When Augustus divided the Roman world between himself and the Senate, he carefully excluded from this partition the ancient kingdom of Egypt, which remained during his reign and for several centuries after his death on a different footing from every other province, senatorial or imperial. Though incorporated in the Empire, it never formally ranked as a province. For all practical purposes, it was an appanage of the Principate and almost a private estate of the ruling Emperor. Augustus forbade any senator from setting foot upon its soil. He chose its governors from the ranks of the knights, from those, that is to say, who had no imperium because they had never held either the praetorship or the consulship. As the conqueror of Cleopatra and the heir by conquest of the Lagid dynasty, he entered into possession of vast royal domains. As the ruler of Egypt, he became lord of a patient, industrious, and submissive nation of agriculturists, accustomed by centuries of obedience to pay heavy taxes without a murmur. The fact that the Emperor annually obtained from the Nile land twenty million bushels of wheat — a third part of the entire consumption of the capital — as well as an enormous tribute in hard cash, explains why he and his successors attached such prime importance to Egypt and took such extraordinary care over the details of its administration. The general who held Egypt held one of the keys of Rome. This was one of the fundamental principles of imperial policy. Augustus did wisely, therefore, to keep the Egyptian governorship — a post of such magnitude that Strabo said, "the official, who is sent to Egypt, occupies the place of a king" — for members of his own entourage, upon whose fidelity he could place the most absolute reliance. Cornelius Gallus, who had accompanied Augustus to Alexandria after the Battle of Actium, was the first imperial prefect of Egypt, and the position seems to have turned his brain. We are told that he carried his presumption to the point of having his name inscribed upon the pyramids, not in the stupid but harmless spirit which has prompted countless generations of tourists to imitate his example, but in the spirit of overweening vanity. Gallus fell from favor. He was disgraced and ordered back to Rome for trial, where the Emperor bitterly complained of his ingratitude and malevolence. Yet, when it seemed likely that the Senate would pass a harsh sentence upon him, Augustus declared that he was the only man in Rome to whom it was not permitted to be angry with his friends.
Augustus' policy in Egypt, as elsewhere, was to interfere as little as possible with existing institutions: social, economic, and political. There had been no self-government under the Ptolemies like that which the Romans had found in Syria. The country had been parcelled out into thirty-six districts or nomes, the entire administration of which was conducted by royal officials. Practically the only change made by Augustus was to install Roman officials and to divert the revenues into his own exchequer. He did not seek to Romanize the country, for not a single colony was planted within its borders. His main object was merely to keep the milch cow in good condition. Then, as now, the prosperity of the land depended upon two conditions — the annual overflow of the Nile and the system of irrigation works. When Augustus set his legions — greatly, no doubt, to their annoyance and disgust — to clean out the canals which the luxurious and effeminate Ptolemies had allowed to become choked with mud, he gave signal proof that he understood the needs of Egypt. The result was that whereas when the Romans incorporated the country it required a Nile overflow of fourteen cubits to ensure a full harvest, it soon only required an overflow of twelve, and the eight cubits which previously had spelt famine now represented a fair and sufficient harvest.
Augustus not only saw the commercial and strategical importance of Egypt but embarked upon very speculative military operations in Arabia in order to destroy a commercial rival. The campaign of Aelius Gallus in 25 B.C. is inexplicable except on the supposition that it was a trade war. There were two main trading routes between India and Europe. One lay along the valley of the Euphrates through Parthia into Syria. The other passed through Arabia and what is now the province of Yemen. The ruins of immense reservoirs cut out of the solid rock at Aden still bear witness to the vanished civilization which once flourished in this barren region, and the name of Arabia Felix attests its wealth and importance in Roman times. From the cities of the Yemen, the caravan route traversed the Arabian shore of the Red Sea, through Leuce Come (the modern Havara) to Berenice at the head of the Sinaitic peninsula, and thence crossed the Idumaean desert to Petra, the capital of the Nabataean Syrians, and so to the ports of Gaza and Rhinocolura. This route did not touch Egypt at all. The alternative route from Berenice across the Sinaitic peninsula to Arsinoe, close by the modern Suez, whence goods might be conveyed through the canal — dug ages before by an enlightened Pharaoh — which connected the Salt Lakes with the Nile, and so down to the sea at Pelusium, was little used because the canal was choked. Augustus' main efforts were directed to the reopening of a third, but also disused, route to the Far East which avoided the long tracks across the deserts of Arabia. It lay up the Nile as far as Coptos, near Thebes. There goods were transported over the desert to the Red Sea either to Myos Hormos, to Leucos Limen, or to Berenice Troglodytice, the three Egyptian ports of the Red Sea, whence they might be shipped directly to their destinations. The pirates of the Arabian Gulf were rigorously suppressed and we are told that fleets of a hundred and twenty sail used to leave annually for India from the port of Myos Hormos alone in the latter days of Augustus.
