Episode Transcript
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The man known to history as Caesar Augustus was born on the
23rd of September 63 BC. On the Palatine Hill in the city
of Rome, the capital of the thenRoman Republic.
In Roman times, individuals often had many different names,
some being constructs to acknowledge great deeds or the
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manner in which they wanted to depict themselves.
Consequently, Caesar Augustus isa constructed name which he
later came to be known by. The man who would one day become
the first emperor of Rome was actually born as Gaius Octavius
or Gaius Octavian, and is typically referred to in his
youth and early adult years as Octavian.
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His father, also Gaius Octavius,was a member of the Octavia
Roman clan from the equestrian class.
The Octavia were not part of thesenatorial aristocracy, but had
risen to a position of considerable significance in
Rome by the 1st century BC as a result of several generations of
the family providing military and political service to the
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Republic. As a result, Gaius was.
Considered a novus homo or a newman, this was a term which was
lied to many individuals who hadwritten to positions of wealth
and authority in Rome, but who came from socially inferior
clans as a way of differentiating them from the
patrician classes of the senatorial families who could
trace their lineage back severalcenturies.
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Octavian's mother was Atia Balba, a daughter of Marcus
Atias Balbas, a Roman politicianwho served as a prater of Rome,
one of the Republic's senior magistrates the year after
Octavian was born, and his wife Julia Minor, the sister of
Julius Caesar. Thus, Octavian was born into a
notable Roman political family on both his mother's and his
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father's sides. Octavian's very first years were
turbulent. The city of Rome had increased
dramatically in population and size during the late 2nd century
BC and early 1st century BC. As it became increasingly
overcrowded, many richer families of Roman citizens
elected to spend more time outside the city at their villas
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and estates around Italy. Octavian's family were no
different and he was quickly sent to the family ancestral
lands at Veletri, approximately 40 kilometers South of Rome.
However, the more significant development in his early years
was the death of his father in 59 BC, when Octavian was still
shy of his 4th birthday. His mother quickly remarried to
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Lucius Marius Philippus, a member of a senior Roman
aristocratic family, but this was not an ideal marriage for
young Octavian, as Marius took little interest in his new
stepson. As a result, Octavian was
largely placed in the care of his grandmother Julia in the 50s
BC, whose brother Gaius Caesar would play a major role in
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Octavian's younger years as wellas his ascent to become Emperor
of Rome. Octavian was evidently very
close to his grandmother, and when she died in 51 BC, he gave
the funeral oration despite being only 12 years old.
It is not possible to understandOctavian's subsequent life
without examining the politics of Rome in the first half of the
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1st century BC. Octavian was born into a
volatile period in the history. Of the Roman Republic on the one
hand, Rome had never been more powerful beginning in the 3rd
century BC, the Republic had begun expanding from its small
base in central Italy, first coming to dominate the western
Mediterranean after two major wars against its rival, the city
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state of Carthage in what is nowTunisia, Rome emerged victorious
from what were known as the punic Wars, and by the early 2nd
century BC was in control of allof Italy and much of Spain
further rapid conquests occurredin the century that followed,
effectively bringing southern. Gaul, Carthage itself, and
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Greece under the rule of Rome. These conquests would continue
unabated in the decades leading up to Octavian's birth.
But there was a contradiction atthe heart of Rome's expansion.
While its military power increased, the Republic itself
was in mortal danger as the generals of the Roman legions
became ever more powerful. And in 83 BCA, civil war had
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even broken out between the two foremost Roman generals of the
age, Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
Sulla emerged victorious from this in 81 BC and became
dictator of Rome. And while he did resign that
position in 79 BC and restore the Republic a year before his
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own death, many wondered how long it would be before another
general emerged to seize power on a more permanent basis.
The answer to that particular question, many at Rome imagined,
would lie amongst the three individuals who had formed a
loose political alliance in 60 BC, just three years after
Octavian was born. The most famous of the three at
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the time was Pompeius Magnus. He had risen as a supporter of
Salah in the 80s BC, but he had carved out his own path between
79 BC and the mid 60s BC by leading Roman armies to several
great victories in the the Eastern Mediterranean, bringing
regions like Syria and the Romanrule and earning the name Pompey
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the Great in the process. Like Pompey, Marcus Licinius
Crassus had been a follower of Solas before rising to
prominence himself by becoming the richest man in the Republic
and crushing the rebellion led by the gladiator Spartacus in
southern Italy in the late 70s BC.
The third member of what became known as the First Triumvirate
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was the only one who had been onthe side of Maori in the earlier
civil war. Despite this, Gaius Julius
Caesar had managed to return to prominence in Rome in the 70s
and 60s BC after he obtained several senior political offices
and then conquered parts of Hispania on the Iberian
Peninsula in the late. 60s BC Asnoted, Caesar was the brother of
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Octavian's grandmother Julia, and in the 50s BC, as Octavian
was growing up, these three men would vie to become the dominant
figure in the Roman Republic. As Octavian entered his teenage
years, the political situation was taking another major turn.
During the 50s BC, the three triumphirs had experienced
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varying fortunes. Crassus LED an army against the
Parthian Empire in what is now Iraq in the mid 50s BC, and in
53 BC he was killed at the Battle of Kara in what was one
of the worst defeats ever experienced by Roman forces.
Conversely, Caesar had undertaken in the early 50s BC
to conquer Gaul, the region approximating with modern day
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France and which was then inhabited by a great number of
Celtic tribes. He was enormously successful in
this enterprise, effectively extending the northern borders
of the Roman Republic from the Alps all the way N to the
English Channel and the North Sea in the space of a few years
in the 50s BC. Meanwhile, as Caesar Star was in
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the ascendant in Gaul, Pompey floundered in Rome, unable to
acquire a military, the command which would raise his status
back to what it had been in years gone by.
