; Augustus adopts
grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar as his sons
Secular Games
– Augustus in western provinces; Agrippa in eastern provinces

xx
 Chronology

 Seventh tribunicia potestas; before departing from Rome, Augustus

dedicates Temple of Quirinus
Agrippa and major priesthoods pray for Augustus’s return
Tiberius (praetor) accompanies Augustus to Gaul
 Eighth tribunicia potestas
Tiberius and Drusus defeat Alpine tribes
Porticus Liviae built
Birth of Germanicus, son of Antonia Minor and Drusus Major, son of Livia
Annexation of Raetia and the Alps
 Ninth tribunicia potestas
 Tenth tribunicia potestas; return of Augustus from the west, Agrippa from
the east
Third Augustan closure of Janus
Ara Pacis founded ( July)
Drusus remains in Gaul to conduct census
Theaters of Balbus and Marcellus dedicated
Pair of obelisks dedicated at Caesareum in Alexandria
Public celebration of Augustus’s fiftieth birthday, directed by Iullus
Antonius (son of Antony and Fulvia)
 Eleventh tribunicia potestas; Augustus pontifex maximus ( March)
Death of Agrippa, burial in Mausoleum
Shrine and statue of Vesta dedicated in home of Augustus on Palatine
( April)
Birthday of Augustus celebrated
Augustus rebuilds Basilica Julia in names of Gaius and Lucius
 Twelfth tribunicia potestas
Marriage of Tiberius and Julia Major
Statues of Salus, Concordia, and Pax dedicated at Janus in Roman Forum
Illyricum transferred to Augustus
Third purge of the Senate
New flamen Dialis appointed
Senate vote to close Janus abandoned when war breaks out
Birthday of Augustus celebrated
Curatores aquarum installed
Death of Octavia Minor (Augustus’s sister), burial in Mausoleum
 Thirteenth tribunicia potestas; dedication of obelisks at Circus Maximus
and Horologium-Solarium; Augustus in Gallia Lugdunensis
 Fourteenth tribunicia potestas; Ara Pacis dedicated on Livia’s fiftieth
birthday ( January)
Augustus returns to Rome but does not enter the city; delivers eulogy for
Drusus in the Circus Flaminius

xxi
 Chronology

Drusus consul in absentia

East adopts birthday of Augustus as beginning of new year
Death of Drusus ( September), burial in Mausoleum
 Fifteenth tribunicia potestas; month of Sextilis renamed after Augustus in
the twentieth “Augustan” year
Formal return of Augustus to Rome and gladiatorial games (possibly as
funerary games for Drusus)
Birthday of Augustus celebrated
Death of Maecenas
Tiberius celebrates triumph over Germany
Augustus’s second census; ends mourning for Drusus
– Campaigns of Tiberius in Germany
 Sixteenth tribunicia potestas
Rome reorganized into regiones and vici; statues of the divine patrons of
each presented to the neighborhoods—bought with new year’s offerings
to Augustus
Diribitorium dedicated
 Seventeenth tribunicia potestas; Tiberius receives tribunicia potestas for
five years but retires to Rhodes
 Augustus’s twelfth consulship, eighteenth tribunicia potestas
Gaius comes of age and is introduced to public life; declared princeps
iuventutis
Defeat of Lollius in Germany and loss of eagle standards
 Nineteenth tribunicia potestas
 Twentieth tribunicia potestas
 Augustus’s thirteenth consulship, twenty-first tribunicia potestas
Lucius comes of age and is introduced to public life; declared princeps
iuventutis
Augustus becomes pater patriae ( February)
Forum of Augustus dedicated ( May); Circus Flaminius flooded for
crocodile fight
Gaius begins political career and sets out for Greece and east
Julia Major exiled; suicide of Iullus Antonius
 Twenty-second tribunicia potestas



 Twenty-third tribunicia potestas

 Twenty-fourth tribunicia potestas; death of Lucius Caesar at Massalia
( August); Tiberius returns to Rome

xxii
 Chronology

 Twenty-fifth tribunicia potestas

 Twenty-sixth tribunicia potestas; death of Gaius Caesar at Limyra
( February)
Tiberius adopts Germanicus, son of Drusus Major and Antonia Minor;
Augustus adopts Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus ( June)
Tiberius receives tribunicia potestas for five years
Fourth purge of Senate
 Twenty-seventh tribunicia potestas
 Twenty-eighth tribunicia potestas; aerarium militare established
Temple of Castor and Pollux dedicated ( January)
City vigiles established
Judea annexed; Sardinia transferred to Augustus
– Pannonian revolt
 Twenty-ninth tribunicia potestas
 Thirtieth tribunicia potestas; Julia Minor exiled
 Thirty-first tribunicia potestas; Augustus meets Tiberius on his return from
Rhodes; Germanicus in Dalmatia; Tiberius returns to Dalmatia
Germanicus receives ornamental triumphalia
Disaster of Varus in Germany
 Thirty-second tribunicia potestas
Tiberius in Germany
Tiberius dedicates Temple of Concord in his name and that of his son,
Drusus Minor ( January, anniversary of Octavian’s becoming Augustus)
 Thirty-third tribunicia potestas
Tiberius and Germanicus invade Germany
Drusus Minor quaestor in Rome
Augustus publishes his horoscope
 Thirty-fourth tribunicia potestas
Germanicus consul
Tiber floods city
Dedication of Porticus Iulia in honor of Gaius and Lucius Caesar
 Thirty-fifth tribunicia potestas; Augustus’s powers renewed for fifth time;
Tiberius’s tribunician power renewed
 Thirty-sixth tribunicia potestas; Augustus’s third census
Death of Augustus at Nola ( August); funeral; deification ( September)
Res Gestae erected in front of Mausoleum
Death of Agrippa Postumus; death of Julia Major
Birthday of Augustus celebrated
– Reign of Tiberius
 Consulship of Drusus; Tiber floods city
 Triumph of Germanicus

xxiii
 Chronology

 Death of Germanicus in east; his wife, Agrippina Major, returns with his
ashes for burial in Mausoleum; Claudian and Livian images present at
funeral
Twin sons born to Drusus Minor and Livilla, daughter of Drusus Major and
Antonia Minor
 Joint consulship of Tiberius and Drusus
 Dedication by Livia and Tiberius of statue of divus Augustus at the Theater
of Marcellus ( April)
 Death of Drusus Minor; burial in Mausoleum
 Tiberius leaves Rome permanently for Campania
 Death in exile of Julia Minor
 Death of Livia
 Death of Tiberius; funeral
Caligula returns ashes of Agrippina and his brothers to Rome; dedicates
Temple of Divus Augustus; grave illness
– Reign of Gaius (Caligula); Alexandria obelisk brought to Rome and erected
in Vatican Circus
– Reign of Claudius
– Reign of Nero, last of the Julio-Claudian emperors

xxiv
Genealogical Chart . Augustus’s immediate family

C. Julius Caesar = Aurelia

Cleopatra ≈ Julius Caesar = Cornelia Julia = M. Atius Balbus

Kaisarion Julia = Pompey Ancharia =  C. Octavius  = Atia

Octavia Major

C. Cl.=  Octavia  =  M. Antony T. Cl. Nero =  Livia =  AUGUSTUS  === Scribonia

Marcellus Minor
Agrippa  === Julia Major

Marcella Marcellus Antonia === L. Dom. Antonia == Drusus TIBERIUS = Vipsania

Major Major Ahenobarbus Minor Major
Drusus
Minor

Germanicus = Agrippina Caius Lucius Julia Agrippa

Major Caesar Caesar Minor Postumus

Cn. Dom. = =  Agrippina  =  CLAUDIUS =  Agrippina CALIGULA

Ahenobarbus Minor Minor

NERO Britannicus
Genealogical Chart . Mark Antony’s other descendants

Cleopatra VII === 4? M. Antony 3 = Fulvia (1 Fadia, 2 Antonia)

C. Cl. Marcellus = Octavia

Alexander Ptolemy Cleopatra Antyllus Iullus Antonius = 2 Marcella Major 1 = Agrippa

