Augustus

Bust of Augustus as a young Gaius Octavius

An idealized Roman sculpted portrait of Octavius as a teenager, possibly produced posthumously or when he was much older, now located in the Vatican Museums Template:Sfn

Octavian was born as Gaius Octavius in Rome on 23 September 63 BC,Template:Sfnm Template:Efn at a family property on the Palatine Hill.Template:Sfnm His father, Gaius Octavius, came from a moderately wealthy equestrian family of the Template:Lang.Template:Sfnm He ascended the cursus honorum,Template:Sfnm Template:Efn and served as a proconsular governor of Macedonia.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn His family was from Velitrae,Template:Sfnm near Rome,Template:Sfnm where his son spent part of his childhood.Template:Sfnm The younger Octavius's mother, Atia, was a niece of Julius Caesar.Template:Sfnm

Ancient Roman coin depicting Julius Caesar on the obverse and Venus holding a scepter on the reverse

Template:Lang from 44 BC, showing Julius Caesar on the obverse and the goddess Venus on the reverse of the coin. Caption: Template:Langr

After Octavius's father died in 59 BCTemplate:Sfnm or 58 BC,Template:Sfnm his mother married Lucius Marcius Philippus,Template:Sfnm who was elected as consul in 56 BC.Template:Sfnm When Octavius's grandmother Julia, sister of Julius Caesar, died in 52 or 51 BC, Octavius delivered her funeral oration, his first public appearance.Template:Sfnm A Greek slave tutor named Sphaerus educated him in reading, writing, arithmetic, and Greek. Octavius later freed Sphaerus and gave him a state funeral in 40 BC.Template:Sfnm As a teenager, he studied philosophy under Areios of Alexandria and Athenodorus of Tarsus, Latin rhetoric under Marcus Epidius, and Greek rhetoric under Apollodorus of Pergamon.Template:Sfn

Julius Caesar had formed an informal alliance with Pompey and Crassus in 60 BC,Template:Sfnm but by 49 BC it had fallen apart and Pompey and Caesar were fighting a protracted civil war.Template:Sfnm In 47 BC, after Octavius donned the Template:Lang and became an adult citizen,Template:Sfnm Caesar had him elected as pontiff, replacing the slain Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.Template:Sfnm The following year, Octavius presided over the Greek games commemorating the opening of Caesar's Temple of Venus Genetrix.Template:Sfnm He wished to join Caesar's staff for the African campaign but gave way when his mother Atia protested over his poor health.Template:Sfnm Caesar allowed Octavius to proceed next to his chariot during his triumph celebrating the campaign and awarded Octavius with military decorations as if he had been present.Template:Sfnm In 45 BC Octavius traveled to Hispania to join Caesar's Spanish campaign against Pompey the Younger.Template:Sfnm On 13 September 45 BC Caesar deposited a new will with the Vestal Virgins naming Octavius as his principal heir.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn

Rise to power

Heir to Caesar

A painting showing a group of men attacking Julius Caesar, some of them armed with knives. Caesar, wearing a laurel crown, is seated with an arm outstretched towards his attackers. In the background, a crowd looks on in shock.

The Death of Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini, 1805, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome

In 44 BC, Octavius was at Apollonia, Illyria, when Julius Caesar was made Rome's first Template:Lang ('dictator in perpetuity') in February,Template:Sfnm and then assassinated on the Ides of March (15 March).Template:Sfnm Octavius consulted with Caesar's officers in Macedonia before sailing for Italy to ascertain his political fortunes.Template:Sfnm Caesar had no living legitimate children under Roman law.Template:Sfnm His will made Octavius his main heir with the condition that he assume the dead dictator's name.Template:Sfnm After landing near Brundisium in southern Italy,Template:Sfnm Octavius received a copy of the will, which bequeathed him three-quarters of Caesar's estate.^[1]Template:Efn Against the advice of his stepfather Philippus, Octavius accepted Caesar's will on 8 May 44 BC.Template:Sfnm He purported that Caesar adopted him as his son and assumed the name Gaius Julius Caesar.Template:Sfnm There is no evidence that he referred to himself as Template:Lang,Template:Sfnm but some of his contemporaries did, such as his stepfather and Cicero.Template:Sfnm

Octavian could not rely on his limited funds to make a successful entry into politics.Template:Sfn After a warm welcome by Caesar's soldiers at Brundisium,Template:Sfnm he demanded a portion of the funds allotted by Caesar for his eastern war against the Parthians.Template:Sfn This amounted to 700 million sesterces stored at Brundisium, the staging ground in Italy for military operations in the east.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Octavian made another bold move when, without official permission, he appropriated the annual tribute from Rome's province of Asia to Italy.Template:Sfnm He also began to recruit Caesar's veterans and men designated for the Parthian war.Template:Sfn On his march to Rome through Italy, Octavian's presence and newly acquired riches won over many, including Caesar's veterans stationed in Campania.Template:Sfnm By June, he had gathered an army of 3,000 men, paying each a bonus of 500 Template:Lang,Template:Sfnm which was more than twice a soldier's annual pay.Template:Sfn

Growing tensions

A marble carved bust depicting Octavian wearing a toga

Bust of Octavian, Template:Circa. Capitoline Museums, Rome

Arriving to Rome on 6 May 44 BC,Template:Sfnm Octavian found consul Mark Antony, Caesar's former colleague, in an uneasy truce with Caesar's assassins. A general amnesty on 17 March pardoned the assassins in exchange for recognition of Caesar's legal acts.Template:Sfnm Soon afterwards, Antony succeeded in driving most of them out of Rome with an inflammatory eulogy at Caesar's funeral, mounting public opinion against the assassins.Template:Sfnm

Mark Antony was amassing political support, but had lost the support of many Romans and Caesarians when he opposed the motion to elevate Caesar to divine status. Octavian challenged him as the leader of the Caesarians.Template:Sfn To halt Octavian from dispersing 300 sesterces per capita to the urban plebs in accordance with Caesar's will,Template:Sfnm Antony refused to give Octavian the money due him as Caesar's heir.Template:Sfn He also blocked the curiate assembly from hearing Octavian's attempts to legitimize his supposed adoption by Caesar,Template:Sfnm to have Caesar formally deified and to reinstate Caesar's golden throne for public view at games staged in April and June.Template:Sfnm During Caesar's victory games, Octavian distributed some of the funds in Caesar's will and combined this with his own money, enhancing his popularity while damaging Antony's.Template:Sfnm

During the summer of 44 BC, Octavian won the support of more veterans and also senators who perceived Antony as a threat to the state.Template:Sfnm Antony had lictors drag Octavian away from a hearing over the reinstatement of private property seized by Caesar in 49 BC. Octavian then claimed Antony threatened his life as retribution for distributing money to the plebs in Caesar's will. Caesar's veterans convinced Antony to publicly reconcile with Octavian in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.Template:Sfn Thereafter, Antony's bellicose edicts against the assassins Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus alienated him from the moderate Caesarian senators, who feared a renewed civil war.Template:Sfnm In September, Marcus Tullius Cicero, now a political ally of Octavian, began to give a series of speeches portraying Antony as a threat to the Republic.Template:Sfnm

First conflict with Antony

Roman bust of Mark Antony

Flavian-era bust traditionally identified as Mark Antony, Vatican Museums

Roman bust of Cicero as an older man

With opinion in Rome turning against him and his consulship concluding, Antony illegally passed a law that would assign him the province of Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy.Template:Sfnm Octavian meanwhile built up a private army in Italy by recruiting Caesarian veterans,Template:Sfnm and in early November entered Rome with this private force to challenge Antony.Template:Sfnm However, they vacated the city shortly afterwards,Template:Sfnm due to some veterans choosing to quit once it became clear they were involved in a Caesarian squabble rather than a revenge campaign against Caesar's assassins.Template:Sfnm Nevertheless, on 28 November, Octavian won over two of Antony's legions with the enticing offer of monetary gain.Template:Sfnm Antony then left Rome for Cisalpine Gaul,Template:Sfnm which was to be handed to him on 1 January 43 BC.Template:Sfnm However, the province had earlier been assigned to the assassin Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, who now refused to yield to Antony.Template:Sfnm Antony besieged him at Mutina.Template:Sfnm This provided an opportunity for Octavian, whose private army was at hand.Template:Sfnm

Bust of Marcus Tullius Cicero, 1st century AD, Capitoline Museums, Rome

Cicero defended Octavian against Antony's taunts,Template:Sfnm Template:Efn and had him inducted as a senator on 1 January 43 BC. Octavian was given the power to vote alongside the former consuls, the privilege to stand for election at an earlier age than usual,Template:Sfnm and Template:Lang which legitimized his command. Octavian accompanied the consuls to relieve the siege of Mutina.Template:Sfnm He assumed the fasces on 7 January,Template:Sfn a date that he would later commemorate as the beginning of his public career.Template:Sfnm Antony retreated to Transalpine Gaul after his forces were defeated at the battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina in April. Both consuls were killed, however, leaving Octavian in sole command of their armies.Template:Sfnm These victories earned him his first acclamation as Template:Lang, a title reserved for victorious commanders.Template:Sfnm

Largely ignoring Octavian, the Senate heaped many rewards on Decimus Brutus and attempted to give him command of the consular legions.Template:Sfnm In response, Octavian stayed in the Po Valley and refused to pursue Antony.Template:Sfnm In July, an embassy of centurions sent by Octavian entered Rome; they demanded the now-vacant consulship for Octavian,Template:Sfnm with Cicero as co-consul,Template:Sfnm and the rescission of the decree declaring Antony a public enemy.Template:Sfn When this was refused, Octavian marched on Rome,Template:Sfnm where he encountered no military opposition. On 19 August 43 BC, aged 19, he became consul alongside his relative Quintus Pedius.Template:Sfnm Pedius passed legislation creating a special tribunal for Caesar's assassins and their alleged associates; Octavian presided over the trial and had them convicted and exiled in absentia.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Octavian also induced the curiate assembly to have him adrogated into Caesar's family, legitimizing his claim of testamentary adoption.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, Antony formed an alliance with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, then governor of Gallia Narbonensis.Template:Sfnm The Senate branded Lepidus, a fellow Caesarian, as a public enemy for joining Antony,Template:Sfnm but they reversed the pair's outlawing at Pedius's behest while Octavian marched north to fight Decimus Brutus and meet with Antony.Template:Sfnm

