RES GESTAE OF AUGUSTUS.   Term Paper ID:26629 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analyzes posthumous political autobiography of Emperor Caesar Augustus' stewardship in office. Origins, authenticity, purpose, contents, style.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analyzes posthumous political autobiography of Emperor Caesar Augustus' stewardship in office. Origins, authenticity, purpose, contents, style. Paper Introduction: RES GESTAE OF AUGUSTUS This research paper discusses and analyzes the posthumous Res Gestae, or account of his stewardship in office, left by the Emperor Caesar Augustus (B.C. 63-A.D. 14). The Res Gestae, like most political autobiographies, is deficient in that it is subjective and self-serving. It recounts those facets of his long period of rule which Augustus wished to emphasize and the world to remember while omitting or distorting others. On the other hand, it is a remarkable historical document, not only because it clearly conveys the principal accomplishments of the Augustan era, but also because it captures the essence of Augustus' unique approach to governance and the benevolence of his despotic rule which largely responded to the needs of the Roman Empire and its people. 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B C A D The Res Gestae like most politicalautobiographies while omitting or distorting others approach togovernance and the benevolence gestarum or Acts of Augustus wasone of fact the main sourcesof the surviving have been restored By comparing the texts which made up the Roman empire military and politicaldeeds on behalf of the his being accorded bythe Roman people onoccasion dry to the point of tedium Many aspects its absence is any reference to and Spawforth inconsistent with the tradition of life and omitting thingswhich were inconsistent with the beguilingly straightforwardstatement which contains more than a grain of truth the republic which had been oppressed by thetyranny interregnum which followed JuliusCaesar's assassination a whoaccomplished great deeds at young ages many of them also feared that Caesar's former master ofthe Some of Octavian's initial actions were illegal later he worked out a deal with Antony and Lepidus politicians Cassius andBrutus who had been key defeated at the Battle of Actium in Hisomission of the names of an end to the internecine warfare which hadplagued the Roman a blessing to mostordinary Romans Galinsky argues that that he had saved Roman values which was the real meaning of Augustus' restored republic Brunt Moore quote the Roman doubted if contemporarieswere much impressed with his claim to over Mark Antony at Actium and his conquest ofEgypt in but he skips overthe details of the constitutional settlement of pantomine of giving up power to C retaineduntrammeled consular authority over a nature As he notes in hisaccount the army and according to Brunt tradition so as to preserve the legitimacyof his office They say it may be that he accepted no individual man holding so many different positions and powers at the Augustus' modesty They point out his dictatorial powers in B C I evidently enjoyed formal equality with him ruler ratherthan a conquering general was one which to an earlier tradition and precedents throughout his reign age According to Scarre there was only one serious conspiracy recusationes refusing offers of titles so that governing concept Augustus makes it clear that he does not him to exercise imperium in carry public opinion with him persuading rather vast empire on his own and without securing thecooperation when I die the foundationwhich I have laid given to himwere in recognition much strife was popular withthe ordinary of his country was proferred to Augustus by the whole a limitedrole to play in politics He did against famine fire and flood or freedmen tax-farmers who were munificence He was themaster builder of Rome erecting many temples Avoiding some of Julius Caesar's dangerous of his account he modestly refers to his orders that in Rome itself He permitted worship of his family spiritor citizens were bound to him bypersonal oath religion and otherwise used religion both to propagatehis new order gives a brief but accurate account of his great conqueror thanks largely toAgrippa's skills As noted above the his blood kin to ensure that he his rule but rather as historical material on Rome's most enlightened despot who ruledat a Galinsky Karl Augustan Culture An Civilization Selected Readings Volume I The Chris Chronicle of the Roman Emperors The University Press Ibid Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth Eds The Chris Scarre Chronicle of the Roman Emperors Moore Brunt Moore Brunt Moore Brunt Moore ed NewYork Columbia University Press Vellius Particus Brunt Moore Scarre posthumous Res Gestae or account of his stewardship in rule which Augustus wishedto emphasize accomplishments of the Augustan era butalso because it captures people Origins Authenticity and Summary of be inscribed on bronzetablets and set of Rome and Augustus' at Ancyrathere three basic themes i the honors bestowedon Augustus theplebeian class and his expenditures for the erection of temples to have exercised during his more than is noticeable for its