?
Lucius Antonius Vipsania = 1 TIBERIUS 2 = Julia Major
I  C
Table . Sequence of buildings in the Campus Martius
Date Building Builder
th century Temple of Vulcan Romulus
th century Ara Martis Numa Pompilius
 Villa Publica
 Apollo in Circo/Medicus Cn. Julius; restored by Sosius, Augustus
 Temple of Bellona Appius Claudius Caecus
? Jupiter Stator
 Jupiter Fulgur
 Volcanus in Campo
 Ferona in Campo
/ Juturna
 Juno Curritis
– Temple of Neptune
ca.  Hercules Custos
 Circus Flaminius
 Juno Regina M. Aemilius Lepidus
 Hercules and Muses M. Fulvius Nobilior
 Lares Permarini L. Aemilius Regulus, M. Aemilius Lepidus
ca. – Castor and Pollux
 Porticus Octavia Octavius; restored by Augustus
 Porticus Metelli (enclosing Rebuilt by Octavia
Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator)
 Porticus Minucia Vetus
(enclosing Lares Permarini)
 Fortuna Huiusce Diei
 Tomb of Sulla
 Theater of Pompey
 Tomb of Julia
 Amphitheatrum of Statilus Taurus
 Saepta Julia (Ovile) Finished by Agrippa
 Hercules and Muses Restored by L. Marcius Philippus with
added Porticus Philippi
 Apollo Medicus in Circo Restored by C. Sosius and Augustus
(“Sosianus”)
– Pantheon of Agrippa Agrippa
 Basilica Neptuni Agrippa
ca.  Mars in Campo
Augustan Stagnum Agrippae Agrippa
Thermae Agrippae Agrippa
s– Diribitorium Agrippa; Augustus
Euripus Agrippa
 Theater of Marcellus Augustus
Sepulcrum Agrippae Agrippa/Augustus
– Theater of Balbus
 

Brick into Marble

Metaphor and Reality
The wonders of our city show that we have conquered the world.
—Pliny Historia naturalis .

In a well-known and frequently quoted encomium on the achievements of Augustus,

the imperial biographer Suetonius recorded that the first princeps had transformed
Rome from a city of brick to one of marble: “Since the city was not adorned as the
majesty of empire (imperium) demanded, and was exposed to flood and fire, Augus-
tus so beautified it that he could justly boast that he had found it built of sun-dried
brick and left it in marble. He made it safe too for the future, so far as human fore-
sight could provide” (Augustus .).
Nearly a century later, the historian Cassius Dio paraphrased the remark (..–)
but interpreted it as a metaphor for the political transformation of Rome from the
weak, divided state of the late Republic to the powerful and secure empire established
by Augustus. If Augustus actually made such a comment, what exactly did he mean
by it?
Although only the single line about “brick and marble” is usually quoted from the
passage of Suetonius, the biographer actually links two concepts, power and its visual
expression in architectural adornment: the imperium of Rome required that the city
be embellished as a demonstration of its power. This is a book about that relationship
between political power and architecture, using the Augustan building project in the
northern Campus Martius as a focus.
Imperium is a difficult word to define in all of its original nuances, and for us it
is a highly charged word: we derive our term “empire” from it; its cognate, imperator
(one who exercises imperium) comes eventually to mean “emperor,” though the
Romans of Augustus’s day more often used the old Republican word princeps, “first


 Brick into Marble

man,” instead (Wickert ; cf. Livy ..; Tacitus Agr. ). But originally the Romans
recognized two types of imperium: the exercise of military power (imperium militare),
by a field commander whose troops might acclaim him imperator on the battlefield,
and the executive power of magistrates (imperium domi), awarded to consuls and
praetors (Combès ; Magdelain ). Both types of imperium were granted under
specific conditions for set periods, and then set aside (Rüpke ). For example, the
imperium of proconsuls could be extended in order for them to command an army or
govern a province. Praetors presided over courts (quaestiones), and after their term of
office they were often awarded the command of legions or governorships of second-
rank provinces, or both. Tribunes had veto power and sacrosanctitas, but not impe-
rium. The first “Augustan Settlement” of  allowed Augustus to hold the consulship
each year and extended his proconsular imperium over the provinces of Gaul, Spain,
and Syria for a ten-year period. In the second settlement of , his powers were re-
defined: his proconsular imperium became broader (imperium maius), putting him in
control of all military provinces (as opposed to senatorial provinces); he could inter-
vene legally in all of them; and his proconsular imperium did not lapse when he entered
Rome’s pomerium (the sacred city boundary). At this time Augustus gave up the annual
consulship and was granted tribunician power in its place (Last ; Jones ).
Imperium was also geographically finite: military imperium could not be wielded
within the pomerium, nor could a city magistrate’s imperium be exercised outside it
without retaking the auspices upon re-entering (Magdelain ). By the end of the
Republic, however, the distinctions between military and civil power had been bent
or broken so many times that they were becoming blurred. Even before Octavian’s rise
to power, the Roman conquest of most of the Mediterranean world had contributed
to an ongoing redefinition of imperium, one that incorporated most of the known
world. Nevertheless, one aspect of imperium remained clear: the creation of public
buildings in Rome was not only the right but also the responsibility of those who
exercised military and domestic imperium and who reaped its material rewards.
The need for buildings that embodied imperium was particularly acute in the
case of Augustus, whose monarchy evolved over time through gradual acquisition of
powers that we have come to recognize under the title of “emperor.” In the east such
visual expressions of power had been richly developed, especially by the Ptolemies;
with the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, Augustus was left as the preeminent com-
mander in the Mediterranean basin, and inherited, as it were, the expectation to
continue such trappings. Only the most naive citizen in Rome could fail to recognize
Augustus’s power as sole ruler, regardless of its public disguise or disclaimer.
That a relationship existed between political power and impressive architecture was
neither a new idea in the ancient Mediterranean world nor one unique to the Romans.
Thucydides (.) worried that the power of the Spartans in his time would pass un-
recognized in the future because of their lack of impressive buildings, in contrast to
those that characterized the contemporary city of Athens, particularly the Periklean


 Metaphor and Reality

building program on the Akropolis (Hurwit ; Ferrari ). In Herodotus, the
Greek term for “works” (érga) means not just great deeds, but also great buildings.
Unlike deeds, however, which can easily be forgotten without a literary or oral tradi-
tion to maintain them, great buildings make a claim on posterity by their continued
existence: monuments write their own histories. The Greeks, and the Romans after
them, were interested in architectural marvels (thaúmata or theámata), and great
structures became a means of measuring the stature not only of cultures but also
of the individuals who were responsible for those projects (Andrén ; cf. Lepida’s
use of the Theater of Pompey in CE , Tacitus Ann. .).
The idea that monuments are yardsticks of personal or cultural achievement
receives its fullest expression in the second century BCE, when the first lists of the
Wonders of the World were compiled; significantly, this occurred at the same time that
the Hellenistic sciences of mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy were engaged
in measuring and quantifying the known world and the heavens, especially at royal
institutions like the Great Library at Alexandria (Fraser ).
Tombs are the premier example of commemorative buildings because they per-
petuate the presence of the individual even after death. It is not coincidental that the
Greek term for tomb monument, mnēmeíon, is a cognate of the verb “remember,” or
that sēma (“grave marker”) and sōma (“body”) refer to the same concept of outward
appearance.
The architectural topography of Rome in the Augustan age (ca.  BCE– CE)
has been the subject of numerous investigations in recent years, though large areas of
the ancient city remain obscured by the accretions of later periods or are known only
from fragments. Increasingly, scholars have recognized the ways in which different dis-
ciplines have provided useful theoretical models for framing and answering questions
about Augustan Rome. In these attempts, a variety of sources have been employed:
literary testimonia (Wiseman ; Jaeger ; Dyson and Prior ; Galinsky ,
; Rothwell ), numismatics, art, and archaeology. The greater goal is to recon-
struct the many physical and social changes that were taking place in the capital at the
end of the Republic and the beginning of the empire (see Patterson , – on
the development of the Campus Martius; and Gros and Torelli ).
Much attention has been paid of late to specific regions of the city that were altered
or embellished architecturally under the first emperor. The Forum Romanum was
transformed into a monument to the Julian family through the gradual rebuilding
or replacement of existing structures (Zanker ; Coarelli ). For example, the
second-century Basilica Sempronia was rebuilt as the Basilica Julia, and the Basilica
Aemilia (which retained its original name) was rebuilt by Julius Caesar and then re-
stored by Augustus. The Senate House (curia), burnt in the political turmoil of the
end of the Republic, arose anew as the Curia Julia. And a new rostra was erected in
front of the Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar facing the original speaker’s platform
(Nedergaard –; Ungaro a, b).


 Brick into Marble

By the late Republic, the Forum Romanum no longer provided adequate public
space (Anderson , –). The expansion of the urban center began under Caesar
with the creation of the Forum Julii to frame and set off its centerpiece, the Temple of
Venus Genetrix, the goddess Caesar claimed as his ancestress (Ulrich , –). His
identification of the individual with the architectural project as a whole was made
explicit when Caesar formally received members of the Senate in his forum while
seated above them in the porch of the temple (Suetonius Iul. ); one recent study even
analyzes the forum as a “representation” of Caesar (Westall ).
Augustus not only finished the complex begun by his adoptive father but added
one of his own, the Forum of Augustus (Luce ; Kellum ; , –; Packer
; Spannagel ). With the dedication of Augustus’s Forum and Temple of Mars
Ultor in  (Hannah ; Rich ), a new public space was created that was designed
specifically to accommodate activities of a military and political nature. In addition,
some functions earlier localized on the Capitoline were transferred there. But by
embellishing the colonnades of the forum with the statues and honorific inscriptions
(elogia) of the great Roman statesmen and generals of the past, as well as with figures
of his Julian ancestors, Augustus in effect appropriated select Romans up to his own
day as members of a virtual “family” (Ganzert and Kockel ; La Rocca a,
b; Ganzert , ). The addition of copies of the Erechtheion caryatids as
part of the original plan for the attic storey over the colonnades evoked and at the
same time laid claim to the achievements and memory of Classical Athens as well,
while shields bearing images of the god Jupiter-Amon (imagines clipeatae) suggested
both the ancestral portraits displayed in the atria of Roman houses and Hellenistic
Greek concepts of deification, since this divinity was an oracular father-sponsor of
Alexander the Great (Winkes ; Ganzert ; Flower ; cf. Trillmich  for
imagines in Spain). It seems appropriate, therefore, that after his death Augustus, now
deified, was worshipped here for more than twenty years, while the main center of
his cult, the templum novum divi Augusti, was under construction to the south of
the Forum Romanum (begun soon after  CE but not dedicated until the summer of
 by Gaius Caligula). Its remains have not yet been uncovered (Cassius Dio ..–;
Fishwick a).
On the Palatine Hill, a loose collection of late Republican houses had gradually
been purchased and converted for the use of the princeps and his extended family
(Velleius Paterculus ..); the compound even incorporated temples of state gods
after the fashion of a Hellenistic palace like those at Pergamon and Alexandria (Caret-
toni , a, b, ; Royo , ; Gros ; Pensabene ). Thus,
through the manipulation of space and architecture, Augustus created a direct physi-
cal link between himself and some of the major divinities of the Roman pantheon:
Apollo Palatinus, Magna Mater, and Victoria (D. Thompson ; Zanker ; Kellum
; Lefèvre ; Royo ). After he became head of the state religious apparatus
(pontifex maximus) in  BCE, Augustus installed a shrine and statue of Vesta there


 Metaphor and Reality

as well, and used his religious authority to reallocate public space by making part of
his home public property (domus publica; Lecamore –).
The southern Campus Martius, a focus of aristocratic competition and display
particularly during the last three centuries of the Republic, was transformed as well,
not only through the actions of Augustus himself but also through those of his asso-
ciates and members of his extended family who were coopted into the process: his
stepfather, L. Marcius Philippus; his sister, Octavia; and above all his friend, colleague,
and son-in-law, Agrippa.
Recent discussions of the urban metamorphosis of Rome that occurred under
Augustus, however, have tended to find its impetus in the changing social and politi-
cal values of the time, particularly in the way in which traditional Hellenic and Italic
elements were manipulated to carry new messages. Generally, most scholars recognize
that Augustus succeeded where others had failed because he managed to mask his
changes by adapting the established vocabularies of political, social, artistic, and archi-
tectural rhetoric to convey new messages, rather than by creating something entirely
new (cf. Miller and Tilley ; Wallace-Hadrill ). Although scholars recognize this
role of Augustus, opinions differ as to the degree and extent of his personal participa-
tion (cf. E. Simon a; Wallace-Hadrill ; Hofter et al. ; Zanker ; Favro
, , ; Coarelli ; Habinek and Schiesaro ).
Unlike other areas of the city, which were already crowded with existing build-
ings, the northern Campus Martius outside the city proper had not been developed
in previous periods: there, Augustus was not constrained by the past or by concerns
about how the area had been used and viewed by the public. But unlike the Forum
Augusti, Circus Flaminius, and Temple of Apollo Palatinus, all of which invoked
familial images (cf. Severy ), the complex in the northern Campus Martius, I
argue, represents something fundamentally different from the Augustan projects in
all other parts of the city and conveys a set of messages that focuses on the person
of Augustus himself. We can trace the evolution here of a personal architectural plan
that—like the principate itself—changed over the course of several decades, beginning
around the time of the Battle of Actium (), a watershed regardless of the actual
nature of the battle itself (cf. Gurval ). This Augustan development falls into
two clear and separate stages. Earliest is the precocious erection both of his tomb, the
Mausoleum, completed in the twenties, and his cremation site, the Ustrinum, which
was prepared in advance but not actually used until Augustus’s death in August of
 CE. A second, later phase, directly followed the celebration of the Secular Games
of  BCE and his extended absence from Rome (–); it involved the creation of
a linked complex, the Ara Pacis and Horologium-Solarium, between  and . The
giant solar clock, the Horologium-Solarium, used a large obelisk imported from Egypt
as its pointer (gnomon) for tracking the passage of the sun through the zodiac. The
Ara Pacis Augustae, or Altar of Augustan Peace, erected nearby, seems in contrast
to stand perpetually still, a fossilized moment to the ideal, rather than the reality, of


 Brick into Marble

Augustan peace. All these structures are personal monuments, not public benefactions
per se.
The imperial projects of the northern Campus Martius embody a kind of tension
too between public and private spheres of activity, one that the Romans not only
tolerated but actively sought out: even the atrium of the aristocratic Roman house was
a public stage where patron and client interacted (cf. Doonan ). Although the
buildings in the Campus were essentially private monuments of the principate, they
were placed in open settings and surrounded by public gardens, making this area
one of the most beautiful and one of the most frequented in Rome. The monuments,
individually and collectively, thus became subjects for reflection and discussion, in-
viting the same sort of ecphrasis that smaller works of art like sculpture and painting
do. The structures literally became a means for evaluating and assessing Augustus and
his achievements.
The ultimate goal of these constructions provides important evidence for Augus-
tus’s self-definition—how the princeps chose to present himself to the Roman people,
not only in life but also, and perhaps more importantly, after his death (cf., for the
Greek world, Bulloch et al. ). While the construction of the Mausoleum and
Horologium-Solarium represented lavish outlays of effort, skill, and resources, all
the monuments play with concepts of time—past, present, future—in order to com-
memorate Augustus.
Though the Romans were already familiar with all the individual components of
such a complex (mausolea, ustrina, sundials, and altars), the scale, elaboration, and
programmatic relationship among the monuments in Augustus’s complex had no
direct precedents and inspired no immediate successors. Nowhere else in the city were
four such experimental and innovative buildings constructed as a set, suggesting that
in this area we may look for the personal impetus of the princeps himself. In these
new architectural forms, we can look for revolutionary, as well as evolutionary, ele-
ments. As part of an extended funerary and commemorative complex, the structures
in the northern Campus Martius acquired their full meaning only on the death and
burial of Augustus himself. Thus, the Augustan projects in the northern Campus
Martius were settings for spectacle, but in a different and grander sense than build-
ings in other parts of Rome, and they convey messages that are unabashedly monar-
chical. While Augustus proclaimed publicly that he exceeded all of his contemporaries
in influence (auctoritas) but possessed no more official power (potestas) than the mag-
istrates who were his colleagues (Res Gestae .; Brunt and Moore ), his buildings
tell a far different story, both outside (D. Kienast ) and inside the city of Rome.