Second Triumvirate

In a meeting near Bononia in October 43Template:NbspBC, Octavian joined with Antony and Lepidus to form the triumvirate, ostensibly for the stability of the Roman Republic,Template:Sfnm and on 27 November the Template:Lang legitimized their agreement for five years.Template:Sfnm The triumvirate, unlike the unofficial "first triumvirate" of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, was a formal office; it gave the men consular power, the right to appoint magistrates, and allowed their division among themselves of the provinces not under the control of the Template:Lang in the east.Template:Sfnm Octavian had previously been engaged to Servilia, daughter of Publius Servilius Isauricus, but instead became engaged to Claudia, stepdaughter of Antony, to solidify their political union.Template:Sfnm Octavian also relinquished the consulship to Antony's ally Publius Ventidius.Template:Sfnm

Proscriptions

Ancient Roman coin depicting Antony on the obverse and Octavian on the reverse

Template:Lang bearing the portraits of Mark Antony (left) and Octavian (right), issued in 41Template:NbspBC to celebrate the establishment of the Second Triumvirate. Both sides bear the inscription Template:Smallcaps, meaning 'Three Men for the regulation of the Republic'. Caption: Template:Smallcaps / Template:Smallcaps.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

The triumvirs then set in motion proscriptions, targeting some 300 men as outlaws, divided roughly evenly between senators and equestrians.Template:Sfnm Thousands more had their properties confiscated.Template:Efn Contemporary Roman historians provide conflicting reports as to which triumvir was most responsible for the proscriptions and killing.Template:Sfnm However, the sources agree that the proscriptions enabled all three to eliminate political enemies.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

The triumvirs initiated the proscriptions partly to raise money to pay the salaries of their troops for the upcoming conflict against Caesar's assassins, Brutus and Cassius, but the main intention was the removal of wartime rivals.Template:Sfnm The triumvirs seized the proscripts' property.Template:Sfnm However much money was raised was insufficient,Template:Sfnm so the triumvirs introduced a range of new taxes to fund their war. They reinstituted property taxes and created new imposts on slaves, before also demanding property assessments for taxes on rich women that were reduced after a public protest of women in Rome.^[2]

Battle of Philippi and division of territory

Ancient Roman coin depicting Augustus on the obverse with a commemoration to his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, on the reverse

A Template:Lang coin of Augustus minted Template:Circa. Obverse: Template:Langr; reverse: Caesar's comet with eight rays and an upward tail; Template:Langr, "divine Julius".

On 1 January 42 BC, with Lepidus as consul,Template:Sfn the Senate posthumously recognized Julius Caesar as a divinity of the Roman state, Template:Lang. Octavian was able to further his cause by emphasizing that he was Template:Lang ('son of the divine').Template:Sfnm Antony and Octavian then led twenty-eight legions east against Brutus and Cassius,Template:Sfnm whom they defeated after two battles at Philippi in Macedonia in October 42 BC. Brutus and Cassius both died by suicide.Template:Sfnm Claiming responsibility for both victories, Antony branded Octavian a coward for handing over his direct military control to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.Template:Sfn Octavian was bedridden with illness during the first battle,Template:Sfnm allegedly removing himself from command over the camp per his doctor's advice,Template:Sfnm but captured Brutus's camp during the second battle.Template:Sfn

Roman marble bust of Octavian; part of the nose and chin are damaged

Sculpted marble head of triumvir Octavian dated roughly to the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, Archaeological Museum of Spoleto

After Philippi, the triumvirs again divided the provinces. Lepidus was suspected of colluding with Sextus Pompey,Template:Sfnm the renegade general whom the anti-Caesarian Senate had given command over all Mediterranean coastlines in 43 BC.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Cisalpine Gaul was combined with Italia and given to Octavian along with the provinces of Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior that Lepidus had to forfeit.Template:Sfnm Antony travelled east to Egypt where he allied himself with Cleopatra, a Roman client ruler, former lover of Julius Caesar, and mother of Caesar's son Caesarion.Template:Sfnm In addition to the eastern provinces, Antony controlled Gallia Comata and took Gallia Narbonensis from Lepidus,Template:Sfnm who was left with the province of Africa.Template:Sfnm

Octavian was left to settle tens of thousands of discharged veterans in Italy.Template:Sfnm Those who fought for the assassins also required settlement for their pacification.Template:Sfnm With no remaining public land, Octavian chose to confiscate land from citizens, instead of alienating the soldiers who could mount a real threat to the regime in Italy.Template:Sfnm The settlements affected some eighteen cities, with entire populations fully or partially evicted.Template:Sfnm

Perusine War, marriage alliances, and Brundisium

Ancient Roman coin depicting Antony on the obverse and Octavian on the reverse

Roman aureus bearing the portraits of Mark Antony (left) and Octavian (right), issued to celebrate their reconciliation in October 40 BC

A silver coin depicting the heads of Cleopatra and Mark Antony

Cleopatra and Mark Antony on the obverse and reverse, respectively, of a silver tetradrachm struck at the mint of Antioch in 36 BC, with Greek legends

These veteran settlements brought Octavian widespread dissatisfaction. The disaffected rallied to Mark Antony's brother Lucius Antonius, who was supported by a majority in the Senate.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, Octavian asked for a divorce from Claudia, Antony's stepdaughter. He returned Claudia to her mother, Fulvia, claiming that their marriage had never been consummated.Template:Sfnm Fulvia and Lucius Antonius then raised an army in Italy to fight for Antony's rights against Octavian.Template:Sfnm Lucius even briefly took Rome, forcing Lepidus and his two legions to flee the city.Template:Sfnm However, the Roman army still depended on the triumvirs for their salaries.Template:Sfn Lucius and his allies ended up in a defensive siege at Perusia, where Octavian forced their surrender in February 40 BC.Template:Sfnm Octavian spared Lucius, while Fulvia fled to Sicyon in GreeceTemplate:Sfnm and died shortly afterwards.Template:Sfnm On 15 March, the anniversary of Julius Caesar's assassination, Octavian had 300 Roman senators and equestrians executed for allying with Lucius.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Perusia was also sacked,Template:Sfnm though it is unclear if Octavian's troops or local inhabitants started the fires.Template:Sfn These reprisals sullied Octavian's reputation.Template:Sfn

Marble bust of Livia

A Roman bust of Livia, Augustus's third wife, Musée Saint-Raymond, France

Sextus Pompey affirmed his control of Sicily as part of an agreement with the triumvirate in 40 BC,Template:Sfn and gained control of Sardinia and Corsica in 39.Template:Sfnm Both Antony and Octavian sought an alliance with him.Template:Sfnm Octavian established a temporary alliance in 40 BC when he married Scribonia, an aunt of Sextus's wife.Template:Sfnm A year later, Scribonia gave birth to Octavian's only natural child, Julia, on the same day that he divorced her to marry Livia Drusilla.Template:Sfnm When Livia began her affair with Octavian, she was already married to Tiberius Claudius Nero, had a son Tiberius with Nero, and was pregnant with their second child. She gave birth to her second son, Drusus, several months after her divorce from Nero and marriage to Octavian.Template:Sfnm

While in Egypt, Antony had been engaged in an affair with Cleopatra and had fathered two children with her.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Antony's Gallic provinces fell into Octavian's hands after the death of Antony's legate Quintus Fufius Calenus in 40 BC.Template:Sfnm Aware of his deteriorating relationship with Octavian, Antony left Cleopatra; he sailed to Italy in 40 BC with a large force to oppose Octavian, laying siege to Brundisium, but the men's revolting armies forced them to reconcile.Template:Sfnm In late 40, the triumvirs divided the empire between Antony in the east, Octavian in the west, and Lepidus in Africa.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Now in a stronger position due to the Parthian threat in Antony's provinces,Template:Sfnm Octavian gave his sister, Octavia Minor, in marriage to Antony.Template:Sfnm

War with Sextus Pompey and exile of Lepidus

A coin issued by Sextus Pompey, Octavian's rival, depicting a ship and a statue of Neptune on the obverse and the monster Scylla on the reverse

A Template:Lang of Sextus Pompey, minted for his victory over Octavian's fleet. Obverse: the place where he defeated Octavian, Pharus of Messina decorated with a statue of Neptune; before that galley adorned with aquila, sceptre & trident; Template:Langr. Reverse, the monster Scylla, her torso of dogs and fish tails, wielding a rudder as a club. Caption: Template:Langr

Before the battles of Philippi, Octavian had sent Salvidienus Rufus to remove Sextus Pompey from Sicily, but after Rufus's defeat, the triumvirs recognized Sextus's Mediterranean command at Brundisium in 40 BC.Template:Sfn When Sextus resumed his blockade, a starving angry mob in Rome blamed Octavian and Antony and attacked them in early 39 BC; Antony's forces rescued Octavian and dispersed the mob.Template:Sfn Another temporary peace agreement was reached in 39 BC at Misenum. Sextus lifted the blockade on Italy once Octavian granted him Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and the Peloponnese and ensured him a future position in the consulship.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn

The agreement between the triumvirate and Sextus began to crumble when Octavian divorced Scribonia and married Livia in 38 BC.Template:Sfn After Antony refused to relinquish the Peloponnese, Sextus reimposed his blockade, starting food riots at Rome.Template:Sfn Sextus's naval commander Menas defected, handing over Corsica and Sardinia.Template:Sfnm However, after Octavian's naval forces were defeated at Cumae,Template:Sfn Octavian lacked the resources to confront Sextus alone, so he sought Antony's help, extending their terms for another five-year period beginning in 37 BC.Template:Sfnm

In supporting Octavian, Antony expected to gain support for his own campaign against the Parthians.Template:Sfnm At Tarentum in mid-37 BC,Template:Sfnm Antony provided 120 ships for Octavian to use against Sextus,Template:Sfnm while Octavian was to send 20,000 legionaries to Antony for use against Parthia. Two years later Octavian sent only a tenth of those promised, which Antony viewed as a provocation.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, Octavian tasked Agrippa with creating the artificial harbor Portus Julius for the training and shipbuilding of Octavian's naval fleet.Template:Sfnm

Ancient Roman coin depicting Lepidus

Denarius of 42 BC depicting Marcus Aemilius Lepidus; the inscription reads Template:Lang ('Triumvir for the regulation of the republic, Lepidus, Pontifex maximus')

Octavian and Lepidus launched a joint operation against Sextus in Sicily in 36 BC.Template:Sfnm Octavian was shipwrecked in Sicily,Template:Sfnm but Agrippa defeated Sextus at Mylae in AugustTemplate:Sfnm before almost destroying Sextus's forces at Naulochus in September.Template:Sfnm Sextus fled to the east, but Antony had him executed at Miletus in 35 BC.Template:Sfnm

