Gaius, sometimes spelled Caius, was a common Roman praenomen. It is abbreviated C.; the abbreviation goes back to before the Roman alphabet distinguished between C and G, probably from Etruscan Cae or Cai, meaning unknown. In classical times, the name was pronounced in three syllables, Gā-i-us .

It is also possible that the use of C reflects the Greek letter Gamma.

Some individuals with this name:

People

Gaius, the jurist (the rest of his name is unknown)

Gaius Acilius

Gaius Antonius

Gaius Antonius Hybrida

Gaius Asinius Gallus

Gaius Asinius Pollio

Gaius Ateius Capito

Gaius Aurelius Cotta

Gaius Calpurnius Piso

Gaius Canuleius, a tribune

Gaius Cassius Longinus

Gaius Claudius Marcellus

Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, Roman orator famous for the annals and histories

Gaius Duilius

Gaius Fabricius Luscinus

Gaius Flaminius

Gaius Flavius Fimbria

Gaius Gracchus

Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus

Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos, consul and Syrian prince

Gaius Julius Cæsar, mostly known as only "Julius Caesar"

Gaius Julius Cæsar Augustus Germanicus, mostly known by his nickname "Caligula"

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, mostly known as "Augustus Caesar"

Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo

Gaius Caesar (or Gaius Vipsanius Agrippa)

Gaius Julius Callistus

Gaius Julius Civilis

Gaius Julius Hyginus

Gaius Julius Marcus

Gaius Julius Priscus

Gaius Julius Solinus

Gaius Julius Vindex, governor of Lusitania

Gaius Laelius

Gaius Licinius Stolo

Gaius Livius Drusus

Gaius Lucilius

Gaius Lutatius Catulus

Gaius Maecenas

Gaius Marcius Coriolanus

Gaius Marcius Rutilus

Gaius Marius

Gaius Matius

Gaius Memmius

Gaius Nautius Rutilus

Gaius Octavius

Gaius Oppius

Gaius Papirius Carbo, a consul of 120 BC

Gaius Papirius Carbo, a tribune of 90 BC

Gaius Popillius Laenas

Gaius Rabirius

Gaius Rubellius Blandus

Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus

Gaius Servilius Ahala

Gaius Servilius Glaucia

Gaius Suetonius Paulinus

Gaius the Platonist a philosopher active in the 2nd century

Gaius Valerius Flaccus

Gaius Valerius Pudens

Gaius Vipsanius Agrippa (or Gaius Julius Caesar)

Gaius Volusenus

Fictional people

Gaius Octavian (Rome character), Rome

Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dune

Gaius Baltar, Battlestar Galactica

Gaius Sextus, Gaius Septimus, and Gaius Octavian aka Tavi, Codex Alera

Gaius, Merlin

See also

Caius (disambiguation)

References

Gaius

br:Caius de:Gaius fr:Caius it:Gaio (nome) hu:Kájusz nl:Gaius ja:ガイウス nrm:Caius pl:Gajus (imię) sk:Gaius sl:Gaj (ime) fi:Gaius (nimi) sv:Gaius

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Name	Gaius Julius Caesar
Title	Dictator of the Roman Republic
Full name	Gaius Julius Caesar
Reign	October 49 BC –15 March 44 BC (as dictator and/or consul)
Consort	Cornelia Cinna minor 84 – 68 BC Pompeia 68 – 63 BC Calpurnia Pisonis 59 – 44 BC
Issue	Julia Caesaris 85/84 – 54 BCCaesarion 47 – 30 BCAugustus 63 BC – 14 AD (grand-nephew, posthumously adopted as Caesar's son in 44 BC)
Royal house	Julio-Claudian
Father	Gaius Julius Cæsar
Mother	Aurelia Cotta
Birth date	13 July 100 BC
Birth place	Subura, Rome
Death date	15 March 44 BC (aged 55)
Death place	Curia of Pompey, Rome
Place of burial	}}

Gaius Julius Caesar (13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.

