What was Augustus like?

[Roman Emperor]

Hundreds of interesting individuals are a part of Ancient Roman history, but the one that fascinates me the most is the great Caesar Augustus. But every time I read up on this guy, I get a bunch of contradictory characteristics that make it nearly impossible to form a picture of what he was like. For instance, Suetonius remarked that Augustus was a very handsome Roman man. But then I later read that he was actually very sickly, nearly toothless, and had a problem with his skin. How can that possibly be considered "handsome"? Another example is personality-wise: some sources say that he was a very warm, easy-going, freindly person that liked to be one of the people. And then I read that he was also a cold, creepy, and all-around ruthless individual that would do whatever he had to for power. I find it hard to believe that someone could be charactized as both of those.

 

So I'm just curious, based of what you have all read and heard, what was Caesar Augustus actually like? And I'm interested in any details that you have to offer: personality, physical appearance, eccentricities, etc.

[Ursus]

He was a ruthless gangster in the in the power struggle following Caesar's murder. After securing power, he ruled with more restraint, with an eye to refined peace. He was what he needed to be or could afford to be depending on the circumstances, but always with a calculating mind.

 

He was a sickly child, and his physique not the best. I surmise accounts of his good looks are probably exaggerated.

[P.Clodius]

He was a ruthless gangster in the in the power struggle following Caesar's murder.

"It isn't easy to critisize a man who can proscribe." A. Pollio

 

After securing power, he ruled with more restraint, with an eye to refined peace.

Pax Romana

 

He was what he needed to be or could afford to be depending on the circumstances, but always with a calculating mind.

Arguably the worlds greatest politician

[caldrail]

Arguably the worlds greatest politican? Now that I will definitely argue with. No, he wasn't. He was king of the hill, the survivor of a fight for the top job, which he did by the exercise of military power, by ruthlessness, by some guile, and it must be said, by some luck too. He didn't mount a political campaign as we understand it. A centurion marched into the senate and told them that if they didn't make him consul, this will... showing the hilt of a gladius to the senators. Is that politics? Arguably

[ASCLEPIADES]

Arguably the worlds greatest politican? Now that I will definitely argue with. No, he wasn't. He was king of the hill, the survivor of a fight for the top job, which he did by the exercise of military power, by ruthlessness, by some guile, and it must be said, by some luck too. He didn't mount a political campaign as we understand it. A centurion marched into the senate and told them that if they didn't make him consul, this will... showing the hilt of a gladius to the senators. Is that politics? Arguably

You mistook Augustus for Maximinus Thrax. He may have been a ruthless gangster, but not any kind of gangster.

 

After the Ides of March of DCCX AUC (44 BC), the Roman world stood on the brink of disintegration.

 

After his death on DCCLXVII AUC (14 AD), he left Rome with an adequate and effective system of government which was to endure more than three centuries, and eventually shaped western Europe and, consequently, the World.

 

Plaudite! Arguably, that's politics.

[caldrail]

You mistook Augustus for Maximinus Thrax. He may have been a ruthless gangster, but not any kind of gangster.

No, there's no mistake, I'm talking about Augustus. How he behaved in power is one thing, but you don't get the top slot in the roman empire from scratch by being nice to everyone. Fact is Augustus carried out proscriptions like anyone else who wanted to consolidate power in Rome in a potentially hostile situation. Augustus fought a turf war and won.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Here comes the famous and impressive sculpture from Prima Porta, frequently considered as one of the most notorious examples of political propaganda ever.

He is represented here as he obviously wished to be seen; as the father of Rome in peace and war.

 

 

In life, he was hardly as impressive. Suetonius' portrait is by far the most extensive of his twelve Caesars. It was apparently balanced, with both flattery and criticism. Clearly, he was not an attractive person.

Physically, he was a coward. At Philippi, terrified by the battle, he skulked in a Marsh.

What commands admiration was his high moral courage and firm grasp of reality.

(Extracted from The Age of Augustus, by D. Earl.

)

 

EDIT: I'm sorry for the duplication of this post. My bad. This is its definitive edition.

Edited October 7, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[ASCLEPIADES]

No, there's no mistake, I'm talking about Augustus. How he behaved in power is one thing, but you don't get the top slot in the roman empire from scratch by being nice to everyone. Fact is Augustus carried out proscriptions like anyone else who wanted to consolidate power in Rome in a potentially hostile situation. Augustus fought a turf war and won.

About that, we completely agree.

