The Life Of Augustus Caesar And His Reign In Rome

Augustus Caesar was a highly influential political figure in his time and modern times now, creating the foundation of Europe (“founding father of western civilization”) and devising a balanced imperial autocracy which allowed the Kingdom of Rome to reign supreme for a few centuries. 

In order to be able to talk about Augustus’s achievements, we must first discuss his early life (born-17). To begin, Augustus was not born “Augustus”, he was born with the name of Gaius Octavius. Octavius was born on September 23, 63 BC in a small town named Velitrae which was about 30 km south-east of Rome. Octavius, contrary to popular belief, was not the son of Julius Caesar, he was his great-nephew. Gaius Octavius was the birth father of Octavius, Gaius was also a politician but, he came to his end when Octavius was only 4 years old. After his father’s death Octavius lead a pretty normal life of a son to a prominent family. He went to school, went to military training and he even had a father figure, his great-uncle Julius Caesar. Caesar was the one person who could get Octavius to do things outside of his comfort zone, he was able to push Octavius. At just 12 years old Octavius delivered a funeral oration at his grandmother Julia’s funeral, he only gave the oration because Caesar suggested that he should try doing it. Caesar’s prominence over Octavius didn’t just occur through his early childhood years, it also occurred during his teenage years. 

During his teenage years Caesar allowed Octavius to join him in many activities. In 47 BC when caesar was pronounced as the priest chief, Pontifex Maximus he also announced Octavius a priest, Pontifex. This occurred when Octavius was just 15 years old, and then in the following year Caesar had Octavius join him in his public precession. Octavius was very much like a son to Julius Caesar, this was made apparent by the amount of time Caesar spent with Octavius. When Octavius turned 17 Caesar had Octavius join him on an important military expedition. It was the expedition that he took to Spain in order to try and defeat the Sons of Pompey, although this expedition ended in failure it allowed Octavius to gain vital experience in what the life of not only a soldier is but the life of a leader. All the experiences that he had with Caesar allowed Octavius to gain some sort of insight to the life he was about to begin. 

At the age of 18 Octavius went to complete his schooling and military training in Albania, while on his schooling abroad he learned that Caesar was assassinated. Octavius rushed back and when he arrived back home he was informed that he was named as Caesar’s heir, everyone around him told him not to take on this responsibility because he was just 18 years old and because he had not lived his own life yet. However, Octavius did not listen to the whiles of those around him and he took on the name of being Caesar’s son. Many did not accept the fact that he was Caesar’s son, this caused Octavius to act smart and earn the trust of the people slowly but surely. All at the age of 18 Octavius introduced “the games” which Caesar had been trying to implement before he was assassinated, this caused Octavius to gain the support of Caesar’s troops because they knew how much he was pushing for a form of entertainment for the people. Octavius was also anointed as a member of the Senate even though there was a strict age limit which he did not meet. Not only was he anointed member of the Senate he was anointed as a member of the consul towards the end of his 18th year(of life), this showed the people that although Octavius was not the true son of Julius Caesar he was chosen as the heir for a reason, at this point, Octavius was now called Octavian. This was just the beginning to Octavian’s rise to power. 

Just a year later at the age of 19 Octavian accomplished many feats, he went on a military expedition to defeat Brutus and Cassius, in the short amount of time it took Antony and Octavian to destroy Brutus and Cassius’ troops the amount of time that the two of them decided they would rather end their own lives than be killed by Antony and Octavian. After Antony and Octavian defeated Brutus and Cassius they had to split up the empire, the way they did this was through the Second Triumvirate. Antony got the Eastern part of the empire as well as Gaul, Lepidus got Africa and Octavian got the rest of the empire, minus Italy because it was under the control of all of them. In this same year Octavian had to endure the wrath of a local war, however he dealt with this by defeating the local soldiers. Octavian always chose the smart way to end conflicts, the way he dealt with the local opposition was the smartest and easiest way because there wasn’t a whole army that had to be defeated, only a few local men. 