In 60 BC, Caesar entered into a political alliance with Crassus and Pompey that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed within the Roman Senate by the conservative elite, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse Pompey's standing. The balance of power was further upset by the death of Crassus in 53 BC. Political realignments in Rome finally led to a standoff between Caesar and Pompey, the latter having taken up the cause of the Senate. Ordered by the senate to stand trial in Rome for various charges, Caesar marched from Gaul to Italy with his legions, crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC. This sparked a civil war from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of the Roman world.

After assuming control of government, he began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity". A group of senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated the dictator on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, hoping to restore the constitutional government of the Republic. However, the result was a series of civil wars, which ultimately led to the establishment of the permanent Roman Empire by Caesar's adopted heir Octavius (later known as Augustus). Much of Caesar's life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources.

Early life and career

Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus. The cognomen "Caesar" originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarean section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedere, caes-). The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favoured this interpretation of his name. Despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential. Caesar's father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia, while his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesar's childhood. Caesar's formative years were a time of turmoil. There were several wars from 91 BC to 82 BC, although from 82 BC to 80 BC, the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla was purging Rome of his political enemies. Domestically, Roman politics was bitterly divided. In 85 BC Caesar's father died suddenly so at sixteen Caesar was the head of the family. The following year he was nominated to be the new high priest of Jupiter. Since the holder of that position not only had to be a patrician but also be married to a patrician, he broke off his engagement to a plebeian girl he had been betrothed to since boyhood, and married Lucius Cinna's daughter Cornelia. Then, having brought Mithridates to terms, Sulla returned to Rome and had himself appointed to the revived office of dictator. Sulla's proscriptions saw hundreds of his political enemies killed or exiled. Caesar, as the nephew of Marius and son-in-law of Cinna, was targeted. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding. The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins. Sulla gave in reluctantly, and is said to have declared that he saw many a Marius in Caesar.

Caesar left Rome and joined the army, where he won the Civic Crown for his part in an important siege. On a mission to Bithynia to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes's fleet, he spent so long at his court that rumours of an affair with the king arose, which Caesar would vehemently deny for the rest of his life. Ironically, the loss of his priesthood had allowed him to pursue a military career: the high priest of Jupiter was not permitted to touch a horse, sleep three nights outside his own bed or one night outside Rome, or look upon an army. Hearing of Sulla's death in 78 BC, Caesar felt safe enough to return to Rome. Lacking means since his inheritance was confiscated, he acquired a modest house in a lower-class neighbourhood of Rome. Instead, he turned to legal advocacy. He became known for his exceptional oratory, accompanied by impassioned gestures and a high-pitched voice, and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption.

On the way across the Aegean Sea, Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and held prisoner. He maintained an attitude of superiority throughout his captivity. When the pirates thought to demand a ransom of twenty talents of silver, he insisted they ask for fifty. After the ransom was paid, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and imprisoned them. He had them crucified on his own authority, as he had promised while in captivity—a promise the pirates had taken as a joke. As a sign of leniency, he first had their throats cut. He was soon called back into military action in Asia, raising a band of auxiliaries to repel an incursion from the east.

On his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune, a first step in a political career. He was elected quaestor for 69 BC, and during that year he delivered the funeral oration for his aunt Julia. His wife, Cornelia, also died that year. After her funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC, Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Spain. While there he is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realized with dissatisfaction he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little. On his return in 67 BC, he married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla, and whom he later divorced. In 63 BC, he ran for election to the post of Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of the Roman state religion. He ran against two powerful senators. There were accusations of bribery by all sides. Caesar won comfortably, despite his opponents' greater experience and standing. When Cicero, who was consul that year, exposed Catiline's conspiracy to seize control of the republic, several senators accused Caesar of involvement in the plot.

