Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor by Anthony Everitt (PDF)

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He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. As Rome’s first emperor, Augustus transformed the unruly Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, for all of Western history to follow. Yet, despite Augustus’s accomplishments, very few biographers have concentrated on the man himself, instead choosing to chronicle the age in which he lived. Here, Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of Cicero, gives a spellbinding and intimate account of his illustrious subject. Augustus began his career as an inexperienced teenager plucked from his studies to take center stage in the drama of Roman politics, assisted by two school friends, Agrippa and Maecenas. Augustus’s rise to power began with the assassination of his great-uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and culminated in the titanic duel with Mark Antony and Cleopatra.The world that made Augustus–and that he himself later remade–was driven by intrigue, sex, ceremony, violence, scandal, and naked ambition. Everitt has taken some of the household names of history–Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Antony, Cleopatra–whom few know the full truth about, and turned them into flesh-and-blood human beings.At a time when many consider America an empire, this stunning portrait of the greatest emperor who ever lived makes for enlightening and engrossing reading. Everitt brings to life the world of a giant, rendered faithfully and sympathetically in human scale. A study of power and political genius, Augustusis a vivid, compelling biography of one of the most important rulers in history.

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Editorial Reviews: About the Author Anthony Everitt, visiting professor in the visual and performing arts at Nottingham Trent University, has written extensively on European culture, has contributed to The Guardian and Financial Times, and is the author of Cicero. He once served as secretary general of the Arts Council of Great Britain. Everitt lives near Colchester, England’s first recorded town, founded by the Romans. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 SCENES FROM A PROVINCIAL CHILDHOOD 63–48 b.c. Velletri is a compact hill town about twenty-five miles southeast of Rome. It lies at the southern edge of the Alban Hills, overlooking a wide plain and distant mountains. The walk from the railway station to the center is a steep, hot climb. Little remains of ancient Velitrae, but signs of the Renaissance are to be found everywhere. In the main square stands an old fountain with battered lions spouting water. The streets leading off the piazza are roughly parallel and are gridded, echoing the original pattern of the old Roman vici. At the town’s highest point, where the citadel must have been, a sixteenth-century palazzo communale, which combines the functions of town hall and museum, was built on the foundations of a Roman building. Here, on a stone platform, the modern life-size statue in bronze of a man in his late teens gazes blankly from empty eye sockets into the far distance, contemplating the life that has yet to unfold. This is Gaius Octavius, Rome’s future ruler Augustus: for Velitrae was his hometown and Velletri is proud to celebrate his memory. Gaius would recognize the lay of the land, the rise and fall of streets and alleys, perhaps the layout, certainly the views. Now as then, this is a provincial place, which seems farther from the capital city than it really is. Change has always come slowly. The community leaves a powerful impression of being self-contained and a little isolated. Even today, elderly locals squint blackly at strangers. A certain dour feeling for tradition, a suspicion of newfangled ways, a belief in propriety, have always been typical of provincial life in towns such as Velitrae, and it would be hard to imagine a more conventional family than that into which Gaius Octavius was born in 63 b.c. Every Roman boy received a praenomen, or forename, such as Marcus, Lucius, Sextus—or Gaius. Then came his clan name, or nomen, such as Octavius. Some but not all Romans also had a cognomen, which signified a family subset of a clan. Successful generals were sometimes awarded a hereditary agnomen; for example, Publius Cornelius Scipio added Africanus to his existing names, in honor of his victory over Hannibal in north Africa. By contrast, girls were only known, inconveniently, by the feminine version of their nomen; so Gaius’ two sisters were both known as Octavia. An important feature of the infant Gaius’ inheritance was that, although like most Italians the Octavii held Roman citizenship, they were not of “Roman” stock. Velitrae was an outpost on the borders of Latium, home of the Latin tribes that, centuries before, had been among the first conquests of the aggressive little settlement beside a ford on the river Tiber. Two hundred years before Gaius’ birth, Rome finally united the tribes and communities of central and southern Italy through a network of imposed treaties. The men of these lands provided the backbone of the legions and were eventually, as late as the eighties b.c., incorporated into the Republic as full citizens. The little boy grew up with a clear impression of the contribution that Rome’s onetime opponents were making to its imperial greatness, a contribution not always fully recognized by the chauvinists in the capital. In a real sense, the Roman empire would be better called the Italian empire. The Octavii were a well-respected local family of considerable means. A Vicus Octavius, or Octavius Street, ran through Velitrae’ s center (just as a Via Ottavia does today), past an altar consecrated by a long-ago ancestor. The family seems to have been in trade, a sure sign that it was not of aristocratic status. Gaius’ paternal great-grandfather fought in Sicily as a military tribune (a senior officer in a legion, or regiment) during the second war against the great merchant state of Carthage in northern Africa (218 to 201 b.c.). Carthage’ s comprehensive defeat was the first indication to the Mediterranean world that a new military power had arrived on the scene. Gaius’ grandfather, who lived to an advanced age, was well-off, but had no ambitions for a career in national politics, being apparently content to hold local political office. Later hostile gossip claimed that the great-grandfather was an ex-slave who, having won his freedom, made a living as a rope maker in the neighborhood of Thurii, a town in Italy’s deep south. It was also rumored that the grandfather was a money changer, with “coin-stained hands.” Friendly propagandists took a different tack and invented a fictitious link with a blue-blooded Roman clan of the same name. When he came to write his memoirs many years afterward, Gaius merely noted that he “came from a rich old equestrian family.” The equites, or knights, were the affluent middle class, occupying a political level below that of the nobility and members of the ruling Senate, but often overlapping with them socially. To qualify for equestrian status, they needed to own property worth more than 400,000 sesterces, and were not actively engaged in government. They were usually wealthy businessmen or landed gentry who preferred to avoid the expense and dangers of a political career. Many were contracted by the state to collect taxes on its behalf from the provinces. By the time of the boy’s father, also named Gaius Octavius, the family had become seriously rich, and probably far exceeded the equestrian minimum. The father Octavius, an ambitious man, decided to pursue a career in politics at Rome with a view to making his way, if he could, to the top. This was an extremely difficult project. The Roman constitution was a complicated contraption of checks and balances, and the odds were stacked against an outsider—a novus homo, or “new man”—from winning a position of authority. Rome became a republic in 509 b.c., after driving out its king and abolishing the monarchy. The next two centuries saw a long struggle for power between a group of noble families, patricians, and ordinary citizens, plebeians, who were excluded from public office. The outcome was an apparent victory for the people, but the old aristocracy, supplemented by rich plebeian nobles, still controlled the state. What looked in many ways like a democracy was, in fact, an oligarchy modified by elections. The Roman constitution was the fruit of many compromises and developed into a complicated mix of laws and unwritten understandings. Power was widely distributed and there were multiple sources of decision-making. Roman citizens (only men, for women did not have the vote) attended public meetings called