But he still had strong support from the Roman Senate, which
viewed Caesar and his growing power as a potential mortal
threat to the Republic. Thus a new civil war was
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brewing, one between Caesar, backed by much of the Roman
army, and Pompey, backed by the Senate.
Octavian would soon grow closer to his great uncle.
During the 40s BC, at the same time as Caesar was emerging as
the seller of his age in 50 BC, relations between Pompey's
faction in Rome and Caesar in Gore had reached a crisis point.
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Anxious to limit Caesar's power,the Roman Senate was attempting
to prevent him standing for a new term as consul of Rome, the
highest political office in the Republic, and they were also
trying to strip him of his military command.
Pressured by these efforts, Caesar brought his armies S from
Gaul towards Italy, and on the 10th of January 49 BC crossed
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the Rubicon River in northeast Italy.
This was a boundary beyond whichno Roman general was allowed to
bring his troops, and in crossing it, Caesar was
effectively initiating a civil war.
In the weeks that followed, Pompey and his followers
evacuated Italy and headed for the eastern Mediterranean.
Greece now became the main theatre of operations, where
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Caesar initially lost the Battleof Diracium in July 48 BC, but
followed it up with a resoundingvictory over Pompey at the
Battle of Farsalis just weeks later.
Pompey subsequently fled to Egypt, where he was killed by
the Ptolemaic regime. Civil war would drag on for
three more years in mopping up operations in parts of North
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Africa and Spain, but the eventsof 48 BC had effectively left
Caesar in command of the Roman Republic.
There is a popular misconceptionthat Julius Caesar now became
the first emperor of Rome. This is not true.
Caesar held the title of dictator during the 40s BC.
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This should not be confused withthe modern idea of a dictator
who holds absolute power and refuses to accept any challenges
to their authority. In Rome, dictatorial powers were
regularly given by the Roman Senate to an individual to hold
extensive authority in civil andmilitary affairs during a period
of crisis. Thus, for instance, the Roman
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politician and general Quintus Fabius Maximus was granted
dictatorial powers by the Senatein 217 BC during the Second
Punic War, when the Carthaginiangeneral Hannibal had invaded
Italy by bringing an army over the Alps from Carthage's
European base in Spain. He relinquished these powers
after a short time, as had Solar, just two years after he
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won the civil war against Mariusin the late 80s BC.
As such, Caesar was operating within a relatively normal
constitutional arrangement arrangement when he served as
dictator in the 40s BC. But what was at issue was that
as the years went by, it seemed that he would never relinquish
his dictatorial. Powers.
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However, it is important to notethat he never made himself
Emperor of Rome, and that constitutional novelty would be
an invention of Octavian's ascent to power 20 years later.
During this period of immense political change, young Octavian
had been growing closer to his great uncle and also finding his
own way in the world of Roman politics.
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Following his grandmother's death, he had gone back to live
with his own mother and stepfather in 47 BC, when he was
just 15. He was elected to the College of
Pontiffs, a cast of Roman priests, while in 46 BC.
He played a significant role in organizing the version of the
Olympic Games which were held atthis time.
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He was also anxious to prove himself militarily and had
petitioned his mother from earlyon in the Civil War to be
allowed to join his great uncle on campaigns.
She initially refused, but eventually acquiesced towards
the end of the conflict, and Octavian saw some of the last
actions of the war in Hispania in 46 BC, where the remnants of
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Pompey's supporters were making their last stand.
Octavian evidently made a major impression on Caesar, who
sometime in late 46 BC or 45 BC,altered his will to both adopt
Octavian and make him his principal heir.
Adoptions of this kind were verycommon amongst the Roman ability
at the time, and Octavian's position as the primary
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beneficiary of Caesar's will wasrelatively uncomplicated by the
fact that Caesar did not have any legitimate male heirs of his
own. Although he had fathered an
illegitimate son with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra in 47
BC, Caesar's adoption of Octavian and his naming of him
as the primary beneficiary of his will were more vital than
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Caesar could have known. At the time that he made that
decision, for ultimately the Roman dictator was not long for
the world. As the months rolled by after
the end of the civil war, with Caesar giving no indication that
he intended to renounce his dictatorial powers, a conspiracy
was developing amongst the ranksof of the Roman Senate to
assassinate him. Although word of the conspiracy
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slipped out shortly before the assassination was to take place,
the individual who learned of it, one of Caesar's closest
commanders from his days in Gaul, Marcus Antonius, typically
known as Mark Antony, was prevented from alerting Caesar
to the danger he was in. Accordingly, when Caesar entered
the Senate on the 15th of March,the Ides of March 44 BC, one of
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the great festival days in the Roman calendar, he did not know
what was about to occur. In the minutes that followed, a
group of senators surrounded himand began stabbing him
furiously. Most near contemporary accounts
agree that Caesar did not say anything as he was swiftly
killed, and the idea popularizedlater in William Shakespeare's
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Julius Caesar, that the great commander turned to one of his
assailants, Marcus Brutus, a former protege of his, and said,
it's to brute meaning. And you, Brutus?
Is most likely a colorful invention.
Octavian was not in Rome at the time of Caesar's assassination,
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but was undertaking military training in Illyria, the region
of the West of the Adriatic Sea corresponding with modern day
Croatia and Albania. The later Roman historical
biographer Swetonius stated thatOctavian considered whether he
should try to assemble an army from amongst the Roman legions
in order to claim power when he heard of his great uncle's
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death, but this is unlikely given Octavian was still just 18
years of age at this time. He did head straight for Rome,
though, upon learning of Caesar's death, and it would
only have been at this time thathe learned that Caesar had made
him the primary beneficiary of his very sizeable estate.
