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On August 19, 14, Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor, died at the age of 75. An excerpt from the article:
"Augustus: The Path to Power
The 17-year-old Octavius was at Apollonia (in present-day Albania) when the news of Caesar’s death and his own inheritance arrived. The dead ruler’s allies, including many in the senate, rallied around Octavian against their powerful rival Mark Antony. But after Octavian’s troops defeated Antony’s army in northern Italy, the future emperor refused an all-out pursuit of Antony, preferring an uneasy alliance with his rival.
In 43 B.C. Octavian, Antony and Marcus Aemilus Lepidus established the Second Triumvirate, a power-sharing agreement that divided up Rome’s territories among them, with Antony given the East, Lepidus Africa and Octavian the West. In 41 B.C. Antony began a romantic and political alliance with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, which continued even after a Senatorial decree forced his marriage to Octavian’s sister Octavia Minor. Lepidus remained a minor figure until Octavian finally had him ousted after the triumvirate’s renewal in 37 B.C.
Ancient Rome
Antony’s affair with Cleopatra continued, and in 32 B.C. he divorced Octavia. In retaliation, Octavian declared war on Cleopatra. In the naval battle of Actium a year later, Octavian’s fleet, under his admiral Agrippa, cornered and defeated Antony’s ships. Cleopatra’s navy raced to aid her ally, but in the end the two lovers barely escaped. They returned to Egypt and committed suicide, leaving Octavian as Rome’s undisputed ruler.
Augustus: Emperor in All but Name
Historians date the start of Octavian’s monarchy to either 31 B.C. (the victory at Actium) or 27 B.C., when he was granted the name Augustus. In that four-year span, Octavian secured his rule on multiple fronts. Cleopatra’s seized treasure allowed him to pay his soldiers, securing their loyalty. To mollify Rome’s Senate and ruling classes, he passed laws harkening back—at least on the surface—to the traditions of the Roman Republic. And to win over the people, he worked to improve and beautify the city of Rome.
During his 40-years reign, Augustus nearly doubled the size of the empire, adding territories in Europe and Asia Minor and securing alliances that gave him effective rule from Britain to India. He spent much of his time outside of Rome, consolidating power in the provinces and instituting a system of censuses and taxation that integrated the empire’s furthest reaches. He expanded the Roman network of roads, founded the Praetorian Guard and the Roman postal service and remade Rome with both grand (a new forum) and practical gestures (police and fire departments).
Augustus: Family and Succession
Augustus married three times, although his first union, to Mark Antony’s stepdaughter Clodia Pulchra, was unconsummated. His second wife, Scribonia, bore his only child, Julia the Elder. He divorced in 39 B.C. to marry Livia Drusilla, who had two sons—Tiberius and Drusus—by her first husband, Mark Antony’s ally Tiberius Claudius Nero. The family tree became more complicated after Augustus had his stepson Tiberius briefly marry his daughter, and then adopted Tiberius outright as son and successor in A.D. 4.
Augustus Caesar died in A.D. 14, his empire secured and at peace. His reported last words were twofold: to his subjects he said, “I found Rome of clay; I leave it to you of marble,” but to the friends who had stayed with him in his rise to power he added, “Have I played the part well? Then applaud me as I exit.” Soon after that acknowledgement of human frailty, the Roman Senate officially declared their departed emperor, like Julius Caesar before him, to be a god."
"Augustus: The Path to Power
The 17-year-old Octavius was at Apollonia (in present-day Albania) when the news of Caesar’s death and his own inheritance arrived. The dead ruler’s allies, including many in the senate, rallied around Octavian against their powerful rival Mark Antony. But after Octavian’s troops defeated Antony’s army in northern Italy, the future emperor refused an all-out pursuit of Antony, preferring an uneasy alliance with his rival.
In 43 B.C. Octavian, Antony and Marcus Aemilus Lepidus established the Second Triumvirate, a power-sharing agreement that divided up Rome’s territories among them, with Antony given the East, Lepidus Africa and Octavian the West. In 41 B.C. Antony began a romantic and political alliance with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, which continued even after a Senatorial decree forced his marriage to Octavian’s sister Octavia Minor. Lepidus remained a minor figure until Octavian finally had him ousted after the triumvirate’s renewal in 37 B.C.
Ancient Rome
Antony’s affair with Cleopatra continued, and in 32 B.C. he divorced Octavia. In retaliation, Octavian declared war on Cleopatra. In the naval battle of Actium a year later, Octavian’s fleet, under his admiral Agrippa, cornered and defeated Antony’s ships. Cleopatra’s navy raced to aid her ally, but in the end the two lovers barely escaped. They returned to Egypt and committed suicide, leaving Octavian as Rome’s undisputed ruler.
Augustus: Emperor in All but Name
Historians date the start of Octavian’s monarchy to either 31 B.C. (the victory at Actium) or 27 B.C., when he was granted the name Augustus. In that four-year span, Octavian secured his rule on multiple fronts. Cleopatra’s seized treasure allowed him to pay his soldiers, securing their loyalty. To mollify Rome’s Senate and ruling classes, he passed laws harkening back—at least on the surface—to the traditions of the Roman Republic. And to win over the people, he worked to improve and beautify the city of Rome.
During his 40-years reign, Augustus nearly doubled the size of the empire, adding territories in Europe and Asia Minor and securing alliances that gave him effective rule from Britain to India. He spent much of his time outside of Rome, consolidating power in the provinces and instituting a system of censuses and taxation that integrated the empire’s furthest reaches. He expanded the Roman network of roads, founded the Praetorian Guard and the Roman postal service and remade Rome with both grand (a new forum) and practical gestures (police and fire departments).
Augustus: Family and Succession
Augustus married three times, although his first union, to Mark Antony’s stepdaughter Clodia Pulchra, was unconsummated. His second wife, Scribonia, bore his only child, Julia the Elder. He divorced in 39 B.C. to marry Livia Drusilla, who had two sons—Tiberius and Drusus—by her first husband, Mark Antony’s ally Tiberius Claudius Nero. The family tree became more complicated after Augustus had his stepson Tiberius briefly marry his daughter, and then adopted Tiberius outright as son and successor in A.D. 4.
Augustus Caesar died in A.D. 14, his empire secured and at peace. His reported last words were twofold: to his subjects he said, “I found Rome of clay; I leave it to you of marble,” but to the friends who had stayed with him in his rise to power he added, “Have I played the part well? Then applaud me as I exit.” Soon after that acknowledgement of human frailty, the Roman Senate officially declared their departed emperor, like Julius Caesar before him, to be a god."
Augustus
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Augustus: Rome’s Greatest Emperor
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Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us ware that on August 19, 14, Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor, died at the age of 75. Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus on 23 September 63 BCE.
Augustus: Rome’s Greatest Emperor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw9le2od08k
Images:
1. Augustus Bevilacqua Glyptothek Munic Museum
2. A bronze head of Augustus.
3. 100 BC A map showing the areas controlled by different members of Rome's Second Triumvirate of Lepidus (Brown), Octavian (Purple), and Mark Antony (Green) in the 1st century BC
4. Augustus Caesar, silver denarius. Lyons mint, struck 2 BC - 13 AD
Background from {[https://www.ancient.eu/augustus/]}
"Augustus by Joshua J. Mark published on 04 May 2018
Augustus Caesar (27 BCE – 14 CE) was the name of the first and, by most accounts, greatest Roman emperor. Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus on 23 September 63 BCE. Octavianwas adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, and then took the name Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BCE the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the illustrious one"), and he was then known as Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.
Owing to the many names the man went by in his life, it is common to call him Octavius when referring to events between 63 and 44 BCE, Octavian when referring to events between 44 and 27 BCE, and Augustus regarding events from 27 BCE to his death in 14 CE. It should be noted, however, that Octavian himself, between the years 44 and 27 BCE, never went by that name, choosing instead to align himself closely with his great uncle by carrying the same name; a decision which prompted Mark Antony’s famous accusation, as recorded by Cicero,“You, boy, owe everything to your name”.
AUGUSTUS, MARK ANTONY & LEPIDUS
After Julius Caesar’s assassination in March of 44 BCE, Octavian allied himself with Caesar’s close friend and relative, Mark Antony. Together with another supporter of Caesar, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Antony and Octavian formed the Second Triumvirate in October of 43 BCE. Their first order of business seems to have been the systematic killing of any political rivals and supporters of Caesar’s assassins. Exactly which of the three was most responsible for the killings is disputed by ancient and modern writers alike with some claiming Octavian innocent and others ascribing to him the most bloodshed. Having cleansed Romeof the 'bad blood’ of their opposition, the Second Trimvirate then turned their attention to Caesar’s assassins. At the Battle of Phillipi in October 42 BCE, the forces of Brutus and Cassius were defeated by those of the Second Triumvirate forcing both assassins to kill themselves.
THE PEACE WHICH AUGUSTUS RESTORED (THE PAX ROMANA) CAUSED THE ECONOMY, ARTS & AGRICULTURE TO FLOURISH.
Between 38 and 36 BCE, Octavian and Lepidus battled Sextus Pompeius (son of PompeyMagnus, Julius Caesar’s great rival) for rule of Rome with Antony lending aid from Egypt. The Second Triumvirate was victorious over Pompeius, and Lepidus, glorying in the triumph and confident of his strength, insulted Octavian by ordering him to leave Sicily, the theatre of operations, with his troops. Octavian, however, offered Lepidus’s troops more money than Lepidus could pay and his army defected to Octavian. Lepidus was stripped of all his titles save Pontifex Maximus and the Second Triumvirate came to an end.
AUGUSTUS, ANTONY & CLEOPATRA
During this time, however, relations between Octavian and Mark Antony began to deteriorate. In 40 BCE, in an effort to solidify their alliance, Octavian had given his sister, Octavia Minor, in marriage to Antony. Antony, though, had allied himself closely with Cleopatra VII of Egypt (the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of his son Caesarion) and, in fact, had become her lover. Octavian charged that Antony had mis-used his sister when Antony divorced Octavia in favor of Cleopatra in 33 BCE which prompted Antony to write Octavian, “What’s upset you? Because I go to bed with Cleopatra? But she’s my wife and I’ve been doing so for nine years, not just recently. Does it really matter where, or with what women, you get your excitement?”
To Octavian, Antony’s behavior in the east, both in private, politically and militarily, was intolerable. He forced the priestesses of the temple of Vesta in Rome to surrender Antony’s will and had it read in the Senate. The will gave away Roman territories to Antony’s sons and contained directions for a great mausoleum to be built in Alexandria for Antony and Cleopatra, among other stipulations which Octavian felt threatened the grandeur of Rome and branded Antony a renegade.
Among the worst of Antony’s offenses was his declaration that Caesarion was the true heir of Julius Caesar, not Octavian. The Senate revoked Antony’s consulship and declared waron Cleopatra VII. At the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BCE Octavian’s forces, under the General Agrippa, defeated the combined forces of Antony and Cleopatra, scattered them (many had already defected to Octavian’s side before the battle) and pursued the survivors until 1 August 30 BCE when, after the loss of Alexandria, Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves. Octavian had Caesarion strangled (stating that “two Caesars are one too many”) and Antony’s eldest son executed as a possible threat to Rome.
Octavian was now the supreme ruler of Rome and all her territories but, in order to keep from making the same mistake his adoptive father had of seeming to covet power, Octavian was careful to characterize all of his political strategems as being for the good of the Republic of Rome. In January of 27 BCE, Octavian resigned his powers humbly only to receive them back from the grateful Senate who also bestowed upon him the title Augustus. Octavian was careful not to refer to himself by that title at any time in public, simply calling himself 'Princeps’, or, First Citizen. So carefully did Octavian play the political game in Rome that his claims to restoration of the Republic seemed in earnest, even when he gained supreme power, giving him absolute control over Rome and her colonies.
POPULAR ALREADY WITH THE SOLDIERS OF HIS ARMY, THE TITLE AUGUSTUS SOLIDIFIED HIS POWER IN THE PROVINCES AS IMPERATOR.
AUGUSTUS AS EMPEROR
Popular already with the soldiers of his army, the title Augustus solidified his power in the provinces as Imperator, or commander-in-chief (from which the English word 'emperor’ is derived). The month of August was named in his honor. In the year 19 BCE, he was given Imperium Maius (supreme power) over every province in the Roman Empire and, from that time on, Augustus Caesar ruled supremely, the first emperor of Rome and the measure by which all later emperors would be judged. By 2 BCE Augustus was declared Pater Patriae, the father of his country.
The era of Augustus’ reign was a golden age in every respect. The peace which Augustus restored and kept (the Pax Romana) caused the economy, the arts and agriculture to flourish. An ambitious building program was initiated in which Augustus completed the plans made by Julius Caesar and then continued on with his own grand designs. In his famous inscription Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Deeds of the Divine Augustus) he claims to have restored or built 82 temples in one year. The famous public baths of Rome were constructed under Augustus by his second-in-command, Agrippa, and the poet Virgilcomposed his epic the Aeneid. Augustus took great personal concern in the arts and was a personal patron of many artists.