assemblies, where they passed laws and elected politicians to govern the Republic. These leaders doubled as generals in time of war. Although in theory any citizen could stand for public office, candidates usually came from a small group of very rich, noble families. If successful, politicians passed through a set sequence of different jobs, a process called the cursus honorum or honors race. The first step on the ladder, taken at the age of thirty or above (in practice, younger men were often elected), was to become one of a number of quaestors; this post entailed supervising the collection of taxes and making payments, either for the consuls in Rome or for provincial governors. Then, if he wished, a man could be elected one of four aediles, who were responsible for the administration of the city of Rome. During festivals they staged public entertainments at their own expense, so deep pockets were needed. The next position, that of praetor, was compulsory. Praetors were senior officers of state, responsible for presiding as judges in the law courts and, when required, to lead an army in the field. At the top of the pyramid were two consuls, who were heads of government with supreme authority; they were primarily army commanders and conveners of the Senate and assemblies. Consuls and praetors held imperium, officially sanctioned absolute power, although they were constrained in three important ways. First, they held office only for one year. Second, there were always two or more officeholders at the same level. Those of equal rank were allowed to veto anything that their colleagues or junior officeholders decided. Finally, if they broke the law, officeholders could face criminal charges once they were out of office. On top of that, ten tribunes of the people were elected, whose task was to make sure that officeholders did nothing to harm ordinary Romans (patricians were not allowed to be tribunes). They could propose laws to the Senate and the people and were empowered to convene citizens’ assemblies. The tribunes held power only within the city limits, where they could veto any officeholder’s decisions, including another tribune’s. The power of the assemblies was limited. They approved laws—but only those that were laid before them. Speakers supported or opposed a proposed measure, but open debate was forbidden; all that citizens were allowed to do was vote. There were different kinds of assembly, each with its own rules: in the assembly that elected praetors and consuls, for example, the voting system was weighted in favor of property owners in the belief that they would act with care because they had the most to lose if any mistakes were made. The Roman constitution made it so easy to stop decisions from being made that it is rather surprising that anything at all got done. The Romans realized that sometimes it might be necessary to override the constitution. In a grave emergency, for a maximum of six months, a dictator was appointed who held sole power and could act as he saw fit. The Roman Senate was mainly recruited from officeholders. By Octavius’ day, a quaestor automatically became a lifelong member, and he and his family joined Rome’s nobility (if he was not already a member of it). Senators were prohibited by law from engaging in business, although many used agents or front men to circumvent the ban. In theory, the Senate held little official power and its role was merely to advise the consuls. However, because the Senate was a permanent feature of the government, whereas consuls and other officeholders had fixed terms, its authority and influence were very great. It was responsible for managing foreign affairs, and it discussed laws before they were presented to the assemblies. Its decrees, although not legally binding, were usually obeyed. The Senate appointed former consuls and praetors, called proconsuls and propraetors (Octavius was one), to rule Rome’s provinces, usually for between one and three years. The equites, who as has been mentioned were not members of the Senate, formed a second social class, mainly comprising businessmen and country gentry. Beneath them came ordinary citizens, listed in different categories according to their wealth. The poorest citizens were capite censi, the “head count.” Modern governments employ many thousands of administrators who carry out their decisions. This was not the case during the Roman Republic. There were no bureaucrats, apart from a few clerks who looked after the public treasury. There was no police force, no public postal system, and no fire service, and there were no banks. There was no public criminal prosecution or judicial service, and cases were brought by private citizens. Elected politicians acted as judges in the law courts. The consuls brought in servants and slaves from their households, as well as personal friends, to help run the government. Gaius Octavius won a quaestorship, probably in 70 b.c., and joined the Senate. This was no mean achievement for a country gentleman outside the magic circle of Roman politics. The promise of political success brought with it an important benefit: a wife from one of Rome’s great patrician clans. Octavius was already married to a woman of whom history has recorded nothing except for her name, Ancharia. The couple had a daughter, and perhaps Ancharia died in childbirth, for families with only one child were rare, especially if the child was a girl. Her family was of obscure origin; she may have come from Velitrae or thereabouts. She would have been no help to an ambitious young man’s career and, if alive, must have been divorced. Her removal from the scene enabled Octavius to achieve a splendid alliance, when he married Atia, a member of the Julian family. The Julii traced their ancestry to before the city’s foundation, traditionally set at 753 b.c. The legend went that when, after a ten-year siege, the Greeks sacked the city of Troy on what is now the Turkish coast near the Dardanelles, they killed or enslaved most of the leading Trojans. One exception was Aeneas, the son of the love goddess Venus and a handsome young warrior. He escaped the city’s destruction with some followers and after many adventures made landfall in Latium. His son Iulus (sometimes also called Ascanius) founded the Julian dynasty. By the first century b.c., high birth was not sufficient to guarantee political success. Money was also required, and in large quantities. The Julii were impoverished; for long generations few of them had won important posts in the honors race. Like aristocratic families before and since that fall on hard times, they used marriage as a means of income generation. The current head of the family, Gaius Julius Caesar, was a rising politician in his late thirties, about the same age as Octavius. Talented, amusing, and fashionable, he had a voracious appetite for cash and had built up enormous debts to feed both his lifestyle and his career. One of his sisters married Marcus Atius Balbus, a local worthy from Aricia, a town not far from Velitrae. Balbus was not prominent in public life and his greatest attraction must have lain in the fact that he was a man of substance. As a new man, Octavius knew that his dubious ancestry would damage his career. A commodious dowry would be of value in a wife, but what he really needed was entrée into the Roman nobility. As a niece of Julius Caesar, Balbus’ daughter Atia was well placed to make that possible. Because the Balbi lived not far from Octavius’ home base of Velitrae, they may well have traveled in the same social circles. In that case, Atia formed an ambitious man’s bridge from provincial life to Rome. Sometime before 70 b.c., the couple married and, in due course, Atia became pregnant. Disappointingly, the outcome was a second daughter. Five or six years passed before another child arrived: a son, this time, Gaius. He was born just before sunrise on September 23, 63 b.c., at Ox Heads, a small property on the slopes of the fashionable Palatine Hill, a few minutes’ walk from Rome’s main square, the Forum, and the Senate House. By tradition, the paterfamilias held the power of life and death over his household, both his relatives and his slaves. When a child was born, the midwife took the infant and placed it on the floor in front of the father. Should the father wish to acknowledge his paternity, he would lift the baby into his arms if it was a boy; if a girl, he would simply instruct that she be fed. Only after this ritual had taken place did the child receive his or her first nourishment.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This book is not only very informative but easy to read, it’s written in a very understandable and sometimes humorous way. I liked this book so much I bought 3 others by the same author and can’t wait to read them as well.

