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ROMAN EMPEROR

Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill of the University of Reading wrote for the BBC: “ One image of the imperial system is of strong, effective central control. The figure of the emperor himself, as defined by Julius Caesar and Augustus, stands for good order in contrast to the chaos of pluralism - squabbling city-states or competing aristocrats. [Source: Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]

“Historians have underlined the benefits of provincial government restrained by imperial control and the development of a sophisticated and complex law code which still underlies continental legal systems. They have pointed to the benefits of the central bureaucracy built up by the early emperors, especially Claudius, which provided a structure for long-term continuity amid changing dynasties. That bureaucratic mentality, you could say, transmitted from late antiquity through the papacy to modern nation states, is what makes contemporary Brussels possible. |::|

“But look at the figures of the Caesars themselves and what fascinates us now is their arbitrary nature. We see not an efficient system of fair and sober government, but a gamble at work. From Augustus's ruthless intelligence, to Caligula's scary insanity, or Nero's misplaced parade of rockstar popularity, we seem to be dealing with a system which throws the individual and his personal foibles into excessive prominence. |::|

“The 'mad' and 'bad' Caesars seem more interesting than the good, sober ones - certainly, from Quo Vadis to I Claudius to Gladiator, they are the ones who have fired the popular imagination. It is as if we do not want to learn the secret of Roman success, but scare ourselves by looking deep into the irrationality of an apparently successful system. In that sense, the Caesars now serve us not as a model of how people ought to rule but a mythology through which we reflect on the terrifying power of the systems in which we may happen to find ourselves entrapped.” |::|

Websites on Ancient Rome: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; Lacus Curtius penelope.uchicago.edu; The Internet Classics Archive classics.mit.edu ; Bryn Mawr Classical Review bmcr.brynmawr.edu; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org; Ancient Rome resources for students from the Courtenay Middle School Library web.archive.org ; History of ancient Rome OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame web.archive.org ; United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV) History unrv.com

Caesar Crosses the Rubicon

The crossing of the Rubicon — a small stream in northern Italy that defined the border between Rome and its northern provinces— was a pivotal event in Roman history and the creation of the Roman Empire and ultimately modern European culture. While serving as governor of Gaul, Caesar amassed a personal fortune and displayed his military skill in subduing the native Celtic and Germanic tribes. Caesar became so popular with the masses, he presented a threat to the power of the Senate and to Pompey, who held power in Rome. Under these condition, the Senate called upon Caesar to resign his command and disband his army or risk being declared an "Enemy of the State". Pompey was entrusted with enforcing this edict. [Source: eyewitnesstohistory.com]

After Julius Caesar finished subduing Gaul in 51 B.C., he prepared to return to Rome. While he was away in Gaul, Crassus was killed and Pompey became leader. Pompey wielded great power and declared Caesar a public enemy and ordered him to disband his army. Caesar refused. When he moved his army from Gaul into Rome's formal territory, it was interpreted as a declaration of war against Rome. Caesar reached the border of greater Rome at the Rubicon River. He then he plunged his horse in the water, shouting , “The die is caste."

According to to Republican tradition, victorious Roman generals were not allowed to return to Rome with their armies out of fear they would try to overthrow the government. In January 49 B.C., Caesar was staying in the northern Italian city of Ravenna. He had to decide whether to obey the Senate's command or ignore it and march his army southward to confront Pompey, plunging the Roman Republic into a bloody civil war. An ancient Roman law forbade any general from crossing the Rubicon and entering Italy proper with a standing army. To do so was treason and a point of no return.

Timeline of Events Around the Time Caesar Crossed the Rubicon
58-50 B.C.: As governor of the province, Caesar conducts a series of military campaigns to conquer Gaul, boosting his political career, bringing him the wealth and endearing him among the Roman masses.
50 B.C.: Following his victories in Gaul, Caesar attempts to return to Rome with his army, a breach of Roman law, and his former ally Pompey and his enemies in the Senate order him to either disband his army or stay of Italy proper.
January 10-11, 49 B.C.: Faced with an ultimatum from the Senate, Caesar and the 13th Legion cross the Rubicon, the official border between Gaul and Italy, a decision that leads to civil war.
49 B.C.: As Caesar advances on Rome, Pompey and his allies retreat south, ultimately fleeing Italy for Greece. Caesar defeats Pompey’s forces in Spain.
48 B.C.: Caesar pursues Pompey across the Adriatic and decisively defeats him at the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece. After the loss, Pompey flees to Egypt where he is assassinated.
46 B.C.: Caesar defeats Pompey’s remaining followers at Thapsus in North Africa. Caesar becomes dictator of Rome. [Source: Fernando Lillo Redonet, National Geographic History magazine, March-April 2017] Book: “Rubicon — The Last Years of the Roman Republic” by Tom Holland (Doubleday, 2004)

