Roman Empire 1:

Gaius Octavius becomes

Augustus Caesar
Rome went from being one of
many city-states in 340 BC to
being master of the entire
peninsula by 264.
By the first century BCE, it was clear that the institutions of the Roman
Republic—designed to manage a city-state and Italian regional power—
were failing to handle the administration were failing to handle
administration of a Mediterranean empire. The response was gradual
accumulation of greater powers in the hands of various strongmen: Marius,
Sulla, and Julius Caesar. Nonetheless, among the Senatorial class, much
devotion and loyalty remained for the ideals and institutions of the
Republic. Caesar was elected dictator for life, but the response was a
Senatorial conspiracy, and he was assassinated on 15 March 44 BCE. How
would Rome respond to the need for change, but the reverence for old ways
and institutions? Caesar’s adopted son Octavian devised the solution: A
revolution in the locus of power, held by a supreme Roman emperor. But
the institution would be guised in titles and customs of the old Republic.
S

Gaius Octavius Augustus

63 BCE-14 CE
The vision of government taking shape before 15 March 44 BCE involved
Caesar acting as chief executive of a state staffed by administrators, ideally
senators, at least in the traditional roles such as the oversight of the financial
system, running the city of Rome, governing the provinces and commanding
the armies. With elections under Caesar’s control, traditional politics no
longer had a place, and with no need to buy office via the electoral process,
administrators would not have to fleece their subjects. Conventional politics
would end—and end with the overwhelming support of the Roman people,
who preferred Caesarian proficiency to the incompetence of the previous
regime. Who would take the helm after Caesar’s death?
Second Triumvirate: Mark Antony (noted soldier),
Octavian (Caesar’s adopted son), and Lepidus
No
Gaius Octavius needed all the help he could get when he arrived in Rome in
April. At first Marc Antony tried to ignore him, then he tried to invent legal
roadblocks to the adoption. That, too, was a mistake. Others welcomed him
with open arms. In July, when Marc Antony and other senators wished to
prevent the celebration of games dedicated to the Victory of Caesar, the
inner circle made sure that the games went on and that Caesar Jr had a
major role to play in them.

By the end of July, Antony was in trouble. The assassins were still in Italy
agitating for the “restoration of tradition government,” while anger was
growing among Caesar’s strongest supporters and veterans. Seeking a united
front, they demanded a public reconciliation between Antony and Caesar Jr.
Ultimately, the second triumvirate was formed in order for the pro-Caesar
factions to put down the assassins and their faction. Cicero was famous
proscribed and killed, being killed in 43 BCE.
The proscription edict transformed the struggle gripping the Roman
state from an internal senatorial dispute over Caesar’s legacy to a
military referendum on the result of the previous civil war. ON the one
side were the murderers. On the other side were the triumvirs, who had
at their disposal the not inconsiderable military might of western Europe
(around 40 legion). Moreover, on 1 January 42 BCE, the Senate
recognized Julius Caesar as a god. The triumvirs were fighting for the
memory of the most extraordinary man of the age, but this did not
confer extra authority on Caesar Jr. Perhaps indicating an awareness. Of
his diminishing authority, he now called himself “the son of a god,”
which he was indeed entitled to do. He also grew a beard and swore off
sex for the sake of his health.
The triumvirs had to take the offensive-–the funding for their enormous
enterprise was to be achieved by pillaging the estates of the proscribed,
and those resources were finite. Brutus and Cassius raised more than
twenty legions of their own, funded largely through Cassius’ plundering
of the cities of Asia. They did not have the resources to invade Italy, but
could hope that the sense of general unrest would destabilize the regime.
Concerted naval action by their forces kept the triumviral army bottled
up in Italy until September when, aided by fleet from Cleopatra, it
finally made the crossing. The assassins drew up their army at Philippi.
Antonius fought brilliantly, while Caesar Jr. was defeated by Brutus’
forces. Ultimately the triumvirs were victorious, and the leading
assassins, including Brutus, commit suicide.
N

Battle of
Philippi
42BCE
 Cleopatra (left)/Antony (right)

g
Auction
 Cleopatra and Antony become Allies
Antony was tickled by the idea of having a blue-blooded Ptolemy as his
mistress. He spent the winter of 41/0 with Cleopatra in Alexandria,
emphasizing his private status on arrival. The sources outdo each other
in proclaiming his subservience to the queen, the life of dissolute luxury
they led together. In addition to the fame of the Ptolemies, Cleopatra
could provide him with money: the triumviral financial badly needed
reinforcement. Antony found Egypt full of attractions, not all of them
sexual or antiquarian. Logistics, too, played their part. In the later Civil
War, he would come to dream of a Graeco-Egyptian empire. Cleopatra
bore Antony twins: A boy and a girl.
While Antony was solidifying his position in the East, there were still anti-
Caesar holdouts in the West. Octavian gradually fought them off.
Afterwards, Imperator Caesar now turned his attention to Lepidus, whom
neither he nor Antony trusted. Imperator Caesar rode into Lepidus’ camp
and convinced the army to desert its general. Stripped of his power, though
not of the post of pontifex maximus that he claimed after Caesar’s murder,
Lepidus was sent into what proved to be a lengthy retirement at his villa near
Circeii on the Italian coast. In the West, Imperator, son of of the god Caesar,
had emerged.