As Lepidus and Octavian accepted the surrender of Sextus's troops, Lepidus attempted to claim Sicily for himself. However, Lepidus's troops deserted him after Octavian bribed them.Template:Sfnm Octavian forced Lepidus into retirement but allowed him to remain Template:Lang ('supreme pontiff').Template:Sfnm Octavian protected Roman citizens' rights to property, settled his discharged soldiers outside Italy,Template:Sfnm and returned 30,000 slaves to their former Roman owners after they had fled to join Pompey's army and navy.Template:Sfn To ensure his family's safety once he returned to Rome, he had the Senate grant him, his wife, and his sister tribunician immunity, or Template:Lang.Template:Sfnm

After defeating Sextus, Octavian campaigned in Illyricum (in what is now Croatia).Template:Sfnm During the first campaign in 35 BC he destroyed Segesta (modern Siscia) and was wounded by a collapsing siege ramp when he besieged Metulum (along the Kolpa River).Template:Sfnm The Senate lauded these efforts, though Octavian postponed a triumph for his victories,Template:Sfnm and only later acknowledged the contributions of commanders Agrippa and Statilius Taurus.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

War with Antony and Cleopatra

Oil painting depicting Cleopatra and a flautist aboard a ship in the foreground as two men, one of them being Mark Antony, gaze on from another ship

Antony and Cleopatra, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, painted 1885

In 36 BC, Octavian declared the civil wars at an end and suggested that he and Antony resign as triumvirs. Antony refused.Template:Sfnm Antony's Parthian campaign in 36 BC turned into a debacle and ruined his reputation.Template:Sfnm The mere 2,000 legionaries sent by Octavian to Antony, traveling with his wife Octavia, were hardly enough to replenish his lost forces.Template:Sfnm On the other hand, Cleopatra, with her enormous wealth, could restore his army to full strength.Template:Sfnm Her and Antony's third child, Ptolemy Philadelphus, was born in 36 BC,Template:Sfnm so in 35 BC Antony decided to send Octavia back to Rome.Template:Sfnm Octavian attacked Antony for rejecting his Roman spouse for a foreign queen.Template:Sfnm He also sought to convince the Senate that Antony had ambitions to diminish the preeminence of Rome.Template:Sfnm When Octavian assumed the consulship of 33 BC, he opened the Senate with a vehement attack on Antony's grants of titles and territories to his relatives and Cleopatra, later known as the Donations of Alexandria.Template:Sfnm

In early 32 BC, amid an intense war of propaganda with Octavian, Antony divorced Octavia.Template:Sfnm The new consuls Gaius Sosius and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus supported Antony and threatened to revoke Octavian's triumviral authority.Template:Sfnm This prompted Octavian to enter the Senate house and denounce Antony and Sosius; both consuls and many senators then fled Rome for Antony.Template:Sfnm However, two of Antony's key supporters, Lucius Munatius Plancus and Marcus Titius, defected to Octavian in autumn.Template:Sfnm They offered him vital information about Antony's will, which Antony published after marching on the Temple of Vesta. The will would have given away Roman-conquered territories as kingdoms for his sons to rule and designated Alexandria as the site of a tomb for him and Cleopatra.Template:Sfnm

Oil painting showing various soldiers engaged in a naval battle as one ship sinks in the foreground

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

In late 32 BC, the Senate revoked Antony's upcoming consulship and declared war on Cleopatra.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Octavian used emergency powers to have men of military age throughout the Republic swear an oath of loyalty to him.Template:Sfnm In early 31 BC, as Antony and Cleopatra moved to Greece, Octavian's forces under Agrippa transited the Adriatic Sea,Template:Sfnm and cut off their main force from their supply routes in the Ionian Sea.Template:Sfn Octavian then landed in Epirus,Template:Sfn and proceeded to march south.Template:Sfnm Trapped on land and sea, Antony's men started to desert as Octavian prepared for battle.Template:Sfnm

Fresco painting of Cleopatra depicted as the goddess Venus Genetrix wearing a diadem, holding a cupid and standing in the center of an open temple doorway

This mid-1st-century BC Roman wall painting in the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus, Pompeii, is most likely a depiction of Cleopatra VII of Ptolemaic Egypt as Venus Genetrix, with her son Caesarion as Cupid, similar in appearance to the now-lost statue of Cleopatra erected by Julius Caesar in the Temple of Venus Genetrix (within the Forum of Caesar). Its owner walled off the room with this painting, most likely in immediate reaction to the execution of Caesarion on orders of Augustus in 30 BC, when artistic depictions of Caesarion would have been considered a sensitive issue for the ruling regime.Template:Sfnm

Antony's fleet sailed through the bay of Actium along the Ambracian Gulf of western Greece to break the blockade.Template:Sfnm There, they fought the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC.Template:Sfnm Cleopatra and her portion of the fleet withdrew early in the battle and Antony later joined them;Template:Sfnm Cleopatra's fleet spared Antony's remaining forces in a last-ditch effort.Template:Sfn Antony's nearby forces on land surrendered to Octavian after attempting a retreat through Macedonia.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Various client kings now defected to Octavian.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Octavian would later establish a new city—Nicopolis ('victory city')—near the site of the battle at Actium.Template:Sfnm

On 1 August 30 BC, Octavian defeated Antony at Alexandria; Antony then died by suicide.Template:Sfnm After meeting with Octavian and refusing to be paraded in a triumph at Rome,Template:Sfnm Cleopatra took her own life with poison.Template:Sfnm Well aware of the dangers presented by another potential heir to Caesar, Octavian ordered the death of Cleopatra's son Caesarion.Template:Sfnm He also had Antony's son Marcus Antonius Antyllus killed,Template:Sfnm but spared their other childrenTemplate:Sfnm and pardoned many of his opponents. Octavian had previously shown little mercy to surrendered enemies.Template:Sfnm He also ensured that Cleopatra was buried with Antony in their tomb.Template:Sfnm He appointed Cleopatra's daughter Cleopatra Selene II and her husband, Juba II of Numidia, as the new co-rulers of Mauretania following their marriage in 25 BC.Template:Sfnm

Sole ruler of Rome

Egyptian relief depicting Augustus as pharaoh

Augustus as Roman pharaoh in an Egyptian-style stone carving at the Temple of Kalabsha in Nubia; Augustus was commonly depicted in Egyptian art performing sacrifices to Egyptian deities.Template:Sfn

Control of Egypt

Template:Further The conquest of Egypt greatly relieved Octavian's debts incurred from the civil wars.Template:Sfnm He controlled Roman Egypt directly, forbade senators to travel there, and appointed equestrian governor Cornelius Gallus to supervise its administration and enormously lucrative taxation.Template:Sfnm While in Alexandria in 30 BC, Octavian visited the tomb of Alexander the Great, the conqueror he emulated and imitated in his own artistic portraits.Template:Sfnm Octavian's conquest of Egypt brought an end to the Hellenistic period;Template:Sfn it also cemented the cultural formation of a Greek East and Latin West in the Mediterranean and a cosmopolitan universal monarchy centered on Rome.Template:Sfnm

Octavian would become the first Roman emperor as Augustus and also the first Roman pharaoh of Egypt, though he did not partake in Egyptian coronation rites or worship of the Apis bull,Template:Sfn and he never visited Egypt again after 30 BC.Template:Sfn Before returning to Rome, Octavian wintered in 30 BC on the Greek island of Samos.Template:Sfn In August 29, he celebrated three triumphs in Rome for his victories in Illyria, Greece, and Egypt.Template:Sfnm He and Agrippa were elected as the consuls for 28 BC,Template:Sfnm and granted the powers of a censor so as to conduct the census.Template:Sfn

Principate

A room with frescos along the walls

Fresco paintings inside the House of Augustus, his alleged but not verified residence on the Palatine Hill during his reign as emperor Template:Sfnm

After defeating Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian could rule the entire Republic under an unofficial principate, with himself as Template:Lang ('leading citizen'Template:Sfnm or 'first citizen'Template:Sfnm).Template:Efn He achieved this incrementally by courting the Senate and people of Rome while purporting not to aspire to dictatorship or monarchy.Template:Sfnm Influential aristocrats were previously called Template:Lang and Octavian would embrace this title as part of his self-representation as restorer of the Republic.Template:Sfnm

Years of civil war had left Rome in a state of near lawlessness,Template:Sfnm but republican tradition opposed autocracy. At the same time, Octavian could not give up his authority without risking war.Template:Sfn The Senate and people desired a return to stability, traditional legality, civility, and the assurance of free elections—which would be conducted in name at least under Octavian, soon to be Template:Lang Augustus.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn The gradual fashioning of this regime involved trial by error and experimentation,Template:Sfn popular support for legally sanctioned moves,Template:Sfn and appointed term limits for offices in perhaps a cautious attempt to avoid the same fate as his adoptive father Julius Caesar.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

First settlement

Full-length statue depicting Augustus as a magistrate. He holds a scroll in his left hand.

