Augustus

Title of Octavian (born Gaius Octavius), first Roman emperor 31 BC–AD 14. He joined forces with Mark Antony and Lepidus in the Second Triumvirate. Following Mark Antony's liaison with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, Augustus defeated her troops at Actium in 31 BC. As emperor he reformed the government of the empire, the army, and Rome's public services, and was a patron of the arts. The period of his rule is known as the Augustan Age.

Born in Rome, Octavian was the son of the senator Gaius Octavius and Atia, niece of Julius Caesar. He was elected to the college of pontiffs at the age of 15 or 16 and on Caesar's death Caesar's will declared him his adopted son and principal heir, and he took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (though he himself preferred to omit ‘Octavianus’). Octavian had one child, Julia, by his first wife, Scribonia.

The Second Triumvirate
Following the murder of Caesar in 44 BC, Octavian allied himself with the senatorial party and with the consuls Hirtius and Pansa defeated Mark Antony at Mutina in 43 BC. In the same year he was made consul and formed, with Mark Antony and Lepidus, the Second Triumvirate, an agreement to divide up the Roman world between them and rule together for five years. Proscriptions followed, in which some 2,000 knights and 300 senators lost their lives. Brutus and Cassius, who had control of the eastern Roman provinces and the support of the republicans, were defeated at Philippi in 42 BC, effectively bringing the Republic to an end. A fresh distribution of the provinces was made in 40 BC, Octavian taking the western provinces, Antony the eastern provinces, and Lepidus Africa. The alliance was cemented by a marriage between Mark Antony and Octavian's sister, Octavia.

With the help of his friend and exact contemporary Agrippa, Octavian then defeated Sextus Pompeius in 36 BC. Lepidus was forced to retire and Octavian proceded to establish his own authority with the help most notably of the brilliant general Agrippa. He won public confidence in his administration.

Battle of Actium
While Octavian had consolidated his hold on the western part of the Roman dominion, Mark Antony had formed a liaison with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, and had spent most of his time at Alexandria. The Senate declared war against Cleopatra in 31 BC. Octavian's fleet, commanded by Agrippa, annihilated the combined fleet of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium off the northwest coast of Greece in 31 BC and Alexandria was captured in 30 BC, when Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. Octavian's supremacy was now unchallenged.

The principate
Octavian spent the next few years using his irregular and absolute power to consolidate his position. He returned to Italy in the summer of 29 BC and was hailed as the saviour of Rome and the restorer of peace after 20 years of war and civil strife. In 28/27 BC he inaugurated the system of government known as the ‘principate’. He resigned his extraordinary powers and the republican constitution was in outward form restored, but Octavian had the controlling hand. He received from the Senate the title of Augustus (‘venerable’), and an extended proconsular command, which gave him control of the bulk of the army. In 23 BC he resigned the consulship which he had held every year since 31 BC. In return, he received certain specific consular prerogatives, and the tribunician power to introduce legislation and veto most acts of state, and his proconsular authority (imperium) was made superior to that of all other proconsuls. By the end of his reign all but one of Rome's legions were under his direct control.

Foreign policy
From the end of 27 BC until the autumn of 19 BC, Augustus was absent from Rome pacifying and reorganizing the provinces, first in the west and then in the east. In 18 BC his imperium, or supreme command, was renewed for five years. From 16 BC to 13 BC he was again absent, strengthening and extending the northern frontiers. His imperium was renewed for another five years when he returned.

Throughout this period, and thereafter, Gallia Comata, most of Spain, the Balkans, Syria, and Egypt were under his direct control, and administered for him by his own legates and prefects.

Augustus established a firm frontier for the empire: to the north, the friendly Batavians held the Rhine delta, and then the line followed the course of the Rhine and Danube; to the east, the Parthians were friendly, and the Euphrates gave the next line; to the south, the African colonies were protected by the desert; to the west were Spain and Gaul. The provinces were governed either by imperial legates responsible to the princeps or by proconsuls appointed by the Senate.

Administrative reforms
An able administrator, Augustus made the army a profession, with fixed pay and length of service, and a permanent fleet was established. During his reign Rome gained an adequate water supply, a fire brigade, a police force, and a large number of public buildings. In his programme of reforms Augustus received the support of three loyal and capable helpers, Agrippa, Maecenas, and his wife Livia.

Later years of Augustus' reign
After the death of Lepidus in 13/12 BC Augustus was elected pontifex maximus. The years after 12 BC were marked by private and public calamities: the marriage of Augustus' daughter Julia to his stepson Tiberius proved disastrous; a serious revolt occurred in Pannonia in AD 6; and in Germany three legions under Varus were annihilated in the Teutoberg Forest in AD 9. Augustus died at Nola in AD 14 at the age of 76. Augustus' chosen successors, Marcellus, Agrippa, and his grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, had all died before him, but he was finally able to pass on his power to his stepson and adopted son, Tiberius.

The principate of Augustus saw a great flowering of architecture and literature. (Augustus boasted that he ‘found Rome brick and left it marble’.) The major literary figures included Livy, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid.