September 23, 2012 <Back to Index>
PAGE SPONSOR |
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first Emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC via his last will and testament, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the revered one"), and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. Because of the various names he bore, it is common to call him Octavius when referring to events between 63 and 44 BC, Octavian (or Octavianus) when referring to events between 44 and 27 BC, and Augustus when referring to events after 27 BC. In Greek sources, Augustus is known as Ὀκτάβιος (Octavius), Καῖσαρ (Caesar), Αὔγουστος (Augustus), or Σεβαστός (Sebastos), depending on context. The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces. The
triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of
its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide
following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by the fleet of Octavian commanded by Agrippa in 31 BC. After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Octavian restored the outward facade of the Roman Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate,
but in practice retained his autocratic power. It took several years to
determine the exact framework by which a formally republican state
could be led by a sole ruler; the result became known as the Roman Empire. The emperorship was never an office like the Roman dictatorship which Caesar and Sulla had held before him; indeed, he declined it when the Roman populace "entreated him to take on the dictatorship". By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including those of tribune of the plebs and censor. He was consul until 23 BC. His
substantive power stemmed from financial success and resources gained
in conquest, the building of patronage relationships throughout the
Empire, the loyalty of many military soldiers and veterans, the
authority of the many honors granted by the Senate, and the respect of the people. Augustus' control over the majority of Rome's legions established
an armed threat that could be used against the Senate, allowing him to
coerce the Senate's decisions. With his ability to eliminate senatorial
opposition by means of arms, the Senate became docile towards him. His
rule through patronage, military power, and accumulation of the offices
of the defunct Republic became the model for all later imperial
governments. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana, or Roman peace. Despite continuous wars on the frontiers, and one year long civil war over
the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for
more than two centuries. Augustus enlarged the empire dramatically,
annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Raetia, expanded possessions in Africa, and completed the conquest of Hispania. Beyond the frontiers, he secured the empire with client states, and made peace with Parthia through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard,
and created official police and fire fighting services for Rome. Much
of the city was rebuilt under Augustus; and he wrote a record of his
own accomplishments, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which has survived. Upon his death in AD 14, Augustus was declared a god by the Senate — to be worshipped by the Romans. His
names Augustus and Caesar were adopted by every subsequent emperor, and
the month of Sextilis was renamed 'Augustus' (now August) in honour of
his memory. He was succeeded by his adopted son (also stepson and
former son-in-law), Tiberius. While his paternal family was from the town of Velitrae,
about 25 miles from Rome, Augustus was born in the city of Rome on 23
September 63 BC. He was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his father's victory at Thurii over a rebellious band of slaves. Due to the crowded nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his father's home village at Velitrae to be raised. Octavius only mentions his father's equestrian family briefly in his memoirs. His paternal great-grandfather was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War. His grandfather had served in several local political offices. His father, also named Gaius Octavius, had been governor of Macedonia. His mother Atia was the niece of Julius Caesar. In 59 BC, when he was four years old, his father died. His mother married a former governor of Syria, Lucius Marcius Philippus. Philippus claimed descent from Alexander the Great, and was elected consul in
56 BC. Philippus never had much of an interest in young Octavius.
Because of this, Octavius was raised by his grandmother (and Julius
Caesar's sister), Julia Caesaris. In 52 or 51 BC, Julia Caesaris died. Octavius delivered the funeral oration for his grandmother. From this point, his mother and stepfather took a more active role in raising him. He donned the toga virilis four years later, and was elected to the College of Pontiffs in 47 BC. The following year he was put in charge of the Greek games that were staged in honor of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, built by Julius Caesar. According to Nicolaus of Damascus, Octavius wished to join Caesar's staff for his campaign in Africa but gave way when his mother protested. In 46 BC, she consented for him to join Caesar in Hispania, where he planned to fight the forces of Pompey, Caesar's late enemy, but Octavius 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 crossed hostile
territory to Caesar's camp, which impressed his great-uncle
considerably. Velleius Paterculus reports that Caesar afterwards allowed the young man to share his carriage. When back in Rome, Caesar deposited a new will with the Vestal Virgins, naming Octavius as the prime beneficiary. At the time Caesar was killed on the Ides of March (the 15th) 44 BC, Octavius was studying and undergoing military training in Apollonia, Illyria. Rejecting the advice of some army officers to take refuge with the troops in Macedonia, he sailed to Italia to ascertain if he had any potential political fortunes or security. After landing at Lupiae near Brundisium,
he learned the contents of Caesar's will, and only then did he decide
to become Caesar's political heir as well as heir to two-thirds of his
estate. Having no living legitimate children, Caesar had adopted his great-nephew Octavius as his son and main heir. Upon his adoption, Octavius assumed his great-uncle's name, Gaius Julius Caesar. Although Romans who had been adopted into a new family usually retained their old nomen in cognomen form (e.g. Octavianus for one who had been an Octavius, Aemilianus for one who had been an Aemilius, etc.) there is no evidence that he ever bore the name Octavianus, as it would have made his modest origins too obvious. However, despite the fact that he never officially bore the name Octavianus,
to save confusing the dead dictator with his heir, historians often
refer to the new Caesar — between his adoption and his assumption, in 27
BC, of the name Augustus — as Octavian. Mark Antony later charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favours, though Suetonius, in his work Lives of the Twelve Caesars, describes Antony's accusation as political slander. To
make a successful entry into the upper echelons of the Roman political
hierarchy, Octavian could not rely on his limited funds. After a warm welcome by Caesar's soldiers at Brundisium, Octavian demanded a portion of the funds that were allotted by Caesar for the intended war against Parthia in the Middle East. This amounted to 700 million sesterces stored at Brundisium, the staging ground in Italy for military operations in the east. A
later senatorial investigation into the disappearance of the public
funds made no action against Octavian, since he subsequently used that
money to raise troops against the Senate's arch enemy, Mark Antony. Octavian
made another bold move in 44 BC when without official permission he
appropriated the annual tribute that had been sent from Rome's Near Eastern province to Italy. Octavian
began to bolster his personal forces with Caesar's veteran legionaries
and with troops designated for the Parthian war, gathering support by
emphasizing his status as heir to Caesar. On
his march to Rome through Italy, Octavian's presence and newly acquired
funds attracted many, winning over Caesar's former veterans stationed in Campania. By June he had gathered an army of 3,000 loyal veterans, paying each a salary of 500 denarii.
