The Augustan Age 44 BC – AD 14

The Augustan Age 44 BC – AD 14 is one of the Historical Periods options in Section IV (25 marks). You write one extended response (choosing one of two alternatives), about 1,000 words in roughly 45 minutes. The syllabus asks you to study the period through the archaeological and written evidence:

• Historical context: Rome's political, social and economic situation by 44 BC.
• The rise of Octavian: the assassination of Caesar, the Second Triumvirate, the civil wars and Actium.
• The establishment of the Principate: the settlements of 27 and 23 BC; Augustus' powers, titles and honours; the role of the Senate, equestrians and army.
• Society, religion and culture: social and moral legislation; religious revival and the imperial cult; the building programme; literature and propaganda.
• The empire: foreign policy, frontiers and provincial administration.
• The succession and the evaluation of Augustus: his heirs, opposition, impact and legacy, and interpretations.

The late republic had been destroyed by a century of violence: the Gracchi, Marius and Sulla, and Caesar's civil war against Pompey (49–45 BC). Armies were loyal to the generals who paid them, the Senate's authority had collapsed, and Caesar had been made dictator for life. On 15 March 44 BC he was assassinated by senators led by Brutus and Cassius, who claimed to be restoring liberty. Augustus' whole career can be read as an attempt to win the power Caesar had held without suffering Caesar's fate.

Reasons for his success: Caesar's name and the loyalty of veterans; political flexibility and ruthlessness; Agrippa's generalship and Maecenas' diplomacy; control of Italy; propaganda presenting the war as Rome against a foreign queen; and Antony's errors.

The first settlement, 27 BC

In January 27 BC Octavian claimed to transfer the res publica to the Senate and people. In return he received:

• the name Augustus (‘revered’), the corona civica over his door and a golden shield praising his virtue, clemency, justice and piety;
• a large province for ten years — including Spain, Gaul and Syria, where most legions were stationed — governed through his own legates;
• he continued to be elected consul each year.

The second settlement, 23 BC

After illness and a conspiracy (Caepio and Murena), Augustus gave up the annual consulship, which he had held since 31 BC. He received:

• tribunician power (tribunicia potestas) for life: proposing laws, calling the Senate, veto, sacrosanctity, and the image of protector of the people (he numbered the years of his reign by it);
• greater proconsular power (imperium maius): authority over every provincial governor (Cassius Dio dates it to 23 BC; some historians think it was formalised later).

Later powers and honours

• 22 BC: refused the dictatorship; took charge of the grain supply (cura annonae).
• 19 BC: consular powers (according to Cassius Dio).
• 12 BC: pontifex maximus, head of the state religion, after Lepidus' death.
• 2 BC: pater patriae (‘father of the fatherland’).

In the Res Gestae (34) Augustus claims he ‘excelled everyone in auctoritas (influence), but had no more potestas (power) than his colleagues’. This is the central debate of the topic: was the Principate a restored republic or a disguised monarchy?

• Senate: revised in 29–28 BC and 18 BC (from about 1,000 members to 600), with a property qualification (eventually 1 million sesterces). Senators held the magistracies, governed the ‘public’ provinces and acted as judges. Augustus consulted an advisory council of senators. He influenced elections and appointments.
• Equestrians: new careers as prefects (Egypt, the Praetorian Guard, the grain supply, the vigiles) and procurators — loyal administrators dependent on the princeps.
• The army: reduced from about 60 legions to 28 after Actium (25 after AD 9); a professional standing army with fixed terms (16, then 20 years from AD 5); the aerarium militare (AD 6) funded by inheritance and sales taxes to pay veterans; nine praetorian cohorts in Italy; auxiliaries from the provinces; soldiers swore loyalty to Augustus.
• Rome: fourteen regions and about 265 neighbourhoods (vici) from 7 BC; the vigiles (fire brigade and night watch, AD 6); urban cohorts; the grain dole (about 200,000 recipients in 2 BC).
• Provinces: ‘imperial’ provinces under legates chosen by Augustus; ‘public’ provinces under senatorial proconsuls; Egypt under an equestrian prefect; censuses, roads and client kings.

Social and moral legislation

• Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus (18 BC): penalties for unmarried and childless upper-class adults; rewards for parents (ius trium liberorum).
• Lex Julia de adulteriis (18 BC): adultery made a public crime.
• Lex Papia Poppaea (AD 9): modified the marriage laws after protests by equestrians.
• Manumission laws: lex Fufia Caninia (2 BC), lex Aelia Sentia (AD 4) limited the freeing of slaves.
• Results: unpopular and hard to enforce; Augustus' daughter Julia was exiled for adultery in 2 BC and his granddaughter Julia the Younger in AD 8.

Religion

• Restored 82 temples in 28 BC (Res Gestae 20); revived priesthoods and rituals (e.g. the Arval Brothers, the Lupercalia).
• Secular Games, 17 BC, with Horace's Carmen Saeculare.
• Cult of the deified Julius (Temple of Divus Iulius, 29 BC); Augustus as ‘son of a god’ (divi filius).
• The Lares Augusti and Augustus' genius worshipped in Rome's neighbourhoods; the cult of Rome and Augustus in the provinces; Augustales in Italian towns.