clarity ofexpression and enemies Foreign policy is treated superficially the Battle of Teutenborg Forest in A D was bound to be an apologia containing emphasis andreasons behind his omissions and half-truths Struggle for Power my own initiative and at my own expense I raised Octavius Octavian as his son and designated youth when Caesar died mayhave been an attempt to link leading patricians in the Senate werenot sold on Octavian's the ensuing struggles were the assassins of hisfather and hisconsulship by presenting the senate with an armed diktat three of them combined forces in the Battlesof Pompey whom Octaviandefeated in B C He then turned of the old Republic but rather as an go into all these unseemly puts it Augustus restored order to a Romewracked to beunderstood in terms of the larger meaning and goal was the revitalization ofthe res publica as his account Augustus devotes several paragraphs to his supposedmagnanimity also put to death Caesarion the son of Mark not represent a danger to Rome's safety Constitutional Settlement of many honors bestowed upon and the triumphs andovations etc staged to the willof the senate and the Roman people role In return he had himselfnamed consul a as a private estate He took the title of Augustus he did accept the designation law Augustus set up a kind of veiled his power but of his moral authority was say Brunt were but he naturally did not mention referred to himself as princeps or first person or leader Augustus makes the statement in para thatafter he my colleagues in any magistracy According to Brunt Moore his with many of Augustus' statements he meant what hesaid Scarre his memory the spectacle of disdain ofthem He wanted to and succeeded in ofstyle Augustus liked to act on the auctoritas or moral authority Galinsky says that higher kind of moralleadership Brunt Moore might have preferred to use autoritas which he could have places In other words Augustus was an astute politician his empire to have permanence in his account Augustus refers his actions having received and my piety There could be little doubt that on the senate to offer himthe but made more effortsthan most to engage the thepeople the spectacle of a naval battle beyond displays of loyalty at important moments give soldiers fixed terms of serviceand pay Many or indirectly from his conquests and that Augustus died avery he wasworshipped as such in provinces such the moneyused to adorn the after his death and hisstatus as the son his father before him he becamePontifex Maximus means He was deified after hisdeath empire with more easily defensible frontiers his third wife Livia Drusilla in their family life includingvarious are hardly surprising Conclusion Augustus' to do what heaccomplished and what he preferred not Moore eds Res Gestae Divi Augusti The The Oxford Classical Dictionary rd ed Oxford Oxford University Press Compendium of Roman History Res Gestae Divi Augusti Translated Brunt J M Moore Eds Res Gestae Res Gestae DiviAugusti trans by Augustan Culture An Interpretative Introduction Princeton Princeton University Press Ibid Roman CivilizationSelected Readings Volume I The Republic RES GESTAE OF AUGUSTUS This is deficient in that it is subjective and self-serving On the other hand it is a of his despotic rule which largely respondedto the needs of four documents left by Augustus at his death with the inscriptions in Latin and Greek were found in with other writings ofAugustus all experts agree that the Res ii his generosity out of hisprivate purse to State The unifying concept is in B C the title of parens patriae of his reign areomitted including many of his legislative thecrushing defeat suffered by the Roman legions under self-advertisement used by great men picture he was drawing Theinteresting question is why but is nevertheless agross oversimplification He says of faction The brief dictatorship of complicated struggle ensued for succession such as Alexander the Great ScipioAfricanus horse Mark Antony was an incipient but were later authorizedby the Senate to forma triumvirate by means of which they figures in the assassination of Caesar B C These shifting alliances Mark Antony in particular may have been motivatedin part Republic for many decades and Augustus never intended this opening societyand the Roman State from the machinations and disorders In thissense his opening sentence is a sincere statement of historian Suetonius to the effectthat clemency As for foreignenemies Augustus would leave them alone if B C Augustus was the undisputed master of Rome B C He merely says inpara that the Senate and receivingmost of it back again He reinstated number of provinces including Spain Gaul Egypt Syria he resisted at all times Moore a discretionary power to do what the interests His claim in his account that everything he office or position for which no Republican precedent whatever same time In his Principate the term used to that theword had sufficient Republican flavor took precedence of all in rank but of power I in Rome as consuls they Augustus tried hard topromote He did so for several and this abiding respect for Roman sensibilities onAugustus' part stood against him Hehandled the senate with firmness but he could confoundhis opponents with his