Civil War After Caesar Crosses the Rubicon

Julius Caesar

Fernando Lillo Redonet wrote in National Geographic History magazine: “The choice facing Rome was either decades of more factionalism and political chaos, or accepting a strongman to impose reform, and set its affairs in order. On swiftly passing to the far bank of this minor river, Caesar set the republic hurtling down the second course.” [Source: Fernando Lillo Redonet, National Geographic History magazine, March-April 2017]

Caesar marched into Rome with his army and seized control of the government and the treasury and declared himself dictator while Pompey, in command of the Roman navy, fled to Greece. But this campaign was just the beginning. Five years of civil war followed. Caesar was forced to cover huge distances in his effort to destroy Pompey and his extensive allies across the Roman world.

Caesar defeated Pompey in a series of land battles that took place throughout the Roman empire over a four years period. After Caesar put down a revolt in modern-day Marseille in France and routed Pompey’s loyalists in Spain at the Battle of Ilerda in June 49 B.C., he defeated Pompey in Greece. Pompey fled to Egypt. The Ptolemies refused to provide quarter for a loser and had him executed and cut off his head.

Suetonius wrote: “In all the civil wars he suffered not a single disaster except through his lieutenants, of whom Gaius Curio perished in Africa, Gaius Antonius fell into the hands of the enemy in Illyricum, Publius Dolabella lost a fleet also off Illyricum, and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus an army in Pontus. Personally he always fought with the utmost success, and the issue was never even in doubt save twice: once at Dyrrachium, where he was put to flight, and said of Pompeius, who failed to follow up his success, that he did not know how to use a victory; again in Spain, in the final struggle, when, believing the battle lost, he actually thought of suicide.” [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius” (“The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius”), written A.D. c. 110, Suetonius, 2 vols., translated by J. C. Rolfe, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London: William Henemann, 1920), Vol. I, pp. 3-119]

The defeat of Pompey and his allies made Caesar the unchallenged leader. Caesar said, “It is more important for the state that I should survive...I have long had my fill of power and glory; but should anything happen to me, Rome will enjoy no peace."

Caesar Becomes Dictator of Rome

Caesar's campaign in Gaul allowed Rome to claim France, the Netherlands and Belgium. In campaigns early in the Civil Wars period he claimed Portugal, Spain, and Greece. With Egypt under the control of Cleopatra, Caesar set his sights on the Middle East. After annihilating the Parthians in Pontus and Zela in the Middle East in 47 B.C., Caesar sent home the immortal message, " Veni, vidi, vici " ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). This victory allowed him to claim Syria, Israel, and western Turkey. Afterwards he returned home to Rome to fight another rival, Cato, who had gone to North Africa to raise an army to challenge Caesar. That didn't happen. Instead, Caesar sent his army to Africa and crushed Cato.

In 46 B.C., the last of Pompey's forces were defeated in Spain. With the civil wars over Caesar was the unchallenged leader of Rome. In the meantime Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands Belgium, Italy, Greece, Syria, Israel, western Turkey, and northern Libya were added to Rome under Caesar, making it a truly great empire. Caesar was merciful enough to forgive his enemies. A general amnesty was proclaimed; and friend and foe were treated alike.

In 44 B.C., Caesar declared himself “Dictator for Life” and was crowned with a royal diadem at a religious ceremony, ushering in the era of imperial Rome. Many Romans were appalled by Caesar's audacious seizure of power and riled further when he placed a statue with his likeness next to statues of the founders of Rome. Almost immediately members of the Senate began plotting against him.