He passed many sweeping reforms as well as laws to maintain stability in marriage and to raise the birth rate in Rome, making adultery illegal, offering tax incentives to families with over three children and penalties for childless marriages. So strictly did Augustus himself adhere to his laws that he banished his own daughter, Julia, and his grand-daughter, for adultery.
DEATH
Augustus died at Nola in 14 CE. His official last words were, “I found Rome a city of clay but left it a city of marble” which aptly describes Augustus’ achievements during his reign as emperor. According to his wife Livia and his adopted son Tiberius, however, his last words were actually, “Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit.”
Augustus’ body was brought back to Rome in state and, on the day of the funeral, all businesses in Rome closed out of respect for the emperor. He was succeeded by Tiberius who he had adopted in 4 BCE and who read the eulogy (along with his own son, Drusus) at Augustus’ famously grand funeral. The emperor’s body was cremated and his ashes interred in his mausoleum. Augustus’ death was mourned as the loss of a great ruler of immense talent and vision. and he was proclaimed a god among the host of the Roman pantheon."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick SGT Denny Espinosa LTC (Join to see)Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Michael Terrell SFC Chuck Martinez CSM Charles HaydenMSgt James Clark-Rosa 1SG Dan Capri MGySgt (Join to see) SSG Edward Tilton SGT Mary G.
Augustus: Rome’s Greatest Emperor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw9le2od08k
Images:
1. Augustus Bevilacqua Glyptothek Munic Museum
2. A bronze head of Augustus.
3. 100 BC A map showing the areas controlled by different members of Rome's Second Triumvirate of Lepidus (Brown), Octavian (Purple), and Mark Antony (Green) in the 1st century BC
4. Augustus Caesar, silver denarius. Lyons mint, struck 2 BC - 13 AD
Background from {[https://www.ancient.eu/augustus/]}
"Augustus by Joshua J. Mark published on 04 May 2018
Augustus Caesar (27 BCE – 14 CE) was the name of the first and, by most accounts, greatest Roman emperor. Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus on 23 September 63 BCE. Octavianwas adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, and then took the name Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BCE the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the illustrious one"), and he was then known as Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.
Owing to the many names the man went by in his life, it is common to call him Octavius when referring to events between 63 and 44 BCE, Octavian when referring to events between 44 and 27 BCE, and Augustus regarding events from 27 BCE to his death in 14 CE. It should be noted, however, that Octavian himself, between the years 44 and 27 BCE, never went by that name, choosing instead to align himself closely with his great uncle by carrying the same name; a decision which prompted Mark Antony’s famous accusation, as recorded by Cicero,“You, boy, owe everything to your name”.
AUGUSTUS, MARK ANTONY & LEPIDUS
After Julius Caesar’s assassination in March of 44 BCE, Octavian allied himself with Caesar’s close friend and relative, Mark Antony. Together with another supporter of Caesar, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Antony and Octavian formed the Second Triumvirate in October of 43 BCE. Their first order of business seems to have been the systematic killing of any political rivals and supporters of Caesar’s assassins. Exactly which of the three was most responsible for the killings is disputed by ancient and modern writers alike with some claiming Octavian innocent and others ascribing to him the most bloodshed. Having cleansed Romeof the 'bad blood’ of their opposition, the Second Trimvirate then turned their attention to Caesar’s assassins. At the Battle of Phillipi in October 42 BCE, the forces of Brutus and Cassius were defeated by those of the Second Triumvirate forcing both assassins to kill themselves.
THE PEACE WHICH AUGUSTUS RESTORED (THE PAX ROMANA) CAUSED THE ECONOMY, ARTS & AGRICULTURE TO FLOURISH.
Between 38 and 36 BCE, Octavian and Lepidus battled Sextus Pompeius (son of PompeyMagnus, Julius Caesar’s great rival) for rule of Rome with Antony lending aid from Egypt. The Second Triumvirate was victorious over Pompeius, and Lepidus, glorying in the triumph and confident of his strength, insulted Octavian by ordering him to leave Sicily, the theatre of operations, with his troops. Octavian, however, offered Lepidus’s troops more money than Lepidus could pay and his army defected to Octavian. Lepidus was stripped of all his titles save Pontifex Maximus and the Second Triumvirate came to an end.
AUGUSTUS, ANTONY & CLEOPATRA
During this time, however, relations between Octavian and Mark Antony began to deteriorate. In 40 BCE, in an effort to solidify their alliance, Octavian had given his sister, Octavia Minor, in marriage to Antony. Antony, though, had allied himself closely with Cleopatra VII of Egypt (the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of his son Caesarion) and, in fact, had become her lover. Octavian charged that Antony had mis-used his sister when Antony divorced Octavia in favor of Cleopatra in 33 BCE which prompted Antony to write Octavian, “What’s upset you? Because I go to bed with Cleopatra? But she’s my wife and I’ve been doing so for nine years, not just recently. Does it really matter where, or with what women, you get your excitement?”
To Octavian, Antony’s behavior in the east, both in private, politically and militarily, was intolerable. He forced the priestesses of the temple of Vesta in Rome to surrender Antony’s will and had it read in the Senate. The will gave away Roman territories to Antony’s sons and contained directions for a great mausoleum to be built in Alexandria for Antony and Cleopatra, among other stipulations which Octavian felt threatened the grandeur of Rome and branded Antony a renegade.
Among the worst of Antony’s offenses was his declaration that Caesarion was the true heir of Julius Caesar, not Octavian. The Senate revoked Antony’s consulship and declared waron Cleopatra VII. At the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BCE Octavian’s forces, under the General Agrippa, defeated the combined forces of Antony and Cleopatra, scattered them (many had already defected to Octavian’s side before the battle) and pursued the survivors until 1 August 30 BCE when, after the loss of Alexandria, Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves. Octavian had Caesarion strangled (stating that “two Caesars are one too many”) and Antony’s eldest son executed as a possible threat to Rome.
Octavian was now the supreme ruler of Rome and all her territories but, in order to keep from making the same mistake his adoptive father had of seeming to covet power, Octavian was careful to characterize all of his political strategems as being for the good of the Republic of Rome. In January of 27 BCE, Octavian resigned his powers humbly only to receive them back from the grateful Senate who also bestowed upon him the title Augustus. Octavian was careful not to refer to himself by that title at any time in public, simply calling himself 'Princeps’, or, First Citizen. So carefully did Octavian play the political game in Rome that his claims to restoration of the Republic seemed in earnest, even when he gained supreme power, giving him absolute control over Rome and her colonies.
POPULAR ALREADY WITH THE SOLDIERS OF HIS ARMY, THE TITLE AUGUSTUS SOLIDIFIED HIS POWER IN THE PROVINCES AS IMPERATOR.
AUGUSTUS AS EMPEROR
Popular already with the soldiers of his army, the title Augustus solidified his power in the provinces as Imperator, or commander-in-chief (from which the English word 'emperor’ is derived). The month of August was named in his honor. In the year 19 BCE, he was given Imperium Maius (supreme power) over every province in the Roman Empire and, from that time on, Augustus Caesar ruled supremely, the first emperor of Rome and the measure by which all later emperors would be judged. By 2 BCE Augustus was declared Pater Patriae, the father of his country.
The era of Augustus’ reign was a golden age in every respect. The peace which Augustus restored and kept (the Pax Romana) caused the economy, the arts and agriculture to flourish. An ambitious building program was initiated in which Augustus completed the plans made by Julius Caesar and then continued on with his own grand designs. In his famous inscription Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Deeds of the Divine Augustus) he claims to have restored or built 82 temples in one year. The famous public baths of Rome were constructed under Augustus by his second-in-command, Agrippa, and the poet Virgilcomposed his epic the Aeneid. Augustus took great personal concern in the arts and was a personal patron of many artists.
He passed many sweeping reforms as well as laws to maintain stability in marriage and to raise the birth rate in Rome, making adultery illegal, offering tax incentives to families with over three children and penalties for childless marriages. So strictly did Augustus himself adhere to his laws that he banished his own daughter, Julia, and his grand-daughter, for adultery.
DEATH
Augustus died at Nola in 14 CE. His official last words were, “I found Rome a city of clay but left it a city of marble” which aptly describes Augustus’ achievements during his reign as emperor. According to his wife Livia and his adopted son Tiberius, however, his last words were actually, “Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit.”
Augustus’ body was brought back to Rome in state and, on the day of the funeral, all businesses in Rome closed out of respect for the emperor. He was succeeded by Tiberius who he had adopted in 4 BCE and who read the eulogy (along with his own son, Drusus) at Augustus’ famously grand funeral. The emperor’s body was cremated and his ashes interred in his mausoleum. Augustus’ death was mourned as the loss of a great ruler of immense talent and vision. and he was proclaimed a god among the host of the Roman pantheon."
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LTC Stephen F.
Augustus 63BC-AD14: The Road to Empire
This is a single video of all of the parts in my series of videos on how the Roman Republic turned into the Roman Principate. Special thanks to Prof. Dominic...
Augustus 63BC-AD14: The Road to Empire
This is a single video of all of the parts in my series of videos on how the Roman Republic turned into the Roman Principate.
Special thanks to Prof. Dominic Rathbone for giving me the inspiration and knowledge for this series on the first emperor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NAPLurKxM
Images:
1. Augustus Caesar - La Ciociara
2. Augustus Caesar Gold Aureus (7.95 grams).
3. Augustus 'I found Rome of clay; I leave it to you of marble'
4. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painting 1743 in Italy. Gaius Maecenas, a Roman statesman during the rule of the Emperor Octavian Augustus (63BC - 14AD)
Background from {[https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Augustus_Caesar]}
"Augustus (Latin: IMPERATOR CAESAR DIVI FILIVS AVGVSTVS) (September 23, 63 B.C.E. – 14 C.E.), known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (in English, Octavian), for the period of his life prior to 27 B.C.E., was the first and among the most important of the Roman Emperors.
Although he preserved the outward form of the Roman Republic, he ruled as an autocrat for more than 40 years and his rule is the dividing line between the Republic and the Roman Empire. He ended a century of civil wars and gave Rome an era of peace, prosperity, and imperial greatness, known as the Pax Romana, "Roman peace." Over the next four-hundred years, Rome would establish municipalities across Western Europe and North Africa, build roads, public buildings, and construct the infrastructure of governance that still provides the basis of modern political systems. Augustus was concerned with public morality, and enacted legislation. He was a great believer in what he thought of as "republican values," such as hard work, discipline, obedience, piety, and the appreciation of art and culture. He encouraged marriage, giving tax concessions to couples with children, made adultery a crime, and he also restricted luxury and extravagance. He believed that peace depended on citizens faithfully performing their religious duties. He became head of the state cult (pontifex maximus) as well as temporal ruler. He increased the length of tenure of provincial governors because this proved to provide more stability. Throughout Europe, many different people gained a sense of belonging to the same world, governed by the same moral code and Roman law. This sense of a common European home continued to inform European thought even in the Dark Ages and still contributes to European identity today. When the founders of the United States decided to establish the office of President, they spoke of inaugurating an "Augustan Age." This refers both to the Augustan peace and to the high cultural achievement of his era, when many poems and texts on such themes as patriotism, the world of nature, and history were dedicated to him.
• Contents
• 1 Early life
• 2 Rise to power
• 3 Octavian becomes Augustus: The creation of the Principate
o 3.1 The first settlement
o 3.2 The second settlement
• 4 Death and Succession
• 5 Legacy
o 5.1 Month
o 5.2 Building projects
• 6 Augustus in popular culture
o 6.1 Television
o 6.2 Literature
• 7 Notes
• 8 References
• 9 External links
• 10 Credits
During his reign, Virgil's Aeneid was completed, as were Horace's Odes (Books I-III), among other classical works of significance.
Early life
He was born in Rome (or Velletri) on September 23, 63 B.C.E., with the name Gaius Octavius. His father, also Gaius Octavius, came from a respectable but undistinguished family of the equestrian order and was governor of Macedonia. Shortly after Octavius's birth, his father gave him the surname of Thurinus, possibly to commemorate the Macedonian victory at Thurii over a rebellious band of slaves. His mother, Atia, was the niece of Gaius Julius Caesar, soon to be Rome's most successful general and Dictator. He spent his early years in his grandfather's house near Veletrae (modern Velletri). In 58 B.C.E., when he was four years old, his father died. He spent most of his remaining childhood in the house of his stepfather, Lucius Marcius Philippus.
In 51 B.C.E., when he was eleven years old, Octavius delivered the funeral oration for his grandmother, Julia Caesaris (sister of Julius Caesar), elder sister of Caesar. He put on the toga virilis at fifteen, and was elected to the College of Pontiffs. Caesar requested that Octavius join his staff for his campaign in Africa, but his mother protested that he was too young. The following year (46 B.C.E.), she consented for him to join Caesar in Hispania, but he fell ill and was unable to travel. When he had recovered, he sailed to the front, but was shipwrecked. After coming ashore with a handful of companions, he made it across hostile territory to Caesar's camp, which impressed his great-uncle considerably. Caesar and Octavius returned home in the same carriage, and Caesar secretly changed his will.