[Ingsoc]

Arguably the worlds greatest politican? Now that I will definitely argue with. No, he wasn't. He was king of the hill, the survivor of a fight for the top job, which he did by the exercise of military power, by ruthlessness, by some guile, and it must be said, by some luck too. He didn't mount a political campaign as we understand it. A centurion marched into the senate and told them that if they didn't make him consul, this will... showing the hilt of a gladius to the senators. Is that politics? Arguably

 

You forgetting that in Rome there were no separation of civil and military posts, so any politician would require to command troops in order to advance in cursus honorum.

 

As for Augustus, the fact that he manage to secure the love and loyalty of the army without having any uncanny military merits (in fact at best we could say that he was a mediocare general as evidence from the fact that most of the military campaigns were commanded by Agrippa and later Tiberius and Drusus) and the fact that his rule was base of the army but he himself manage to present himself as the restorer of the republic to appease the public mind while in fact he was in all but name a king is evidence that he was a brilliant politician.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Arguably the worlds greatest politican? Now that I will definitely argue with. No, he wasn't. He was king of the hill, the survivor of a fight for the top job, which he did by the exercise of military power, by ruthlessness, by some guile, and it must be said, by some luck too. He didn't mount a political campaign as we understand it. A centurion marched into the senate and told them that if they didn't make him consul, this will... showing the hilt of a gladius to the senators. Is that politics? Arguably

 

You forgetting that in Rome there were no separation of civil and military posts, so any politician would require to command troops in order to advance in cursus honorum.

 

As for Augustus, the fact that he manage to secure the love and loyalty of the army without having any uncanny military merits (in fact at best we could say that he was a mediocare general as evidence from the fact that most of the military campaigns were commanded by Agrippa and later Tiberius and Drusus) and the fact that his rule was base of the army but he himself manage to present himself as the restorer of the republic to appease the public mind while in fact he was in all but name a king is evidence that he was a brilliant politician.

On that counts, we absolutely agree.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Here comes Suetonius at his best:

 

25 After the civil wars he never called any of the troops "comrades," either in the assembly or in an edict, but always "soldiers";

 

33 He himself administered justice regularly and sometimes up to nightfall, having a litter placed upon the tribunal, if he was indisposed, or even lying down at home.

 

40 Considering it also of great importance to keep the people pure and unsullied by any taint of foreign or servile blood, he was most chary of conferring Roman citizenship.

 

45 He himself usually watched the games in the Circus from the upper rooms of his friends and freedmen, but sometimes from the imperial box, and even in company with his wife and children.

 

66 He did not readily make friends, but he clung to them with the utmost constancy, not only suitably rewarding their virtues and deserts but even condoning their faults, provided they were not too great...In return he demanded of his friends affection on their part, both in life and after death.

 

68 In early youth he incurred the reproach of sundry shameless acts.

 

69 That he was given to adultery not even his friends deny, although it is true that they excuse it as committed not from passion but from policy, (67... But he forced Polus, a favourite freedman of his, to take his own life, because he was convicted of adultery with Roman matrons)

 

73 The simplicity of his furniture and household goods may be seen from couches and tables still in existence, many of which are scarcely fine enough for a private citizen. They say that he always slept on a low and plainly furnished bed. Except on special occasions he wore common clothes for the house, made by his sister, wife, daughter or granddaughters;

 

74 He gave dinner parties constantly and always formally, with great regard to the rank and personality of his guests.

 

76 I quote word for word from some of his letters: "I ate a little bread and some dates in my carriage."..."Not even a Jew, my dear Tiberius, fasts so scrupulously on his sabbaths as I have to‑day; for it was not until after the first hour of the night that I ate two mouthfuls of bread in the bath before I began to be anointed."

 

77 He was by nature most sparing also in his use of wine.

 

81 In the course of his life he suffered from several severe and dangerous illnesses... He experienced also some disorders which recurred every year at definite times;

 

83 Immediately after the civil war he gave up exercise with horses and arms in the Campus Martius, at first turning to pass-ball and balloon-ball, but soon confining himself to riding or taking a walk, ending the latter by running and leaping, wrapped in a mantle or a blanket. To divert his mind he sometimes angled and sometimes played at dice, marbles and nuts with little boys, searching everywhere for such as were attractive for their pretty faces or their prattle, especially Syrians or Moors; for he abhorred dwarfs, cripples, and everything of that sort, as freaks of nature and of ill omen.