Moreover, the fact that Caesar had adopted Octavian made him
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the successor to his great uncle's political power in the
eyes of Caesar's many followers.Thus, although he was still a
very young man with only limitedexperience of military
campaigning, Octavian had both the financial power and the
support network which was neededto begin asserting himself in
Rome's politics. In the power vacuum which
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followed his great uncle's assassination in 44 BC to
broadcast his role as Caesar's political he adopted his name at
this point, adding Caesar to histitles, while the clique of
Roman senators who had assassinated Caesar had intended
to restore republican rule. They were.
Soon frustrated in their efforts, within weeks figures
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such as Brutus have been forced to flee Rome following an
inflammatory eulogy given by Mark Antony at Caesar's funeral
in which he denounced the conspirators.
In the months that followed, they would be condemned as
traitors as Caesar's supporters reasserted some control over the
government. And with individuals such as
Brutus out of the way, Roman politics once again descended
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into a battle between the numberof military commanders and
interested groups to see who could succeed Caesar as the new
dictator of the Republic. Foremost amongst the possible
candidates was Mark Antony, who was serving as consul at the
time and who was in a position of strength.
Yet others were wary of Antony, viewing him as an individual who
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would simply become the next in a line of over mighty political
generals which included Sola andCaesar.
In recent times, this faction began to.
Give their support to Octavian and others such as Marcus
Emilius Lepidus. Another one of Caesar's close
allies from Gaul and the Civil War.
The emergence of these opposing factions would ensure that no
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one individual would succeed Caesar in the immediate
aftermath of his assassination. Despite his youth and relative
inexperience, Octavian showed just how astute A politician he
could be within weeks in the months following Caesar's
assassination in 44 BC. He had acquired vast sums of
money in Italy. Part of this was the war chest
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of 700 million sisterses, or silver coins, which had been
accumulated in southern Italy topay for a massive military
campaign which Caesar had been planning at the time of his
death against Rome's foremost enemy, the Parthian Empire, far
to the east in Mesopotamia. Octavian had reappropriated A
substantial amount of this moneyto himself and then had
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augmented it. By effectively stealing the
enormous tribute which arrived from Rome's client states in the
eastern Mediterranean later thatyear, now in late 44 BC and
early 43 BC, he put this money to good use, bribing 2 of Mark
Antony's legions to follow him and also.
Recruiting thousands of Caesar'sformer supporters across Italy
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to copper fasten his swift seizure of Italy, Octavian had
himself made a senator and in a highly unusual move, was quickly
given the right to vote on certain matters which we usually
reserved for senators who had previously served as consuls.
Finally, in mid 43 BC, he marched on Rome with several
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legions and demanded to be made consul himself, as both the
consuls who had been appointed for the year had died.
In military campaigns, he encountered virtually 0
opposition and as a result, the 19.
Year old became the sole consul,the most significant political
office in the Republic. Octavian had clearly emerged as
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a significant political figure, on a par with Mark Antony and
Lepidus. The emergence of these rivals
for power soon led to a new political arrangement in Rome
which mirrored that which had been agreed to by Caesar,
Crassus and Pompey in 60 BC. On the 27th of November 43 BC,
the Roman Senate passed the Lexitia.
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A law which formerly divided power within the Roman Republic
between Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus.
This second Triumvirate, as it has become known, differed in
significant ways from the earlier first.
The Triumvirate, the first had effectively been a private and
informal agreement between Caesar, Crassus and Pompey to
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cooperate with each other, whilethe Second Triumvirate was a
formal agreement which had the backing of the Senate and
effectively divided the Republicinto 3 spheres of influence
which the three Triombeas would rule.
Octavian was given control over the region corresponding to
Tunisia and Libya in North Africa, as well as Sardinia and
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Corsica. Hispania and Southern Gaul were
granted to Lepidus, while Mark Antony controlled the Alpine
region and most of Gaul. The Senate would control Rome
itself and Italy, while much of the Republic's territories in
the Eastern Mediterranean had fallen into the hands of others
such as Brutus and Gaius CassiusLonginus, who had assassinated
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Caesar. As these lands in the east
constituted the richer parts of the Empire, whichever of the
triumvirs could seize the regionwould be best placed to emerge
victorious amongst the triumvirsin the years that followed.
The first years of the second triumvirate saw octavian, Mark
Antony and lapidus acting cordially and in conjunction
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with each other. Firstly, they began
strengthening their position by prescribing former opponents of
Caesar's Prescription was a process whereby Roman citizens
were effectively outlawed by theRepublic and had their estates
confiscated. By prescribing hundreds of
wealthy individuals, the three Triumviers came into possession
of vast estates and wealth whichthey used to reward their.
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Followers and strengthen their own factions.
Together, the three began the work of crushing those who had
assassinated Caesar and who had taken control of much of Romes
territories in the eastern Mediterranean.
Octavian and Mark Antony. Took the lead in this, bringing
28 legions across the Adriatic Sea to Greece.
From there they marched north and met with the forces led by
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Brutus and Cassius near Philippiin Macedonia.
The resulting battle involved upwards of 200,000 men.
In the clash, casualties were actually relatively limited and
no side was the clear victor in military terms.
However, when Cassius was given false information that Brutus's
forces had been defeated, he committed suicide, and Brutus
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did the same when he learned of Cassius's actual fate.
Thereafter, therefore, forces surrendered.
