Augustus

(noun)

Founder of the Roman Empire, called Octavian during his early years and rise to power.

Related Terms

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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Fall of the Flavian Emperors

    • Domitian's government exhibited totalitarian characteristics; he saw himself as the new Augustus, an enlightened despot destined to guide the Roman Empire into a new era of brilliance.
    • Since the fall of the Republic, the authority of the Roman Senate had largely eroded under the quasi-monarchical system of government established by Augustus, known as the Principate.

  • The Nerva-Antonine Dynasty

    • It was common for patrician families to adopt, and Roman emperors had adopted heirs in the past: The Emperor Augustus had adopted Tiberius and the Emperor Claudius had adopted Nero.
    • Julius Caesar, dictator perpetuo and considered to be instrumental in the transition from Republic to Empire, adopted Gaius Octavius, who would become Augustus, Rome's first emperor.

  • Flavian Architecture

    • Around fifty structures were erected, restored or completed, a number second only to the amount erected under Augustus.

  • Julius Caesar

    • Caesar's adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power, and the era of the Roman Empire began.