Here then we have a clear explanation of the cause which led to the campaign of Aelius Gallus. The active development of this Nile and oversea route threatened to ruin the carrying trade of the Homerites in Arabia Felix, and they doubtless retaliated by harrying the Egyptian merchantmen. An expedition to reduce them to subjection was the natural result. It proved a most inglorious fiasco, for it was wretchedly mismanaged by the Roman commander. He had collected a fleet of 80 warships and 130 transports, together with an army of 10,000 men and contingents furnished by the Nabataeans and the Jews, and set sail from Arsinoe. But instead of being taken directly to its objective, the force was landed at Leuce Come, halfway down the Red Sea, and spent 180 days in reaching Mariaba, the capital of the Sabaeans, to which Gallus laid siege. During these six months, his army had been wasted by the diseases which are endemic in the country, and by the enormous difficulties incident to campaigning in the desert, and so after spending six days before the walls of Mariaba, Gallus ordered a retreat, and the army retraced its steps to Leuce Come, having accomplished nothing, and without even reaching the Homerite territory. No second expedition for the conquest of Arabia was attempted by Augustus, but there is reason to believe that, before the close of his reign, a Roman fleet made its way down to Aden and reduced that city to the position of a mere village. Certainly the Red Sea became Roman water and the trade of the Far East was largely diverted from the old caravan route through Arabia into the Egyptian ports and the Nile route, to the great profit of the Egyptian revenue. The southern border of Egypt was fixed at Syene, where the first cataract interrupted the navigability of the Nile, and Augustus steadily refused to listen to the advocates of a forward policy against Ethiopia. When Gaius Petronius had beaten back the armies of the Ethopian Queen, who had taken advantage of the absence of Aelius Gallus in Arabia to raid across the border, Augustus declined even to demand tribute or formal submission. In the closing years of his reign, when his legions were hard-pressed on the Rhine and the Danube, he must have congratulated himself upon his wise determination not to be drawn into the deserts of the Sudan.
His policy in Africa was guided by similar considerations. The Atlas mountains in the far west and the great deserts of the Sahara formed a natural boundary across which he was not tempted to pass. But, even within these limits, there was much work to be done. The Republic had not conquered the whole of the Mediterranean littoral. Practically the only portions which were thoroughly Roman were the ancient territory of Carthage and the Pentapolis of the Cyrenaica. The Roman province of Africa was rich in grain but its compass was small and it was hemmed in on the land side by the Kingdom of Numidia, with which the Republic had been constantly at war. To the west lay the two Mauretanian kingdoms, afterwards known as Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis. When, after the Battle of Thapsus, the larger part of Numidia, which formed the hinterland of Roman Africa, was incorporated into that province, the two Mauretanian kings, who had supported Julius, were rewarded by an increase of territory. Subsequently, in the quarrels between Antonius and Octavian, Bogud espoused the cause of the former and lost his throne, which was given to Bocchus. The latter died in 33 B.C., and the whole of Western Africa was bestowed by Augustus in 25 B.C. upon the son of the last king of Numidia, who had been brought up at Rome under the guidance of Augustus and had been married to a daughter of Cleopatra and Antonius. The young Juba amply fulfilled the trust reposed in him. He, and his son after him, continued to rule Mauretania as vassals of the Roman Emperor, until Caligula summoned Ptolemaeus to Rome, put him to death, seized his treasure, and annexed his kingdom.
