Imperator Gaius Iulius Caesar

Augustus, divi filius, first emperor of Rome

63 BCE-14CE

Vergil on Augustus

• Jupiter’s prophecy: Aen. 1.329-355 (pp. 56-7)• Anchises’ prophecy: Aen. 6.909-920 (pp. 208-9)• Shield of Aeneas (ecphrasis): Aen. 8.790-853

(pp. 264-5)

Temple of Rome and Augustus, Ankara, Turkey (Monumentum Ancyranum)

Res Gestae Divi Augusti“Achievements of the divine Augustus”

Gaius Octavius Thurinus Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus

Imperator Caesar Augustus• 63: birth (grandnephew of Julius

Caesar)• 44: named in Caesar’s will as

principal heir & adopted son• 43: forms 2nd Triumvirate with

Antony and Lepidus proscriptions (e.g., Cicero)

Octavian succeeds Caesar & defeats Antony

42: Caesar proclaimed a god, making Octavian divi filius – son of a god; Philippi: “when both consuls had fallen in battle, the people appointed me consul and triumvir for the organization of the republic” (RG 1.4)

37: Antony marries Cleopatra (having married Octavia in 40) and in two years, Octavian breaks with Antony

31: Octavian/Agrippa defeat Antony & Cleopatra at Actium

Coin of Augustus celebrating the triple triumph in 29 BCE: Dalmatia, Actium,

Egypt

“It was the will of our ancestors that the gateway of Janus Quirinus should be shut when victories had secured peace by land and sea throughout the whole empire of the Roman people; from the foundation of the city down to my birth, tradition records that it was shut only twice, but while I was the leading citizen the senate resolved that it should be shut on three occasions” (RG 13).

Closing of the Doors of the Temple of Janus Quirinus: 29 BCE

Augustan aureus, 28 BCE:Augustus seated on the sella curulis

LEGES ET IURA P(OPULI) R(OMANI) RESTITUIT“He restored the laws and the rights of the Roman people”

27 BCE: First “settlement”:auctoritas, Imperator Caesar Augustus &

princeps“In my sixth and seventh consulships [28-27 BC], after I had extinguished civil wars, and at a time when with universal consent I was in complete control of affairs, I transferred the republic from my power to the dominion of the senate and people of Rome. For this service of mine I was named Augustus by the decree of the senate …. After this time I excelled all in influence [auctoritas], although I possessed no more official power [potestas] than others who were my colleagues in the several magistracies” (RG 34.1-3).

23 BCE: Second “settlement”: maius imperium & tribunicia potestas

“My name was inserted in the hymn of the Salii by a decree of the senate, and it was enacted by law that my person should be inviolable for ever and that I should hold the tribunician power for the duration of my life” (RG 10.1).

“… the consulship was also offered to me, to be held each year for the rest of my life, and I refused it” (RG 5.3).

“I added Egypt to the empire of the Roman people” (RG 27.1) – 23 BCE

Imp(erator) Caesar divi f(ilius)Augustus

pontifex maximusimp(erator) XII, co(n)s(ul) XI, trib(unicia)

pot(estate) XIVAegypto in potestatempopuli Romani redacta

Soli donum dedit

“Emperor Caesar Augustus son of the divine,chief priest,

hailed imperator 12 times, consul 11 times, holding tribunician power for the 14th time

once Egypt had been reduced to the power of the Roman people

gave this as a gift to the Sun.”

Augustus’ clupeus virtutis (“shield of virtue”)

“the door-posts of my house were publicly wreathed with bay leaves and a civic crown was fixed over my door … on account of my courage, clemency, justice and piety” (RG 34.2)

“The senate and people of Rome, to Imp(erator) Caesar Augustus, s(on) of the divine, consul eight times, gave a shield of (his) courage, clemency, justice and piety towards the gods and fatherland”

Details on the cuirass:•Tiberius(?) receives the standards of Crassus and Antony from a Parthian

•“I recovered … Spain and Gaul” (RG 29.1; 13 BCE)•Personification of Tellus (Mother Earth) with horn of abundance (cornucopia): 2.4B sesterces (RG App. 1)