Arriving in Rome on 6 May 44 BC, Octavian found the consul Mark Antony,
Caesar's former colleague, in an uneasy truce with the dictator's
assassins; they had been granted a general amnesty on 17 March, yet
Antony succeeded in driving most of them out of Rome. This
was due to his "inflammatory" eulogy given at Caesar's funeral,
mounting public opinion against the assassins. Although Mark Antony was
amassing political support, Octavian still had
opportunity to rival him as the leading member of the faction
supporting Caesar. Mark Antony had lost the support of many Romans and
supporters of Caesar when he at first opposed the motion to elevate
Caesar to divine status. Octavian
failed to persuade Antony to relinquish Caesar's money to him. However,
during the summer he managed to win support from Caesarian
sympathizers, who saw the younger heir as the lesser evil and hoped to
manipulate him, or to bear with him during their efforts to get rid of
Antonius. In September, the Optimate orator Marcus Tullius Cicero began to attack Antony in a series of speeches portraying Antony as the greatest threat to the order of the Senate. With opinion in Rome turning against him and his year of consular power
nearing its end, Antony attempted to pass laws which would lend him
control over Cisalpine Gaul, which had been assigned as part of his province, from Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, one of Caesar's assassins. Octavian
meanwhile built up a private army in Italy by recruiting Caesarian
veterans, and on 28 November won over two of Antony's legions with the
enticing offer of monetary gain. In
the face of Octavian's large and capable force, Antony saw the danger
of staying in Rome, and to the relief of the Senate he fled to
Cisalpine Gaul, which was to be handed to him on 1 January. After Decimus Brutus refused to give up Cisalpine Gaul, Antony besieged him at Mutina. The
resolutions passed by the Senate to stop the violence were rejected by
Antony, as the Senate had no army of its own to challenge him; this
provided an opportunity for Octavian, who was already known to have
armed forces. Cicero
also defended Octavian against Antony's taunts about Octavian's lack of
noble lineage; he stated "we have no more brilliant example of
traditional piety among our youth." This
was in part a rebuttal to Antony's opinion of Octavian, as Cicero
quoted Antony saying to Octavian, "You, boy, owe everything to your
name." In
this unlikely alliance orchestrated by the arch anti-Caesarian senator
Cicero, the Senate inducted Octavian as senator on 1 January 43 BC, yet
he was also given the power to vote alongside the former consuls. In addition, Octavian was granted imperium (commanding power), which made his command of troops legal, sending him to relieve the siege along with Hirtius and Pansa (the consuls for 43 BC). In April of 43 BC, Antony's forces were defeated at the battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina, forcing Antony to retreat to Transalpine Gaul. However, both consuls were killed, leaving Octavian in sole command of their armies. After
heaping many more rewards on Decimus Brutus than Octavian for defeating
Antony, the Senate attempted to give command of the consular legions to
Decimus Brutus, yet Octavian decided not to cooperate. Instead, Octavian stayed in the Po Valley and refused to aid any further offensive against Antony. In July, an embassy of centurions sent by Octavian entered Rome and demanded that he receive the consulship left vacant by Hirtius and Pansa. Octavian also demanded that the decree declaring Antony a public enemy should be rescinded. When this was refused, he marched on the city with eight legions. He encountered no military opposition in Rome, and on 19 August 43 BC was elected consul with his relative Quintus Pedius as co-consul. Meanwhile, Antony formed an alliance with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, another leading Caesarian. In a meeting near Bologna in October of 43 BC, Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus formed a junta called the Second Triumvirate. This explicit arrogation of special powers lasting five years was then supported by law passed by the plebs, unlike the unofficial First Triumvirate formed byGnaeus Pompey Magnus, Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus. The triumvirs then set in motion proscriptions in which allegedly 300 senators and 2,000 equites were branded as outlaws and deprived of their property and, for those who failed to escape, their lives. The estimation that 300 senators were proscribed was presented by Appian, although his earlier contemporary Livy asserted that only 130 senators had been proscribed. This
decree issued by the triumvirate was motivated in part by a need to
raise money to pay their troops' salaries for the upcoming conflict
against Caesar's assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Rewards
for their arrest gave incentive for Romans to capture those proscribed,
while the assets and properties of those arrested were seized by the
triumvirs. Contemporary
Roman historians provide conflicting reports as to which triumvir was
more responsible for the proscriptions and killing. However, the
sources agree that enacting the proscriptions was a means by all three
factions to eliminate political enemies. Marcus Velleius Paterculus asserted that Octavian tried to avoid proscribing officials whereas Lepidus and Antony were to blame for initiating them. Cassius Dio defended
Augustus as trying to spare as many as possible, whereas Antony and
Lepidus, being older and involved in politics longer, had many more
enemies to deal with. This
claim was rejected by Appian, who maintained that Octavian shared an
equal interest with Lepidus and Antony in eradicating his enemies. Suetonius presents
the case that Octavian, although reluctant at first to proscribe
officials, nonetheless pursued his enemies with more rigor than the
other triumvirs. Plutarch describes
the proscriptions as a ruthless and cutthroat swapping of friends and
family between Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian. For example, Octavian
allowed the proscription of his ally Cicero, Antony the proscription of his maternal uncle Lucius Julius Caesar IV, and Lepidus his brother Paulus. On 1 January 42 BC, the Senate posthumously recognized Julius Caesar as a divinity of the Roman state, Divus Iulius. Octavian was able to further his cause by emphasizing the fact that he was Divi filius, "Son of God". Antony and Octavian then sent 28 legions by sea to face the armies of Brutus and Cassius, who had built their base of power in Greece. After two battles at Philippi in Macedonia in October of 42, the Caesarian army was victorious and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide.
Mark Antony would later use the examples of these battles as a means to
belittle Octavian, as both battles were decisively won with the use of
Antony's forces. In
addition to claiming responsibility for both victories, Antony also
branded Octavian as a coward for handing over his direct military
control to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa instead. After Philippi, a new territorial arrangement was made among the members of the Second Triumvirate. While Antony placed Gaul, the provinces of Hispania, and Italia in the hands of Octavian, Antony traveled east to Egypt where he allied himself with Queen Cleopatra VII, the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son, Caesarion. Lepidus was left with the province of Africa, stymied by Antony who conceded Hispania to Octavian instead. Octavian
was left to decide where in Italy to settle the tens of thousands of
veterans of the Macedonian campaign whom the triumvirs had promised to
discharge. The tens of thousands who had fought on the republican side
with Brutus and Cassius, who could easily ally with a political
opponent of Octavian if not appeased, also required land. There
was no more government controlled land to allot as settlements for
their soldiers, so Octavian had to choose one of two options:
alienating many Roman citizens by confiscating their land, or
alienating many Roman soldiers who could mount a considerable
opposition against him in the Roman heartland; Octavian chose the
former. There
were as many as eighteen Roman towns affected by the new settlements,
with entire populations driven out or at least given partial evictions. Widespread dissatisfaction with Octavian over his soldiers' settlements encouraged many to rally at the side of Lucius Antonius, who was brother of Mark Antony and supported by a majority in the Senate. Meanwhile, Octavian asked for a divorce from Clodia Pulchra, the daughter of Fulvia and her first husband Publius Clodius Pulcher.