In the West, Octavian was dominant.

In the East, it would appear that Antony had a new vision of the world,
involving a permanent division of territory between himself and
Imperator Caesar, as well as a new understanding of what it meant to be a
Roman magistrate (who hitherto had had no authority to give away
chunks of the empire). He gave more territory to Cleopatra. He also
announced divorce from his Roman wife, his marriage to Cleopatra and
acknowledgement that Caesarion was Caesar’s child. He also planned to
give kingdoms to two of his children with Cleopatra, taken from Roman
territory. Antony may have had his blind spots, but he was fully aware
that any dispositions he made were subject to approval by the Senate…
The acknowledgement of Caesarion’s paternity was a direct attack on
Imperator Caesar’s claim to be Julius’ sole heir.
 Caesarion
47-30 BCE
For his part, Imperator Caesar had not been idle. He had campaigned in
the Balkans, fighting successful campaigns in the Alps; and in what is
now Croatia he had quashed a major military mutiny, finished some
building projects and generally tried to make himself agreeable to an
Italian audience as he prepared his coup d’etat. He knew that two
associates of Antonius were scheduled to be consuls in 32 BCE, and that
Antonius could, in theory, set a senatorial agenda through them. But
their ability to do so was being rapidly undermined. Talk of new
kingdom’s for Antony’s children was so appalling to Roman opinion
that his supporters in Rome tried to prevent Imperator Caesar from
disseminating the news. It was Octavian’s opinion that Antony was
completely enthralled by Cleopatra, had ceased to be Roman, and had
descended into a life of debauchery that corrupted the true Roman
virtues.
The technical issue on which Imperator Caesar would base his claim to
power was that his imperium as triumvir would not lapse with the office
(one thing that he and Antonius could agree upon). At one of meeting of
the Senate, Imperator Caesar entered at the head of an armed guard to seat
himself between the consuls—through which symbolic act he asserted his
superior authority—and read out a denunciation of Antony’s relationship
with Cleopatra as “conduct unbecoming to a Roman magistrate.” As the
summer progressed, Imperator Caesar launched ever more strident attacks
on Antony, even claiming that he had received a copy of his will from the
Vestal Virgins in which Antony again announced his desire to reside in
Alexandria and be buried with the queen. Seeing that war was inevitable,
Antony began to muster a massive army and navy for the invasion of
Italy. It was not to come to that…
 Si

Battle of Actium (31 BCE)

Less than a year later, after a halfhearted defense of Alexandria against
Octavian’s advancing army, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra soon
followed his example, not wishing to be brought to Rome in chains. On 29
August, 30 BCE, Octavian officially declared the Ptolemaic dynasty at an end,
thus writing finis to the whole Hellenistic era of the Successors.

Yet Cleopatra achieved a dying wish. Unlike her forebears, she knew the
country she ruled; and when she had the famous asp—in fact an Egyptian
cobra—smuggled to her in a basket of figs, it was in the belief that, as
Egyptian religion declared, death from snakebite would, the cobra being
sacred, confer immortality. She was not mistaken. Only Alexander—another
Macedonian—could eclipse the mesmeric fascination that she exercised down
the centuries, and still exercises, upon the European imagination: the
perennial symbol of what, had Actium gone the other way, might have been a
profoundly different world.
 Agrippa (63-12 BCE)
Caesar Imperator’s Right Hand Man
Played key role in victory at Actium
With victory secure, Imperator Caesar could begin the gradual
restructuring and repurposing of the Roman army. This meant reducing
the number of legions from something like 80 to a more manageable
and affordable 26, twelve of them units that had long been in his service
(and in some cases, his father’s), the rest taken over from Lepidus and
now from Antony. Antonian veterans demobilized at this point were
settled in provincial colonies; Caesar’s, many of whom may have served
for no more than a year or two, may simply have gone back home and
received a cash bonus and a land grant to thank them for their
participation. New soldiers would be expected to serve for sixteen
years, the theoretical maximum in previous generations. The legions
themselves were located in potential hotspots such as Spain and Gaul, as
well as Syria and Egypt. Two legions were assigned to Africa, and
some to the Balkans.
Even as the reorganization of the army was in train, answers to the
question of what the new political order would look like were beginning
to surface. When news of Alexandria’s capture reached Rome, the
Senate had voted that a triumphal arch be erected in the forum along
with many other marks of distinction. At the beginning of 29 BCE it
had voted that the gates to the Temple of Janus be closed, symbolizing
that the state had now won the peace. Imperator Caesar was also
awarded various attributes of tribunician power. Since 36 BCE he had
been deemed “sacrosanct” (inviolable).
 Gates of Janus
No
The new arrangements for the eastern provinces occupied Imperator
Caesar for the better part of a year. They included the development of
provincial cults honoring him—perhaps the sort of thing that Caesar had
imagined for himself before his death, though these would not be
accompanied by any public cult in Rome. The need to make new
connections meant a long, slow trip; Imperator Caesar only returned to
Rome to celebrate a triple triumph on 13-15 August 29 BCE for his
victories in Dalmatia, at Actium and at Alexandria. Other features of
this special event were generous distributions of cash to citizens and
soldiers, and quite astonishing spectacles—beast hunts involving rare
animals, among them the first rhino in Rome, gladiatorial contests and
theatrical events.
Imperator Caesar may have fallen nearly as far short of his father’s
intellectual ability as he did of his physical courage, but that was
actually an advantage. Unlike Julius, he knew he had to work with
others and that those individuals deserved public recognition (like
Agrippa and other generals). Imperator Caesar encouraged men who
had celebrated triumphs to contribute funds to urban beautification—as
peace came, the leaders of Roman society collectively improved the city
and, beyond that, Italy’s road system. Agrippa was everywhere, and
Maecenas, who had managed Caesar’s interests while the war with
Cleopatra ran its course, was likewise highly visible.
S