“I compelled the Parthians to restore to me the spoils and standards of three Roman armies and to ask as suppliants for the friendship of the Roman people” (RG 29.2; 20 BCE)

Augustus’ benevolence: “I paid …, I gave …” (RG 15-18)

Five donations of 240-400 sesterces to each citizen240 sesterces to each citizen on the grain-dole

12 rations of grain to each citizen (100K +)1000 sesterces to soldier-colonists

880 million sesterces for land for soldiers400 million sesterces to soldiers

320 million sesterces to the state treasury

“I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble” (Suetonius Life of Augustus 28)

“I built [13 temples +]” (RG 19)

“I restored [the Capitol, the theater of Pompey; aqueducts; the Forum of Julius Caesar, the Basilica of Julius Caesar; and 82 temples]” (RG 20)

“I built the temple of Mars the Avenger and the Forum Augustum on private ground from the proceeds of booty” (RG 21.1)

• Vowed in 42 BCE after Philippi (defeat of Caesar’s Republican assassins)

• Begun in 20 BCE after Parthian standards recovered

• Inaugurated in 2 BCE

Temple of Mars Ultor (Avenger)

Venus & Mars & Iulius CaesarAeneas & Romulus

Summi Viri (“greatest men” of Rome’s history)

Augustus

“In my thirteenth consulship [2 BCE] the senate, the equestrian order and the whole people of Rome gave me the title of father of my country (pater patriae) and resolved that this should be inscribed in the porch of my house and in the Curia Julia and in the Forum Augustum below the chariot which had been set there in my honor by decree of the senate” (RG 35.1)

Augustus as Pontifex Maximusafter 12 BCE

“I declined to be made pontifex maximus in the place of my colleague who was still alive, when the people offered me this priesthood which my father had held. Some years later, after the death of the man who had taken the opportunity of civil disturbance to seize it for himself, I received this priesthood, in the consulship of Publius Sulpicius and Gaius Valgius [12 BC], and such a concourse poured in from the whole of Italy to my election as has never been recorded at Rome before that time” (RG 10.2)

Augustan “complex”:

• Ara Pacis Augustae

• Horologium Augusti

• Mausoleum Augusti

Ara Pacis Augustae, 13-9 BCE

Ara Pacis

“When I returned from Spain and Gaul, in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius, after successful operations in those provinces, the senate voted in honour of my return the consecration of an altar to Pax Augusta in the Campus Martius, and on this altar it ordered the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins to make annual sacrifice” (RG 12.2; 13 BCE, finished in 9)

Augustus’ Mausoleum

Res Gestae would have been displayed on the doorposts

Reconstruction of Mausoleum“At the time of writing I am in my 76th

year” (RG 35.2)

“On them I set no limits, space or time. / I have granted them power, empire without end” (Aen. 1.333-334)

Augustus and his Res GestaeWhat did he omit?

40 Antony marries Octavia, Augustus’ sister38 Divorces Scribonia at Julia’s birth, marries pregnant Livia35 Antony divorces Octavia, “marries” Cleopatra31 Names of the defeated at the Battle of Actium30 Suicides of Antony & Cleopatra23 Death of Marcellus dies at 18; Julia forced to marry Agrippa18 Laws on marriage and adultery13 Death of Lepidus, thus vacating office of pontifex maximus for Augustus12 Agrippa dies; Julia forced to marry Tiberius, Livia’s son 2 Exile of daughter Julia 4CE With both grandsons dead, adopts Tiberius, awards tribunician power 8 Exile of daughter Julia & poet Ovid (“carmen et error”: poem & mistake)23BCEMultiple illnesses; conspiracies; assassination attempts- 13CE

How do we assess Augustus?

• What are the values that matter to Augustus?

• How does he present himself to the reader?

• What does he consider his most important accomplishments?

• How does this autobiography compare with the correspondence and philosophical works of Cicero? That is, do we get a complete picture of either man from the literary works they left behind?