Transcript From Warlord to Restorer of the Golden Age

From Warlord to Restorer of the
Golden Age
End of Civil Wars and Augustan
Settlement
Prima
Porta
Statue
“Rome’s tradition of government, down to
Julius Caesar, was characterized by
distributed power and multiple sources of
decision. That was never to return.”
J.A. Crook, Cambridge Ancient History (10, 2nd
ed. [1996] 113)
Aftermath of Ides
Renewal of Civil War
(Liberators vs. Caesarians)
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Octavian, great-nephew/adopted son of
Caesar; M. Antonius, consul for 44 BCE
“The Second Triumvirate”: November 43 BCE
(Octavian, Antony, M. Lepidus)
Caesarians defeat Brutus and Cassius at
Philippi in Macedonia (42 BCE)
Antony in East; Octavian in Italy
Towards Renewal of Civil War
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Antony abandons Octavia for Cleopatra
VII of Egypt
Retirement of Lepidus (37-36 BCE)
Antony divorces Octavia
Propaganda wars between Octavian and
Antony (33-32 BCE)
Battle at Actium (31 BCE)
New Province of Egypt
The Battle
Of Actium
31 BCE
Provinces of the Roman Empire
From Republic to Principate
Constitutional Arrangements
From Octavian to Augustus
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Octavian/Augustus (born 63 BCE)
Triumvir (with Antony and Lepidus) for
restoring the Republic
Consul 31-23 BCE
Settlement of 27 BCE
Settlement of 23 BCE
Settlement of 27
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BCE
Octavian returns control of state to the
Roman Senate and Roman People
Ten-year imperium over super-province of
Egypt, Gaul, Spain, and Syria
Dedicatory Shield voted by Senate (valor,
clemency, justice, piety)
Title “Augustus”
Settlement of 23
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BCE
Resignation of Consulship
Control over elections (commendatio)
Appointment of Generals in Senatorial Provinces
Appointment of Legates in “Imperial” Provinces
Imperium Maius Proconsulare (“powers greater
than a proconsul’s”)
Tribunicia Potestas (“tribunician powers”)
Augustan Settlement and the Roman
Peace (pax Romana)
27 BCE-CE 14
Cui Bono?
Beneficiaries of the Pax Romana
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Roman plebs: “Bread and Circuses”
Senatorial aristocracy: Preservation of
Republican trappings and traditional honors
Equestrian order: secure trade and markets
empire-wide
Partisans and Supporters: successful careers
and honors (Agrippa, Maecenas)
Methods of Control
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Legions: reduction from about 75 to 28
Personal appointment of generals
Aerarium militare (military pension fund)
from CE 6
Urban Control in Rome
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Praetorian Guard (9 cohorts: 3 billeted in city;
remainder in nearby towns from 27 BCE; two
praetorian prefects from 2 BCE)
Ideology: Aurea Aetas
Moral and Social Legislation in the Golden Age
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Julian laws on marriage
 Punishes celibates and widowers who do not remarry:
ineligibility for inheritances and legacies; prohibited
from public games
 Marriages between senators and freedwomen prohibited
 Laws against adultery
 Laws rewarding child rearing (ius trium liberorum)
Restrictions on slave manumissions
 Lex Fufia Caninia (2 BCE); Lex Aelia Sentia (CE 4)
Ludi saeculares: Horace composes carmen saeculare for 17
BCE
Princeps and
Pater Patriae (2 BCE)
Augustus as Super-Patron of
Roman State
“When I held my thirteenth consulship [2 BCE],
the Senate, the equestrian order, and the entire
Roman people gave me the title of ‘father of
the country’ and decreed that this title should
be inscribed in the vestibule of my house, in
the Julian Senate house, and in the Augustan
forum on the pedestal of the chariot which was
set up in my honor by decree of the Senate.”
Augustus, Res Gestae, 35
Conflicting Viewpoints
Assessments of Augustus’ Reign
“In my sixth and seventh consulships [28 and 27 BCE], after I
had put an end to the civil wars, having attained supreme power
by universal consent, I transferred the state from my own power
to the control of the Roman Senate and the people. For this
service of mine I received the title of Augustus by decree of the
Senate, and the doorposts of my house were publicly decorated
with laurels, the civic crown was affixed over my doorway, and a
golden shield was set up in the Julian Senate house, which, as
the inscription on this shield testifies, the Roman Senate and
people gave me in recognition of my valor, clemency, justice,
and devotion. After that time I excelled all in authority, but I
possessed no more power than the others who were my
colleagues in each magistracy.”
Augustus, Res Gestae, 34
“It was said… ‘that filial duty and state necessity were merely
assumed as a mask. It was really from a lust of sovereignty that
[Augustus] had excited the veterans by bribery, had, when a young
man and a subject, raised an army, tampered with the consul’s
legions, and feigned an attachment to the faction of
Pompey….Citizens were proscribed, lands divided, without so much
as the approval of those who executed the deeds. Even granting that
the deaths of Cassius and the Brutii were sacrifices to the hereditary
enmity…still Sextus Pompey had been deluded by the phantom of
peace, and Lepidus by the mask of friendship. Subsequently, Antony
had been lured on by the treaties of Tarentum and Brundisium, and
by his marriage with the sister, and paid by his death the penalty of a
treacherous alliance. No doubt there was peace after all this, but it
was a peace stained with blood.”
Tacitus, Annals, 1.10