It was a bizarre end to the warswhich followed from Caesar's
assassination. The power dynamics of the Second
Triumvirate shifted considerablyin the aftermath of the victory
at Philippi Lepidus, who had. Always been the least powerful
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of the three, Triomvias was quickly marginalized on the back
of a spurious light invented by Octavian and Mark Antony that he
had been secretly providing aid to Sextus Pompaeus, a son of
Pompi the Great, who had controlof Sicily in the aftermath of
Caesar's assassination. With Lepidus removed in this
way, Octavian and Mark Antony agreed on a new division of
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power whereby Octavian would effectively control the western
parts of the Republic, notably Italy, Gaul, Hispania, and the
North African provinces. While Mark Antony would control
the eastern provinces such as Greece and Syria, as well as
exercising influence over the many client kingdoms in this
region, such as Ptolemaic Egypt,which were not formally part of
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the Roman Republic, but which were effectively vassals who
paid tribute to Rome. Then, to cement the new
dispensation, an agreement was reached whereby Anthony married
Octavian's sister Octavia in October 40 BC.
The alliance, as uneasy as it was, would hold for nearly a
decade. One of Octavian's most pressing
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problems following the effectivedivision of the Republic between
himself and Anthony, was the presence of Sextus Pompeius in
Sicily. Pompeius had ensconced himself.
Firmly on the island which sat right on the shipping routes
between the western and eastern Mediterranean, and he had even
managed to gain a hold of Sardinia and Corsica, having
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built up a formidable Navy by attacking and seizing shipping.
Passing by the islands from the eastern Mediterranean to Rome,
Pompeius was able to interfere in the supplies of grain and
other foodstuffs to Rome. The Eternal City was heavily
reliant on such deliveries from Egypt and other countries to
feed its swelling population andprovide the famous bread dole to
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its citizens. Consequently, something needed
to be done to remove Pompeius from Sicily.
Initially, an agreement was brokered in 39 BC, the Pact of
Mycenium, whereby Sextus was acknowledged in his possession
of the islands if he would cease.
Attacking Roman shipping. However, once his plundering
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recommenced after a few months, Octavian determined to act and
sent his foremost commander. Marcus Agrippa to crush Sextus,
A feat which he eventually accomplished in 36 BC.
Pompeus fled to the East, where he was captured on the Greek
island of Miletus and executed the following year.
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The conclusion of the war against Pompeius in Sicily also
led to a further disintegration of the Second Triumvirate.
Lepidus had been sidelined yearsearlier, but the removal of
Sextus from the Italian islands in 36 BC now saw him try to
reestablish himself by seizing Sicily.
Octavian made clear his dominance of the western
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Mediterranean in the months thatfollowed by sending his army S,
upon which Lepidus's own legionsdefected to Caesar's adopted
air. Octavian had once again shown
his belief that gold was the keyto loyalty here, and had made it
known to Lepidus's legions that they would receive generous
payments if they relinquish their allegiance to their
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commander. As a result of their defection,
the third Triomvir was stripped of all his political offices by
Octavian, other than the largelyceremonial position of pontifex
maximus, or chief. Priest of Rome Yet Lepidus was
allowed to retire peacefully to Cape Cersei not far from Rome,
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and he would live for nearly another quarter of a century
once he agreed to largely stay out of Roman politics but the
immediate consequence of his fall in the mid 30s BC was that
they. Were now definitely only two
triumphs left and the showdown between Octavian and Mark Antony
loomed ever nearer. While Octavian was enjoying
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these successes in the West, Anthony was experiencing some
trouble in the East. In the late 40s BC, Anthony had
struck up a relationship with Cleopatra, the queen of
Ptolemaic Egypt, who had previously been the lover of
Julius Caesar and had even bornehim a son named Cesarean.
Making his base in Egypt in the early 30s BC, Anthony had
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determined to strengthen his position relative to Octavian by
undertaking further conquests onthe the eastern borders of the
Republic. In particular, he was anxious to
rejuvenate Caesar's earlier plans to make war on the
Parthian Empire in Mesopotamia. Thus, in 36 BC, he invaded
Parthia with a massive force. However, the invasion soon
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turned to disaster as Anthony's main force was separated from
the baggage trains of supplies and siege equipment.
When a mobile force of Parthian cavalry intercepted and
destroyed much of the latter. The Roman general was forced to
retreat back towards Roman territory in Syria, losing
further men along the way as hisforces were harried by the
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Parthians. The campaign had turned into a
disaster, the embarrassment of which was only partially
remedied by his conquest of the Kingdom of Armenia in 34 BC and
the installation of his son Alexander Helios as its king.
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solution for you. This was the context in which
Octavian made his major grab fortotal power over the Republic,
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Anthony's absence from the Eternal City, his relationship
with Cleopatra and seeming preference for the Egyptian
capital of Alexandria over Rome,and the nepotism he showed
towards his followers in the East.
All provided ammunition for Octavian and his faction to
begin claiming that Anthony wished to seize power in the
Republic and begin building a new realm of which Egypt and the
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city of Alexandria would be the heartland.
Octavian was particularly bullish in claiming this, as he
was angered by Anthony's embarrassing of his sister
Octavia, to whom Anthony was still married.
Through his very public relationship with Cleopatra,
moreover, Octavian was actually able to substantiate his claims
that Anthony was Orientalizing. In 32 QBC, he entered the Temple
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of the Vestal Virgins in Rome and removed Anthony's will which
was housed there. With this, he was able to
demonstrate that Anthony had plans to divide up the
Republic's eastern territories between his family and
supporters, and that he wished to be entombed at Alexandria
following his death. This, combined with Anthony's
celebration of his conquest of Armenia by holding a triumph in
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Alexandria rather than at Rome, seemed to confirm Octavian's
argument that Anthony was effectively turning into an
eastern despot who would expel Rome from its eastern
territories if left unchecked. In late 32 BC, following this
campaign to undermine Anthony, the Senate in Rome finally
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agreed to revoke Anthonys powersand declared war on Ptolemaic
Egypt. A new civil war had begun, yet
Octavian did not have unequivocal support in the West.
