best biography of augustus caesar

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History Books » Ancient History (up to 500)

The best books on augustus, recommended by peter wiseman.

The House of Augustus: A Historical Detective Story by Peter Wiseman

Is it possible that Augustus was not the first Roman emperor, but the last of Rome's great populist champions? That's what classicist Peter Wiseman argues in his book, The House of Augustus: A Historical Detective Story. Drawing on a lifetime of research and writing on this period, the emeritus professor of classics and ancient history gives a brilliant overview of the Augustan age, and recommends what to read to better understand the adopted son of Julius Caesar, who found Rome in brick and left it in marble.

Interview by Sophie Roell , Editor

Catiline’s War, The Jugurthine War, Histories Sallust (trans. AJ Woodman)

Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary by Alison Cooley (editor) & Augustus

Rome's Cultural Revolution by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome by J. Bert Lott

Augustan Culture by Karl Galinsky

1 Catiline’s War, The Jugurthine War, Histories Sallust (trans. AJ Woodman)

2 res gestae divi augusti: text, translation, and commentary by alison cooley (editor) & augustus, 3 rome's cultural revolution by andrew wallace-hadrill, 4 the neighborhoods of augustan rome by j. bert lott, 5 augustan culture by karl galinsky.

B efore we get to the books you’ve chosen, I wanted to ask you who Augustus was. I believe he was born Gaius Octavius, that he was the great nephew of Julius Caesar , and that he was in power for about 30 years until 14 AD. I also thought he was the first Roman emperor, but that’s something you disagree with, is that right?

That oligarchy was determined to destroy Julius Caesar. At first they failed, because he led a civil war against them and won. After the war was over they did succeed, by assassinating him. Then his great-nephew (and now adopted son), the young man who later became Augustus, took over the people’s cause against them.

He was born Gaius Octavius, but importantly by the terms of Caesar’s will he becomes ‘Caesar’ himself. Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 BC. In 43 BC, the young Caesar and two colleagues (Antony and Lepidus) were empowered by the Roman people as ‘Triumvirs’ to take vengeance on the assassins, which they did at the battle of Philippi in 42 BC. But even after the deaths of Brutus and Cassius, the remainder of the oligarchy fought on and there were ongoing civil wars until 36 BC. By that time, the young Caesar was calling himself Imperator Caesar , ‘Commander Caesar’, in the sense of being in command as the people’s champion, just as Julius Caesar had been.

Then came the quarrel between him and Antony, who had been on the same side, and that became a power struggle. The last of the civil wars only finished in 30 BC. Antony by then was in alliance with Cleopatra, who had intended to invade Italy but never got the chance. So Commander Caesar made war on Cleopatra’s Egypt, Antony tried to defend it, they failed, and Alexandria fell to the Romans.

Ptolemaic Alexandria was one of the richest kingdoms in the world. One of the consequences of its fall was that the young Caesar, still only 32 years old, was now not only the people’s champion—having defeated the oligarchs who had murdered his adoptive father—but also the great victor who had conquered the last of the Hellenistic kingdoms. He’d taken over the treasury of one of the world’s wealthiest states, and so controlled huge resources for public spending in Rome. That became what we call ‘the Augustan age.’

“Augustus himself, like his great-uncle and adoptive father Julius Caesar, was primarily a populist politician”

This popular champion wanted the republic to be back in the people’s control. In 27 BC, he formally gave up the emergency powers he’d had during the civil war—what we might call martial law—and returned all proper powers to the Senate and People of Rome (SPQR). Now that the oligarchy had been defeated, the republic resumed. But what the Roman people were effectively saying was, ‘We need you to be Caesar. We need you to be our man, to make sure the restored republic is run the way we want it and the oligarchy don’t come back.’ So they empowered him: they gave him formal military authority for a renewable 10-year period, but only over the places around the Empire where serious warfare was going on.

Modern historians tend to say, ‘Right, at this point he becomes an emperor.’ On the contrary: he got power within a limited area for a limited period. His informal authority was of course much greater, and nobody knew, in 27 BC, that his formal power was going to be renewed again and again, that Commander Caesar—who was now Commander Caesar Augustus —was going to live on for another 40 years, and that his successors were going to become what we rightly call emperors. So, that’s a pretty complicated thing to have to explain, but that’s why I say no, he wasn’t an emperor. He was the man who restored the republic, and he controlled those enormous resources, so huge amounts of public money were poured into Rome. All sorts of big public spending programs were put in place, which was exactly what the Roman people wanted.

Most politics is about public spending. You should have a lot of it, say the left; you should have as little as possible, say the right. Where does the money come from? In our world it has to come from taxation, but in their world it came from successful conquest. The newly-named Augustus had just done the most profitable conquest in Rome’s history, and he had money to burn.

I don’t think anybody even conceived of the idea of an ‘emperor’ at that point. And certainly—this is the point of my book—he didn’t live in a palace. Nobody expected him to live in a palace. Far from it: the people who lived in palatial houses were precisely the aristocratic oligarchs he had just defeated. He had a respectably modest house on the Palatine, and what he spent the money on was creating public works, including grand projects like the temple of Apollo and its portico.

So where does this idea of Augustus as the first emperor come from? Does it come from Suetonius and later historians?

You’re right to mention Suetonius, because he wrote this brilliant biographical work, very useful for the modern historian and very influential, called The Twelve Caesars . He begins with Julius Caesar, but don’t forget he was writing more than 150 years later, under Hadrian. His twelve Caesars go from Julius through to Domitian. Like everybody in his time, Suetonius saw that sequence as the first dynasty of what had by then, in the early second century AD, become the system of emperors succeeding each other that had been the norm for more than a century.

People get things wrong when they don’t try to think themselves into the contemporary evidence. If you’re looking back from where Suetonius was, it was clear, as he saw it, that the republic had come to an end in the civil wars. The emperors—Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero and so on—were the successors of Augustus, in that they had inherited his power and authority. So it was natural to assume that he was an emperor too. But that’s not the case.

Augustus was empowered by the Roman people over a period of 40 years. At the time nobody thought of him as an emperor, because the concept didn’t yet exist. His unique personal authority, which had no precedent, eventually became a dynastic monarchy some time around the turn of the millennium. By then Augustus was 63, a decent age for the ancient world, and the Romans—who, thanks to him, had been living in peace and prosperity for two decades or more—were beginning to get anxious. What happens when the old guy dies? They wanted a successor; they needed another Caesar. We think ‘Caesar’ means ‘emperor’, but it doesn’t. Caesar is a personal name, the family name of the Julii.

“Nobody thought of him as an emperor, because the concept didn’t yet exist”

You mentioned how we should be looking at the contemporary evidence. On that note, shall we turn to the first of the books you’ve chosen to understand Augustus? This is by Sallust, Catiline’s War, The Jugurthine War, Histories : translated with an introduction and notes by A.J. Woodman (2007). Sallust is, I believe, the earliest Roman historian of whom substantial works survive. He was also a senator. Can you explain why he’s important?

Sallust—Gaius Sallustius Crispus—is interesting because he was indeed a senator, and one who was what we would call ‘left wing’ or, in Roman terms, a popularis . As a young politician he had been ‘tribune of the plebs’, the representative of popular sovereignty. In 52 BC, just three years before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, another famous popularis , Clodius, had been murdered on the Appian Way. They brought his body to Rome, and there was a very, very tense situation. The oligarchs thought the murder of Clodius was a heroic act; the Roman people were absolutely furious. They rioted and burned down the senate house. Sallust was tribune at that very time, and had to organize the trial for the murderer of Clodius and make sure he was condemned. It was very difficult to do, but he did it.

“Sallust was what we would call ‘left wing’ or, in Roman terms, a popularis ”

Later he served under Caesar, but ingloriously: as governor in north Africa he was clearly lining his own pocket, and was disgraced. So his political career was not particularly distinguished. At the beginning of his first historical work he says, ‘I’ve been in politics and it’s totally corrupt. Now I’ve got out of it, I have an absolutely neutral position. I can be fair to both sides.’

Sallust started his monographs on recent history in 42 or 41 BC, just at the time when the triumvirs, including the future Augustus, had been empowered by the Roman people to make war on Brutus and Cassius and destroy them.

Catiline’s War , his first work, is about an event that took place 20 years earlier, but was an early example of a mini-civil war growing out of the ideological struggle between the haves and have-nots. Catiline made out that he was the leader of the Roman people against the oligarchs. He was a pretty thuggish, cynical character himself, as Sallust makes clear. That’s one of the things he is able to bring out, that while you can deplore Catiline’s character, at the same time you can equally deplore what he and his friends were reacting against. It’s quite a subtle argument.

Eventually there was a kind of peasants’ revolt in Italy. Catiline left Rome and put himself at the head of it. Sallust writes about the final battle, with Catiline commanding a group of self-armed rustics. Some of them were veterans, and still had some weapons and armor, but most of them were armed with pitchforks. But at the end, he says, not one of those men was found with wounds in the back. They stood and fought together, because they were desperate.

Also, right in the middle of Catiline’s War , you have a wonderful double character-sketch of Julius Caesar, the champion of the populares , and Marcus Cato, who was his great opponent, what we might call the moral figurehead of the oligarchy. Sallust is very, very even-handed about the two of them.

So I think he’s absolutely right when he says he’s not taking sides. At the time he was writing, the issue was still open. Nobody knew then that Antony and the young Caesar would succeed in defeating Brutus and Cassius at Philippi.

Later, Sallust moved on to his second big work, The Jugurthine War . This was a war that had happened about 60-70 years before Sallust’s own time, in what we would call the late 2nd century BC. He says, right at the beginning, after a generalizing preface, that he’s decided to write The Jugurthine War partly because it’s an exciting story with lots of ups and downs, but also because this was the moment when the first challenge was made against the arrogance of the aristocracy. He says that the effect of that arrogance, and the popular reaction to it, was the polarized politics that had been so disastrous that even in his own time there were still civil wars and devastation in Italy. This second monograph probably dates to 41 BC, when there was indeed a mini-civil war in Italy in which the city of Perugia was destroyed.

Sallust is writing as an ex-senator, but also as a historian, consciously trying to be fair to both sides. At the same time, he is absolutely clear that the responsibility for the corruption of the republic and the decline into civil war lies mainly with the oligarchy.

“Most politics is about public spending. Where does the money come from? In our world it has to come from taxation, but in their world it came from successful conquest”

So these are Sallust’s two surviving works. In both monographs, Sallust has little digressions in which he explains what it was all about, and how things had come to pass. In Catiline’s War , he says that ‘our ancestors in the early republic were formidable fighters and men of honour. They spent their money, such as they had, on honouring the gods.’ Then, in what we call the 2nd century BC, you get the beginnings of empire and the conquest of major powers. He dates this to 146, when the city of Carthage was finally destroyed in the third and last of the Carthaginian Wars. Once Carthage had gone, the Romans weren’t afraid of anyone, according to Sallust. They didn’t think that anybody could ever challenge them, and so they become complacent and arrogant. That led to all sorts of other vices, which is how he explains the origin of the corrupt aristocracy.

Let me read you a bit:

“Hence it was the desire for money first of all, and then for empire, which grew; and those factors were the kindling, so to speak, of every wickedness. For avarice undermined trust, probity and all other good qualities; instead it taught men arrogance, cruelty, neglect of the gods and to regard everything as for sale.”

So he sees the very success of the Roman republic as bringing about the creation of a ruling clique who simply thought that the world was theirs, that they were entitled to it and could exploit it for themselves, not only abroad but also at home.

What the oligarchy did—we’re still in the 2nd century BC now—was privatize public assets and in particular public land. That meant throwing out small farmers in order to create great estates for themselves. When, in 131 BC, a tribune of the plebs called Tiberius Gracchus protested against this and brought in legislation to prevent it, they beat him to death in a public assembly. No one was brought to trial for it.

“Sallust is a neglected author, but uniquely important if you want to understand what Caesar was all about”

That was the origin of polarized politics between what we would call the right and the left. The left in Roman terms were the populares , traditionalists who wanted the republic to belong to the people as a whole. The optimates , which means ‘the best people’, were the aristocrats, the oligarchs. They think, ‘No, we’ll run the republic on our terms because we know better.’ They got away with it, and that was the beginning of the downfall of the republic. It led to a polarized, partisan politics that was simply uncontrollable. Once you get away with murder—as the oligarchs did with Tiberius Gracchus—the next stage is invading the country. That happened in 88 BC, when Lucius Sulla solved a political dispute by bringing his army into Rome and making himself dictator.

The reason I chose Sallust is because he is a neglected author, but uniquely important if you want to understand what Caesar was all about, and therefore what Augustus, Caesar’s adopted son and heir, was all about too.

The late republic is a period we know incredibly well—better than any other period in the whole of the history of the ancient world—because we have an astonishing number of surviving works of Cicero. It’s not only huge amounts of his correspondence, which is a very rare thing from the ancient world, but also large numbers of his law court speeches and political speeches and a fair number of his philosophical dialogues. We know Cicero, who was a slightly older contemporary of Sallust, extraordinarily well. And although Cicero started off as a popularis when he was a young senator making his way, he moved steadily to the right. Every sense of what politics is about that we get from Cicero’s works—and I repeat, they are hugely voluminous and hugely influential—takes for granted the optimate position. He was one of the oligarchs himself. Not one of the brutal ones (he was a very civilized man), but he took it for granted that the right of the political spectrum was the right place to be.

