Augustus Golden Sources

• Res Gestae 25 (Augustus’ view of Actium)​

  ‘The whole of Italy of its own free will swore allegiance to me and demanded me as the leader in the war in which I was victorious at Actium.’
• Velleius Paterculus 2.89 (After Actium)​

  ‘The civil wars were ended after twenty years, foreign wars suppressed, peace restored, the frenzy of arms everywhere lulled to rest;’
• Horace 4.15 (After Actium)​

  ‘With Caesar protecting the state, no civil disturbance will banish the peace, no violence’
• Virgil Aeneid 8.671 (The Battle of Actium)​

  ‘On one side Augustus Caesar stands on the high stern, leading the Italians to the conflict, with him the Senate, the People, the household gods, the great gods, his happy brow shoots out twin flames, and his father’s star is shown on his head.’
• Inscription from the (TRIPLE) Triumphal Arch of Octavian 29 BC​

  ‘The Senate and People of Rome (set this up) in honour of Imperator Caesar… to commemorate the preservation of the state.'
• Suetonius 23 (Disaster of Varus)​

  ‘They say, indeed, that he was so troubled that he cut neither beard nor hair for several months, and would beat his head against the door, crying: ‘Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!’ And he always observed the anniversary of the disaster as a day of grief and mourning.’
• Capture of Egypt Denarius​

  ‘Egypt is Captured’ 
• Res Gestae 26​

  I extended the territory of all those provinces of the Roman people on whose borders lay peoples not subject to our government. I brought peace to the Gallic and Spanish provinces as well as to Germany, 
• Res Gestae 34 (On the 1st settlement)​

  In my sixth and seventh consulships [28-27 BC] … I transferred the republic from my power to the dominion of the senate and people of Rome. For this service of mine I was named Augustus by decree of the senate… After this time I excelled all in influence [auctoritas], although I possessed no more official power [potestas] than others who were my colleagues in the several magistracies. 
• Cassius Dio 53.17 (On the 2nd settlement)​

  The tribunician power… gives them the right to nullify the effects of measures taken by any other official, in case they do not approve it, and … they may destroy the guilty party, as one accursed, without a trial.
• Horace Odes 3.6 (On the corruption of society)​

  Our age, fertile in its wickedness, has first defiled the marriage bed, our offspring, and homes: 
• Lost Aureus showing Augustus raising a fallen res publica 12BC​

  Augustus wearing a toga extends his right hand to a kneeling personification of the Roman state.
• Res Gestae 8

  The role of Censor
• Census of the people

  1. Performed a lustrum after a lapse of forty-two years

  2. 4,063,000 Roman citizens were registered
• Second lustrum with consular imperium and without a colleague

  1. In the consulship of Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius [8 BC]

  2. 4,233,000 citizens were registered
• Third lustrum with consular imperium, with Tiberius Caesar, my son, as colleague

  1. In the consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius [AD 14]

  2. 4,957,000 citizens were registered
• Julian Laws 18BC
• Virgil Aeneid 6.792 (On Augustus)​

  Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified, who will make a Golden Age again
• Commemoration of Actium:​

  Inscription from Nikopolis 29BC​

  ‘Imperator Caesar, son of the deified Julius, having won a naval victory in the war which he waged on behalf of the state’
• Celebration of Actium:​

  Suetonius 18​

  • He founded a city, Nicopolis, opposite Actium, to augment the glory of his victory and perpetuate its memory.
• Links to Rome’s mythological past:​

  Virgil’s Aeneid Prophecy of Jupiter 29-19BC​

  ‘’From this glorious source a Trojan Caesar will be born, who will bound the empire with Ocean, his fame with the stars, Augustus, a Julius’
• Praise of Augustus – Suggestion of his divinity​

  Horace’s Ode to Augustus 1.2 30-13BC​

  ‘’Or you, winged son of kindly Maia (goddess), changing shape on earth to human form’
• Tacitus, Annals 1.10.6​

  ‘There were no honours left for the gods, now that Augustus chose to be worshipped with temples and godlike images by flamines and priests’
• Denarius of Augustus 16 BC​

  Reverse – Four symbols of priesthoods ‘Imperator Caesar Augustus, consul for the eleventh time’ 
• Altar to numen of Augustus AD12 - Gaul​

  To worship Augustus’ ‘numen’ (divine aspect). This shows an attempt in the provinces to worship Augustus.
• Augustan Lares Inscription 7BC​

  Augustus was introducing the cult of his own protective spirits. Adding divinity to his name.
• Ovid Fasti 5.140-58​

  Rome has a thousand twin Lares now, and a leader’s Genius, whose gift Bestowed them. Every district now pays honour to its three divinities. I ramble. For to this theme Augustus’ month lays claim.
• Suetonius 30​

  Augustus created city districts and wards, with the former under magistrates chosen by lot, and the latter under locally elected supervisors. He organised a night-watch to guard against fires, located in a series of stations, and to prevent flooding, broadened and dredged the Tiber channel, which had been narrowed by jutting houses and blocked with rubbish.
• Suetonius 37​

  Augustus, wishing to draw more candidates into the administration, created new offices to deal with the maintenance of roads, aqueducts and buildings; the dredging of the Tiber; and the distribution of grain; as well as a City prefecture
• Edicts of Cyrene 7/6 BCE ​

  This was evidence for Augustus being personally involved in the management of provinces. It concerned jury composition and citizenship in the province of Cyrene in Africa. It showed how the existence of the Princeps allowed everyone to appeal to the head of state rather than a faceless autocracy.
• Pliny the Elder 36.121​

  During his aedileship Agrippa added to the existing aqueducts the Aqua Virgo, as well as combining or repairing the channels of the others. He also added some 700 reservoirs, 500 fountains, and 130 cisterns, a number of which were elaborately decorated. 
• Res Gestae 20​

  I restored the Capitol and the theatre of Pompey, both works at great expense without inscribing my own name on either. I restored the channels of the aqueducts, which in several places were falling into disrepair through age, and I brought water from a new spring into the aqueduct called Marcia, doubling the supply. 
• Res Gestae 8​

  In my fifth consulship [29 BC] I increased the number of patricians on the instructions of the people and the senate. I revised the roll of the senate three times.
• Ovid Fasti 2.119-144​

  Pater Patriae, your country’s Holy Father, such is the name and title Conferred upon you by People, Senate, and my own Equestrians.
• Res Gestae 15​

  To each member of the Roman plebs I paid under my father's will 300 sesterces [44 BC], and in my own name I gave them 400 each from the booty of war in my fifth consulship 29 BC
• Res Gestae 22​

  I gave three gladiatorial games in my own name
• Tacitus Annals 6.11​

  Again, during the civil wars, Augustus nominated Cilnius Maecenas of the equestrian order to oversee Rome and Italy
• Suetonius Augustus 19​

  He later suppressed a number of rebellious outbreaks, revolutionary plots and conspiracies…’
• Velleius Paterculus 2.88​

  Account of the Lepidus plot, caught by Gaius Maecenas.​

  ‘crushing Lepidus with wonderful swiftness and without causing disturbance to either men or things he extinguished the portentous beginnings of a new and reviving civil war’
• Seneca the Younger On Clemency 1.9​

  At last his wife Livia interrupted him, saying: "Will you take a woman's advice? Now try what effect clemency will have: pardon Lucius Cinna. He has been detected, he cannot now do you any harm, and he can do your reputation much good." Delighted at finding someone to support his own view of the case, he thanked his wife, straightway ordered his friends, whose counsel he had asked for, to be told that he did not require their advice, and summoned Cinna alone.'