As much as 40% of the Roman Senate had voted against the
war, and a large majority of these now left the capital and
headed E with their supporters to join Anthony's cause in
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Egypt. In the months that followed, the
largest military buildup that had accompanied any Roman civil
war. Occurs.
By the summer of 31 BC, Octavianhad pulled together forces which
numbered approximately 2. 100,000 men.
To put this in perspective, Caesar had only commanded
roughly 25,000 men at the Battleof Farsalis, the decisive
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engagement in his civil war against Pompeii in the early
autumn of 48 BC, and Octavian's massive military buildup was
matched by Anthony, who was alsoable to field about 200,000 men.
Just as significantly, both quickly assembled large fleets
of hundreds of galleys, as this was a war which would play
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itself themselves out as much inthe Mediterranean as on land.
By the summer, both sides were channelling their armies towards
Greece, which, like Caesar and Pompey's showdown in 48 BC and
the end of Brutus and Cassius revolt at Philippi in 42 BC,
would act as the theater in which yet another civil conflict
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of the late Roman Republic wouldplay out.
Octavian and Mark Antony's forces would finally clash at
sea near the Roman colony of Actium in northwestern Greece in
31 BC. This was at the mouth of the
Ambrosian Gulf, approximately 50kilometers South of the southern
tip of the island of Corfu. Anthony had begun assembling his
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land and sea forces here in the summer of 31 BC in preparation.
For a planned strike against mainland Italy, Octavian
responded by concentrating his forces on the Greek mainland
opposite Corfu to the north of Actium.
Here, by the late summer, Octavian was beginning to gain
the upper hand as his strength relative to Anthony's grew and
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Anthony became increasingly surrounded on the mainland.
Then, as the days went by, desertion and disease began
decimating his forces. As a result, on the 2nd of
September 31 BC, he attempted tobreak out from the Ambrosian
Gulf with slightly over 300 ships and perhaps as many as
25,000 inventory and cavalry on board Octavian's forces of
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roughly 400 galleys under the overall command of Marcus.
Agrippa had lined up in the waters around the exit from the
Gulf as Anthony's fleet sailed past Actium to try to break out
into the wider Mediterranean. The Battle of Actium which
followed would be the decisive conflict of the Civil War.
Octavian's fleet was numericallysuperior, but his ships of an
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Italian built were smaller than the larger galleys of Anthony's
eastern fleet. However, even this seeming
advantage for Anthony was diluted by the fact that
Octavian's ships proved more agile and could stay out of
range of fire from Anthony's vessels In the hours that
followed. However, what possibly sealed
his fate at Actium was that his ships became caught in dead
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water while trying to break out of the Ambrosian Gulf, a marine
phenomenon whereby ships can only move at a fraction of their
normal speed due to being caughtin highly saline water.
They saw perhaps a run of bad winds stranded many of Anthony's
ships for long enough that Octavian's galleys were able to
come close enough to start many fires on the decks of Anthony's
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own galleys. This, combined with a breakdown
in communication between in the different parts of Anthony's
fleet saw his fleet almost completely destroyed in the
hours that followed. As night time descended near
Actium, Mark Antony's hopes of defeating Octavian were ablaze
across the waters outside the Embrasian Gulf.
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In the aftermath of Actium, Antony managed to escape back to
Egypt. Octavian and Marcus Agrippa
pursued him and Antony eventually committed suicide by
falling on his own sword on the 1st of August 30 BC after
another defeat at Alexandria. This brought the latest civil
war, the final civil war of the Roman Republic, to an end.
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Cleopatra followed her lover's example 9 days later and killed
herself by drinking poison. Not, as legend would have it,
through the bite of an ASP, and Octavian was not inclined to
show mercy to those who had survived both Caesarean
Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar, and Marcus Antonius
Antillus, Mark Antony's son by his earlier wife Fulvia, were
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executed. The two had been born within
weeks of each other in 47 BC andwere consequently in their late
teens in 30 BC. Octavian had not been much older
himself when Caesar was assassinated, and he began his
political and military ascent. Unwilling to take any risks that
the pair would one day pose a threat to him, he had them
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killed. Egypt, which had been a client
state of Rome's up until 30 BC, was formally annexed to become
the latest province of the RomanRepublic.
Like Caesar before him, Octaviandid not move to immediately
establish himself as Emperor of Rome, although he was now
unrivalled in the same way Caesar had been between 48 BC
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and 44 BC. Unwilling to make the mistake
his great uncle had made of claiming dictatorial powers and
never relinquishing them or asking the Senate's consent, he
instead began slowly changing his own constitutional position
in the months and years following the end of the civil
war in 30 BC. Firstly, after returning to
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Rome, he had himself and Marcus Agrippa made consuls for the
year, and he would hold the title every year down to the
late 20s BC. In tandem, Octavian tightened
his grip on the military and also began diverting the
Republic's wealth into his own coffers in ways which allowed
him to bestow enormous amounts of financial patronage.
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Then he reached an agreement with the Senate that he would
divide control over the Republic's provinces between
them, whereby Octavian and his magistrates administered some
and the Senate others. And by this means, he created
the idea that he was ruling withthe consent of the Senate and
the old aristocracy, instead of bludgeoning it into obedience as
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Caesar had attempted. For all that these changes
magnified Octavian's position inthe aftermath of his victory
over Antony, it was not until 27BC that the real change in the
constitutional status of the Republic and his position within
it was transformed. In January of that year, the
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Senate granted Octavian 2 new titles.
The first of these was that of princeps, meaning first or the
foremost within a group. The new title signified that
Octavian was now the the first citizen of Rome.