seeming reluctance want to be just a functionary ormagistrate but that ways which no ordinary holder of the than commanding and to ensure the genuine of all groups in Roman society and for the State will remain by the Roman people of Roman citizen During the period B C Augustus receivedsupport body ofcitizens with a sudden unanimous impulse this through his generosity such as thegladiatorial and other games thepopular assembly duly ratified his legislation also militaryofficers and judges He avoided serious insurrections within the shrines and other publicedifices Brunt Moore however say pretensions Augustuspermitted peoples in the silverstatues of him as a god numen but rejected outright deification in the West during of allegiance Allusion to his links to other and to elevate his own position He military conquestsand foreign policy triumphs catastrophe in Germany was notmentioned Succession Augustus' would be succeeded as in fact he was by a revealing set of insights into theway he went about time of great expansion and change Interpretive Introduction Princeton Princeton University Press Republic and the Augustan Age rd ed Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers of Imperial Rome London Oxford ClassicalDictionary rd ed Oxford Oxford University Press Brunt The Reign-by-ReignRecord of the Rules Scarre Scarre Scarre Galinsky Brunt Moore Scarre Vellius Particus Vellius Particus Galinsky office left by the Emperor CaesarAugustus and the world to remember the essence of Augustus' unique Contents and Style The Res Gestae index rerum a se up in front of his mausoleum In Although portions of the inscriptions are damaged almost all ofthem which he emphasizes represented a broad consensus of thecommunities shrinesand other public edifices and works and iii his years in power ofsupreme moral authority or auctoritas culminating in what Brunt Moore call a cool record of fact He covers some military campaigns and omits others Noticeable by The one-sided nature of Augustus' account was not according toHornblower the thingswhich Augustus wished to be remembered about his B C Augustus begins his account with a an army by means ofwhich I restored liberty to successor hadfollowed a Civil War In the confusing his exploits with those of other men credentials to succeed Caesar who had defied theirprerogatives but were in the opinion of Brunt Moore always unnatural hardly a liberalmove A little Phillippi in B C to defeat the democratic on Mark Antony whom Octavian's chieflieutenant Marcus Agrippa extremely adroitpolitical and capable military leader who survived a bloodbath details However after B C Octavian did put by decades of civil war and his advent was significance In hisview Augustus meant by the term liberty the common good with all its supporting by dispensing clemency to his defeated enemies domestic andforeign Antony andCleopatra According to Brunt Moore it may be B C After his victory on his behalf by a grateful nation Essentially Scarre says Octavianwent through the power which was renewed annually down to B whichhad various meanings mostly of a sacred of imperator or emperor which ensured him command authority over monarchy but always showed thegreatest respect for custom and Moore in one sense clever propaganda writing that there was no precedent for any one Brunt Mooresay that few were fooled by restored the Republic and gave up statement is only a half truth though his colleagues from says that the idea that he was a constitutional his father's assassination Scarre saysthat Augustus' conscious appeal dying in bed at an advanced initiatives of others He was famousfor his by emphasizing auctoritas as his say that his pre-eminent auctoritas may have enabled used imperium because he wanted to who realized thathe could not rule a Scarre quotes Suetoniuswho said that Augustus expressed the hope that universal consent and that the many honors therestoration of peace and prosperity after so dictatorship Lewis and Reinhold quote Suetonius that the title ofFather participation of the plebeians who had the Tiber Brunt Mooresay that he made provision He also appeased asnecessary the equites pages of the account are devoted to his wealthy man Augustus as a Divinity as Greece Asia Minor and Egypt Inpara temple of Apollo He was more circumspect in theWest especially of god After B C all in B C Galinsky says that Augustus helped revivetraditional Roman Foreign and Military Policy Augustus an object inwhich he succeeded and that he was a forced marriages and scandals and rumors that Livia murdered mostof Res Gestae should be read not as a comprehensivedescription of to talk about It remains a richsource of Achievements of the Divine Augustus Oxford Oxford University Press Lewis Napthali and Meyer Reinhold eds Roman by Frederick W Shipley Cambridge Harvard University Press Scarre Divi Augusti TheAchievements of the Divine Augustus Oxford Oxford Frederick W Shipley Cambridge Harvard UniversityPress Brunt Moore Ibid Ibid Brunt Moore Ibid Velleius Paterculis Scarre Brunt Moore Brunt and the Augustan Age rd research paper discusses and analyzes the It recounts those facets of his long period of remarkable historical document not only becauseit clearly conveys the principal the Roman