The only campaign of note waged in North Africa during the reign of Augustus took place in what is now Tripoli, the eastern part of the senatorial province of Africa. Lucius Cornelius Balbus penetrated into the Sahara in 19 B.C. as far as the oasis of Fezzan and annexed the district. His was the last senatorial triumph. Henceforward the distinction was reserved for those who wore the purple or belonged to the reigning house. Cyrenaica, which, together with the island of Crete, formed another senatorial province, is scarcely mentioned throughout this period. But beyond doubt, the beginning of the imperial administration witnessed a remarkable revival of prosperity all along the southern shore of the Mediterranean. Augustus sent a new detachment of veterans to Carthage to strengthen the colony which Julius had planted there and Carthage speedily became, for the second time, the Queen of Africa, rivalling even Alexandria in opulence and in the volume of its trade. And while Alexandria continued to be essentially Hellenistic, Carthage was Roman to the core. A number of settlements, with Latin rights, were formed not only on the coast but far in the interior, and the Romanization of Northern Africa proceeded as rapidly as that of Gallia Narbonensis or Baetica. Its civilization was destined to be blotted out absolutely by barbarism just when it was in the height of its glory, but its sand-strewn ruins still testify to the completeness of the Roman occupation and to the marvelous prosperity which it attained as early as the days of the Antonines.
The affairs of Judaea and Palestine also claim attention, by reason of the special interest which attaches to this relatively insignificant quarter of the Empire, as the birthplace of Christ and as the home of the race which proved so sharp a thorn in the side of the Roman government. It does not fall within the limits of this volume to trace the downfall of the Maccabean family and the rise to power of the bloodstained and ferocious, yet capable and astute, Herod, who was known even to his contemporaries as Herod the Great. During his entire career, Herod remained consistently faithful to the party which ruled the East. He was a Caesarian while Julius lived. When Cassius was arming the East for the Republic, he too was on the Republican side. When Octavian and Antonius divided the world, he ranged himself under the standard of Antonius. Always a vassal king, he accepted without demur the foreign policy of his master of the moment, and even though Antonius lavished some of Herod's southern districts upon Cleopatra and her children, the supple Idumaean acquiesced with a good grace and employed his soldiers to collect the tribute for her. So that he kept his crown, Herod's loyalty was beyond reproach. Then, when the fortunes of Antonius sank at Actium, and the victor was preparing to invade Egypt, Herod was swift to enter into negotiations with Octavian and transfer his allegiance to the new overlord. His capacity was well known and his power was considerable. Octavian was anxious to keep the Jews quiet, and gladly accepted the overtures of Herod, whose kingdom was subsequently extended by the inclusion of Joppa and Gaza on the south and by the incorporation of the districts of Ituraea, Batanea, Auranitis, and Trachonitis, which lay east of the Sea of Galilee and stretched north to Damascus. In other words, he ruled over the whole of Palestine in its greatest extent, and none of the other semi-independent kings of the East enjoyed such liberty of action and so many privileges as he. Judaea proper paid no tribute to Rome, whatever imposts were levied on the other districts, and the central government pursued a rigid policy of noninterference. Augustus, we may suspect, was only too glad to be relieved from the duty of directly governing what Cicero years before had described as a suspicious and spiteful state — tam suspitiosa ac maledica civitas. Herod made an admirable warden of the march, or, in more homely phrase, a trustworthy watchdog at the gates of Egypt. There was little profit to be wrung out of Palestine, and Jews in their own country were harmless as long as they were left to themselves. Unfortunately, however, both for Rome and Palestine, Herod's rule was detested by his Jewish subjects. Though he raised their status among the nations, the fierce national spirit was against him. Herod was only half a Jew. His sympathies were Hellenist and, while he rebuilt the Temple on a most magnificent scale, he also introduced into Jerusalem a circus and an amphitheater — things which were anathema to the fanatics.