Let’s move on to your second choice, also a contemporary text, which is Res Gestae Divi Augusti : with text, translation and commentary by Alison E. Cooley. This is a funerary inscription that Augustus wrote himself, is that right?

No, not funerary. He wrote it knowing that he didn’t have long to live, but it’s not specifically to do with his funeral. There would of course have been a funeral speech at the time, but that’s lost. What we happen to have is this text that Augustus chose to compose, probably six months to a year before he died. He wanted to set out his res gestae , a list of his achievements, and that’s what we have.

We know it from a copy—both in the original Latin and in a Greek translation—that was inscribed on the walls of a temple at Ancyra (modern Ankara) in the province of Galatia (now central Turkey) and discovered and transcribed in the 16th century. Originally, the Res Gestae was designed to be inscribed on to bronze columns placed in front of Augustus’s monumental tomb on the Campus Martius in Rome.

And it includes the famous quote, about how he exceeded others in influence, but had no greater power.

If you look at the inscription, what he says right at the beginning, the very first thing he wants us to know, is this:

“Aged 19 years old, I mustered an army at my personal decision and at my personal expense, and with it I liberated the republic, which had been oppressed by a despotic faction … In this same year,” he continues (which is 43 BC), “the people appointed me consul, after both consuls had fallen in war, and Triumvir for settling the state.”

So the point he wants us to get immediately is that on his own initiative he liberated the republic from a ‘despotic faction’, by which he means the oligarchy. Much later, in the penultimate chapter (34), he writes:

“In my 6th and 7th consulship”—that’s 28 to 27 BC—“after I had put an end to civil wars, although by everyone’s agreement I had power over everything, I transferred the republic from my power into the control of the Roman Senate and People. For this service I was named Augustus by senatorial decree, and the doorposts of my house were publicly clothed with laurels, and a civic crown was fastened above my doorway, and a golden shield was put up in the Julian senate house. Through an inscription on the shield, the fact was declared that the Roman senators and people were giving it to me because of my valour, clemency, justice and piety. After this time, I excelled everyone in influence but I had no more power than the others, who were my colleagues in each magistracy.”

You can see what he’s doing. He’s saying, ‘Look, my position was absolutely unique. I put an end to the civil wars and then, when they were over, I made a conscious, formal transfer of power back to the Senate and People of Rome, where it belongs. The republic was thereby restored. After that, I excelled everyone in influence, because I had what you might call unofficial authority, but no more legal power than any of my colleagues in other magistracies at any given time.’ Because after 27 BC, he was elected consul again and again.

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Many modern historians, especially academics, have what I think of as a knee-jerk cynicism. We live in a pretty privileged and self-enclosed world, but our subject matter is the world of high politics and high drama. It’s very tempting for academics to want to say, ‘Well yes, of course that’s what he says , but we know better, don’t we? We understand, we can see through it.’ So people have always been tempted to say, ‘This is what Augustus said. This is what he wanted people to believe. But we don’t want to believe it.’

“Many modern historians, especially academics, have what I think of as a knee-jerk cynicism”

My feeling is, ‘You don’t have to believe it. But in that case you’d better have pretty good evidence to show that it’s false.’ And that’s the point: there is no evidence that shows that it’s false. On the contrary, the evidence of contemporaries, much of which is in poetry (that’s just the accident of the survival of texts), is unanimously favourable. They certainly didn’t think of him as a despot. They thought of him as the ruler of Rome in a way, but not in any formal sense. He was simply the man who had earned this position of de facto authority.

The republic was still there; he was just the most influential person in the republic. That was why the term that Augustus used for himself was ‘ princeps .’ This wasn’t a new term. It was one traditionally used: the principes rei publicae were the chief men of the republic.

Well, it’ll be quite fun for people to make up their own minds about Augustus, based on the arguments and archaeological evidence laid out in your book, The House of Augustus: A Historical Detective Story . When did you first become sceptical and decide that that you weren’t going to accept the prevailing view?

I don’t know. I think it’s been coming on gradually over the years. Way back in the late 80s, I was writing for The Cambridge Ancient History , which is a huge, multi-volume work that tries to cover the entire ancient world. I was asked to do two chapters on the 60s and 50s BC, that critical bit of the late republic before the civil wars break out. Narrative history is something that classicists don’t often write—I certainly hadn’t. But for something as formal as a narrative history, I was thinking pretty hard. How do I do this? And obviously you go to the primary sources and immerse yourself in them. You try to work out from first principles what was likely to have been happening.

That was the point when I first started realizing that most of the narrative history about the late republic is prejudicially weighted towards the ‘optimate’ point of view, which as I said earlier is largely the effect of people internalizing the way Cicero saw things. Cicero was an honest man, but his correspondence contains some pretty contemptuous comments about the Roman people. He thought they were the scum of the earth. That was when I started thinking that the populares had had a pretty raw deal in the way the late republic has been portrayed.

I’ve also always been interested in the city of Rome, ever since I was first a graduate student and had the good fortune to spend a year at the British School at Rome. This was in 1962-63, and there’s a sense in which the legend about the Trevi fountain is right: you throw your coin in and it means you come back. The city of Rome is an addictive drug. Once you’ve been, and you’ve had enough time to immerse yourself in it and feel your way around, if you’re at all interested in history it becomes a never-ending obsession.

So I was interested in the ancient city and got involved with its topography. The archaeology is difficult to work out, because you can’t systematically excavate a city that has been continuously occupied for 2,000 years. So the particular places where excavation is possible because they’ve never been built on—the Forum and the Palatine—become disproportionately important.

For a long time I simply believed what people said about the house Gianfilippo Carettoni excavated in the late 50s and 60s. He identified it as the house of Augustus, and I assumed he was right. There’s plenty of stuff published by me which assumes that, and indeed discusses it as the ‘house of Augustus’, how one approached it and so on. So anyone who wants to attack my current book by saying ‘this isn’t what you used to say’ is perfectly right. But I take the view that scholarship is cumulative, and there are many things that I believe I understand better now than I did 30 years ago. I don’t have any hang-ups about changing my mind.

I began thinking about the Palatine site, and how short a time the Augustine Palatine lasted. Augustus created his Palatine from 36 BC through to about 28. It was a period of less than a decade in which he redeveloped the Palatine, destroying several of the aristocrats’ posh houses and replacing them with this huge public-works complex of the piazza, the Apollo temple and the porticos behind it. Then in AD 64, a century later, it was all destroyed in the great fire. What was then built on the tabula rasa of the Palatine was Nero’s palace. Not that he had long to enjoy it: it was the Flavians, his successors, who really developed the palace. The remains of it are what you’re walking on when you go to the Palatine now.

“Everyone had got the Apollo temple facing the wrong way”

It’s very, very difficult to visualize not only what the republican Palatine was like, but even what the Augustan Palatine was like. The name Palatium came to mean ‘palace’, and so we think of it as always and necessarily the palace of the Caesars, the palace of the emperors.

It was sometime in 2011 or 2012 that I was talking to Amanda Claridge, an expert archaeologist whom I knew from the British School a long time ago, and she was trying to persuade me that everyone had got the Apollo temple facing the wrong way. At first I thought, ‘I can’t really believe this.’ But we got into an ongoing conversation and I came to realize that she was quite right.

The corollary of that is that I also came to realize that the supposed ‘house of Augustus’—which Carettoni believed was connected with the temple of Apollo, and the two buildings could only be understood as a complex—was nonsense. It didn’t work. The evidence implies that the Apollo temple faced out on to the summit of the hill, where the piazza must have been, and the portico was behind it. The house of Augustus must have been somewhere else.

And we should know where the house of Augustus was, because one of the big post-Neronian palace complexes, what is nowadays called ‘the Flavian palace’, was actually called domus Augustana in the ancient world. So it must have been on the site of the original house of Augustus.

Another stimulus for the book came in 2014, which was the bimillenary of Augustus’s death. I was invited to give a talk at the University of Lisbon, which was having a big Augustus conference, and I gave what in the book becomes chapter one. I called it ‘Augustus and the Roman people’, and I set out my ideas about Augustus as a popularis . The people at the conference were pretty sceptical, but the more I thought about this, the more the two arguments that had been going on in the back of my mind all this time—the political one about Augustus as a popularis , and the archaeological one about Carettoni’s house not really being Augustus’s house at all—fitted together with each other.

It was also because, as Carettoni’s house was further explored, it was revealed as demonstrably ‘palatial’. It had two grand matching peristyle colonnades, and a frontage of about 150 meters. It was a huge building. When Carettoni started he’d only excavated a bit of it and it looked quite modest. That’s one of the reasons he thought it was Augustus’s house—because we know from Suetonius that his house was modest. Now that didn’t work.

We should go on to the next book. This is by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (2008).

Andrew’s a good friend, and this is a terrific book. He called it Rome’s Cultural Revolution in deliberate allusion to the great masterpiece of Roman history written by Ronald Syme in 1939, called The Roman Revolution . That was an account of Augustus’s rise to power, a very political story, and Syme had absolutely no time at all for the idea that Augustus might have been a popular champion. On the contrary, for Syme he was a dangerous demagogue with paramilitaries at his back. But Syme was writing at the time of Hitler and Mussolini, and he knew what demagogues with paramilitaries behind them looked like. That’s another story, which I talk about a bit in chapter 10 of The House of Augustus. But because The Roman Revolution was such a hugely influential book—certainly for my generation but also later on—Andrew alluded to it in his title.

His line, which he works out brilliantly I think, is that politics is not enough. There was a revolution in the way Rome became a different kind of place. In 100 BC Rome was still a city-state among other city-states in Italy. It was a disproportionately powerful one and had all kinds of political power over its ‘allies’ elsewhere in Italy, but it was still only one city-state among others. A hundred years later Rome was a world empire.

That change is not only political, it’s a cultural change as well, and that’s what Andrew wants to explore. The book is a wide-ranging account of the cultural background of Augustan Rome, as it had developed over two centuries in creative interaction both with Greek culture and with that the of other Italian peoples and their languages.

In particular, the reason I like the book is because in 2 BC, one of the great moments of the Augustan principate, when the Senate and People of Rome were conspicuously acting in consensus after two generations of being at each other’s throats, they hailed him as pater patriae : ‘father of the country’, ‘father of the native land’. It’s an honorific title, of course, but what is the patria ? Is it Rome? No, it’s not. It’s Italy, because by now the whole of Italy had Roman citizenship.

That had happened two generations earlier, during what’s called the Social War. Socius mean ‘ally’ in Latin, so the bellum sociale is the War of the Allies against Rome. Roman power in Italy had depended largely on alliances with other notionally independent city-states, but they got more and more dissatisfied with the way Rome arrogantly assumed it could simply take their manpower and use it for overseas conquests without giving anything significant back. They rose in rebellion against Rome in 90 BC, and it was a very nasty war. The only way the Romans got out of it was by immediately conceding Roman citizenship to the whole of Italy. Against the background of all that, what Andrew does is look at the evidence of material culture. As an ex-Director of the British School at Rome, he’s a master of the archaeological record.

What you get in his book is a brilliant analysis of the independent life and culture of various Italian cities. It’s part of what ancient historians have called ‘hellenization’: the influence of Greek culture around the rest of the ancient world. Of course, that’s something everyone has known about for years; a famous example is the hellenization of what we call the Middle East as a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great. That’s back in the 4th century BC. But there was also the hellenization of the western Mediterranean, which starts a lot earlier than most people think, and applies in many different ways. Some places were much more hellenized than others, and the way each of these individual city-states in Italy developed during the fourth, third, second, even into the first century BC, was unique to itself.

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Then, in the first century BC, suddenly all these places were technically Roman. They all now had Roman citizenship, because it had become so desirable and they’d fought a great war in order to get it. Two generations later, one of the things that Augustus had to do—quite apart from healing the wounds of polarized politics in Rome itself—was to make sense of an Italy which was now a coherent entity for the first time. He was ‘the father of the native land’, and that native land was Italy itself.

The great literary statement of Augustan Rome, Virgil’s Aeneid , is all about the arrival of Aeneas and his Trojans after the fall of Troy, not specifically to Rome—Rome itself hardly comes into it—but to Italy. Virgil himself came from northern Italy, what we would now call the Veneto. So you have this concept of a city-state first dominating its neighbours and then morphing over a couple of generations into ‘Italy’ in the way we now understand the term, a kind of nation-state with a single citizenship.

“The way scholarship works, people are tempted to be specialists in literature, specialists in political history, specialists in archaeology, specialists in ancient religion. That’s great, but not if the specialists then never talk to each other and never look sideways”

During the desperate times of the late republic there was no time for any cultural assimilation to take place. What Andrew argues is not that the cultural revolution is different from the political revolution. It’s not that it’s the same thing as the political revolution, either. The two things were happening simultaneously and independently, but you can’t understand one without the other.

It’s a way of understanding the Augustan age that broadens the question out, and also helps to overcome a constant danger in academic studies, namely specialization. In the nature of things, the way scholarship works, people are tempted to be specialists in literature, specialists in political history, specialists in archaeology, specialists in ancient religion. That’s great, but not if the specialists then never talk to each other and never look sideways. The great thing about Andrew Wallace-Hadrill is that he has a mastery of several of these fields, and knows what these different subsets of scholarship are about. He can make them talk to each other and create a coherent narrative that makes sense at a cultural level.

