Auguste (Latin: CAIUS•OCTAVIUS•THVRINUS with its birth, IMPERATOR•CAESAR•DIVI•FILIVS•AUGUSTUS with its death), initially called Octave then Octavien , born on September 23rd 63 av. J. - C. and died on August 19th 14 a. J. - C. is the first Roman Emperor.

Adoptive great nephew and wire of Jules César, it arrived at the capacity in the horrors of the Proscription S and the Civil wars which followed the assassination of this last then the elimination of its own rivals. He managed to leave with the posterity the image of the restorer of peace, prosperity and the traditions. By his/her friend and adviser Patron, his reign was characterized by a remarkable flowering of arts and letters, being worth at “Augustan age” to remain a mythical cultural reference.

As regards his appearance, one can refer to Suétone and his work Vies of the twelve césars : Auguste was of a rare beauty, which kept its charm all along its life Its eyes were sharp and brilliant; he wanted to even make believe that there was in its glance a divine authority and, as it fixed it on somebody, he liked to see him lowering the head, as dazzled by the sun.

With the conquest of the capacity

Auguste was born with Rome (on September 23rd -63) on the Palatine Hill, under the name of Caius Octavius , the even name that his father Gaius Octavius. One gave him in his childhood the nickname of Thurinus . This one belonged to a family of the equestrian Ordre important but little known; he was governor of the province of Macedonia until his death in 59 av. J. - C. His/her mother, Atia, is the niece of the large Roman general, César.

In 46 av. J. - C., this one, without legitimate descent, adopts its great nephew by will. According to the Roman use in the event of adoption, Octave from now on is called Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus (Octavien).

After the assassination of his/her adoptive father on March 15th - 44, it comes to Rome to claim the heritage of this last. Cicéron gives to him its support against former lieutenant de César, Marc Antoine. Having raised an army, Octave beats initially Antoine in Modena. But in spite of the opinion of Cicéron, ready to assume the consulate with Octave as colleague, the Senate refused with the young man the access to the high magistrature, with the reason for its age. Frustrated in its ambitions, Octave changes camp, and concludes an agreement for the division from the capacity with Marc Antoine and Lépide within the Second triumvirate.

Triumvirs seize Rome then and issue the Proscription of all their adversaries, of which Cicéron, put at died by the henchmen of Antoine. Several hundreds of knights and senators perish, in particular those which had share of near or by far with the opposition to César and the murder of this last. According to Suétone, Octave on several occasions showed personal cruelty at the time of these proscriptions.

In - 42, with the battle of Philips in Greece, Octave and Antoine crush Brutus and Cassius, hearts of the conspiracy anticésarienne of - 44.

Triumvirs divide then the Roman world: Antoine receives the East, Octave the Occident, Lépide Africa.

In - 38, in order to deliver the war in Egypt, it receives the title of imperator, i.e. of military chief of all the armies. It will keep it then all its life.

After having overcome Marc Antoine with the naval battle of Actium in 31 av. J. - C., he becomes only holder of the capacity. In 28 av. J. - C., the senate confers to him the title of Princeps Senatus , “the first of the senate”, which means that it is the first to speak before the assembly, and the following year, it gives him even the title of Augustus , which means “crowned”. We are in 27 av. J. - C. and Octavien become then the first Roman Emperor.

Octavien becomes Auguste

This title is rather particular. In accordance with the Roman tradition, it is about a nickname which one added with the first names of Auguste, just like one added in the name of a victorious general a nickname formed on the name of the overcome people. It was decreed with the general if the territory of Rome had been increased by the victory. The term Augustus is with strong religious connotation. Before being decreed in Octave, it was employed like adjective only with regard to one god. It means high, devoted . By this title, one thus considers that Octave is that which increases perpetually the Ager publicus .

Introduction of Principat

The January 13rd -27, at the end of a long discourse to the Senate, Octave is seen allotting the capacity proconsulaire for ten years. The empire is divided into provinces Sénatoriales (pacified) and Imperial (where the armed forces are). The January 16th, it receives the title crowned of Auguste on the initiative of the senator Munatius Plancus. By this constitutional payment, the personal mode, mode of exception up to that point, enter during its organic time. Octave, recognized like Princeps , which means the first of the citizens, becomes the official chief of the Roman State. It takes the absolute control of the army, of which it ensures the financing and is protected permanently by the Praetorian Garde, stationed in Urbs (hitherto no troop had resided at Rome). By definition, the mode comprises a division of attribution between the new capacity it Princeps - and the traditional capacities - Comices, magistratures and Sénat-. In fact, foreign policy and army put aside, the Senate preserves or receives important prerogatives in the fields of the civil administration (Rome, Italy, provinces), of finances, justice and the currency. Auguste hears that it is, opposite the army, the only civil element which counts in the State. He controls the election of the magistrates by a system of official recommendation, the commendatio . The destinatio also allows to the intervention of a special organization knights and senators divided into ten or fifteen centuries for the candidate nomination ( tabula hebana , discovered inscription with Magliano). The comices lost any true control. The emperor makes enter to the Roman Sénat of provincial (at the time of César, 45 patricians families are represented; one finds of them nothing any more but only one at the end of the 1st century). To replace them, there is of the Gallo-Romans (those of Lyon and Vienna, very early), then Spaniards, Africans and even of the Eastern ones.