After his praetorship, Caesar was appointed to govern Spain, but he was still in considerable debt and needed to satisfy his creditors before he could leave. He turned to Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome's richest men. In return for political support in his opposition to the interests of Pompey, Crassus paid some of Caesar's debts and acted as guarantor for others. Even so, to avoid becoming a private citizen and open to prosecution for his debts, Caesar left for his province before his praetorship had ended. In Spain, he conquered two local tribes and was hailed as imperator by his troops, reformed the law regarding debts, and completed his governorship in high esteem. As imperator, Caesar was entitled to a triumph. However, he also wanted to stand for consul, the most senior magistracy in the republic. If he were to celebrate a triumph, he would have to remain a soldier and stay outside the city until the ceremony, but to stand for election he would need to lay down his command and enter Rome as a private citizen. He could not do both in the time available. He asked the senate for permission to stand in absentia, but Cato blocked the proposal. Faced with the choice between a triumph and the consulship, Caesar chose the consulship.

Consulship and military campaigns

In 60 BC, Caesar sought election as consul for 59 BC. Two other candidates stood for the consulship, and the election was dirty. Even Cato, with his reputation for incorruptibility, is said to have resorted to bribery in favor of one of Caesar's opponents. Caesar won, along with conservative Marcus Bibulus. Caesar was already in Crassus' political debt, but he also made overtures to Pompey. Pompey and Crassus had been at odds for a decade, so Caesar tried to reconcile them. Between the three of them, they had enough money and political influence to control public business. This informal alliance, known as the First Triumvirate (rule of three men), was cemented by the marriage of Pompey to Caesar's daughter Julia. Caesar also married again, this time Calpurnia, who was the daughter of another powerful senator.

Caesar proposed a law for the redistribution of public lands to the poor, a proposal supported by Pompey, by force of arms if need be, and by Crassus, making the triumvirate public. Pompey filled the city with soldiers, and the triumvirate's opponents were intimidated. Bibulus attempted to declare the omens unfavorable and thus void the new law, but was driven from the forum by Caesar's armed supporters. His bodyguards had their ceremonial axes broken, two high magistrates accompanying him were wounded, and Bibulus had a bucket of excrement thrown over him. In fear of his life, he retired to his house for the rest of the year, issuing occasional proclamations of bad omens. These attempts to obstruct Caesar's legislation proved ineffective. Roman satirists ever after referred to the year as "the consulship of Julius and Caesar".

When Caesar was first elected, the aristocracy tried to limit his future power by allotting the woods and pastures of Italy, rather than the governorship of a province, as his military command duty after his year in office was over. With the help of political allies, Caesar later had this overturned, and was instead appointed to govern Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and Illyricum (southeastern Europe), with Transalpine Gaul (southern France) later added, giving him command of four legions. The term of his governorship, and thus his immunity from prosecution, was set at five years, rather than the usual one. When his consulship ended, Caesar narrowly avoided prosecution for the irregularities of his year in office, and quickly left for his province.

Conquest of Gaul

Caesar was still deeply in debt, and there was money to be made as a governor, whether by extortion or by military adventurism. Caesar had four legions under his command, two of his provinces bordered on unconquered territory, and parts of Gaul were known to be unstable. Some of Rome's Gallic allies had been defeated by their rivals, with the help of a contingent of Germanic tribes. The Romans feared these tribes were preparing to migrate south, closer to Italy, and that they had warlike intent. Caesar raised two new legions and defeated these tribes.

In response to Caesar's earlier activities, the tribes in the north-east began to arm themselves. Caesar treated this as an aggressive move, and, after an inconclusive engagement against the united tribes, he conquered the tribes piecemeal. Meanwhile, one of his legions began the conquest of the tribes in the far north (directly opposite Britain). During the spring of 56 BC, the Triumvirate held a conference, as Rome was in turmoil and Caesar's political alliance was coming undone. The meeting renewed the Triumvirate and extended Caesar's governorship for another five years. The conquest of the north was soon completed, while a few pockets of resistance remained. Caesar now had a secure base from which to launch an invasion of Britain. In 55 BC Caesar repelled an incursion into Gaul by two Germanic tribes, and followed it up by building a bridge across the Rhine and making a show of force in Germanic territory, before returning and dismantling the bridge. Late that summer, having subdued two other tribes, he crossed into Britain, claiming that the Britons had aided one of his enemies the previous year. His intelligence information was poor, and although he gained a beachhead on the coast, he could not advance further, and returned to Gaul for the winter. He returned the following year, better prepared and with a larger force, and achieved more. He advanced inland, and established a few alliances. However, poor harvests led to widespread revolt in Gaul, which forced Caesar to leave Britain for the last time.