Let’s move on to the next of the books you’ve chosen about Augustus and his time. This is by J. Bert Lott, The Neighbourhoods of Augustan Rome .

If Wallace-Hadrill shows us what the Augustan age was like for people who could afford posh furniture and read books in Greek, Lott’s book does the same for the common people of the city of Rome. Although the book is very technical, and on a very specific, quite limited subject area, it’s important because it gets you into the streets of Rome. It gets you into the world of the people of Rome, whom Augustus knew very well he had to have on his side as a popular champion.

In 8 BC Augustus organised Rome into 14 regions subdivided into ‘neighbourhoods’ ( uici ), with each uicus centred on a ‘cross-roads shrine.’ He funded these mini-temples and provided statues, and created a kind of humble priesthood for them. He gave people, a lot of them ex-slaves, the dignity of the responsibility for looking after these neighbourhood cult centres. The neighbourhood chapels had lots of different gods and goddesses whose statues were put up there, but the main cult was that of the Lares , young twin gods who were thought of as protectors.

Lares were the ‘guardian gods’ who protected households. So a Roman house would have a lararium , a little shrine in which the household’s Lares were honoured and worshipped. There was also a big public temple of the Lares for the city of Rome itself, because they were thought of also as protectors of the city. In between were the little chapels for the Lares of individual neighbourhoods, as set up by Augustus. There must have been hundreds of them.

How amazing.

And having gone into all this rather obscure stuff, all these different kinds of evidence, I now thought your readers will probably want something where they can get an overall sense of what the Augustan age was about. That’s why I chose Karl Galinsky’s Augustan Culture (1996). He is a master of all these different areas, and he deals with stuff that we haven’t been talking about—literature, religion and so forth. The book is very, very reliable and level-headed. He’s an excellent scholar and it’s a super book.

So that’s still the best book for understanding this period?

Yes, it’s first-rate, still the go-to book for the Augustan age as a whole. It’s very intelligently argued, very well illustrated, the work of a master communicator.

Another famous quote associated with Augustus is that he found Rome in brick and left it in marble. I guess that’s from Suetonius. Is it true?

Yes, as I mentioned before, it was one of the effects of the conquest of Egypt and the huge resources that became available. As I try to explain in Chapter 2 of The House of Augustus , the late republic was a time when the super-rich were forever building spectacular houses for themselves, tearing them down and then rebuilding and expanding them. They were importing all kinds of exotic marbles from all over the world, at huge expense for their own private pleasure.

What the young Caesar did after the Battle of Philippi—and one person we haven’t mentioned is Agrippa, his loyal organiser—was confiscate the very same houses and marble columns the oligarchs had bought for themselves. With his huge resources, the future Augustus pumped everything into public works, and that meant above all public architecture. So you had these wonderful, grand temples and public buildings being created on the most lavish scale. That was done deliberately, because in the bad old days of the late republic this had been the sort of stuff that only the super-rich could have, while ordinary plebeians had to make do as best they could. Augustus was now saying, ‘No, this expensive material is for everyone, we’re going to produce a city which really will be the envy of the world.’

Now, we know from Cicero that the late-republican city wasn’t very impressive. A lot of people visiting Rome were quite disappointed. They thought it was pretty scruffy, the housing was in poor shape, and so on. And you have to remember that Rome in the late republic was five centuries old and still had all sorts of relics of the past. The beginning of a change was already happening with the people’s champions in the late republic—Pompey in the 60s BC and then Julius Caesar. There were now some grand public works: Pompey’s theatre, for instance, and Caesar’s building program that was cut short by his death. But Augustus took that over and hugely expanded it. So the city of brick is the city of ordinary tenement housing. The city of marble is the city of the grand public buildings.

Amongst other things, Galinsky talks about the fine art and the literature. What are the highlights of the Augustan age in terms of those?

It’s got to be the poets. The greatest of them are Horace, Virgil and Ovid. Virgil’s Aeneid is not only a great document for the early years of Augustus, but an undisputed world masterpiece. Horace’s lyric Odes are beautifully subtle, Ovid’s love poetry entertainingly cynical and tongue-in-cheek, like the famous spoof of didactic poems, the Ars Amatoria : two books for men on how to pick up women and then a third for women on how to pick up men. Ovid then produced an epic even longer than the Aeneid called Metamorphoses , a huge compendium of mythological stories from the creation of the world right up to Augustus’ own time.

They’re just wonderful. If you want to understand what Rome under Augustus was capable of producing, just read those three poets.

What’s left physically standing in Rome? Where should we go if we’re visiting?

What is there in Rome that’s of the Augustan period? That’s not easy. One of the things that seems to be of the Augustan period and is supremely worth seeing is the Pantheon . It’s an absolutely wonderful building—one of very, very few buildings of ancient Rome which is actually still standing in pretty well its original form, not a ruin or a reconstruction. The great inscription across the facade of the Pantheon says it was built by Marcus Agrippa in his third consulship, which was in 28 BC. His colleague in that consulship was the future Augustus. Agrippa actually made the first Pantheon, and this one is a reconstruction of it by Hadrian. But it’s a great thing to see.

Otherwise, if you’re looking for Augustus, your best bet is to go to the site of his mausoleum. This is just off the Via del Corso, the old Via Flaminia. The mausoleum itself isn’t much to look at. It’s just the concrete core and it’s very overgrown. But just next to it in the piazza are the remains of the Augustan Altar of Peace. He erected it around 8 or 9 BC, and it’s an example of Augustan art at its greatest. The museum to house the Ara Pacis was created by Mussolini in the 30s, but his version has now been replaced by a more modern one. It’s something you mustn’t miss, especially as on the wall outside the museum is the entire text of Augustus’s Res Gestae .

Stepping back a bit, what can we say about the Augustan Age overall?

It was an era of great relief, leading to great confidence. The civil wars had lasted pretty well 20 years—from Caesar crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC down to the fall of Alexandria in 30—and had been very, very damaging. An enormous number of people were killed, an enormous number uprooted, cities destroyed. It was a dreadful, dreadful time. Horace’s Odes are full of a sense of relief and gratitude to Augustus for having put an end to all that. There’s also a sense of foreboding: if we Romans have been capable of that kind of behaviour, where are we going to find ourselves now?

What Augustus was able to do, I think, was to channel that sense of having narrowly escaped disaster into a sense of confidence and enthusiasm. It didn’t last all that long, because his successors simply took his achievement for granted. His immediate successor, Tiberius, was deeply unpopular, and with him everything starts falling apart again.

But between the dystopia of the civil wars at one end and the dystopia of Tiberian Rome at the other, there was this moment of confidence and success, peace and prosperity, great authors and great art, architecture and sculpture that reflect all that. That’s what I think Augustus should be given credit for. That’s why I think the knee-jerk cynics who regard him as a despotic autocrat have got it all wrong.

June 1, 2020

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Peter Wiseman

Peter Wiseman is a classicist and emeritus professor at the University of Exeter. His 2019 book, The House of Augustus: A Historical Detective Sto ry , tries to overturn conventional wisdom about Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 12, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

As the first Roman emperor (though he never claimed the title for himself), Augustus led Rome’s transformation from republic to empire during the tumultuous years following the assassination of his great-uncle and adoptive father Julius Caesar. He shrewdly combined military might, institution-building and lawmaking to become Rome’s sole ruler, laying the foundations of the 200-year Pax Romana (Roman Peace) and an empire that lasted, in various forms, for nearly 1,500 years.

Augustus: Birth and Inheritance

Of Augustus’ many names and honorifics, historians favor three of them, each for a different phase in the emperor’s life. From his birth in 63 B.C. he was Octavius; after his adoption was announced in 44 B.C., Octavian; and beginning in 26 B.C. the Roman Senate conferred on him the name Augustus, the august or exalted one. He was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus in Velletri, 20 miles from Rome. His father was a senator and governor in the Roman Republic. His mother Atai was Caesar’s niece, and the young Octavius was raised in part by his grandmother Julia Ceasaris, Caesar’s sister.

Did you know? In 8 B.C. Augustus had the Roman month of Sextilius renamed after himself—as his great-uncle and predecessor Julius Caesar had done with July. August was the month of several of the emperor's greatest victories, including the defeat and suicide of Antony and Cleopatra. He did not increase the month's length, which had been 31 days since the establishment of the Julian calendar in 45 B.C.

Octavius donned the toga, the Roman sign of manhood, at age 16, and began taking on responsibilities through his family connections. In 47 B.C. he went to Hispania (modern-day Spain) to fight alongside Caesar. He was shipwrecked along the way, and had to cross enemy territory to reach his great-uncle—an act that impressed Caesar enough to name Octavius his heir and successor in his will.

Augustus: The Path to Power

The 17-year-old Octavius was at Apollonia (in present-day Albania) when the news of Caesar’s death and his own inheritance arrived. The dead ruler’s allies, including many in the senate, rallied around Octavian against their powerful rival Mark Antony . But after Octavian’s troops defeated Antony’s army in northern Italy, the future emperor refused an all-out pursuit of Antony, preferring an uneasy alliance with his rival.

In 43 B.C. Octavian, Antony and Marcus Aemilus Lepidus established the Second Triumvirate, a power-sharing agreement that divided up Rome’s territories among them, with Antony given the East, Lepidus Africa and Octavian the West. In 41 B.C. Antony began a romantic and political alliance with Cleopatra , queen of Egypt, which continued even after a Senatorial decree forced his marriage to Octavian’s sister Octavia Minor. Lepidus remained a minor figure until Octavian finally had him ousted after the triumvirate’s renewal in 37 B.C.

Antony’s affair with Cleopatra continued, and in 32 B.C. he divorced Octavia. In retaliation, Octavian declared war on Cleopatra. In the naval battle of Actium a year later, Octavian’s fleet, under his admiral Agrippa, cornered and defeated Antony’s ships. Cleopatra’s navy raced to aid her ally, but in the end the two lovers barely escaped. They returned to Egypt and committed suicide, leaving Octavian as Rome’s undisputed ruler.

Augustus: Emperor in All but Name

Historians date the start of Octavian’s monarchy to either 31 B.C. (the victory at Actium) or 27 B.C., when he was granted the name Augustus. In that four-year span, Octavian secured his rule on multiple fronts. Cleopatra’s seized treasure allowed him to pay his soldiers, securing their loyalty. To mollify Rome’s Senate and ruling classes, he passed laws harkening back—at least on the surface—to the traditions of the Roman Republic. And to win over the people, he worked to improve and beautify the city of Rome.

During his 40-years reign, Augustus nearly doubled the size of the empire, adding territories in Europe and Asia Minor and securing alliances that gave him effective rule from Britain to India. He spent much of his time outside of Rome, consolidating power in the provinces and instituting a system of censuses and taxation that integrated the empire’s furthest reaches. He expanded the Roman network of roads, founded the Praetorian Guard and the Roman postal service and remade Rome with both grand (a new forum) and practical gestures (police and fire departments).

Augustus: Family and Succession

Augustus married three times, although his first union, to Mark Antony’s stepdaughter Clodia Pulchra, was unconsummated. His second wife, Scribonia, bore his only child, Julia the Elder. He divorced in 39 B.C. to marry Livia Drusilla, who had two sons—Tiberius and Drusus—by her first husband, Mark Antony’s ally Tiberius Claudius Nero . The family tree became more complicated after Augustus had his stepson Tiberius briefly marry his daughter, and then adopted Tiberius outright as son and successor in A.D. 4.

Augustus Caesar died in A.D. 14, his empire secured and at peace. His reported last words were twofold: to his subjects he said, “I found Rome of clay; I leave it to you of marble,” but to the friends who had stayed with him in his rise to power he added, “Have I played the part well? Then applaud me as I exit.” Soon after that acknowledgement of human frailty, the Roman Senate officially declared their departed emperor, like Julius Caesar before him, to be a god.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Caesar augustus.

Caesar Augustus was one of ancient Rome’s most successful leaders who led the transformation of Rome from a republic to an empire. During his reign, Augustus restored peace and prosperity to the Roman state and changed nearly every aspect of Roman life.

Social Studies, World History

This statue is thought to depict Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire.

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Caesar Augustus was born Gaius Octavius in 63 B.C.E. His great-uncle was Julius Caesar , who he fought beside in 47 B.C.E. Augustus impressed his great uncle so much during battle that when Julius Caesar was assassinated in 43 B.C.E., he had appointed Augustus as heir to his political and personal fortune in his will. Augustus, at the age of 19, accepted the inheritance from Caesar’s will and was quickly plunged into the complicated world of Roman politics . He quickly formed strategic alliances, defeated his political rivals, and won a bitterly fought civil war. In 31 B.C.E. at the Battle of Actium, Augustus won a decisive victory over his rival Mark Antony and his Egyptian fleet.

Returning to Rome, Augustus was acclaimed a hero. With skill, efficiency, and cleverness, he secured his position as the first Emperor of Rome. Augustus claimed he acted for the glory of the Roman Republic , not for personal power. He appealed to Roman citizens by claiming that he led a frugal and modest life.

Augustus reorganized Roman life throughout the empire . He passed laws to encourage marital stability and renew religious practices. He instituted a system of taxation and a census while also expanding the network of Roman roads. He founded a postal service and established a regular police force and fire brigade in Rome.