David Silverman of Reed College wrote: In 45 B.C. Caesar “again chose to be named dictator, this time with the complete title of dictator rei publicae constituendae "dictator for the purpose of rebuilding the Republic", which Sulla too had been called, and with a fixed term of ten years. The Republicans were unimpressed by the ten-year limitation, nor willing to deceive themselves about the nature of Caesar's autocratic powers at this stage. And a variety of symbols confirmed Caesar's extraordinary status. For example, in public he was attended after 46 B.C. by 72 lictors (24 for each dictatorship), whereas the standard number for a consul was 12. Although Caesar had refrained from imitating Sulla's violent proscriptions, he was reputed to have opined that Sulla was a fool for having voluntarily stepped down from his dictatorship and retired from public life (Suet. Jul. 77, citing a collection of Caesar's public pronouncements by T. Ampius). [Source: David Silverman, Reed College, Classics 373 ~ History 393 Class ^*^]

In 44 B.C. the dictatorship, for reasons which are not altogether clear, was redefined as perpetual rather than for ten years. Among the evidence which ensures that the perpetual dictatorship is not an invention by hostile sources are the coins (e.g. Crawford RRC # 480 7b, a denarius bearing the legend CAESAR DICT(ator) PERPETUO). Of course his enemies spread the unlikely rumour that Caesar lusted after the title of king (rex). One is reminded of the stories about how Ti. Gracchus was supposed to have motioned with his hand indicating that he wanted to receive a crown. Crowns were powerful symbols for the Romans. Suetonius says Caesar was annoyed when the tribunes removed a royal crown someone had placed upon his statue, not because he wished to have it there, but because he wished to refuse it himself. The story seems confirmed in as much as it hangs on a matter of public record, that the two tribunes responsible were later deposed; but that may not have been. as Suetonius believes, at Caesar's insistence. M. Antonius tried to crown Caesar himself at the festival of the Lupercalia in 44, as Suetonius also says (Jul. 80); but this was undoubtedly a publicity stunt, designed to make the most of Caesar's public refusal of the dubious honor.

Caesar’s Reforms

Caesar held his great power only for a short time. But the reforms which he made are enough to show us his policy, and to enable us to judge of him as a statesman. Fernando Lillo Redonet wrote in National Geographic History magazine: “Having returned to Rome, he continued implementing significant reforms in the year of life left to him. These included improving land and grain distribution, as well as the reorganization of local government across Italy. No doubt Caesar hoped for many years of life to enact his reforms.” [Source: Fernando Lillo Redonet, National Geographic History magazine, March-April 2017]

Suetonius wrote: “Then turning his attention to the reorganisation of the state, he reformed the calendar, which the negligence of the pontiffs had long since so disordered, through their privilege of adding months or days at pleasure, that the harvest festivals did not come in summer nor those of the vintage in the autumn; and he adjusted the year to the sun's course by making it consist of three hundred and sixty-five days, abolishing the intercalary month, and adding one day every fourth year [the year had previously consisted of 355 days, and the deficiency of about eleven days was made up by inserting an intercalary month of twenty-two or twenty-three days after February]. Furthermore, that the correct reckoning of seasons might begin with the next Kalends of January, he inserted two other months between those of November and December; hence the year in which these arrangements were made was one of fifteen months, including the intercalary month, which belonged to that year according to the former custom. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius” (“The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius”), written A.D. c. 110, Suetonius, 2 vols., translated by J. C. Rolfe, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London: William Henemann, 1920), Vol. I, pp. 3-119]

“Moreover, to keep up the population of the city, depleted as it was by the assignment of eighty thousand citizens to colonies across the sea, he made a law that no citizen older than twenty or younger than forty, who was not detained by service in the army, should be absent from Italia for more than three successive years; that no senator's son should go abroad except as the companion of a magistrate or on his staff; and that those who made a business of grazing should have among their herdsmen at least one-third who were men of free birth. He conferred citizenship on all who practiced medicine at Rome, and on all teachers of the liberal arts, to make them more desirous of living in the city and to induce others to resort to it. As to debts, he disappointed those who looked for their cancellation, which was often agitated, but finally decreed that the debtors should satisfy their creditors according to a valuation of their possessions at the price which they had paid for them before the civil war, deducting from the principal whatever interest had been paid in cash or pledged through bankers; an arrangement which wiped out about a fourth part of their indebtedness. He dissolved all colleg [associations], except those of ancient foundation. He increased the penalties for crimes; and inasmuch as the rich involved themselves in guilt with less hesitation because they merely suffered exile, without any loss of property, he punished murderers of freemen by the confiscation of all their goods, as Cicero writes, and others by the loss of one-half.