 

Field of Dreams
The Campus Martius
The rest of the city is only an appendage.
—Strabo ..

           

The Augustan building projects in the northern Campus Martius took place against
a complex background of architectural, political, and social developments in this area
of Rome (Castagnoli ; Gros ; Coarelli , ; Harris ; La Rocca a;
Wiseman ; Palmer ; L. Richardson ; Patterson , –). From ear-
liest times, it was associated with the military and electoral activities of the Roman
people. The two functions had to be conducted outside the pomerium, and they often
intertwined. Here troops trained for war, and successful generals exhibited their spoils
before beginning their triumphal procession through the city. After their triumphs,
they dedicated temples and public buildings to impress the populace and curry its
favor in elections. Here too the citizens voted and elected the most important magis-
trates of the state, the consuls and censors. Aristocratic families competed with one
another in this arena of architectural display, and here a few exceptional individuals
were granted burial at state expense (funus publicum).
It is difficult today to get a sense of what this area looked like in antiquity. Since the
early Middle Ages, when the city contracted to the abitato (the inhabited area between
the Vatican and the Capitoline Hill), the Campus Martius has been one of the most
heavily urbanized sectors of Rome. In this area, most of the remains of the imperial
city still lie buried beneath palazzi and narrow streets; few structures have been exca-
vated entirely, and we are often completely dependent on the evidence provided by
ancient literary sources. The fragments of the Marble Plan of the city, of Severan date,


 Field of Dreams

provide important clues (Castagnoli –; Rodriguez-Almeida –), but we

must use our imagination to recapture a sense of what the area looked like during the
Augustan period.
Originally, the area of the Campus Martius resembled a large, flat triangle, each side
Figure , Figure  approximately  kilometers long (figs. –). Its eastern edge is bounded, from north to
south, by the ridges of the Pincian, Quirinal, and Capitoline hills, which extend like
long fingers into the plain, while a sharply angled curve of the Tiber defines its north-
ern, western, and southern sides. Relatively low-lying, and thus repeatedly subject to
flooding, this plain lay outside the city boundary until after the Augustan age, and only
in the time of Claudius, Vespasian, and Hadrian were its northern limits incorporated
(Boatwright ). Thus, unlike the traditional seven hills of Rome, separated by nar-
row, congested valleys, the Campus (as it was often called) offered unencumbered
spaces for activity of all kinds. Over a period of several centuries, the vast open area
of the Campus gradually began to fill with buildings, starting in the south and grad-
ually spreading north as Rome expanded.
Even in antiquity, the actual limits of the Campus Martius were considered some-
what amorphous, a situation that has caused much debate among modern topogra-
phers. For our purposes, the Campus includes the area bordered on the east by the
present-day boulevard, the Corso, on the west by the curve of the Tiber, on the north
by the Piazza del Popolo, and on the south by the Capitoline Hill and Forum Boarium.
In antiquity a sizable stream, the Amnis Petronia, flowed south and west from the
Quirinal somewhat through the center of the Campus to empty into the Tiber, helping
to separate off a southern area, the Flaminian Fields (prata Flaminia), which extended
for approximately  meters along the river. Eventually, the fields were regularized and
took on the name of “Circus Flaminius,” though the “circus” was essentially an open
rectangle increasingly defined by buildings along its edges, and not an arena for horse
racing in the traditional sense. North of the Amnis Petronia was the Campus Martius
proper, with a marshy area or pond near its center, the Palus Caprae (Goat’s Marsh),
roughly the site now occupied by Hadrian’s Pantheon (Briquel ; Coarelli b).
The construction of the Via Flaminia in , running north and west along the line
of the modern Corso from the foot of the Capitoline Hill, served to bisect the Campus
(Ashby and Fell ), and by the reign of Tiberius, and possibly earlier, the area to the
east of the Flaminia had become known as the Campus Agrippae after Marcus Agrippa,
Augustus’s friend and colleague and one of the great builders of the early imperial city.
At the western tip of the Campus Martius, tradition told of a natural feature, a
volcanic fissure, supposed to be one of the entrances to the Underworld. Here was
located the Tarentum (or Terentum), the site of an altar to the infernal gods, Dis and
Proserpina, where the ludi saeculares (Secular Games) were celebrated at irregular
intervals to mark the cycles of Rome’s existence. Although the games were celebrated
only sporadically during the Republic, Augustus revived and reshaped them in 
and used them to promote his plans for the moral and political renewal of the Roman


 The Campus Martius

people and state. The Trigarium nearby was a track used for racing horses, apparently
laid out parallel to the Tiber and slightly to the southeast of the Tarentum, though its
precise location has been debated (Palmer , –).
The oldest traditions concerning the Campus Martius are shrouded in myth, but
they consistently reflect its use for activities that could not be accommodated within
the city walls. One venerable tradition stated that Romulus, Rome’s founder, had dis-
appeared at the Palus Caprae while reviewing troops there. Under cover of a storm,
the gods swept him up to heaven or—according to a hostile version of the story—dis-
satisfied senators cut him to pieces and concealed the fragments under their cloaks so
his body could never be found (Livy .; Dionysius of Halicarnassus ..; Plutarch
Rom. .). By the late Republic, the archaic altar and column under the Lapis Niger
in the Forum Romanum were understood as a memorial or tomb of Romulus (Gantz
; Frischer –, –). A pyramid tomb, however, near Augustus’s Mausoleum
has been identified as the tomb of Romulus (Geige ); it may have been this tomb
that helped determine the location of the Mausoleum.
Several important structures in the Campus were attributed to the activities of the
earliest kings. A building of considerable antiquity, the Temple of Vulcan, was thought
to have been founded by Romulus as a meeting place for the Senate outside the
city. It probably stood in the southern part of the Campus Martius, north of the area
later developed as the Circus Flaminius, near the Palus Caprae, and probably near the
Palazzo Mattei, where a dedicatory inscription to Volcanus was found; the temple was
certainly in existence in  when lightning struck it (Livy .., ..; Plutarch
Rom. ., Quaest. Rom. ; Manacorda , –; Ziolkowski , –). Though
the traditional second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, had a reputation as a man
of peace, he was also credited with establishing the Altar of Mars (Ara Martis) in the
center of the Campus, apparently to the east of the Palus Caprae (Welin ).
The last Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, possessed fields somewhere
in the Campus (Livy .; Dionysius of Halicarnassus .; Aulus Gellius NA .),
but with the institution of the Republic at the end of the sixth century, this area was
designated as ager publicus, or state land denied to private ownership, and in  the
Villa Publica was established near the Ara Martis and used for taking the census
of Roman citizens (L. Richardson a; , –; Agache ). At first, the Villa
Publica was probably an extensive open area, planted with trees, but by  it had
probably become smaller as areas were carved off to make room for other buildings;
nonetheless, it was embellished with porticoes and decorated with statues and paint-
ings (Sutherland ,  no. ,  pl. ).
The Altar of Mars and the Villa Publica defined the area where the most important
electoral functions of the Republic took place. Since by tradition the voting assemblies
(comitia centuriata) represented the Romans as they arrayed themselves for war, the
centuries had to meet outside the pomerium to elect the consuls and the censors (Varro
Rust. ..; L. Taylor ). By the middle of the second century, the comitia tributa


Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
their main contentions—and justify the Kaiser’s lordly contempt of
the scrap of paper, are of a piece with every manifestation of the
political cult which has become one of Germany’s holiest
possessions. And it is because the British nation as a whole
obstinately refused to listen to those who apprised them of this
elemental movement, and of the dangers it concealed, that they
dispensed with a large land army, slackened the work of
shipbuilding, and trusted to a treaty which they are now surprised to
see dealt with as a mere scrap of paper.
In like manner the British people at first smiled sceptically at the
narratives of Belgians who witnessed and described the killing of
unarmed men, women, and children, the finishing of the wounded on
the battlefield, the living shields of women and girls with which they
protected their soldiers, the taking and shooting of hostages, and
other crimes against humanity. After all, it was argued, the Germans
are not quite so unlike ourselves as these stories would have us
believe. They, too, are men who have left wives, sisters, mothers,
and children at home, and the wells of human pity are not dried up
within them. They are incapable of such savagery. Those tales
evidently belong to the usual class of fiction which sprouts up on all
battlefields.
Yet, whatever the truth might be—and since the fiendish
passions of the soldiery were let loose against Louvain, Malines, and
Rheims we know that some of the narratives were based on
gruesome facts—the ground at first taken up was untenable. Nobody
possessing even a superficial acquaintance with Prussian history
had grounds for asserting that the German army was incapable of
such diabolical deeds. Its recorded doings in seasons of peace
demonstrated its temper. That the officers and the rank and file are
obedient to their commanders will not be gainsaid. To their Kaiser
they are, if possible, still more slavishly submissive. Well, the Kaiser,
when his punitive expedition was setting out for China, addressed
them thus: “When you encounter the enemy you will defeat him. No
quarter shall be given, no prisoners shall be taken. Let all who fall
into your hands be at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand years
ago, under the leadership of Etzel (Attila), gained a reputation in
virtue of which they still live in historical tradition, so may the name of
Germany become known in such a manner in China that no
Chinaman will ever again even dare to look askance at a German.”
The monarch who gave utterance to those winged words was not
conscious of saying aught that might shock or surprise his people.
His false conscience felt no qualms. The principle underlying this
behest was the foundation-stone of Prussian culture. And the
Kaiser’s wish is now realized. The name of Germany, whose love of
wanton destruction, delight in human torture, and breach of every
principle of manly and soldierly honour are now become proverbial,
will henceforward be bracketed in history together with that of the
Huns.
How British people who read and stigmatized these barbarous
behests, emphatically issued by the supreme ruler of the German
nation and the supreme head of the German Church, should have
held him who uttered or the troops that executed them incapable of
the crimes laid to their charge in Belgium is a mystery. Terrorism in
occupied countries has always been part of the Prussian method of
waging war. It is such an excellent substitute for numbers! The
examples of it given in the years 1814 and 1815 are still
remembered. Since then it has been intensified. During the Boxer
movement in China I witnessed illustrations of it which burned
themselves in my memory. The tamest of all was when the German
troops arrived in Tientsin. The nights were cool just then, and a knot
of soldiers were dismayed at the prospect of spending a night
without blankets. I happened to know where there was an
untenanted house with a supply of blankets, and out of sheer
kindness I took them to it. With a smile of gratitude the officer in
command set the blankets on one side. Every portable article of
value was next seized and appropriated. And then the soldiers took
to smashing vases, statues, mirrors, the piano, and other articles of
furniture. They laughed at my remonstrances, and reminded me of
the Kaiser’s orders. All at once they abandoned the spoil, and
rushed down to the courtyard to shoot some Chinese who were said
to be there. As luck would have it, however, the newcomers were
their own comrades, so there were no executions that first evening.
But the Kaiser’s men made up for it later.
 Germany’s necessity, as defined by her War Lord or any of her
high officials, knows no law. Stipulations and treaties are for non-
German States, which must be held strictly to their obligations. To
Teutons the Treaty of Bucharest and the neutrality of Belgium were
meaningless terms. But only to Teutons. The Japanese are to be
made to respect the neutrality of China. For the chosen people are a
law unto themselves. That is, and has long been, the orthodox
doctrine of the Pan-German Church. What more natural than its
application to the treaty of 1839, which Bismarck confirmed in writing
in the year 1870, and which the Kaiser and Herr von Bethmann
Hollweg, with the hearty approval of the whole articulate German
nation, have recently spoken of contemptuously as a scrap of paper?
If any doubt could be entertained as to the extent to which this
German theory of morality has spread, it will have been dispelled by
the body of eminent German theologians who have just issued their
appeal to Evangelical Christians abroad. They, at any rate, have no
fears that their eloquent appeal will be treated as a mere scrap of
paper. It is the word of their “good old God.”
 CHAPTER I
THE CAREFULLY LAID SCHEME

Europe’s tremendous tragedy, the opening scenes of which are now

unfolding themselves to horrified humanity, is no ordinary conflict
arising out of a diplomatic quarrel which timely concessions and soft
words might have settled with finality. In its present issues it is the
result of a carefully laid scheme of which the leaders of the German
people are the playwrights and the Kaiser the chief actor. It was
cleverly thought out and patiently prepared. The manifold forces let
loose by the Berlin Government for the purpose of leading up to a
coup de théâtre which involves the existence of cultured Europe had
long since got beyond the control even of those who were employing
them. All that was still possible was the choice of the moment for
ringing up the curtain and striking the first fell blow. And, sooth to
say, judging by the data in the hands of the Berlin Foreign Office, no
conjuncture could have been more propitious to Germany’s designs
than the present. For circumstance had realized most of the desired
conditions, and the Kaiser, without hesitating, availed himself of his
good fortune. It is useless to dissemble the fact that the copious
information accumulated in the Wilhelmstrasse warranted the belief
that there could not have been a more auspicious moment for the
realization of the first part of the Kaiser’s programme than the
present. If Germany be indeed set apart by Providence as the
people chosen to rule Europe and sway the world, the outcome of
the present conflict should be to sanction this inscrutable decree of
Fate. Certainly the hour has struck for which she has been waiting
and keeping her powder dry during the past forty years. It is now or
never.
 Of this ingeniously conceived scheme the Achilles tendon was its
diplomatic aspect. And here Prussian clumsiness asserted itself
irrepressibly, as is its wont. A worse case with which to go before the
world than that of Germany in the present struggle it would be hard
to imagine. She has deliberately brought about a crude, naked
might-struggle, in which war-lust and brute force are pitted against
the most sacred and imprescriptible rights that lie at the very roots of
organized society. And she calls on God to help her to effect her
purpose.
The British nation is loath to think evil of its neighbours. It
generously credits them with the best—or at any rate the least
wicked—motives, and, even when the evidence on the other side is
overwhelming, gives them the benefit of the doubt. How strong the
evidence was in this case I pointed out over and over again. In 1911,
for instance, I wrote: “Since Europeanism was killed at Sedan and
buried at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, over forty years ago, international
treaties have been steadily losing their binding force. Their
significance has been gradually transformed into that of historic
souvenirs, symbolizing a given political conjuncture. To-day they are
nothing more. The unique, solid foundation of peace that remains is
readiness on the part of the peace Powers to defend it on the
battlefield.”
Optimists in this country objected that the German people and
their Chancellor were peacefully disposed, and utterly averse to
letting loose the horrors of an unparalleled war. And I replied that
even if in a certain sense the optimists were right, the attitude of the
German nation was beside the question. Nobody ever wants war, but
only the spoils it brings. “Germany,” I explained, “having spent
fabulous sums of money and human labour in creating an army
greater in numbers and more formidable than that of any of her
rivals, would consider the military superiority which this weapon
bestows upon her as a title-deed to property belonging to her
competitors. She would, accordingly, demand a return for her outlay,
would call for the neighbour’s territory she coveted, and expect to
receive it as a propitiatory sacrifice. War would not be her main
object, but only the fruits of war, extorted by threats which are more
than mere words. She would virtually say to France, Belgium, or
Holland, ‘I have it in my power to take what I want from you, and to
ruin you over and above. But I trust I may receive amicably from your
sagacity what I should be forced to wrest violently from your
shortsightedness.’ That is at bottom a modified form of the line of
action pursued by the bandit barons of mediæval Germany, a robust
survival into the twentieth century.” And it is exactly what has since
happened. The White Paper tells the story of the German Kaiser’s
attempt to induce our Government to connive at the seizure of
France’s colonies, which Germany needed for her enterprising
people.
But although for years I and some few others had been
preaching the imminence of this danger which no diplomatic
arguments could exorcize, the bulk of the British nation hoped on,
refusing to impute to the German people the motives or the aims
3
which we knew it entertained. In the Contemporary Review I was
attacked by the celebrated Professor Hans Delbrück for affirming, as
I have done for over twenty years, that Germany was concentrating
all her efforts on the coming struggle between herself and this
country, and the learned Professor did me the honour to say that so
long as I was allowed to express my views on foreign politics in the
Contemporary Review there would and could be no entente between
Great Britain and Germany. “As long as Mr. Dillon is permitted,” this
German Professor and successor of Treitschke wrote, “to set forth in
the Contemporary Review his fantastic views, engendered by hatred
and suspicion, about German policy, all those will be working in vain
who believe that peace between our nations can be secured by
4
arbitration treaties.” I then summed up my opinions as follows:

When I read the smooth-tongued, plausible panegyrics on

Germany’s politics, which are served up to us here in England
every year, and contrast them with the systematic
aggressiveness which everybody with open eyes and ears sees
and hears in Berlin, I behold Germany rise before me in the form
of a cuttlefish, with many lasso-like arms, ever ready to seize
their unsuspecting prey, and also ready, when itself is in danger,
 to shed an ink-like fluid which blackens the water and hinders
effective pursuit.