Claiming that his marriage with Clodia had never been consummated, he
returned her to her mother, Mark Antony's wife. Fulvia decided to take
action. Together with Lucius Antonius she raised an army in Italy to
fight for Antony's rights against Octavian. However, Lucius and Fulvia
took a political and martial gamble in opposing Octavian, since the
Roman army still depended on the triumvirs for their salaries. Lucius and his allies ended up in a defensive siege at Perusia (modern Perugia), where Octavian forced them into surrender in early 40 BC. Lucius and his army were spared due to his kinship with Antony, the strongman of the East, while Fulvia was exiled to Sicyon. However,
Octavian showed no mercy for the mass of allies loyal to Lucius; on 15
March, the anniversary of Julius Caesar's assassination, he had 300
Roman senators and equestrians executed for allying with Lucius. Perusia was also pillaged and burned as a warning for others. This bloody event sullied Octavian's reputation and was criticized by many, such as the Augustan poet Sextus Propertius. Sextus Pompeius, son of the First Triumvir Pompey and still a renegade general following Julius Caesar's victory over his father, was established in Sicily and Sardinia as part of an agreement reached with the Second Triumvirate in 39 BC. Both
Antony and Octavian were vying for an alliance with Pompeius, who was
ironically a member of the republican party, not the Caesarian faction. Octavian succeeded in a temporary alliance when in 40 BC he married Scribonia, a daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo who was a follower of Pompeius as well as his father-in-law. Scribonia conceived Octavian's only natural child, Julia, who was born the same day that he divorced Scribonia to marry Livia Drusilla, little more than a year after his marriage. While in Egypt, Antony had been engaged in an affair with Cleopatra and had fathered three children with her. Aware
of his deteriorating relationship with Octavian, Antony left Cleopatra;
he sailed to Italy in 40 BC with a large force to oppose Octavian,
laying siege to Brundisium. However, this new conflict proved untenable for both Octavian and Antony. Their centurions,
who had become important figures politically, refused to fight due to
their Caesarian cause, while the legions under their command followed
suit. Meanwhile
in Sicyon, Antony's wife Fulvia died of a sudden illness while Antony
was en route to meet her. Fulvia's death and the mutiny of their
centurions allowed the two remaining triumvirs to effect a
reconciliation. In
the autumn of 40, Octavian and Antony approved the Treaty of
Brundisium, by which Lepidus would remain in Africa, Antony in the
East, Octavian in the West. The Italian peninsula was left open to all
for the recruitment of soldiers, but in reality, this provision was
useless for Antony in the East. To further cement relations of alliance with Mark Antony, Octavian gave his sister, Octavia Minor, in marriage to Antony in late 40 BC. During their marriage, Octavia gave birth to two daughters (known as Antonia Major and Antonia Minor). Sextus
Pompeius threatened Octavian in Italy by denying to the peninsula
shipments of grain through the Mediterranean; Pompeius' own son was put
in charge as naval commander in the effort to cause widespread famine
in Italy. Pompeius' control over the sea prompted him to take on the name Neptuni filius, "son of Neptune". A
temporary peace agreement was reached in 39 BC with the treaty of
Misenum; the blockade on Italy was lifted once Octavian granted
Pompeius Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and the Peloponnese, and ensured him a future position as consul for 35 BC. The
territorial agreement amongst the triumvirs and Sextus Pompeius began
to crumble once Octavian divorced Scribonia and married Livia on 17
January 38 BC. One
of Pompeius' naval commanders betrayed him and handed over Corsica and
Sardinia to Octavian. However Octavian needed Antony's additional
support to attack Pompeius, so an agreement was reached with the Second
Triumvirate's extension for another five-year period beginning in 37 BC. In supporting Octavian, Antony expected to gain support for his own campaign against Parthia, desiring to avenge Rome's defeat at Carrhae in 53 BC. In an agreement reached at Tarentum, Antony provided 120 ships for Octavian to use against Pompeius, while Octavian was to send 20,000 legionaries to Antony for use against Parthia. However, Octavian sent only a tenth the number of those promised, which was viewed by Antony as an intentional provocation. Octavian and Lepidus launched a joint operation against Sextus in Sicily in 36 BC. Despite
setbacks for Octavian, the naval fleet of Sextus Pompeius was almost
entirely destroyed on 3 September by general Agrippa at the naval battle of Naulochus. Sextus fled with his remaining forces to the east, where he was captured and executed in Miletus by one of Antony's generals the following year. Both
Lepidus and Octavian gathered the surrendered troops of Pompeius, yet
Lepidus felt empowered enough to claim Sicily for himself, ordering
Octavian to leave. However,
Lepidus' troops deserted him and defected to Octavian since they were
weary of fighting and found Octavian's promises of money to be enticing. Lepidus surrendered to Octavian and was permitted to retain the office of pontifex maximus (head
of the college of priests), but was ejected from the Triumvirate, his
public career at an end, and was effectively exiled to avilla at Cape Circei in Italy. The
Roman dominions were now divided between Octavian in the West and
Antony in the East. To maintain peace and stability in his portion of
the Empire, Octavian ensured Rome's citizens of their rights to
property. This time he settled his discharged soldiers outside of Italy
while returning 30,000 slaves to former Roman owners that had
previously fled to Pompeius to join his army and navy. To
ensure his own safety and that of Livia and Octavia once he returned to
Rome, Octavian had the Senate grant him, his wife, and his sister tribunal immunity, or sacrosanctitas. Meanwhile,
Antony's campaign against Parthia turned disastrous, tarnishing his
image as a leader, and the mere 2,000 legionaries sent by Octavian to
Antony were hardly enough to replenish his forces. On
the other hand, Cleopatra could restore his army to full strength, and
since he was already engaged in a romantic affair with her, he decided
to send Octavia back to Rome. Octavian used this to spread propaganda implying that Antony was becoming less than Roman because he rejected a legitimate Roman spouse for an "Oriental paramour". In
36 BC, Octavian used a political ploy to make himself look less
autocratic and Antony more the villain by proclaiming that the civil
wars were coming to an end, and that he would step down as triumvir if
only Antony would do the same; Antony refused. After Roman troops captured the Kingdom of Armenia in
34 BC, Antony made his son Alexander Helios the ruler of Armenia; he
also awarded the title "Queen of Kings" to Cleopatra, acts which
Octavian used to convince the Roman Senate that Antony had ambitions to
diminish the preeminence of Rome. When
Octavian became consul once again on 1 January 33 BC, he opened the
following session in the Senate with a vehement attack on Antony's
grants of titles and territories to his relatives and to his queen. Defecting consuls and senators rushed over to the side of Antony in disbelief of
the propaganda (which turned out to be true), yet so did able ministers
desert Antony for Octavian in the autumn of 32 BC. These
defectors, Munatius Plancus and Marcus Titius, gave Octavian the
information he needed to confirm with the Senate all the accusations he
made against Antony. By
storming the sanctuary of the Vestal Virgins, Octavian forced their
chief priestess to hand over Antony's secret will, which would have
given away Roman conquered territories as kingdoms for his sons to
rule, alongside plans to build a tomb in Alexandria for him and his queen to reside upon their deaths. In late 32 BC, the Senate officially revoked Antony's powers as consul and declared war on Cleopatra's regime in Egypt. In
early 31 BC, while Antony and Cleopatra were temporarily stationed in
Greece, Octavian gained a preliminary victory when the navy under the
command of Agrippa successfully ferried troops across the Adriatic Sea. While
Agrippa cut off Antony and Cleopatra's main force from their supply
routes at sea, Octavian landed on the mainland opposite the island of
Corcyra (modern Corfu) and marched south. Trapped
on land and sea, deserters of Antony's army fled to Octavian's side
daily while Octavian's forces were comfortable enough to make
preparations. In a desperate attempt to break free of the naval blockade, Antony's fleet sailed through the bay of Actium on
the western coast of Greece. It was there that Antony's fleet faced the
much larger fleet of smaller, more maneuverable ships under commanders
Agrippa and Gaius Sosius in the battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC. Antony and his remaining forces were only spared due to a last-ditch effort by Cleopatra's fleet that had been waiting nearby. Octavian pursued them, and after another defeat in Alexandria on 1 August 30 BC,
Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide; Antony fell on his own sword
and into Cleopatra's arms, while she let a venomous snake bite her. Having
exploited his position as Caesar's heir to further his own political
career, Octavian was only too well aware of the dangers in allowing
another to do so and, reportedly commenting that "two Caesars are one
too many", he ordered Caesarion — Julius Caesar's son by Cleopatra — to be killed, whilst sparing Cleopatra's children by Antony, with the exception of Antony's older son. Octavian
had previously shown little mercy to military combatants and acted in
ways that had proven unpopular with the Roman people, yet he was given
credit for pardoning many of his opponents after the Battle of Actium.
