Augustus
Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the founder of the Roman Empire and the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult and an era of imperial peace in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The principate, a style of government where the emperor showed nominal deference to the Senate, was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.
Octavian was born into an equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia. After his great-uncle, the dictator Julius Caesar, was assassinated in 44 BC, Octavian, whom Caesar named as his primary heir in his will, inherited Caesar's estate and assumed his name. He fought for the loyalty of Caesar's legions. He was made a senator during a state emergency and seized power by marching on Rome in 43 BC, becoming its youngest elected consul. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed a triumvirate regime with legally sanctioned powers to outlaw and oppose the assassins of Caesar and their allies. Following their victory at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, the triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as de facto oligarchs. The triumvirate was eventually torn apart by the competing ambitions of its members; Octavian had Lepidus exiled in 36 BC for opposing him in Sicily, while Marcus Agrippa, Octavian's naval commander, defeated Antony in Greece at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Antony and his wife Cleopatra, the Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, killed themselves during Octavian's invasion of Egypt, which then became Octavian's personal property.
After the demise of the triumvirate, Augustus reached an accord with the remaining Roman elite: he would restore the facade of a free republic, centered around the Senate, the executive magistrates and the legislative assemblies. But his control of the military and half of Rome's provinces meant he maintained autocratic power legitimized by his appointment as commander-in-chief of most Roman armies. To avoid the appearance of monarchy or dictatorship, he eventually refused to stand for reelection to the consulship, but the Senate granted him the powers of the tribunate and censorship and the titles princeps, Augustus , and pater patriae, and named the month of August after him. After the death of Lepidus, Augustus also assumed the title of pontifex maximus.
Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, and completing the conquest of Hispania. His expansionism, however, suffered a major setback in Germania. Beyond the frontiers, he secured the empire with a buffer region of client states and negotiated peace treaties with the Parthian Empire and Kingdom of Kush. He reformed the Roman system of taxation and currency, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing professional army, established the Praetorian Guard as well as official police and fire-fighting services for Rome, and renovated much of the city during his reign. Augustus was a writer and patron of poets such as Virgil, and has been featured in various works of art from ancient to modern times. He died in AD 14 at age 75 from natural causes, and the Senate posthumously deified him. Persistent rumors have claimed his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as emperor by his stepson and adoptive son Tiberius.
Name
Augustus was known by many names throughout his life:- ':. According to Suetonius, the cognomen ' was given in his infancy to commemorate his father's victory there. Julius Caesar's assassin Marcus Junius Brutus referred to Octavian as Octavius, rejecting Octavian's claim to testamentary adoption.
- ': After his adoption by Julius Caesar on the latter's death in 44 BC, he took Caesar's nomen and cognomen. Historians often distinguished him from his adoptive father by adding Octavianus after the name, denoting that he was a former member of the gens Octavia. There is no evidence that Augustus did this himself, although Cicero and some other contemporaries called him Gaius Octavius, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, or "young Caesar". In English he is mainly known as Octavian for the period between 44 and 27 BC.
- ': Octavian's early coins and inscriptions all refer to him simply as Gaius Caesar, but by 38 BC he had replaced Gaius with the victory title imperator. His family line would continue the use of the name Caesar, a cognomen for one branch of the Julian family, and eventually this would form a standard imperial title.
- : In 27 BC the Senate granted him the honorific Augustus . Historians use this name, or its converse Augustus Caesar, to refer to him from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.
Early life
File:RSC 0022 - transparent background.png|thumb|upright=1.35|right|Denarius from 44 BC, showing Julius Caesar on the obverse and the goddess Venus on the reverse of the coin. Caption: |alt=Ancient Roman coin depicting Julius Caesar on the obverse and Venus holding a scepter on the reverse
After Octavius's father died in 59 BC or 58 BC, his mother married Lucius Marcius Philippus. Elected as consul in 56 BC, Octavius's stepfather served as a role model for how to deftly navigate politics and manage personal wealth. Octavius was also partly raised by his grandmother Julia, the sister of Julius Caesar. When Julia died in 52 or 51 BC, Octavius delivered her funeral oration, his first public appearance.
A Greek slave tutor named Sphaerus educated Octavius in reading, writing, arithmetic, and Greek. Octavius later freed Sphaerus and gave him a state funeral in 40 BC. As a teenager, he studied philosophy under the tutelage of Areios of Alexandria and Athenodorus of Tarsus, Latin rhetoric under Marcus Epidius, and Greek rhetoric under Apollodorus of Pergamon.
