Augustus was a Roman statesman and military leader, who became the first Roman emperor, following the republic. 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.
Background
Octavianus Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus on September 23, 63 B.C. in Rome, Roman Republic, to a plebeian family. His paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius 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 B.C, 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, Julia, the sister of Julius Caesar.
Education
Augustus donned the toga virilis and was elected to the College of Pontiffs in 47 B.C. He also was then studied oratory at Apollonia.
Career
In 44 B.C. Augustus's maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated and he was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir, changing his name to Caius lulius Caesar Octavianus.
Octavian's enemy in his rise to power was Mark Antony, who had assumed the command of Caesar's legions. The two men became enemies immediately when Octavian announced his intentions of taking over his inheritance. Antony had embarked on a war against the Senate to avenge Caesar's murder and to further his own ambitions, and Octavian joined the senatorial side in the battle. Antony was defeated at Mutina in 43, but the Senate refused Octavian the triumph he felt was his due. Octavian abandoned the senators and joined forces with Antony and Lepidus, another of Caesar's officers; they called themselves the Second Triumvirate. In 42 the triumvirate defeated the last republican armies, led by Brutus and Cassius, at Philippi.
The victors then divided the Mediterranean into spheres of influence; Octavian took the West; Antony, the East; and Lepidus, Africa. Lepidus became less consequential as time went on, and a clash between Antony and Octavian for sole control of the empire became increasingly inevitable. Octavian played upon Roman and Western antipathy to the Orient, and after a formidable propaganda campaign against Antony and his consort, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, Octavian declared war against Cleopatra in 32. Octavian won a decisive naval victory, which left him master of the entire Roman world. The following year Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, and Octavian annexed Egypt to Rome. In 29 Octavian returned to Rome in triumph.
Augustus suffered many illnesses, and these caused him to designate an heir early in his reign. But he had many deaths to bear and outlived his preferred choices, including his two young grandsons, and was finally forced to designate as his heir Tiberius, his third wife's son by her first marriage.
Achievements
Holding all powers, Augustus radically reorganized the Roman state with a series of legislative, administrative and social reforms thus initiating a lengthy period of peace identified as the new golden age. He established the principate, the form of government under which Rome ruled the empire for 300 years.
During his rule, Rome, together with all the other cities of the empire, was involved in vast construction programs ranging from the restoration of the more ancient monuments to the building of new architectural complexes. In his will, Augustus could proudly claim to have found a city built of bricks and to have left behind him one built of marble.
Repairing the temples was only one aspect of the religious and moral revival which Augustus fostered. There seems to have been a falling away from the old gods of the state, and Augustus encouraged a return to the religious dedication and morality of the early republic. In 17 B.C. he held the Secular Games, an ancient festival which symbolized the restoration of the older religion.
Politics
Octavian's power was based on his control of the army, his financial resources, and his enormous popularity. The system of government he established, however, was designed to veil these facts by making important concessions to republican sentiment. Octavian was extremely farsighted in his political arrangements, but he continually emphasized that his rule was a return to the mos maiorum, the customs of the ancestors. Early in January of 27 B.C., therefore, Octavian went before the Senate and announced that he was restoring the rule of the Roman world to the Senate and the Roman people. The Senate, in gratitude, voted him special powers and on January 16 gave him the title Augustus, signifying his superior position in the state, with the added connotation of "revered." A joint government gradually evolved which in theory was a partnership; in fact, Augustus was the senior partner. Suetonius, his biographer, said that Augustus believed that "he himself would not be free from danger if he should retire" and that "it would be hazardous to trust the state to the control of the populace" so "he continued to keep it in his hands; and it is not easy to say whether his intentions or their results were the better."
The government was formalized in 23, when Augustus received two important republican titles from the Senate— Tribune of the People and Proconsul—which together gave him enormous control over the army, foreign policy, and legislation. His full nomenclature also included his adopted name, Caesar, and the title Imperator, or commander in chief of a victorious army.
Augustus concerned himself with every detail and aspect of the empire. He attended to everything with dignity, firmness, and generosity, hoping, as he said himself, that he would be "called the author of the best possible government." He stabilized the boundaries of the empire, provided for the defense of the frontiers, reorganized and reduced the size of the army, and created two fleets to form a Roman navy. His many permanent innovations included also the creation of a large civil service which attended to the general business of administering so vast an empire.