Rise to power
When Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March (the 15th) 44 B.C.E., Octavius was studying in Apollonia, Illyria. When Caesar's will was read it revealed that, having no legitimate children, he had adopted his great-nephew as his son and main heir. By virtue of his adoption, Octavius assumed the name Gaius Julius Caesar. Roman tradition dictated that he also append the surname Octavianus (Octavian) to indicate his biological family; however, no evidence exists that he ever used that name. Mark Antony later charged that he had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors, though Lives of the Twelve Caesars scribe, Suetonius, describes Antony's accusation as political slander.[1]
Octavian recruited a small force in Apollonia. Crossing over to Italia, he bolstered his personal forces with Caesar's veteran legionaries, gathering support by emphasizing his status as heir to Caesar. Only eighteen years old, he was consistently underestimated by his rivals for power.
In Rome, he found Mark Antony and the Optimates led by Marcus Tullius Cicero in an uneasy truce. After a tense standoff, and a war in Cisalpine Gaul after Antony tried to take control of the province from Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, he formed an alliance with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus {a triumvir), Caesar's principal colleagues. The three formed junta called the Second Triumvirate, an explicit grant of special powers lasting five years and supported by law, unlike the unofficial First Triumvirate of Gnaeus Pompey Magnus, Caesar, and Marcus Licinius Crassus.[2]
The triumvirs then set in motion proscriptions in which 300 senators and 2,000 of the Equestrian order or equites were deprived of their property and, for those who failed to escape, their lives. Going beyond a simple purge of those allied with the assassins, the triumvirs were probably motivated by a need to raise money to pay their troops.[3]
Antony and Octavian then marched against Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius, who had fled to the east. After two battles at Philippi in Macedonia, the Caesarian army was victorious and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide (42 B.C.E.). After the battle, a new arrangement was made between the members of the Second Triumvirate: While Octavian returned to Rome, Antony went to Egypt where he allied himself with Cleopatra VII, the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son, Caesarion. Lepidus, now clearly marked as an unequal partner, settled for the province of Africa.
While in Egypt, Antony had an affair with Cleopatra that resulted in the birth of three children, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene (II), and Ptolemy Philadelphus. Antony later left Cleopatra to make a strategic marriage with Octavian's sister, Octavia Minor, in 40 B.C.E. During their marriage Octavia gave birth to two daughters, both named Antonia. In 37 B.C.E., Antony deserted Octavia and went back to Egypt and Cleopatra. The Roman dominions were then divided between Octavian in the West and Antony in the East.
Antony occupied himself with military campaigns in the East and a romantic affair with Cleopatra; Octavian built a network of allies in Rome, consolidated his power, and spread propaganda implying that Antony was becoming less than Roman because of his preoccupation with Egyptian affairs and traditions. The situation grew more and more tense, and finally, in 32 B.C.E., the senate officially declared war on "the Foreign Queen," to avoid the stigma of yet another civil war. It was quickly decided. In the bay of Actium on the western coast of Greece, after Antony's men began deserting, the fleets met in a great battle in which many ships burned and thousands on both sides lost their lives. Octavian defeated his rivals, who then fled to Egypt. He pursued them, and following another defeat, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra also committed suicide after her upcoming role in Octavian's Triumph was "carefully explained to her," and Caesarion was "butchered without compunction." Octavian supposedly said "two Caesars are one too many" as he ordered Caesarion's death.[4]
Octavian becomes Augustus: The creation of the Principate
Augustus was deified soon after his death, and both his borrowed surname, Caesar, and his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of Rome for the next 400 years, and were still in use at Constantinople fourteen centuries after his death. In many languages, caesar became the word for "emperor," as in German (Kaiser), in Dutch (keizer), and in Russian (Tsar). The cult of the Divine Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in the fourth century. Consequently, there are many excellent statues and busts of the first, and in some ways the greatest, of the emperors. Augustus' mausoleum originally contained bronze pillars inscribed with a record of his life, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which had also been disseminated throughout the empire during his lifetime.
Many consider Augustus to be Rome's greatest emperor; his policies certainly extended the empire's life span and initiated the celebrated Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. He was handsome, intelligent, decisive, and a shrewd politician, but he was not perhaps as charismatic as Julius Caesar or Mark Antony. Nevertheless, his legacy proved more enduring. He spent a lot of time reorganizing the army and the administration. He organized the army into 25 legions, each of which had 6,100 foot and 726 horse and this remained the strength of the army for 400 years. Consuls and Tribunes were still elected. He himself lived a modest life-style and appeared anxious to be seen as on the same level as his subjects, or citizens. He disliked luxury and wore the plain dress of an ordinary Senator. He was especially anxious to restore the sanctity of marriage.
In looking back on the reign of Augustus and its legacy to the Roman world, its longevity should not be overlooked as a key factor in its success. As one ancient historian says, people were born and reached middle age without knowing any form of government other than the Principate. Had Augustus died earlier (in 23 B.C.E., for instance), matters may have turned out differently. The attrition of the civil wars on the old Republican oligarchy and the longevity of Augustus, therefore, must be seen as major contributing factors in the transformation of the Roman state into a de facto monarchy in these years. Augustus' own experience, his patience, his tact, and his political acumen also played their parts. He directed the future of the empire down many lasting paths, from the existence of a standing professional army stationed at or near the frontiers, to the dynastic principle so often employed in the imperial succession, to the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense.
Augustus' ultimate legacy was the peace and prosperity the empire enjoyed for the next two centuries under the system he initiated. His memory was enshrined in the political ethos of the Imperial age as a paradigm of the good emperor, and although every emperor adopted his name, Caesar Augustus, only a handful, such as Trajan, earned genuine comparison with him. His reign laid the foundations of a regime that would last for 250 years.
Caesar Augustus is briefly mentioned in the New Testament at Luke 2:1. As the emperor at the time of Christ's birth, he may be seen as having been providentially ordained to establish a peaceful and prosperous environment for the worldwide expansion of Christ's kingdom.
Month
The month of August (Latin Augustus) is named after Augustus; until his time it was called Sextilis (the sixth month of the Roman calendar). Commonly repeated lore has it that August has 31 days because Augustus wanted his month to match the length of Julius Caesar's July, but this is an invention of the thirteenth century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sextilis in fact had 31 days before it was renamed, and it was not chosen for its length (see Julian calendar). According to Macrobius, Sextilis was chosen because it was in that month that Augustus first had been elected consul, Egypt had become part of the Roman empire, and the civil wars ended. Also, the eighth month was appropriate for someone who earlier had been named Octavian.[6]
Building projects
Augustus boasted that he "found Rome brick and left it marble." Although this did not apply to the Subura slums, which were still as rickety and fire-prone as ever, he did leave a mark on the monumental topography of the center and of the Campus Martius, with the Ara Pacis sundial using an obelisk of Rome, the Temple of Caesar, the Forum of Augustus with its Temple of Mars Ultor, and also other projects either encouraged by him such as the Theatre of Balbus, Agrippa's construction of the Pantheon or funded by him in the name of others, often relations, for example the Portico of Octavia, Theatre of Marcellus. Even his own mausoleum was built before his death to house members of his family.
Augustus in popular culture
Augustus was ranked #18 on Michael H. Hart's "The 100 list of the most influential figures in history."
Television
• Augustus was played by Roland Culver in the BBC miniseries of 1968, The Caesars.
• Augustus was portrayed in the famous BBC dramatization of Robert Graves' novel I, Claudius by Brian Blessed. (1975)
• Augustus was portrayed in the movie Imperium: Augustus (part of thw Imperium movie series) by Peter O'Toole. (2003)
• In the HBO television series, Rome (2005), Gaius Octavian is portrayed by Max Pirkis. However, in the series, he is wrongly referred to as Octavian, while his name at that time would have been Octavius.
• Augustus was portrayed by Santiago Cabrera in an ABC miniseries called Empire (2005), which took place after the assassination of Caesar.
Literature
• Augustus was a central character in The Sandman #30, "August."
Notes
1. ↑ Suetonius, Lives of the 12 Caesars: Augustus. Retrieved June 22, 2008.
2. ↑ H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero (London: Routledge, 2003, ISBN [login to see] ), p. 163.
3. ↑ Scullard, p. 164.
4. ↑ Robert Green, Julius Caesar (London: Franklin Watts, 1997, ISBN [login to see] ), p. 697.
5. ↑ Suetonius, The Life of Augustus The Lives of the Caesars. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
6. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia Volume I: Books 1-2. ed. and trans. Robert A. Kaster. (Loeb Classical Library; Bilingual edition, 2011, ISBN [login to see] 496).
References
• Green, Robert. Julius Caesar. London: Franklin Watts, 1997. ISBN [login to see]
• Macrobius. Saturnalia, Volume I: Books 1-2. Edited and translated by Robert A. Kaster. Loeb Classical Library; Bilingual edition, 2011. ISBN [login to see] 496
• Scullard, H.H. From the Gracchi to Nero. London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN [login to see]
• Suetonius, Gaius Tranquillus. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. BiblioLife, 2009. ISBN [login to see] 509'
FYI SSG Paul HeadleeCPL Michael PeckPO1 Steve DittoCPL Douglas ChryslerSSG Michael Noll Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen SPC Michael Oles SRTSgt George RodriguezPO3 Charles Streich SGT (Join to see)SGT David A. 'Cowboy' GrothSGT Steve McFarland PO1 H Gene Lawrence SMSgt David A Asbury CSM (Join to see) SPC Nancy Greene TSgt David L. Brad Miller Sgt John H.SFC Ralph E Kelley
This is a single video of all of the parts in my series of videos on how the Roman Republic turned into the Roman Principate.
Special thanks to Prof. Dominic Rathbone for giving me the inspiration and knowledge for this series on the first emperor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NAPLurKxM
Images:
1. Augustus Caesar - La Ciociara
2. Augustus Caesar Gold Aureus (7.95 grams).
3. Augustus 'I found Rome of clay; I leave it to you of marble'
4. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painting 1743 in Italy. Gaius Maecenas, a Roman statesman during the rule of the Emperor Octavian Augustus (63BC - 14AD)
Background from {[https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Augustus_Caesar]}
"Augustus (Latin: IMPERATOR CAESAR DIVI FILIVS AVGVSTVS) (September 23, 63 B.C.E. – 14 C.E.), known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (in English, Octavian), for the period of his life prior to 27 B.C.E., was the first and among the most important of the Roman Emperors.
Although he preserved the outward form of the Roman Republic, he ruled as an autocrat for more than 40 years and his rule is the dividing line between the Republic and the Roman Empire. He ended a century of civil wars and gave Rome an era of peace, prosperity, and imperial greatness, known as the Pax Romana, "Roman peace." Over the next four-hundred years, Rome would establish municipalities across Western Europe and North Africa, build roads, public buildings, and construct the infrastructure of governance that still provides the basis of modern political systems. Augustus was concerned with public morality, and enacted legislation. He was a great believer in what he thought of as "republican values," such as hard work, discipline, obedience, piety, and the appreciation of art and culture. He encouraged marriage, giving tax concessions to couples with children, made adultery a crime, and he also restricted luxury and extravagance. He believed that peace depended on citizens faithfully performing their religious duties. He became head of the state cult (pontifex maximus) as well as temporal ruler. He increased the length of tenure of provincial governors because this proved to provide more stability. Throughout Europe, many different people gained a sense of belonging to the same world, governed by the same moral code and Roman law. This sense of a common European home continued to inform European thought even in the Dark Ages and still contributes to European identity today. When the founders of the United States decided to establish the office of President, they spoke of inaugurating an "Augustan Age." This refers both to the Augustan peace and to the high cultural achievement of his era, when many poems and texts on such themes as patriotism, the world of nature, and history were dedicated to him.
• Contents
• 1 Early life
• 2 Rise to power
• 3 Octavian becomes Augustus: The creation of the Principate
o 3.1 The first settlement
o 3.2 The second settlement
• 4 Death and Succession
• 5 Legacy
o 5.1 Month
o 5.2 Building projects
• 6 Augustus in popular culture
o 6.1 Television
o 6.2 Literature
• 7 Notes
• 8 References
• 9 External links
• 10 Credits
During his reign, Virgil's Aeneid was completed, as were Horace's Odes (Books I-III), among other classical works of significance.
Early life
He was born in Rome (or Velletri) on September 23, 63 B.C.E., with the name Gaius Octavius. His father, also Gaius Octavius, came from a respectable but undistinguished family of the equestrian order and was governor of Macedonia. Shortly after Octavius's birth, his father gave him the surname of Thurinus, possibly to commemorate the Macedonian victory at Thurii over a rebellious band of slaves. His mother, Atia, was the niece of Gaius Julius Caesar, soon to be Rome's most successful general and Dictator. He spent his early years in his grandfather's house near Veletrae (modern Velletri). In 58 B.C.E., when he was four years old, his father died. He spent most of his remaining childhood in the house of his stepfather, Lucius Marcius Philippus.
