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Augustus Caesar
Born Gaius Octavius, Augustus was born in September of 63 B.C. Octavius' father,
Gaius Octavius, was a praetor for two years until he died in 58 B.C. Therefore, Octavius
grew up without a father for most of his life. Through Octavius' long life of seventyseventy years, he accomplished a great deal. He reduced the size of the Senate, he was an
integral part of the second triumvirate, and he was elected the Pontifex Maximus, just to
name a few of these accomplishments. Octavius received the name Augustus by holding
the consulship and receiving various awards. This title was not given out to just anyone.
In order to receive this title, one must be a large contributor to the city (Boardman 533534).
Octavius Caesar was related to the famous Julius Caesar through Octavius' mother. Atria
was Octavius' grandmother and Julius Caesar's sister, therefore making Octavius his
great-nephew. When Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 B.C., his will read that Octavius
was to be adopted by him, making Octavius his son and heir to the Roman Empire. Also,
in his will it stated that every citizen of Rome would receive a cash gift. Octavius rushed
to Rome to take his throne, but when he arrived in Rome, he realized the Antony had
already taken control of the city. He could not persuade Antony to release the money in
Julius Caesar's treasury so he had to borrow all the money he could to give the gifts to the
citizens. Julius Octavius Caesar was only eighteen when he was thrust into the world of
hate and greed. Even though he was supposed to be the ruler of Rome, he had to march
on Rome in order to get any respect from Cassius and Brutus. Cassius and Brutus were
the head of the conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar. Ironically, Augustus comes back to kill
Cassius and Brutus for the power. (Hornblower, Companion 105).
When Augustus became emperor, he tried to drastically reduce the size of the Senate on
several occasions. Unlike Julius Caesar, he did not think just anyone should be allowed
to be a Senator. He thought all those who were unworthy to be a Senator were to be
kicked out of
office. After many futile attempts, he abandoned the quest to eliminate those he felt were
unworthy to be a Senator. Also, Augustus had to be careful and not step on too many
toes because he knew the fate of his predecessor. Augustus treated the Senate with great
respect and was given the title "Pater Patria", which means father of the fatherland in
Latin (Cornell 105).
When Lepidus died in 12 B.C., Augustus took over as Pontifex Maximus. The Pontifex
Maximus is the head of the national church and the highest Roman priest. His name
Augustus means "by the grace of God" or "the exalted one". Being appointed to this
position was beneficial for him because it got the people to side with him. They now saw
Augustus as a good and honest man (Boardman 540).
In 43 B.C., Augustus helped form the second triumvirate. Triumvirate comes from the
Latin word trivmvir, which means a group of three men who take over a government and
co-rule. The first triumvirate consisted of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. In
addition to himself, the second triumvirate consisted of Marcus Antonius and Marcus
Aemilius Lepidus. Marcus Antonius controlled the East, Augustus controlled the West,
and Lepidus controlled Africa. Augustus gave his sister Octavia to Antony in marriage
as a symbol of peace and brotherhood. This triumvirate broke up in 33 B.C. Thanks to
the triumvirate, Augustus was able to defeat Cassius and Brutus, the last Republican
leaders. They both died in battle at Philippi in Macedonia. Lepidus was stripped of his
Triumvirate powers because he wanted more control and challenged Augustus and
Antony for it. Lepidus lost and the triumvirate was reduced to two people (Hornblower,
Dictionary 217).
Antony drained the Roman city dwellers of their money to pay for his battles. Augustus
was also very dependent on the Queen of Africa, Cleopatra, to help him financially.
Antony sent a pregnant Octavia back to Rome before he headed to Africa to be with
Cleopatra. Antony fathered two children with Cleopatra while he was married to
Octavia. This disgusted Augustus, but when Antony named two Roman provinces after
his children by Cleopatra, Augustus declared war on Antony and Cleopatra. In the battle
of Actium, Antony was defeated but would not give Augustus the satisfaction of killing
him so he committed suicide by falling on his own sword. Now it was just Augustus
Caesar, in power, by himself (Bigchalk).
Augustus brought Rome out of a 100-year civil war. He also kept an honest and uncorrupt government while extending the Roman roads. During his life, he developed the
first efficient mail system. Augustus forever changed Roman literature. During his
tenure as
Emperor, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy all became famous and great writers. Augustus
supported literature, which is why many of these writers became renowned for their
works. Augustus also expanded the territory of Rome. He annexed Africa and took
control over most of Europe. He was so influential in the growth of Rome that when he
died, he was worshipped as a god (Cornell 105).
