Augustus 27BC Prymnessos in Phrygia Dikaiosyne JUSTICE RARE Roman Coin i50330

Beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client
states, and made peace with the Parthian
Empire through diplomacy.
He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks
of roads with an official couriersystem,
established a standing army, established the Praetorian
Guard, created official police and fire-fighting
services for Rome, and
rebuilt much of the city during his reign.

Augustus died in 14 AD at the age of 75. He may have died from natural causes,
although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was
succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son (also stepson and former son-in-law),Tiberius.

Name

Throughout his life, the man historians refer to as Augustus was
known by many names:

• At birth he was named Gaius
  Octavius after his biological
  father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius (or
  Octavian) between his birth in 63 until his posthumous adoption by Julius
  Caesar in 44 BC.
• Upon his adoption by Caesar, he took
  Caesar’s name and become Gaius
  Julius Caesar Octavianus in
  accordance with Roman
  adoption naming standards. Though he quickly dropped “Octavianus”
  from his name and his contemporaries referred to him as “Caesar” during this
  period, historians refer to him as Octavian between
  44 BC and 27 BC.
• As part of his actions to strengthen his
  political ties to Caesar’s former soldiers, in 42 BC, following the deification of
  Caesar, Octavian added Divi
  Filius (Son of the Divine)
  to his name, becoming Gaius
  Julius Caesar Divi Filius.
• In 38 BC, Octavian replaced his praenomen “Gaius”
  and nomen “Julius”
  with Imperator, the title
  by which troops hailed their leader after military success,
  officially becoming Imperator
  Caesar Divi Filius
• In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark
  Antony and Cleopatra,
  the Roman
  Senate voted new
  titles for him, officially becoming Imperator
  Caesar Divi Filius Augustus. It is the events of 27 BC from which he
  obtained his traditional name of Augustus,
  which historians use in reference from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.

Early life

While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri,
approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) 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 nameGaius 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 Velletri 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
after that time, Caesar 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.

Rise to power

Heir to Caesar

The Death of Caesar, by Jean-Léon
Gérôme (1867).
On 15 March 44 BC, Octavius’s adoptive father Julius Caesar was
assassinated by a conspiracy led by Marcus
Junius Brutus and Gaius
Cassius Longinus

At the time Caesar
was killed on the Ides
of March (15 March) 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 whether 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
nameOctavianus, as it would have made his modest origins too obvious.

Despite the fact that he never officially bore the name Octavianus,
however, 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.

A statue of Augustus as a younger Octavian, dated ca. 30 BC

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. During the summer
he managed to win support from Caesarian sympathizers, however, 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.

First conflict with
Antony

Bust of Augustus in Musei
Capitolini, Rome

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 already was 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 also was
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 43 BC,
Antony’s forces were defeated at the battles of Forum
Gallorum and Mutina,
forcing Antony to retreat to Transalpine
Gaul. Both consuls were killed, however, leaving Octavian in sole
command of their armies.

After heaping many more rewards on Decimus Brutus than on 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.

Second Triumvirate

Proscriptions

Roman aureus bearing
the portraits ofMark
Antony (left)
and Octavian (right), issued in 41 BC to celebrate the establishment
of the Second
Triumvirate by
Octavian, Antony and Marcus
Lepidus in
43 BC. Both sides bear the inscription “III VIR R P C”, meaning “One
of Three Men for the Regulation of the Republic”.

In a meeting near Bologna in
October 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 unofficialFirst
Triumvirate formed by Gnaeus
Pompey Magnus, Julius
Caesar, and Marcus
Licinius Crassus. The
triumvirs then set in motion proscriptions in
which 300 senators and 2,000 equites,
allegedly 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 the salaries of their troops 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
among Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian. For example, Octavian allowed the
proscription of his ally Cicero,
Antony the proscription of his maternal uncle Lucius
Julius Caesar (the consul
of 64 BC), and Lepidus his brother Paullus.

A denarius minted
c. 18 BC. Obverse: CAESAR AVGVSTVS; reverse: DIVVS IVLIV[S] (DIVINE
JULIUS)

Battle of Philippi and division of territory

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 42, the Caesarian army was victorious and Brutus and Cassius committedsuicide.
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.