In 51 B.C.E., when he was eleven years old, Octavius delivered the funeral oration for his grandmother, Julia Caesaris (sister of Julius Caesar), elder sister of Caesar. He put on the toga virilis at fifteen, and was elected to the College of Pontiffs. Caesar requested that Octavius join his staff for his campaign in Africa, but his mother protested that he was too young. The following year (46 B.C.E.), she consented for him to join Caesar in Hispania, but he fell ill and was unable to travel. When he had recovered, he sailed to the front, but was shipwrecked. After coming ashore with a handful of companions, he made it across hostile territory to Caesar's camp, which impressed his great-uncle considerably. Caesar and Octavius returned home in the same carriage, and Caesar secretly changed his will.
Rise to power
When Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March (the 15th) 44 B.C.E., Octavius was studying in Apollonia, Illyria. When Caesar's will was read it revealed that, having no legitimate children, he had adopted his great-nephew as his son and main heir. By virtue of his adoption, Octavius assumed the name Gaius Julius Caesar. Roman tradition dictated that he also append the surname Octavianus (Octavian) to indicate his biological family; however, no evidence exists that he ever used that name. Mark Antony later charged that he had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors, though Lives of the Twelve Caesars scribe, Suetonius, describes Antony's accusation as political slander.[1]
Octavian recruited a small force in Apollonia. Crossing over to Italia, he bolstered his personal forces with Caesar's veteran legionaries, gathering support by emphasizing his status as heir to Caesar. Only eighteen years old, he was consistently underestimated by his rivals for power.
In Rome, he found Mark Antony and the Optimates led by Marcus Tullius Cicero in an uneasy truce. After a tense standoff, and a war in Cisalpine Gaul after Antony tried to take control of the province from Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, he formed an alliance with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus {a triumvir), Caesar's principal colleagues. The three formed junta called the Second Triumvirate, an explicit grant of special powers lasting five years and supported by law, unlike the unofficial First Triumvirate of Gnaeus Pompey Magnus, Caesar, and Marcus Licinius Crassus.[2]
The triumvirs then set in motion proscriptions in which 300 senators and 2,000 of the Equestrian order or equites were deprived of their property and, for those who failed to escape, their lives. Going beyond a simple purge of those allied with the assassins, the triumvirs were probably motivated by a need to raise money to pay their troops.[3]
Antony and Octavian then marched against Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius, who had fled to the east. After two battles at Philippi in Macedonia, the Caesarian army was victorious and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide (42 B.C.E.). After the battle, a new arrangement was made between the members of the Second Triumvirate: While Octavian returned to Rome, Antony went to Egypt where he allied himself with Cleopatra VII, the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son, Caesarion. Lepidus, now clearly marked as an unequal partner, settled for the province of Africa.
While in Egypt, Antony had an affair with Cleopatra that resulted in the birth of three children, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene (II), and Ptolemy Philadelphus. Antony later left Cleopatra to make a strategic marriage with Octavian's sister, Octavia Minor, in 40 B.C.E. During their marriage Octavia gave birth to two daughters, both named Antonia. In 37 B.C.E., Antony deserted Octavia and went back to Egypt and Cleopatra. The Roman dominions were then divided between Octavian in the West and Antony in the East.
Antony occupied himself with military campaigns in the East and a romantic affair with Cleopatra; Octavian built a network of allies in Rome, consolidated his power, and spread propaganda implying that Antony was becoming less than Roman because of his preoccupation with Egyptian affairs and traditions. The situation grew more and more tense, and finally, in 32 B.C.E., the senate officially declared war on "the Foreign Queen," to avoid the stigma of yet another civil war. It was quickly decided. In the bay of Actium on the western coast of Greece, after Antony's men began deserting, the fleets met in a great battle in which many ships burned and thousands on both sides lost their lives. Octavian defeated his rivals, who then fled to Egypt. He pursued them, and following another defeat, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra also committed suicide after her upcoming role in Octavian's Triumph was "carefully explained to her," and Caesarion was "butchered without compunction." Octavian supposedly said "two Caesars are one too many" as he ordered Caesarion's death.[4]
Octavian becomes Augustus: The creation of the Principate
Augustus was deified soon after his death, and both his borrowed surname, Caesar, and his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of Rome for the next 400 years, and were still in use at Constantinople fourteen centuries after his death. In many languages, caesar became the word for "emperor," as in German (Kaiser), in Dutch (keizer), and in Russian (Tsar). The cult of the Divine Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in the fourth century. Consequently, there are many excellent statues and busts of the first, and in some ways the greatest, of the emperors. Augustus' mausoleum originally contained bronze pillars inscribed with a record of his life, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which had also been disseminated throughout the empire during his lifetime.
Many consider Augustus to be Rome's greatest emperor; his policies certainly extended the empire's life span and initiated the celebrated Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. He was handsome, intelligent, decisive, and a shrewd politician, but he was not perhaps as charismatic as Julius Caesar or Mark Antony. Nevertheless, his legacy proved more enduring. He spent a lot of time reorganizing the army and the administration. He organized the army into 25 legions, each of which had 6,100 foot and 726 horse and this remained the strength of the army for 400 years. Consuls and Tribunes were still elected. He himself lived a modest life-style and appeared anxious to be seen as on the same level as his subjects, or citizens. He disliked luxury and wore the plain dress of an ordinary Senator. He was especially anxious to restore the sanctity of marriage.
In looking back on the reign of Augustus and its legacy to the Roman world, its longevity should not be overlooked as a key factor in its success. As one ancient historian says, people were born and reached middle age without knowing any form of government other than the Principate. Had Augustus died earlier (in 23 B.C.E., for instance), matters may have turned out differently. The attrition of the civil wars on the old Republican oligarchy and the longevity of Augustus, therefore, must be seen as major contributing factors in the transformation of the Roman state into a de facto monarchy in these years. Augustus' own experience, his patience, his tact, and his political acumen also played their parts. He directed the future of the empire down many lasting paths, from the existence of a standing professional army stationed at or near the frontiers, to the dynastic principle so often employed in the imperial succession, to the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense.
Augustus' ultimate legacy was the peace and prosperity the empire enjoyed for the next two centuries under the system he initiated. His memory was enshrined in the political ethos of the Imperial age as a paradigm of the good emperor, and although every emperor adopted his name, Caesar Augustus, only a handful, such as Trajan, earned genuine comparison with him. His reign laid the foundations of a regime that would last for 250 years.
Caesar Augustus is briefly mentioned in the New Testament at Luke 2:1. As the emperor at the time of Christ's birth, he may be seen as having been providentially ordained to establish a peaceful and prosperous environment for the worldwide expansion of Christ's kingdom.
Month
The month of August (Latin Augustus) is named after Augustus; until his time it was called Sextilis (the sixth month of the Roman calendar). Commonly repeated lore has it that August has 31 days because Augustus wanted his month to match the length of Julius Caesar's July, but this is an invention of the thirteenth century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sextilis in fact had 31 days before it was renamed, and it was not chosen for its length (see Julian calendar). According to Macrobius, Sextilis was chosen because it was in that month that Augustus first had been elected consul, Egypt had become part of the Roman empire, and the civil wars ended. Also, the eighth month was appropriate for someone who earlier had been named Octavian.[6]
Building projects
Augustus boasted that he "found Rome brick and left it marble." Although this did not apply to the Subura slums, which were still as rickety and fire-prone as ever, he did leave a mark on the monumental topography of the center and of the Campus Martius, with the Ara Pacis sundial using an obelisk of Rome, the Temple of Caesar, the Forum of Augustus with its Temple of Mars Ultor, and also other projects either encouraged by him such as the Theatre of Balbus, Agrippa's construction of the Pantheon or funded by him in the name of others, often relations, for example the Portico of Octavia, Theatre of Marcellus. Even his own mausoleum was built before his death to house members of his family.
Augustus in popular culture
Augustus was ranked #18 on Michael H. Hart's "The 100 list of the most influential figures in history."
Television
• Augustus was played by Roland Culver in the BBC miniseries of 1968, The Caesars.
• Augustus was portrayed in the famous BBC dramatization of Robert Graves' novel I, Claudius by Brian Blessed. (1975)
• Augustus was portrayed in the movie Imperium: Augustus (part of thw Imperium movie series) by Peter O'Toole. (2003)
• In the HBO television series, Rome (2005), Gaius Octavian is portrayed by Max Pirkis. However, in the series, he is wrongly referred to as Octavian, while his name at that time would have been Octavius.
• Augustus was portrayed by Santiago Cabrera in an ABC miniseries called Empire (2005), which took place after the assassination of Caesar.
Literature
• Augustus was a central character in The Sandman #30, "August."
Notes
1. ↑ Suetonius, Lives of the 12 Caesars: Augustus. Retrieved June 22, 2008.
2. ↑ H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero (London: Routledge, 2003, ISBN [login to see] ), p. 163.
3. ↑ Scullard, p. 164.
4. ↑ Robert Green, Julius Caesar (London: Franklin Watts, 1997, ISBN [login to see] ), p. 697.
5. ↑ Suetonius, The Life of Augustus The Lives of the Caesars. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
6. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia Volume I: Books 1-2. ed. and trans. Robert A. Kaster. (Loeb Classical Library; Bilingual edition, 2011, ISBN [login to see] 496).
References
• Green, Robert. Julius Caesar. London: Franklin Watts, 1997. ISBN [login to see]
• Macrobius. Saturnalia, Volume I: Books 1-2. Edited and translated by Robert A. Kaster. Loeb Classical Library; Bilingual edition, 2011. ISBN [login to see] 496
• Scullard, H.H. From the Gracchi to Nero. London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN [login to see]
• Suetonius, Gaius Tranquillus. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. BiblioLife, 2009. ISBN [login to see] 509'
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(2)
(0)
LTC Stephen F.
The Civil Wars and The Reign of Augustus| Roman Documentary
The moment when the military turned against its own leaders. The Civil Wars and the reign of Augustus as first Emperor of Rome are charted. -----------------...
The Civil Wars and The Reign of Augustus| Roman Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmBWNuVvUDE
Images:
1. The marble head of Caesar Augustus uncovered in the Italian town of Isernia.
2. Caesar Augustus as a Roman magistrate
3. Augustus Closing the Temple of Janus, by Louis de Silvestre, 1757, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
4. Augustus At The Tomb Of Alexander The Great, Painted By Lionel Royer (1852-1926)
Biographies
1. bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/augustus.shtml
2. britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor
Background from {[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/augustus.shtml]}
"Augustus was the first emperor of Rome. He replaced the Roman republic with an effective monarchy and during his long reign brought peace and stability.
Augustus was born Gaius Octavius on 23 September 63 BC in Rome. In 43 BC his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, was assassinated and in his will, Octavius, known as Octavian, was named as his heir. He fought to avenge Caesar and in 31 BC defeated Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. He was now undisputed ruler of Rome.
Instead of following Caesar's example and making himself dictator, Octavian in 27 BC founded the principate, a system of monarchy headed by an emperor holding power for life. His powers were hidden behind constitutional forms, and he took the name Augustus meaning 'lofty' or 'serene'. Nevertheless, he retained ultimate control of all aspects of the Roman state, with the army under his direct command.
At home, he embarked on a large programme of reconstruction and social reform. Rome was transformed with impressive new buildings and Augustus was a patron to Virgil, Horace and Propertius, the leading poets of the day. Augustus also ensured that his image was promoted throughout his empire by means of statues and coins.
Abroad, he created a standing army for the first time, and embarked upon a vigorous campaign of expansion designed to make Rome safe from the 'barbarians' beyond the frontiers, and to secure the Augustan peace. His stepsons Tiberius and Drusus undertook the task (Augustus had married their mother Livia in 38 BC). Between 16 BC and 6 AD the frontier was advanced from the Rhine to the Elbe in Germany, and up to the Danube along its entire length. But Drusus died in the process and in 9 AD the annihilation of three Roman legions in Germany (out of 28 overall), in the Varian disaster, led to the abandonment of Germany east of the Rhine.
Augustus was determined to be succeeded by someone of his own blood, but he had no sons, only a daughter, Julia, the child of his first wife. His nephew Marcellus and his beloved grandsons Gaius and Lucius pre-deceased him, so he reluctantly made Tiberius his heir.
Military disaster, the loss of his grandsons and a troubled economy clouded his last years. He became more dictatorial, exiling the poet Ovid (8 AD), who had mocked his moral reforms. He died on 19 August 14 AD."
2. Background from {[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor]}
Augustus
Roman emperor
Augustus, also called Augustus Caesar or (until 27 bce) Octavian, original name Gaius Octavius, adopted name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, (born September 23, 63 bce—died August 19, 14 ce, Nola, near Naples [Italy]), first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father. His autocratic regime is known as the principate because he was the princeps, the first citizen, at the head of that array of outwardly revived republican institutions that alone made his autocracy palatable. With unlimited patience, skill, and efficiency, he overhauled every aspect of Roman life and brought durable peace and prosperity to the Greco-Roman world.
