Expert: Maria - 1/29/2010

Question
I was wondering what you thought of Augustus as a ruler and leader.  Did he do what was necessary to make Roman stable or was he just power hungry? Was he both?   I am making a project that is trying to make people who look at it be able to come to an opinion on who he was.  
Please reply at your earliest opportunity.

Thank you,

Justin MacMillan

Answer
Hello,

First of all your  question would need a very long answer directed to examine thoroughly a great and complex figure of history such as C. Julius Caesar Octavianus later named ‘Augustus’ meaning ‘august’/’reverend’,  a word ringing with religious  and social meaning.

Anyway, if you want to know what I myself think of Augustus as a ruler and leader, I can tell you briefly  that:

1-he certainly did what was necessary to make Rome stable in a period  of rapid change and political crisis as well as of civil wars that menaced the Roman Republic so that all these factors could have brought it about its decline.

2-he was not merely hungry for power, but was a great statesman able to put an end to the decay of the Roman Republic and establish a new Roman government, i.e. the "Principate" [Latin “Principatus” from “princeps” meaning  "leading citizen” just because Octavianus Augustus wanted to be the “primus inter pares” (the first among equals), not a “rex” (king), a word which sounded very unwelcome to the Romans].

3-he wanted to be the restorer of the best republican institutions & virtues and was the author of a long period of peace, i.e. the so-called 'Pax Augusta' or 'Pax Romana' (Roman peace), i.e. a long period of relative peace and minimal military expansion.

4-without Augustus, the first emperor of Rome from 27 BC to his death in 14 AD, and without his  talent for a constructive statesmanship no Roman empire would have existed.

5-finally I think that the  greatest merit of Augustus has been his cleverness at persuading the Romans to accept the change from the republican government - which had held out for many centuries starting from 509 BC when the monarchy had been overthrown – to the "Principate” which became soon an Empire where all power resided in the emperor, for the senate had been  deprived of authority, though the senators formally continued to enjoy their past privileges and prerogatives.

Hope this brief outline can be helpful to you as a preliminary draft of your  project.

Good luck!
Maria