The other title which was bestowed was that of Augustus,
roughly meaning Illustrious 1. As a term of reverence, Octavian
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now took the latter along with his great uncles Cognoman as his
new name. Henceforth he would be known as
Caesar Augustus, while he styledhimself as Imperator, a term
which in Latin effectively meanscommander, but the meaning of
which today is emperor or ruler,based largely on the knowledge
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that the imperators who ruled after Augustus were emperors of
a Roman Empire. And these developments in
January of 27 BC are consequently generally
interpreted as the point at which the Roman Republic came to
an end, and the date from which we can speak of the Roman
Empire, one which would last fornearly exactly 500 years
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thereafter. Having established himself in a
position of secure and supreme authority in Rome, Augustus soon
set about expanding the Empire'sborders.
Rome was a society, whether it was ruled as a Republic or as an
empire, which viewed expansion as a natural thing for it to do
at all times. In the early years of Augustus
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rule, this came quite easily. Egypt had been annexed as part
of the end of the civil war. The Kingdom of Galatia in
central Turkey was also convinced into a Roman province
in 25 BC when its ruler Amintas was killed.
In the years that followed that,Augustus succeeded in crushing
the independent tribes of northern Hispania, which had
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resisted Roman rule for two centuries.
The final conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by 19 BC was
especially beneficial, as huge gold deposits were soon
discovered there, leading to a massive financial windfall for
both Augustus and the wider Roman aristocracy.
In tandem, Augustus tightened Roman control over the client
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kingdoms of the Near East, such as the Herodian Kingdom of Judea
by the end of the 20s BC. Finally, a diplomatic success
was also secured with the Parthian Empire to return the
battle standards of the Roman legions which had been lost at
the Battle of Karai in 53 BC, which Crassus, Julius Caesar's
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associate in the First Triumvirate, had perished.
Yet it was not all plain sailingduring these years.
In the spring of 23 BC, Augustusbecame seriously ill and many
believed he was on his deathbed.Therefore, he made provisions at
this time for a division of power upon his death whereby
Marcus Agrippa would succeed himmilitarily and his nephew Marcus
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Claudius Marcellus would be groomed to succeed him
politically in the long run. Although he recovered from the
illness, the entire episode madeAugustus acutely be conscious of
the necessity for a clearer constitutional arrangement, and
during the course of 23 BC he agreed with the Senate that
henceforth he would not appoint himself as consul, but would be
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granted the office of tribune for life, with the powers of a
Roman censor combined with this.In this way he placated the
Senate by giving back the officeof consul, but retained great
control over the magistracy by the creation of an entirely new
office under the name of tribune.
And while these new arrangementsdid incite some unrest, most
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notably A shadowy conspiracy which was launched by 1 Fanius
Kipio in 21 BC, these threats were easily seen off and
Augustus continued to solidify his rule into the 10s BC.
Augustus reign saw many innovations in terms of how
Roman society was governed and managed.
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The century or so prior to his seizure of power had seen the
Roman state expand dramatically,but necessary social reforms had
been neglected as the Republic struggled through successive
civil wars. In particular, there were major
issues in the Eternal City itself, which was suffering from
fires, diseases, a crime problem, and growing poverty.
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Augustus began addressing this imbalance in the city of Rome,
the population of which had swelled to upwards of a million
people by the 1st century AD. He transformed the municipal
government, instituting the first professional police force
and fire service in a city whereviolent assaults and accidental
fires had become rampant. These vigiles did much to make
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Rome a more hospitable place by the end of his reign.
He also drastically reformed theway in which Rome and the
Italian peninsula were administered, expanding the
personal bodyguard he had established for himself early in
his career, the Praetorian Guard, to become a much larger
unit whose loyalty was directly to the emperor, and which was
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charged with the protection of the capital and the Italian
peninsula. In the wider empire, Augustus,
in conjunction with the Senate, established the system of
administration which would last for much of the next two
centuries. This divided the empire into
senatorial provinces, which the Senate administered, and
imperial provinces, which were administered by magistrates
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appointed directly by the emperor.
There were some exceptions to this rule.
Egypt, which had been conquered following the Battle of Actium,
was one of the richest provincesof the entire empire, and
Augustus placed it under the administration of a prefect from
the Roman equestrian class who was directly responsible to him.
And he also introduced major reforms to the Roman tax base
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which increased the imperial revenues that were collected.
This was a necessity, As for decades Rome had relied on
extracting resources from conquered territories for much
of its wealth. In introducing a proper taxation
system of land and trade, Augustus was creating a more
stable and secure source of revenue for the Empire.
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Finally, in order to improve theoverall administration of the
empire, Augustus initiated a massive Rd. building system and
a system of relay stations complete with horses to deliver
information at maximum speed to and from Rome.
As a result, King Louis the 14th, nearly 2000 years later,
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would not have been able to senda messenger any faster than
Augustus could. The reign of Augustus is
generally perceived as having been a golden age of Roman
culture, particularly of Latin literature.
The poet Horace published his Odes between 23 BC and 13 BC,
while Ovid composed several renowned works such as the
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Metamorphoses, a narrative of combined Hellenic Romano
mythology and his Arts, Amatoriameaning The Art of love, and the
Fausty, a volume of the Roman calendar, all towards the latter
end of Augustus's reign. The historian Livy spent nearly
30 years during Augustus's reigncomposing an enormous history of
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Rome from the foundation of the city down to Augustus's reign,
entitled AB urbe condita, meaning from the founding of the
city. Yet it was Virgil, an Italian
from near modern day Mantua, whobecame the greatest of the Roman
poets, his magnum opus, the Aeneid providing a national epic
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of Rome mythical establishment Bioneus, a refugee from the
legendary siege and fall of the city of Troy.