 

84 From early youth he devoted himself eagerly and with utmost diligence to oratory and liberal studies...to avoid the danger of forgetting what he was to say, or wasting time in committing it to memory, he adopted the practice of reading everything from a manuscript. Even his conversations with individuals and the more important of those with his own wife Livia, he always wrote out and read from a note-book,

 

85 He wrote numerous works of various kinds in prose,...for example, his "Reply to Brutus on Cato." At the reading of these volumes he had all but come to the end, when he grew tired and handed them to Tiberius to finish, for he was well on in years. He also wrote "Exhortations to Philosophy" and some volumes of an Autobiography,... His essays in poetry were but slight.

 

88 He does not strictly comply with orthography

 

89 Yet he never acquired the ability to speak Greek fluently or to compose anything in it; for if he had occasion to use the language, he wrote what he had to say in Latin and gave it to someone else to translate.

 

90 ...He was somewhat weak in his fear of thunder and lightning, for he always carried a seal-skin about with him everywhere as a protection, and at any sign of a violent storm took refuge in an underground vaulted room;

[M. Porcius Cato]

69 That he was given to adultery not even his friends deny, although it is true that they excuse it as committed not from passion but from policy,

Adultery as policy? Unreal.

[caldrail]

I have a problem with the Augustus fan club. Now I agree he was a better emperor than many who followed, and that he went out of his way to appear a decent man (out of necessity too, he didn't want to be assasinated like Julius Caesar), but lets not forget a lot of this is anciient spin. Augustus made good use of propaganda. Notice his statues appear throught the empire as the marker of a personality cult. After two thousand years, the publicity department of palatine hill still sways opinions! We have reports of his public persona - the man he wanted to be portrayed as - but how much of this illustrates the private man? The man who before he was twenty took on all comers and grabbed the top slot for himself? Lets make no mistake here. Augustus wasn't given power by democratic vote from people swayed by his superior policies and debate. He took the empire. You either sided with him, against him, or tried to stay out the way. Wasn't it Cicero who planned to use the young octavian and push him aside when it suited the senate? Why else did octavian have a centurion tell the senate that he wanted to be consul or else? Thats aggression, almost a paramilitary coup, and certainly nothing to do with inspired oratory.

[ASCLEPIADES]

I have a problem with the Augustus fan club. Now I agree he was a better emperor than many who followed, and that he went out of his way to appear a decent man (out of necessity too, he didn't want to be assasinated like Julius Caesar), but lets not forget a lot of this is anciient spin. Augustus made good use of propaganda. Notice his statues appear throught the empire as the marker of a personality cult. After two thousand years, the publicity department of palatine hill still sways opinions! We have reports of his public persona - the man he wanted to be portrayed as - but how much of this illustrates the private man? The man who before he was twenty took on all comers and grabbed the top slot for himself? Lets make no mistake here. Augustus wasn't given power by democratic vote from people swayed by his superior policies and debate. He took the empire. You either sided with him, against him, or tried to stay out the way. Wasn't it Cicero who planned to use the young octavian and push him aside when it suited the senate? Why else did octavian have a centurion tell the senate that he wanted to be consul or else? Thats aggression, almost a paramilitary coup, and certainly nothing to do with inspired oratory.

On ad IX ides Maius, DCCX AUV (May 7, 44 bc), Octavius adressed the Roman people at the Forum for the first time. He was 18 years old, virtually unknown, and had no soldiers, money nor any political or military experience.

 

Less than eight months later, on ad XI Ianuarius, DCCXI AUC (January 3, 43 bc), and despite the powerful opposition of Antonius and other rivals, he was made a member of the Senate and appointed with propraetor's Imperium to command an army together with the Consuls.

 

Inspired oratory was part of the explanation, arguably more from Cicero than from himself. But above all, he was a master politician from the very first moment.

[Ursus]

Augustus wasn't given power by democratic vote from people swayed by his superior policies and debate.

 

An outside of a narrow timeframe in Ancient Athens, exactly how many people anywhere could claim this as a mandate for rule? I think most people acknowledge his warlord period, and I fail to see how he could have been anything else given the times and the situations post-Caesar assassination.

 

My problems with him are three:

 

 

1) On domestic policy, his legislation on family and marriage turned out to be highly ineffective - and hypocritical, given his own family problems.

 

2) On strategic policy, he failed to create a central reserve of troops, which was the major weakness of the Principate's defenses .... although this didn't seem to be a major issue until the rise of Sassanid Persia

 

3) His failure to find a more secure mechanism for the succession of the Princeps was the pseudo-monarchy's great undoing and the cause of much future grief.

 

Still, all in all his reign set the stage for a more or less healthy Empire for several generations, building ingeniously upon the rubble of the Republic. It helped cement Roman rule and Roman culture in a greatly expanded empire. And thus he has been rightly called "the godfather" of Europe. Thus I am a dues paying member of the fan club.