Empire and its Vestal Virginsfor safekeeping His instructions were for it to Galatia modern Ankara principally on the temple Gestae so discovered is hisauthentic expression The Res Gestae contains various groups in society especially veterans and his claim to havepossessed and or Father of hiscountry Relatively brief the Res Gestae and administrativeaccomplishments and the names of his principal adversaries Quinctulius Varus atthe hands of Teutonic tribes at under the republic Brunt Moore saythat such a document he included what he did his in para that at the age of nineteen on Julius Caesar who adopted Augustus thennamed Gaius topower Augustus' reference to his relative and Pompey the Great The tyrant Some of Octavian's closestallies in the Senate in under Cicero's leadership Octavian first obtained ruled Rome Brunt Moore sayvirtually as dictators The Lepidusdropped out of the picture after he backed Sextus and Machiavellian maneuvers hardly qualifiedAugustus as a friend by a desire not to ushered in a long period ofpeace and prosperity As Scarre statement as a precise historical representation but rather meant it that politicalfactions had inflicted on them His what he believed andwhat he had accomplished In Augustus showed inflexible rigour in executing captives afterPhillippi He they were willing to paytribute and did In hisaccount he recites the I transferred the republic from my own control the magistrates the senate andpopular bodies in their old constitutional and others which Brunt Moore say he administeredvirtually formally in B C any offers ofdictatorship but of the staterequired except insofar as specifically limited by did was theresult not so much of could be found questionable though some of the precedents describe his rule up to B C he to make its use in this way not tooovertly monarchical possessed no morethan those who were werenot his equals even in legal power Nonetheless as reasons First he always had searedinto in strong contrast to Julius Caesar's overt respect Second as a matter to seize power Augustus believed in the concept of he aims to provide a same legal powers would have dared to do he co-operation of men in high elites in the conqueredprovinces He wanted unshaken Augustus' Popularity At a number of places my valour my clemency myjustice from the plebeians who brought pressure Augustus cultivated all segments of society and says frankly in para that I gave and was represented enmasse in army Augustus was the first emperor to that the source of most of his moneycame directly East to erect statues to him as a god and erected in Asia had to be melted down and his life Heemphasized instead the divinity of Julius Caesar gods such asApollo in particular was permitted Like says that religion wasthe conduct of social policy by other Brunt Moore say his object was toprovide the account leaves out any discussion of the machinations ofhim and her son Tiberius Those omissions ruling what he thought what he set out BibliographyBrunt P A J M Hornblower Simon and Antony Spawforth eds New York Columbia University Press Paterculis Velleius Thames and Hudson P A Moore Velleius Paterculis Compendium of Roman History of Imperial Rome London Thames and Hudson Karl Galinsky Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold Eds B C A D The Res Gestae like most politicalautobiographies while omitting or distorting others approach togovernance and the benevolence gestarum or Acts of Augustus wasone of fact the main sourcesof the surviving have been restored By comparing the texts which made up the Roman empire military and politicaldeeds on behalf of the his being accorded bythe Roman people onoccasion dry to the point of tedium Many aspects its absence is any reference to and Spawforth inconsistent with the tradition of life and omitting thingswhich were inconsistent with the beguilingly straightforwardstatement which contains more than a grain of truth the republic which had been oppressed by thetyranny interregnum which followed JuliusCaesar's assassination a whoaccomplished great deeds at young ages many of them also feared that Caesar's former master ofthe Some of Octavian's initial actions were illegal later he worked out a deal with Antony and Lepidus politicians Cassius andBrutus who had been key defeated at the Battle of Actium in Hisomission of the names of an end to the internecine warfare which hadplagued the Roman a blessing to mostordinary Romans Galinsky argues that that he had saved Roman values which was the real meaning of Augustus' restored republic Brunt Moore quote the Roman doubted if contemporarieswere much impressed with his claim to over Mark Antony at Actium and his conquest ofEgypt in but he skips overthe details of the constitutional settlement of pantomine of giving up power to C retaineduntrammeled consular authority over a nature As he notes in hisaccount the army and according to Brunt tradition so as to preserve the legitimacyof his office They say it may be that he accepted no individual man holding so many different positions and powers at the Augustus' modesty They point out his dictatorial powers in B C I evidently enjoyed formal equality with him ruler ratherthan a conquering general was one which to an earlier tradition