Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, Episode 55, 2 to Berg nightmares.

When we left off last week, Augustus was overseeing the rise of his two grandsons, Gaius and Lucius,

and dealing with the fallout from the sudden retirement of his steps on Tiberius in 6bc.

The next decade will bring even more hardship for the Imperial family, as the fate intervened

to visit every misery imaginable on the House of Caesar.

But beyond the internal problems of the First Family, the whole empire will soon be visited

with the disaster to rival the massacre at Canny, and the Parthian annihilation of Crassus'

Eastern legions.

Rome had spent its life expanding, always and ever outward.

Augustus could already see, though, that the endless growth could not continue forever,

that future generations would not be tasked with winning new territory for the empire,

but rather, keeping what had already been seized.

But even he was not ready to be done with Imperial conquest just yet.

That was why the disaster in the 2 to Berg forest was such a heavy blow.

Germany was supposed to be the last province the empire would ever need, but instead, it

was never taken.

The final piece of the puzzle never put into place.

Instead, the land beyond the Rhine would forever whisper in Rome's ear, like the slave standing

beside a conquering general in his triumphal chariot, reminding him that he is mortal.

But before we get into all that, we need to unpack some more of the drama of the Giulio

Claudian family.

As events during these middle years of Augustus' reign, we'll set the stage for the future

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