Augustus

Augustus dramatically enlarged the empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, and completing the conquest of Hispania, but he suffered a major setback in Germania.

[62][59] In addition, Octavian was granted imperium pro praetore 'commanding power' which legalized his command of troops, sending him to relieve the siege along with Hirtius and Pansa (the consuls for 43 BC).

[68] In July, an embassy of centurions sent by Octavian entered Rome and demanded the consulship left vacant by Hirtius and Pansa[69] and also that the decree should be rescinded which declared Antony a public enemy.

[74] This explicit arrogation of special powers lasting five years was then legalised by law passed by the plebs, unlike the unofficial First Triumvirate formed by Pompey, Julius Caesar, and Marcus Licinius Crassus.

[74] 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.

[88] Sextus Pompeius, the son of Pompey and still a renegade general, following Julius Caesar's victory over his father, had established himself in Sicily and Sardinia as part of an agreement reached with the Second Triumvirate in 39 BC.

[109][110] In early 31 BC, Antony and Cleopatra were temporarily stationed in Greece when Octavian gained a preliminary victory: the navy successfully ferried troops across the Adriatic Sea under the command of Agrippa.

Agrippa cut off Antony and Cleopatra's main force from their supply routes at sea, while Octavian landed on the mainland opposite the island of Corcyra (modern Corfu) and marched south.

[117][118] Octavian had previously shown little mercy to surrendered enemies 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'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.

Also, Octavian's control of entire provinces followed republican-era precedents for the objective of securing peace and creating stability, in which such prominent Romans as Pompey had been granted similar military powers in times of crisis and instability.

[153] Further, he was causing political problems by desiring to have his nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus follow in his footsteps and eventually assume the principate in his turn,[l] alienating his three greatest supporters: Agrippa, Maecenas, and Livia.

[156] He appointed noted republican Calpurnius Piso (who had fought against Julius Caesar and supported Cassius and Brutus[157]) as co-consul in 23 BC, after his choice Aulus Terentius Varro Murena died unexpectedly.

[158][159][160] In the late spring Augustus had a severe illness and on his supposed deathbed made arrangements that would ensure the continuation of the principate in some form,[154][161] while allaying senators' suspicions of his anti-republicanism.

[164] Augustus bestowed only properties and possessions to his designated heirs, as an obvious system of institutionalized imperial inheritance would have provoked resistance and hostility among the republican-minded Romans fearful of monarchy.

[172][173] In late 24 or early 23 BC, charges were brought against Marcus Primus, the former proconsul (governor) of Macedonia, for waging a war without prior approval of the Senate on the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace, whose king was a Roman ally.

The office of the tribunus plebis began to lose its prestige due to Augustus's amassing of tribunal powers, so he revived its importance by making it a mandatory appointment for any plebeian desiring the praetorship.

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.

[225] 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 AD 13 was awarded with his second triumph and equal level of imperium with that of Augustus.

He certainly fell out of Augustus's favour as an heir; the historian Erich S. Gruen notes various contemporary sources that state Agrippa Postumus was a "vulgar young man, brutal and brutish, and of depraved character".

[234][235] This element features in many modern works of historical fiction pertaining to Augustus's life, but some historians view it as likely to have been a salacious fabrication made by those who had favoured Postumus as heir, or other political enemies of Tiberius.

Augustus's health had been in decline in the months immediately before his death, and he had made significant preparations for a smooth transition in power, having at last reluctantly settled on Tiberius as his choice of heir.

[246] The Res Gestae is the only work to have survived from antiquity, though Augustus is also known to have composed poems entitled "Sicily", "Epiphanus", and "Ajax", an autobiography of 13 books, a philosophical treatise, and a written rebuttal to Brutus's Eulogy of Cato.

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.

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.

[238] 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.

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.

According to a senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, Sextilis was renamed to honour Augustus because several of the most significant events in his rise to power, culminating in the fall of Alexandria, fell in that month.

[283] His biographer Suetonius, writing about a century after Augustus's death, described his appearance as: "... unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life, though he cared nothing for personal adornment.

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's person.