Gaius Octavius was of a prosperous family that had long been settled at Velitrae (Velletri), southeast of Rome. His father, who died in 59 bce, had been the first of the family to become a Roman senator and was elected to the high annual office of the praetorship, which ranked second in the political hierarchy to the consulship. Gaius Octavius’s mother, Atia, was the daughter of Julia, the sister of Julius Caesar, and it was Caesar who launched the young Octavius in Roman public life. At age 12 he made his debut by delivering the funeral speech for his grandmother Julia. Three or four years later he received the coveted membership of the board of priests (pontifices). In 46 bce he accompanied Caesar, now dictator, in his triumphal procession after his victory in Africa over his opponents in the Civil War; and in the following year, in spite of ill health, he joined the dictator in Spain. He was at Apollonia (now in Albania) completing his academic and military studies when, in 44 bce, he learned that Julius Caesar had been murdered.
Extremadura, Spain: statue of Augustus.
Rise to power
Returning to Italy, he was told that Caesar in his will had adopted him as his son and had made him his chief personal heir. He was only 18 when, against the advice of his stepfather and others, he decided to take up this perilous inheritance and proceeded to Rome. Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius), Caesar’s chief lieutenant, who had taken possession of his papers and assets and had expected that he himself would be the principal heir, refused to hand over any of Caesar’s funds, forcing Octavius to pay the late dictator’s bequests to the Roman populace from such resources as he could raise. Caesar’s assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, ignored him and withdrew to the east. Cicero, the famous orator who was one of Rome’s principal elder statesmen, hoped to make use of him but underestimated his abilities.
Augustus
Celebrating public games, instituted by Caesar, to ingratiate himself with the city populace, Octavius succeeded in winning considerable numbers of the dictator’s troops to his own allegiance. The Senate, encouraged by Cicero, broke with Antony, called upon Octavius for aid (granting him the rank of senator in spite of his youth), and joined the campaign of Mutina (Modena) against Antony, who was compelled to withdraw to Gaul. When the consuls who commanded the Senate’s forces lost their lives, Octavius’s soldiers compelled the Senate to confer a vacant consulship on him. Under the name of Gaius Julius Caesar he next secured official recognition as Caesar’s adoptive son. Although it would have been normal to add “Octavianus” (with reference to his original family name), he preferred not to do so. Today, however, he is habitually described as Octavian (until the date when he assumed the designation Augustus).
Octavian soon reached an agreement with Antony and with another of Caesar’s principal supporters, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who had succeeded him as chief priest. On November 27, 43 bce, the three men were formally given a five-year dictatorial appointment as triumvirs for the reconstitution of the state (the Second Triumvirate—the first having been the informal compact between Pompey, Crassus, and Julius Caesar). The east was occupied by Brutus and Cassius, but the triumvirs divided the west among themselves. They drew up a list of “proscribed” political enemies, and the consequent executions included 300 senators (one of whom was Antony’s enemy Cicero) and 2,000 members of the class below the senators, the equites or knights. Julius Caesar’s recognition as a god of the Roman state in January 42 bce enhanced Octavian’s prestige as son of a god.
He and Antony crossed the Adriatic and, under Antony’s leadership (Octavian being ill), won the two battles of Philippi against Brutus and Cassius, both of whom committed suicide. Antony, the senior partner, was allotted the east (and Gaul); and Octavian returned to Italy, where difficulties caused by the settlement of his veterans involved him in the Perusine War (decided in his favour at Perusia, the modern Perugia) against Antony’s brother and wife. In order to appease another potential enemy, Sextus Pompeius (Pompey the Great’s son), who had seized Sicily and the sea routes, Octavian married Sextus’s relative Scribonia (though before long he divorced her for personal incompatibility). These ties of kinship did not deter Sextus, after the Perusine War, from making overtures to Antony; but Antony rejected them and reached a fresh understanding with Octavian at the treaty of Brundisium, under the terms of which Octavian was to have the whole west (except for Africa, which Lepidus was allowed to keep) and Italy, which, though supposedly neutral ground, was in fact controlled by Octavian. The east was again to go to Antony, and it was arranged that Antony, who had spent the previous winter with Queen Cleopatra in Egypt, should marry Octavian’s sister Octavia. The peoples of the empire were overjoyed by the treaty, which seemed to promise an end to so many years of civil war. In 38 bce Octavian formed a significant new link with the aristocracy by his marriage to Livia Drusilla.
But a reconciliation with Sextus Pompeius proved abortive, and Octavian was soon plunged into serious warfare against him. When his first operations against Sextus’s Sicilian bases proved disastrous, he felt obliged to make a new compact with Antony at Tarentum (Taranto) in 37 bce. Antony was to provide Octavian with ships, in return for troops Antony needed for his forthcoming war against the empire’s eastern neighbour Parthia and its Median allies. Antony handed over the ships, but Octavian never sent the troops. The treaty also provided for renewal of the Second Triumvirate for five years, until the end of 33 bce.
Military successes of Augustus
In the following year the balance of power began to change: whereas Antony’s eastern expedition failed, Octavian’s fleet—commanded by his former schoolmate Marcus Agrippa, who, although unpopular with the influential nobles, was an admiral of genius—totally defeated Sextus Pompeius off Cape Naulochus (Venetico) in Sicily. At this point the third triumvir, Lepidus, seeking to contest Octavian’s supremacy in the west by force, was disarmed by Octavian, deprived of his triumviral office, and forced into retirement. Ignoring Antony’s right to settle his own veterans in Italy and recruit fresh troops, Octavian discharged many legionaries and founded settlements for them. His deliberate rivalry with Antony for the eventual mastership of the Roman world became increasingly apparent. Octavian’s marriage two years earlier had begun to win over some of the nobles who had previously been Antony’s supporters. Octavian also launched elaborate religious and patriotic publicity, centring on the classical god of order, Apollo, in contrast to Antony’s less Roman patron, Dionysus (Bacchus). In addition, Octavian had started to prefix his name with the designation “Imperator,” to suggest that he was the commander par excellence; and now, although he continued to use his triumviral powers, he omitted all reference to them from his coins, gradually concentrating on the plain, emotive name “Caesar Son of a God.”
But, if Octavian was to compete with Antony’s military seniority, successes in a foreign war were necessary; and so Octavian between 35 and 33 bce fought three successive campaigns in Illyricum and Dalmatia (parts of modern Slovenia and Croatia) in order to protect the northeastern approaches of Italy. With the help of Agrippa, he also lavished large sums on the adornment of Rome. When Octavian fomented public clamour against Antony’s territorial gifts to Cleopatra, it was clear that a clash between the two men was imminent.
In 32 bce the triumvirate had officially ended, and Octavian, unlike Antony, professed no longer to be employing its powers. Amid a virulent exchange of propaganda, Antony divorced Octavia, whereupon her brother Octavian seized Antony’s will and claimed to find in it damaging proofs of Cleopatra’s power over him. Each leader induced the populations under his control to swear formal oaths of allegiance to his own cause. Then, in spite of grave discontent aroused by his exactions in Italy, Octavian declared war—not against Antony but against Cleopatra.
Accompanied by her, Antony had brought up his fleet and army to guard strongpoints along the coast of western Greece; but in 31 bce Octavian dispatched Agrippa very early in the year to capture Methone, at the country’s southwestern tip. His enemies were taken by surprise; and after Octavian himself arrived—leaving his Etruscan friend and adviser Gaius Maecenas in charge of Italy—he and Agrippa soon shut Antony’s fleet inside the Gulf of Ambracia (Arta). At the Battle of Actium, Antony tried to extricate his ships in the hope of continuing the fight elsewhere. Though Cleopatra and then Antony succeeded in getting away, only a quarter of their fleet was able to follow them. Cleopatra and Antony fled to Egypt and committed suicide when Octavian captured the country in the following year. Executing Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy XV Caesar (Caesarion)—whose father she had claimed was Caesar—Octavian annexed Egypt and retained it under his direct control.
Battle of Actium
The seizure of Cleopatra’s treasure enabled him to pay off his veterans and made him finally master of the entire Greco-Roman world. From this point on, by a long and gradual series of tentative, patient measures, he established the Roman principate, a system of government that enabled him to maintain, in all essentials, absolute control. Gradually reducing his 60 legions to 28, he retained approximately 150,000 legionaries, mostly Italian, and supplemented them by about the same number of auxiliaries drawn from the provinces. A permanent bodyguard (the Praetorians), based on the bodyguards maintained by earlier generals, was stationed partly in Rome and partly in other Italian towns. A superb network of roads was created to maintain internal order and facilitate trade, and an efficient fleet was organized to police the Mediterranean. In 28 bce Octavian and Agrippa held a census of the civil population, the first of three during the reign. They also reduced the Senate from about 1,000 to 800 (later 600) compliant members, and Octavian was appointed its president.
Government and administration of Augustus
Remembering, however, that Caesar had been assassinated because of his resort to naked power, Octavian realized that the governing class would welcome him as the terminator of civil war only if he concealed his autocracy beneath provisions avowedly harking back to republican traditions. From 31 until 23 bce the constitutional basis of his power remained a continuous succession of consulships, but in January 27 bce he ostensibly “transferred the State to the free disposal of the Senate and people,” earning the misleading, though outwardly plausible, tribute that he had restored the republic. At the same time, he was granted a 10-year tenure of an area of government (provincia) comprising Spain, Gaul, and Syria, the three regions containing the bulk of the army. The remaining provinces were to be governed by proconsuls appointed by the Senate in the old republican fashion. Octavian, however, believed that his supreme prestige—crystallized in the meaningful term auctoritas—safeguarded him against any defiance by these personages; and he was indeed able, more or less indirectly, to influence their appointments, just as he was able (on the rare occasions when he regarded it as desirable) to influence the appointments to the consulships and other metropolitan offices that continued to exist in “republican” fashion.
Four days after these measures, his name Caesar, acquired through adoption in Julius’s will, was supplemented by “Augustus,” an appellation with an antique religious ring, believed to be linked etymologically with auctoritas and with the ancient practice of augury. The word augustus was often contrasted with humanus; its adoption as the title representing the new order cleverly indicated, in an extraconstitutional fashion, his superiority over the rest of mankind. With the aid of writers such as Virgil, Livy, and Horace, all of whom in their different ways shared the same ideas, he showed his patriotic veneration of the old Italian faith by reviving many of its ceremonials and repairing numerous temples.
Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm speaking and thanking delegates at the Democratic National Convention (third session), Miami Beach, Florida, July 12, 1972.
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Military operations continued in many frontier areas. In 25 bce recalcitrant Alpine tribes were reduced, and Galatia (central Asia Minor) was annexed. Mauretania, on the other hand, was transferred from Roman provincial status to that of a client kingdom, for such dependent monarchies, as in the later republic, bore a considerable part of the burden of imperial defense. Augustus himself visited Gaul and directed part of a campaign in Spain until his health gave out; in 23 bce he fell ill again and seemed on the point of death. Feeling, amid reports of conspiracies, that new constitutional steps were necessary, he proceeded to terminate his series of consulships in favour of a power (imperium majus) that was separated altogether from office and its practical inconveniences. This power raised him above the proconsuls; it was never referred to on the official coinage or in Augustus’s political testament but was intended to be exercised mainly in emergencies and on personal visits. He was also awarded the power of a tribune (tribunicia potestas) for life. Earlier he had accepted certain privileges of a tribune. The full power he now assumed carried with it practical advantages, notably the right to convene the Senate. But, more particularly, the office of a tribune surrounded him with a “democratic” aura because of the ancient character of the annually elected tribunes of the people as defenders of the plebs. This was, perhaps, needed all the more because Augustus himself—while admittedly supporting the interests of poorer people by a great extension of the right of judicial appeal—tended to back the established classes as the keystone of his system.
Agrippa, too, was granted superiority over proconsuls, presumably in order to ensure that the armies would be in safe hands in case one of Augustus’s recurrent illnesses proved fatal. The next to die, however, was the emperor’s young nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had been married to his daughter Julia and might eventually have been envisaged as his successor. In the same year, 23 bce, Agrippa was sent out to the east as deputy princeps; two years later he became Julia’s second husband. Meanwhile Augustus himself traveled in Sicily, Greece, and Asia (22–19). Important reorganizations were put into effect wherever he went; and immense satisfaction was caused by an agreement in 20 bce with Parthia, under which the Parthians recognized Rome’s protectorate over Armenia and returned the legionary standards captured from Crassus 33 years earlier. In 19 bce Agrippa completed the subjugation of Spain. In this year there was some adjustment of Octavian’s powers to allow him to exercise them more freely in Italy, and the two following years witnessed social legislation attempting to encourage marriage, regulate penalties for adultery, and reduce extravagance. In 17 there were resplendent celebrations of ancient ritual, known as the Secular Games, to purify the Roman people of their past sins and provide full religious inauguration of the new age.