Control of provinces

On 13 January 27 BC, Octavian made a show of returning power to the Senate and relinquishing his provinces and armies.Template:Sfnm However, he retained the loyalty of serving soldiers and veterans. The careers of many clients and adherents depended on his patronage, as his financial power was unrivaled.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Other senators refrained from spending to build and maintain roads in Italy in 20 BC, but Octavian undertook direct responsibility on behalf of the public. The Roman currency issued in 16 BC publicized Octavian's involvement, after he donated vast amounts of money to the Template:Lang, the public treasury.Template:Sfn

Octavian as a magistrate. The statue's marble head was made Template:Circa, the body sculpted in the 2nd century AD (Louvre, Paris)

In an agreement known as the first settlement,Template:Sfnm Octavian was able to continue the appearance of a still-functional constitution through the Senate proposing to him that he once again assume control of the provinces. Feigning reluctance, on 16 January 27 BC he accepted a ten-year responsibility of overseeing provinces that were considered chaotic.Template:Sfnm The provinces ceded to him constituted much of the Roman world, including Hispania, Gaul, Syria, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Egypt.Template:Sfnm Moreover, command of these provinces provided him control over the majority of Rome's legions.Template:Sfnm Octavian-Augustus's power ultimately rested in his control over Rome's military.Template:Sfnm

However, Octavian-Augustus did not have a monopoly on political and martial power.Template:Sfnm The Senate still controlled the grain-producing North Africa as well as the militarily strategic Illyria and Macedonia.Template:Sfnm However, the Senate had control of only five or six legions distributed among three senatorial proconsuls, compared to the twenty legions under Augustus's control, and their control of these regions did not significantly challenge his authority.Template:Sfnm Divided control between senators and proconsuls had precedent, and Augustus used republican legal frameworks to amass power.Template:Sfnm

While Augustus acted as consul in Rome, he dispatched senators to the provinces under his command as his representatives to manage provincial affairs. The Senate chose governors to oversee the remaining provinces.Template:Sfnm Augustus issued instructions and edicts not only to his own legates but also to independent proconsuls governing public provinces that were nominally under senatorial control.Template:Sfnm Augustus's control of entire provinces followed Republican-era precedents for the limited objective of securing peace and creating stability, with Pompey having been given a similar level of command across the Roman world.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn

Title of Augustus

Ancient Roman golden coin of Augustus

Template:Lang coin of Augustus minted Template:Circa, marked: Template:Lang

On 16 January 27 BCTemplate:Refn the Senate gave Octavian the new title of Template:Lang ('revered').Template:Sfnm Template:Efn It was a title of religious rather than political authority, and it indicated that Octavian now approached divinity.Template:Sfnm Future Roman emperors inherited the honorific Template:Lang, and it became their main title.Template:Sfnm Another titular option, that of Template:Lang, after the legendary founder of Rome, was associated too strongly with monarchy, an association Octavian sought to avoid.Template:Sfnm The Senate also confirmed his position as Template:Lang ('leader of the Senate').Template:Sfnm Augustus now styled himself as Template:Lang ('Commander Caesar son of the deified one'),Template:Sfnm Template:Efn boasting his familial link to deified Julius Caesar. The use of Template:Lang signified a permanent link to the Roman tradition of victory.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Augustus transformed Template:Lang, a cognomen for one branch of the Julian family, into a new imperial family line that began with him.Template:Sfn

Roman triumphal arch in Italy with modern buildings in the background

The Arch of Augustus in Rimini (Template:Lang), dedicated to Augustus by the Senate in 27 BC, is one of the oldest preserved triumphal arches in Italy.^[3]

The Senate allowed Augustus to hang the Template:Lang ('civic crown') above his door and to have laurels drape his doorposts.Template:Sfnm He renounced flaunting insignia of power such as holding a scepter, wearing a diadem, or wearing the golden crown and purple toga of Julius Caesar.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, the Senate awarded him with a golden shield displayed in the meeting hall of the Curia, bearing the inscription Template:Lang ('valor, piety, clemency, and justice').Template:Sfnm By the summer of 27 BC he left Rome and traveled to Gaul.Template:Sfnm From 26 to 24 BC he governed the Empire from Tarraco in Roman Spain, overseeing military campaigns in the Iberian peninsula until his return to Rome.Template:Sfnm

Second settlement

Ancient Roman sardonyx cameo depicting Augustus wearing a Gorgon head

A Roman bust of Augustus

Portraits of Augustus show the emperor with idealized features.

By 23 BC, some of the un-republican implications of the first settlement were becoming apparent. Augustus's continuous consulships drew attention to his de facto dominance of politics and halved the opportunities for others to achieve what was still nominally the preeminent position in the Roman state.Template:Sfnm His desire to have his nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus eventually assume the principate in his turn also caused problems.Template:Sfnm To signal reconciliation with pro-republican aristocrats, Augustus appointed the noted republican Calpurnius Piso, who had opposed Julius Caesar and supported the assassins, as co-consul in 23 BC,Template:Sfnm after his choice Aulus Terentius Varro Murena died unexpectedly.Template:Sfnm

Resignation from the consulship

In the late spring Augustus was severely ill, apparently with a liver disease.Template:Sfnm Expecting his death, he made arrangements ensuring the continuation of the principate while allaying senators' suspicions of his anti-republicanism. He prepared to hand down his signet ring to his friend and general Agrippa but handed to his co-consul Piso all of his official documents, an account of public finances, and authority over troops in the provinces. Augustus's supposedly favored nephew Marcellus came away empty-handed.Template:Sfnm This surprised many who expected Augustus to name an heir to his position as an unofficial emperor.Template:Sfn

Augustus bestowed only properties and possessions to his designated heirs, as an obvious system of institutionalized imperial inheritance would have provoked resistance and hostility among the republican-minded Romans fearful of monarchy.Template:Sfn It appears that Augustus did not view the 19-year-old Marcellus as being ready to inherit his political pre-eminence.Template:Sfnm By giving his signet ring to Agrippa, however, Augustus signaled to the legions that Agrippa was a potential successor who they should obey, constitutional procedure notwithstanding.Template:Sfnm

The Blacas Cameo showing Augustus wearing a gorgoneion on a three layered sardonyx cameo, and wearing a diadem that was added during the Middle Ages,Template:Sfn and original artwork dated to AD 20–50

The emperor's illness subsided while under the care of his personal physician Antonius Musa,Template:Sfnm Template:Efn and soon afterwards on 1 July 23 BC Augustus gave up his consulship.Template:Sfnm He would serve as consul only twice more, in 5 and 2 BC,Template:Sfnm both times to introduce his grandsons into public life.Template:Sfnm Augustus's resignation from the consulship allowed him to exercise wider patronage within the senatorial class while allowing other senators a better chance to become consul.Template:Sfn However, Augustus desired to retain his consular Template:Lang throughout the empire,Template:Sfnm leading to another compromise between him and the Senate known as the second settlement.Template:Sfnm

Marcus Primus affair

After Augustus relinquished the annual consulship, he was no longer in an official position to rule the state. However, his dominant position remained unchanged over his 'imperial' provinces where he was still a proconsul.Template:Sfnm When he annually held the office of consul, he had the power to intervene with the affairs of the other provincial proconsuls appointed by the Senate throughout the empire, when he deemed necessary.Template:Sfn

A second problem later arose showing the need for the second settlement in what became known as the "Marcus Primus affair".Template:Sfnm In late 24 or early 23 BC, charges were brought against Marcus Primus, former proconsular governor of Macedonia, for waging a war without approval of the Senate on the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace, whose king was a Roman ally.Template:Sfnm Lucius Licinius Varro Murena defended Primus, arguing that Augustus had ordered Primus to attack the client state.Template:Sfnm Later, Primus testified that the orders came from the recently deceased Marcellus.Template:Sfnm Such orders suggested that Augustus intended to have his nephew take his place as princeps and establish a monarchy over Rome,Template:Sfn and would have been considered a breach of the Senate's prerogatives under the settlement of 27 BC, since Macedonia was a province under senatorial jurisdiction, not Augustus's imperial authority.Template:Sfnm

Roman statue of Augustus seated, holding a scepter in his left hand and an orb in his right

Augustus as Jupiter, holding a scepter and orb (first half of the 1st century AD)

The situation was so serious that Augustus appeared at the trial even though he had not been called as a witness. Under oath, he declared that he gave no such order.Template:Sfnm Murena disbelieved Augustus's testimony and resented his attempt to subvert the trial by using his Template:Lang. He demanded to know why Augustus appeared at the trial; Augustus replied that he came in the public interest.Template:Sfnm The jurors found Primus guilty,Template:Sfn though some voted to acquit, suggesting that some disbelieved Augustus's claims.Template:Sfnm

Greater proconsular authority

The Senate negotiated the second settlement with Augustus partly to allay confusion and formalize his legal authority to intervene in senatorial provinces, granting him a form of general Template:Lang ('proconsular power') that applied throughout the empire, not solely to his provinces. Moreover, the Senate augmented Augustus's proconsular imperium into Template:Lang ('greater proconsular power'). This form of proconsular imperium was applicable throughout the empire and in effect gave Augustus constitutional power superior to all other proconsuls.Template:Sfnm Augustus stayed in Rome during the renewal process and obtained veterans' support for the renewal of his Template:Lang in 13 BC by providing them with lavish donations.Template:Sfn

Additional powers

Sardonyx cameo depicting Augustus

Portrait of Augustus. Sardonyx cameo; gilt silver mount with pearls, sapphires and red glass beads, 16th/17th centuries.

Statue depicting Augustus veiled and in the attire of a Roman priest

The head of the Template:Lang statue depicting the emperor as Template:Lang, Roman artwork of the late Augustan period, last decade of the 1st century BC

Powers of the tribune

During the second settlement, Augustus was also granted the power of a tribune (Template:Lang) for life, though not the official title of tribune.Template:Sfnm For some years, Augustus had been awarded Template:Lang, the immunity given to a tribune of the plebs. Now he decided to assume the full powers of the magistracy, renewed annually, in perpetuity.Template:Sfnm Legally, it was closed to patricians, a status that Augustus had acquired when adopted by Julius Caesar.Template:Sfn This power allowed him to convene the Senate and people at will, lay business before them, and veto their decisions, to preside over elections, and to speak first at any meeting.Template:Sfnm Augustus's amassing of tribunal powers caused the office of Template:Lang to lose prestige, so he revived its importance by making it a mandatory appointment for any plebeian desiring the praetorship.Template:Sfn

Powers of the censor

Also included in Augustus's tribunician authority were powers usually reserved for the Roman censor; these included the right to supervise public morals and scrutinize laws to ensure that they were in the public interest, as well as the ability to hold a census and determine the membership of the Senate.Template:Sfnm There was no precedent within the Roman system for combining the powers of the tribune and the censor, nor was Augustus ever elected to the office of censor.Template:Sfn Julius Caesar had been granted similar powers, wherein he was charged with supervising the morals of the state. However, this position did not extend to the censor's ability to hold a census and determine the Senate's roster.Template:Sfn Appealing to patriotic sentiments, Augustus is alleged to have used censorial powers to ban all attire except the classic toga for those entering the Forum.Template:Sfn However, the powers of the censorship may have only been temporary or even refused by Augustus.Template:Sfn

Imperium over the city of Rome

The Senate also granted Augustus sole Template:Lang within the city of Rome.Template:Sfnm Traditionally, proconsuls lost their Template:Lang when they crossed the pomerium—the sacred boundary of Rome—and entered the city. In these situations, Augustus held tribunician authority, but the consuls held greater authority. While others would usually obey his wishes owing to his Template:Lang, there might be some difficulty. In either 23 or 19 BC,Template:Sfn Template:Efn the Senate voted that Augustus's Template:Lang ('superior proconsular power') should not lapse when he was inside the city walls.Template:Sfnm The city's armed forces had formerly been under the control of the urban praetors and consuls, but they now came under the sole authority of Augustus.Template:Sfn