Building programme

• Suetonius (Augustus 28) reports Augustus' boast that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble; in the Res Gestae he lists the temples and buildings he restored and built.
• Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (28 BC), Mausoleum of Augustus (begun 28 BC), Theatre of Marcellus, Forum of Augustus with the Temple of Mars Ultor (2 BC), Ara Pacis Augustae (voted 13 BC, dedicated 9 BC), Curia Julia.
• Agrippa's works: the Aqua Virgo (19 BC), baths, the first Pantheon.

Literature and images

• Maecenas was patron to Virgil and Horace. Virgil's Aeneid linked Augustus to Aeneas and Rome's destiny; Horace celebrated the Augustan peace; Livy wrote Rome's history as a lesson in virtue; Ovid was exiled to Tomis in AD 8.
• Images: the Prima Porta statue (the return of the standards on the breastplate); coins such as AEGVPTO CAPTA and the comet of DIVVS IVLIVS; ageless, idealised portraits.

• Egypt annexed (30 BC).
• Spain: Cantabrian wars (26–19 BC), finished by Agrippa.
• The Alps (16–15 BC) and the Danube provinces, by Tiberius and Drusus.
• Germany: Drusus reached the Elbe (12–9 BC); Tiberius continued after Drusus' death.
• The east: Galatia (25 BC) and Judaea (AD 6) annexed; client kings such as Herod; the standards recovered from Parthia by diplomacy (20 BC); unstable settlements in Armenia (including the mission of Gaius Caesar, who died in AD 4).
• Setbacks: the Pannonian revolt (AD 6–9); the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) — Varus and three legions (XVII, XVIII, XIX) destroyed by Arminius; Rome withdrew to the Rhine. Augustus left advice to keep the empire within its limits (Tacitus).

The repeated deaths forced Augustus to accept Tiberius. The smooth transfer of power on Augustus' death at Nola on 19 August AD 14 showed that the Principate had become dynastic in practice, even though no law of succession existed.

Livia (married 38 BC) was honoured as a model matron, received sacrosanctity (35 BC) and the privileges of a mother of three (9 BC), and was adopted into the Julian family as Julia Augusta by Augustus' will. Tacitus repeats unproven rumours of her involvement in the deaths of heirs.

• Conspiracies: Caepio and Murena (about 23 BC); Egnatius Rufus (19 BC); the scandal of Julia and Iullus Antonius (2 BC).
• Senatorial resentment at the loss of independence; protests against the marriage laws (AD 9).
• Opposition was limited because the civil wars had removed the boldest opponents, and peace, prosperity and honours won acceptance.

• Augustus' own view: the Res Gestae, inscribed on bronze outside his Mausoleum and copied in the provinces (best preserved at Ancyra), presents a restorer of the republic acting by consent.
• Tacitus (Annals 1.2, 1.9–10): a cynical senator's view — power gained gradually by bribing soldiers and people while opponents were dead; he gives both favourable and hostile verdicts at Augustus' funeral.
• Suetonius and Cassius Dio: detailed but later accounts.
• Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (1939): Augustus as the leader of a faction that seized power; the restored republic as a façade.
• Others: Paul Zanker (the power of images), Karl Galinsky (auctoritas and Augustan culture as genuine renewal).

Interpretations are credited when used to support your argument; they are not required for a top-band essay.

1. Unpack the question: identify the command verb (assess, evaluate, to what extent, explain) and the focus (e.g. ‘success’, ‘restoration’, ‘reasons’).
2. Thesis: a clear judgement in your first paragraph, such as ‘Augustus restored the forms of the republic but not its substance’.
3. Body paragraphs organised by argument, each with a topic sentence linked to the question, specific evidence (dates, laws, monuments, sources) and analysis of why the evidence supports your judgement.
4. Counter-argument: show the other side and weigh it.
5. Conclusion: answer the question directly.

A strong sentence links evidence to judgement, for example: ‘The creation of the aerarium militare in AD 6 shows that Augustus had ended the late-republican link between soldiers and their generals, because veterans now depended on a treasury he controlled rather than on any individual commander.’

• Calling Augustus ‘emperor’ as if it were a legal office. His position was a bundle of powers and honours.
• Confusing the settlements of 27 BC (name Augustus, province) and 23 BC (tribunician power, imperium maius).
• Treating the Res Gestae as neutral. It is Augustus' own propaganda.
• Narrating events in order instead of arguing a judgement.
• Forgetting failures: the moral laws, Teutoburg, the succession deaths.

• Plan for 5 minutes; write about 1,000 words in about 40 minutes.
• Integrate ancient sources by name (Res Gestae, Tacitus, Suetonius, the Ara Pacis, coins).
• Use precise terminology: princeps, auctoritas, potestas, tribunicia potestas, imperium maius, res publica, pater patriae, equestrian, legate.
• Every paragraph should answer the question, not just add information.

• Agrippina the Younger: Augustus' unresolved succession system shaped the dynasty that Agrippina later manipulated, and Livia was the model for later imperial women.
• Cities of Vesuvius: the Augustales, Eumachia's building dedicated to Augustan values and the Aqua Augusta aqueduct show the Augustan age in an Italian town.
• Spartan society: in the Augustan period Sparta was a free city allied to Rome, and its ‘revived’ customs fed the image of Sparta later used by Plutarch.