After Actium and the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian was in a position to rule the entire Republic under an unofficial principate, but
would have to achieve this through incremental power gains, courting
the Senate and the people, while upholding the republican traditions of
Rome, to appear that he was not aspiring to dictatorship or monarchy. Marching into Rome, Octavian and Marcus Agrippa were elected as dual consuls by the Senate. Years
of civil war had left Rome in a state of near lawlessness, but the
Republic was not prepared to accept the control of Octavian as a
despot. At the same time, Octavian could not simply give up his
authority without risking further civil wars amongst the Roman
generals, and even if he desired no position of authority whatsoever,
his position demanded that he look to the well being of the city of
Rome and the Roman provinces.
Octavian's aims from this point forward were to return Rome to a state
of stability, traditional legality and civility by lifting the overt
political pressure imposed on the courts of law and ensuring free
elections in name at least. In 27 BC, Octavian made a show of returning full power to the Roman Senate and relinquishing his control of the Roman provinces and their armies. Under his consulship, however, the Senate had little power in initiating legislation by introducing bills for senatorial debate. Although
Octavian was no longer in direct control of the provinces and their
armies, he retained the loyalty of active duty soldiers and veterans
alike. The careers of many clients and adherents depended on his patronage, as his financial power in the Roman Republic was unrivaled. The historian Werner Eck states: The
sum of his power derived first of all from various powers of office
delegated to him by the Senate and people, secondly from his immense
private fortune, and thirdly from numerous patron - client relationships
he established with individuals and groups throughout the Empire. All
of them taken together formed the basis of his auctoritas, which he himself emphasized as the foundation of his political actions. To
a large extent the public was aware of the vast financial resources
Augustus commanded. When he failed to encourage enough senators to
finance the building and maintenance of networks of roads in Italy, he
undertook direct responsibility for them in 20 BC. This was publicized on the Roman currency issued in 16 BC, after he donated vast amounts of money to the aerarium Saturni, the public treasury. According
to H.H. Scullard, however, Augustus's power was based on the exercise
of "a predominant military power and [...] the ultimate sanction of his
authority was force, however much the fact was disguised." The
Senate proposed to Octavian, the victor of Rome's civil wars, that he
once again assume command of the provinces. The senate's proposal was a
ratification of Octavian's extra - constitutional power. Through the
senate Octavian was able to continue the appearance of a
still - functional constitution. Feigning reluctance, he accepted a ten - year responsibility of overseeing provinces that were considered chaotic. The
provinces ceded to him, that he might pacify them within the promised
ten - year period, comprised much of the conquered Roman world, including
all of Hispania and Gaul, Syria, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Egypt. Moreover, command of these provinces provided Octavian with control over the majority of Rome's legions. While
Octavian acted as consul in Rome, he dispatched senators to the
provinces under his command as his representatives to manage provincial
affairs and ensure his orders were carried out. On the other hand, the provinces not under Octavian's control were overseen by governors chosen by the Roman Senate. Octavian
became the most powerful political figure in the city of Rome and in
most of its provinces, but did not have sole monopoly on political and
martial power. The Senate still controlled North Africa, an important regional producer of grain, as well as Illyria and Macedonia, two martially strategic regions with several legions. However,
with control of only five or six legions distributed amongst three
senatorial proconsuls, compared to the twenty legions under the control
of Augustus, the Senate's control of these regions did not amount to
any political or martial challenge to Octavian. The Senate's control over some of the Roman provinces helped maintain a republican façade for the autocratic Principate. Also,
Octavian's control of entire provinces for the objective of securing
peace and creating stability followed Republican - era precedents, in
which such prominent Romans as Pompey had been granted similar military powers in times of crisis and instability. In January of 27 BC, the Senate gave Octavian the new titles of Augustus and Princeps. Augustus, from the Latin word Augere (meaning to increase), can be translated as "the illustrious one". It was a title of religious rather than political authority. According
to Roman religious beliefs, the title symbolized a stamp of authority
over humanity — and in fact nature — that went beyond any
constitutional definition of his status. After the harsh methods
employed in
consolidating his control, the change in name would also serve to
demarcate his benign reign as Augustus from his reign of terror as
Octavian. His new title of Augustus was also more favorable than Romulus, the previous one he styled for himself in reference to the story of Romulus and Remus (founders of Rome), which would symbolize a second founding of Rome. However, the title of Romulus was associated too strongly with notions of monarchy and kingship, an image Octavian tried to avoid. Princeps, comes from the Latin phrase primum caput, "the first head", originally meaning the oldest or most distinguished senator whose name would appear first on the senatorial roster; in the case of Augustus it became an almost regnal title for a leader who was first in charge. Princeps had also been a title under the Republic for those who had served the state well; for example, Pompey had held the title. Augustus also styled himself as Imperator Caesar divi filius, "Commander Caesar son of the deified one". With this title he not only boasted his familial link to deified Julius Caesar, but the use of Imperator signified a permanent link to the Roman tradition of victory. The word Caesar was merely a cognomen for one branch of the Julian family, yet Augustus transformed Caesar into a new family line that began with him. Augustus was granted the right to hang the corona civica, the "civic crown" made from oak, above his door and have laurels drape his doorposts. This crown was usually held above the head of a Roman general during a triumph, with the individual holding the crown charged to continually repeat "memento mori",
or, "Remember, you are mortal", to the triumphant general.