Octavian also tried to end a bad relationship the smart way, the relationship mentioned was between Octavian and Sextus Pompeius. Caesar ruined this relationship just a few years before when he tried to defeat the Sons of Pompey, and now Octavian has to try and renew it,because Sextus Pompeius controlled all of the shipping routes to the country. Octavian decided that the smartest way to renew their “friendship” was to marry one of his family members so, Octavian married a woman named Scribonia. Unfortunately this ploy was unsuccessful and actually caused Sextus to try and make an agreement with Antony, which Antony declined. This decline allowed for the rekindlement of Antony and Octavian’s friendship, so much so that just a few years later they settled on a political agreement amongst one another. 

In this agreement Antony had to supply Octavian with ships for his battle with the Sons of Pompey in Sicily, and Octavian had to provide troops for Antony’s proposed battle with the Parthian. This agreement also allowed the Second Triumvirate to last for another 5 years. This deal along with the previous agreement between Antony, Lepidus and Octavian the three heads of the Second Triumvirate lead them to be able to acquire funds, defeat shared enemies and keep all the troops in the empire at bay. Although the Second Triumvirate did last for another five years it collapsed soon after. Octavian contributed to the collapse of the triumvirate, he did this by criticising Antony’s change of views towards civilization and succumbing to orientalism. Octavian used Antony’s relationship with Cleopatra as an example of his succumb to foreign affairs, while mentioning his own successful defense of Italy as well as the multitudes of Antony’s military losses as evidence of his own superiority over Antony. Octavian politicized the marriage of Antony and Cleopatra further by portraying it as a betrayal of his wife who was Octavian’s sister as well as saying that Antony planned on giving the portions of land he controlled over to Cleopatra’s children, Octavian continued to degrade and criticize Antony’s behavior all the way to the actual civil war he waged. He used all of the evidence mentioned above as a way to declare himself better as a man of greater intellect and power as well as portray the civil war as a crusade. He stated that the crusade would be fought in order to unify Italy once again, this caused Octavian to gain much support from the people of Italy in his dispute with Antony. Soon after the end of the conflict, the deaths of Cleopatra and Antony all but solidified his position as ruler of Italy. 

Octavian worked to reunify the empire immediately after the defeat of Antony. He tried to accomplish this by using estates and dividing them amongst the common people. These estates were seized from the wealthy families that sided with Antony during the civil war. Octavian also used the new resources and wealth that he acquired after his defeat of Egypt to rebuild the majority of Rome. During this time Octavian still had enemies in the senate and in Rome which he had to deal with. He did this by killing them all unlike his great-uncle Caesar who would have allowed them to live. He did this because he was not going to allow the chance of himself to be assassinated, like Caesar, to occur. This showed that Octavian was smart and was ready to reign supreme over the empire for a long while. 

During his reign a large part of the success of Rome after the end of the Second Triumvirate is due to Octavian institutionalizing his role over the empire and having the power to appoint deputies to run his provinces. By politicizing his stepping back it allowed himself to be portrayed as a man of the people, this dynamic is clear in this statement he made “I transferred the Republic from mypower to the control of the senate and people of Rome”. The powers listed above along with control over much of the armed forces as well as being proconsul of Gaul, Spain, and Syria, allowed himself to have enough power to keep power over the empire while allowing his disciples to oversee many of the provinces. This resulted in a much more legitimized role for Octavian, one in which it is sanctioned by the senate, while he still effectively controlled the empire. After the legitimization of his position Octavian carried out a review of Roman citizens and the Senate, in which he filled seats left empty after the civil war and removed most of his potential enemies who were still present. This set up every emperor after him for a successful reign by institutionalizing the emperor's role while decentralizing the power of the emperor while keeping the empire still under their control through his members of the senate and the consul which controlled the provinces. Along with reforming the Roman financial system, Octavian instituted a head tax along with a land tax which was the most effective tax system available at the time due to administrative constraints. In addition, Octavian increased the amount of coins being minted, he did this to create a “modern” form of payment as well as to increase commerce.