Augustus expanded the empire, annexing Egypt, part of Spain, areas of central Europe, and even lands in the Middle East, such as Judea in C.E. 6. These additions, along with the end of civil wars, fostered the growth of an enormous trading network.

Augustus died outside of Naples, Italy, in C.E. 14. His body was returned to the capital. Businesses closed the day of his funeral out of deep respect for the emperor. He was a ruler of ability and vision and at his death, Augustus was proclaimed by the Senate to be a Roman god.

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Related Resources

Who was Augustus Caesar?

Known for initiating two centuries of peace in Rome, Augustus Caesar’s rise to political power was anything but amicable.

A marble bust of Roman emperor Augustus Caesar.

As Rome’s first emperor, Octavian (Augustus Caesar) (63 B.C.–A.D. 14) is best known for initiating the Pax Romana, a largely peaceful period of two centuries in which Rome imposed order on a world long convulsed by conflict. His rise to power, however, was anything but peaceful.

Octavian was only 18 years old when his great-uncle Julius Caesar named him heir. After Caesar was assassinated , Octavian forged an alliance with Mark Antony, famed general under Caesar, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Together they eliminated political opponents. Antony pursued Caesar’s assassins to Greece, defeating them at Philippi in 42 B.C.

From Greece, Antony ruled Rome’s wealthy eastern provinces. But Octavian and Antony turned from allies to adversaries. Antony entered a scandalous affair with Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. He had children by Cleopatra and acknowledged Julius Caesar’s son, Caesarion, as Caesar’s true heir in defiance of Octavian’s claim. Octavian denounced Antony as a man in the thrall of a foreign queen and waged war on the couple. When their fleet was defeated by the Romans at Actium in 31 B.C., Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. ( Follow Mark Antony and Cleopatra's decadent love affair. )

Returning to Rome in triumph, Octavian added the title Augustus (meaning “sacred” or “exalted”) to his adopted surname, Caesar, and remained imperator for life. The vast Roman Empire, long contested by consuls and generals, was now firmly in the grasp of an emperor: Augustus Caesar.

Like Darius I of Persia , Augustus was an organizational genius; his administrative accomplishments surpassed his military feats. He calmed citizens fearful of tyranny by preserving the republic’s institutions, including the Senate. He added senators from throughout Italy and empowered them to appoint independent proconsuls to govern Roman provinces. Augustus did maintain authority over the Senate, though, and exercised his veto power. The ultimate source of Augustus Caesar’s power was the army. He confidently halved the number of legions and settled veterans in colonies, which helped Romanize distant provinces and consolidate the empire.

Notwithstanding battles in Germany and other contentious regions, Augustus initiated a tranquil era known as the Pax Romana that held sway for generations. Instead of conflict, Rome now imposed order. Lands once plundered by Roman troops became docile provinces, subject to taxation but spared devastation unless they rebelled. Trade flourished. Cities prospered as Augustus and his successors built roads, aqueducts, baths, and amphitheaters to entertain the masses. Roman engineering urbanized provincial cities, helping transform conquered subjects into complacent Roman citizens. ( Read why Rome's border walls were the beginning of its downfall .)

When Augustus died in A.D. 14, he followed in his great-uncle’s footsteps one last time. For his huge contributions to Rome, he earned the posthumous title Divine Augustus.

Cleopatra, love and death

She may have beguiled two of Rome’s most powerful men, but Cleopatra, herself a feared monarch, was far more than a pretty face. Through her Ptolemaic forebears, Cleopatra was Greek, and her capital, Alexandria, was the epitome of Hellenism. She spoke Greek but showed her Egyptian roots by learning the local language and worshipping Egyptian gods. ( Here's how archaeologists are searching for the true face—and the burial place—of Cleopatra. )

Cleopatra seduced Julius Caesar to gain his help in reclaiming the throne from her brother Ptolemy XIII. After Caesar’s assassination, she next wooed Roman power in the form of Mark Antony. But Roman emperor Octavian brought that romance to a fatal end. Cleopatra’s suicide in 30 B.C.—purportedly via snakebite—marked the end of the Ptolemaic era in Egypt but the start of an enduring obsession with the fabled queen.

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For those thinking about the Roman Empire.

Augustus Caesar: First Emperor of the Roman Empire

Augustus Caesar, the first Emperor of Rome , stands as a towering figure in the history of the Roman Empire . Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus on September 23, 63 BCE, he would go on to shape the destiny of Rome and leave an indelible mark on the ancient world. His transformation from a young and inexperienced political figure into the ruler we all know as Augustus is a narrative woven with political intrigue, military prowess, and visionary leadership.

In this article, you will find an introduction to Emperor Augustus, including his early life, rise to power, and achievements, as well as a look at his personal life, controversies surrounding his reign, and death. You can read from beginning to end if you’d like, or skip ahead to sections you want to explore right away, using the list of contents below.

Table of Contents

Early Life of Octavian

The journey of Augustus began in the heart of the Roman Republic . His lineage traced back to the Julii family through his maternal side and the Octavii on his father’s. As the grandnephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar , Octavian (as he was known in his youth) inherited not only a prominent name but also the weighty legacy of a military genius. His early years were marked by a comprehensive education, guided by his mother Atia.

In 44 BCE, the political landscape of Rome underwent a seismic shift with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The aftermath saw Octavian return from his studies in Apollonia to claim his inheritance and avenge his adoptive father. The young Octavian skillfully navigated the treacherous waters of Roman politics, forming the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus, effectively positioning himself as one of the three most powerful men in Rome.

The Rise of Augustus Caesar, Rome’s First Emperor

The political machinations of the Triumvirs culminated in the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, where the forces of Octavian and Antony emerged victorious against the Republican army , which was spearheaded by Julius Caesar’s formerly loyal friend, Brutus. However, the alliance between Octavian and Antony was fraught with tension, leading to its eventual dissolution. The seeds of conflict sown in the aftermath of Philippi would blossom into a bitter rivalry that would shape the fate of the Roman world.

In 31 BCE, the maritime clash at the Battle of Actium sealed the fate of Augustus’s political opponents. His fleet, commanded by Agrippa, decisively defeated the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra . The aftermath saw Antony and Cleopatra meet their tragic end, leaving Augustus as the unrivaled master of Rome. The Republic, on the brink of collapse, was now under the control of a single man, Augustus Caesar, and the stage was set for the emergence of the Roman Empire.

Augustus Caesar’s Reforms and Achievements

With the chaos of the civil wars behind him, Augustus Caesar turned his attention to the monumental task of rebuilding and reorganizing the Roman state. The administrative reforms he implemented laid the foundation for the principate, a new form of government where power was concentrated in the hands of the emperor. Augustus, however, maintained the facade of traditional republican institutions, carefully balancing the image of a restored Republic with the realities of his autocratic rule, as alluded to earlier.

One of Augustus’s most significant achievements was the establishment of the Pax Romana , a period of relative peace that endured for two centuries. This era was characterized by stabilized frontiers, reduced military campaigns, and a focus on internal development. Augustus’s diplomatic acumen and military successes contributed to this stability, providing the empire with a respite from the turbulence that had marked the preceding decades.

Building Rome As We Know It

In addition to political and military reforms , Augustus left an indelible mark on the social and economic landscape of Rome. His sponsorship of public works projects, including the construction of roads, aqueducts , and monumental structures like the Ara Pacis, aimed to showcase the grandeur of the empire. In the span of one year alone, he restored 80 temples that had been worn down through the years. The revitalization of the city of Rome itself mirrored Augustus’s vision of a restored and flourishing state.

It’s not without merit, then, given all of his work on building Rome as we know it today, that he exclaimed, “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”

The economic policies of Augustus aimed at reducing social unrest and ensuring the prosperity of the citizenry. Land redistribution and the establishment of a state treasury were among the measures taken to address the economic disparities that had fueled class conflicts in the past. Augustus Caesar recognized the importance of maintaining the support of the Roman people, and his policies sought to strike a balance between the interests of the aristocracy and the common citizen.

The Pax Romana

Central to Augustus’s legacy is the Pax Romana, a period of peace that endured from approximately 27 BCE to 180 CE. The cessation of major military conflicts allowed for a remarkable flourishing of Roman culture, literature, and art. The stability and security provided by Augustus’s rule allowed the empire to focus on internal development, resulting in a period of prosperity and relative tranquility.

The Pax Romana was not merely the absence of war but a deliberate effort by Augustus Caesar to maintain order and prevent the recurrence of the civil wars that had plagued the late Republic. Augustus undertook an extensive program of military reorganization, ensuring the loyalty of the estimated 25-50 legions he controlled (about 250,000 to 400,000 soldiers) and securing the frontiers of the empire. This military stability, coupled with Augustus’s diplomatic initiatives, created an environment conducive to peace.

Diplomacy played a crucial role in Augustus’s ability to maintain the Pax Romana. Through strategic alliances, marriage alliances, and a judicious use of military force when necessary, Augustus ensured that the external threats to the empire were kept at bay. The negotiation of the Roman Empire’s boundaries with neighboring powers such as Parthia contributed to a prolonged period of security and limited external aggression.

The benefits of the Pax Romana extended beyond the military and political spheres. Trade flourished as the Mediterranean became a Roman lake, facilitating the exchange of goods and ideas throughout the empire. Cities thrived, and cultural achievements reached new heights during this period. The poet Virgil, the historian Livy , and the architect Vitruvius are just a few examples of the literary and artistic figures who emerged during the Pax Romana. Among these, Virgil was actually a friend and confidant of Augustus. 

In essence, the Pax Romana was a testament to Augustus’s skillful governance and his ability to provide a stable and secure environment for the Roman people. It was a relatively peaceful period in the history of the Roman Empire, lasting until the ascent of Emperor Commodus to the throne in 180 AD.

Legacy of the First Emperor

The legacy of Augustus Caesar looms large over the pages of Roman history, leaving an unforgettable mark on the empire that would still endure for centuries after he was gone. His reign marked the transition from the chaos of the late Republic to the stability of the Roman Empire. Augustus’s impact on the political, military, and cultural spheres was profound, shaping the trajectory of the ancient world.

In the realm of politics, Augustus was the mastermind behind the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. While he maintained the veneer of republican institutions, the reality was that power was concentrated in his hands. The establishment of the principate set a precedent for the future emperors, and Augustus’s delicate balance of autocracy and the illusion of republican rule laid the groundwork for the imperial system that would define Rome for generations.

Military success was a cornerstone of Augustus’s legacy. The defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, along with his strategic reorganization of the Roman legions, ensured the stability of the empire’s frontiers. The Pax Romana, a period of relative peace and security, was a direct result of Augustus’s military acumen. The template he established for military governance set the standard for future Roman emperors , emphasizing the importance of a strong and loyal army in maintaining imperial stability.

Augustus’s cultural contributions were equally significant. His patronage of the arts and public works projects aimed not only at glorifying the empire but also at fostering a sense of cultural identity among the Roman people. The construction of the Ara Pacis, a monument celebrating peace and prosperity, stands as a testament to Augustus’s vision of a renewed and enlightened Rome. The Golden Age of Latin literature, often referred to as the “Augustan Age,” saw the emergence of literary giants such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, who played pivotal roles in shaping the cultural landscape of the empire.

While Augustus Caesar’s rule was not without its controversies and criticisms, his legacy endured through the stability and prosperity he brought to Rome. The imperial system he established would persist for 500 years, providing a framework for governance that would weather political, social, and economic upheavals. Augustus’s imprint on Roman history was so profound that his name became synonymous with the office of emperor; the titles “Caesar” and “Augustus” would be adopted by his successors as a mark of legitimacy and prestige.

Personal Life of Augustus Caesar

Beyond the political and military realms, Augustus Caesar’s personal life played a significant role in shaping his public image and legacy. His marriages and family ties were carefully orchestrated to consolidate power and build alliances. Augustus’s first wife, Scribonia, bore him a daughter named Julia, whose marriages strengthened political alliances within the Roman elite.

However, it was his marriage to Livia Drusilla that would prove to be the most enduring and politically significant. Livia, already pregnant with Tiberius at the time of their marriage, would go on to be a trusted advisor and confidante to Augustus. The union with Livia not only produced heirs but also solidified connections to influential Roman families, ensuring the continuity of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

The personal attributes of Augustus Caesar also played a crucial role in his success as a leader. Known for his political astuteness, pragmatism, and ability to navigate the complexities of Roman politics, Augustus demonstrated a shrewd understanding of power dynamics. His adaptability and willingness to compromise contributed to his ability to maintain the support of key factions within Roman society. In movies and novels, he is often portrayed as a stoic , calculated mastermind with complete control of his emotions. 

Augustus’s relationship with the Senate and his careful cultivation of an image as the restorer of the Republic showcased his understanding of the importance of public perception. His adoption of honorific titles such as “Princeps” (First Citizen) and “Augustus” (revered or majestic) reflected his desire to be seen as a leader who transcended the trappings of monarchy while embodying the virtues of traditional Roman values.

While Augustus is often remembered for his political and military achievements, his personal life and relationships played an important role in securing the stability of the empire. The dynasty he founded with Livia would produce several emperors, including Tiberius, Caligula , Claudius , and Nero , shaping the course of Roman history for good and bad.

