Deeds of the Divine Augustus

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Historians continue to read documents written in ancient Rome (and Greece) to trace the roots of modern thinking about systems of government. What would they learn about this topic from Deeds of the Divine Augustus?
• 2. What problems in Roman governance at the time led to the ascension of Augustus and thus to his record of his deeds? How did he address those problems?
• 3. Why can the Deeds of the Divine Augustus be considered one of the most important documents, if not the most important document, from this period in Roman history?
• 4. Other rulers of empires have used inscriptions to record their deeds. Compare this document with a similar document, such as the Divine Birth and Coronation Inscriptions of Hatshepsut. Do the documents share a purpose? How were they used to legitimize a rulership?
• 5. Modern politicians and world leaders want to record their deeds, or accomplishments, as a way of winning voters and defending their records; alternatively, they write books that help establish the breadth of their knowledge and hence their qualifications for office. John F. Kennedy, for example, wrote Profiles in Courage in anticipation of his successful run for the U.S. presidency, and President Barack Obama did the same with his book The Audacity of Hope. How might these and similar books (as well as articles) share a common purpose with Deeds of Divine Augustus? How would such documents be fundamentally different, given that they were written at different times and in different places?