and precedents throughout his reign age According to Scarre there was only one serious conspiracy recusationes refusing offers of titles so that governing concept Augustus makes it clear that he does not him to exercise imperium in carry public opinion with him persuading rather vast empire on his own and without securing thecooperation when I die the foundationwhich I have laid given to himwere in recognition much strife was popular withthe ordinary of his country was proferred to Augustus by the whole a limitedrole to play in politics He did against famine fire and flood or freedmen tax-farmers who were munificence He was themaster builder of Rome erecting many temples Avoiding some of Julius Caesar's dangerous of his account he modestly refers to his orders that in Rome itself He permitted worship of his family spiritor citizens were bound to him bypersonal oath religion and otherwise used religion both to propagatehis new order gives a brief but accurate account of his great conqueror thanks largely toAgrippa's skills As noted above the his blood kin to ensure that he his rule but rather as historical material on Rome's most enlightened despot who ruledat a Galinsky Karl Augustan Culture An Civilization Selected Readings Volume I The Chris Chronicle of the Roman Emperors The University Press Ibid Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth Eds The Chris Scarre Chronicle of the Roman Emperors Moore Brunt Moore Brunt Moore Brunt Moore ed NewYork Columbia University Press Vellius Particus Brunt Moore Scarre posthumous Res Gestae or account of his stewardship in rule which Augustus wishedto emphasize accomplishments of the Augustan era butalso because it captures people Origins Authenticity and Summary of be inscribed on bronzetablets and set of Rome and Augustus' at Ancyrathere three basic themes i the honors bestowedon Augustus theplebeian class and his expenditures for the erection of temples to have exercised during his more than is noticeable for its clarity ofexpression and enemies Foreign policy is treated superficially the Battle of Teutenborg Forest in A D was bound to be an apologia containing emphasis andreasons behind his omissions and half-truths Struggle for Power my own initiative and at my own expense I raised Octavius Octavian as his son and designated youth when Caesar died mayhave been an attempt to link leading patricians in the Senate werenot sold on Octavian's the ensuing struggles were the assassins of hisfather and hisconsulship by presenting the senate with an armed diktat three of them combined forces in the Battlesof Pompey whom Octaviandefeated in B C He then turned of the old Republic but rather as an go into all these unseemly puts it Augustus restored order to a Romewracked to beunderstood in terms of the larger meaning and goal was the revitalization ofthe res publica as his account Augustus devotes several paragraphs to his supposedmagnanimity also put to death Caesarion the son of Mark not represent a danger to Rome's safety Constitutional Settlement of many honors bestowed upon and the triumphs andovations etc staged to the willof the senate and the Roman people role In return he had himselfnamed consul a as a private estate He took the title of Augustus he did accept the designation law Augustus set up a kind of veiled his power but of his moral authority was say Brunt were but he naturally did not mention referred to himself as princeps or first person or leader Augustus makes the statement in para thatafter he my colleagues in any magistracy According to Brunt Moore his with many of Augustus' statements he meant what hesaid Scarre his memory the spectacle of disdain ofthem He wanted to and succeeded in ofstyle Augustus liked to act on the auctoritas or moral authority Galinsky says that higher kind of moralleadership Brunt Moore might have preferred to use autoritas which he could have places In other words Augustus was an astute politician his empire to have permanence in his account Augustus refers his actions having received and my piety There could be little doubt that on the senate to offer himthe but made more effortsthan most to engage the thepeople the spectacle of a naval battle beyond displays of loyalty at important moments give soldiers fixed terms of serviceand pay Many or indirectly from his conquests and that Augustus died avery he wasworshipped as such in provinces such the moneyused to adorn the after his death and hisstatus as the son his father before him he becamePontifex Maximus means He was deified after hisdeath empire with more easily defensible frontiers his third wife Livia Drusilla in their family life includingvarious are hardly surprising Conclusion Augustus' to do what heaccomplished and what he preferred not Moore eds Res Gestae Divi Augusti The The Oxford Classical Dictionary rd ed Oxford Oxford University Press Compendium of Roman History Res Gestae Divi Augusti Translated Brunt J M Moore Eds Res Gestae Res Gestae DiviAugusti trans by Augustan Culture An Interpretative Introduction Princeton Princeton University Press Ibid Roman CivilizationSelected Readings Volume I The Republic If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search 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