When Augustus returned home after the battle of Actium, he threw a three-day festival
that had lavish parades, in order to unite the Roman citizens once more. He was outraged
to return home and find tall buildings falling or burning due to lack of safety when they
were built. Augustus set up a code of safety laws so this would not be a problem
anymore. Augustus tried to enforce firefighters to put out fires and make sure everything
ran smoothly. His first two attempts at having firefighters in the city were very
unsuccessful as Augustus was using unpaid slaves as firefighters. The firefighters were
not going to risk their lives to save others when there was nothing in it for them.
Augustus's third try at firefighters worked significantly better, thus paving the way for
firefighters today. These new firefighters were called vigiles or watchmen. Watchmen
were paid regular salaries; therefore they had the incentive to do their job efficiently. The
firefighter squad consisted of several thousand firemen. In the beginning, firemen were
also granted police duties such as stopping burglars, muggers, and thieves. At first this
was successful, but it got to the point that the firemen were too busy fighting fires to do
the police duties. Augustus, seeing this was a problem, made the cohorts urbanae, or
urban cohorts that consisted of three groups of one thousand men to do the police work.
If the urban cohorts could not do their job, or there was a massive riot and they needed
backup, they could call upon Augustus's own guard for help (Delta).
Augustus always wanted to make his city, Rome, better. He knew that in order to do that,
one had to start with the small things and work up. The little things included making
roads better and renovating aqueducts. This was such a huge task that he divided the city
into fourteen different districts. Each district was further broken down into precincts.
Each precinct had four people in charge of informing the government what needed to be
done in each district to improve it. With an organized way to tell the government what
needed to be accomplished, the major problems were quickly resolved (Delta).
Augustus was always a supporter of artistic buildings. During his tenure, Augustus
restored or renovated over eighty temples and other buildings. He was very proud of the
Augustan Forum and the Altar of Peace, both which he had built. The Senate met in the
Augustan Forum. As was mentioned earlier, Augustus respected the Senate greatly,
which is why he built them a new building, complete with a temple, which would allow
them to pray to Mars. The Altar of Peace was built to honor the Pax Augustae, or the
peace that Augustus brought upon Rome. Augustus brought Rome through a dark time
and 100 years of civil war, so the title Pax Augustae was given to him for his
accomplishments on ending the wars (Delta).
Step by step, Rome gave Augustus more and more power. In part, this was because they
were afraid of what he could do if he did not get what he wanted, but also because he was
doing good things for Rome and the Senators appreciated that. Augustus served as
consul every year from 31-23 B.C. He had all the power at his back, his soldiers were so
loyal to him, so he could have done anything he wanted at this time in Rome. Fortunately
for Rome, he did not take advantage of his power and pillage the city like he could have.
This was a very big accomplishment, which made Augustus even more idolized
(Ancient).
Augustus, to some people, does not get credit for being as smart as he really was. Even
though he did all these great things for the city, in hard times, the citizens will still look to
the man in charge to be responsible for what is happening. When this happens, many
rulers get scared and do not know what to do. Augustus did, when something was going
wrong in the Empire or the masses were getting aggravated, he would give away free
bread and put on free games. This was a style modeled after Julius Caesar, but Augustus
actually bought the grain with his own personal money unlike the late Julius Caesar. The
two big famines in Rome, one in 22 B.C. and the other in 6 A.D., ironically helped
Augustus's popularity. In famines, people starve and die and the blame has to be put on
someone. The ruler of the region traditionally receives the blame, but not in Augustus's
case. Augustus would pass out free grain whenever there was a need. The starving
people loved him for this, and better yet, Rome did not have a mass starvation resulting in
thousands of deaths. The games Augustus put on were not nearly as extravagant as the
ones Nero put on. Nero's were all about killing people because he loved the sight of
death. Augustus was very different; he would not even let his gladiators kill each other.
The people still did not seem to care that there were few, if any killings, as they viewed it
as a form of entertainment (Delta).
Augustus firmly believed that in order for a society to be successful, the people inhibiting
the city needed to be unified. Unlike many other rulers, Augustus did not force his views
of
religion upon the people of Rome. He did not have a major problem with people praying
to all sorts of gods as long as the rules of that religion did not interfere with the rules of
the empire. Augustus was beginning to see what was right morally and what was not.