Additionally, laurel wreaths were important in several state
ceremonies, and crowns of laurel were rewarded to champions of
athletic, racing, and dramatic contests. Thus, both the laurel and the
oak were integral symbols of Roman religion and statecraft; placing
them on Augustus' doorposts was tantamount to declaring his home the
capital. However, Augustus renounced flaunting insignia of power such as holding a scepter, wearing a diadem, or wearing the golden crown and purple toga of his predecessor Julius Caesar. If
he refused to symbolize his power by donning and bearing these items on
his person, the Senate nonetheless awarded him with a golden shield
displayed in the meeting hall of the Curia, bearing the inscription virtus, pietas, clementia, iustitia — "valor, piety, clemency, and justice."
In 23 BC, there was a political crisis that involved Augustus' co-consul Terentius Varro Murena,
who was part of a conspiracy against Augustus. The exact details of the
conspiracy are unknown, yet Murena did not serve a full term as consul
before Calpurnius Piso was elected to replace him. Piso
was a well known member of the republican faction, and serving as
co-consul with him was another means by Augustus to show his
willingness to make concessions and cooperate with all political
parties. In
the late spring Augustus suffered a severe illness, and on his supposed
deathbed made arrangements that would put in doubt the senators' suspicions of his anti-republicanism. Augustus prepared to hand down his signet ring to his favored general Agrippa. However, Augustus handed over to his co-consul Piso all of his official
documents, an account of public finances, and authority over listed
troops in the provinces while Augustus' supposedly favored nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus came away empty - handed. This was a surprise to many who believed Augustus would have named an heir to his position as an unofficial emperor. Augustus
bestowed only properties and possessions to his designated heirs, as a
system of institutionalized imperial inheritance would have provoked
resistance and hostility amongst the republican minded Romans fearful
of monarchy. Soon after his bout of illness subsided, Augustus gave up his permanent consulship. The only other times Augustus would serve as consul would be in the years 5 and 2 BC. Although he had resigned as consul, Augustus retained his consular imperium, leading to a second compromise between him and the Senate known as the Second Settlement. This
was a clever ploy by Augustus; by stepping down as one of two consuls,
this allowed aspiring senators a better chance to fill that position,
while at the same time Augustus could "exercise wider patronage within
the senatorial class." Augustus
was no longer in an official position to rule the state, yet his
dominant position over the Roman provinces remained unchanged as he
became a proconsul. Earlier
as a consul he had the power to intervene, when he deemed necessary,
with the affairs of provincial proconsuls appointed by the Senate. As a proconsul Augustus did not want this authority of overriding provincial governors to be stripped from him, so imperium proconsulare maius, or "power over all the proconsuls" was granted to Augustus by the Senate. Augustus was also granted the power of a tribune (tribunicia potestas) for life, though not the official title of tribune. Legally it was closed to patricians, a status that Augustus had acquired years ago when adopted by Julius Caesar. This
allowed him to convene the Senate and people at will and lay business
before it, veto the actions of either the Assembly or the Senate,
preside over elections, and the right to speak first at any meeting. Also included in Augustus' tribunician authority were powers usually reserved for the Roman censor;
these included the right to supervise public morals and scrutinize laws
to ensure they were in the public interest, as well as the ability to
hold a census and determine the membership of the Senate. With the powers of a censor, Augustus appealed to virtues of Roman patriotism by banning all other attire besides the classic toga while entering the Forum. There was no precedent within the Roman system for combining the powers of
the tribune and the censor into a single position, nor was Augustus
ever elected to the office of censor. Julius Caesar had
been granted similar powers, wherein he was charged with supervising
the morals of the state, however this position did not extend to the
censor's ability to hold a census and determine the Senate's roster.
The office of the tribune plebis began
to lose its prestige due to Augustus' amassing of tribunal powers, so
he revived its importance by making it a mandatory appointment for any
plebeian desiring the praetorship. In addition to tribunician authority, Augustus was granted sole imperium within the city of Rome itself: all armed forces in the city, formerly under the control of the prefects and consuls, were now under the sole authority of Augustus. With maius imperium proconsulare, Augustus was the only individual able to receive a triumph as he was ostensibly the head of every Roman army. In 19 BC, Lucius Cornelius Balbus, governor of Africa and conqueror of the Garamantes, was the first man of provincial origin to receive this award, as well as the last. For every following Roman victory the credit was given to Augustus, because Rome's armies were commanded by the legatus, who were deputies of the princeps in the provinces. Augustus' eldest son by marriage to Livia, Tiberius, was the only exception to this rule when he received a triumph for victories in Germania in 7 BC. Ensuring that his status of maius imperium proconsulare was
renewed in 13 BC, Augustus stayed in Rome during the renewal process
and provided veterans with lavish donations to gain their support. Many
of the political subtleties of the Second Settlement seem to have
evaded the comprehension of the Plebeian class. When Augustus failed to
stand for election as consul in 22 BC, fears arose once again that
Augustus was being forced from power by the aristocratic Senate. In 22,
21, and 19 BC, the people rioted in response, and only allowed a single
consul to be elected for each of those years, ostensibly to leave the
other position open for Augustus. In
22 BC there was a food shortage in Rome which sparked panic, while many
urban plebs called for Augustus to take on dictatorial powers to
personally oversee the crisis. After
a theatrical display of refusal before the Senate, Augustus finally
accepted authority over Rome's grain supply "by virtue of his
proconsular imperium", and ended the crisis almost immediately. It was not until AD 8 that a food crisis of this sort prompted Augustus to establish a praefectus annonae, a permanent prefect who was in charge of procuring food supplies for Rome. In 19 BC, the Senate voted to allow Augustus to wear the consul's insignia in public and before the Senate, as well as sit in the symbolic chair between the two consuls and hold the fasces, an emblem of consular authority. Like
his tribune authority, the granting of consular powers to him was
another instance of holding power of offices he did not actually hold. This
seems to have assuaged the populace; regardless of whether or not
Augustus was actually a consul, the importance was that he appeared as
one before the people. On 6 March 12 BC, after the death of Lepidus, he additionally took up the position of pontifex maximus, the high priest of the collegium of the Pontifices, the most important position in Roman religion. On 5 February 2 BC, Augustus was also given the title pater patriae, or "father of the country". Later
Roman Emperors would generally be limited to the powers and titles
originally granted to Augustus, though often, to display humility,
newly appointed Emperors would decline one or more of the honorifics
given to Augustus. Just as often, as their reign progressed, Emperors
would appropriate all of the titles, regardless of whether they had
actually been granted them by the Senate. The civic crown, which later
Emperors took to actually wearing, consular insignia, and later the
purple robes of a Triumphant general (toga picta) became the imperial insignia well into the Byzantine era.
Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus chose Imperator,
"victorious commander" to be his first name, since he wanted to make
the notion of victory associated with him emphatically clear. By the year 13, Augustus boasted 21 occasions where his troops proclaimed "imperator" as his title after a successful battle. Almost the entire fourth chapter in his publicly released memoirs of achievements known as the Res Gestae was devoted to his military victories and honors. Augustus
also promoted the ideal of a superior Roman civilization with a task of
ruling the world (the extent to which the Romans knew it), a sentiment
embodied in words that the contemporary poet Virgil attributes to a legendary ancestor of Augustus: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento — "Roman, remember by your strength to rule the Earth's peoples!" The impulse for expansionism, apparently prominent among all classes at Rome, is accorded divine sanction by Virgil's Jupiter, who in Book 1 of the Aeneid promises Rome imperium sine fine, "sovereignty without limit". By the end of his reign, the armies of Augustus had conquered northern Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal), the Alpine regions of Raetia and Noricum (modern Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Slovenia), Illyricum and Pannonia (modern Albania, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, etc.), and extended the borders of the Africa Province to the east and south. After the reign of the client king Herod the Great (73 – 4 BC), Judea was added to the province of Syria when Augustus deposed his successor Herod Archelaus. Like Egypt which had been conquered after the defeat of Antony in 30 BC,
Syria was governed not by a proconsul or legate of Augustus, but a high
prefect of the equestrian class. Again, no military effort was needed in 25 BC when Galatia (modern Turkey) was converted to a Roman province shortly after Amyntas of Galatia was killed by an avenging widow of a slain prince from Homonada. When the rebellious tribes of Cantabria in modern-day Spain were finally quelled in 19 BC, the territory fell under the provinces of Hispania and Lusitania. This
region proved to be a major asset in funding Augustus' future military
campaigns, as it was rich in mineral deposits that could be fostered in
Roman mining projects, especially the very rich gold deposits at Las Medulas for example. Conquering
the peoples of the Alps in 16 BC was another important victory for Rome
since it provided a large territorial buffer between the Roman citizens
of Italy and Rome's enemies in Germania to the north. The poet Horace dedicated an ode to the victory, while the monument Trophy of Augustus near Monaco was built to honor the occasion. The capture of the Alpine region also served the next offensive in 12 BC, when Tiberius began the offensive against the Pannonian tribes of Illyricum and his brother Nero Claudius Drusus against the Germanic tribes of the eastern Rhineland. Both campaigns were successful, as Drusus' forces reached the Elbe River by 9 BC, yet he died shortly after by falling off his horse. It was recorded that the pious Tiberius walked in front of his brother's body all the way back to Rome. To protect Rome's eastern territories from the Parthian Empire, Augustus relied on the client states of the east to act as territorial buffers and areas which could raise their own troops for defense. To
ensure security of the Empire's eastern flank, Augustus stationed a
Roman army in Syria, while his skilled stepson Tiberius negotiated with
the Parthians as Rome's diplomat to the East. Tiberius was responsible for restoring Tigranes V to the throne of the Kingdom of Armenia. Yet arguably his greatest diplomatic achievement was negotiating with Phraates IV of Parthia (37 – 2 BC) in 20 BC for the return of the battle standards lost by Crassus in the Battle of Carrhae, a symbolic victory and great boost of morale for Rome. Werner Eck claims that this was a great disappointment for Romans seeking to avenge Crassus' defeat by military means. However, Maria Brosius explains that Augustus used the return of the standards as propaganda symbolizing the submission of Parthia to Rome. The event was celebrated in art such as the breastplate design on the statue Augustus of Prima Porta and in monuments such as the Temple of Mars Ultor ('Mars the Avenger') built to house the standards. Although Parthia always posed a threat to Rome in the east, the real battlefront was along the Rhine and Danube rivers. Before the final fight with Antony, Octavian's campaigns against the tribes in Dalmatia was the first step in expanding Roman dominions to the Danube. Victory
in battle was not always a permanent success, as newly conquered
territories were constantly retaken by Rome's enemies in Germania. A prime example of Roman loss in battle was the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, where three entire legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were destroyed with few survivors by Arminius, leader of the Cherusci, an apparent Roman ally. Augustus
retaliated by dispatching Tiberius and Drusus to the Rhineland to
pacify it, which had some success although the battle of AD 9 brought
the end to Roman expansion into Germany. The Roman general Germanicus took advantage of a Cherusci civil war between Arminius and Segestes; they defeated Arminius, who fled that battle but was killed later in 21 due to treachery. The
illness of Augustus in 23 BC brought the problem of succession to the
forefront of political issues and the public. To ensure stability, he
needed to designate an heir to his unique position in Roman society and
government. This was to be achieved in small, undramatic, and
incremental ways that did not stir senatorial fears of monarchy. If
someone was to succeed his unofficial position of power, they were
going to have to earn it through their own publicly proven merits. Some Augustan historians argue that indications pointed toward his sister's son Marcellus, who had been quickly married to Augustus' daughter Julia the Elder. Other historians dispute this due to Augustus' will read aloud to the Senate while he was seriously ill in 23 BC, instead
indicating a preference for Marcus Agrippa, who was Augustus' second in
charge and arguably the only one of his associates who could have controlled the legions and held the Empire together. After
the death of Marcellus in 23 BC, Augustus married his daughter to
Agrippa. This union produced five children, three sons and two
daughters: Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, Vipsania Julia, Agrippina the Elder, and Postumus Agrippa,
so named because he was born after Marcus Agrippa died. Shortly after
the Second Settlement, Agrippa was granted a five year term of
administering the eastern half of the Empire with the imperium of a proconsul and the same tribunicia potestas granted to Augustus (although not trumping Augustus' authority), his seat of governance stationed at Samos in the eastern Aegean. Although
this granting of power would have shown Augustus' favor for Agrippa, it
was also a measure to please members of his Caesarian party by allowing
one of their members to share a considerable amount of power with him. Augustus' intent to make Gaius and Lucius Caesar his heirs was apparent when he adopted them as his own children. He took the consulship in 5 and 2 BC so he could personally usher them into their political careers, and they were nominated for the consulships of AD 1 and 4. Augustus also showed favor to his stepsons, Livia's children from her first marriage, Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus and Tiberius Claudius,
granting them military commands and public office, and seeming to favor
Drusus. However, Drusus' marriage to Antonia, Augustus' niece, was a
relationship far too embedded within the family to disturb over
succession issues. After
Agrippa died in 12 BC, Livia's son Tiberius was ordered to divorce his
own wife Vipsania and marry Agrippa's widow, Augustus' daughter
Julia — as soon as a period of mourning for Agrippa had ended. While
Drusus' marriage to Antonia was considered an unbreakable affair,
Vipsania was "only" the daughter of the late Agrippa from his first
marriage. Tiberius
shared in Augustus' tribune powers as of 6 BC, but shortly thereafter
went into retirement, reportedly wanting no further role in politics
while he exiled himself to Rhodes. Although
no specific reason is known for his departure, it could have been a
combination of reasons, including a failing marriage with Julia. It
could very well have been from feelings of jealousy and being left out
since Augustus' young grandchildren - turned - sons, Gaius and Lucius,
joined the college of priests at an early age, were presented to
spectators in a more favorable light, and were introduced to the army
in Gaul. After
the early deaths of both Lucius and Gaius in AD 2 and 4 respectively,
and the earlier death of his brother Drusus (9 BC), Tiberius was
recalled to Rome in June AD 4, where he was adopted by Augustus on the
condition that he, in turn, adopt his nephew Germanicus. This continued the tradition of presenting at least two generations of heirs. In
that year, Tiberius was also granted the powers of a tribune and
proconsul, emissaries from foreign kings had to pay their respects to
him, and by 13 was awarded with his second triumph and equal level of imperium with that of Augustus. The only other possible claimant as heir was Postumus Agrippa,
who had been exiled by Augustus in AD 7, his banishment made permanent
by senatorial decree, and Augustus officially disowned him. He
