Drusus and the Primores Galliarum, 13-10 B.C.

Having established what role the BR children play and "what" they are, we can now look more specifically for who they are. The evidence presented above makes it plain that they are Gauls. Their dress is generically Gallic; the identification is settled by the connection of the Ara Pacis (which mandates Gaul and Spain) with Drusus' activities (some of which

took place in Gaul, none in Spain). Compare the ethnic personifications on the other side of the cup: the most prominent figure is quite clearly meant to stand for the people of BR I:2 and on the other hand is paired with Spain, traditionally coupled with Gaul in Augustan art and rhetoric. We need now an occasion on which Drusus and Augustus were concerned with refining Roman administration of friendly Gallic peoples. The historical background is as follows.

In 13 B.C. Augustus returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul, more specifically, from Gaul as his last stop (RG 12: "ex Hispania Galliaque"); this is when he was voted the Ara Pacis, on which one of the BR children is depicted, which links the child(ren) with Augustus' encouragement of Gallic prosperity. He had gone to Gaul in the first place in 16 B.C. to deal with foreign incursion and native unrest (see below): the solving of both problems constituted the imposition or gift of pax in both its primary senses, the abolition of foreign threat and of civil discord, eminently suitable for commemoration by a monument to Augustan Pax. (The same was true of Agrippa's mission to Asia Minor, commemorated on the Ara Pacis by the Oriental child with Agrippa; see figs. 78–80.) Augustus' plans for re-forming Gaul did not terminate with his return to Rome in 13 B.C.; he left behind him in Gaul as legate of the tres Galliae his stepson Drusus.

Drusus' mandate was an important one, with three major parts. First, he was charged to initiate in 13 a full census of Gaul (Livy Per. 138); Augustus had carried out one in 27, but Drusus' census was to include for the first time property and class evaluation. This task was not only formidable in purely bureaucratic terms, it also required firm, but sensitive, political handling: the first-time imposition of such a census in the new German province by Varus some twenty years later was to provoke unrest so severe as to destroy Roman rule altogether, and the Gauls did not take kindly to the new ways either.^[80] Second, he was charged to handle the preliminary organization of a new cult of Rome and Augustus at Lugdunum, a project brought to completion in 10 B.C. with the inauguration of the cult. It was to serve as a focus for Gallic loyalties to the Empire and to enhance a sense of solidarity among the tribes of three provinces:^[81] in it the primores Galliarum gathered together headed by priests chosen on a rotating basis from their number, and with it was to be associated the administratively empowered assembly of these primores,^[82] whose first recorded actions were connected, ironically, with funeral honors decreed for Drusus in 9.^[83] Finally, the best-known portion of Drusus' mandate was

to organize for a campaign across the Rhine into Germany, to implement a plan of conquest designed to bring Germany into the empire as a province.^[84]

The first two parts of Drusus' mandate are to be seen as intimately connected with this third, aggressive plan regarding Germany. Gaul had to be secured and organized as a solid base of support for the difficult program of the conquest of Germany, both for the logistical support of Drusus' own armies once they left Gaul and so that the province should not fall into unrest while the campaign was on;^[85] the conquest of Germany in turn served to protect Rome's Gallic subjects (a justification for German wars already used by Caesar).^[86] Census and cult were ready by 10, when Drusus launched his last campaigns after the inauguration of the altar; and, for this significant occasion, Augustus returned to Gaul and went up to Lugdunum to be present with Drusus^[87] at the grand ceremonies in his own honor.^[88]

Consequently, either 13 or 10 B.C. is the possible date for the BR event, when Drusus and Augustus were together—undoubtedly in Lugdunum—at an ingathering of the Gallic chieftains, at a native city at which was located a Roman military encampment and which was a major seat of Roman administration (cf. its mint). The cult itself was an affirmation of loyalty by the chiefs of Gaul to the emperor, just like the "son-giving" we see on the cup. In 10 B.C., the moment of celebration immediately prior to the German campaigns would have been appropriate for the BR event—useful, also, in putting into Augustus' hands children of the primores Galliarum before his legions crossed the Rhine.^[89] Alternatively, one could set it in 13, just before Augustus' return to Rome, when he transferred power to Drusus; one can imagine an ingathering of the Gallic leaders for this occasion, as they would have to be given crucial instructions for the upcoming census, and the hostage value of their children would operate in this context as well. I discuss below the chronological problems posed by the visual evidence; the strong linkage between the cup and the Ara Pacis makes 13 B.C. more likely. In this scenario, Angustus returned from Gaul with one or more of the BR children, leaving Drusus behind; this would help explain why the BR child on the altar is separated from Drusus, as opposed to the Eastern prince clutching at Agrippa, who would have been taken to Rome by Agrippa personally in 12 B.C.