⭐This is a bio that covers the facts of Augustus’ career and personal life, with some interpretation on controversies (such as Livia’s purported murders). However, it only barely mentions the wider context – what was happening to the Empire, what the political changes meant, what it was like to live then. There was a lack of density to the writing, or it seemed an inability on the author’s part to push beyond the surface of events. As such, I was continually disappointed in the reading experience.Augustus is one of those figures that appears at historical watersheds: he embodies and also shapes his time, setting in motion forces that will dominate whole peoples for centuries. He started out in the country as Octavian, in a peripheral branch of the Julii family, of which Julius Caesar is the most famous. Somehow, perhaps on the way back from the Spanish civil wars, he was able to impress his great uncle Julius, who made him his heir just prior to his assassination. Octavian then became Octavius (a name change that Everitt inexplicably reverses), and at 19 is an aspirant to the center of political power in the world’s greatest empire.Rome at that time was facing a terrible dilemma: the institutions of the Republic were unable to cope with the complexities of the empire. In a way, governance by the Senate was amateurish, attention could not be focused on issues that needed resolution, and there were more opportunities to block action than to undertake it. This resulted in a drift towards autocracy, initiated by military leaders who commanded troups loyal only to their person in large part because political rivalries in the Senate hindered the great generals from taking care of their troups’ retirement promises.Octavius and Marc Antony were the two remaining Caesarians after the assassination of Julius, bitter rivals by temperament and thirst for power. Once Octavius emerged victorious, he consolidated power by maintaining the appearance of the Republic’s institutions while holding military power with proconsular imperium in the largest nearby colonies. At this time, he had a few trusted allies, Agrippa and Maecenas, who accomplished, respectively, great things in terms of rebuilding the EMpire and establishing its images of power. The result was a centrally controlled state that could implement long-terms policies of reform under the rule of law, with rights extended to members of the Empire, co-opting them into the Roman system as stakeholders. This is a political accomplishment of genius.While this is ably covered in the book, it fails to push into new territory, such as questioning whether the Republic had to end the way that it did or if there might have been another way that would have left the future open to evolution in a more pliant manner than pure autocracy. In a way, it was a return to kingship with another name, the pattern that survived in most of the world into the 20C. It was the end of the great experiments in republican government in the ancient world.Could it have been different? What might have happened had the Republic been preserved in a new form? What experiments in government might have been possible? These are paths that the author did not explore – there is no political theory in the book, and I felt that it cried out for it. In contrast, Heather’s Fall of the Roman Empire, addresses many of these questions at a later period: it is a profound inquiry into the meaning of the late Empire. I was hoping for the same about the establishment of the Empire by Octavius, and this book did not provide it. Perhaps this is unfair, but I wanted much more. There is virtually nothing, for example, on the social implications of the transition: to fund their civil war, Octavius and Anthony essentially decimated the nobiles (the old oligarchy) to expropriate their real estate for auction and then payment for their soldiers. This made the restoration of the Republic impossible and established the autocracy for good, i.e. exchanged liberty for order and security from civil war.Instead, the author looks at the personal relationships within Augustus’ “Divine Family” and his never-ending search for an heir. Even here, which should be covered of course, he comes short. Livia is portrayed as a simple loving wife of great intelligence: Everitt dismisses any speculation on whether she murdered potential heirs as the crude stereotypes of evil step mothers. Maybe, but there is no way to know. Again, I wanted much more and felt continually disappointed in the conventionality of Everitt’s approach.Recommended only as the most superficial introduction. This book just isn’t a full meal.