Challenges and Criticisms

Augustus Caesar’s rule was not without its challenges and criticisms, both from contemporaries and later historians. One of the most significant challenges came in the form of various conspiracies and revolts against his rule. The most notable of these was the conspiracy of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, key figures in the assassination of Julius Caesar. Despite the defeat of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, the specter of Republican resistance lingered, and Augustus had to contend with sporadic opposition throughout his reign.

Among the estimated 60 conspirators that supported the assassination of Julius Caesar, none of these met a natural death, as far as we know from recorded sources . 

Critics of Augustus often pointed to the erosion of traditional republican institutions. While he maintained the facade of a Senate and other republican structures, real power lay in the hands of the emperor. This centralization of power raised concerns about the potential for autocracy, a departure from the republican ideals that had defined Rome for centuries.

Another source of criticism was Augustus’s handling of political opponents. The proscriptions, a series of purges that targeted those perceived as enemies of the state, led to the confiscation of property and loss of life for many individuals. While Augustus argued that these measures were necessary for the stability of the state, they left a lasting stain on his legacy and raised questions about the means justifying the ends.

The relationship between Augustus Caesar and Mark Antony, once strong during the Second Triumvirate, soured over time. Antony’s dalliance with Cleopatra and his perceived betrayal of Roman interests in the east fueled tensions that would culminate in the Battle of Actium. Augustus’s victory marked the end of Antony and Cleopatra, but the personal and political fallout lingered, contributing to the perception of Augustus as a ruthless and calculating leader.

While Augustus faced challenges and criticisms during his rule, it is essential to consider the context of the times. The transition from Republic to Empire was a tumultuous period, and Augustus navigated these challenges with a combination of political savvy and military acumen. His ability to consolidate power and maintain stability, albeit through sometimes controversial means, played a crucial role in the survival and success of the Roman state.

Succession and Death of Augustus Caesar

One of Augustus’s greatest achievements was securing the succession and ensuring the continuity of his legacy. The question of succession had been a recurring challenge in Roman history, often leading to power struggles and instability. Augustus, however, took deliberate steps to address this issue.

In 27 BCE, Augustus Caesar offered to relinquish his extraordinary powers, but the Senate, recognizing the stability he brought to the state, refused his resignation. Instead, they bestowed upon him the titles “Augustus” and “Princeps,” emphasizing his role as the first among equals rather than a monarch. This symbolic gesture concealed the reality of Augustus’s autocratic rule, allowing him to maintain the support of the Senate while wielding unparalleled authority.

Augustus carefully managed the issue of succession through a combination of blood ties and political maneuvering. His designated heir was his stepson Tiberius, the son of his wife Livia from her first marriage. Augustus adopted Tiberius in 4 CE, securing a direct familial link to the imperial throne. This adoption marked a significant departure from the traditional Roman practice of biological succession but ensured a smooth transition of power within the imperial family.

The succession plan further solidified with the marriage of Tiberius to Augustus’s granddaughter, Agrippina the Elder, thereby intertwining the Julio-Claudian bloodline. However, the path to succession was not without challenges. The premature deaths of several potential heirs, including Augustus’s grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, brought about uncertainties regarding the future leadership of the empire.

Tiberius eventually ascended to the throne in 14 CE after the death of Augustus Caesar (which was peaceful in nature). While the transition was relatively smooth, it marked the beginning of a new phase in Roman rule. Tiberius faced the daunting task of maintaining the stability that Augustus had established, and his rule would be scrutinized for its differences from his predecessor’s.

The death of Augustus in 14 CE marked the end of an era. His passing prompted widespread mourning throughout the empire, and the Senate, in recognition of his contributions, deified him, adding the title “Divi Filius” (Son of the Divine) to his honors. Augustus’s mausoleum, a massive tomb in the heart of Rome, served as a physical testament to the monumental impact of his rule and a symbol of the end of the Roman Republic.

Interestingly, Augustus initiated the building of this towering mausoleum before he actually became emperor. This is a phenomenon that my history professor remarked upon, finding it strange that, while Augustus was giving speeches about restoring the Roman republic, the people could simultaneously see a massive “dynastic” tomb being built in the honor of him and his family in the distance.

Historiography

The historiography of Augustus Caesar has been a dynamic and evolving narrative, shaped by the perspectives of ancient and modern historians alike. In the immediate aftermath of his death, Augustus’s image was carefully curated by those who sought to maintain the stability of the Principate. Historical accounts, such as those by the likes of Livy and Velleius Paterculus, portrayed Augustus as the restorer of the Roman Republic and a benevolent ruler who brought peace and prosperity to the empire.

However, as the Principate evolved into the Roman Empire, subsequent historians grappled with the complexities of Augustus’s legacy. Tacitus, writing in the early 2nd century CE, offered a more critical perspective in his “Annals” and “Histories,” highlighting the erosion of republican principles and the autocratic tendencies of Augustus. Suetonius, in his “The Twelve Caesars,” provided a biographical account that blended admiration with candid depictions of Augustus’s personal life and idiosyncrasies.

The Renaissance period witnessed a renewed interest in classical antiquity , with scholars like Machiavelli drawing parallels between Augustus Caesar and contemporary rulers. This era also saw the rediscovery of Augustus’s own writings, including his “ Res Gestae Divi Augusti ,” an autobiographical account of his achievements.

Modern historians continue to engage with Augustus’s legacy, employing interdisciplinary approaches to understand the multifaceted nature of his rule. The debates surrounding his consolidation of power, the impact of his policies, and the long-term consequences of his reign remain subjects of scholarly inquiry. The availability of archaeological evidence, including the ruins of structures built during his rule, adds layers of depth to our understanding of Augustus and his enduring imprint on Roman history.

Augustus Caesar FAQ

What was the emperor augustus known for.

Emperor Augustus, known for initiating the Pax Romana, brought relative peace to Rome. His astute leadership and military successes transformed the Roman Republic into an empire, leaving a lasting legacy as the first Roman Emperor.

Was Augustus Caesar Julius Caesar's son?

No, Augustus Caesar, originally Octavian, was Julius Caesar's grandnephew and adopted heir. Julius Caesar chose Octavian due to his political aptitude and loyalty, establishing a familial and strategic connection.

What caused Augustus' downfall?

Augustus did not experience a traditional downfall. However, factors like economic challenges, internal strife, and external pressures contributed to the later challenges during the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

Why did Julius Caesar choose Octavian?

Julius Caesar chose Octavian as his heir for familial ties, recognizing Octavian's political skills and loyalty. This strategic decision aimed to ensure a stable transition and the continuation of Caesar's legacy in Rome's leadership.

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• Pax Romana: The Golden Age of Roman Peace and Prosperity
• Roman Emperors: The Ultimate Guide and Story of Their Reign
• Mark Antony: Cleopatra, Death, Life, & Facts

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Augustus Caesar: The First Roman Emperor

Augustus Caesar was the first emperor of the Roman Empire and is famous not only for that fact but also because of the impressive groundwork he laid for all future emperors. Beyond this, he was also a very capable administrator of the Roman state, learning much from his advisors like Marcus Agrippa , as well as his adoptive father and his great-uncle, Julius Caesar .

Table of Contents

What Made Augustus Caesar Special?

Following in the latter’s footsteps, Augustus Caesar – who was in fact born Gaius Octavius (and known as “Octavian”) – won sole power over the Roman state after a long and bloody civil war against an opposing claimant (just as Julius Caesar had). Unlike his uncle, however, Augustus managed to cement and secure his position from any present and future rivals.

In doing so, he set the Roman Empire onto a course that saw its political ideology and infrastructure transform from (an albeit decaying) republic, to a monarchy (officially named the principate ), with the emperor (or “princeps”) at its head.

Before any of these events, he had been born in Rome in September 63 BC, into the equestrian (lower aristocratic) branch of the gens (clan or “house of”) Octavia. His father died when he was four and was thereafter raised mostly by his grandmother Julia – who was the sister of Julius Caesar.

As he reached manhood, he became embroiled in the chaotic political events that were unfolding between his great uncle Julius Caesar and the opponents who faced him. Out of the turmoil that ensued, Octavian the boy would become Augustus the ruler of the Roman world.

READ MORE: The Complete Roman Empire Timeline: Dates of Battles, Emperors, and Events

Augustus’s Significance for Roman History

To understand Augustus Caesar then and the significance he holds for the entirety of Roman History, it is important to first delve into this process of seismic change that the Roman Empire experienced – especially Augustus’s role in it.

For this (and the events of his actual reign), we are fortunate to have a relative wealth of contemporary sources to analyze, quite unlike much of what follows in the principate, as well as what had preceded it in the republic.

Perhaps as part of a conscious effort by contemporaries to memorialize this transformative period of history, there are many different sources we can turn to that provide relatively complete narratives of the events. These include Cassius Dio , Tacitus , and Suetonius , as well as the inscriptions and monuments across the empire that marked his reign – none more so, than the famous Res Gestae .

The Res Gestae and Augustus’s Golden Age

The Res Gestae was Augustus’s own obituary to future readers, engraved on stone throughout the empire. This extraordinary piece of epigraphic history was found on walls from Rome to Turkey and testifies to the exploits of Augustus and the various ways in which he augmented the power and grandeur of Rome and its empire.

And indeed, under Augustus, the boundaries of the empire were expanded considerably, just as there was an outpouring of poetry and literature, as Rome experienced a “Golden Age”. What made this felicitous period seem all the more exceptional and the emergence of an “emperor” all the more necessary, were the tumultuous events that preceded it.

What Role Did Julius Caesar Play in Augustus’s Rise? 

As has been already alluded to, the famous figure of Julius Caesar was also central to the rise of Augustus as emperor and in many ways created the foundation upon which the principate was to emerge.

The Late Republic

Julius Caesar had entered the political scene of the Roman Republic during a period where overly ambitious generals began to vie for power quite routinely against each other. As Rome continued to wage larger and larger wars against its enemies, opportunities grew for successful generals to increase their power and standing in the political scene more than they had previously been able to.

Whereas the Roman Republic “of old” was supposed to revolve around a collective ethos of patriotism, the “Late Republic” witnessed violent civil discords between opposing generals.

In 83 BC this led to the civil war of Marius and Sulla , who were both prodigiously decorated generals who had won glorious victories against Rome’s enemies; now turned against each other.

In the aftermath of this bloody and infamous civil war, wherein Lucius Sulla was victorious (and ruthless against the vanquished side), Julius Caesar began to gain some prominence as a populist politician (in opposition to the more conservative aristocracy). He was in fact considered lucky to have been left alive at all because he was quite closely related to Marius himself.

The First Triumvirate and Julius Caesar’s Civil War

During Julius Caesar’s rise to power, he initially aligned himself with his political opponents, in order so that they could all stay in their military positions and augment their influence. This was called the First Triumvirate and consisted of Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (“Pompey”), and Marcus Licinius Crassus .

Whilst this arrangement worked initially and kept these generals and politicians at peace with each other, it fell apart at the death of Crassus (who was always seen as a stabilizing figure).

Soon after his death, relations deteriorated between Pompey and Caesar and another civil war like Marius and Sulla’s resulted in the death of Pompey and the appointment of Caesar as “Dictator for life”.

The position of Imperator (“Dictator”) had existed previously – and was taken up by Sulla after his success in the civil war – however, it was only supposed to be a temporary position. Caesar had instead decided he was to remain in the position for life, placing absolute power in his hands permanently.

The Assassination of Julius Caesar

Although Caesar refused to be called “King” – as the label held many negative connotations in Republican Rome – he still acted with absolute power, which enraged many contemporary senators. As a result, a plot was hatched to assassinate him that had the backing of large portions of the senate.

On the “Ides of March” (March 15 th ) 44 BC, Julius Caesar was murdered during a meeting of the senate at the theater of his old rival Pompey. At least 60 senators were involved, even one of Caesar’s favorites called Marcus Junius Brutus , and he was stabbed 23 times by different conspirators.

In the wake of this momentous event, the conspirators had expected things to go back to normal and for Rome to remain a republican state. However, Caesar had left an indelible mark on Roman politics and had been supported, amongst others, by his trusty general Mark Antony and his adopted heir, Gaius Octavius – the boy who was to become Augustus himself.

Whilst the conspirators who killed Caesar had some political clout in Rome itself, figures like Antony and Octavian possessed real power with soldiers and wealth.

The Aftermath of Caesar’s Death and the Extermination of the Assassins

The conspirators of Caesar’s murder were neither completely unified nor militarily backed in their efforts. As such, it wasn’t long before they all fled the capital and escaped to other parts of the empire, to either hide or raise a rebellion against the forces they knew were set on pursuing them.

These forces were Octavian and Mark Antony. Whilst Mark Antony had been by Caesar’s side through much of his military and political life, Caesar had adopted his great-nephew Octavian as his heir shortly before his death. As was the way of life in the Late Republic these two successors of Caesar were destined to eventually start a civil war with each other.

However, they first went about the pursuit and extermination of the conspirators who had murdered Julius Caesar, which amounted to a civil war in itself as well. After the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, the conspirators were for the most part defeated, meaning it was only a matter of time before these two heavyweights turned against each other.

The Second Triumvirate and Fulvia’s War

Whilst Octavian had been allied with Antony since the death of Julius Caesar – and they formed their own “Second Triumvirate” (with Marcus Lepidus ) – it seemed clear that both wanted to acquire the position of absolute power Julius Caesar had established after his defeat of Pompey.