“He administered justice with the utmost conscientiousness and strictness. Those convicted of extortion he even dismissed from the senatorial order. He annulled the marriage of an ex-praetor, who had married a woman the very day after her divorce, although there was no suspicion of adultery. He imposed duties on foreign wares. He denied the use of litters and the wearing of scarlet robes or pearls to all except to those of a designated position and age, and on set days. In particular, he enforced the law against extravagance, setting watchmen in various parts of the market, to seize and bring to him dainties which were exposed for sale in violation of the law; and sometimes he sent his lictors and soldiers to take from a dining-room any articles which had escaped the vigilance of his watchmen, even after they had been served.

“In particular, for the adornment and convenience of the city, also for the protection and extension of the Empire, he formed more projects and more extensive ones every day; first of all, to rear a temple to Mars, greater than any in existence, filling up and levelling the pool in which he had exhibited the sea-fight, and to build a theater of vast size, sloping down from the Tarpeian Rock; to reduce the civil code to fixed limites, and of the vast and prolix mass of statutes to include only the best and most essential in a limited number of volumes; to open to the public the greatest possible libraries of Greek and Latin books, assigning to Marcus Varro the charge of procuring and classifying them; to drain the Pomptine marshes; to let out the water from Lake Fucinus; to make a highway from the Adriatic across the summit of the Apennines as far as the Tiber; to cut a canal through the Isthmus; to check the Dacians, who had poured into Pontus and Thrace; then to make war on the Parthians by way of Lesser Armenia, but not to risk a battle with them until he had first tested their mettle. All these enterprises and plans were cut short by his death. But before I speak of that, it will not be amiss to describe briefly his personal appearance, his dress, his mode of life, and his character, as well as his conduct in civil and military life.

Caesar’s Political Reforms

The first need of Rome was a stable government based on the interest of the whole people. The senate had failed to secure such a government; and so had the popular assemblies led by the tribunes. Caesar believed that the only government suited to Rome was a democratic monarchy—a government in which the supreme power should be held permanently by a single man, and exercised, not for the benefit of himself or any single class, but for the benefit of the whole state. Let us see how his changes accomplished this end. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) \~]

In the first place, the senate was changed to meet this view. It had hitherto been a comparatively small body, drawn from a single class and ruling for its own interests. Caesar increased the number to nine hundred members, and filled it up with representative men of all classes, not simply nobles, but also ignobiles—Spaniards, Gauls, military officers, sons of freedmen, and others. It was to be not a legislative body but an advisory body, to inform the monarch of the condition and wants of Italy and the provinces. In the next place, he extended the Roman franchise to the inhabitants beyond the Po, and to many cities in the provinces, especially in Transalpine Gaul and Spain. All his political changes tended to break down the distinction between nobles and commons, between Italians and the provincials, and to make of all the people of the empire one nation. \~\

Suetonius wrote: ““He filled the vacancies in the senate, enrolled additional patricians, and increased the number of praetors, aediles, and quaestors, as well as of the minor officials; he reinstated those who had been degraded by official action of the censors or found guilty of bribery by verdict of the jurors. He shared the elections with the people on this basis: that except in the case of the consulship, half of the magistrates should be appointed by the people's choice, while the rest should be those whom he had personally nominated. And these he announced in brief notes like the following, circulated in each tribe: 'Caesar the Dictator to this or that tribe. I commend to you so and so, to hold their positions by your votes." He admitted to office even the sons of those who had been proscribed. He limited the right of serving as jurors to two classes, the equestrian and senatorial orders, disqualifying the third class, the tribunes of the treasury. He made the enumeration of the people neither in the usual manner nor place, but from street to street aided by the owners of blocks of houses, and reduced the number of those who received grain at public expense from three hundred and twenty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. And to prevent the calling of additional meetings at any future time for purposes of enrolment, he provided that the places of such as died should be filled each year by the praetors from those who were not on the list. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius” (“The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius”), written A.D. c. 110, Suetonius, 2 vols., translated by J. C. Rolfe, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London: William Henemann, 1920), Vol. I, pp. 3-119]