Augustus started passing laws; an example of this was making the consequence of
adultery severe. He also made rules against raising very large families similar to what
China did with their one child per family policy (Delta).
There was nothing in life that Augustus hated more than a hypocrite. The rules that
applied to the plebeians, applied to him and his family as well. Augustus exiled his own
daughter, Julia, from the city for committing adultery. Unlike Nero, who liked to have
extravagant buildings built for no particular reason, Augustus preferred to remain more of
a common man, not a man who shows off his riches. His house was made of regular
stone, not marble which most rulers had their houses made of. Stone was a lot cheaper
and Augustus figured there was not much of a difference anyways, as it was just a house.
That simple mindset is why the people of Rome loved him. He wore basic clothes made
by his wife and daughter, worked long hard hours, and had simple dining routines.
Augustus did not have extremely lavish dinners every night like other rulers did. He just
wanted to be known as a simple ruler who was not a showoff. As mentioned before, he
was worshipped as a god by some of the citizens and he did not want this. He made it
mandatory that if he was going to be worshipped as a deity, that the citizens worship the
city of Rome, not just him. Augustus main goal was that Rome be prosperous and very
appealing to all people (Delta).
Augustus died peacefully at Nola on the 19th of August in 14 A.D. (Hornblower,
Companion 107). Augustus Caesar was a very powerful man who only used his power
for good. Augustus did not like the sight of death or blood, nor did he like greed or
corruption in the government. During his term as emperor, he kept the government
overall very honest. There were still some conspirators but not like the almost great
Catiline conspiracy. He was a very influential ruler that accomplished a great deal and
this was greatly appreciated by Tiberius, whom when he took over, he had a prosperous
city unlike Augustus when he took over Rome. That just shows how good of a ruler he
truly was if he could turn a city around like that in the matter of a lifetime.
Bibliography
Boardman, John and Jasper Griffen and Oswyn Murray. The Oxford History of the
Classical World. Augustus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 531-549
Cornell, Tim and John Matthews. Atlas of the Roman World. Augustus. Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press, 1983. 72-80, 105-106, 131-132
Hornblower, Simon and Anthony Spawforth. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Third
Edition. Augustus. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1996. 216-218
Hornblower, Simon and Anthony Spawforth. The Oxford Companion to Classical
Civilization. Augustus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 102-107
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aabybaugustus.htm September 25 6:00
P.M.
http://www.deltacollege.edu/goberg/ September 27 6:00 P.M.
http://worldbook.bigchalk.com/037880.htm September 24 6:00 P.M.
Keywords:
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octavius praetor years until died therefore grew without father most life through long life
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augustus holding consulship receiving various awards this title given just anyone order
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realized antony already taken control city could persuade antony release money treasury
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think just anyone should allowed senator thought those were unworthy senator were
kicked office after many futile attempts abandoned quest eliminate those felt unworthy
senator also careful step many toes because knew fate predecessor treated senate with
great respect given title pater patria which means father fatherland latin cornell lepidus
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side with they good honest boardman helped form second triumvirate triumvirate comes
from latin word trivmvir which means group three take over government rule first
consisted pompey crassus addition himself second consisted marcus antonius marcus
aemilius lepidus marcus antonius controlled east controlled west lepidus controlled africa
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annexed took control over most europe influential growth that worshipped cornell
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once more outraged return home find tall buildings falling burning lack safety they built
code safety laws would problem anymore tried enforce firefighters fires make sure
everything smoothly first attempts having firefighters very unsuccessful using unpaid
slaves firefighters going risk their lives save others there nothing them third worked
significantly better thus paving today these called vigiles watchmen watchmen paid
regular salaries therefore incentive efficiently firefighter squad consisted several
thousand firemen beginning firemen granted police duties such stopping burglars
muggers thieves successful point firemen busy fighting fires police duties seeing problem
made cohorts urbanae urban cohorts three groups thousand police work urban cohorts
could there massive riot needed backup call upon guard help delta always wanted make
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griffen oswyn murray oxford history classical world york oxford university press cornell
john matthews atlas world oxford england university press simon anthony spawforth
classical dictionary third edition england university press simon anthony spawforth
companion classical civilization york http ancienthistory about library weekly
aabybaugustus september http deltacollege goberg september http worldbook bigchalk
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