Rebellion and
marriage alliances

Widespread dissatisfaction with Octavian over these settlements of his soldiers
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. Lucius and Fulvia took a
political and martial gamble in opposing Octavian, however, 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. Octavian
showed no mercy, however, 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
also was 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, ironically,
was 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 their 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.
This new conflict proved untenable for both Octavian and Antony, however. 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).

War with Pompeius

A denarius of Sextus
Pompeius, minted for his victory over Octavian’s fleet,
on the obverse the Pharus of Messina,
who defeated Octavian, on the reverse, the monster Scylla

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. Antony’s additional support to attack Pompeius, became a necessity
to Octavian, however, 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. Octavian
sent only a tenth the number of those promised, however, 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. Lepidus’
troops deserted him, however, 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 effectively was exiled to a villa 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,
orsacrosanctitas.

War with Antony

Anthony and Cleopatra, by Lawrence
Alma-Tadema

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
already was 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 inAlexandria 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.

The Battle
of Actium, by Lorenzo Castro, painted 1672, National
Maritime Museum, London

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 spared only 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 was
taken by his soldiers back to Alexandria where he died in Cleopatra’s arms.
Cleopatra died soon after, reputedly by the venomous bite of an asp or
by poison. 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.

Octavian becomes
Augustus

Aureus
 of
Octavian, circa 30 BC, British
Museum

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.

First settlement

Augustus as a magistrate. The statue’s marble head was made c.
30–20 BC, the body sculpted in the 2nd century AD (Louvre,Paris).

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 introducingbills 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.

Bust of Augustus, wearing theCivic
Crown. Glyptothek, Munich.

On 16 January 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.”

Second settlement

By 23 BC, some of the implications of the settlement of 27 BC were becoming
apparent. Augustus’ holding of an annual consulate made his dominance over the
Roman political system too obvious, whilst at the same time halving the
opportunities for others to achieve what was still purported to be the head of
the Roman state. Further, his desire
to have his nephew Marcus
Claudius Marcellus follow
in his footsteps and eventually assume the Principate in his turn was causing
political problems and alienating his
three biggest supporters – Agrippa, Maecenas and Livia. Feeling
pressure from his own core group of adherents, Augustus turned to the Senate in
an attempt to bolster his support there, especially with the Republicans; after
his choice for co-consul in 23 BC, Aulus
Terentius Varro Murena died
before taking office he appointed the
noted Republican Calpurnius
Piso, who had fought against Julius Caesar and supported Cassius and
Brutus.

In the late spring Augustus suffered a severe illness, and on his supposed
deathbed made arrangements that would ensure the continuation of the Principate
in some form, whilst at the same time
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 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 an
obvious system of institutionalized imperial inheritance would have provoked
resistance and hostility amongst the republican-minded Romans fearful of
monarchy. With regards to the
Principate, it was obvious to Augustus that Marcellus was not ready to take on
his position; nonetheless, by giving
his signet ring to Agrippa, it was Augustus’ intent to signal to the legions
that Agrippa was to be his successor, and that no matter what the constitutional
rules were, they would continue to obey Agrippa.

The Blacas
Cameo showing
Augustus wearing a gorgoneionon
a three layered sardonyxcameo,
AD 20-50

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’, both
times to introduce his grandsons into public life. 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. When
he was 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 he would ordinarily have lost this power; he wanted to keep it, so imperium
proconsulare maius, or “power over all the proconsuls” was granted to
Augustus by the Senate. The existence
of imperium maius is
debated by scholars, and it is also argued that he was only granted imperium
aequum, or power equal to that of the governors, but his supreme influence
allowed him to control the affairs of the provinces.

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 tribunus
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.

The Via
Labicana Augustus—Augustus as Pontifex
Maximus.

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 legally 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.

Nevertheless, there were some who were concerned by the expansion of powers
granted to Augustus by the Second Settlement, and this came to a head with the
apparent conspiracy of Fannius Caepio and Lucius
Lucinius Varro Murena. In
early 22 BC, charges were brought against Marcus
Primus, the former proconsul (governor)
of Macedonia,
of waging a war on the Odrysian kingdom
of Thrace,
whose king was a Roman ally, without prior approval of the Senate. He
was defended by Murena, who told the trial that his client had received specific
instructions from Augustus, ordering him to attack the client state. Later,
Primus testified that the orders came from the recently deceased Marcellus.