Caesar Worship

Caesar deification

David Silverman of Reed College wrote: “Some moderns do accept that Caesar in his last years encouraged the worship of himself as a god at Rome (following Dio 44.6.5-6, Appian BC 2.106); but this may be a distortion of the indisputable fact that a temple had been erected to clemency or to his clemency. Naturally, being acclaimed as a god by the people of the east (as Caesar was) was seen at Rome as matter of small import. It is true that the Senate declared Caesar to have been a god upon his death, and the popular belief was that a comet seen shortly after his assassination marked his assumption into the heavenly realm (a tale lovingly fostered by Augustus). In short, although there are some distortions, even the most ardent defenders of Caesar must admit that at the end he seems to have become drunk with power and the endless stream of honors heaped upon him by the Senate, and that he ended by making a mockery of Republican practices. [Source: David Silverman, Reed College, Classics 373 ~ History 393 Class]

Suetonius wrote: “To an insult which so plainly showed his contempt for the Senate he added an act of even greater insolence; for at the Latin Festival, as he was returning to the city, amid the extravagant and unprecedented demonstrations of the populace, someone in the press placed on his statue a laurel wreath with a white fillet tied to it [an emblem of royalty]; and when Epidius Marullus and Caesetius Flavus, tribunes of the plebeians, gave orders that the ribbon be removed from the wreath and the man taken off to prison, Caesar sharply rebuked and deposed them, either offended that the hint at regal power had been received with so little favor, or, as he asserted, that he had been robbed of the glory of refusing it. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius” (“The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius”), written A.D. c. 110, Suetonius, 2 vols., translated by J. C. Rolfe, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London: William Henemann, 1920), Vol. I, pp. 3-119]

“But from that time on he could not rid himself of the odium of having aspired to the title of monarch, although he replied to the plebeians, when they hailed him as king, "I am Caesar and no king" [with a pun on rex ('king') as a Roman name], and at the Lupercalia, when the consul Marcus Antonius several times attempted to place a crown upon his head as he spoke from the rostra, he put it aside and at last sent it to the Capitol, to be offered to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Nay, more, the report had spread in various quarters that he intended to move to Ilium or Alexandria, taking with him the resources of the state, draining Italia by levies, and leaving the charge of the city to his friends; also that at the next meeting of the Senate Lucius Cotta would announce as the decision of the Fifteen [the quindecimviri sacris faciundis ('college of fifteen priests') in charge of the Sybilline books], that inasmuch as it was written in the books of fate that the Parthians could be conquered only by a king, Caesar should be given that title.”

Cicero’s Concerns About Caesar

The great orator and politician Cicero (106-43 B.C.) raised concerns about Caesar’s rise in Letter XXX: To Atticus (at Rome) Matius' Suburban Villa, 7 April, 44 B.C: “I have come on a visit to the man, of whom I was talking to you this morning. His view is that "the state of things is perfectly shocking: that there is no way out of the imbroglio. For if a man of Caesar's genius failed, who can hope to succeed?" In short, he says that the ruin is complete. I am not sure that he is wrong; but then he rejoices in it, and declares that within twenty days there will be a rising in Gaul: that he has not had any conversation with anyone except Lepidus since the Ides of March: finally that these things can't pass off like this. [Source: Cicero, Marcus Tullius: “The Letters of Cicero”, translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (d. 1906), London, G. Bell and sons, 1899-1900]

What a wise man Oppius is, who regrets Caesar quite as much, but yet says nothing that can offend any loyalist! But enough of this. Pray don't be idle about writing me word of anything new, for I expect a great deal. Among other things, whether we can rely on Sextus Pompeius; but above all about our friend Brutus, of whom my host says that Caesar was in the habit of remarking: "It is of great importance what that man wishes; at any rate, whatever he wishes he wishes strongly": and that he noticed, when he was pleading for Deiotarus at Nicaea, that he seemed to speak with great spirit and freedom.

“Also - for I like to jot down things as they occur to me - that when on the request of Sestius I went to Caesar's house, and was sitting waiting till I was called in, he remarked: "Can I doubt that I am exceedingly disliked, when Marcus Cicero has to sit waiting and cannot see me at his own convenience? And yet if there is a good-natured man in the world it is he; still I feel no doubt that he heartily dislikes me." This and a good deal of the same sort. But to my purpose: Whatever the news, small as well as great, write and tell me of it. I will on my side let nothing pass.”