Everything that has come to pass since then offers a pointed

illustration of that presentment. The attempt to obtain without a war a
return for her outlay on her army and navy by calling for coveted
territory as a propitiatory sacrifice was energetically made during the
Morocco crisis. But the spring of the Panther failed of its purpose.
Germany’s further experiences during the London Conference were
likewise discouraging. The loose ranks of the Entente Powers closed
up at the approach of herself and her ally, and Albania proved a
mere torso. Then the supreme effort was put forth a few weeks back,
and the Berlin Government, alive to the possibility of a like unfruitful
result, determined to abide by and prepare for the extreme
consequences, which, sooth to say, appeared to them less
formidable than they really were.
Congruously with this resolve every precautionary measure that
prudence prompted or circumstance suggested was adopted
betimes, some secret, others public.
For the behoof of the European public the former were flatly
denied, and the latter glibly explained away.
Method characterized all these preparations, towards which the
British nation was particularly indulgent. Foremost among them was
the increase of the German army and the levy of the non-recurring
war-tax. Now, if Russia had had recourse to a measure of this kind,
all Europe would have clamoured for explanations. Germany was
allowed to have her way unquestioned. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
And yet the German Chancellor dropped a hint of his real purpose
which ought to have been sufficient to put Europe on its guard. He
spoke of the coming conflict between the Teutons and the Slavs. And
in truth that was the keynote to the situation. In Russia it was heard
and understood. Whether it was also taken to heart and adequately
acted upon there is another matter. In these islands most people
listened, smiled, and went their way unheeding. Yet this was the first
step towards tackling the Entente Powers one by one, which
constituted the alpha and omega of the Kaiser’s policy.
Another of the timely precautions taken by Germany, who was
resolved to make ready for every contingency, however improbable
—and a general European war seemed even to her statesmen most
improbable—was the purchase of horses. She despatched agents to
Great Britain, and especially to Ireland, in search of mounts suitable
for cavalry service, and also draught-horses. And during the months
of March, April, and May large numbers of these animals were
exported from the four provinces of Ireland to Hamburg without
exciting protest or occasioning comment. For the British are a
trusting people. And now the French army is obliged to make an
effort to acquire a fresh supply of mounts, and may encounter very
serious difficulties. Corn was also laid in, and heavy shipments of it
went to Hamburg for the troops.
The German banking manœuvres were begun later. Enormous
sums of gold were garnered in by German financial institutions
through their influential agents in England, of whom several enjoyed
the friendship, but, one hopes, not the confidence, of some of our
eminent public men. And even since the war began large batches of
cheques and bills endorsed to London bankers by financial houses
of Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Italy, have been forwarded
to London for discount and collection. Indeed, Germany appears to
have been paying for foodstuffs drawn from these neutral countries
in cheques and bills which, strange to say, were still being
discounted here. For in this respect, too, the British are a trusting
people. Even mobilization would seem to have been commenced
secretly long before the crisis had become acute. We learn from the
newspaper press that among the papers found on a captured
German general is a service letter disciplining him for not
immediately answering an order for mobilization dated July 10th,
when no one outside of Germany had a suspicion that war was
impending. This date enables us to gauge the sincerity of the
Kaiser’s efforts to “moderate” Austria’s “impetuosity.”
Whoever wishes to have an inkling of Germany’s method of
opening the diplomatic chess-game which preceded the war, and
was intended to “localize” it as far as seemed conducive to her
interests, must endeavour to get a glimpse of the action of the
smaller hidden wheels within the wheels of official diplomacy. For the
Berlin Foreign Office worked on various lines, keeping official, semi-
official, and absolutely secret agents, diplomatic and journalistic,
hard at work all the time. Thus in Russia there was the titular
Ambassador, Count Pourtalès, over whose head the Military
Ambassador, a German officer who had access to the Tsar, and was
kept posted about everything that was going on in Russia, was wont
to despatch messages direct to the Kaiser. And this personage was
better informed of what was being done, neglected, and planned by
the Russian Government than some of the Russian Secretaries of
State. He had direct access to the highest society, and indirect to
every local institution in the Empire. To my knowledge, this German
Aide-de-Camp in the suite of the Russian Emperor despatched
detailed reports about the intrigues which were spun to oust the
present War Minister, Sukhomlinoff, from his post, and have the
Assistant War Minister appointed in his place. And I am able to add a
piquant detail: in one of these reports he assured his chief that
although the Assistant Minister, Polivanoff, is in his opinion the better
man, his appointment at the then conjuncture would throw things
military out of gear for a considerable time in Russia. But the Tsar
was not to be tempted. General Sukhomlinoff, who is undoubtedly
the right man in the right place, remained at his post.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Russia had no secrets
whatever from the agents, diplomatic and military, of the German
Government. Every intrigue that was woven, every scheme that was
laid before the various State departments in Petrograd, every casual
remark dropped by the Tsar in the intimacy of private life to a
courtier, every real or supposed weakness in the Imperial defences,
was carefully reported, with all the local anecdotic embroidery, and
duly taken cognizance of in Berlin. Among high officials there were
some who, without evil intent, but solely in virtue of what they
honestly but foolishly regarded as the privilege of private friendship,
were wont to unburden themselves of momentous State secrets to
certain representatives of the Empire with which Russia is now at
war. These representatives were made aware of the advice tendered
to the Tsar by his Majesty’s trusted advisers in various critical
emergencies, and they announced it to their chiefs, the Tsar’s
present enemies. There was, for instance, a few years ago, one
influential Russian statesman without whose assent the Government
would undertake nothing of real importance, a patriot whose leanings
towards Austria and Germany were natural and frankly proclaimed.
In the interests of his country, which he identified with the triumph of
his own particular party, this Russian laid bare many matters to the
Austrian Ambassador, then Baron Aehrenthal, who, being himself an
Austrian of the same political school of thought, warmly sympathized
with his friend, and also took due note of his friend’s confidences.
That, it is asserted, was the main source of Aehrenthal’s spirited
policy. He believed he knew Russia’s weak points, and relied on their
handicapping the diplomacy of the Tsar. And then his countrymen
ascribed to military weakness the concessions which the Russian
Government made for the sake of European peace.
I can affirm that certain State documents, which I could, if
necessary, describe, were in this way conveyed to the future enemy,
and that one of these, together with all the facts and figures adduced
therein as proofs, contributed materially to Germany’s decision to
present her ultimatum to Russia, by convincing her that that Empire
would not venture to take up the challenge. I make this statement
with first-hand knowledge. Thus Russian ingenuousness and
candour have played their part—certainly a material part—in bringing
down a frightful calamity on that nation.
European and Asiatic Russia is positively weevilled with
Germans. Most of the foreign trade there is carried on through the
intermediary of German agents, almost every one of whom is in
touch with the German Consulate of the provincial chief town. In the
railway administration, too, there were numerous public servants,
some of whom, by education, tradition, religion, language, and
sympathy, are as German as Herr Bassermann or Admiral von
Tirpitz. And all these channels of information were so many
tributaries of the great stream which flowed unceasingly between the
Singers’ Bridge and the Wilhelmstrasse.
 For in the Berlin War Office they were informed of three matters
of supreme moment, which weighed heavy in the scales when war
and peace trembled in the balance. First, that the vaunted Russian
gold reserve had been immobilized, and was therefore not available
for war; second, that the army was unready; and third, that the Tsar,
for dynastic reasons, would on no account embark on another war.
In the Wilhelmstrasse and in the German War Office reports had
been received setting forth in detail that the Russian land forces had
been uniformly neglected in the interests of a short-sighted economy,
and that the wear and tear of the army during the Japanese
campaign had never been made good, could not, indeed, be made
good without an enormous outlay, whereas only a few paltry million
roubles had been spent on current needs in lieu of the milliards
without which reorganization was not feasible. Russia, therefore,
was not to be feared. And this inference was duly communicated to
the German Ambassador in Vienna, M. von Tschirschky, who worked
really hard and successfully to bring about the present conflict,
without, however, foreseeing its extent.
The other documents turned upon Russian finances. But the
burden of their message was the same. The line of reasoning and
the sequence of allegations was this: Russia’s gold reserve was
indeed large, but had been spirited away. For the State Bank had
lent out vast sums to the private banks, most of which are financed
by German institutions. And these loans had been given, not, as in
France and Berlin, for a maximum term of two months, but for six,
eight, twelve, fourteen months. The private banks in turn, thirsty for
profits, had distributed the money thus borrowed among private
individuals, who employed it in wild speculation. And the result was
that the gold reserve in Russia could not be made liquid in time
should hostilities break out this year; consequently a war in the year
1914 would entail a financial crash of unconceived dimensions. As
for the Russian money deposited in Berlin, it, too, was locked up
there, and would be commandeered by the German Government
were Russia to be forced into an armed conflict. The shock which
this revelation is supposed to have given the Tsar was also
described for the benefit of the Wilhelmstrasse. And the revelation
itself constituted another of the elements which decided Germany to
cross the Rubicon.
In France the Germans were nearly as much at home as in
Russia, one marked difference being that a larger percentage of
State secrets there was to be found in the newspapers. But whatever
the periodical prints failed to divulge was ascertained without
difficulty and reported without delay. It is a curious fact, but it is a
fact, that Germans had ready access to almost every man of mark in
the Republic, and statesmen there who would hum and haw before
receiving well-known Russian or British publicists were prepared to
admit them on the recommendation of Germans and Austrians who
made no secret of their nationality. I heard this statement in Paris,
and naturally hesitated to credit it. But as it was worth verifying, I
verified it. And this is what I found. Some eminent men in Paris had
refused to see a certain public man of European note, some on the
ground that they were too busy just then, others because it was
against their custom. The foreigner was advised to renew his
application at once, but through a private individual, a citizen of one
of the Powers now at war with the Republic. And he did. The result
was amazing. Within three days the doors of them all were thrown
open to him. But the quintessence of the irony lies in one piquant
detail: one of these French statesmen said to the intermediary who is
now inveighing against France and the French: “Let me see. Is not
that friend of yours a contributor to a periodical which is strongly pro-
German? If so, I had rather not meet him at all.” “By no means,” was
the answer. “He is very anglophile, and, of course, a great friend of
France.” “Ah, very well then, he can come.”
 CHAPTER II
THE MANY-TRACKED LINES OF GERMAN
DIPLOMACY