Further, the Gauls shown here seem to be from Gallia Comata, the particular region to which Augustus hastened in 16 B.C. when he went to

Gaul, from which the German campaigns were launched, and in which the altar cult was set up. Indeed, the BR adults have a very distinctive physiognomy, which seems meant to refer specifically to "long-haired" Gauls.^[90]

The primary features of this physical type are smoothly waving hair trimmed halfway down the neck; a beard cut close to the line of the jaw almost to the chin, where it lengthens and is trimmed to a long, sharp point; a long, bony face with deep-set eyes and a noticeably high, domed forehead. This profile does not at all fit the generic Gaul types assumed into Roman art from Hellenistic (especially Pergamene) canons, particularly in regard to the shape of the beard and the brow.^[91] No comparable depictions occur until the end of the second century A.D. (Sarmatians on the Column of Marcus Aurelius have similar beards). Unquestionably, the BR artist made an effort to render a particular ethnic type without much reference to preexisting stereotypes, Greek ones at least. Comparable efforts toward exact ethnic reference to Germans are known for the late Republic: a German head from a Marian victory monument is singled out also by its hair, having a very long braid twisted in a chignon beside the head, and a very short, fine mustache and beard. (In texts of the first century A.D. this coiffure marks various German tribes, including the Suebi and Sugambri.)^[92] This sculptor in the early first century B.C. tried to execute for a Roman patron a German type based on observable reality, rather than the usual shaggy Greek Celt type.

A similar effort was made by Caesar's die cutter for a very fine obverse (fig. 86) for his Gallic victory serial of 48 B.C.,^[93] which shows an emblematic Gaul of Gallia Comata. This superb bust had the same key features as the BR type: pointed beard cut close until the chin and high, domed forehead (also, neck-length hair, mantle, torque, deep-set eyes, etc.). This victory image seeks to portray a formidable, but beaten, adversary, to honor Caesar's achievement; so it is typical of victory iconography in portraying the foe as an uncontrolled savage, with lime-stiffened hair brushed back like a mane, open mouth, and especially craggy features. Under the deliberate veneer of barbarism, however, the correspondence to the BR Gaul is clear.

Our Gauls are Gauls of Gallia Comata, then; this keys in with what we know of Drusus' work before his campaign proper, when we are told that those Gauls gave him especial help. The emperor Claudius gave a speech in the Senate in A.D.48, asking for the right of Gauls of Gallia Comata to enter the Senate; a bronze copy was found in Lugdunum (CIL XIII.1668).^[94] Claudius, to emphasize these Gauls' merits, discoursed on

the assistance they gave his father Drusus through their cooperation and loyalty in his taking the census, construing this cooperation (rightly) as essential to the success of Drusus' difficult forays into Germany: "patri meo Druso Germaniam subigenti tutam quiete sua securamque a tergo praestiterunt et quidem cum a(d) census novo rum opere, et inadsueto Gallis ad bellum advocatus esset" (CIL XIII. 1668, sec. 2, lines 35f.). This information, incidentally, is omitted in Tacitus' paraphrase of the same speech (Ann. 11.24–25)—it meant more to the local owner of the bronze transcript. Tacitus does give us context and outcome; the Aedui won the right to enter the Senate because they alone among the Gauls had enjoyed since the Republic the official title of brothers to the Roman people (11.25).

Augustus' own mission to Gaul, which terminated in I3 B.C., was especially linked to Gallia Comata. When he went to Gaul in 16 it was to respond to an invasion of German tribes led by the Sugambri across the Rhine, an invading force that routed the local commander Lollius (Dio 54.19.1, 20.5–6; Suet. Aug. 23).^[95] This Sugambrian invasion of Gallia Comata was recalled in Horace Odes 4.2.2 in a poem written for Angustus' return in 13 B.C. (lines 51–52, "we will offer for your return tura benignis, " refer to the supplicatio on the Ara Pacis friezes). Augustus originally took with him Tiberius, then praetor, to act as his military agent (his functions transferred to Drusus; Dio 54.19.6). The serious military emergency was averted by Augustus' arrival, which frightened the invaders, who made peace and went home. Gallia Comata seems to have been the main focus of this invasion; Tiberius was put in charge of that region for just under a year to remedy the disturbances caused, says Suetonius (Tib. 9), by these German forays coupled with dissensions among the local principes ("Tiberius rexit Gallia Comata"). This record of dissension provides background for the institution of the Lugdunum altar cult, and for the special thanks given to the local chiefs for backing up Drusus. Finally, an inscription honoring a member of Augustus' official comitatus in Gaul during his trip of 16-13 B.C. cites not the "Hispania Galliaque" of Res gestae 12 but more specifically Gallia Comata and Aquitania as loci where Augustus held court.^[96]