Assassination of Caesar

In 44 B.C., after Caesar declared himself “Dictator for Life” and was crowned with a royal diadem at a religious ceremony, ushering in the era of imperial Rome. Many Romans were appalled by Caesar's audacious seizure of power and riled further when he placed a statue with his likeness next to statues of the founders of Rome. Almost immediately members of the Senate began plotting against him.

On the ides of March (March 15, 44, B.C.), a month after he proclaimed himself Dictator for Life, 55-year-old Caesar was assassinated on the floor of the Senate by Brutus and Cassius, an event recounted in a famous Shakespeare play.

The assassination was at least in part a display of contempt against Caesar’s ruthless impoundment of power and rumors that he was planning to rule the Roman Empire with Cleopatra from Alexandria. Brutus, a close friend of Caesar, and Cassius, the mastermind of the conspiracy, recruited 20 Senators and 40 other conspirators, including many people who had been loyal to Caesar. They ones that planned to participate in the killing carried daggers concealed under their cloaks.

Augustus’s Rise

After Julius Caesar was assassinated, Octavian (Augustus) inherited Caesar’s army and used it to occupy Rome and pressure the Senate to make him consul. Marc Antony, who had assumed the leadership of Rome after Caesar’s death, was forced to make an alliance with Lepidus, a high priest, and Octavian in the form a triumvirate (“Group of Three). The leaders led a ruthless campaign to punish Caesar’s assassins but soon turned on each other. Octavian first attacked Lepidus and took control of Africa and all of Italy. Antony strained relations between Octavian and himself by divorcing Octavian's sister, in favor of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Finally, in 31 B.C., war broke out between Octavian and the combined forces of Cleopatra and Antony. Octavian defeated his foes at the naval battle of Actium and became sole ruler of Rome. [Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com]

Octavian, Antony and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate in 43 B.C.. Octavian was able get Caesar's old soldiers behind him and win the support of the Senate. The Triumvirate battled Cassius and Brutus for control of Rome during a civil war. After defeating the armies of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Phillipi in 42 B.C., Lepidus was stripped of his power and Octavian and Marc Antony divided the empire, with Octavian getting Italy and the west and Antony getting the east. Mark Anthony and Octavian, shared power for ten years until Octavian declared war on Antony's lover's Cleopatra. While Antony and Cleopatra were enjoying themselves, Octavian was building up his army and navy and preparing for a fight.

In 34 B.C. Octavian seized Antony's will from the Temple of the Vestal Virgins. The will revealed that Antony planned to be buried in Alexandria, not Rome, with Cleopatra. This infuriated the citizens of Rome. There were reports that Antony was wearing a Greek chlamy not a Roman toga and planned to leave Rome to Cleopatra. A year later the Roman court declared war on Egypt and the “harlot queen," If Antony and Cleopatra had seized the moment and attacked Italy then they might have prevailed but instead they sailed to Greece, where they stayed for a year, enjoying themselves and organizing a drama festival, and were trapped on the west coast of Greece near the port of Actium

Octavian soundly defeated th navies of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. A year after the battle Octavian invaded Egypt and Antony was defeated for good at Alexandria. The Battle of Actium was the last great ship battle for control of the Mediterranean in ancient times. It marked the end of the Hellenistic Age and the beginning of the Roman Empire. After the Battle of Actium, Octavian became the uncontested ruler of the Roman empire

The historian Tacitus (died A.D. 117) wrote in “Annals” 1.1-2: “After there were no longer any public armies in the field (Brutus and Cassius having been slaughtered and Sextus Pompeius having been crushed in Spain) and with no other leader remaining even for the Julian party, with the exception of Octavian (Lepidus being out of the way and Antony having been killed), the latter doffed the name of triumvir and put on that of consul, and, "content" with his tribunician powers for "the assurance of the safety of the plebs," he seduced the army with gifts, the general populace with free grain, and everyone with the lure of relaxation after the toils of civil war. Gradually he began to increase his power, taking to himself the functions of the Senate, of the magistrates, and of the laws. No one opposed him: his fiercest enemies had died, either in battle or in the ensuing proscriptions, while the rest of the nobiles were rewarded with riches and offices in direct proportion to their readiness to display a fawning servility. These last, having acquired a lofty position as a result of the new political order, preferred to enjoy their present status in safety rather than return to the old and dangerous ways of the past. Nor did the provinces object to this new state of affairs, since they had grown suspicious of the authority of the Senate and the people, due to the fierce rivalries of Rome's generals and the greed of her magistrates; furthermore, they felt that no aid was to obtained by recourse to the laws, which had been thrown into confusion by violence, political ambition, and (finally) money. [Source: John Porter, translator, University of Saskatchewan]