Although the principate was not an office which could be automatically handed on, Augustus seemed to be indicating his views regarding his ultimate successor when he adopted the two sons of his daughter Julia, boys aged three and one, who were henceforward known as Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar. Their father, Agrippa, whose powers had been renewed along with his master’s, returned to the east. But now Augustus also gave important employment to his stepsons—his wife Livia’s sons by her former marriage—Tiberius and Drusus the Elder. Proceeding across the Alps, they annexed Noricum and Raetia, comprising large parts of what are now Switzerland, Austria, and Bavaria, and extended the imperial frontier from Italy to the upper Danube (16–15 bce).
It was probably during these years that an executive, or drafting, committee (consilium) of the Senate was established in order to help Augustus to prepare senatorial business. His administrative burden was also lightened by the expansion of his own staff (knights, who could also now rise to a number of key posts, and freedmen) to form the beginnings of a civil service, which had never existed before but was destined to become an essential feature of the imperial system. Gradually, too, a completely reformed administrative structure of Rome, Italy, and the whole empire was evolved. The financial system that made this possible was evidently far more effective than anything the empire had ever seen until then. The system was based on the central treasury (aerarium), but the details of its relationship with the treasuries of the provinces, and particularly the provincia of Augustus, are still imperfectly understood, partly because, although the emperor proudly recorded his gifts to the central treasury, he did not report what funds passed in the opposite direction.
The taxation providing these resources apparently included two main direct taxes: a poll tax (tributum capitis), paid in some provinces by all adults and in others by adult males only, and a land tax (tributum soli). There were also indirect taxes, which (as in the past) were farmed out to contractors because their yield was unpredictable and the embryonic civil service lacked the resources to handle them. The republican customs dues continued; but the rates were low enough not to hamper trade, which, in the peaceful conditions created by Augustus, flourished in wholly unprecedented fashion. Industries did not exist on a very large scale, but commerce was greatly stimulated by a sweeping reform and expansion of the Roman coinage. Gold and silver pieces, their designs reflecting many facets of imperial publicity, were issued in great quantities at a number of widely distributed mints. The Rome mint was reopened for this purpose about 20 bce. The absence of bronze token coinage, which had been sparse for many decades, was remedied by the creation of abundant mintages in yellow orichalcum and red copper. In the west the principal mint for these pieces, besides Rome, was Lugdunum (Lyon), whose coins displayed a view of the Altar of Rome and Augustus that formed a model for other provincial capitals. The Roman citizen colonies of the west, many of them established by Augustus to settle his veterans, supplemented this output by their own local coinages, and in the east, particularly Asia Minor and Syria, numerous Greek cities were also allowed to issue small change.
Expansion of the empire of Augustus
The death in 12 bce of Lepidus enabled Augustus finally to succeed him as the official head of the Roman religion, the chief priest (pontifex maximus). In the same year, Agrippa, too, died. Augustus compelled his widow, Julia, to marry Tiberius against both their wishes. During the next three years, however, Tiberius was away in the field, reducing Pannonia up to the middle Danube, while his brother Drusus crossed the Rhine frontier and invaded Germany as far as the Elbe, where he died in 9 bce. In the following year, Augustus lost another of his intimates, Maecenas, who had been the adviser of his early days and was an outstanding patron of letters.
Tiberius, who replaced Drusus in Germany, was elevated in 6 bce to a share in his stepfather’s tribunician power. But shortly afterward he went into retirement on the island of Rhodes. This was attributed to jealousy of his stepnephew Gaius Caesar, who was introduced to public life with a great fanfare in the following year; and the same compliments were paid to his brother Lucius in 2 bce, the year in which Augustus received his climactic title, “father of the country” (pater patriae). Gaius was sent to the east and Lucius to the west. Both, however, soon died. Tiberius returned home in 2, and in 4 Augustus adopted him as his son, who in turn was required to adopt Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus. The powers conferred upon Tiberius made him almost Augustus’s own equal in everything except prestige.
Tiberius’s next task was to consolidate the invasion and provincial organization of Germany (4–5 ce). An invasion of Bohemia was planned and had already been launched from two directions when news came in 6 that Pannonia and Illyricum had revolted. It took three years for the rebellion to be put down; and this had only just been completed when Arminius raised the Germans against their Roman governor Varus and destroyed him and his three legions. As Augustus could not readily replace the troops, the annexation of western Germany and Bohemia was postponed indefinitely; Tiberius and Germanicus were sent to consolidate the Rhine frontier.
Although Augustus was now feeling his age, these years in association with Tiberius were marked by administrative innovations: the annexation of Judaea in 6 ce (its client king Herod the Great had died 10 years previously); the establishment at Rome (in the same year) of a fire brigade with police duties, supplemented seven years later by a regular police force (cohortes urbanae); the creation of a military treasury (aerarium militare) to defray soldiers’ retirement bounties from taxes; and the conversion of the hitherto occasional appointment of prefect of the city (praefectus urbi) into a permanent office (13 ce). When, in the same year, the powers of Augustus were renewed for 10 years—such renewals had been granted at intervals throughout the reign—Tiberius was made his equal in every constitutional respect. In April, Augustus deposited his will at the House of the Vestals in Rome. It included a summary of the military and financial resources of the empire (breviarium totius imperii) and his political testament, known as the “Res Gestae Divi Augusti” (“Achievements of the Divine Augustus”). The best-preserved copy of the latter document is on the walls of the Temple of Rome and Augustus at Ankara, Turkey (the Monumentum Ancyranum). In 14 ce Tiberius was due to leave for Illyricum but was recalled by the news that Augustus was gravely ill. He died on August 19, and on September 17 the Senate enrolled him among the gods of the Roman state. By that time Tiberius had succeeded him as the second Roman emperor, though the formalities involved in the succession proved embarrassing both to himself and to the Senate because the “principate” of Augustus had not, constitutionally speaking, been heritable or continuous. Like other emperors, Tiberius assumed the designation “Augustus” as an additional title of his own. Agrippa Postumus, who had been named his coheir but was later banished, was put to death. The order to kill him may already have been given by Augustus, but this is not certain.
Augustus was one of the great administrative geniuses of history. The gigantic work of reorganization that he carried out in every field of Roman life and throughout the entire empire not only transformed the decaying republic into a new, monarchic regime with many centuries of life ahead of it but also created a durable Roman peace, based on easy communications and flourishing trade. It was this Pax Romana that ensured the survival and eventual transmission of the classical heritage, Greek and Roman alike, and provided the means for the diffusion of Judaism and Christianity. Although his regime was an autocracy, Augustus, being a tactful and imaginative master of propaganda of many kinds, knew how to cloak that autocracy in traditionalist forms that would satisfy a war-worn generation—perhaps, most of all, the upper bourgeoisie immediately below the leading nobility, since it was they who benefited from the new order more than anyone. He was also able to win the approbation, through the patronage of Maecenas, of some of the greatest writers the world has ever known, including Virgil, Horace, and Livy.
Augustus
Their enthusiasm was partly due to Augustus’s conviction that the Roman peace must be under Occidental, Italian control. This was in contrast to the views of Antony and Cleopatra, who had envisaged some sort of Greco-Roman partnership such as began to prevail only three or four centuries later. Augustus’s narrower view, although modified by an informed admiration of Greek civilization, was based on his small-town Italian origins. These were also partly responsible for his patriotic, antiquarian attachment to the ancient religion and for his puritanical social policy.
Augustus was a cultured man, the author of a number of works (all lost): a pamphlet against Brutus, an exhortation to philosophy, an account of his own early life, a biography of Drusus, poems, and epigrams. The conventional view of his character distinguishes between his cruelty in early years and his mildness in later life. But there was not so much need for cruelty later on, and, when it was needed (notably in the suppression of alleged plots), he was still ready to apply it. It is probable that nothing short of this degree of political ruthlessness could have achieved such enormous results. His domestic life, however, was simple and homespun. Within his family, the successive deaths of those he had earmarked as his successors or helpers caused him much sadness and disappointment. His devotion to his wife Livia Drusilla remained constant, though, like other Romans, he was unfaithful. His surviving letters show kindliness to his relations. Yet he exiled his daughter Julia for offending against his public moral attitudes, and he exiled her daughter by Agrippa for the same reason; he also exiled the son of Agrippa and Julia, Agrippa Postumus, though the suspicion that he later had him killed is unproved. As for Augustus’s male relatives who were his helpers, he was loyal to them but drove them as hard as he drove himself. He needed them because the burden was so heavy, and he especially needed them in the military sphere because he was not a great commander. In Agrippa and Tiberius and a number of others, he had men who supplied this deficiency, and although, on his deathbed, he is said to have advised against the further expansion of the empire, he himself, with their assistance, had expanded its frontiers in many directions.
His physical condition was subject to a host of ills and weaknesses, many of them recurrent. Indeed, in his early life, particularly, it was only his indomitable will that enabled him to survive—a strange preliminary to an unprecedented and unequaled life’s work. His appearance is described by the biographer Suetonius:
He was unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life, though he cared nothing for personal adornment. His expression, whether in conversation or when he was silent, was calm and mild.…He had clear, bright eyes, in which he liked to have it thought that there was a kind of divine power, and it greatly pleased him, whenever he looked keenly at anyone, if he let his face fall as if before the radiance of the sun. His teeth were wide apart, small and ill-kept; his hair was slightly curly and inclining to golden; his eyebrows met.…His complexion was between dark and fair. He was short of stature, but this was concealed by the fine proportion and symmetry of his figure, and was noticeable only by comparison with some taller person standing beside him.
Augustus’s countenance proved a godsend to the Greeks and Hellenized easterners, who were the best sculptors of the time, for they elevated his features into a moving, never-to-be-forgotten imperial type, which Napoleon’s artists, among others, keenly emulated. The contemporary portrait busts of Augustus, echoed on his coins, formed part of a significant renaissance of the arts in which Italic and Hellenic styles were discreetly and brilliantly blended. Still extant at Rome are the severe yet delicate reliefs of the Ara Pacis (“Altar of Peace”), depicting a religious procession in which the national leaders are taking part; there are also scenes from the Roman mythology. The altar was dedicated by the Senate and people of Rome in 13 bce to commemorate the pacification of Gaul and Spain.
The architectural masterpieces of the time were also numerous; and something of their monumental grandeur and classical purity can be seen today at Rome in the remains of the Theatre of Marcellus and of the massive Forum of Augustus, flanked by colonnades and culminating in the Temple of Mars the Avenger—the Avenger of Julius Caesar. Outside Rome, too, there are abundant memorials of the Augustan Age; on either side of the Alps, for example, there are monuments to celebrate the submission and loyalty of the local tribes, an elegant arch at Segusio (Susa), and a square stone trophy, topped by a cylindrical drum, at La Turbie. From Livia’s mansion on the outskirts of Rome, at Prima Porta, comes a reminder that not all the art of the day was formal and grand. One of the rooms is adorned with wall paintings representing an enchanted garden; beyond a trellis are orchards and flower beds, in which birds and insects perch among the foliage. Augustus himself had no interest in personal luxury. Yet if ever he or his associates had any spare time, such were the rooms in which they spent it.
Actium left Octavian the master of the Roman world. This supremacy, successfully maintained until his death more than 40 years later, made him the first of the Roman emperors. Suicide removed Antony and Cleopatra and their potential menace in 30 bc, and the annexation…
The emperor Augustus received two embassies—almost certainly trade missions—from India in 25–21 bce.…
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmBWNuVvUDE
Images:
1. The marble head of Caesar Augustus uncovered in the Italian town of Isernia.
2. Caesar Augustus as a Roman magistrate
3. Augustus Closing the Temple of Janus, by Louis de Silvestre, 1757, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
4. Augustus At The Tomb Of Alexander The Great, Painted By Lionel Royer (1852-1926)
Biographies
1. bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/augustus.shtml
2. britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor
Background from {[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/augustus.shtml]}
"Augustus was the first emperor of Rome. He replaced the Roman republic with an effective monarchy and during his long reign brought peace and stability.
Augustus was born Gaius Octavius on 23 September 63 BC in Rome. In 43 BC his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, was assassinated and in his will, Octavius, known as Octavian, was named as his heir. He fought to avenge Caesar and in 31 BC defeated Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. He was now undisputed ruler of Rome.
Instead of following Caesar's example and making himself dictator, Octavian in 27 BC founded the principate, a system of monarchy headed by an emperor holding power for life. His powers were hidden behind constitutional forms, and he took the name Augustus meaning 'lofty' or 'serene'. Nevertheless, he retained ultimate control of all aspects of the Roman state, with the army under his direct command.
At home, he embarked on a large programme of reconstruction and social reform. Rome was transformed with impressive new buildings and Augustus was a patron to Virgil, Horace and Propertius, the leading poets of the day. Augustus also ensured that his image was promoted throughout his empire by means of statues and coins.