The Emperor was interested in public buildings and especially temple buildings. In 28 B.C. he undertook the repair of all the temples in Rome, 82 by his own count. He also built many new ones. In addition, he constructed a new forum, the Forum of Augustus, begun in 42 B.C. and completed 40 years later. It was with good reason that Augustus could boast that he had "found Rome built of brick and left it in marble."
Augustus tried to improve morals by passing laws to regulate marriage and family life and to control promiscuity. In 9 A.D., for example, he made adultery a criminal offense, and he encouraged the birthrate by granting privileges to couples with three or more children. His laws did not discourage his daughter Julia and his grand-daughter (also Julia), both of whom he banished for immoral conduct. Suetonius reports that "he bore the death of his kin with far more resignation than their misconduct."
Throughout his long reign Augustus encouraged literature, and the Augustan Age is called the Golden Age because Roman writing attained a rare perfection. It was above all an age of poets—Horace, Ovid, and most especially, Virgil. And in Virgil's great epic, the Aeneid, there is expressed for all time the sense of the grandeur of Rome's imperial destiny which culminated in the age of Augustus.
Views
Quotations:
"I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble."
"If you want rainbow, you have to deal with the rain."
"At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order..."
"We write our names in the sand: and then the waves roll in and wash them away."
"If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance."
"Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit!"
"Practice, the master of all things."
"The greatest impediments to changes in our traditional roles seem to lie not in the visible world of conscious intent, but in the murky realm of the unconscious mind."
"Young men, listen to an old man to whom old men listened when he was young."
"Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway."
"Better a cautious commander, and not a rash one."
"May it be my privilege to have the happiness of establishing the commonwealth on a firm and stable basis and thus enjoy the reward which I desire, but only if I may be called the architect of the best possible government; and bear with me the hope when I die, that the foundations which I have laid for its future government, will stand deep and secure."
"I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people."
"Quintilius Varus, Give me back my legions!"
"What is done well is done quickly enough."
"Behold them, conquerors of the world, the toga-clad race of Romans!"
"After this time I surpassed all others in authority, but I had no more power than the others who were also my colleagues in office."
"To seek to keep the established constitution unchanged argues a good citizen and a good man."
Personality
Suetonius has given a description of Augustus which is confirmed by the many statues of him. "In person he was unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life, though he cared nothing for personal adornment… 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. … He was short of stature … but this was concealed by the fine proportion and symmetry of his figure."
Connections
Augustus married three times in his life and the names of his wives were Clodia Pulchra, Scribonia and Livia Drusilla. His only biological child was a girl named Julia through his second marriage.
Augustus: First Emperor of Rome
The dramatic story of Rome’s first emperor, who plunged into Rome’s violent power struggles at the age of nineteen, proceeded to destroy all rivals, and more than anyone else created the Roman Empire Caesar Augustus’ story, one of the most riveting in Western history, is filled with drama and contradiction, risky gambles and unexpected success. Thrusting himself into Rome’s extremely violent politics while yet a very young man, Augustus skillfully maneuvered his way through twisting alliances during years of civil war. Named heir to the murdered Julius Caesar, he outwitted and outlasted far more experienced rivals like Antony and Brutus. Ruling supreme, he reinvented himself as a benevolent man of peace and created a new system of government. In this highly anticipated biography Goldsworthy puts his deep knowledge of ancient sources to full use, recounting the events of Augustus’ long life in greater detail than ever before. Goldsworthy pins down the man behind the myths: a consummate manipulator, propagandist, and showman, both generous and ruthless. Under Augustus’ rule the empire prospered, yet his success was never assured and the events of his life unfolded with exciting unpredictability. Goldsworthy captures the passion and savagery, the public image and private struggles of the real man whose epic life continues to influence Western history. The dramatic story of Rome’s first emperor, who plunged into Rome’s violent power struggles at the age of nineteen, proceeded to destroy all rivals, and more than anyone else created the Roman Empire Caesar Augustus’ story, one of the most riveting in Western history, is filled with drama and contradiction, risky gambles and unexpected success. Thrusting himself into Rome’s extremely violent politics while yet a very young man, Augustus skillfully maneuvered his way through twisting alliances during years of civil war. Named heir to the murdered Julius Caesar, he outwitted and outlasted far more experienced rivals like Antony and Brutus. Ruling supreme, he reinvented himself as a benevolent man of peace and created a new system of government. In this highly anticipated biography Goldsworthy puts his deep knowledge of ancient sources to full use, recounting the events of Augustus’ long life in greater detail than ever before. Goldsworthy pins down the man behind the myths: a consummate manipulator, propagandist, and showman, both generous and ruthless. Under Augustus’ rule the empire prospered, yet his success was never assured and the events of his life unfolded with exciting unpredictability. Goldsworthy captures the passion and savagery, the public image and private struggles of the real man whose epic life continues to influence Western history.