The Roman triumph

Template:Further After 19 BC, Augustus received credit for every Roman military victory,Template:Sfn because the majority of Rome's armies were stationed in imperial provinces overseen by the Template:Lang, his provincial deputies.Template:Sfn If a battle was fought in a senatorial province, Augustus's proconsular Template:Lang allowed him to take command and credit for any major victory.Template:Sfnm With few exceptions Augustus was the only individual who could receive a triumph,Template:Sfnm a tradition that allegedly began with Romulus, the legendary first king of Rome.Template:Sfn For celebrating his victory against the Garamantes in Roman Libya in 19 BC, Cornelius Balbus was the last person outside Augustus's family to receive a triumph.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Tiberius, Augustus's eldest stepson, received triumphs in 7 BC and AD 12, respectively for victories in Germania and Illyria (Pannonia).Template:Sfnm For the latter campaign, his nephew Germanicus instead received the Template:Lang ('triumphal honors'), a praetorship, and the ability to stand for the consulship despite his young age.Template:Sfnm

Diplomacy

Template:Further Augustus received emissaries from as far east as India,Template:Sfnm and his court included political exiles from as far north as the British Isles with the chieftains Dubnovellaunus and Tincomarus.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn Foreign embassies typically came to Augustus directly rather than to the Senate,Template:Sfnm though Augustus was careful to show respect to the Senate in certain cases. For instance, in 20 BC he referred Parthian ambassadors to the Senate, but the latter sent them back to Augustus so they could negotiate solely with him instead.Template:Sfn As with Roman client states and foreign countries, representatives from provinces and semi-autonomous municipalities travelled to the emperor's court as his administration moved to different locations across the Empire.Template:Sfn In AD 8, the elderly Augustus assigned the exhausting work of managing foreign embassies to three ex-consuls, granting them the power to make all decisions that did not require his or the Senate's oversight.Template:Sfn

Conspiracy, titles, and the share of power

Augustus holds a scroll in his left hand.

A colossal statue of Augustus from the Augusteum of Herculaneum, seated and wearing a laurel wreath

Many of the political subtleties of the second settlement seem to have evaded the comprehension of Augustus's plebeian supporters, leading them to insist upon his participation in imperial affairs and form violent mobs on occasion.Template:Sfn When Augustus refused to stand for election as consul in 22 BC and traveled to Sicily on another tour of the Empire, the Template:Lang voted in his absence to have him serve as co-consul for the following year, despite not being one of the candidates.Template:Sfn A riot occurred in Rome when only a single consul Marcus Lollius assumed office on 1 January 21 BC and the factions of the two remaining candidates fought each other. Infuriated, Augustus summoned both candidates to Sicily and settled on having one of them serve as Lollius's co-consul.Template:Sfn

A food shortage in Rome during 22 BC sparked widespread panic, as many urban plebs called for Augustus to take on dictatorial powers to personally oversee the crisis. After a theatrical display of refusal before the Senate, Augustus finally accepted authority over Rome's grain supply through the use of his existing proconsular Template:Lang, and ended the crisis almost immediately.Template:Sfnm Another food crisis in AD 8 prompted Augustus to establish a Template:Lang, a permanent prefect who was in charge of procuring food supplies for Rome.Template:Sfnm

Augustus's expansive powers concerned some people, and this came to a head with the apparent conspiracy of Fannius Caepio.Template:Sfnm Some time prior to 1 September 22 BC, a certain Castricius provided Augustus with information about a conspiracy led by Fannius Caepio.Template:Sfnm The conspirators, among whom was the consul Murena in the Marcus Primus affair, were tried in absentia with Tiberius acting as prosecutor; the jury found them guilty, but it was not a unanimous verdict.Template:Sfnm All the accused were executed for treason as soon as they were captured—without ever giving testimony in their defense.Template:Sfnm Augustus ensured that the facade of republican government continued with an effective cover-up of the events.Template:Sfnm

In 19 BC, the Senate granted Augustus Template:Lang proconsular powers in addition to those received in 23 BC, another instance of gaining power from offices he did not hold,Template:Sfnm now fully applicable to Italy and Rome.Template:Sfn To assuage the restless populace,Template:Sfn Augustus was allowed to wear the consul's insignia in public and before the Senate,Template:Sfn to sit in the symbolic chair between the two consuls, and to hold the magisterial fasces.Template:Sfnm On 6 March 12 BC, after the death of Lepidus, he assumed the position of Template:Lang, the high priest of the College of Pontiffs.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn On 5 February 2 BC, the Senate gave Augustus the title Template:Lang ('father of the country'), which was then inscribed in various places in Rome such as the Senate chambers in the Forum Romanum.Template:Sfnm

Roman bust of Augustus wearing a laurel crown

Bust of Augustus wearing the Civic Crown, at Glyptothek, Munich

Historian Ronald Syme wrote that Augustus's death could leave Rome subject to further civil war, given the public memory of recent wars and Caesar's assassination.Template:Sfn Possibly during the 20s BC and certainly by 18 BC,Template:Sfn the Senate granted Agrippa proconsular imperium for five years, similar to Augustus's power, in order to accomplish constitutional stability. The grant probably covered Augustus's imperial provinces if not authority over senatorial provinces.Template:Sfnm Like Augustus, Agrippa was also granted the powers of the tribunate.Template:Sfnm

War and expansion

A fragment of a Roman bronze sculpture depicting Augustus wearing a toga

A fragment of an equestrian statue of Augustus, 1st century BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

By AD 13, Augustus's troops had proclaimed him Template:Lang 21 times following successful battles.Template:Sfn The fourth chapter in his publicly released memoirs of achievements known as the Template:Lang is devoted to his military victories and honors.Template:Sfnm Augustus also promoted the ideal of a superior Roman civilization, a sentiment the poet Virgil attributed to a legendary ancestor of Augustus.Template:Sfn All classes at Rome apparently sought expansionism, and this impulse is accorded divine sanction in Virgil's Aeneid, in which Jupiter promises Rome Template:Lang ('sovereignty without end').Template:Sfn Template:Efn

By the end of Augustus's reign, his armies had conquered northern Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal) and the Alpine regions of Raetia and Noricum (modern Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Slovenia), Illyricum and Pannonia (modern Albania, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, etc.), and had extended the borders of Africa Proconsularis to the east and south.Template:Sfn Judea was added to the province of Syria when Augustus deposed the client king Herod Archelaus.Template:Sfnm After the Senate assigned Syria to Augustus in 27 BC, it was governed first by legates under AgrippaTemplate:Sfn and then by an equestrian high prefect.Template:Sfn In AD 6 Augustus also appointed an equestrian governor in Sardinia after pirate raids necessitated the presence of troops stationed there.Template:Sfn

In 25 BC the Romans made Galatia (part of modern Turkey) a province without any military effort after the murder of its king, Amyntas,Template:Sfnm while in 19 BC Agrippa incorporated Asturias and Cantabria in modern-day Spain under the provinces of Hispania and Lusitania.Template:Sfnm This region proved to be a major asset in funding Augustus's future military campaigns, as it was rich in mineral deposits that could be fostered in Roman mining projects.Template:Sfn Conquering the peoples of the Alps in 15 BC after the disastrous defeat of Lollius was another important victory for Rome,Template:Sfnm Template:Efn since it provided a large territorial buffer between the Roman citizens of Italy and Rome's enemies in Germania to the north.Template:Sfn Horace dedicated an ode to the victory, while the monumental Trophy of Augustus was built in La Turbie near Monaco to honor the occasion.Template:Sfnm

Roman bust of Tiberius

Bust of Tiberius, a successful military commander under Augustus who was designated as his heir and successor, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

The capture of the Alpine region also served the next offensive in 12 BC, when Augustus's stepsons Tiberius and Drusus launched offensives against the Pannonian tribes of Illyricum and against the Germanic tribes of the eastern Rhineland, respectively. Both campaigns were successful, as Drusus's forces reached the Elbe River by 9 BC. Drusus died shortly after from an injury sustained by falling off his horse.Template:Sfnm Tiberius rushed from Italy to Germany to see his brotherTemplate:Sfn and escorted Drusus's body to Rome,Template:Sfnm where he and Augustus provided eulogies for Drusus.Template:Sfn After Illyrian tribes revolted in Illyricum in AD 6, Tiberius and Germanicus's forces quelled their rebellion in AD 9.Template:Sfn This was the only major rebellion within Roman provincial territory since Augustus had become emperor, and by this point he had reduced the standing Roman army from roughly 500,000 soldiers during the civil wars down to 300,000 soldiers used primarily for foreign conquests.Template:Sfn

To protect Rome's eastern territories from the Parthian Empire, Augustus relied on eastern client states to act as territorial buffers and areas that could raise their own troops for defense. Augustus stationed a Roman army in Syria, while Tiberius negotiated with the Parthians as Rome's diplomat to the East.Template:Sfnm Tiberius then restored Tigranes V to the Armenian throne in 20 BC, personally placing the crown on his head.Template:Sfnm

Augustus negotiated with Phraates IV of Parthia in 20 BC for the return of the battle standards lost by Crassus in the Battle of Carrhae, a symbolic victory and great boost of morale for Rome.Template:Sfnm Historians Werner Eck and Sarolta Takács claim that this was a great disappointment for Romans seeking to avenge Crassus's defeat by military means.Template:Sfn However, Augustus used the return of the standards as propaganda symbolizing the submission of Parthia to Rome.Template:Sfnm The event was celebrated in art such as the breastplate design on the statue Augustus of Prima Porta and in monuments such as the Temple of Mars Ultor ('Mars the Avenger') built to house the standards.Template:Sfnm After Phraates V of Parthia managed to cleave Armenia away from Roman control, Augustus dispatched his grandson Gaius Caesar with an army to Syria in 1 BC, mounting a diplomatic pressure campaign that in AD 2 convinced Phraates V to concede to Roman demands.Template:Sfn

A painting depicting a confrontation of armed soldiers in battle, with one riding atop a white horse

Template:Lang (The Victorious Advancing Hermann), depiction of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, by Peter Janssen, 1873