Many of these poets were supported by Gaius Mycenus, 1 of
Augustus's right hand men who acted as an unofficial minister
of culture, and the Emperor's role in this flowering of Latin
literature was considerable. Although Augustus did exile over
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to the city of Thomas beyond theempire's borders in Romania in
eight AD under mysterious circumstances, possibly related
to the scandals created by his love poetry, the Augustan Golden
Age extended beyond the written word.
Rome's first emperor left an indelible mark on the built
environment of the city. He was responsible for
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constructing numerous major monumental buildings in the
center of the city, notably the Forum of Augustus, complete with
a temple to Mars Altor and the Triumphal Arch of Augustus.
While the Mausoleum of Augustus,which he built shortly after the
end of the Civil War, covered anarea the size of several city
streets along the banks of the River Tiber and became the
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resting place of the remains of all the Julio Claudian emperors
and many members of Augustus's extended family.
Other buildings, such as the Portico of Octavia, which was
built in honor of the emperor's sister, and the Baths of
Agrippa, the city's first publicbaths constructed by Augustus's
most trusted ally, Marcus Agrippa, were built either by or
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on behalf of the emperor's family and friends.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given all this building work, the
foremost work on Roman architecture, De architectura,
was written by the engineer and architect Vitruvius during the
first decade of Augustus's reign.
It was still being used as a major work in the field as late
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as the 18th century. Vitruvius writings were used in
such famous buildings as the Dome which Filippo Brunelleschi
built on top of the cathedral ofSanta Maria del Fiore in
Florence in the 15th century. Throughout his reign, they
continued to be widespread speculation as to who, if
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anyone, would succeed Augustus in the unique position he had
carved out for himself within the Roman state.
Augustus had married three times.
His first two marriages were brief affairs.
The first, to Claudia, between 42 BC and 40 BC, was a political
marriage designed to shore up alliances during the politically
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turbulent years following Caesar's assassination.
The second, to Scribonia, followed immediately after his
divorce from Claudia, but similarly it only lasted 2 years
down to 38 BC. However, this particular union
did result in Augustus's only biological child, a daughter
named Julia. Augustus, who was still Octavian
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at that time, divorced Scriboniathe very day that she gave birth
to Julia. The grounds were that she had
committed adultery, but this mayhave simply been a convenient
excuse, as Octavian had met and fallen for Livia Drusilla.
At this time, Livia was married herself to Tiberius Claudius
Nero, a Roman senator with whom she had two children.
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She quickly obtained a divorce herself, and she and Octavian
were wed in 37 BC. They would be happily married
for the next 50 years down to Augustus's death, for the
marriage never produced any children, though the reasons are
unclear as both Livia and Augustus had children from their
previous marriages. Had Augustus's marriage to Livia
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resulted in a son, the issue of the succession might have been
clearer, though this is by no means certain as Roman
succession practices often involved the adoption of an heir
who was considered a worthy successor.
From the 20s BC onwards, Augustus considered many
possible heirs. Early on, his preference clearly
seemed to be for Marcus Agrippa,his most trusted general and
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ally. Agrippa was periodically placed
in charge of affairs in the eastof the empire, and Augustus
betrothed his daughter Julia to him, a union which resulted in
five children. However, Agrippa had been born
in 63 BC, the same year as Octavian, and he died in 12 BC,
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long before the emperor. Thereafter, Augustus began
grooming his two grandchildren from Agrippa and Julia's
marriage, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, as potential
heirs. Unfortunately, though, the two
young men both died under relatively mysterious
circumstances within 18 months of each other between the autumn
OF2AD and the spring of four AD,Suspicions abandoned that the
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Empress Livia had them poisoned to ensure the succession of her
surviving son from her first marriage, Tiberius.
His route to the Imperial titlesseemed assured from six AD
onwards, when Julia and Marcus, Agrippa's only living son and
Augustus's only surviving biological grandson, Agrippa
Post, was banished from the Empire for his excessively
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brutal and violent conduct. In addition to concerns about
the succession, the final years of Augustus reign saw a shifting
situation with regard to the empires borders or what we might
call its foreign policy. As we have seen, the earlier
years of Augustus's reign saw the consolidation of the
empire's borders in regions suchas the Iberian Peninsula, the
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full conquest of which was finally completed in the early
10s BC. The second-half of his reign saw
an effort to consolidate the land corridor between the
western and eastern parts of theempire in Europe by conquering
the regions then known as Pannonia, Illyria and Moesia.
Approximating with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania,
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Kosovo and parts of Serbia today.
In doing so, the Empire's territories were extended into
an unbroken chain from the Atlantic Coast of Iberia all the
way eastwards to Thrace in modern day Turkey.
A final revolt known as the Great Illyrian Revolt began here
in six AD amongst the native tribes, but once this was
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crushed in 9AD, all of the Western Balkans was brought
firmly under Roman rule. Other consolidation allegations
involved acquiring greater control over Armenia in the east
to shore up the eastern border, while the Herodian Kingdom of
Judea, which had been a client state for decades, was formally
annexed and made into the province of Judea in six AD.
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Thereafter, Augustus began a process of downscaling the
military preparedness of the empire and limiting the amount
of future conquests which would be undertaken.
The one region where Augustus continued to adopt an aggressive
foreign policy stance was in Germania.
His great uncle had conquered the vast expanse of Gaul in less
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than 10 years in the 50s BC, andAugustus was determined to
emulate him by extending Roman control eastward over the tribes
of Germania. Operating out of a major
settlement which was being established at Colonia, the
Roman town which would eventually grow into the modern
city of Cologne, the Roman legions, led by a of Augustus's
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great nephew Germanicus Julius Caesar, began following beyond
the river Rhine into central andeastern Germany in the late 1st
century BC. The advance was so swift at this
time that by 7 BC Roman arms hadextended as far as the river
Elba in the east of the region, and a new province called
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Germania Antiqua was establishedout of these lands.