Under the Constitutional settlement of 27 BC such orders, had they been given,
would have been considered a breach of the Senate’s prerogative, as Macedonia
was under the Senate’s jurisdiction, not that of the Princeps. Such an action
would have ripped away the veneer of Republican restoration as promoted by
Augustus, and exposed his fraud of merely being the first citizen, a first among
equals. Even worse, the involvement
of Marcellus provided some measure of proof that Augustus’s policy was to have
the youth take his place as Princeps, instituting a form of monarchy –
accusations that had already played out during the crisis of 23 BC.

The situation was so serious, that Augustus himself appeared at the trial, even
though he had not been called as a witness. Under oath, Augustus declared that
he gave no such order. Murena,
disbelieving Augustus’s testimony and resentful of his attempt to subvert the
trial by using hisauctoritas,
rudely demanded to know why Augustus had turned up to a trial to which he had
not been called; Augustus replied that he came in the public interest. Although
Primus was found guilty, some jurors voted to acquit, meaning that not everybody
believed Augustus’s testimony.

Then, sometime prior to 1 September 22 BC a certain Castricius provided Augustus
with information about a conspiracy led by Fannius Caepio against the Princeps. Murena
was named among the conspirators. Tried in absentia, with Tiberius acting
as prosecutor, the jury found the conspirators guilty, but it was not a
unanimous verdict. Sentenced to death
for treason, all the accused were executed as soon as they were captured without
ever giving testimony in their defence. Augustus
ensured that the facade of Republican government continued with an effective
cover-up of the events.

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 hold. This
seems to have assuaged the populace; regardless of whether or not Augustus was 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 been granted them by the
Senate. The civic crown, which later Emperors took to wearing, consular
insignia, and later the purple robes of a Triumphant general (toga
picta) became the imperial insignia well into the Byzantine era.

War and expansion

Extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus. The yellow legend
represents the extent of the Republic in 31 BC, the shades of green
represent gradually conquered territories under the reign of
Augustus, and pink areas on the map represent client
states; however, areas under Roman control shown here
were subject to change even during Augustus’ reign, especially in Germania.

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 Virgilattributes
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.

Bust of Tiberius,
a successful military commander under Augustus before he was
designated as his heir and successor.

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.

Muziris
 in
the Chera
Kingdom of Southern
India, as shown in the Tabula
Peutingeriana, with depiction of a “Temple of Augustus”
(“Templum Augusti”), an illustration of Indo-Roman
relations in
the period.

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.

Death and succession

A Roman aureus struck
under Augustus,c. AD
13–14; the reverse shows Tiberius
riding on a quadriga,
celebrating the fifteenth renewal of his tribunal power. At least
six potential heirs, including Agrippa and his sons, had expired or
proven incapable of succeeding Augustus, before he finally settled
on Tiberius in AD 9.

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.

The Mausoleum
of Augustus

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 (henceforth
referred to as Drusus) and Tiberius
Claudius (henceforth
Tiberius) granting them military commands and public office, though seeming to
favor Drusus. After Agrippa died in 12 BC, 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, as
well as a sense of envy and exclusion over Augustus’ apparent favouring of his
young grandchildren-turned-sons, Gaius and Lucius, who 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 deified Augustus hovers over Tiberius and other Julio-Claudians
in the Great
Cameo of France

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 birth father’s
death at Nola.
Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio wrote that Livia brought about Augustus’ death by
poisoning fresh figs, though this allegation remains unproven. 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.

Legacy

Laureate bust of Augustus

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. The Roman Senate wished subsequent emperors to “be
more fortunate than Augustus and better than Trajan“. Augustus 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 enduring 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.

Augustus in an Egyptian-style depiction, a stone carving of theKalabsha
Temple in Nubia.

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:

Fragment of a bronze equestrian statue of Augustus, 1st century AD

Intelligent people praised or criticized him in varying ways. One
opinion was as follows. Filial duty and a national emergency, in which
there was no place for law-abiding conduct, had driven him to civil
war—and this can neither be initiated nor maintained by decent methods.
He had made many concessions to Anthony and to Lepidus for the sake of
vengeance on his father’s murderers. When Lepidus grew old and lazy, and
Anthony’s self-indulgence got the better of him, the only possible cure
for the distracted country had been government by one man. However,
Augustus had put the state in order not by making himself king or
dictator, but by creating the Principate. The Empire’s frontiers were on
the ocean, or distant rivers. Armies, provinces, fleets, the whole
system was interrelated. Roman citizens were protected by the law.
Provincials were decently treated. Rome itself had been lavishly
beautified. Force had been sparingly used—merely to preserve peace for
the majority.