German diplomacy never contented itself with its one natural

channel. All its lines were many tracked. The Ambassador’s reports
were checked over his head by those of his secretaries, of the
consular agents, of the military and commercial attachés, of the
heads of great financial institutions and big business firms, who
enjoyed and abused the hospitality of Great Britain, France, and
Russia, and by the secret communications of professional spies and
the disclosures made by unwitting betrayers of secrets. During the
Morocco crisis the German Foreign Secretary, von Kiderlen
Waechter, was in direct and continuous telegraphic contact with the
first Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris, von Lanken, over
the head of the Ambassador, von Schoen. And here in London
Prince Lichnowsky, like his colleague Pourtalès in St. Petersburg,
shrank during the period of the crisis preceding the war to a mere
figure-head of the Embassy. Herr von Kuhlmann was the
Ambassador. His information was treated as decisive. His views
were listened to with respect. For he always strove and generally
contrived to repair to the source himself. Thus it was he who was
asked to visit Ireland and send in a report to the Wilhelmstrasse on
the likelihood of civil war breaking out there, and its probable
duration and general effect upon the country and the Government.
Herr von Kuhlmann’s communication, which was checked by the
accounts of German correspondents and of a number of spies who
were despatched independently to Belfast and other parts of Ulster,
made a profound impression on the Kaiser and his official advisers.
From the gist of it they derived their conviction, which was still strong
during the week that ended on July 30th, that England’s neutrality
was a foregone conclusion. For a time Herr von Kuhlmann’s
judgment was categorical. He had no misgivings. According to him
the die had already been cast, and the effect of the throw could not
be altered. The British Cabinet was bound hand and foot by the
sequel of its Home Rule policy. But even had it been otherwise, it
was committed to peace on other grounds. The Asquith Government
and the party it represented were firmly resolved not to be drawn into
a Continental war, whatever its origin or its issues. That was the
motive which had restrained Sir Edward Grey from contracting any
binding obligations towards France.
And so unhesitatingly was this view adopted in Berlin that when
on July 29th the German Ambassador terminated one of his
despatches with the expression of his personal impression—
founded, he confessed, on nothing more tangible than the manner,
intonation, looks of Sir Edward Grey—that if France were dragged
into war Great Britain would not remain neutral, his timid warning
failed to modify the accepted dogma that England was resolved to
stand by inactive and look on at the shock of mighty armies on the
Continent, satisfied to play the part of mediator as soon as victory
and defeat should have cleared the way for the readjustment of the
map of Europe.
This amazing misjudgment can be explained without difficulty.
Paradoxical though it may sound, the German Government suffered
from a plethora of information. It was too well informed of what was
going on in Russia, France, and Britain, and too little qualified to
contemplate in correct perspective the things revealed. Take, for
example, Russia. Every one of the influences to which the Tsar was
supposed to be accessible, every one of the alleged weak points of
the General Staff, the War Ministry, the Railway administration, the
Finances, were all entered in the records and weighed among the
motives for action. To the Austrian Foreign Office they were
communicated by the German Ambassador, von Tschirschky, with
whose own preconceived opinions of Russia’s inertness they
dovetailed to perfection. All these data were at the fingers’ ends of
the responsible leaders of the respective Governments, all the
inferences drawn were set down as highly probable, and the final
conclusion to which they pointed was that Russia would not fight
under present circumstances, even if from a military point of view
she could take the field, and that in any case she was sufficiently
aware of her impotence to recognize her inability and bend before
she was broken.
It is easy, in the light of recent events, to laugh at these
deductions and to deride the naïveté of German omniscience. But on
analysing the materials which Berlin statesmen had for a judgment,
one discerns the reasons which led them to believe that a good
prima facie case had been made out for its accuracy. One
characteristic and clinching argument was advanced with an air of
triumphant finality. These data, it was urged, are not theoretic
assumptions formed in Germany. They are the deliberate views of
competent Russians, arrived at in the conscientious discharge of
their duty and uttered for the welfare of their own country. Is not that
guarantee enough for the correctness of the facts alleged and the
sincerity of those who advance them?
The truth is, the Berlin authorities were too well supplied with
details, while lacking a safe criterion by which to measure their
worth. German diplomacy is many sided, and admirably well served
by a variety of auxiliary departments such as journalism, commerce,
educational establishments abroad, and espionage of a discreet and
fairly trustworthy character. But congruously with the tyrannical spirit
of system which pervades everything German, this paramount
organon for supplying the directors of the Empire’s policy with data
for their guidance and goals for their many converging movements
deals too exclusively in externals. Prussian diplomatists and
statesmen possess a vast body of information respecting the social
and political currents abroad, the condition of national defences and
party governments, the antagonisms of political groups, and other
obvious factors of political, military, naval, and financial strength and
weakness. But these facts nowise exhaust the elements of the
problem with which statesmanship is called upon to cope. There are
other and more decisive agencies which elude analysis and escape
the vigilant observation of the Prussian materialist. This superficial
observer is bereft of a sense for the soul-manifestations of a people,
for the multitudinous energies and enthusiasms stored up in its inner
recesses, for those hidden sources of strength which the wanton
violation of truth and justice set free, and which steel a nation to the
wrenches of real life and nerve it for a titanic struggle for the right.
Above all, he takes no account of a nation’s conscience, which,
especially in Anglo-Saxon peoples, is in vital and continuous contact
with their modes of feeling, thought, and action. He is a self-centred
pedant, capable indeed of close and thorough research and of
scrupulous loyalty to his own creed, but bringing to his work nothing
but the materialistic maxims of a cynically egoistic school,
impassioned by narrow aims, dissociated from humanity, blinded by
stupid prejudices, and bereft of innate balance. It is system without
soul.
Of the Russian army the Staffs of Berlin and Vienna thought
meanly. “A mob in uniform,” was one description. Less
contemptuous was this other: “A barracks of which only the bricks
have been got together, the cement and the builders being still
lacking.” Others there were—and these were the most serious
appraisers—who held that in another five or six years the Russian
land forces might be shaped into a formidable weapon of defence
and possibly of offence. But this opinion was urged mainly as an
argument against waiting. I once heard it supported tersely in the
following way. The army depends upon finances rather than
numbers. Without money you cannot train your soldiers. Ammunition
and guns, which are essential conditions to good artillery fire, involve
heavy expenditure. So, too, does rifle firing. Well, Russia’s army has
had no such advantages during the years that have elapsed since