Julius Caesar had formed an informal alliance with Pompey and Crassus in 60 BC, but by 49 BC it had fallen apart and Pompey and Caesar were fighting a protracted civil war. In 47 BC, after Octavius donned the toga virilis and became an adult citizen, he was elected as a pontiff at Caesar's request, replacing Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, an opponent of Caesar who was killed in battle. The following year, Octavius presided over the Greek games commemorating the opening of Caesar's Temple of Venus Genetrix. He wished to join Caesar's staff for the African campaign but gave way when his mother Atia protested over his poor health. 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. In 45 BC Octavius traveled to Hispania to join Caesar's Spanish campaign against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus the Younger. On 13 September 45 BC Caesar deposited a new will with the Vestal Virgins naming Octavius as his principal heir.
Rise to power
Heir to Caesar
In 44 BC, Octavius was at Apollonia, Illyria, when Julius Caesar was made Rome's first dictator perpetuo in February, and then assassinated on the Ides of March. Octavius consulted with Caesar's officers in Macedonia before sailing for Italy to ascertain his political fortunes. Caesar had no living legitimate children under Roman law. His will made Octavius his main heir with the condition that he assume the dead dictator's name. After landing near Brundisium in southern Italy, Octavius received a copy of the will, which bequeathed three-quarters of Caesar's estate. Octavius's stepfather Philippus advised him against accepting Caesar's will, but Octavius accepted it on 8 May 44 BC.Accepting the inheritance before the urban praetor, Octavius purported that Caesar adopted him as his son, a legally spurious but politically powerful claim, and assumed the name Gaius Julius Caesar. There is no evidence that he himself used the name Octavianus, but some of his contemporaries did refer to him as Octavianus, such as his stepfather and Cicero. Historians usually refer to him as Octavian between his adoption and his assumption of the name Augustus in 27 BC, to avoid confusing the dead Caesar with his heir.
Octavian could not rely on his limited funds to make a successful entry into politics. After a warm welcome by Caesar's soldiers at Brundisium, Octavian demanded a portion of the funds allotted by Caesar for his eastern war against the Parthians. This amounted to 700 million sesterces stored at Brundisium, the staging ground in Italy for military operations in the east. Octavian made another bold move when, without official permission, he appropriated the annual tribute from Rome's province of Asia to Italy.
Octavian also began to recruit Caesar's veterans and men designated for the Parthian war, emphasizing his status as heir to Caesar. On his march to Rome through Italy, Octavian's presence and newly acquired riches won over many, including Caesar's veterans stationed in Campania. By June, he had gathered an army of 3,000 men, paying each a bonus of 500 denarii, which was more than twice a soldier's annual pay.
Growing tensions
Arriving to Rome on 6 May 44 BC, Octavian found consul Mark Antony, Caesar's former colleague, in an uneasy truce with the dictator's assassins. A general amnesty on 17 March pardoned the assassins in exchange for recognition of Caesar's legal acts. 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.Mark Antony was amassing political support, but Octavian challenged him as the leader of the Caesarians. Antony had lost the support of many Romans and Caesarians when he initially opposed the motion to elevate Caesar to divine status. He also refused to give Octavian the money due him as Caesar's heir. Antony used this as a delaying tactic to halt Octavian from dispersing 300 sesterces per capita to the urban plebs of Rome in accordance with Caesar's will. As consul, Antony blocked the curiate assembly from hearing Octavian's petition to legitimize his supposed adoption by Caesar, Octavian's attempts to reinstate Caesar's golden throne for public view at games staged in April and June, and Octavian's attempts to have Caesar formally deified after a comet seen in July during games honoring Caesar was widely interpreted as a sign of his divinity. 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.
During the summer of 44 BC, Octavian won the support of more veterans and also made common cause with those senators—many of whom were themselves former Caesarians—who perceived Antony as a threat to the state. Antony had lictors drag Octavian away from a hearing over the reinstatement of private property seized by Caesar in 49 BC, after which Octavian claimed Antony threatened his life as retribution for distributing money to the plebs in Caesar's will. Caesar's veterans then convinced Antony to publicly reconcile with Octavian in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. 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. In September, Marcus Tullius Cicero, now a political ally of Octavian, began to attack Antony in a series of speeches portraying him as a threat to the Republic.