Augustus Usurps the Consulship

Augustus

Suetonius wrote: “He received offices and honours before the usual age, and some of a new kind and for life. He usurped the consulship in the twentieth year of his age [43 B.C.], leading his legions against the city as if it were that of an enemy, and sending messengers to demand the office for him in the name of his army; and when the Senate hesitated, his centurion, Cornelius, leader of the deputation, throwing back his cloak and showing the hilt of his sword, did not hesitate to say in the House, "This will make him consul, if you do not." He held his second consulship nine years later [33 B.C.], and a third after a year's interval [31 B.C.]; the rest up to the eleventh were in successive years [30-23 B.C.], then after declining a number of terms that were offered him, he asked of his own accord for a twelfth after a long interval, no less than seventeen years [5 B.C.], and two years later for a thirteenth [2 B.C.], wishing to hold the highest magistracy at the time when he introduced each of his sons Gaius and Lucius to public life upon their coming of age. The five consulships from the sixth to the tenth he held for the full year, the rest for nine, six, four, or three months, except the second, which lasted only a few hours; for after sitting for a short time on the curule chair in front of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the early morning, he resigned the honour on the Kalends of January and appointed another in his place. He did not begin all his consulships in Rome, but the fourth in Asia, the fifth on the Isle of Samos, the eighth and ninth at Tarraco. [Source: Suetonius (c.69-after 122 A.D.): “De Vita Caesarum — Divus Augustus” (“The Lives of the Caesars — The Deified Augustus”), written A.D. c. 110, “Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum,” 2 Vols., trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1920), pp. 123-287]

“He was for ten years a member of the triumvirate for restoring the State to order, and though he opposed his colleagues for some time and tried to prevent a proscription, yet when it was begun, he carried it through with greater severity than either of them. For while they could oftentimes be moved by personal influence and entreaties, he alone was most insistent that no one should be spared, even adding to the list his guardian Gaius Toranius, who had also been the colleague of his father Octavian in the aedileship. Julius Saturninus adds that after the proscription was over Marcus Lepidus addressed the Senate in justification of the past and held out hope of leniency thereafter, since enough punishment had been inflicted; but that Augustus on the contrary declared that he had consented to end the proscription only on condition that he was allowed a free hand for the future. However, to show his regret for this inflexibility, he later honoured Titus Vinius Philopoemen witll equestrian rank, because it was said that he had hidden his patron, who was on the list. While he was triumvir, Augustus incurred general detestation by many of his acts. For example, when he was addressing the soldiers and a throng of civilians had been admitted to the assembly, noticing that Pinalius, a Roman knight, was taking notes, he ordered that he be stabbed on the spot, thinking him an eavesdropper and a spy. Because Tedius Afer, consul elect, railed at some act of his in spiteful terms, he uttered such terrible threats that Afer committed suicide. Again, when Quintus Gallius, a praetor, held some folded tablets under his robe as he was paying his respects, Augustus, suspecting that he had a sword concealed there, did not dare to make a search on the spot for fear it should turn out to be something else; but a little later he had Gallius hustled from the tribunal by some centurions and soldiers, tortured him as if he were a slave, and though he made no confession, ordered his execution, first tearing out the man's eyes with his own hand. He himself writes, however, that Gallius made a treacherous attack on him after asking for an audience, and was haled to prison; and that after he was dismissed under sentence of banishment, he either lost his life by shipwreck or was waylaid by brigands. He received the tribunician power for life, and once or twice chose a colleague in the office for periods of five years each. He was also given the supervision of morals and of the laws for all time, and by the virtue of this position, although without the title of censor, he nevertheless took the census thrice, the first and last time with a colleague, the second time alone.