Maison Carree:

Roman Temple built with

Agrippa’s patronage in
Nimes, France
The ideology of shared victory was linked with one of shared propriety,
especially among members of the upper classes. One of the tasks that
Agrippa undertook with Imperator Caesar was the censorship, which the
two of them held in 28 BCE. Reform of the Senate was on that year’s
agenda as well. Nearly 200 men were removed from its rolls—fifty
who had taken the hint and resigned voluntarily and 140 who found
their names posted on a list. The purge may not have been unconnected
with rumblings of discontent in previous years, not least concerning an
alleged conspiracy led by the son of Lepidus, who had committed
suicide when the plot was uncovered.
In purging the Senate, the censors also sought to display their concern
for ancestral institutions by increasing the number of patricians on the
grounds that more were needed for the continuation of (largely
religious) traditional practices. Senators as a group were forbidden to
leave Italy without permission, and urged to attend meetings regularly.
At the same time, the censors announced the astonishing result of their
efforts at counting the population: there were now more than 4 million
Romans!
Coin of 29: Caesar in magistrate’s chair, with
text: “He restored laws and statutes”
Governing now as consul (he held the office every year from 31 BCE
onwards), he finally gave up his power as triumvir and, as he would
later put it, “restored the state from his control to the determination of
the senate and people of Rome.” He would say later that he undid
everything unjust that had been done during the triumviral period. On
13 January 27 BCE, Imperator Caesar announced that elections would
now be open competitions; the Senate thanked him and awarded him a
new cognomen, AUGUSTUS. Henceforth he would be known as
Imperator Ceasar, son of the divinity, Augustus. He thanked the Senate
and agreed to take up the management of numerous provinces, largely
ones with armies, for a 10-year term, as consul or pro-consul.
In theory, Augustus would be a normal consul with a few extra honors
such as tribunician powers, and a multi-provincial command, larger
indeed than those of Lucullus, Pompey, or Caesar, but still conferred in
the tradition of pre-triumviral Rome. It is striking that in our
contemporary’s view the power to rule those provinces not assigned to
Augustus was that of the people, and that Augustus himself was the
creation of the “fatherland.” It is indicative of the symbolic importance
to Roman life of voting that the restoration of regular elections for the
consulship mirrored the restoration of consensus in public life, which
was the essence of traditional government restored.
Si

Pantheon in Rome

Part of Agrippa’s building

program
While Augustus was away on a campaign in Spain, Agrippa continued
the process of transforming the Roman cityscape with new victory
monuments and the architecturally adventuresome temple to “all the
gods,” the Pantheon, which stands today in the heart of Rome. He also
redesigned the voting area on the Campus Martius, building fancy new
“pens” in which voters would stand while waiting to cast their ballots.
Voting in “the restored Republic” was meant to be orderly. At about this
time Augustus himself appears to have completed a new building on the
Campus Martius, close to the banks of the Tiber: a massive mausoleum,
also still standing, for himself and his family. It was a statement: in the
restored Republic Augustus’ family would be a dynastic family, as the
Scipios had been…
Si

Mausoleum of
Augustus
Two new constitutional status markers were created to define the
stations of Augustus’ chief men. These were tribunician powers, and
maius imperium over multiple provinces, probably defined as “maius
imperium in any province into which [the holder] should come,” which
was in addition to Augustus’ imperium as a proconsul in those provinces
that were under his direct rule. The new powers could co-exist for
extended periods; hence, after he laid down his consulship in 23 BCE,
the Senate voted Augustus both tribunician power and maius imperium
for a term of five years. It awarded a similar honor to Agrippa.
Tacitus, who wrote a brilliant history of post-Augustan Rome from AD
14 to 96, would later refer to tribunician powers as the “term for the
highest position,” which indeed it would become, though it took a while
for this to become apparent. It gave its holder the power to summon
senatorial meetings, to introduce legislation and call voting assemblies,
to veto motions in the Senate, and to bring aid to a Roman citizen
anywhere in the empire. Tribunician power would be held only by
members of the immediate imperial family. Augustus knew that to
govern he had to function within and alongside the traditional
institutions of the Republic, not above them.
Readings: Seutonius