Parthia posed a threat to Rome in West Asia, but the more pressing concern was the battlefront along the Rhine and Danube rivers.Template:Sfn During the triumvirate, Octavian's campaigns against the tribes in Dalmatia were the first step in expanding Roman dominions to the Danube.Template:Sfn Rome's enemies in Germania almost constantly retook conquered territories.Template:Sfn At the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, Arminius, the leader of the Cherusci, destroyed three entire legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus.Template:Sfnm Augustus retaliated by dispatching Tiberius to the Rhineland to pacify it in AD 10 and AD 11, and these campaigns had some success.Template:Sfnm However, Augustus advised Tiberius against further conquests after the defeat at Teutoburg,Template:Sfnm and the Romans abandoned expansion into Germany beyond the Rhine.Template:Sfnm Although Augustus lamented the loss,Template:Sfnm his Template:Lang merely states that he pacified Germania up to the mouth of the Elbe.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Under Augustus's successor Tiberius, Roman general Germanicus took advantage of a Cherusci civil war between Arminius and Segestes, defeating Arminius at Idistaviso in AD 16.Template:Sfn

Map depicting a settlement in Southern India

Muziris in the Chera Kingdom of Southern India, as shown in the Tabula Peutingeriana, with depiction of a temple of Augustus (Template:Lang)

Rome also experienced loss to the south in Arabia Felix against the Kingdom of Saba (in modern Yemen). In 26 BC Augustus had Gaius Aelius Gallus, prefect of Egypt, invade South Arabia with Roman troops supported by Jewish and Nabataean Arab auxiliaries.Template:Sfnm They aimed to conquer the Sabaeans or force them to accept client state status so that Rome could gain a share of their profitable trade with India.Template:Sfnm Roman forces laid siege to Marib,Template:Sfnm but retreated to Hejaz (under allied Nabataean control) after a shortage of water supplies.Template:Sfnm This campaign might have been part of a failed attempt to flank the Parthian Empire, considering how Augustus encouraged Tiridates II of Parthia to invade Mesopotamia and reclaim his throne the same year.Template:Sfn

Augustus ordered Gaius Petronius, Aelius Gallus's successor as prefect of Egypt, to invade Aethiopia,Template:Sfnm after Queen Amanirenas of the Kingdom of Kush (in modern Sudan) invaded Roman Egypt in 24 BC and sacked Aswan and Philae.Template:Sfnm The Romans counterattacked, sacking Napata in Nubia before withdrawing,Template:Sfnm but Amanirenas invaded Egypt again in 22 BC and threatened Primis (modern Qasr Ibrim).Template:Sfnm After Petronius withstood a Kushite assault, Amanirenas sent diplomats to negotiate a peace treaty with Augustus on the island of Samos.Template:Sfnm The treaty established Maharraqa as the new border with Kush,Template:Sfn lessened the amount of Roman tribute gathered from Kush,Template:Sfn and guaranteed peaceful trade relations between Egypt and Nubia.Template:Sfn In the Maghreb of North Africa, Cossus Cornelius Lentulus quashed a rebellion of the Gaetuli against Juba II of Mauretania in AD 6.Template:Sfnm

Death and succession

Sardonyx cameo with Augustus at top seated alongside Roman gods and being crowned with a laurel wreath. Below him a group of men lift a sigil standard.

Augustus's illness in 23 BC accentuated the problem of succession.Template:Sfnm Template:Efn To ensure stability, he needed to designate an heir. This needed to be done subtly so that it did not trigger fears of monarchy. If someone was to succeed to Augustus's position of power, he would first have to be recognized as meritful.Template:Sfnm

The search for an heir

Template:Multiple image

Some historians argue that Augustus favored his nephew Marcellus, who had married Augustus's daughter Julia,Template:Sfnm while others argue that he preferred Marcus Agrippa,Template:Sfn who was Augustus's second in charge and a respected military commander.Template:Sfnm After Marcellus died in 23 BC, Augustus remarried his daughter Julia to Agrippa in 21 BC.Template:Sfnm This union produced five children, three sons and two daughters.Template:Sfnm In 18 BC,Template:Sfn Agrippa was granted a five-year appointment to the eastern provinces with proconsular imperium and also the Template:Lang that Augustus possessed.Template:Sfnm This grant showed Augustus's favor but upset some conservative senators.Template:Sfnm

Augustus adopted his grandsons Gaius and Lucius, illuminating his intent to make them his heirs.Template:Sfnm He served as consul in 5 and 2 BC so that he could personally usher them into their political careers.Template:Sfnm Gaius was consul for AD 1, with Augustus having him wait until he turned 21,Template:Sfnm Template:Efn while Lucius died before his designated consulship.Template:Sfn Augustus also showed favor to his stepsons Tiberius and Drusus, granting them public offices while seeming to favor Drusus.Template:Sfnm Tiberius married Agrippa's eldest daughter, Vipsania Agrippina,Template:Sfn while Drusus married Augustus's niece Antonia.Template:Sfn After Agrippa died in 12 BC, Augustus ordered Tiberius to divorce Vipsania for the widowed Julia.Template:Sfnm Drusus and Antonia's marriage was considered an unbreakable affair, whereas Vipsania was deemed less important.Template:Sfnm Drusus died in 9 BC.Template:Sfn

Tiberius, heir to Augustus

The Gemma Augustea, a two-layered sardonyx depicting Augustus seated next to the goddess Roma, with Augustus equated as Jupiter as he looks on at a figure riding in a chariot (likely his heir Tiberius celebrating his triumph for victories in Germania), 9–12 AD, Kunsthistorisches Museum, ViennaTemplate:Sfn

Tiberius shared in Augustus's tribunician powers from 6 BC but shortly thereafter withdrew into retirement, reportedly wanting no further role in politics.Template:Sfnm A failing marriage with Julia and envy for her sons Gaius and Lucius could have contributed to Tiberius's departure.Template:Sfnm Augustus exiled his daughter for adultery in 2 BC,Template:Sfnm but inducted his grandsons into the college of priests at an early age and introduced them to the army in Gaul.Template:Sfnm

After the deaths of Lucius in AD 2 and Gaius in AD 4, Augustus recalled Tiberius to Rome in June AD 4 and adopted him, on the condition that Tiberius adopt his nephew Germanicus.Template:Sfnm This continued the tradition of presenting at least two generations of heirs.Template:Sfn In AD 4 Tiberius was also granted the Template:Lang and a proconsular post in Germany; for his efforts there and in Illyricum, he eventually triumphed.Template:Sfn By AD 13, he had received the Template:Lang equalling that of Augustus.Template:Sfnm

Sardonyx cameo depicting Augustus as a god flying above Emperor Tiberius and his family

The deified Augustus hovers over Tiberius and other Julio-Claudians in the Great Cameo of France, 1st century AD

The only other possible claimant was Agrippa Postumus, Augustus's youngest grandson. However, Augustus had exiled him to Sorrento in AD 6 and then to Planasia in AD 7.Template:Sfn The Senate made Agrippa's banishment permanent,Template:Sfn and Augustus officially disowned him for his lack of good character and alleged involvement in a conspiracy.Template:Sfnm After Tiberius succeeded Augustus, he was most likely the one who had Agrippa killed in exile.Template:Sfnm

Death of Augustus

On 19 August AD 14, Augustus died at Nola, where his father had died.Template:Sfnm Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio claimed Livia poisoned him. Many historians dismiss the alleged poisoning, however, as a fabrication to discredit her son Tiberius. Livia had long been the target of similar (probably false) rumors of poisoning.Template:Sfnm If poisoning is accepted, it is possible that Livia supplied a poisoned fig to assist death.Template:Sfn Augustus's health had declined in the months before his death and he had prepared for a smooth transition in power to Tiberius.Template:Sfnm

Ancient Roman rotunda building

The Mausoleum of Augustus restored, 2021

Augustus's famous last words were, "Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit" (Template:Lang).Template:Sfnm An enormous procession of mourners travelled with Augustus's body from Nola to Rome, with all business closed on his funeral.Template:Sfnm Tiberius and his son Drusus delivered the eulogy while standing atop two Template:Lang.Template:Sfnm Augustus's body was coffin-bound and cremated on a pyre close to his mausoleum.Template:Sfnm

Deification

A coin of Augustus commemorating his adoptive father, Julius Caesar

A denarius coin of Augustus struck at Rome in 17 BC depicting Augustus on the obverse and the deified Julius Caesar beneath Caesar's comet on the reverse

On 17 September 27 BC the Senate proclaimed Augustus to have joined the company of the gods and the deified Julius Caesar as a member of the Roman pantheon.Template:Sfnm People in Rome's eastern provinces had worshipped Octavian as a living deity since his victory at Actium.Template:Sfn There was limited worship of him in some western provinces, primarily at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls in Lugdunum (Lyon, France) and at Ara Ubiorum in Oppidum Ubiorum (Cologne, Germany),Template:Sfn but not at Rome where such worship remained taboo. Only his Template:Lang (spirit) was allowed worship there.Template:Sfn

Legacy

Overview

Augustus created a regime that maintained relative peace and prosperity in the Latin West and Greek East for two centuries,Template:Sfnm initiating the celebrated Template:Lang (or Template:Lang),Template:Sfnm though the Augustan golden age myth may obscure the complicated political challenges faced by Augustus.Template:Sfnm His regime laid the foundations of a concept of universal monarchy in the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires down to their dissolutions in 1453 and 1806, respectively.Template:Sfn Later Romans viewed his reign favorably, embodied by the Senate's formal wish to every emperor after Trajan that they "be more fortunate than Augustus and better than Trajan".Template:Sfnm This positive overall image was also helped by his successors copying many of Augustus's policies and forms of self-promotion, which modern research calls Template:Lang.Template:Sfnm

The surname Caesar and the title Template:Lang became permanent titles of Roman rulers for fourteen centuries after Augustus's death, used in Rome and Constantinople following the Empire's division.Template:Sfnm Template:Lang formed the root of later regnal titles such as the German Template:Lang and Russian Template:Lang.Template:Sfnm Emperors preferred his title of Template:Lang for three centuries until they adopted the title Template:Lang ('lords'), beginning with Diocletian.Template:Sfn His adoptive name Template:Lang ('victorious general') served as the etymological root of the word 'emperor', though it did not possess this connotation in Augustus's lifetime.Template:Sfn The emperors alone held the office of Template:Lang until the fall of the Western Roman Empire, after which the papacy adopted it.Template:Sfn

Sardonyx cameo depicting Augustus wearing a laurel wreath and holding an aquila standard

The Roman cameo of Augustus at the center of the medieval Cross of Lothair, housed in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury

Written works

Augustus composed an account of his achievements, the Template:Lang, to be inscribed in bronze in front of his mausoleum.Template:Sfnm Copies of the text were inscribed throughout the empire upon his death.Template:Sfn The Latin inscriptions, along with Greek translations, were inscribed on many public edifices, and historian Theodor Mommsen called them the "queen of inscriptions".Template:Sfnm The Template:Lang is Augustus's only surviving major work, though he is also known to have composed poems entitled Template:Langr, Template:Langr, and Template:Langr, an autobiography of 13 books, a philosophical treatise, and a written rebuttal to Brutus's Eulogy of Cato.Template:Sfnm Augustus's private letters also reveal facts about his personal life.Template:Sfnm The poet Martial preserved a sexually crude poem allegedly written by Octavian during the Perusine War, which pokes fun at Mark Antony, his wife Fulvia, and his mistress Glaphyra.Template:Sfn Pliny the Elder suggested that Augustus displayed and finished Agrippa's world map publicly exhibited in the Porticus Vipsania.Template:Sfn This map would later form the basis of various medieval world maps.Template:Sfn

In his Res Gestae, Augustus defined the relative peace established by his reign as a peace "born of victories" (Template:Lang) in the civil wars, and Augustan artwork incorporates this theme.Template:Sfnm This peace ensured Romans and subjugated peoples within their Empire upheld a cohesive social pact: the latter would relinquish their sovereignty and pay taxes in exchange for the preservation of their customs and the protection of Rome.Template:Sfn By boasting of his many conquests, the Template:Lang emphasizes the same code of honor found in Republican funerary inscriptions such as those of the Scipios, a key element in elevating the political reputation of Roman families.Template:Sfn

Coin depicting a man wearing a laurel wreath, modelled after the coinage of Augustus

Coin of the Himyarite Kingdom in the southern Arabian peninsula, in imitation of coins of Augustus, 1st century AD

Enduring institutions

Statue of Augustus standing

Statue of Augustus at Monte Solaro on the island of Capri in Campania, Italy, overlooking the Gardens of Augustus

Augustus thoroughly transformed the city of Rome, creating a permanent police force, firefighting force, and Template:Lang ('municipal prefect').Template:Sfnm Established in AD 6 and based on previous firefighting services established in 22 and 7 BC,Template:Sfn the vigiles was a combined fire brigade and police force divided into cohorts of 500 to 1,000 men each, with seven units assigned to fourteen divided city sectors.Template:Sfnm A Template:Lang ('prefect of the watch') was put in charge of the vigiles,Template:Sfnm whereas Template:Lang officials had previously been in charge of each district following the fire of 7 BC.Template:Sfn Augustus created a standing army,Template:Sfn fixed at a size of 28 legions of about 170,000 soldiers,Template:Sfnm reduced from 60 legions at the end of the civil wars in 30 BC.Template:Sfn This was supported by many auxiliary units of 500 non-citizen soldiers each, often recruited from recently conquered areas.Template:Sfn

With his finances securing the maintenance of roads throughout Italy, Augustus installed an official system of relay stations overseen by a military officer known as the Template:Lang.Template:Sfn Besides speeding communication in Italy, his extensive road construction allowed Roman armies to march swiftly across the country.Template:Sfn In AD 6 Augustus established the Template:Lang, donating 170 million sesterces to the new military treasury that provided for both active and retired soldiers.Template:Sfn

One of Augustus's most enduring institutions was the establishment of the Praetorian Guard in 27 BC,Template:Sfn commanded by two praetorian prefects (later one) after Augustus created this office in 2 BC.Template:Sfn Originally a personal bodyguard unit on the battlefield, the praetorians evolved into an imperial guard as well as an important political force in Rome.Template:Sfnm They served the emperors into the early 4th century.Template:Sfn

Revenue reforms

Ancient Roman coin of Augustus

Aureus of Octavian, Template:Circa, British Museum

Augustus's tax reforms greatly impacted the subsequent success of the Empire, bringing it under direct taxation from Rome. This increased and stabilized Rome's revenues from its territories and regularized the financial relationship between Rome and its provinces, avoiding provincial resentments with arbitrary exaction.Template:Sfn An equally important reform was the abolition of tax farming. The Template:Lang, Republican era private tax farmers, were infamous for their depredations and great wealth, so they were replaced by salaried tax collectors.Template:Sfn

Under Augustus, the measures of taxation were determined by censuses with fixed quotas for each province. Citizens of Rome and Italy paid indirect taxes, while direct taxes were exacted from the provinces. Indirect taxes included a 4% tax on the price of slaves, a 1% tax on goods sold at auction, and a 5% tax on the inheritance of estates valued at over 100,000 sesterces by persons other than the next of kin.Template:Sfn Due to protest from equestrians, the suffect consuls for 9 AD modified and lessened penalties in the Template:Lang that affected the inheritance of estates by celibate, unmarried, or childless individuals, though it continued to generate revenues with properties of the deceased seized by the state.Template:Sfnm

Augustus's annexation of Egypt allowed him to divert its immense wealth for imperial purposes.Template:Sfnm Considered Augustus's private property rather than a province, it became part of each succeeding emperor's patrimonium.Template:Sfnm Instead of a legate or proconsul, Augustus installed a prefect from the equestrian class to administer Egypt and maintain its lucrative seaports.Template:Sfnm This position became the highest political achievement for any equestrian besides becoming praetorian prefect.Template:Sfnm Gold and silver found in the Ptolemaic royal treasury was melted down for coins.Template:Sfn In his will, Augustus left money to his family but also 43 million sesterces to the Roman people, 1,000 sesterces to every praetorian, 500 sesterces to every soldier in urban cohorts, and 300 sesterces to each soldier.Template:Sfnm

Month of August

Template:Further In 8 BC, the Roman month of Sextilis (or Template:Lang) was renamed August (Latin: Template:Lang) after Augustus.Template:Sfnm Augustus chose Sextilis as it was the month of his first consulship and of his various victories.Template:Sfn In comparison, the month of July (Latin: Template:Lang) in the Julian calendar was named after Julius Caesar,Template:Sfnm the only other month in the Roman calendar named after a Roman.Template:Sfn

Building projects

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Remodeling of Rome

Roman monument commemorating Augustus and his wife Livia

On his deathbed, Augustus boasted that he converted Rome from a city of bricks into one of marble.Template:Sfnm Marble could be found in Roman buildings before Augustus, but it was not extensively used as a building material until his reign.Template:Sfn Template:Efn He left a mark on the monumental topography of the city's center, as well as on the Campus Martius with the Template:Lang (Altar of Peace) and monumental sundial, whose central gnomon was an obelisk taken from Egypt.Template:Sfnm The relief sculptures decorating the Template:Lang visually augment Augustus's triumphs outlined in the Template:Lang. Its reliefs depict praetorians, the Vestals, and the citizenry of Rome.Template:Sfn The Corinthian order of architectural style originating from ancient Greece was the dominant architectural style in the age of Augustus.Template:Sfnm Suetonius once commented that Rome was unworthy of its status as an imperial capital, yet Augustus and Agrippa set out to dismantle this sentiment.Template:Sfn They transformed the appearance of Rome upon the Greek model,Template:Sfnm incorporating both Classical and Hellenistic elements with many Athenian monuments as direct inspirations.Template:Sfnm

The Temple of Augustus and Livia in Vienne, France, late 1st century BC

Augustus had the temples of Caesar, Jupiter Tonans, and Apollo Palatinus erected, as well as the Baths of Agrippa and the Forum of Augustus with its Temple of Mars Ultor. He encouraged the establishment of the Theatre of Balbus and Agrippa's construction of the Pantheon, and funded additional projects in the name of others, often relations (e.g. Portico of Octavia, Theatre of Marcellus).Template:Sfnm Even his tomb in Rome was built before his death to house members of his family.Template:Sfnm To celebrate his victory at the Battle of Actium, the Arch of Augustus was built in 29 BC near the entrance of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and widened in 19 BC to include a triple-arch design.Template:Sfnm He also completed projects left unfinished by Julius Caesar,Template:Sfnm such as the Curia Julia, the Forum of Caesar, and the Temple of Venus Genetrix.Template:Sfn He rebuilt the Basilica Aemilia by 2 BC (previously burned down in a fire of 35 BC).Template:Sfn

Augustus also provided grand spectacles in Rome. The amphitheater constructed by Statilius Taurus from 34 to 29 BC was the first stone amphitheater built in the city, and opened with gladiator games around the time Octavian staged shows of live combat and the first ever killing of a rhino and hippopotamus for entertainment in Rome.Template:Sfn Augustus staged lion hunts in the Circus Maximus, temporarily flooded the Circus Flaminius for slaughtering crocodiles, and held gladiatorial bouts in the Saepta Julia.Template:Sfn In 2 BC he also staged an elaborate mock naval battle, the naumachia Augusti, by creating an artificial lake on the west bank of the Tiber, its waters fed by a newly built aqueduct, the Aqua Alsietina that stretched for over twenty miles. In a lethal performance, the combatants reenacted the 480 BC Battle of Salamis between the Greek city-states led by Athens and the Persian Achaemenid Empire.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

Public works

Two ancient Roman arches

Remains of the Pont Flavien bridge along the Via Julia Augusta in Saint-Chamas, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Augustus put Agrippa in charge of Rome's water supply, sanitation, drainage system, public baths, and roads.Template:Sfnm Agrippa had overseen these works when he served as aedile in 33 BC,Template:Sfnm and even privately funded them afterwards.Template:Sfn In 33 BC he built the Aqua Julia aqueduct, along with new cisterns and water towers.Template:Sfn After Agrippa's death in 12 BC, Augustus had to find a solution to maintain Rome's water supply system,Template:Sfnm and he arranged a system where the Senate designated three of its members as commissioners in charge of the water supply and repair of aqueducts.Template:Sfn

During the triumvirate and early reign of Augustus, Agrippa oversaw the construction of new roads for military purposes to the Rhine frontier.Template:Sfn Augustus created the senatorial commission of the Template:Lang ('supervisors for roads'), which worked with local officials and contractors to organize regular repairs to roads.Template:Sfn Augustus repaired all bridges in Rome except the Milvian and Minucian ones, and paved the Via Flaminia between Rome and Ariminum.Template:Sfnm In his late reign, he tasked a commission of five senators, the Template:Lang ('Supervisors of Public Property'), with maintaining public buildings and temples.Template:Sfn

Residences

A room featuring various frescos

A corner of the lower cubiculum in the House of Augustus on the Palatine Hill in Rome, with Pompeian second style frescos