certainly fell out of Augustus' favor as an heir; the historian Erich
S. Gruen notes various contemporary sources that state Postumus Agrippa
was a "vulgar young man, brutal and brutish, and of depraved character." Postumus Agrippa was murdered at his place of exile either shortly before or after the death of Augustus. On 19 August AD 14, Augustus died while visiting the place of his father's death at Nola, and Tiberius — who was present alongside Livia at Augustus' deathbed — was named his heir. Augustus'
famous last words were, "Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I
exit" — referring to the play - acting and regal authority that he had put
on as emperor. Publicly, though, his last words were, "Behold, I found
Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble." An enormous funerary
procession of mourners traveled with Augustus' body from Nola to Rome,
and on the day of his burial all public and private businesses closed
for the day. Tiberius and his son Drusus delivered the eulogy while standing atop two rostra. Coffin - bound, Augustus' body was cremated on a pyre close to his mausoleum. It was proclaimed that Augustus joined the company of the gods as a member of the Roman pantheon. In 410, during the Sack of Rome, the mausoleum was despoiled by the Goths and his ashes scattered. The
historian D.C.A. Shotter states that Augustus' policy of favoring the
Julian family line over the Claudian might have afforded Tiberius
sufficient cause to show open disdain for Augustus after the latter's
death; instead, Tiberius was always quick to rebuke those who
criticized Augustus. Shotter
suggests that Augustus' deification, coupled with Tiberius' "extremely
conservative" attitude towards religion, obliged Tiberius to suppress
any open resentment he might have harbored. Also,
the historian R. Shaw - Smith points to letters of Augustus to Tiberius
which display affection towards Tiberius and high regard for his
military merits. Shotter states that Tiberius focused his anger and criticism on Gaius Asinius Gallus (for
marrying Vipsania after Augustus forced Tiberius to divorce her) as
well as the two young Caesars Gaius and Lucius, instead of Augustus,
the real architect of his divorce and imperial demotion. Augustus' reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire and until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, and his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death, in use both at Old Rome and at New Rome. In many languages, caesar became the word for emperor, as in the German Kaiser and in the Bulgarian and subsequently Russian Tsar. The cult of Divus Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391 by Theodosius I.
Consequently, there are many excellent statues and busts of the first
emperor. He had composed an account of his achievements, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, to be inscribed in bronze in front of his mausoleum. Copies of the text were inscribed throughout the Empire upon his death. The
inscriptions in Latin featured translations in Greek beside it, and
were inscribed on many public edifices, such as the temple in Ankara dubbed the Monumentum Ancyranum, called the "queen of inscriptions" by historian Theodor Mommsen. There are a few known written works by Augustus that have survived. This includes his poems Sicily, Epiphanus, and Ajax, an autobiography of 13 books, a philosophical treatise, and his written rebuttal to Brutus' Eulogy of Cato. However,
historians are able to analyze existing letters penned by Augustus to
others for additional facts or clues about his personal life. 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 intelligent, decisive, and a shrewd politician, but he was not perhaps as charismatic as Julius Caesar,
and was influenced on occasion by his third wife, Livia (sometimes for
the worse). Nevertheless, his legacy proved more enduring. The city of
Rome was utterly transformed under Augustus, with Rome's first
institutionalized police force, fire fighting force, and the establishment of the municipal prefect as a permanent office. The
police force was divided into cohorts of 500 men each, while the units
of firemen ranged from 500 to 1,000 men each, with 7 units assigned to
14 divided city sectors. A praefectus vigilum, or "Prefect of the Watch" was put in charge of the vigiles, Rome's fire brigade and police. With Rome's civil wars at an end, Augustus was also able to create a standing army for the Roman Empire, fixed at a size of 28 legions of about 170,000 soldiers. This was supported by numerous auxiliary units of 500 soldiers each, often recruited from recently conquered areas. With his finances securing the maintenance of roads throughout Italy, Augustus also installed an official courier system of relay stations overseen by a military officer known as the praefectus vehiculorum. Besides
the advent of swifter communication amongst Italian polities, his
extensive building of roads throughout Italy also allowed Rome's armies
to march swiftly and at an unprecedented pace across the country. In the year 6 Augustus established the aerarium militare, donating 170 million sesterces to the new military treasury that provided for both active and retired soldiers. One of the most lasting institutions of Augustus was the establishment of the Praetorian Guard in
27 BC, originally a personal bodyguard unit on the battlefield that
evolved into an imperial guard as well as an important political force
in Rome. They
had the power to intimidate the Senate, install new emperors, and
depose ones they disliked; the last emperor they served was Maxentius, as it was Constantine I who disbanded them in the early 4th century and destroyed their barracks, the Castra Praetoria. Although
the most powerful individual in the Roman Empire, Augustus wished to
embody the spirit of Republican virtue and norms. He also wanted to
relate to and connect with the concerns of the plebs and lay people. He
achieved this through various means of generosity and a cutting back of
lavish excess. In the year 29 BC, Augustus paid 400 sesterces each
to 250,000 citizens, 1,000 sesterces each to 120,000 veterans in the
colonies, and spent 700 million sesterces in purchasing land for his
soldiers to settle upon. He also restored 82 different temples to display his care for the Roman pantheon of deities. In
28 BC, he melted down 80 silver statues erected in his likeness and in
honor of him, an attempt of his to appear frugal and modest. The longevity of Augustus' reign and its legacy to the Roman world should not be overlooked as a key factor in its success. As Tacitus wrote, the younger generations alive in AD 14 had never known any form of government other than the Principate. Had
Augustus died earlier (in 23 BC, for instance), matters might 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. Every emperor of Rome adopted his name, Caesar
Augustus, which gradually lost its character as a name and eventually
became a title. The
Augustan era poets Virgil and Horace praised Augustus as a defender of
Rome, an upholder of moral justice, and an individual who bore the
brunt of responsibility in maintaining the empire. However,
for his rule of Rome and establishing the principate, Augustus has also
been subjected to criticism throughout the ages. The contemporary Roman
jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo (d. AD 10/11), fond of the days of pre-Augustan republican liberty in which he had been born, openly criticized the Augustan regime. In the beginning of his Annals, the Roman historian Tacitus (c. 56 – c.117) wrote that Augustus had cunningly subverted Republican Rome into a position of slavery. He
continued to say that, with Augustus' death and swearing of loyalty to
Tiberius, the people of Rome simply traded one slaveholder for another. Tacitus, however, records two contradictory but common views of Augustus: According to the second opposing opinion: In
a recent biography on Augustus, Anthony Everitt asserts that through
the centuries, judgments on Augustus' reign have oscillated between
these two extremes but stresses that: Tacitus was of the belief that Nerva (r. 96 – 98) successfully "mingled two formerly alien ideas, principate and liberty." The
3rd century historian Cassius Dio acknowledged Augustus as a benign,
moderate ruler, yet like most other historians after the death of Augustus, Dio viewed Augustus as an autocrat. The poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (AD 39 – 65) was of the opinion that Caesar's victory over Pompey and the fall of Cato the Younger (95
BC – 46 BC) marked the end of traditional liberty in Rome; historian
Chester G. Starr, Jr. writes of his avoidance of criticizing Augustus,
"perhaps Augustus was too sacred a figure to accuse directly." The Anglo - Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745), in his Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome, criticized Augustus for installing tyranny over Rome, and likened what he believed Great Britain's virtuous constitutional monarchy to Rome's moral Republic of the 2nd century BC. In his criticism of Augustus, the admiral and historian Thomas Gordon (1658 – 1741) compared Augustus to the puritanical tyrant Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658). Thomas Gordon and the French political philosopher Montesquieu (1689 – 1755) both remarked that Augustus was a coward in battle. In his Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, the Scottish scholar Thomas Blackwell (1701 – 1757) deemed Augustus a Machiavellian ruler, "a bloodthirsty vindicative usurper", "wicked and worthless", "a mean spirit", and a "tyrant".