Augustus as Emperor

model of an Augustus Temple

Augustus (Octavian) Octavia officially became emperor of Rome at the age of 35 in 27 B.C., three years after the Battle of Actium (he had been the unofficial leader of Rome since 31 B.C.). He was given the formal title of Augustus Caesar, a named denoting majesty and dignity, and enthroned in a ceremony that implied he was at last semi-divine. Augustus reportedly selected the name Augustus because he defeated his toughest enemy, Egypt and Syria under Antony and Cleopatra, in the month of August.

Augustus began his career as a firm believer in Republicanism but ended it as an absolute dictator. Historians mark the year he took power, 31 B.C., as the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of Imperial Rome. Even so Augustus mostly ruled benevolently like a simple public magistrate and "advocated moderation and virtues."

Augustus delivered Rome to the hands of the emperors by destroying, coopting and intimidating the old governing elite into submission. The once powerful Senate was stripped of much of its power and became something along the lines of a rubber stamp legislature like that in China today. Augustus paid lip service to its republican traditions" and "legitimized his power under a facade of constitutional authority" and kept up appearances by acting as the princeps, first citizen. "It was on the dignity of the senate," Gibbon wrote, "that Augustus and his successors founded their new empire." The result he wrote was "an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth,"

Under Augustus the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Large landowners swindled small land owners out of the land. There was a mass migration of rural people to Rome. People went hungry and were homeless.

Augustus’s Effort to Choose a Successor

David Silverman of Reed College wrote: “In 23 B.C. Augustus, ill and expecting his demise to come at any moment, gave his signet ring to his friend, general, and later M. Vipsanius Agrippa, while at the same time he entrusted the consul, Piso, with the custody of his personal papers. This was an indication, albeit somewhat ambiguous, that Augustus intended Agrippa to be the emergency successor in the event of his death in 23 B.C. . However, his hopes at that time were truly centered on the man who was then married to Julia, Augustus' daughter by his second wife (Scribonia; cf. Suet. Aug. 62 for his brief first marriage to Claudia); this was his nephew M. Claudius Marcellus, the son of Augustus' sister Octavia. The hopes for Marcellus were dashed by his untimely death at the age of 20 in 23 B.C., an event lamented by the poets (Virg. Aen. 6. 860-886), and Augustus promptly married Julia to Agrippa. So far his machinations illustrate the difficulty of separating the office of the Princeps, in this early stage, from the familial wealth and position of Caesar and Augustus. [Source: David Silverman, Reed College, Classics 373 ~ History 393 Class ^*^]

“Julia's marriage to Agrippa started well. She gave birth to sons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, in 20 and 17 B.C. (Dio 54. 8 and 18), then two daughters (a Julia who died young, and that Agrippina later known as the Elder), and finally in 12 B.C. another son (Agrippa Postumus). The success of this union, together with the apparently high personal regard in which Augustus held Agrippa, caused him to mark that man out as his heir apparent. In 18 B.C. Agrippa became Augustus' colleague in the tribunician power, and his prominence throughout the period is attested by his appearance on the coins; in 13 B.C. his tribunician power was renewed, and he also held imperium (maius? cf. the fragment of a Greek translation of Augustus' funeral oration for Agrippa preserved on papyrus, ZPE (1970) 226 = Sherk 12) in the provinces. Meanwhile his sons, Gaius and Lucius, were themselves singled out for special honors. Augustus adopted them himself and gave them the honorary title of principes iuventutis. The existence of Gaius and Lucius softened the blow when Agrippa, too, predeceased the princeps in 12 BC. A letter of Augustus to Gaius from A.D. 1, preserved by Aulus Gellius, included these lines: ‘I beg the gods that whatever time I have left might pass with all of us in good health and with the state in the happiest condition, and with the two of you behaving like men and succeeding to my post of honor. (Attic Nights 15.7.3) ^*^

“In 6 B.C. there was agitation at Rome for Gaius Caesar to be made consul (Dio 55.9.2) and Augustus responded, with an outward show of reluctance at the transgression of Republican limitations, by designating him consul for A.D. 1 and his brother Lucius consul for A.D. 4; Gaius was made a pontifex and Lucius an augur. A flood of coinage proclaimed their status as heirs apparent. When Lucius died in A.D. 2, there was still the hope of Gaius, but he too passed away two years later.” ^*^

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated November 2024