Augustus's official residence was the Template:Lang ('House of Augustus') on the Palatine Hill, though its identification is not certain.Template:Sfnm According to Suetonius the home was somewhat modest,Template:Sfn but if it was the Carettoni house west of the Palatine temple of Apollo, then Augustus's residence would have been substantially larger and more luxurious than literary sources admit.Template:Sfnm Augustus dedicated this temple to Apollo near his home in 28 BC, and he often appears on coinage wearing the civic crown with laurels highly associated with Apollo.Template:Sfn The Template:Lang is also located near the Template:Lang ('House of Romulus'), purportedly that of Rome's legendary founder Romulus.Template:Sfnm The House of Livia is located nearby, though it is unclear if Augustus's wife occupied the residence before his death.Template:Sfn

Outside Rome, Augustus owned three countryside villas, which were not extravagant but had ornamental gardens.Template:Sfn Augustus built the Palazzo a Mare palace on the island of Capri,Template:Sfnm where he hosted a sizable collection of fossils and what may have been dinosaur bones.Template:Sfn At the Villa Giulia on the island of Ventotene, where Augustus exiled his daughter Julia, he constructed a sophisticated hypocaust central heating system for two large bathtubs and a Template:Lang hot plunge bath.Template:Sfn Augustus's family home was a villa located in Nola, where he and his father died.Template:Sfnm This residence was probably the villa discovered at Somma Vesuviana.^[4]

Critical analysis

Ancient and contemporary views

An oil painting depicting the poet Virgil reading his work to Augustus and his family, with Augustus's sister Octavia having fainted in shock

Virgil reading The Aeneid before Augustus, Livia and Octavia, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1812, Musée des Augustins; Octavia the Younger allegedly fainted during a public reading of the Aeneid in Rome by Virgil, becoming emotionally overwhelmed during the passage about the death of her son Marcus Claudius Marcellus.Template:Sfn

Writers throughout the ages have both praised and criticized Augustus. The contemporary Roman jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo, fond of the days of pre-Augustan republican liberty in which he had been born, openly criticized the Augustan regime. In his Annals, Tacitus wrote that Augustus had cunningly subverted Republican Rome into a position of slavery, and that the people of Rome traded one slaveholder for another with the succession of Tiberius.Template:Sfn Tacitus believed that Emperor Nerva (Template:Reign) successfully joined principate and liberty.Template:Sfn The 3rd-century historian Cassius Dio acknowledged Augustus as a benign, moderate ruler, yet like most other post-Augustan historians he viewed Augustus as an autocrat.Template:Sfn The 1st-century poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus argued that Caesar's victory over Pompey and the death of Cato the Younger in 46 BC marked the end of traditional liberty in Rome.Template:Sfn

Modern academics still debate the extent to which Augustus censored criticism of him.Template:Sfnm As triumvir, Octavian destroyed all public records dating from the Ides of March 44 BC to the defeat of Sextus Pompey in 36 BC, a convenient political move that aligned with popular sentiment for purging painful memories about the proscriptions.Template:Sfn Augustan poets sometimes openly criticized the emperor, such as Sextus Propertius when he disapproved of the execution of prisoners during the Perusine War.Template:Sfn Some of Virgil and Horace's poetry has been interpreted as praising their patron Augustus as an upholder of moral justice, and for maintaining the Empire.Template:Sfnm Octavian was Virgil's patron when the latter penned his Eclogues, which express the discontented views of impoverished farmers and landowners during the triumvirate.Template:Sfn Through private letters it appears that Augustus maintained genuine friendships with Virgil and Horace, with no evidence that he intervened directly in their writing of poems.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Yet in Template:Circa Augustus had the poet Ovid exiled,Template:Sfnm and his literature banned.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

Tacitus claimed that the discipline of history declined under Augustus due to historians flattering the emperor rather than by active suppression.Template:Sfn Livy wrote his highly influential and encompassing History of Rome during Augustus's reign. Despite championing many of Augustus's views, Livy wrote independently and Tacitus later claimed that Augustus even lightly criticized Livy for glorifying Pompey's career.Template:Sfn Augustus may have quietly had his niece Antonia Minor pressure her son Claudius to refrain from writing a history on Rome's civil wars.Template:Sfn

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Augustus became a revered figure in Christendom during the Middle Ages due to church fathers Orosius, Ambrose, and Bede depicting him as a divinely ordained peacemaker who created a stable realm for the arrival of Christ.Template:Sfn The Template:Circa Golden Legend hagiographical anthology promoted the legend of the Tiburtine Sibyl, in which Augustus had an alleged vision of Jesus and his mother Mary.Template:Sfnm Petrarch viewed Augustus as a righteous ruler, an idea widely accepted in Renaissance humanist literature until the 16th century when more negative views found acceptance.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

Modern perspectives

Roman bust of Julius Caesar

The Chiaramonti Caesar bust, a posthumous portrait of Julius Caesar in marble, 44–30 BC, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican Museums

Views on Augustus varied during the early modern period. The Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift criticized Augustus for installing tyranny over Rome, likening the virtues of the previous Roman Republic to those of Great Britain's constitutional monarchy.Template:Sfn French political philosopher Montesquieu remarked that Augustus was a coward in battle,Template:Sfn and English playwright William Shakespeare portrayed 'Caesar' as such in his 1607 play Antony & Cleopatra.Template:Sfn Scottish scholar Thomas Blackwell deemed Augustus a bloodthirsty usurper and tyrant,Template:Sfn views that were shared by Montesquieu and Voltaire.Template:Sfn During the 19th century Augustus was widely considered a reformer who brought peace and prosperity after the chaos caused by a failed Republic,Template:Sfn though Napoleon Bonaparte emulated Julius Caesar as a role-model and was slightly dismissive of Augustus.Template:Sfn

Attitudes about Augustus shifted once again during the 20th century,Template:Sfnm as scholarship during the upheavals of fascism in the 1930s and 1940s generally held negative views about Augustus's seizure of power.Template:Sfnm In 1937–1938, Benito Mussolini held an 'Augustan exhibition' in Rome to celebrate the bimillenary of the birth of Augustus, an event which influenced architectural trends of Fascist Italy.Template:Sfn Mussolini also styled himself as Template:Lang after Template:Lang Augustus.Template:Sfnm Ronald Syme expressed apprehension about Mussolini's espousal of Augustus.Template:Sfn He sparked debate by publishing the then controversial The Roman Revolution (1939) at the onset of the Second World War, acknowledging the political climate that impacted his research.Template:Sfnm He rejected fascist appropriations of ancient Rome while examining deceptive political terminology employed by totalitarian regimes.Template:Sfn Subsequently more peaceful times have led to a greater focus on the art and literature produced in the Augustan age.Template:Sfn In 2014 the historian Adrian Goldsworthy stressed that, in modern terms, Augustus was essentially a military dictator,Template:Sfn but argued that Augustus was no more ruthless than "other warlords", and that comparing him to Mussolini or other modern dictators is anachronistic and inaccurate.Template:Sfn

The Roman Revolution was not widely circulated in continental Europe until 1952,Template:Sfn but this and other works by Syme left a major impact on scholarship in the English-speaking world and its views on Augustus in particular.Template:Sfnm Syme viewed Octavian as a "sickly and sinister youth," and his political faction as an entity similar to a modern crime syndicate.Template:Sfn Syme criticized some academics for attributing Julius Caesar's political achievements to Octavian, their ready acceptance of Augustan propaganda about Mark Antony, and the view of Augustus as a flawless organizer and peacemaker.Template:Sfn Goldsworthy largely agrees with Syme's analysis, but argues that he was very favorable toward Antony and far too harsh in criticizing Augustus's supporters, "especially the majority who came from outside the established aristocracy".Template:Sfn Modern academics debate whether or not Augustus attempted to distance himself from Caesar the dictator when embracing the deified Caesar.Template:Sfnm Octavian-Augustus placed more emphasis on his own role as princeps over time.Template:Sfn

Roman bust of Augustus

Veiled head of Augustus, 1st century BC, National Archaeological Museum of the Marches

Modern historians have also highlighted the many positive effects of Augustus's reign, the longevity of which is viewed as a major contributing factor in the transformation of Rome into a de facto monarchy.Template:Sfn Eck and Takács stress that Augustus was responsible for establishing a standing professional army, the dynastic principle of the imperial succession, the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense, and relative peace and prosperity for over two centuries.Template:Sfn Historian Walter Eder contends that Augustus promoted Republican Roman virtues and addressed the concerns of the plebs by means of generosity and cutting back on lavish excess. In 29 BC, Augustus gave 400 sesterces (equal to one-tenth of a Roman pound of gold) each to 250,000 citizens, 1,000 sesterces each to 120,000 veterans in the colonies, and spent 700 million sesterces in purchasing land for his soldiers to settle upon.Template:Sfn He also restored 82 different temples to display his care for the Roman pantheon of deities.Template:Sfn In 28 BC, he melted down 80 silver statues commemorating him in an attempt to appear frugal and modest.Template:Sfn

Cultural depictions

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Physical appearance and official images

Suetonius's Twelve Caesars includes a biography of Augustus and details about his appearance.Template:Efn According to Goldsworthy, descriptions of hair color in ancient Roman sources are often ambiguous, and Suetonius's comment that Augustus's curly hair was inclined towards golden (Template:Lang) could mean either "slightly blond" or "brown rather than black" hair.Template:Sfn Scientific analysis of traces of paint found in his official statues shows that he most likely had naturally light brown hair.Template:Sfn Augustus was likely about Template:Convert tall and may have worn built-up soles to appear taller.Template:Sfn Among the best known portraits of Augustus are the Prima Porta Statue,Template:Sfnm his sculpted relief on the Ara Pacis,Template:Sfnm and the sculpted Via Labicana Augustus.Template:Sfn Prominent cameo portraits include the Blacas Cameo and Template:Lang.Template:Sfnm The official imagery was tightly controlled and idealized, drawing from a tradition of Hellenistic portraiture. From Template:Circa, his portraits proliferated across the Roman world,Template:Sfn and they emphasized a youthful appearance until his death.Template:Sfnm

Julius Caesar first introduced personalized portraits of living individuals on Roman coins in the 40s BC, and Augustus's image on coins is perhaps one means by which he emulated Caesar.Template:Sfn It is highly likely Augustus personally dictated how these portraits appeared.Template:Sfnm Augustus's name and image became universal on coinage throughout the Empire. Goldsworthy notes how the 'Caesar' on silver coins mentioned by Jesus in the New Testament was most likely Augustus rather than Tiberius.Template:Sfn Later emperors minted coins depicting both themselves and previous rulers including Augustus.Template:Sfn

Post-classical visual artworks