⭐Augustus, by British historian Anthony Everitt, is a detailed biography of Rome’s first emperor. A few aspects of Octavian’s (Augustus’ name before the Senate voted him the honorific “Augustus”) that I found particularly interesting include the following.1. Octavian was a favorite of his great uncle, Julius Caesar. Caesar invited him to join his military staff for the campaign in Spain against Pompey’s sons at the end of the civil war. However, Octavian’s health was less than robust and he arrived in Spain just as the campaign was ending.2. In another attempt to provide Octavian with military experience, Caesar sent him to Illyricum along with six legions that Caesar had deployed there as the initial part of an army he planned to lead against the Parthian Empire. Just as Caesar was preparing to leave Rome to join this army, he was assassinated. As Caesar’s adopted heir, Octavian also inherited the loyalty of Caesar’s veterans, placing him at the head of a formidable army that was already motivated to avenge their fallen commander. This force placed him, as a very young man, in a position to negotiate a role as co-leader of the Caesarian faction along with Mark Antony.3. Octavian did not inherit Caesar’s military genius. Throughout the civil wars, he depended on more capable commanders for victory. His alliance with Mark Antony defeated the republican forces of Cassius and Brutus. In the subsequent civil war with Antony for absolute supremacy, he depended on his old friend Agrippa for both strategy and tactical leadership.4. Octavian’s genius was as a political leader. As the sole ruler of the Roman Empire after defeating Antony, Octavian was astute enough to recognize the three dominant problems he faced. First, he needed to end the series of civil wars that had plagued Rome for almost a century. Under the Republic, former consuls were placed in command of substantial armies to govern provinces or fight neighboring tribes. All too frequently, these armies were used by their commanders against other Roman armies to advance their own political careers. Consequently, Octavian’s second problem was that in order to end the pattern of civil wars, he needed to drastically change the way Roman Republic was run. His third problem was that any overt move to drastically change the Republic would almost certainly lead to a new civil war with the still powerful republican elements. Octavian solved these three problems by maintaining the power of a sole ruler but adhering to the practices of the Republic, in form is not in substance. He was repeatedly elected consul, he consulted regularly and respectfully with the Senate, and he refused to take any royal title, referring to himself as princeps, first citizen.5. Octavian’s political genius failed him in his attempt to provide the basis for a stable regime following his death. The selection of subsequent rulers soon reverted to the prior pattern based on armed force.

