Deeds of the Divine Augustus

About the Author

Gaius Octavius Thurinus, who would be called Octavian in English, was born in Rome in 63 BCE. Adopted as the heir of the dictator Julius Caesar through Caesar's will upon his assassination in 44 BCE, Octavian took the name Gaius Julius Caesar, though historians typically append the name Octavianus to distinguish him from his adoptive father. As Roman ruler, Octavian had to enter into a series of civil wars. He proved an expert at using propaganda to present them as foreign wars, treating, for instance, his war against Mark Antony as though it were against Antony's mistress, Cleopatra VII, the queen of Egypt. Eventually, Octavian emerged as the sole ruler of Rome; Augustus was an honorific title bestowed on him in 27 BCE.

Unlike other political strongmen who gained that position in the first century BCE, Augustus was able to forge a lasting settlement between himself and the various Roman social classes, allowing for the emergence of a new political order in the form of the Roman Empire. In the early years of his long period of rule, which was marked by relative peace, he was able to experiment with several different constitutional settlements to define his power and reconcile his rivals to his supreme position. The final settlement came in July 27 BCE, when an illness forced him to consider the question of succession; the resolution was based on permanent grants of consular imperium without holding office and the tribunician power (the power to protect the people against the aristocracy).

Augustus's last decades of rule were turned toward finding a suitable heir and satisfactory borders for the empire. He favored his own descendents from the Julian line, through his daughter, Julia, but no heir from this family survived. He finally turned to his Claudian stepsons from his wife Livia's first marriage and settled upon Tiberius, allowing him to share in his titles and powers as emperor during his own lifetime to ensure the succession. In terms of the geopolitical consolidation of the empire, Augustus maintained peace with Parthia, Rome's only rival as a great power within the ancient world. Augustus also tried to establish Germany as a province but failed in gaining control of the already troubled area. In 9 CE a Roman army was ambushed and destroyed there in the Teutoburg Forest, dooming any idea of expansion in that direction. Still, by the time of his death in 14 CE, Augustus had achieved borders for the empire that would prove stable for another four centuries and had established a constitutional framework and line of succession that prevented civil war until 69 CE.

Many documents produced under the names of heads of state are actually authored by committees of secretaries and speechwriters, but the Deeds of the Divine Augustus is generally deemed to be Augustus's own work. The scope of his literary output is described by the ancient historian Suetonius. Augustus benefited from an excellent rhetorical education and published numerous essays on historical and philosophical topics, including a more literary autobiography whose thirteen chapters cover the years up to the mid-20s BCE. He also composed a book of epigrams and a versified drama, but this he did not consider successful enough for publication. Augustus favored a plain style meant to communicate rather than to impress with displays of literary flourishes. He would mock his minister Gaius Maecenas for his florid style, his stepson Tiberius for his archaisms, and his then-colleague Mark Antony for attempting to copy the fashionable Greek “Asiatic” style in Latin.