AUGUSTUS IN HIS OWN WORDS

Based on a podcast featuring Dr Alison Cooley, Department of Classics and Ancient History

Augustus Caesar’s rise to power to become the First Emperor of Rome was rapid and long-lasting. Just before his death in AD 14 he composed a detailed account of the achievements of his reign. This text was inscribed in bronze and placed onto pillars outside his mausoleum after his death. Dr Alison Cooley of the Department of Classics and Ancient History, who has translated the text, explains the story behind this ‘queen of inscriptions’ and reads between the lines to determine what it says about Augustus’ legacy.

Octavius, later known as Octavian and then by his honorific title Augustus, was a perspicacious leader. He was not averse to using the dark arts of propaganda, PR and spin more commonly associated with twenty-first century politics.

His story began in 44 BC with the death of his great-uncle Julius Caesar, assassinated on the Ides of March in the Roman Senate. Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus in 63BC, at the point of Julius Caesar’s death Octavius was only 18 and politically insignificant. This would soon change. His great-uncle’s will gave instructions to posthumously adopt him. Says Dr Cooley, “it came as something of a surprise that within a few years he had risen from a nobody to being ruler of the whole of the Roman Empire”.

He did this through climbing the greasy pole of getting veteran soldiers who had fought for and loved Julius Caesar on his side. Goodwill was only a part of the equation – cash was the other. Octavius had inherited lots of money from Caesar and he used it cannily to win support from both soldiers and the normal inhabitants of Rome, offering ‘bread and circuses’.

After Caesar was assassinated he was rehabilitated in his memory and made an official god within the pantheon of Roman deities

In the last years of the Republic he vanquished his enemies, including Sextus Pompey and Mark Antony. “The role of Cicero, the great Roman statesman, tends to be underestimated in all of this. He was very instrumental in supporting Octavian when Octavian wasn’t really trusted by many other people.” When Octavian was only 19, Cicero got the Roman senate to grant him magisterial power – a shocking event considering the rules said a man had to be 40 before he could go on the consul.

Octavian spent years battling for power on various fronts. Dr Cooley notes that his big breakthrough was down to the last Egyptian pharaoh, Cleopatra, in a love story later dramatised by Shakespeare in his tragedy Antony and Cleopatra. The scenario is reminiscent of ‘back to basics’ morality’ seen in 1990s British politics.

Mark Antony, Octavian’s rival and brother in law, left Octavian’s sister and went to live with Cleopatra. “This affair outraged the audience back at home. Octavian jumped on the bandwagon and advertised the iniquity of Mark Antony, portraying him as a traitor to the Roman way of life, and becoming easternised and Egyptionised which in those days was a very, very bad thing to be. Partly it was cunning image projection, propaganda against Antony, that meant that Octavian won more and more powers and support within Italy.” When it came to a showdown with Mark Antony in Alexandria, Antony’s supporters defected to Octavian at the last minute. Antony committed suicide.

“We mustn’t underestimate the charisma of Augustus” enthuses Dr Cooley. “In these crucial years he actually called himself Julius Caesar, son of a god. After Caesar was assassinated he was rehabilitated in his memory and made an official god within the pantheon of Roman deities, complete with his own priest and temple in the forum. Octavian organised games where a comet was spotted in the sky which was thought to be the soul of Julius Caesar going up to the heavens as a new god.” Like modern leaders such as Tony Blair and Barack Obama, Octavian was adept at public appearances and working a crowd. Octavian took all the advantages thrown his way and publicised them.

In 27 BC Octavian took the honorific title Augustus. The meaning of the name is significant, as Dr Cooley points out. “’Augustus’ has lots of different meanings in Latin, such as increasing, growing and revered, although it is more or less impossible to translate. The name suggests he’s of god-like ilk. It’s important to realise Augustus doesn’t give himself the title, it is one of his supporters who stands up in the senate and proposes he should be given this. He may have had prodding but the person who suggested it had previously supported Antony.”

Now the most powerful man in Rome, Augustus was astute enough not to call himself King or dictator. His memories of the assassination of Julius Caesar, who was criticised for suspected aiming at kinship, were always in the back of his mind. Instead, he chose to embark on a massive project of building and conquest. He built theatres, temples and fountains alongside basic infrastructure for ordinary people such as baths. For Romans, the prestige that conquest brought was always important. Augustus pushed west into Spain and Gaul and sent his deputies out east to Syria and Armenia. Northwards he pushed towards the Rhine. “That’s not to say Augustus himself was a very good military commander but he had people like Marcus Agrippa who did the fighting for him and were extremely good generals.”

What Augustus was good at was playing the game of politics. He brought through constitutional changes such as reducing the number of the senate and making sure it was full of his supporters. He made himself the leader of the house instead of appointing the longest-serving senator. To the people he presented himself as a champion of the gods. Says Dr Cooley, “Romans thought if the gods supported them then Rome would be able to conquer everybody else.”

During the latter years of his rule life didn’t run so smoothly for Augustus. From the slaughtering of three legions in Germany and revolt in the Balkans, to his daughter and granddaughter being accused of adultery and exiled, times were extremely challenging. “He became an unhappy old man eager to leave a positive record of his achievements although he wasn’t feeling so positive himself.”

His self-penned legacy, known as ‘the queen of inscriptions’, was read out to the senate as part of his funeral rights. The original has long been lost to history, probably melted down for its bronze. Fragments of three copies survive, however, in the province of Galatia, now modern Turkey. Dr Cooley, an expert in epigraphy, has translated the inscription.

His self-penned legacy, known as ‘the queen of inscriptions’, was read out to the senate as part of his funeral rights.

“It describes his greatest achievements, all the things he’s done for the people of Rome. Perhaps he was hinting to the senators that he should become a god.” That’s exactly what happened. The senators voted him his own temple and cult. “At the time of his death there were few people left who could remember what life was like when the so-called republic was up and running.”

Is the ‘queen of inscriptions’ mere propaganda, akin to a modern politician’s rose-tinted autobiography? Yes, says Dr Cooley, in terms of the initial audience of the senate. Not so much for the people of Rome. “Propaganda tends to have quite negative overtones – distortion of the truth and requiring people to change their behaviour. The inscription was much more circumscribed in its audience.” Through the inscription we know much today about the facts and figures of Augustus’ conquests, gifts and buildings. Perhaps when it was first erected outside his mausoleum many Romans couldn’t, or didn’t want to, read the whole text. Its very presence, however, was a reminder of Augustus’ legacy.

For more about Augustus listen to the podcast below.

Dr Alison Cooley is Reader in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick. Before joining the University in 2000 she was a researcher at the British School at Rome and a Junior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Her research focuses upon Roman Italy and the early Principate in particular, and upon the use of inscriptions in both ancient and modern times. Dr Cooley has published two books on Pompeii and edited three volumes of papers on various aspects of epigraphy. Her most recent book is a new edition and commentary of the Res Gestae divi Augusti, the account of his achievements by the emperor Augustus, in which he summarises his benefactions to the Roman people. She is currently editing A Companion to Roman Italy (Blackwell-Wiley).

By Penelope Jenkins