CLAS/HIST 4091/5091. The Roman Empire

Lecture 3. The First Citizen: Augustus and the Rise of the Principate

I. Beware the Ides of March!

A. Assassination of Caesar: (March 15, 44 BC) by M. Brutus and C. Cassius

B. The Second Triumvirate: Antony, Lepidus, Octavian

-Revenge: Philippi (42 BC)

C. Trouble Brewing: Clashes at Mutina (43 BC); Perusia (41 BC); Reconciliations at Brundisium (40 BC); Tarentum (37 BC)

D. Unpopularity contest: Proscriptions; Veteran Settlements; “Pirate War”

II. The Final Conflict

A. Antony goes east: Parthian campaign (40-36); losses baggage, then 22,000 men

B. Cleopatra: 41 meets Antony; winters with him in Alexandria... love, sigh!

C. The Donations of Alexandria; Antony gives east to his children; names Caesarion (Caesar’s bastard) heir to empire

D. Augustan Propaganda: Antony proposes to marry Cleopatra; Triumvirate expires in 33; attacks on Antony begin (Propertius 3.11)

E. Antony / Dionysos vs. Octavian / Apollo: Antony’s revels at Ephesus; Octavian’s temple to Apollo (next to his house)

F. Antony’s will: Antony wishes to be buried next to Cleopatra, in Alexandria (and “move capital to Egypt”); Augustus builds Mausoleum in Rome and affixes Res gestae = services to Rome

G. Battle of Actium: (31) Foreign war; naval battle in Greece won by Agrippa; Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide

III. War-Weary generation

A. 100 years of Civil War (133-30 BC)

Gracchi (130s-120s); Marius v. Sulla (88-83); Proscriptions 82; Riots (50s); Pompey v. Caesar (60s-45); Ides of March (44); Philippi (42); Actium and Alexandria (31-30BC)

B. Augustus' triumphal return to Rome:

-Velleius 2.89 "Peace was reestablished and the madness of armed conflict was assuaged"

-Augustus lives up to the opportunity

IV. Augustan Settlement

A. Preliminaries: reduce armies (60 >> 28 legions); Consulship (9 times 31-23); reduce senate

B. Settlement of 27

-Offer to resign rejected

-Senate grants super province: Spain, Gaul, Syria, Cilicia, Egypt (control of armies); controlled by legati

-"Imperator" (general) and “Augustus”

-Magistracies restored (Res publica restituta = the Republic restored)

C. Settlement of 23 = powers revised

-resign consulship

-Tribunicia potestas (tribunician power): summon senate and assemblies; veto; auxilium (aid) = Civilian powers

-Imperium proconsulare maius (greater consular power): 5 or 10 year grants = Military powers

D. 19 powers revised again

permanent consular power and censorial powers added to above

E. Authority

-Auctoritas (authority): “I possess no more power than the others”; Princeps (first citizen) = prince; “Principate”; "Augustus"

-Military: Imperator (general >> then emperor); monopoly on triumph

-Religious: Pontifex Maximus (chief priest) from 12 BC

-Moral: shield of virtues; civic crown (for saving citizens); Pater patriae (father of the country)

V. "He edged forward bit by bit"

-Powers = concatenation of Republican offices