Abroad, he created a standing army for the first time, and embarked upon a vigorous campaign of expansion designed to make Rome safe from the 'barbarians' beyond the frontiers, and to secure the Augustan peace. His stepsons Tiberius and Drusus undertook the task (Augustus had married their mother Livia in 38 BC). Between 16 BC and 6 AD the frontier was advanced from the Rhine to the Elbe in Germany, and up to the Danube along its entire length. But Drusus died in the process and in 9 AD the annihilation of three Roman legions in Germany (out of 28 overall), in the Varian disaster, led to the abandonment of Germany east of the Rhine.
Augustus was determined to be succeeded by someone of his own blood, but he had no sons, only a daughter, Julia, the child of his first wife. His nephew Marcellus and his beloved grandsons Gaius and Lucius pre-deceased him, so he reluctantly made Tiberius his heir.
Military disaster, the loss of his grandsons and a troubled economy clouded his last years. He became more dictatorial, exiling the poet Ovid (8 AD), who had mocked his moral reforms. He died on 19 August 14 AD."
2. Background from {[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor]}
Augustus
Roman emperor
Augustus, also called Augustus Caesar or (until 27 bce) Octavian, original name Gaius Octavius, adopted name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, (born September 23, 63 bce—died August 19, 14 ce, Nola, near Naples [Italy]), first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father. His autocratic regime is known as the principate because he was the princeps, the first citizen, at the head of that array of outwardly revived republican institutions that alone made his autocracy palatable. With unlimited patience, skill, and efficiency, he overhauled every aspect of Roman life and brought durable peace and prosperity to the Greco-Roman world.
Gaius Octavius was of a prosperous family that had long been settled at Velitrae (Velletri), southeast of Rome. His father, who died in 59 bce, had been the first of the family to become a Roman senator and was elected to the high annual office of the praetorship, which ranked second in the political hierarchy to the consulship. Gaius Octavius’s mother, Atia, was the daughter of Julia, the sister of Julius Caesar, and it was Caesar who launched the young Octavius in Roman public life. At age 12 he made his debut by delivering the funeral speech for his grandmother Julia. Three or four years later he received the coveted membership of the board of priests (pontifices). In 46 bce he accompanied Caesar, now dictator, in his triumphal procession after his victory in Africa over his opponents in the Civil War; and in the following year, in spite of ill health, he joined the dictator in Spain. He was at Apollonia (now in Albania) completing his academic and military studies when, in 44 bce, he learned that Julius Caesar had been murdered.
Extremadura, Spain: statue of Augustus.
Rise to power
Returning to Italy, he was told that Caesar in his will had adopted him as his son and had made him his chief personal heir. He was only 18 when, against the advice of his stepfather and others, he decided to take up this perilous inheritance and proceeded to Rome. Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius), Caesar’s chief lieutenant, who had taken possession of his papers and assets and had expected that he himself would be the principal heir, refused to hand over any of Caesar’s funds, forcing Octavius to pay the late dictator’s bequests to the Roman populace from such resources as he could raise. Caesar’s assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, ignored him and withdrew to the east. Cicero, the famous orator who was one of Rome’s principal elder statesmen, hoped to make use of him but underestimated his abilities.
Augustus
Celebrating public games, instituted by Caesar, to ingratiate himself with the city populace, Octavius succeeded in winning considerable numbers of the dictator’s troops to his own allegiance. The Senate, encouraged by Cicero, broke with Antony, called upon Octavius for aid (granting him the rank of senator in spite of his youth), and joined the campaign of Mutina (Modena) against Antony, who was compelled to withdraw to Gaul. When the consuls who commanded the Senate’s forces lost their lives, Octavius’s soldiers compelled the Senate to confer a vacant consulship on him. Under the name of Gaius Julius Caesar he next secured official recognition as Caesar’s adoptive son. Although it would have been normal to add “Octavianus” (with reference to his original family name), he preferred not to do so. Today, however, he is habitually described as Octavian (until the date when he assumed the designation Augustus).
Octavian soon reached an agreement with Antony and with another of Caesar’s principal supporters, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who had succeeded him as chief priest. On November 27, 43 bce, the three men were formally given a five-year dictatorial appointment as triumvirs for the reconstitution of the state (the Second Triumvirate—the first having been the informal compact between Pompey, Crassus, and Julius Caesar). The east was occupied by Brutus and Cassius, but the triumvirs divided the west among themselves. They drew up a list of “proscribed” political enemies, and the consequent executions included 300 senators (one of whom was Antony’s enemy Cicero) and 2,000 members of the class below the senators, the equites or knights. Julius Caesar’s recognition as a god of the Roman state in January 42 bce enhanced Octavian’s prestige as son of a god.
He and Antony crossed the Adriatic and, under Antony’s leadership (Octavian being ill), won the two battles of Philippi against Brutus and Cassius, both of whom committed suicide. Antony, the senior partner, was allotted the east (and Gaul); and Octavian returned to Italy, where difficulties caused by the settlement of his veterans involved him in the Perusine War (decided in his favour at Perusia, the modern Perugia) against Antony’s brother and wife. In order to appease another potential enemy, Sextus Pompeius (Pompey the Great’s son), who had seized Sicily and the sea routes, Octavian married Sextus’s relative Scribonia (though before long he divorced her for personal incompatibility). These ties of kinship did not deter Sextus, after the Perusine War, from making overtures to Antony; but Antony rejected them and reached a fresh understanding with Octavian at the treaty of Brundisium, under the terms of which Octavian was to have the whole west (except for Africa, which Lepidus was allowed to keep) and Italy, which, though supposedly neutral ground, was in fact controlled by Octavian. The east was again to go to Antony, and it was arranged that Antony, who had spent the previous winter with Queen Cleopatra in Egypt, should marry Octavian’s sister Octavia. The peoples of the empire were overjoyed by the treaty, which seemed to promise an end to so many years of civil war. In 38 bce Octavian formed a significant new link with the aristocracy by his marriage to Livia Drusilla.
But a reconciliation with Sextus Pompeius proved abortive, and Octavian was soon plunged into serious warfare against him. When his first operations against Sextus’s Sicilian bases proved disastrous, he felt obliged to make a new compact with Antony at Tarentum (Taranto) in 37 bce. Antony was to provide Octavian with ships, in return for troops Antony needed for his forthcoming war against the empire’s eastern neighbour Parthia and its Median allies. Antony handed over the ships, but Octavian never sent the troops. The treaty also provided for renewal of the Second Triumvirate for five years, until the end of 33 bce.
Military successes of Augustus
In the following year the balance of power began to change: whereas Antony’s eastern expedition failed, Octavian’s fleet—commanded by his former schoolmate Marcus Agrippa, who, although unpopular with the influential nobles, was an admiral of genius—totally defeated Sextus Pompeius off Cape Naulochus (Venetico) in Sicily. At this point the third triumvir, Lepidus, seeking to contest Octavian’s supremacy in the west by force, was disarmed by Octavian, deprived of his triumviral office, and forced into retirement. Ignoring Antony’s right to settle his own veterans in Italy and recruit fresh troops, Octavian discharged many legionaries and founded settlements for them. His deliberate rivalry with Antony for the eventual mastership of the Roman world became increasingly apparent. Octavian’s marriage two years earlier had begun to win over some of the nobles who had previously been Antony’s supporters. Octavian also launched elaborate religious and patriotic publicity, centring on the classical god of order, Apollo, in contrast to Antony’s less Roman patron, Dionysus (Bacchus). In addition, Octavian had started to prefix his name with the designation “Imperator,” to suggest that he was the commander par excellence; and now, although he continued to use his triumviral powers, he omitted all reference to them from his coins, gradually concentrating on the plain, emotive name “Caesar Son of a God.”
But, if Octavian was to compete with Antony’s military seniority, successes in a foreign war were necessary; and so Octavian between 35 and 33 bce fought three successive campaigns in Illyricum and Dalmatia (parts of modern Slovenia and Croatia) in order to protect the northeastern approaches of Italy. With the help of Agrippa, he also lavished large sums on the adornment of Rome. When Octavian fomented public clamour against Antony’s territorial gifts to Cleopatra, it was clear that a clash between the two men was imminent.
In 32 bce the triumvirate had officially ended, and Octavian, unlike Antony, professed no longer to be employing its powers. Amid a virulent exchange of propaganda, Antony divorced Octavia, whereupon her brother Octavian seized Antony’s will and claimed to find in it damaging proofs of Cleopatra’s power over him. Each leader induced the populations under his control to swear formal oaths of allegiance to his own cause. Then, in spite of grave discontent aroused by his exactions in Italy, Octavian declared war—not against Antony but against Cleopatra.
Accompanied by her, Antony had brought up his fleet and army to guard strongpoints along the coast of western Greece; but in 31 bce Octavian dispatched Agrippa very early in the year to capture Methone, at the country’s southwestern tip. His enemies were taken by surprise; and after Octavian himself arrived—leaving his Etruscan friend and adviser Gaius Maecenas in charge of Italy—he and Agrippa soon shut Antony’s fleet inside the Gulf of Ambracia (Arta). At the Battle of Actium, Antony tried to extricate his ships in the hope of continuing the fight elsewhere. Though Cleopatra and then Antony succeeded in getting away, only a quarter of their fleet was able to follow them. Cleopatra and Antony fled to Egypt and committed suicide when Octavian captured the country in the following year. Executing Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy XV Caesar (Caesarion)—whose father she had claimed was Caesar—Octavian annexed Egypt and retained it under his direct control.
Battle of Actium
The seizure of Cleopatra’s treasure enabled him to pay off his veterans and made him finally master of the entire Greco-Roman world. From this point on, by a long and gradual series of tentative, patient measures, he established the Roman principate, a system of government that enabled him to maintain, in all essentials, absolute control. Gradually reducing his 60 legions to 28, he retained approximately 150,000 legionaries, mostly Italian, and supplemented them by about the same number of auxiliaries drawn from the provinces. A permanent bodyguard (the Praetorians), based on the bodyguards maintained by earlier generals, was stationed partly in Rome and partly in other Italian towns. A superb network of roads was created to maintain internal order and facilitate trade, and an efficient fleet was organized to police the Mediterranean. In 28 bce Octavian and Agrippa held a census of the civil population, the first of three during the reign. They also reduced the Senate from about 1,000 to 800 (later 600) compliant members, and Octavian was appointed its president.
Government and administration of Augustus
Remembering, however, that Caesar had been assassinated because of his resort to naked power, Octavian realized that the governing class would welcome him as the terminator of civil war only if he concealed his autocracy beneath provisions avowedly harking back to republican traditions. From 31 until 23 bce the constitutional basis of his power remained a continuous succession of consulships, but in January 27 bce he ostensibly “transferred the State to the free disposal of the Senate and people,” earning the misleading, though outwardly plausible, tribute that he had restored the republic. At the same time, he was granted a 10-year tenure of an area of government (provincia) comprising Spain, Gaul, and Syria, the three regions containing the bulk of the army. The remaining provinces were to be governed by proconsuls appointed by the Senate in the old republican fashion. Octavian, however, believed that his supreme prestige—crystallized in the meaningful term auctoritas—safeguarded him against any defiance by these personages; and he was indeed able, more or less indirectly, to influence their appointments, just as he was able (on the rare occasions when he regarded it as desirable) to influence the appointments to the consulships and other metropolitan offices that continued to exist in “republican” fashion.
Four days after these measures, his name Caesar, acquired through adoption in Julius’s will, was supplemented by “Augustus,” an appellation with an antique religious ring, believed to be linked etymologically with auctoritas and with the ancient practice of augury. The word augustus was often contrasted with humanus; its adoption as the title representing the new order cleverly indicated, in an extraconstitutional fashion, his superiority over the rest of mankind. With the aid of writers such as Virgil, Livy, and Horace, all of whom in their different ways shared the same ideas, he showed his patriotic veneration of the old Italian faith by reviving many of its ceremonials and repairing numerous temples.
Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm speaking and thanking delegates at the Democratic National Convention (third session), Miami Beach, Florida, July 12, 1972.
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Military operations continued in many frontier areas. In 25 bce recalcitrant Alpine tribes were reduced, and Galatia (central Asia Minor) was annexed. Mauretania, on the other hand, was transferred from Roman provincial status to that of a client kingdom, for such dependent monarchies, as in the later republic, bore a considerable part of the burden of imperial defense. Augustus himself visited Gaul and directed part of a campaign in Spain until his health gave out; in 23 bce he fell ill again and seemed on the point of death. Feeling, amid reports of conspiracies, that new constitutional steps were necessary, he proceeded to terminate his series of consulships in favour of a power (imperium majus) that was separated altogether from office and its practical inconveniences. This power raised him above the proconsuls; it was never referred to on the official coinage or in Augustus’s political testament but was intended to be exercised mainly in emergencies and on personal visits. He was also awarded the power of a tribune (tribunicia potestas) for life. Earlier he had accepted certain privileges of a tribune. The full power he now assumed carried with it practical advantages, notably the right to convene the Senate. But, more particularly, the office of a tribune surrounded him with a “democratic” aura because of the ancient character of the annually elected tribunes of the people as defenders of the plebs. This was, perhaps, needed all the more because Augustus himself—while admittedly supporting the interests of poorer people by a great extension of the right of judicial appeal—tended to back the established classes as the keystone of his system.