Denarius from 44 BC, showing Julius Caesar on the obverse and the goddess Venus on the reverse of the coin. Caption: CAESAR IMP. M. / L. AEMILIVS BVCA
The Death of Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini . On 15 March 44 BC, Octavian's adoptive father Julius Caesar was assassinated by a conspiracy led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus . Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna , Rome.
A bust of Augustus as a younger Octavian, dated c. 30 BC . Capitoline Museums , Rome
Aureus bearing the portraits of Mark Antony (left) and Octavian (right), issued in 41 BC to celebrate the establishment of the Second Triumvirate . Both sides bear the inscription III vir rpc , meaning 'One of Three Men for the regulation of the Republic'. Caption: m ant imp aug [ e ] IIIvir rpc m barbat q p [ f ] / caesar imp pont IIIvir rpc .
A denarius minted c. 18 BC . Obverse: CAESAR AVGVSTVS ; reverse: comet of eight rays with tail upward; DIVVS IVLIV[S] 'divine Julius'.
Fresco paintings inside the House of Augustus , his residence during his reign as emperor
A denarius of Sextus Pompeius , minted for his victory over Octavian's fleet. Obverse: the place where he defeated Octavian, Pharus of Messina decorated with a statue of Neptune; before that galley adorned with aquila, sceptre & trident; MAG. PIVS IMP. ITER . Reverse, the monster Scylla , her torso of dogs and fish tails, wielding a rudder as a club. Caption: PRAEF[ECTUS] CLAS[SIS] ET ORAE MARIT[IMAE] EX S. C.
Antony and Cleopatra , by Lawrence Alma-Tadema
This mid-1st-century BC Roman wall painting in the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus, Pompeii , is most likely a depiction of Cleopatra VII of Ptolemaic Egypt as Venus Genetrix , with her son Caesarion as Cupid , similar in appearance to the now-lost statue of Cleopatra erected by Julius Caesar in the Temple of Venus Genetrix (within the Forum of Caesar ). Its owner walled off the room with this painting, most likely in immediate reaction to the execution of Caesarion on orders of Augustus in 30 BC, when artistic depictions of Caesarion would have been considered a sensitive issue for the ruling regime. [ 111 ] [ 112 ]
Aureus of Octavian, c. 30 BC , British Museum
Octavian as a magistrate. The statue's marble head was made c. 30–20 BC , the body sculpted in the 2nd century AD ( Louvre , Paris)
Aureus minted c. AD 13 , marked: Caesar Augustus Divi F Pater Patriae
The Arch of Augustus in Rimini ( Ariminum ), dedicated to Augustus by the Roman Senate in 27 BC, is one of the oldest preserved arches in Italy. [ 150 ]
Portraits of Augustus show the emperor with idealized features.
The Blacas Cameo showing Augustus wearing a gorgoneion on a three layered sardonyx cameo, AD 20–50
Augustus as Jupiter , holding a scepter and orb (first half of the 1st century AD)
Head of Augustus as pontifex maximus , Roman artwork of the late Augustan period, last decade of the 1st century BC
A colossal statue of Augustus from the Augusteum of Herculaneum , seated and wearing a laurel wreath
Bust of Augustus wearing the Civic Crown , at Glyptothek , Munich
Bust of Tiberius , a successful military commander under Augustus who was designated as his heir and successor
Muziris in the Chera Kingdom of Southern India , as shown in the Tabula Peutingeriana , with depiction of a temple of Augustus ( Templum Augusti )
Der siegreich vordringende Hermann (The Victorious Advancing Hermann ), depiction of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest , by Peter Janssen , 1873
Augustus in a copper engraving by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri. From the book Romanorum Imperatorum effigies (1583), preserved in the Municipal Library of Trento (Italy)
The deified Augustus hovers over Tiberius and other Julio-Claudians in the Great Cameo of France .
The Mausoleum of Augustus restored, 2021
The Virgin Mary and Child, the prophetess Sibyl Tivoli bottom left and the emperor Augustus in the bottom right, from the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry . The likeness of Augustus is that of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos . [ 242 ]
The Augustus cameo at the center of the Medieval Cross of Lothair
Augustus as Roman pharaoh in an Egyptian-style depiction, a stone carving of the Kalabsha Temple in Nubia
Coin of Augustus found at the Pudukottai hoard, from an ancient Tamil country , Pandyan Kingdom of present-day Tamil Nadu in India, a testimony to Indo-Roman trade . British Museum . Caption: AVGVSTVS DIVI F[ILIVS] . (The vertical slice, not part of the original design, was likely an old test cut to make sure the coin was solid rather than a fourrée .)
1st-century coin from the Himyarite Kingdom located in the southern Arabian Peninsula . It is also an imitation of a coin of Augustus.
Sculpted detail of the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), 13–9 BC
The Temple of Augustus and Livia in Vienne , late 1st century BC
The veiled head of Emperor Augustus, 1st century BC, National Archaeological Museum of the Marche Region