His united kingdom was divided at his death in 4 B.C. among his three sons, Philip, Antipas, and Archelaus, neither of whom inherited the capacity of his father. Archelaus, in Judaea, began his reign by appointing a new high priest who was obnoxious to the people of Jerusalem and the inevitable tumult followed. Varus, the Roman Governor of Syria, was obliged to intervene to restore order, and a deputation of Jews was sent to petition Augustus at Rome. The Emperor confirmed, in the main, the testament of Herod, while withholding the kingly title from Archelaus, but soon found it necessary to depose him, and, in answer to the solicitations of the Jews themselves, Judaea was declared in 6 A.D. a Roman province of the second rank, an annexe, as it were, of the province of Syria. A small Roman garrison took up its quarters in the castle at Jerusalem, but Caesarea was the center of the Roman administration. The arrangements made by Augustus for the government of Judaea were equitable and just. The tribute, of course, was exacted as in every other Roman province; but the urban communities were granted self-government and Jerusalem was left to the control of the Jewish Sanhedrin with complete judicial and executive authority, subject only to the confirmation of the death sentence by the Roman procurator. The Emperor carefully respected the religious prejudices of the Jews, to which they attached far higher importance than to the good government of their land. Special coins were struck which did not bear the effigy of the Emperor. The troops left their eagles and standards at Caesarea before marching to Jerusalem. Augustus and Livia sent sumptuous gifts to the Temple and paid the cost of daily sacrifice on the great altar; and it was made a crime punishable by death for a gentile — even if he were a Roman citizen — to profane the inner court by entering it. Such enactments show the extraordinary pains taken by the central government to conciliate the Jews and to prevent the Roman yoke — imposed, be it noted, at their own request — from chafing their necks. Many a Roman procurator of Judaea found himself sacrificed in the vain hope of placating the Jewish national sentiment.
Such then was the policy of Augustus towards the Jews in their own country. While the strongman, Herod the Great, lived, he was well satisfied that another should rule so stubborn a race. When Herod died and the incapacity of his sons became manifest, he sought to secure at least a tolerable working arrangement by strict noninterference in the internal affairs of Judaea, provided there was no actual revolt. Yet he must have felt that just as Druid worship was the storm center in Gaul, so the fierce uncompromising character of the Jewish religion was the storm center in the East, and that, sooner or later, it would have to be crushed in its home at Jerusalem by the whole might of Rome. The Jewish problem, however, was by no means confined to the barren hills and deserts of Palestine. The Jews were scattered throughout the Empire, clannish and exclusive beyond any people that the world had ever seen, forming colonies of their own in every great city, submissive to the law, intent only upon money-making, and antisocial to a man. The uneasy distrust and suspicion with which they were regarded by the Romans were perfectly natural. The Jews took no part in the life of the communities into which they had thrust themselves. They held aloof from the festivals. They did not aspire to obtain the citizenship, for its privileges entailed obligations and expense. Cicero, in a striking passage in the Pro Flacco, which goes to the very root of this distrust, had declared that the Jewish religion looked askance at the splendor of the Roman Republic, at the majesty of the Roman name, and at the time-honored institutions of Rome. Even the poorest Jew despised the Roman gods and the civilizing mission of Rome, and despised, while accepting, the toleration which was offered him. The cultured Roman in return was contemptuous of the one jealous and conquered deity who would not fraternize with his brother divinities, while the poorer Roman hated the morose Semite whom he could not understand. The Jews formed practically an imperium in imperio, paying the annual tribute of a double drachma to the funds of the foreign temple at Jerusalem — a mysterious race, which, by its very persistence, inspired not only hate but fear.
They were now securely planted in the East, notably in Alexandria and the Greek cities of Asia Minor; and there was a colony of eight thousand Jews in Rome itself. Augustus, continuing the policy of Julius, which in this respect had been the policy of Alexander the Great, confirmed the eastern Jews in their old privileges and gave them more. They were exempted from military service. The strict regulations against corporate societies and unions were abated in their favor; and, when the Greek communities of Asia Minor sought to include them in the general levy, Augustus expressly ratified the Jewish protest. In Alexandria and Cyrene, the Jews had an ethnarch of their own. In Antioch, Ephesus, and other cities, they enjoyed a similarly favored position. It would seem almost as if Augustus set himself to make the Jews of the Diaspora pro-Roman, as a counterpoise in some degree to the prevailing Hellenism of the East. They had no political organization. Their interests were entirely centered in their trade and their religion. But he adopted a different policy towards them in the West. There is no evidence that he imposed any check upon their freedom of movement, but certainly in no western city do we find them possessing the practical autonomy which they enjoyed in Alexandria. A sharp distinction was drawn between the provinces of Western Europe, which it was the aim of the Emperor to Romanize, and the provinces of the East, which had been thoroughly Hellenized long before the Romans set foot within them.