Agrippa, too, was granted superiority over proconsuls, presumably in order to ensure that the armies would be in safe hands in case one of Augustus’s recurrent illnesses proved fatal. The next to die, however, was the emperor’s young nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had been married to his daughter Julia and might eventually have been envisaged as his successor. In the same year, 23 bce, Agrippa was sent out to the east as deputy princeps; two years later he became Julia’s second husband. Meanwhile Augustus himself traveled in Sicily, Greece, and Asia (22–19). Important reorganizations were put into effect wherever he went; and immense satisfaction was caused by an agreement in 20 bce with Parthia, under which the Parthians recognized Rome’s protectorate over Armenia and returned the legionary standards captured from Crassus 33 years earlier. In 19 bce Agrippa completed the subjugation of Spain. In this year there was some adjustment of Octavian’s powers to allow him to exercise them more freely in Italy, and the two following years witnessed social legislation attempting to encourage marriage, regulate penalties for adultery, and reduce extravagance. In 17 there were resplendent celebrations of ancient ritual, known as the Secular Games, to purify the Roman people of their past sins and provide full religious inauguration of the new age.
Although the principate was not an office which could be automatically handed on, Augustus seemed to be indicating his views regarding his ultimate successor when he adopted the two sons of his daughter Julia, boys aged three and one, who were henceforward known as Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar. Their father, Agrippa, whose powers had been renewed along with his master’s, returned to the east. But now Augustus also gave important employment to his stepsons—his wife Livia’s sons by her former marriage—Tiberius and Drusus the Elder. Proceeding across the Alps, they annexed Noricum and Raetia, comprising large parts of what are now Switzerland, Austria, and Bavaria, and extended the imperial frontier from Italy to the upper Danube (16–15 bce).
It was probably during these years that an executive, or drafting, committee (consilium) of the Senate was established in order to help Augustus to prepare senatorial business. His administrative burden was also lightened by the expansion of his own staff (knights, who could also now rise to a number of key posts, and freedmen) to form the beginnings of a civil service, which had never existed before but was destined to become an essential feature of the imperial system. Gradually, too, a completely reformed administrative structure of Rome, Italy, and the whole empire was evolved. The financial system that made this possible was evidently far more effective than anything the empire had ever seen until then. The system was based on the central treasury (aerarium), but the details of its relationship with the treasuries of the provinces, and particularly the provincia of Augustus, are still imperfectly understood, partly because, although the emperor proudly recorded his gifts to the central treasury, he did not report what funds passed in the opposite direction.
The taxation providing these resources apparently included two main direct taxes: a poll tax (tributum capitis), paid in some provinces by all adults and in others by adult males only, and a land tax (tributum soli). There were also indirect taxes, which (as in the past) were farmed out to contractors because their yield was unpredictable and the embryonic civil service lacked the resources to handle them. The republican customs dues continued; but the rates were low enough not to hamper trade, which, in the peaceful conditions created by Augustus, flourished in wholly unprecedented fashion. Industries did not exist on a very large scale, but commerce was greatly stimulated by a sweeping reform and expansion of the Roman coinage. Gold and silver pieces, their designs reflecting many facets of imperial publicity, were issued in great quantities at a number of widely distributed mints. The Rome mint was reopened for this purpose about 20 bce. The absence of bronze token coinage, which had been sparse for many decades, was remedied by the creation of abundant mintages in yellow orichalcum and red copper. In the west the principal mint for these pieces, besides Rome, was Lugdunum (Lyon), whose coins displayed a view of the Altar of Rome and Augustus that formed a model for other provincial capitals. The Roman citizen colonies of the west, many of them established by Augustus to settle his veterans, supplemented this output by their own local coinages, and in the east, particularly Asia Minor and Syria, numerous Greek cities were also allowed to issue small change.
Expansion of the empire of Augustus
The death in 12 bce of Lepidus enabled Augustus finally to succeed him as the official head of the Roman religion, the chief priest (pontifex maximus). In the same year, Agrippa, too, died. Augustus compelled his widow, Julia, to marry Tiberius against both their wishes. During the next three years, however, Tiberius was away in the field, reducing Pannonia up to the middle Danube, while his brother Drusus crossed the Rhine frontier and invaded Germany as far as the Elbe, where he died in 9 bce. In the following year, Augustus lost another of his intimates, Maecenas, who had been the adviser of his early days and was an outstanding patron of letters.
Tiberius, who replaced Drusus in Germany, was elevated in 6 bce to a share in his stepfather’s tribunician power. But shortly afterward he went into retirement on the island of Rhodes. This was attributed to jealousy of his stepnephew Gaius Caesar, who was introduced to public life with a great fanfare in the following year; and the same compliments were paid to his brother Lucius in 2 bce, the year in which Augustus received his climactic title, “father of the country” (pater patriae). Gaius was sent to the east and Lucius to the west. Both, however, soon died. Tiberius returned home in 2, and in 4 Augustus adopted him as his son, who in turn was required to adopt Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus. The powers conferred upon Tiberius made him almost Augustus’s own equal in everything except prestige.
Tiberius’s next task was to consolidate the invasion and provincial organization of Germany (4–5 ce). An invasion of Bohemia was planned and had already been launched from two directions when news came in 6 that Pannonia and Illyricum had revolted. It took three years for the rebellion to be put down; and this had only just been completed when Arminius raised the Germans against their Roman governor Varus and destroyed him and his three legions. As Augustus could not readily replace the troops, the annexation of western Germany and Bohemia was postponed indefinitely; Tiberius and Germanicus were sent to consolidate the Rhine frontier.
Although Augustus was now feeling his age, these years in association with Tiberius were marked by administrative innovations: the annexation of Judaea in 6 ce (its client king Herod the Great had died 10 years previously); the establishment at Rome (in the same year) of a fire brigade with police duties, supplemented seven years later by a regular police force (cohortes urbanae); the creation of a military treasury (aerarium militare) to defray soldiers’ retirement bounties from taxes; and the conversion of the hitherto occasional appointment of prefect of the city (praefectus urbi) into a permanent office (13 ce). When, in the same year, the powers of Augustus were renewed for 10 years—such renewals had been granted at intervals throughout the reign—Tiberius was made his equal in every constitutional respect. In April, Augustus deposited his will at the House of the Vestals in Rome. It included a summary of the military and financial resources of the empire (breviarium totius imperii) and his political testament, known as the “Res Gestae Divi Augusti” (“Achievements of the Divine Augustus”). The best-preserved copy of the latter document is on the walls of the Temple of Rome and Augustus at Ankara, Turkey (the Monumentum Ancyranum). In 14 ce Tiberius was due to leave for Illyricum but was recalled by the news that Augustus was gravely ill. He died on August 19, and on September 17 the Senate enrolled him among the gods of the Roman state. By that time Tiberius had succeeded him as the second Roman emperor, though the formalities involved in the succession proved embarrassing both to himself and to the Senate because the “principate” of Augustus had not, constitutionally speaking, been heritable or continuous. Like other emperors, Tiberius assumed the designation “Augustus” as an additional title of his own. Agrippa Postumus, who had been named his coheir but was later banished, was put to death. The order to kill him may already have been given by Augustus, but this is not certain.
Augustus was one of the great administrative geniuses of history. The gigantic work of reorganization that he carried out in every field of Roman life and throughout the entire empire not only transformed the decaying republic into a new, monarchic regime with many centuries of life ahead of it but also created a durable Roman peace, based on easy communications and flourishing trade. It was this Pax Romana that ensured the survival and eventual transmission of the classical heritage, Greek and Roman alike, and provided the means for the diffusion of Judaism and Christianity. Although his regime was an autocracy, Augustus, being a tactful and imaginative master of propaganda of many kinds, knew how to cloak that autocracy in traditionalist forms that would satisfy a war-worn generation—perhaps, most of all, the upper bourgeoisie immediately below the leading nobility, since it was they who benefited from the new order more than anyone. He was also able to win the approbation, through the patronage of Maecenas, of some of the greatest writers the world has ever known, including Virgil, Horace, and Livy.
Augustus
Their enthusiasm was partly due to Augustus’s conviction that the Roman peace must be under Occidental, Italian control. This was in contrast to the views of Antony and Cleopatra, who had envisaged some sort of Greco-Roman partnership such as began to prevail only three or four centuries later. Augustus’s narrower view, although modified by an informed admiration of Greek civilization, was based on his small-town Italian origins. These were also partly responsible for his patriotic, antiquarian attachment to the ancient religion and for his puritanical social policy.
Augustus was a cultured man, the author of a number of works (all lost): a pamphlet against Brutus, an exhortation to philosophy, an account of his own early life, a biography of Drusus, poems, and epigrams. The conventional view of his character distinguishes between his cruelty in early years and his mildness in later life. But there was not so much need for cruelty later on, and, when it was needed (notably in the suppression of alleged plots), he was still ready to apply it. It is probable that nothing short of this degree of political ruthlessness could have achieved such enormous results. His domestic life, however, was simple and homespun. Within his family, the successive deaths of those he had earmarked as his successors or helpers caused him much sadness and disappointment. His devotion to his wife Livia Drusilla remained constant, though, like other Romans, he was unfaithful. His surviving letters show kindliness to his relations. Yet he exiled his daughter Julia for offending against his public moral attitudes, and he exiled her daughter by Agrippa for the same reason; he also exiled the son of Agrippa and Julia, Agrippa Postumus, though the suspicion that he later had him killed is unproved. As for Augustus’s male relatives who were his helpers, he was loyal to them but drove them as hard as he drove himself. He needed them because the burden was so heavy, and he especially needed them in the military sphere because he was not a great commander. In Agrippa and Tiberius and a number of others, he had men who supplied this deficiency, and although, on his deathbed, he is said to have advised against the further expansion of the empire, he himself, with their assistance, had expanded its frontiers in many directions.
His physical condition was subject to a host of ills and weaknesses, many of them recurrent. Indeed, in his early life, particularly, it was only his indomitable will that enabled him to survive—a strange preliminary to an unprecedented and unequaled life’s work. His appearance is described by the biographer Suetonius:
He was unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life, though he cared nothing for personal adornment. His expression, whether in conversation or when he was silent, was calm and mild.…He had clear, bright eyes, in which he liked to have it thought that there was a kind of divine power, and it greatly pleased him, whenever he looked keenly at anyone, if he let his face fall as if before the radiance of the sun. His teeth were wide apart, small and ill-kept; his hair was slightly curly and inclining to golden; his eyebrows met.…His complexion was between dark and fair. He was short of stature, but this was concealed by the fine proportion and symmetry of his figure, and was noticeable only by comparison with some taller person standing beside him.
Augustus’s countenance proved a godsend to the Greeks and Hellenized easterners, who were the best sculptors of the time, for they elevated his features into a moving, never-to-be-forgotten imperial type, which Napoleon’s artists, among others, keenly emulated. The contemporary portrait busts of Augustus, echoed on his coins, formed part of a significant renaissance of the arts in which Italic and Hellenic styles were discreetly and brilliantly blended. Still extant at Rome are the severe yet delicate reliefs of the Ara Pacis (“Altar of Peace”), depicting a religious procession in which the national leaders are taking part; there are also scenes from the Roman mythology. The altar was dedicated by the Senate and people of Rome in 13 bce to commemorate the pacification of Gaul and Spain.
The architectural masterpieces of the time were also numerous; and something of their monumental grandeur and classical purity can be seen today at Rome in the remains of the Theatre of Marcellus and of the massive Forum of Augustus, flanked by colonnades and culminating in the Temple of Mars the Avenger—the Avenger of Julius Caesar. Outside Rome, too, there are abundant memorials of the Augustan Age; on either side of the Alps, for example, there are monuments to celebrate the submission and loyalty of the local tribes, an elegant arch at Segusio (Susa), and a square stone trophy, topped by a cylindrical drum, at La Turbie. From Livia’s mansion on the outskirts of Rome, at Prima Porta, comes a reminder that not all the art of the day was formal and grand. One of the rooms is adorned with wall paintings representing an enchanted garden; beyond a trellis are orchards and flower beds, in which birds and insects perch among the foliage. Augustus himself had no interest in personal luxury. Yet if ever he or his associates had any spare time, such were the rooms in which they spent it.
Actium left Octavian the master of the Roman world. This supremacy, successfully maintained until his death more than 40 years later, made him the first of the Roman emperors. Suicide removed Antony and Cleopatra and their potential menace in 30 bc, and the annexation…
The emperor Augustus received two embassies—almost certainly trade missions—from India in 25–21 bce.…
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It is said that Trajan is arguably Rome's greatest Emperor. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Trajan
Trajan | Biography, Accomplishments, Emperor, Death, & Facts
Trajan, Roman emperor (98–117 CE) who sought to extend the boundaries of the empire to the east (notably in Dacia, Arabia, Armenia, and Mesopotamia), undertook a vast building program, and enlarged social welfare. Learn more about Trajan in this article.
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