Its reign

Auguste reigns of 27 av. J. - C. with 14 a. J. - C. It dies in 76 years, and leaves his throne to Tibère which is his/her adoptive son of his third wife (Livie).

Reform army

Auguste reforms the army, which becomes definitively a professional army. The military charter ( condito militiae ) gives him its legal statute: 12 years service of for the Praetorian ones, 16 years for the legionaries (carried later to 16 and 20 years), balance, varied liberalities, ground or silver equipment the day of the release, accompanied by legal privileges like the collation of the Roman city. Manpower are fixed at 28 legions (25 after the disaster of Varus into 9) strong of 5.500 infantrymen and 120 riders, auxiliary bodies of 500 or 1.000 men (cavalry, wings, infantry, troops), of the garrison of Rome and Italy, formed of the nine Praetorian troops (9 000 men on the whole), of the three urban troops (3 000 men), of the seven troops of the vigils (night police force, fires) and of the private guard of the emperor, made of riders Spanish, Batavian or German. That is to say 300.000 men to which come to be added 50.000 men of the quotas of the allies, vassal or Cruel kings. Auguste creates a navy of war, made up of two fleets with Misène and Ravenne which protects the Italy, of two other fleets of less importance in Syria and Egypt, and of river flotillas on the the Rhine and the the Danube for the protection of the borders.

Reform administration

In -23, whereas it received the power tribunitienne, i.e. the right to impose its decisions on the senate, Auguste creates a body of officials, appointed and sharpened by him: Prefects, procurateurs, members of the large executive commissions. The senatorial careers (heritage of the Republic) and equestrian (created of all parts) provide administrative staff necessary. The Impériales provinces are managed according to the case by lieutenant-legates of a senatorial nature or prefects and procurateurs of an equestrian nature. The emperor has a right to watch on the senatorial provinces which results in an administrative, financial and legal intervention, in the form of the call. Auguste carries out a financial rectification by arranging the taxes existing and by improving the tax authorities. He controls the management of the senatorial governors severely and puts an end to methodical plundering provinces practiced at the time republican. In Sicily and a Gaulle, it substitutes for the system of the farm direct perception, and whenever it maintains the farm, it surrounds it by guarantees (replacement of the powerful finance companies by farmers of more modest social importance and controls narrow exerted by financial governors or procurateurs). Auguste continues the work of César census land register, which are used as a basis for fixing of the tax. He duplicates the central financial case, the aerarium, which remains for the Senate, with the various baskets (Fisci) and the case of particular fortune (patrimonium) for the emperor.

The republican jurisdictions traditional-comices, magistratures, Senate, court-are altered. The civil and criminal courts are reorganized. An imperial jurisdiction is created, which appears in three forms: the evocation with the emperor, the call and the delegation of the jurisdiction with the civils servant. In first authority, by Cognito Caesaris, the emperor, everywhere and always, with the civilian as with the criminal, can evoke a business with its court. The call to the emperor is generalized in everyone Roman. Supreme judge of the empire, the emperor delegates his judicial powers to his civils servant, so much permanent (prefects such as Préfet of the vigils and executive commissions in Rome and in Italy, legates and governors in the imperial provinces) that extraordinary (special police chiefs). The legal reorganization is supplemented, in particular in Rome, by the creation of a police force.

Work in Rome

Auguste praised himself, by a famous formula, “to have found brick Rome, and to have left marble Rome. ”

Under the principat of Auguste, Rome is divided of 14 “areas”. Work is undertaken to stabilize banks of the the Tiber. In order to fight against the fires, rather frequent in the capital, a body of vigils is founded. New Aqueduc S is built.

Inter alia public works, Auguste made build the Forum of Auguste. He modified the aspect of the old republican forum in a more dynastic direction, by rebuilding there the Curie (Curia Julia), by affixing there the Miliaire of supposed gold to mark the departure of all the main roads of the empire, and by finishing there the Basilique Julia or the temple of the divine Jules to the site where the body of his/her adoptive father César had been flaring, from now on divinized.