According to the second opposing opinion:

filial duty and national crisis had been merely pretexts. In actual
fact, the motive of Octavian, the future Augustus, was lust for
power … There had certainly been peace, but it was a blood-stained
peace of disasters and assassinations.

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:

“Opposites do not have to be mutually exclusive, and we are not obliged
to choose one or the other. The story of his career shows that Augustus
was indeed ruthless, cruel, and ambitious for himself. This was only in
part a personal trait, for upper-class Romans were educated to compete
with one another and to excel. However, he combined an overriding
concern for his personal interests with a deep-seated patriotism, based
on a nostalgia of Rome’s antique virtues. In his capacity asprinceps,
selfishness and selflessness coexisted in his mind. While fighting for
dominance, he paid little attention to legality or to the normal
civilities of political life. He was devious, untrustworthy, and
bloodthirsty. But once he had established his authority, he governed
efficiently and justly, generally allowed freedom of speech, and
promoted the rule of law. He was immensely hardworking and tried as hard
as any democratic parliamentarian
to treat his senatorial colleagues with respect and sensitivity. He
suffered from no delusions of grandeur.”

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”.

Revenue reforms

Coin of Augustus found at the Pudukottaihoard,
from an ancient
Tamil country,Pandyan
Kingdom of
present day Tamil
Naduin India. British
Museum

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.

Coin of the Himyarite Kingdom,
southern coast of the Arabian
peninsula. This is also an imitation of a coin of
Augustus. 1st century

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.

Month of August

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 is 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 (see Julian
calendar). 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.

Building projects

Close up on the sculpted detail of the<span class="Apple-converted-spa Ara
Pacis (Altar
of Peace), 13 BC to 9 BC

On his deathbed, Augustus boasted “I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one
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 thepraetorians,
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 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<span class="Apple-converted-spa 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.

The Temple of Augustus and Livia inVienne,
late 1st century BC

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
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.

Physical
appearance and official images

His biographer Suetonius,
writing about a century after Augustus’ death, described his appearance as:
“… unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life,
though he cared nothing for personal adornment. He was so far from being
particular about the dressing of his hair, that he would have several barbers
working in a hurry at the same time, and as for his beard he now had it clipped
and now shaved, while at the very same time he would either be reading or
writing something … 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 (although Julius Marathus, his
freedman and keeper of his records, says that he was five feet and nine inches
in height), 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. … “

His official images were very tightly controlled and idealized, drawing from a
tradition of Hellenistic royal
portraiture rather than the tradition of realism in Roman
portraiture. He first appeared on coins at
the age of 19, and from about 29 BC “the explosion in the number of Augustan
portraits attests a concerted propaganda campaign aimed at dominating all
aspects of civil, religious, economic and military life with Augustus’ person”. The
early images did indeed depict a young man, but although there were gradual
changes his images remained youthful until he died in his seventies, by which
time they had “a distanced air of ageless majesty”.

Augustus
(Latin:
IMPERATOR·CAESAR·DIVI·FILIVS·AVGVSTVS; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August
AD 14
), born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, was
adopted
by
his great-uncle
Julius Caesar
in 44 BC, and between then and 27 BC was officially named
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. After 27 BC, he was named 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.

He became the first
emperor
of the
Roman
Empire
, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. 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 as an
autocrat
, seizing consular power after the deaths of the consuls
Hirtius
and
Pansa
and having himself perpetually re-elected. 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 work out 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 his paramount
position. His rule through patronage, military power, and accumulation of the
offices of the defunct Republic became the model for all later imperial
government.

The rule of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the
Pax Romana
,
or Roman peace. Despite continuous frontier wars, and one
year-long civil war
over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world
remained at peace for more than two centuries. Augustus expanded the Roman
Empire, secured its boundaries 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 (and a small navy), established the
Praetorian Guard
, and created official police and fire-fighting forces 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 officially renamed August in his honour. He was succeeded by
his stepson and son-in-law,
Tiberiusrius
.