Augustus

Augustus was born in Rome on 23 September 63 BCE as Gaius Octavius, son of a senator from a prosperous but politically modest equestrian family from Velitrae. His mother Atia was a niece of Julius Caesar. After his father's death in 58 BCE he grew up with, among others, his grandmother Julia, Caesar's sister, and with his stepfather in Rome.

Caesar took him under his wing: he was admitted to the college of pontiffs, took part in Caesar's triumph and accompanied him to Hispania in 45 BCE. He was then sent to Apollonia in Illyria. There, in the spring of 44 BCE, he heard that Caesar had been murdered and that Caesar's will had adopted him as son and heir.

After Caesar's death Octavian (as historians call him; he himself used the name Caesar) accepted the inheritance and raised an army among veterans. In 43 BCE he forced his election as consul and formed the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Lepidus. The triumvirs issued proscription lists, under which many opponents, including Cicero, were killed.

In 42 BCE Octavian and Antony defeated Caesar's murderers at Philippi. In the following years he eliminated Sextus Pompey (36 BCE) and sidelined Lepidus, while Antony allied himself with Cleopatra in the east. Octavian's propaganda presented the struggle as a war of Rome against a foreign enemy.

On 2 September 31 BCE his fleet under Agrippa defeated that of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. In 30 BCE he took Alexandria; both committed suicide and Egypt was annexed and came under his personal control. This ended a century of Roman civil wars; in 29 BCE the gates of the Temple of Janus were closed.

In January 27 BCE he formally handed his extraordinary powers back to the Senate and people, and on 16 January he received the honorific Augustus. He kept command of most of the army and of a large part of the provinces. Later he received, among other things, the powers of a tribune; thus the principate arose, with Augustus as princeps, the 'first citizen'.

In the first century BCE the Republic had been torn apart by civil wars between Marius and Sulla, Caesar and Pompey, and after 44 BCE again. Armies were more loyal to their generals than to the state, and political opponents were murdered. Many Romans longed for peace, even if that limited the power of the Senate.

Augustus presented his rule as a restoration of the Republic (restitutio rei publicae) and of old Roman morals. He had temples restored, issued laws on marriage and morals, and supported poets such as Virgil and Horace. An imperial cult arose in the provinces. His own account, the Res Gestae, presents this policy from his own perspective.

After a century of civil wars his rule brought a long period of internal peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. He created a standing professional army, the Praetorian Guard and police and fire services for Rome, reformed taxation and coinage, had roads built with a courier service, and had many buildings in Rome restored or newly built.

The empire expanded considerably under him, with Egypt, Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia and the complete subjugation of Hispania. In 9 CE three legions under Varus were lost in the Teutoburg Forest, after which expansion in Germania stalled. Peace treaties with Parthia and a buffer of client states secured the frontiers.

That power in fact lay with one man had a price: the Senate lost its independence, opponents were exiled or killed, and critical writers such as Tacitus saw in the principate the end of republican freedom. Others point out that many Romans and provincials benefited from the stability.

Augustus died on 19 August 14 CE in Nola, aged 75. His stepson and adopted son Tiberius succeeded him; after his death the Senate officially declared him a god. Ancient rumours that his wife Livia poisoned him have never been confirmed. His body was interred in his mausoleum in Rome.

The Res Gestae Divi Augusti, his own account of his deeds, was placed on bronze pillars at his mausoleum; copies have been found in places including Ankara. Historians differ on the character of his rule: a restored republic or a monarchy in republican forms. The historian Ronald Syme spoke in 1939 of a 'Roman Revolution'.

He did not use the name Octavian himself; it is a modern habit to distinguish him from Caesar before 27 BCE. The month of August is named after him and 'Augustus' became an imperial title. The statue with this dossier, the Augustus of Prima Porta, shows him youthful and idealised, like nearly all his portraits, even when he was old.