The emperor also takes care of the good walk of the religion while building or by renovating approximately 80 Sanctuaire S; thus, the Temple of Mars avenger, the Temple of Thundering Jupiter to the Capitole.

Part of its own house to the Palatin, which had been touched by the lightning, was transformed into Temple of Apollo, reinforcing the crowned character of the residence and the person of the Master of Rome. He added to the temple of Apollo of the Portique S and a Bibliothèque Greek and Latin, and made there transfer the Sibylline Livres and a hearth dedicated to Vesta. Auguste was never made build palate, affecting a sober way of life in this very simple house of the Palatin, formerly that inhabited by the speaker Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. But it is well of its reign that the Palatin became the hill of the emperor, opening the way with increasingly imposing constructions of its successors, in particular Tibère, Caligula, Domitien and the Sévères.

Auguste also makes rebuild the Basilique Julia which had been burnt. It is dedicated to its adoptive sons Lucius and Caius. In the honor of his wife Livie, Auguste made build, between 15 and 7 av. J. - C., with the limit of the popular quarters of Subure, the “Portique of Livie”, near to the Esquilin, in the center of which small the temple of Concordia Augusta was.

In -13, whereas it returns from Spain and de Gaulle after three years of absence, during which it carried out operations of pacification and organized the provinces of the south of Gaulle, it made build in Rome, on the Champ de Mars, a monument in order to celebrate the peace which reigns from now on on the Roman territories: the Macaw Pacis , the “Furnace bridge of Peace”. The dedication, i.e. the ceremony of solemn dedication to the gods who marks the beginning of the operation of the building, will take place only later, in 9 av. J. - C. The date has its importance because it is the day of the birthday of the wife of Auguste, Livie: the dynastic aspect is some clearly underlined.

It still made carry out other work under other names, under those of its grandsons, his wife and her sister: such are the gantry and the basilica of Caïus and Lucius, the gantry of Livie and that of Octavie, the Théâtre of Marcellus.

It was according to its exhortations that Marcus Philippus set up the temple of the Hercules of the Muses; L. Cornificius, that of Diane; Asinius Pollion, the hall of Freedom; Lucius Munatius Plancus, the temple of Saturn; Cornelius Balbus, a theater; Statilius Taurus, an amphitheater; Marcus Vipsanius Clutched, of many and beautiful buildings whose Thermes of Clutched and the first the Pantheon of Rome. After its reign, great work of town planning became the exclusive prerogative of the imperial family.

On the Roman Forum, two triumphal arches celebrated the victories of the prince. It does not remain that the base of the one of them.

A cultural golden age

Passed with the posterity under the name of “Augustan age”, this period ostentation of the Roman literature is marked by the names of the poets Virgile, Horace, Ovide, Tibulle, Properce, or of the historian Tite-Live. All these authors must much with the protection of the faithful adviser of Auguste: Patron, a proper name become common noun.

Introduced near the Prince via Patron, all these authors were personal friends of the Master of Rome. They sang without reserves the glory of its person and of its family, took party for him against Antoine. They supported also its policy traditionalist aiming at restoring the old Roman worships, agriculture, “manners of the ancestors” ( mos majorum ) at the expense of the seductions of the orientalism and the liberalization of the manners, incarnated formerly by Antoine. Such are at least appearances.

If Auguste forgave with Tite-Live, that it treated “pompéien affectionately”, its sympathies to the republican mode of the olden days, it abruptly exiled Ovide of Rome for the remainder of its days, in year 8. Various assumptions were put forth to explain this relegation, the last goes back to it being that Ovide would have been punished to have wanted to reveal the implication of the emperor in the death of Virgile.

Names and titles

Names

  • -63, born CAIVS•OCTAVIVS•THVRINVS
  • -45, adopted by Jules César: CAIVS•IVLIVS•CAESAR•OCTAVIANVS
  • -42, César is divinisé: CAIVS•IVLIVS•CAESAR•DIVI•FILIVS•IMPERATOR
  • -40 : IMPERATOR•CAESAR•DIVI•FILIVS
  • -27, made majestic by the Senate: IMPERATOR•CAESAR•DIVI•FILIVS•AVGVSTVS

Titles and magistratures

Titulature with its death

With its death the August 19th 14, Auguste was secured by the following titulature:
IMPERATOR•CAESAR•DIVI•FILIVS•AVGVSTVS, PONTIFEX•MAXIMVS, TRIBVNICIAE•POTESTATE•XXXVII, IMPERATOR•XXI, CONSVL•XIII, LORD'S PRAYER•PATRIAE

References

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