However, this seemingly comfortable conquest of such a
broad expanse of land was too good to be true.
In secret, the Germanic tribes of the region were plotting to
expel the Romans from their lands, and in nine AD, when the
Roman general Publius QuintiliusVarus LED 3 legions into the
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region around Saxony, they were betrayed by a Germanic ally,
Arminius, and ambushed virtuallythe entire 3 legions.
Some 15,000 men were killed at what has become known as the
Battle of the Tutto Forest. Henceforth, plans to conquer
Germania were abandoned and the river Rhine was established as
the northern boundary of the empire.
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Caesar Augustus died in the yearof 14 AD on the 19th of August,
A month which was named after him after July had been named
after his great uncle Julius Caesar.
He was nearing his 80th year andwas in poor health, and we can
probably discount as spurious rumors that Olivia poisoned him
to speed up the succession of her son Tiberia.
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It was this stepson of the Emperor who would succeed him,
not because he had shown himselfto be a particularly worthy or
accomplished individual, but because he had simply outlasted
all of his rivals for the position.
Augustus's advice to him prior to his death had been to not
expand the Empire any further, but instead to secure its
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existing borders as these made geographic sense, being bounded
on the South by the Sahara Desert, on the West and north by
the Atlantic Ocean and North North Sea, and on the east by
the River Rhine and the River Danube in Europe.
Although this advice was not precisely followed by Augustus's
successes, it was to a sufficient enough extent that it
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brought peace to the empire for much of the next two centuries.
This is often referred to as thePax Romana, the Roman peace
under which Rome's 50 to 70 million subjects lived through a
period of unprecedented stability and prosperity.
It was a far cry from the chaos which characterized the Roman
Republic when Octavian was born into it.
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In the decades which followed, it became clear how difficult
Augustus's job as first emperor of Rome had been.
His reign was followed by several much poorer ones.
His direct successor, Tiberius is generally understood to have
been an aloof, poor ruler who spent years absent from Rome and
who relied on unscrupulous middle men such as the soldier
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Sajanas to rule on his behalf. He was succeeded by Caligula in
37 BCA. Great grandson of Augustus's,
who is generally deemed to have been a mad tyrant and a sexual
deviant. When his short reign ended in 41
BC. Another member of the Julio
Claudian dynasty, Tiberius Claudius Caesar, became Emperor
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Claudius. Although he was generally
depicted as a weak ruler by Roman historians.
Claudius was actually the most successful of Augustus's near
successors, taking an interest in reforming the legal system
and initiating a major building program throughout the empire,
and the negative depiction of him was most likely on account
of his being slightly disabled and having a limp and thus not
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being seen as a Marshall figure who could wait war.
In the Roman tradition, the lastJulio Claudian emperor, Nero is
typically understood to have been a borderline lunatic who
burned down Rome and whose reigneventually ended in civil war
and the end of the Julio Claudian dynasty in 68 BC.
Thus Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, through their failings,
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did much to highlight exactly how great Augustus's
accomplishment had been in bringing stability to the Roman
state. Caesar Augustus, the man who
became first citizen of Rome, but who began his political
ascent as Octavian when he was little more than a boy, is a
character who has widely dividedopinions.
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In the 2000 years since he ruledas Rome's first emperor, it
could be argued, and has been argued, that he brought the
Roman Republic to an end and established a system which
destroyed the empire's more democratic institutions.
Such a view was articulated by subsequent generations of Roman
historians, such as the late 1stcentury AD senator and writer
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Tacitus, who claimed that Augustus had subverted the will
of the people and made them slaves.
In this interpretation, the man who was granted the title of the
Illustrious one by the Roman Senate was nothing more than a
power hungry tyrant. The last man left standing after
decades of civil war which tore the Republic apart.
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Moreover, his reign was was dominated by warfare, from the
near constant turmoil of the Second Triumvirate to the civil
war with Mark Antony, through successive wars in the Middle
East and then in Germania. 10s of thousands and quite possibly
hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of the
conflicts he engaged in or directly initiated.
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Yet there is another completely opposite.
Way of interpreting. Augustus.
After several decades of internal strife within the Roman
Republic, he finally brought theconstant civil wars between
opposing generals to an end and inaugurated a period of renewed
stability. This allowed for the initiation
of wide-ranging social reforms and the reorganization of the
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empire, while the more settled environment in Rome led to the
flowering of arguably the greatest period of Roman culture
that was seen in its thousand year history.
Moreover, his foreign policy waspractical in so far as he tried
to consolidate Rome's control over the regions it was a major
player in already, and then created new borders along easily
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defensible geographic areas suchas the river Rhine in Germania.
In doing so, he effectively consolidated the empire after a
century and a half of somewhat chaotic expansion since the
middle of the 2nd century BC. In doing all of this, he
bequeathed to his successors a much more stable situation than
Rome faced in the days of JuliusCaesar.
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And when a line of generally competent emperors arrived in
the 2nd century AD, the Roman Empire enjoyed a period of
unprecedented peace, stability, and prosperity.
But perhaps ultimately he was both of these things
simultaneous, famously both the ruthless and power hungry man
who ended the Roman Republic andmade himself ruler of an empire,
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and the individual who brought stability to a withered Republic
which was dying long before he consigned it to history.
What do you think of Caesar Augustus?
Was he a great emperor who finally brought peace to Rome
after decades of civil war, or was he a power hungry tyrant?
Please let us know in the comments section and in the
(58:31):
meantime, thank you very much for watching.
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