Initially, they partitioned the empire into three divisions, with Antony taking control of the east (and Gaul) and Octavian, Italy, and most of Spain, with Lepidus, only taking control of North Africa. Things, however, began to degenerate quickly when Antony’s wife Fulvia opposed some aggressive land grants that Octavian had initiated, in order to settle veterans of Caesar’s legions.

Fulvia at the time was a prominent political player in Rome, even though she was seemingly disregarded by Antony himself, who had engaged in a union of sorts with the famous Cleopatra , fathering twins with her.

Fulvia’s intransigence turned into another (albeit brief) civil war, wherein Fulvia and Antony’s brother Lucius Antonius marched on Rome, to “liberate” its people from Octavian. They were swiftly forced to retreat by the armies of Octavian and Lepidus, whilst Antony seemed to watch on and do nothing from the east.

Antony in the East and Octavian in the West

Although Antony eventually came to Italy to confront Octavian and Lepidus, things were for the time being, quite quickly resolved with the Treaty of Brundisium in 40 BC.

This cemented the agreements previously made by the Second Triumvirate, but now gave Augustus control of most of the west of the empire (except Lepidus’s North Africa), whilst Antony returned to his portion in the East.

This was complimented by the marriage of Antony and Octavian’s sister Octavia, as Fulvia was divorced and died soon after in Greece.

Antony’s War with Parthia and Octavian’s War with Sextus Pompey 

Before long Antony instigated a war with Rome’s perennial enemy to the east Parthia – a foe that Julius Caesar was reported to have had his eye upon as well.

Whilst this was initially successful and territory was added to the Roman sphere of influence, Antony became complacent with Cleopatra in Egypt (much to the concern of Octavian and his sister Octavia), leading to a reciprocal invasion into Roman territory by Parthia.

Whilst this struggle in the east was ongoing, Octavian was dealing with Sextus Pompey, the son of Julius Caesar’s old rival Pompey. He had taken control of Sicily and Sardinia with a powerful fleet and had harried Rome’s waters and shipping for some time, to the consternation of both Octavian and Lepidus.

Eventually, he was defeated, but not before his behavior had caused a rift to grow between Antony and Octavian, as the former repeatedly asked for assistance from the latter in dealing with Parthia.

Moreover, when Sextus Pompey was defeated, it wasn’t long before Lepidus saw his chance for advancement and attempted to take control of Sicily and Sardinia. His plans were quickly thwarted, and he was forced by Augustus to step down from his position as triumvir, bringing that tripartite agreement to an end.

Octavian’s War with Antony 

When Lepidus was moved out of position by Octavian, who now took sole charge of the western half of the empire, relations soon began to fall apart between him and Antony. Slander was thrown by both sides, as Octavian accused Antony of debauching himself with the foreign queen Cleopatra, and Antony accused Octavian of forging the will of Julius Caesar that named him an heir.

The real split occurred when Antony celebrated a triumph for his successful invasion and conquest of Armenia, after which he donated the eastern half of the Roman Empire to Cleopatra and her children. Furthermore, he named Caesarion (the child Cleopatra had had with Julius Caesar) as Julius Caesar’s true heir.

In the midst of this, Octavia was divorced by Antony (to the surprise of no one) and the war was declared in 32 BC – specifically against Cleopatra and her usurping children. Octavian’s general and trusted advisor Marcus Agrippa moved first and captured the Greek city of Methone, after which Cyrenaica and Greece turned to Octavian’s side.

Forced to act, Cleopatra’s and Antony’s Navy met the Roman fleet – again commanded by Agrippa – off the Greek coast at Actium in 31 BC. Here they were thoroughly defeated by Octavian’s side and they subsequently fled to Egypt, where they committed suicide in dramatic fashion.

Augustus’s “Restoration of the Republic” 

The way in which Octavian managed to hold onto the absolute power of the Roman state was much more tactful than the methods tried by Julius Caesar. In a series of staged actions and events, Octavian – soon to be named Augustus – “restored the [Roman] republic.”

Returning the Roman State to Stability

By the time of Octavian’s victory at Actium, the Roman world had experienced a relentless series of civil wars and recurrent “proscriptions” where political opponents would be sought out and executed, by both sides of the conflicts. Indeed, a state of lawlessness had for the most part proliferated.

As a result, it was essential and desirable for both the senate and Octavian, for things to return to some level of normalcy. Accordingly, Octavian immediately began to court those new members of the senate and aristocracy who had survived the civil wars now past.

In the first return to some level of familiarity, both Octavian and his second-in-command Agrippa were made consuls ; positions to legitimate (in appearance) the vast power and resources they had at their disposal.

The Settlement of 27 BC 

Next came the famous Settlement of 27 BC wherein Octavian returned full power to the senate and surrendered his control of the provinces and their armies that he had controlled since the days of Julius Caesar.

Many believe this “stepping back” from Octavian was a carefully calculated ploy, as the senate in their clearly inferior and impotent position immediately offered Octavian back these powers and areas of control. Not only was Octavian unrivaled in his power, but the Roman aristocracy was weary of the internecine civil wars that had rocked it in the past century. A strong and unified force was needed in the state.

As such, they bestowed on Octavian all of the powers that essentially made him a monarch and granted him the titles “Augustus” (which possessed pious and divine connotations) and “princeps” (meaning “first/best citizen” – and where the term “principate” derives from).

This staged act had the dual purpose of keeping Octavian – now Augustus – in power, able to keep stability in the state, and it gave off the (albeit spurious) appearance that it was the senate who were granting these extraordinary powers. For all intents and purposes, the Republic appeared to carry on, with its “princeps” steering it clear of the dangers it had experienced over the past century.

Further Powers Granted in the Second Settlement of 23 BC

It gradually became clear underneath this façade of continuity, that things had completely changed in the Roman state. As such, there was, especially at this early stage a certain amount of friction caused by such controversies, as it was reported that Augustus wanted to ensure that the principate would endure beyond his death.

As such, he seemed to groom his nephew Marcellus to follow in his footsteps and become the next princeps. This caused some concern, on top of the fact that Augustus up until 23 BC had held onto the consulship continuously, depriving other aspiring senators of taking up the position.

As in 27 BC, Augustus had to act tactfully and ensure that the appearance of republican propriety was maintained. Accordingly, he gave up the consulship in exchange for proconsular power over the provinces which possessed the most troops, which superseded that of any other consul or proconsul, known as “imperium maius”.

This meant that Augustus’s imperium was superior to anybody else’s, always giving him the final say. Whilst it was supposed to be granted for 10 years, it is unclear at this stage whether anybody really thought his predominance over the state was ever going to be seriously challenged.

Moreover, along with the granting of imperium maius, he was also given the full powers of a tribune and censor, giving him complete control over the culture of Roman society. He, therefore, became, not only its military and political savior but its cultural bulwark and defender as well. Power and prestige were now truly centered on one person.

Caesar in Power

Whilst in power, it was important that he was able to maintain the peace and stability that the Roman world had been lacking for so long. As well as therefore shoring up the empire’s defenses and considering where to invade next, Augustus went about promoting his own position and this new “golden age”.

Augustus’s Correction of the Coinage

One of the many things that Augustus set about fixing in the Roman state was the sorry state that the coinage had fallen into after such a long period of political turbulence. By the time he had taken power, it was really only the silver denarius that was in proper circulation.

This made it difficult to exchange wares and resources that were valued at less than a denarius, or considerably more. As such, Augustus ensured in the late 20s BC that 7 denominations of coinage would be struck, in order to help facilitate efficient and effective trade throughout the empire.

On this coinage, he also embodied many of the virtues and messages of propaganda that he wished to promote and propagate about his new rule. These focused on patriotic and traditional messages, further enforcing the republican façade that his “restoration” tried so hard to maintain.

The Patronage of Poets

As part of Augustus’s “ golden age ” and the propaganda campaign that vitalized it, Augustus was careful to patronize a coterie of different poets and writers. These included people such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, all of whom wrote enthusiastically about the new age into which the Roman world had emerged into.

It was through this agenda that Virgil wrote his canonical Roman epic, the Aeneid , wherein the origins of the Roman state were tied to the Trojan hero Aeneas, and the future glory of Rome was foretold and promised under the stewardship of the great Augustus.

During this period, Horace also wrote many of his Odes , some of which alluded to the present and future divinity of Augustus as helmsman of the Roman state. Throughout all of these works was a spirit of optimism and felicity about the new path Augustus had set the Roman world on.

Did Augustus Add More Territory to the Roman Empire?

Yes, Augustus is remarkably seen as one of the greatest expanders of the empire in its entire history – even though the fall of Rome did not occur until 476 AD! 

He also monopolized the celebration of the empire’s military “ triumphs ” for the princeps exclusively, which had previously been held in honor of whichever victorious general returned to Rome from a successful campaign or battle.

Moreover, he also attached the title “imperator” (where we derive the term “emperor”) onto his own name, which connoted a victorious general. Henceforth “Imperator Augustus” was to be forever associated with victory, not only abroad in military campaigns, but at home as the victorious savior of the republic.

The Empire’s Expansion After Augustus’s Civil War with Antony

Whereas Egypt had previously been more of a vassal state before Augustus’s war with Mark Antony, it was incorporated into the empire properly after the latter’s defeat. This transformed the economy of the Roman world, as Egypt became the “breadbasket of the empire”, exporting millions of tons of wheat to other Roman provinces.

This addition to the empire was soon followed by the annexation of Galatia (modern-day Turkey) in 25 BC after its ruler Amyntas was killed by an avenging widow. In 19 BC, the rebellious tribes of modern-day Spain and Portugal were finally defeated, and their lands were incorporated into Hispania and Lusitania.

This was to be followed by Noricum (modern Switzerland) in 16 BC, which provided a territorial buffer against enemy lands further north. For many of these conquests and campaigns, Augustus delegated command to a series of his chosen relatives and generals, namely, Drusus , Marcellus , Agrippa, and Tiberius .

Augustus and His Generals 

Rome continued to be successful in its conquests under the leadership of these chosen generals, as Tiberius conquered parts of Illyricum in 12 BC and Drusus began moving across the Rhine in 9 BC. Here the latter met his end, leaving a lasting legacy of expectation and prestige for future favorites to try to match.

His legacy, however, also caused some friction that Augustus apparently had to confront. Due to his military exploits, Drusus was very popular with the army and shortly before his death had written to Tiberius – Augustus’s stepson – to complain of the emperor Augustus’s method of ruling.

Three years before this, Augustus had already begun to alienate himself from Tiberius by forcing Tiberius to divorce his wife Vispania, and marry Augustus’s daughter, Julia. Perhaps still disgruntled because of his forced divorce, or too distraught at the death of Drusus, his brother, Tiberius retired to Rhodes in 6 BC and removed himself from the political scene for ten years.

Opposition in Augustus’s Reign 

Inevitably, Augustus’s reign of more than 40 years, wherein the machinery of state was focused exclusively around one person, met some opposition and resentment, especially from those “republicans” who did not like to see the way the Roman world had changed.

It must be said that for the most part, people seemed to have been quite happy with the peace, stability, and prosperity that Augustus brought to the empire. Additionally, the campaigns that his generals conducted (and Augustus celebrated) were almost all very successful; except the battle at the Teutoburg Forest, which we will explore more below.

Moreover, the different settlements that Augustus made in 27 BC and 23 BC, as well as some additional ones that followed thereafter, have been seen as Augustus’s wrestling with some of his opponents and maintenance of the slightly precarious status quo.

Attempts on Augustus’s Life

As is the case with almost all Roman emperors , the sources tell us that there were a number of conspiracies against Augustus’s life. Modern historians have however suggested that this was a gross exaggeration and only point to one conspiracy – in the late 20s BC – as the only serious threat.

This was planned by two politicians named Caepio and Murena who had seemingly gotten fed up with Augustus’s monopolization of the state machinery. The events leading up to the conspiracy appear to be directly linked to Augustus’s second settlement of 23 BC, where he gave up the consulship, but held onto its power and privileges.

The Primus Trial and the Conspiracy Against Augustus 

Around this time Augustus had become seriously ill and talk of what would follow his death had spread. He had written a will that many believed to have named his heir for the principate, which would have been a flagrant abuse of the power that had been “granted” to him by the senate (although they later seemed to renege on such protests).

Augustus in fact recovered from his illness, and to assuage worried senators, was willing to read out his will in the senate house. This, however, seemed not to be enough to calm the fears of some and in 23 or 22 BC a governor in the province of Thrace called Primus was put on trial for improper conduct.

Augustus intervened directly in this case, seemingly hell-bent on having him prosecuted (and later executed). As a result of such blatant imperious involvement in the affairs of the state, the politicians Caepio and Murena apparently plotted an attempt on Augustus’s life.

Whilst the sources are quite ambiguous about its exact events, we know that it failed rather quickly and that both were condemned by the senate. Murena fled and Caepio was executed (after also trying to escape).

Why Were There So Few Attempts on Augustus’s Life?

Whilst this conspiracy of Murena and Caepio is linked to a part of Augustus’s reign commonly called a “crisis,” in hindsight it seems as though opposition to Augustus was neither unified nor much of a threat – at this point, and throughout his reign.

And indeed, this seems reflected throughout the sources, and the reasons for such a lack of opposition, lie, in the main part, in the events that led up to Augustus’s “accession.” Not only had Augustus brought peace and stability to a state racked by endless civil wars, but the aristocracy itself had grown weary, and many of Augustus’s enemies had been killed or soundly discouraged from further rebellion.