⭐A couple of years ago on a visit to Rome, I came across, almost by accident, the Mausoleum of Caesar Augustus. It had just been reopened. Even as a renovated ruin it is impressive so imagine what it must have been like when it was built so many years ago. My interest in the first Emperor was piqued and bought Everitt’s book.And thoroughly enjoyed it!In the introduction the author sets out the difficulties of writing about people and events in ancient times. He lets the reader know that in many cases he had to rely on works written long after the events they describe and often the authors had their own political agenda. Many times in the book he admits that due to the limitations of historical sources we don’t know the reason for or details of events mentioned.Given the limitations described above Everitt has done a fine job. We get a great insight into the public and private lives of Augustus (AKA Octavian). He was a rather peculiar character in many ways. Brought up in a well off but not very influential rural family a prominent public life seemed unlikely. However his adoption by his great-uncle Julius Caesar opened many doors for him. He used his connection to the great man throughout his life. However he was completely different to Julius. That may explain why he was assassinated and Augustus lived a long life!His record as a general is mixed to say the least, which surprised me. His tendency to get ill before major battles is interesting. More than once he relied on better generals such as Agrippa to garner vital victories for him, though that didn’t stop him from often taking the credit for them.However it was as a cool and calculating politician that he was at his best. His triumphs over Brutus, Cassius, Mark Anthony and others were as much the fruits of political manoeuvrings as of the military victories that marked their end.Despite ending the Roman Republic Augustus always supported traditional Republican values. He saw see his dictatorship as a necessity caused by the instability caused by Republican politics but seemed to genuinely believe in ancient values such as the need for noblemen to do public service. He at least pretended to take heed of the views of the Senate. In this way he differed from Julius Caesar, a genuine revolutionary.The author does a great job in describing and explaining the extensive political and military events through Augustus’ life. He also describes the relationships that influenced his (often intermingled) personal and political lives. Of course the names of the people in Augustus’ life jump off the page: Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Anthony, Brutus, Cassius Tiberius and Agrippa. At the end of this book I wanted to find out more about all these characters as well.In summary a highly enjoyable historical book.

⭐This is a wonderfully well written book which has none of the dryness of some historical writers who shall remain anonymous for legal reasons. I have to admit that the Roman Empire has been a fascinating subject for me since I was a wee boy of ten or so and I am 67 now. I bought this book on the back of Conn Igguldens fantastic historical novels about Julius Caesar and in particular the last book in that series which dealt with the aftermath of Caesar’s brutal murder in the form of the retribution metred out to his murderers by Octavian/Augustus. An interesting fact is that none of the assailants died of natural causes.

⭐A magnificent and well written life of this great Roman who dominated his Empire’s public life for half a century and gave his name to a title used by his successors, a month of the year and a modern English adjective. He created the idea of Western Europe. The author’s style is partly chronological and partly thematic, dictated by the paucity of surviving sources for the second half of Augustus’s life as helmsman of the Roman world, a surprising state of affairs for such a prominent subject. A great read.

⭐This was just what I wanted for teaching Classical Civilisation AS Level, Imperial Image. Nice to have a range of sources.

⭐An engaging and highly readable account of Augustus’ life and career.

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