her campaign against Japan. During all that time the salient trait of
her financial policy has been thrift. Grasping and saving, the State
has laid by enormous sums of money and has hoarded them miserly.
One effect of these precautions has been the neglect of the army
and the navy. At the close of the war Russia’s navy was practically
without ships and her diplomacy without backbone. And since then
little has been done to reinforce them.
 Two hundred and fifty millions sterling were borrowed by Russia
at the close of the war with Japan, it was argued. That sum may be
taken roughly to represent the cost of the campaign. But it did not
cover the wear and tear of the war material, the loss of the whole
navy, the destruction of fortresses, barracks, guns, private property,
etc., which would mount up to as much again. What was needed to
repair this vast breach in the land and sea forces was another loan
of at least three hundred millions sterling more. And this money was
not borrowed. Consequently the rebuilding of the damaged defences
was never undertaken. Only small annual credits, the merest
driblets, were allotted by the Finance Ministry to the War Office and
the Admiralty, and with these niggardly donations it had been
impossible to repair the inroads made by the war on the two imperial
services. But the Tsar’s Government, it was added, are about to turn
over a new leaf. Large war credits have been voted by the Duma.
Far-reaching reforms are planned for the army. Russia, awakened by
Germany’s preparations and warned by the Chancellor’s allusion to
the struggle between Slavs and Teutons, will make a strenuous effort
to fashion her vast millions into a formidable army. This work will
take at least from three to five years. We cannot afford to accord her
this time, nor can we blink the fact that she will never be less
redoubtable than she is to-day.
That was the theoretical side of the case. It was reinforced by
considerations of a concrete nature, the criticisms of Russian experts
of high standing and long experience whose alleged utterances were
said to bear out the conclusion that a war waged by Russia against
Germany, or even against Austria, at the present conjuncture would
be suicidal. Never before, it was urged, was the Tsardom less ready
from any point of view for a campaign than at the present moment.
And this, it was reiterated, is the ripe judgment of Russian competent
authorities whose names were freely mentioned. These men, it was
stated, had strongly urged the Tsar’s Government and the Tsar
himself to bear well in mind this deplorable plight of the army when
conducting the foreign business of the Empire.
That the Russian Government was aware of the view thus taken
in Berlin and Vienna may safely be assumed. For Russia kept her
eyes open and knew more about German machinations and the
assumptions on which they hinged than was supposed. Having had
an opportunity of picking up ideas on the subject, she had not let it
pass unutilized. Respecting one scheme she knew every detail; I
allude to the intention of Austria and Germany to declare the Treaty
of Bucharest a mere scrap of paper. Ever since that treaty was
signed, it had been the inflexible resolve of Austria and Germany to
upset it. I write this with first-hand knowledge. But even had I not had
this knowledge, it might have been taken for granted on a priori
grounds. The Balkan equilibrium as established by that instrument
was deemed lacking in stability. Count Berchtold admitted this to the
British Ambassador during the critical days. Its Servian elements
were particularly obnoxious to Austria, who had refrained from
annexing Turkish territory on the assumption that she would be
amply repaid for her self-restraint by political and economical
influence in the Peninsula.
Now, this assumption had been belied by events. Salonica was
under the dominion of Greece, whose leanings towards France and
Great Britain were notorious and fixed. Servia had waxed great, and
was striving to add further to her power and territory at Austria’s
expense. Bulgaria was sullen, and might become rebellious.
Roumania, estranged from the Dual Monarchy, had seemingly
moved within the political orbit of Russia. And even Turkey,
abandoned to herself among these prospective enemies of the
Teutonic Powers, was amenable to their suasion and to the pressure
of France and England. Such a state of affairs could not be brooked
by Austria-Hungary, who beheld her Slav possessions threatened in
Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, nor by Germany, who feared
that her road to the sea and to Asia Minor would be blocked.
Accordingly the two allies decided to apply the scrap of paper
doctrine to the Treaty of Bucharest, to cut up Greater Servia, bribe
Bulgaria with the Macedonian provinces which King Ferdinand had
lost by the treacherous attack on his allies, deprive Greece of the
islands and throw them as a sop to Turkey, win over Roumania by
intimidation and cajolery, and constrain her to make a block with
Bulgaria and Turkey against Servia and Greece.
 This preconcerted scheme had been questioned by easy-going
optimists in Great Britain before the outbreak of the war. But it has
been virtually acknowledged since then not only by the Austrian
Government but also by the “cream of Germany’s intelligence” in a
pamphlet entitled “Truth About Germany.” This statement of our
enemy’s case was drawn up for American consumption by a
committee which includes among its members Prince von Bülow,
Herr Ballin, Field-Marshal von der Goltz, Herr von Gwinner,
Professor Harnack, the theologian, Prince Hatzfeldt, Herr von
Mendelssohn, Professor Schmoller, and Professor Wundt. In the
chapter dealing with the last Balkan war as one of the causes of the
present conflict, these gentlemen argue that the outcome of that
struggle was a humiliation for the Habsburg Monarchy, and that it
had been so intended by the Ministers of the Tsar. And then comes
their important admission that ever since the Treaty of Bucharest, the
two Teutonic allies had been diligently preparing for war.

As soon as the Balkan troubles began (they write), Austria-

Hungary had been obliged to put a large part of her army in
readiness for war, because the Russians and Serbs had
mobilized on their frontiers. The Germans felt that what was a
danger for their ally was also a danger for them, and that they
must do all in their power to maintain Austria-Hungary in the
position of a great Power. They felt that this could only be done
by keeping with their ally perfect faith and by great military
strength, so that Russia might possibly be deterred from war and
peace be preserved, or else that, in case war was forced upon
them, they could wage it with honour and success. Now, it was
clear in Berlin that, in view of the Russian and Servian
preparations, Austria-Hungary, in case of a war, would be
obliged to use a great part of her forces against Servia, and
therefore would have to send against Russia fewer troops than
would have been possible under the conditions formerly
prevailing in Europe. Formerly even European Turkey could
have been counted upon for assistance, but that, after her recent
defeat, seemed very doubtful. These reasons and
considerations, which were solely of a defensive nature, led to
 the great German military Bills of the last two years. Also
Austria-Hungary was obliged to increase its defensive strength.

These preparations, America is informed, “were merely meant to

protect us against, and to prepare us for, the attacks of Moscovite
barbarism.” But Russia’s incipient army reorganization—which
cannot have been very thorough, seeing that in spite of it the
German Government regarded the Russian army as incapable of
5
taking the field—is cited as evidence of malice prepense.
Disingenuousness could hardly go further.
Any experienced European statesman would have divined this
plan even without a concrete clue. I knew it, and exposed it in the
columns of the Daily Telegraph.
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