As alluded to above, there are other reported conspiracies mentioned in the sources, but all of them seem so poorly planned to warrant any discussion in modern analyses. For the most part, it seems as though Augustus ruled well, and without much serious opposition.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest and the Effects It Had on Augustan Policy 

Augustus’s time in power was constituted by constant expansions of Roman territory and indeed the empire expanded under him more than under any subsequent ruler. To go with the acquisitions of Spain, Egypt, and parts of central Europe along the Rhine and Danube, he also managed to procure parts of the Middle East including Judaea, in 6 AD.

However, in 9 AD, disaster struck in the lands of Germania, in the Teutoburg forest, where three entire legions of Roman soldiers were lost. After this, Rome’s attitude to continuous expansion changed forever.

Background to the Disaster

Around the time when Drusus died in Germania in 9 BC, Rome confiscated the sons of one of the leading German chieftains, named Segimerus. As was the custom, these two sons – Arminius and Flavus – were to be raised in Rome and would learn the customs and culture of their conqueror.

This had the dual effect of keeping client chiefs and kings like Segimerus in line and also helped generate loyal barbarians who could serve in Rome’s auxiliary regiments. This was the plan anyway.

By 4 AD, the peace between the Romans and the German barbarians beyond the Rhine had broken and Tiberius (who had now returned from Rhodes after being named Augustus’s heir) had been sent in to pacify the region. In this campaign, Tiberius managed to push through to the river Weser, after defeating the Cananefates, Chatti , and Bructeri in decisive victories.

To oppose another threat (the Marcomanni, under Maroboduus) a massive force of more than 100,000 men was assembled in 6 AD and sent deep into Germania under the Legatus Saturnius. Later that year, the command was handed over to a respected politician called Varus, who was the incoming governor of the now “pacified” province of Germania.

The Varian Disaster (A.K.A The Battle of Teutoberg Forest)

As Varus was to find out, the province was far from pacified. Leading up to the disaster, Arminius, the son of the chieftain Segimerus, had been stationed in Germania, commanding a troop of auxiliary soldiers. Unbeknownst to his Roman masters, Arminius had allied himself with a number of German tribes and conspired to throw the Romans out of their homeland.

Accordingly, in 9 AD, whilst the majority of Saturnius’s original force of more than 100,000 men were with Tiberius in Illyricum, putting down an uprising there, Arminius found the perfect time to strike.

Whilst Varus was moving his three remaining legions to his summer camp, Arminius convinced him that there was a rebellion nearby that needed his attention. Familiar with Arminius, and convinced of his loyalty, Varus followed his lead, deep into a dense forest known as the Teutoburg forest.

Here, all three legions, along with Varus himself, were ambushed and exterminated by an alliance of Germanic tribes, never to be seen again.

READ MORE: Roman Wars

The Effect of the Disaster on Roman Policy 

Upon finding out about the annihilation of these legions, Augustus is said to have shouted “Varus, bring me back my legions!.” Yet Augustus’s laments would not bring back these soldiers and Rome’s north-eastern front was thrown into turmoil.

Tiberius was quickly sent to bring some stability, but by now it was clear that Germania could not be so easily conquered, if at all. Whilst there was some confrontation between Tiberius’s troops and those of Arminius’s new coalition, it was not until after the death of Augustus, that a proper campaign against them got underway.

Nevertheless, the region of Germania was never conquered and Rome’s seemingly unending expansion ceased. Whilst Claudius , Trajan , and some later emperors added some (relatively unimportant) provinces, the rapid expansion experienced under Augustus was stopped dead in its tracks along with Varus and his three legions.

Augustus’s Death and Legacy

In 14 AD, having held sway over the Roman Empire for more than 40 years, Augustus died in Nola, Italy, the same place that his father had. Whilst this was a momentous event that no doubt caused some shockwaves throughout the Roman world, his succession was well prepared for, even though he was not officially a monarch.

There had however been a catalog of potential heirs named throughout Augustus’s reign, many of which had died early deaths, until Tiberius was finally picked in 4 AD. Upon Augustus’s death then, Tiberius “took up the purple” and received Augustus’s wealth and resources – whilst his titles were effectively transferred to him by the senate, on top of the titles Tiberius had already shared with Augustus previously.

The principate was therefore to endure, still masked in its republican guise, with the senate “officially” being the bestowers of power. Tiberius continued on as Augustus had, feigning subservience to the senate, and masquerading as the “first among equals”.

Such a facade Augustus had set in motion, never again for the Romans to return to a republic. There were moments when the principate seemed to hang by a thread, especially at the deaths of Caligula and Nero , but things had so irreversibly changed that the idea of a republic soon became completely alien to Roman society. Augustus had forced Rome to rely on a central figurehead who could ensure peace and stability.

For all this, however, the Roman Empire curiously never really had an emperor to match its first, although Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, or Constantine would come quite close. Certainly, no other emperor expanded the empire’s boundaries further, as well as the fact that no age’s literature ever really matched that of Augustus’s “golden age.”

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Caesar Augustus

Caesar Augustus, or Octavian, became the first emperor of the Roman Empire after Julius Caesar died. The country was peaceful under Augustus's rule.

63 BCE–14 AD

Who Was Caesar Augustus?

Quick facts.

FULL NAME: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus BORN: September 23, 0063 BCE DEATH: August 19, 0014 AD BIRTHPLACE: Velletri, Italy

Caesar Augustus was born Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 B.C., in Velletri, Italy. Julius Caesar , his great-uncle, took an interest in Augustus. When Julius was murdered, Augustus discovered that he was Julius's heir to the throne. Before Augustus could gain the throne, however, he was forced to battle the armies of both Cleopatra VII and Marc Antony , who had their own plans for power following Julius's death. Augustus was victorious, and during his rule as Egypt's first Roman emperor, the country was peaceful and prosperous. Augustus died on August 19, 14 A.D., in Nola.

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Augustus Caesar Biography

Augustus Caesar (63 BC-AD 14) – First Emperor of Rome.

He was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus in 63 BC to an aristocratic Roman family. His maternal great-uncle was Julius Caesar . When Octavius was four years old, his father died and he was later raised by his grandmother – Julia, the sister of Julius Caesar. Octavius became close to Julius Caesar – the dictator of the Roman Empire, and impressed by his young relative, Julius Caesar named Octavius as the main beneficiary of his will. On becoming the adopted son of Julius Caesar, he took the new name of Gaius Julius Caesar.

The ides of March

On 15 March 44 BC, Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus and a collection of Roman senators fed up with Caesar’s dictatorship. However, far from bringing peace, the assassination sparked civil unrest with Octavius leading the Second Triumvirate of Mark Anthony and Marcus Lepidus in defeating the assassins of Caesar. Mark Anthony was ruthless in deposing potential enemies, and proscribed the influential Senate figure of Cicero . Octavian argued against putting Cicero on the ‘wanted list’ but in the end acquiesed to the more powerful Mark Antony. Octavian later praised Cicero.

Mark Anthony became infatuated with Cleopatra and spent time absent from Rome, this increased suspicion of Mark Anthony and helped Octavian gain more support. In 31 BC, Octavian defeated Anthony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. After Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide, Octavian had Cleopatra’s son Caesarion killed.

“Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the world, on sea and land, and when victorious I spared all citizens who sued for pardon. The foreign nations which could with safety be pardoned I preferred to save rather than to destroy.”

Augustus Caesar ‘ Res Gestae Divi Augusti’

He cut back on personal extravagances and was generous to the ordinary citizens of Rome. With the obvious failings of the Roman Republic, citizens were relieved to gain a benevolent dictator.

Although a grateful senate was happy to give Caesar unlimited powers, Caesar agreed to keep the outer facade of the Senate and legislative assembly, but in practice, Augustus Caesar could rule with near-absolute power.

Despite being incredibly powerful, he exercised his power with a degree of restraint and enlightenment. It marked the beginning of ‘Pax Romana’ – the near two centuries of relative peace, with the Roman Empire strengthening its power and influence over Europe.

On a domestic front, Augustus embarked on an ambitious programme of investment in public infrastructures, such as roads, aqueducts and sewage systems. Augustus also founded the cities first police force and fire service. Augustus built many significant buildings in Rome.

The last public words of Augustus were

“Behold, I found Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble.”

He also reformed the civil service and created a personal bodyguard – The Praetorian Guard. One reform which of particular historical note was his decree that everyone in Roman Empire should be registered in an Empire wide census. This caused Joseph and Mary to travel to the city of David, (Bethlehem) to register according to Roman rule (Luke 2:1-7 ESV)

In foreign affairs, he sought to expand the frontiers of the Roman Empire and create standing armies to secure the borders against ‘barbarians’. These campaigns were successful in expanding the Roman Empire to include all of Spain, Egypt, Judea, Galatia and spreading northeast into Central Europe. The territory gained by Caesar made him one of the most successful military leaders, though he conducted most campaigns from Rome and engaged in little direct leadership himself.

However, towards the end of his reign, there was increased resistance -, especially in Eastern Germany. One of his stepsons, who managed the campaign was killed, and this proved to be a region of continued resistance.

Augustus died in 14 AD and power peacefully transferred to his adopted stepson Tiberius. Though Augustus never declared himself King – only princeps (first citizen) It was the start of an effective Royal dynasty – which was to rule the Roman Empire with different degrees of success.

The era of relative peace and prosperity which Augustus helped to create enabled a synthesis of Roman, Egyptian and Greek culture. This Roman culture became deeply embedded into European culture. In turn, the strength of the Roman Empire would be a vehicle for the transfer of Christianity throughout Europe. Augustus would have been unlikely to hear anything of the Birth of Christ in Judea. Augustus was a patron of the traditional Roman religion and built temples and encouraged worship of the pagan gods.

Augustus died aged 76, after a long period of ill health, his reported last words were:

“Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit”

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. “ Biography of Augustus Caesar” , Oxford, UK www.biographyonline.net , Published: 1 August 2018. Last updated 1 August 2019.

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Augustus Caesar – Biography, Accomplishments & Facts

by World History Edu · July 16, 2021

Also known as Octavian or Caesar Augustus, Emperor Augustus (63 BCE – 14 CE) was the Roman ruler who turned around the fortunes of a declining republic into the Roman Empire, one of the longest-lasting empires in world history.

Undoubtedly, Augustus was one of the greatest emperors of Rome, having taken full control of the vast empire by the third decade of his reign. Starting from 17 BCE, he was most known as Imperator Caesar. His greatest accomplishment came when he founded the Roman Empire which grew to be one of the largest and most prosperous empires in history, spanning for a millennium and half. Furthermore, Augustus’ long stay on the throne and the sheer amount of power that he wielded allowed him to overhaul the religious and political structure of Rome.

The article below delves right into the circumstances surrounding Augustus’ birth story, family tree, his rise to power, accomplishments, and legacy.

Birth Story and Origin

Emperor Augustus’ statue: Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century; location – Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy

The birth place of Augustus was on the Palatine Hill, a place close to the Roman Forum, in the city of Rome.

He was born on the Palatine Hill in the city of Rome on 23 September 63 BCE. Augustus Caesar’s family was an old, distinguished and wealthy family of an equestrian branch, a property-based class below the senatorial class.

His full name was Gaius Octavius Thurinus. His third name (cognomen), Thurinus, stemmed from the honor his father received from quelling a slave rebellion at Thurii a couple years after his birth.

His father, Gaius Octavius, hailed from a town called Velletri which is about 25 miles from Rome. It was in that town were Augustus was raised as a child.

His paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius distinguished himself bravely as a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War. Similarly, Octavius’ father Gaius Octavius distinguished himself in the Roman Republic, once serving as the governor of Macedonia.

On his mother’s side, Augustus was distantly related to Julius Caesar , a prominent Roman general, dictator and consul. His mother Atia was the daughter of Julia the Younger, Julius Caesar’s sister. What this meant was Augustus was the great-nephew of Julius Caesar.

Relationship between Augustus Caesar and Julius Caesar

Towards the latter part of Julius Caesar’s reign, Gaius Octavius (later Caesar Augustus) was adopted by the heirless Julius to be his son and heir to the throne. Augustus was no random individual as he was related to Julius Caesar – he was Julius’ great-nephew through his mother Atia, the daughter of Julia the Younger, Julius’ sister. After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, Augustus took the reins of power, as per the will of Julius Caesar.

Augustus’ political and military prowess was just one of the reasons why he was able to amass immense power, maintaining a strong grip on Rome. This enabled him to reign for a very long time, surpassing his great-uncle’s reign.

Emperor Augustus was the adopted son and great-nephew of Julius Caesar ( Gaius Julius Caesar)  | Image: Bust of Julius Caesar, one of the only surviving sculpture of Caesar made during his lifetime

Early political career

Around the age of four, Octavius’ father Gaius Octavius died. His mother Atia remarried a man called Lucius Marcius Philippus, a former governor of Syria. For some time in his childhood, he was raised by his paternal grandmother, Julia the Younger. Sadly, Julia died in 52 BCE, meaning Octavius went back into the care of his mother and his stepfather.