Augustus' public revenue reforms
had a great impact on the subsequent success of the Empire. Augustus
brought a far greater portion of the Empire's expanded land base under
consistent, direct taxation from Rome, instead of exacting varying,
intermittent, and somewhat arbitrary tributes from each local province
as Augustus' predecessors had done. This
reform greatly increased Rome's net revenue from its territorial
acquisitions, stabilized its flow, and regularized the financial
relationship between Rome and the provinces, rather than provoking
fresh resentments with each new arbitrary exaction of tribute. The measures of taxation in the reign of Augustus were determined by population census, with fixed quotas for each province. Citizens of Rome and Italy paid indirect taxes, while direct taxes were exacted from the provinces. Indirect
taxes included a 4% tax on the price of slaves, a 1% tax on goods sold
at auction, and a 5% tax on the inheritance of estates valued at over
100,000 sesterces by persons other than the next of kin.
An equally important reform was the abolition of private tax farming,
which was replaced by salaried civil service tax collectors. Private
contractors that raised taxes had been the norm in the Republican era,
and some had grown powerful enough to influence the amount of votes for
politicians in Rome. The
tax farmers had gained great infamy for their depredations, as well as
great private wealth, by winning the right to tax local areas. Rome's
revenue was the amount of the successful bids, and the tax farmers'
profits consisted of any additional amounts they could forcibly wring
from the populace with Rome's blessing. Lack of effective supervision,
combined with tax farmers' desire to maximize their profits, had
produced a system of arbitrary exactions that was often barbarously
cruel to taxpayers, widely (and accurately) perceived as unfair, and
very harmful to investment and the economy.
The use of Egypt's
immense land rents to finance the Empire's operations resulted from
Augustus' conquest of Egypt and the shift to a Roman form of government. As
it was effectively considered Augustus' private property rather than a
province of the Empire, it became part of each succeeding emperor's
patrimonium. Instead
of a legate or proconsul, Augustus installed a prefect from the
equestrian class to administer Egypt and maintain its lucrative
seaports; this position became the highest political achievement for any equestrian besides becoming Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. The
highly productive agricultural land of Egypt yielded enormous revenues
that were available to Augustus and his successors to pay for public
works and military expeditions, as well as bread and circuses for the population of Rome.
The month of August (Latin: Augustus) is named after Augustus; until his time it was called Sextilis (named so because it had been the sixth month of the original Roman calendar and the Latin word for six was sex). 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 13th century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sextilis in fact had 31 days before it was renamed, and it was not chosen for its length. According to a senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius,
Sextilis was renamed to honor Augustus because several of the most
significant events in his rise to power, culminating in the fall of Alexandria, fell in that month. (Note that it was not his birthday month.)
On
his deathbed, Augustus boasted "I found Rome of bricks; I leave it to
you of marble". Although there is some truth in the literal meaning of
this, Cassius Dio asserts that it was a metaphor for the Empire's strength. Marble could
be found in buildings of Rome before Augustus, but it was not
extensively used as a building material until the reign of Augustus. 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 centre and of the Campus Martius, with the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) and monumental sundial, whose central gnomon was an obelisk taken from Egypt. The relief sculptures decorating the Ara Pacis visually augmented the written record of Augustus' triumphs in the Res Gestae. Its reliefs depicted the imperial pageants of the praetorians, the Vestals, and the citizenry of Rome. He also built the Temple of Caesar, the Baths of Agrippa, and the Forum of Augustus with its Temple of Mars Ultor. Other projects were either encouraged by him, such as the Theatre of Balbus, and Agrippa's construction of the Pantheon, or funded by him in the name of others, often relations (e.g. Portico of Octavia, Theatre of Marcellus). Even his Mausoleum of Augustus was built before his death to house members of his family. To celebrate his victory at the Battle of Actium, the Arch of Augustus was built in 29 BC near the entrance of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and widened in 19 BC to include a triple arch design. There are also many buildings outside of the city of Rome that bear Augustus' name and legacy, such as the Theatre of Merida in modern Spain, the Maison Carrée built at Nîmes in today's southern France, as well as the Trophy of Augustus at La Turbie, located near Monaco. After
the death of Agrippa in 12 BC, a solution had to be found in
maintaining Rome's water supply system. This came about because it was
overseen by Agrippa when he served as aedile, and was even funded by
him afterwards when he was a private citizen paying at his own expense. In
that year, Augustus arranged a system where the Senate designated three
of its members as prime commissioners in charge of the water supply and
to ensure that Rome's aqueducts did not fall into disrepair. In the late Augustan era, the commission of five senators called the curatores locorum publicorum iudicandorum (translated
as "Supervisors of Public Property") was put in charge of maintaining
public buildings and temples of the state cult. Augustus created the senatorial group of the curatores viarum (translated
as "Supervisors for Roads") for the upkeep of roads; this senatorial
commission worked with local officials and contractors to organize
regular repairs. The Corinthian order of
architectural style originating from ancient Greece was the dominant
architectural style in the age of Augustus and the imperial phase of
Rome. Suetonius once
commented that Rome was unworthy of its status as an imperial capital,
yet Augustus and Agrippa set out to dismantle this sentiment by
transforming the appearance of Rome upon the classical Greek model. The biographer Suetonius describes
Augustus' outward appearance as follows: "He was unusually
handsome ... He had clear, bright eyes ... His teeth were
wide apart, small, and ill - kept; his hair was slightly curly and
inclining to golden;
his eyebrows met. His ears were of moderate size, and his nose
projected a little at the top and then bent ever so slightly inward.
His complexion was between dark and fair. He was short of
stature ..." |