Augustus

Examples of Augustus in the following topics:

• The Pax Romana

  • At this time, Augustus was given honorifics that made his full name Imperator Caesar divi filius Augustus.
  • By the end of the first settlement, Augustus was in an ideal political position.
  • Beyond Rome, Augustus was granted maius imperium, meaning greater (proconsular) power.
  • Augustus succeeded by means of skillful propaganda.
  • Augustus died in 14 CE at the age of 75.

• The Julio-Claudians

  • The Julian-Claudian dynasty was established by Augustus as the first imperial dynasty of Rome.
  • During this time the arts flourished, and Augustus actively patronized poets and artists.
  • Augustus and his wife, Livia, never produced a son, so Augustus initially named his grandsons by his daughter Julia as his heirs and adopted them as his own sons.
  • Augustus' adoption of Tiberius incorporated the Claudian family into the dynastic line.
  • Tiberius reigned after Augustus, followed by Caligula , Claudius , and finally Nero .

• Imperial Sculpture in the Early Roman Empire

  • Not only does it demonstrate a new moral code promoted by Augustus, but it also established imperial iconography.
  • Augustus very carefully controlled his imperial portrait.
  • Upon the death of Augustus, Tiberius (r. 14-37 CE) assumed the title of emperor and Pontifex Maximus of Rome.
  • Like Augustus, who suffered from poor health, Claudius, who succeeded Caligula in 41 CE, was also infirm.
  • He continues the standard of the eternally youthful and healthy emperor begun by Augustus.

• Diocletian and the Tetrarchy

  • He appointed fellow officer Maximian as Augustus, co-emperor, in 286.
  • When Constantius died in 306, Galerius promoted Severus to Augustus while Constantine, Constantius' son, was proclaimed Augustus by his father's troops.
  • By 308 there were therefore no fewer than four claimants to the rank of Augustus (Galerius, Constantine, Maximian and Maxentius), and only one to that of Caesar (Maximinus).
  • The council agreed that Licinius would become Augustus in the West, with Constantine as his Caesar.
  • In the East, Galerius remained Augustus and Maximinus remained his Caesar.

• Founding of the Roman Empire

  • Augustus rose to power after Julius Caesar's assassination through a series of political and military maneuvers, eventually establishing himself as the first emperor of Rome.
  • Augustus is regarded by many scholars as the founder of the Roman Empire and its first Emperor.
  • Octavian would assume the title Augustus and reign as the first Roman Emperor.
  • The statue of Augustus of Prima Porta is perhaps one of the best known images of the Emperor Augustus.
  • It portrays the emperor as perpetually youthful and depicts many of the key propaganda messages that Augustus put forth during his time as emperor.

• Peter's Foreign Policy

  • Sweden parried the Danish and Russian attacks at Travendal and Narva and in a counter-offensive pushed Augustus II's forces through the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to Saxony, dethroning Augustus on the way and forcing him to acknowledge defeat in the Treaty of Altranstädt (Augustus was restored in 1709).
  • Soon Augustus unsuccessfully wanted to terminate his participation in the Great Northern War and free himself from his dependence on Peter.
  • Attempts at peace with Sweden, which would strengthen Augustus' hand in dealing with Peter, turned elusive.
  • Augustus agreed and several months of negotiations facilitated by the Russian ambassador followed, with the fighting still intermittently taking place.
  • Augustus was still able to largely free himself from Peter's protectorate, but in return was excluded from the Treaty of Nystad negotiations.

• The Founding of Rome

  • Although the Aeneid was written under the emperor Augustus between 29 and 19 BCE, it tells the story of the founding of Rome centuries before Augustus's time.
  • Virgil makes use of symbolism to draw comparisons between the emperor Augustus and Aeneas, painting them both as founders of Rome.
  • The Aeneid also contains prophecies about Rome’s future, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and other famous Romans.
  • In this context, Augustus instituted a new era of prosperity and peace through the reintroduction of traditional Roman moral values.
  • The Aeneid also gives mythic legitimization to the rule of Julius Caesar, and by extension, to his adopted son, Augustus, by immortalizing the tradition that renamed Aeneas’s son Iulus, making him an ancestor to the family of Julius Caesar.

• Architecture under the Nervan-Antonines

  • During this period of peace, stability, and an expansion of the empire's borders, many of the emperors sought to cast themselves in the image of the first imperial builder Augustus.
  • The forum's main entrance was accessed from the south, near to the Forum of Augustus as well as the Forum of Caesar (which Trajan also renovated).
  • The Forum of Augustus might have been the model for the Forum of Trajan, even though the latter was much larger.
  • Hadrian's most famous contribution to the city of Rome was his rebuilding of the Pantheon, a temple to all the gods, that was first built by Agrippa during the reign of Augustus.

• Imperial Sculpture under the Tetrarchy

  • Of the pair, one was given the title Caesar (a junior emperor) and the other Augustus (the senior emperor).
  • Furthermore, the two pairs of rulers - a Caesar and an Augustus with arms around each other - form a solid, stable block that reinforces the stability the Tetrarchy brought to the Roman Empire.
  • Galerius served in the Tetrarchy from 293 to 311 CE, beginning his career as the Caesar of the West (293-305) under Diocletian and eventually rising to Augustus of the West (305-311) after Diocletian's retirement.

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

  • In 476, after being refused lands in Italy, Orestes' Germanic mercenaries under the leadership of the chieftain Odoacer captured and executed Orestes and took Ravenna, the Western Roman capital at the time, deposing Western Emperor Romulus Augustus.
  • Charlotte Mary Yonge's 1880 artist rendition of Romulus Augustus resigning the crown to Odoacer.