Owing to his strong admiration of his great-grand uncle, Octavius took to politics at a very young age. In 47 BC, he was elected a member of the highest-ranking priests, the College of Pontiffs . A year later, in 48 BCE, Octavius worked as the organizer of a Greek sporting festival held to commemorate the Temple of Venus Genetrix (which was built by Julius Caesar).

How Julius Caesar took his grand-nephew under his wings

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They Were the Caesars

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By Steve Coates

• Dec. 31, 2006

When a crowd of Roman senators cut down the dictator Julius Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 B.C., they imagined that their daggers had saved the obsolete but tenacious oligarchy known as the Republic. Caesar knew better. “It is more important for the state than for myself that I should survive,” he had told friends. “I have long had my fill of power and glory; but should anything happen to me, Rome will enjoy no peace. A new civil war will break out under far worse conditions than the last.”

History bore out Caesar’s prophecy, largely through the wiles of his grand-nephew and adopted son, the ruthlessly ambitious youth who was to become Caesar Augustus. As victor in his own civil wars, Augustus maintained an ostentatious facade of Republican government, while keeping real power in his own grasp. When he died in A.D. 14, after more than 40 years of rule, Augustus had come near outliving the Republic’s very memory, and by destroying, co-opting or intimidating the city’s old governing elite into submission, he delivered Rome into the hands of the emperors.

Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Graves and many others have mined this era for its epic incident and human pathos. A strong sense of drama also sustains Adrian Goldsworthy’s “Caesar: Life of a Colossus” and Anthony Everitt’s “Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor.” Both are out to tell a good story. Both also share a strength too often missing from classics books for general readers, one that goes to the heart of the joy of classical scholarship: they never lose sight of the ancient sources on which their stories depend, and convey a strong sense of how sifting through all the flawed surviving evidence — from Suetonius, Plutarch, Appian, Cassius Dio, Cicero, and Caesar and Augustus themselves — can thrill the intellect as well as stir the imagination.

Shakespeare’s dictator is a mere wisp of the man in Goldsworthy’s captivating biography. Caesar was born in 100 B.C. (though almost certainly not through the medical procedure that bears his name) into patrician privilege and violent times. His debts, and a proclivity for demagoguery, lent him an air of desperation, and the conservative elements of the Senate feared him as a revolutionary long before he illegally brought troops across the Rubicon. His great charm was a signature political asset, but in the fashion of the day, he also had a knack for bribery, intimidation and — some said — murder.

Goldsworthy, an independent military historian with several books on the Roman army to his credit, puts Caesar’s war exploits on full display, along with his literary genius. Contemporaries immediately recognized the general’s “Commentaries on the Gallic War” as a masterpiece, and Goldsworthy compares their style to Churchill’s, even if “the modern reader may sometimes balk” at its “catalog of unabashed imperialism, massacre, mass execution and enslavement” in a province that included most of modern France. But Goldsworthy also explores the other sides of Caesar, who was, along with much else, an epileptic, a dandy, a high priest and, after death, a god. His affairs were legion. Goldsworthy calls him a “serial seducer of married women,” including the wives of his greatest political allies.

In the end, senatorial resentment at Caesar’s autocratic power, and his flirtations with the abhorrent trappings of both royalty and divinity, led to his murder at age 55. The dramatic trajectory of his life, with its bloody denouement, well suits Goldworthy’s vigorous and un-self-conscious style. The result is an authoritative and exciting portrait not only of Caesar but of the complex society in which he lived.

Anthony Everitt is at some disadvantage in writing about Augustus, a more shadowy figure whose career followed an unwieldy outline for drama. In 44 B.C., when his connection to Caesar boosted him onto the political scene, he was a deceptively malleable-seeming 18-year-old. “He is wholly devoted to me,” Cicero boasted, not long before the youth cut a deal to have him murdered. Augustus overcame a sickly constitution, and what might charitably be called a psychosomatic aversion to the battlefield, to make an early end to his civil wars, winning in the process a personal reputation for cruelty, duplicity and vindictiveness.

While an emperor’s work — consolidating the frontiers, renewing the state’s civic and religious institutions, and balancing the books — is never done, the second and much longer part of Augustus’ life becomes a kind of dynastic soap opera. The death of his nephew Marcellus (memorably and piteously mourned by Virgil in the “Aeneid”), and then of his grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, cheated Augustus’ forlorn hopes for a successor of his own blood. The exile and disgrace of his daughter and granddaughter, both charged with gross immorality, remain mysterious. His wife, Livia, an indispensable member of the regime, was suspected of scheming — and much worse — on behalf of her sons by a previous marriage.

Everitt, who teaches at Nottingham Trent and City Universities in England, is the author of a previous biography of Cicero, but he is clearly not as steeped in classical studies as his fellow Briton Goldsworthy, and he often seems conflicted between his scholarly and popularizing instincts, to the detriment of both. Nor is his hope “to make Augustus come alive” served by his resort to the tactics of the kind of TV documentaries lampooned in Alan Bennett’s play “The History Boys,” including camera-ready but unelucidating descriptions of picturesque sites, and emotive, partly imaginary vignettes of events in Augustus’ life. The most dubious of these is Everitt’s presentation of the emperor’s final days, in which he dramatizes his own frothy version of a rumor that the old man was poisoned by his wife.

Beyond that, Everitt is not a consistently reliable guide to Roman history. He is far too sanguine about freedom of speech under Augustus, for example; and few if any classicists believe that Antony was complicit in Caesar’s assassination, as he asserts. Perhaps worse, the many seeming contradictions of Augustus’ regime baffle Everitt’s powers of narrative resolution.

A common criticism of Virgil’s “Aeneid” is that its hero inspires far less instinctive admiration than the characters who come to grief on his account. Can it be just coincidence that the same is true of Everitt’s Augustus? Try as he might, Everitt fails to give the emperor an appealing face, or even a convincingly human one. His truly sympathetic figures turn out to be those who were in some way victims, either of Augustus himself or of his new dispensation: Cleopatra and her murdered son; the banished love poet Ovid; Augustus’ loyal and humane sister, Octavia; his underappreciated stepson Tiberius; and even the maligned Mark Antony.

Still, it is a blessing that neither Everitt nor Goldsworthy sings the familiar dirges, de rigueur in so many popular books about Rome, for Augustus’ principal victim: the dubious liberty of the Republic. Despite the democratic ring to its name, that system was designed to concentrate power in the hands of a narrow circle of aristocrats, whose endless struggles for power threatened the state with ruin. Paradoxically, along with blessed peace, the Empire — in essence a kind of constitutional monarchy — also brought an incrementally broader spectrum of the Roman world’s citizens into the halls of government. Its administration and institutions — which, with some battering, lasted for 400 years — were durable enough to function smoothly even if the emperor happened to be a madman, a monster or a fool.

Augustus’ elusive character may seem to peer at us only through cold stone eyes, but it was he who finally freed Rome from the ruinous burden of the oligarchs, a feat more impressive than any of Caesar’s conquests.

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Top Ten Books on Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar has cast a shadow over western history for two millennia. He was a remarkable general, a people's champion, the destroyer of the Roman Republic and the creator of the Roman Empire. Each of these books not only try to tell Caesar's story but attempt to understand his impact on the world.

Goldsworthy, Adrian, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (Yale University Press, 2008)

In the introduction to his biography of the great Roman emperor, Adrian Goldsworthy writes, “Caesar was at times many things, including a fugitive, prisoner, rising politician, army leader, legal advocate, rebel, dictator . . . as well as husband, father, lover, and adulterer.” In this landmark biography, Goldsworthy examines Caesar as a military leader, all of these roles and places his subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C.

"Adrian Goldsworthy is one of our most promising young military historians today."—Sir John Keegan, author of The Iraq War

Freeman, Philip. Julius Caesar . (Simon and Schuster, 2008)

In this splendid biography, Freeman presents Caesar in all his dimensions and contradictions. With remarkable clarity and brevity, Freeman shows how Caesar dominated a newly mighty Rome and shaped its destiny. This book will captivate readers discovering Caesar and ancient Rome for the first time as well as those who have a deep interest in the classical world.

"Can Alexander Hamilton possibly have been right that Julius Caesar was 'the greatest man who ever lived'? Reading Philip Freeman's pacy and panoptic narrative of Caesar's life from unpromising early beginnings to the fateful Ides is one very rewarding approach to answering that perennially fascinating question." -- Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History, University of Cambridge

Suetonis, Grant, Robert, trans. The Twelve Caesars (New York: Penguin Books, 1979)

As private secretary to Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero and the recovery that came with his successors.

Osgood, Josiah. Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006)

In April 44 BC the eighteen-year-old Gaius Octavius landed in Italy and launched his take-over of the Roman world. Defeating first Caesar's assassins, then the son of Pompey the Great, and finally Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, he dismantled the old Republic, took on the new name 'Augustus', and ruled forty years more with his equally remarkable wife Livia. Caesar's Legacy grippingly retells the story of Augustus' rise to power by focusing on how the bloody civil wars which he and his soldiers fought transformed the lives of men and women throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond. During this violent period, citizens of Rome and provincials came to accept a new form of government and found ways to celebrate it. Yet they also mourned, in literary masterpieces and stories passed on to their children, the terrible losses they endured throughout the long years of fighting.

'… a fine achievement … A vision of the remarkable period now exists where none existed before. In his first book, Mr. Osgood provides an admirable demonstration of original scholarship, and he is to be warmly congratulated.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Holland, Tom. Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (London, Anchor Press, 2003)

Rubicon is vivid historical account of the social world of Rome as it moved from republic to empire. In 49 B.C., the seven hundred fifth year since the founding of Rome, Julius Caesar crossed a small border river called the Rubicon and plunged Rome into cataclysmic civil war. Tom Holland’s enthralling account tells the story of Caesar’s generation, witness to the twilight of the Republic and its bloody transformation into an empire. From Cicero, Spartacus, and Brutus, to Cleopatra, Virgil, and Augustus, here are some of the most legendary figures in history brought thrillingly to life.

Combining verve and freshness with scrupulous scholarship, Rubicon is not only an engrossing history of this pivotal era but a uniquely resonant portrait of a great civilization in all its extremes of self-sacrifice and rivalry, decadence and catastrophe, intrigue, war, and world-shaking ambition.

Goodman, Rob. Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato: Mortal Enemy of Caesar (St. Martin's Griffen, 2014)

Marcus Porcius Cato: an aristocrat who walked barefoot and slept on the ground with his troops, political heavyweight who cultivated the image of a Stoic philosopher, a hardnosed defender of tradition who presented himself as a man out of the sacred Roman past—and the last man standing when Rome's Republic fell to tyranny. His blood feud with Caesar began in the chamber of the Senate, played out on the battlefields of a world war, and ended when he took his own life rather than live under a dictator.

Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, Oxford University, 2002).

The Roman Revolution is a profound and unconventional treatment of a great theme - the fall of the Republic and the decline of freedom in Rome between 60 BC and AD 14, and the rise to power of the greatest of the Roman Emperors, Augustus. The transformation of state and society, the violent transference of power and property, and the establishment of Augustus' rule are presented in an unconventional narrative, which quotes from ancient evidence, rarely refers to modern authorities, and states controversial opinions quite openly. The result is a book which is both fresh and compelling.

`the most complete and the most challenging history of its subject which has appeared for many years, in England perhaps at any time ... Nor is this book only for the specialist, for the subject is of prime importance, the information is the best which modern research can provide.' Oxford Magazine

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Jiménez, Ramon L., Caesar Against Rome: The Great Roman Civil War (New York, Praeger, 2006).

Caesar Against Rome is an absorbing narrative of the four-year Roman Civil War that began with Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BCE. Focusing always on Caesar, the book sketches a panorama of Roman society―the first society to display the ambition, greed, and intrigue of modern politics―in the last century before Christ. Caesar was a complex and contradictory figure, extraordinarily talented and extremely ambitious, but at the same time vain, careless, and inclined to be forgiving. While Caesar's unusual show of mercy was a significant factor in winning popular support, soldiers, and towns to his side, it allowed all enemy leaders to return to the battlefield against him.

Kurt A. Raalaab, trans., The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Complete Works: Gallic War, Civil War, Alexandrian War, African War, and Spanish War (Anchor Books, 2019)

The Landmark Julius Caesar is the definitive edition of the five works that chronicle the mil­itary campaigns of Julius Caesar. Together, these five narratives present a comprehensive picture of military and political developments leading to the collapse of the Roman Republic and the advent of the Roman Empire.

The Gallic War is Caesar’s account of his two invasions of Britain and of conquering most of what is today France, Belgium, and Switzerland. The Civil War describes the conflict in the following year which, after the death of his chief rival, Pompey, and the defeat of Pompey’s heirs and supporters, resulted in Caesar’s emergence as the sole power in Rome. Accompanying Caesar’s commentaries are three short but essential additional works, known to us as the Alexandrian War, the African War, and the Spanish War. These were written by three unknown authors who were eyewitnesses and probably Roman officers.

Jonathan P. Roth, Roman Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Roman Warfare surveys the history of Rome's fighting forces from their inception in the 7th century BCE to the fall of the Western Empire in the 5th century CE. In non-technical, lively language, Jonathan Roth examines the evolution of Roman war over its thousand-year history. He highlights the changing arms and equipment of the soldiers, unit organization and command structure, and the wars and battles of each era. The military narrative is used as a context for Rome's changing tactics and strategy and to discuss combat techniques, logistics, and other elements of Roman war. Political, social, and economic factors are also considered.

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