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor
He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. As Rome’s first emperor, Augustus transformed the unruly Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, for all of Western history to follow. Yet, despite Augustus’s accomplishments, very few biographers have concentrated on the man himself, instead choosing to chronicle the age in which he lived. Here, Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of Cicero, gives a spellbinding and intimate account of his illustrious subject. Augustus began his career as an inexperienced teenager plucked from his studies to take center stage in the drama of Roman politics, assisted by two school friends, Agrippa and Maecenas. Augustus’s rise to power began with the assassination of his great-uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and culminated in the titanic duel with Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The world that made Augustus–and that he himself later remade–was driven by intrigue, sex, ceremony, violence, scandal, and naked ambition. Everitt has taken some of the household names of history–Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Antony, Cleopatra–whom few know the full truth about, and turned them into flesh-and-blood human beings. At a time when many consider America an empire, this stunning portrait of the greatest emperor who ever lived makes for enlightening and engrossing reading. Everitt brings to life the world of a giant, rendered faithfully and sympathetically in human scale. A study of power and political genius, Augustus is a vivid, compelling biography of one of the most important rulers in history. From the Hardcover edition.
Augustus (Ancient Culture and Society)
Constitutional changes, administrative revisions, factional rivalry, and war are all themes that Professor Jones develops within the main narrative. He treats separately such topics as finance, religion, social policy, literature and the arts, and the sources of this crucial period in the history of Rome. Professor Jones discusses the career of Augustus in the context of the turbulent times of the breakdown of the Roman Republic into civil war. He shows how dependent Augustus' rise to power was upon his adoption by Julius Caesar, and traces the ruthless and unscrupulous way in which Augustus exploited his unique position as "Caesar's heir." But he demonstrates that Augustus's continuing success was all his own: the adopted son succeeded in solving the political crisis which, because he had failed to do so, had cost the father his life. For Augustus was a consummate politician, and it was his great achievement to establish a form of government which proved more or less stable for over two centuries.
Augustus and the Creation of the Roman Empire: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)
During his long reign of near-absolute power, Caesar Augustus established the Pax Romana, which gave Rome two hundred years of peace and social stability, and established an empire that would endure for five centuries and transform the history of Europe and the Mediterranean. Ronald Mellor offers a collection of primary sources featuring multiple viewpoints of the rise, achievements, and legacy of Augustus and his empire. His cogent introduction to the history of the Age of Augustus encourages students to examine such subjects as the military in war and peacetime, the social and cultural context of political change, the reform of administration, and the personality of the emperor himself. Document headnotes, a list of contemporary literary sources, a glossary of Greek and Latin terms, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support. During his long reign of near-absolute power, Caesar Augustus established the Pax Romana, which gave Rome two hundred years of peace and social stability, and established an empire that would endure for five centuries and transform the history of Europe and the Mediterranean. Ronald Mellor offers a collection of primary sources featuring multiple viewpoints of the rise, achievements, and legacy of Augustus and his empire. His cogent introduction to the history of the Age of Augustus encourages students to examine such subjects as the military in war and peacetime, the social and cultural context of political change, the reform of administration, and the personality of the emperor himself. Document headnotes, a list of contemporary literary sources, a glossary of Greek and Latin terms, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support. During his long reign of near-absolute power, Caesar Augustus established the Pax Romana, which gave Rome two hundred years of peace and social stability, and established an empire that would endure for five centuries and transform the history of Europe and the Mediterranean. Ronald Mellor offers a collection of primary sources featuring multiple viewpoints of the rise, achievements, and legacy of Augustus and his empire. His cogent introduction to the history of the Age of Augustus encourages students to examine such subjects as the military in war and peacetime, the social and cultural context of political change, the reform of administration, and the personality of the emperor himself. Document headnotes, a list of contemporary literary sources, a glossary of Greek and Latin terms, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.
The Histories (Penguin Classics)
In AD 68, Nero's suicide marked the end of the first dynasty of imperial Rome. The following year was one of drama and danger, with four emperors—Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian—emerging in succession. Based on authoritative sources, The Histories vividly recounts the details of the "long but single year" of revolution that brought the Roman empire to the brink of collapse. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