The tie between Augustus' visit to Gaul from 16 to 13 B.C. and Gallia Comata could have conditioned a spectator of the Ara Pacis to connect the BR child with Gallia Comata. It was to Gallia Comata that Augustus had given the gift of pax, protection of Rome's subjects from invasion and civil concord. (See p. 76 and p. 267 n. 54 for a monument to Augustus from Spanish regions grateful for having been so pacified.) This

sequence of events also helps explain the tie to Gallia Comata on Tiberius' 8/7 victory coinage, now that we see that he had been involved in a rehearsal of his brother's fuller mandate there.^[97]

The BR Gauls may even be from the particular tribe benefited by Claudius' Senate, the Aedui.^[98] They were especially honored by Drusus and Augustus at this time; as a contemporary Roman found worthy of note (Livy Per. 139), the first priest of the Lugdunum cult was the Aeduan C. Julius Vercundaridubnus, even though Lugdunum itself was the capital of a different tribe (the Segusiani, according to Strabo 4.3.2).^[99] The Aedui named their new tribal capital Augustodunum sometime in Augustus' reign; probably under Augustus, Rome set up here a general school for young Gallic nobles, which existed to be seized by (the Aeduan!) Sacrovir in A.D. 21 (taking its noble students as hostages to enforce his Gallic rebellion; Tac. Ann. 3.43). It is Just possible that a Roman audience would see in children like those on the cup and altar offspring of the one tribe that they accounted uniquely close to Rome (the Augustan Strabo 4.3.2: sungeneis of the Roman people).

To sum up, the BR cup panel and the images associated with it show a party of Gauls, the primores of Gallia Comata (perhaps Aedui, perhaps from various tribes), who petition to have their young children educated under Augustus' authority, at his court. It might be interjected here that perhaps the BR depiction and its comparanda do not refer to any one specific event but symbolize a policy or series of actions. It can be answered that from the Republic through the late Empire Roman reliefs that purport to narrate the specific performance of a given ritual or the occurrence of a given political event seem uniformly to refer to an actual, historical fact, even when (as on the Ara Pacis) the visual forms of narration deliberately broaden the significance of this given event so that its political resonance will endure. I know no exceptions to this rule, which is a logical consequence of the fact that Roman political monuments were not commissioned in a vacuum but rather commemorated specific actions; it is because of this that the works of art engendered by political and military actions were to ancient authors part of the historical record, and so are recorded in biographical narratives. This is why BR I:2, and the more selective references on the Ara Pacis and the state coinage, can be taken to refer to a specific occurrence. This event or occasion must, on the evidence of the visual and historical record, have transpired either in 13 or (less likely) in 10 B.C. (Though the Ara Pacis was commissioned in 13, we do not know when before 9 B.C. amendments to its design ceased.)^[100]

This event was orchestrated by Drusus and Augustus as part of the

strengthening of Gaul necessary both to its own development as a Roman province and to Augustus' plans for expansion beyond Gaul's eastern frontiers.^[101] The BR depiction and the event behind it thus tie in to various significant historical phenomena: the fostering of elite children by the Empire's ruler, the Romanization of Gaul, and the career of Drusus. While Drusus was alive and shortly beyond his death this event seems to have been chosen to sum up Augustus' achievements in the West,^[102] in a way similar to the use of the return of Crassus' standards to sum up Augustan sway in the East; compare the way in which the settlement of Armenia was attached first to Tiberius and then to Gaius under Augustus, and the grooming of Germanicus for power by Tiberius with a similar mandate in the East. The young Tiberius had already been put in a position by his stepfather to display his civil and military virtus as the special legate responsible for bestowing the kingship of Armenia on Rome's candidate for rule there; just so, we see Drusus being given, in fact and in propaganda, a chance to build his reputation as administrator, as well as general, acting as Augustus' legate in the West. The BR event was celebrated on his behalf to proclaim his virtues as a pacator and administrator; his military reputation, already well founded on his Rhaetian conquests, was to be further enhanced by his conquests in Germany. Chapter 8 returns to Drusus and the Augustan imagery of dynastic succession and to the problem of the prototype reliefs from which this and the other panels were copied.