While Caesar was in Britain his daughter Julia, Pompey's wife, had died in childbirth. Caesar tried to re-secure Pompey's support by offering him his great-niece in marriage, but Pompey declined. In 53 BC Crassus was killed leading a failed invasion of the east. Rome was on the edge of civil war. Pompey was appointed sole consul as an emergency measure, and married the daughter of a political opponent of Caesar. The Triumvirate was dead.

In 52 BC another, larger revolt erupted in Gaul, led by Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix managed to unite the Gallic tribes and proved an astute commander, defeating Caesar in several engagements, but Caesar's elaborate siege-works at the Battle of Alesia finally forced his surrender. Despite scattered outbreaks of warfare the following year, Gaul was effectively conquered. Plutarch claimed that the army had fought against three million men during the Gallic Wars, of whom 1 million died, and another million were enslaved. The Romans subjugated 300 tribes and destroyed 800 cities. However, in view of the difficulty in finding accurate counts in the first place, Caesar's propagandistic purposes, and the common exaggeration of numbers in ancient texts, the stated totals of enemy combatants are likely to be too high.

Civil war

In 50 BC, the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as governor had finished. Caesar thought he would be prosecuted if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a magistrate. Pompey accused Caesar of insubordination and treason. In January 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon river (the frontier boundary of Italy) with only one legion and ignited civil war. Upon crossing the Rubicon, Caesar, according to Plutarch and Suetonius, is supposed to have quoted the Athenian playwright Menander, in Greek, "the die is cast". Erasmus, however, notes that the more accurate translation of the Greek imperative mood would be "alea icta esto" let the die be cast. Pompey and much of the senate fled to the south, having little confidence in his newly raised troops. Despite greatly outnumbering Caesar, who only had his Thirteenth Legion with him, Pompey did not intend to fight. Caesar pursued Pompey, hoping to capture him before his legions could escape. Pompey managed to escape before Caesar could capture him. Caesar decided to head for Spain, while leaving Italy under the control of Mark Antony. Caesar made an astonishing 27-day route-march to Spain, where he defeated Pompey's lieutenants. He then returned east, to challenge Pompey in Greece where in July 48 BC at Dyrrhachium Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat. He decisively defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in an exceedingly short engagement later that year.

In Rome, Caesar was appointed dictator, with Mark Antony as his Master of the Horse (second in command); Caesar presided over his own election to a second consulship and then, after eleven days, resigned this dictatorship. Caesar then pursued Pompey to Egypt, where Pompey was soon murdered. Caesar then became involved with an Egyptian civil war between the child pharaoh and his sister, wife, and co-regent queen, Cleopatra. Perhaps as a result of the pharaoh's role in Pompey's murder, Caesar sided with Cleopatra; he is reported to have wept at the sight of Pompey's head, which was offered to him by the pharaoh as a gift. In any event, Caesar defeated the pharaoh's forces in 47 BC and installed Cleopatra as ruler. Caesar and Cleopatra celebrated their victory with a triumphant procession on the Nile in the spring of 47 BC. The royal barge was accompanied by 400 additional ships, introducing Caesar to the luxurious lifestyle of the Egyptian pharaohs. Caesar and Cleopatra never married, as Roman law recognized marriages only between two Roman citizens. Caesar continued his relationship with Cleopatra throughout his last marriage, which lasted 14 years – in Roman eyes, this did not constitute adultery – and may have fathered a son called Caesarion. Cleopatra visited Rome on more than one occasion, residing in Caesar's villa just outside Rome across the Tiber.

Late in 48 BC, Caesar was again appointed Dictator, with a term of one year. After spending the first months of 47 BC in Egypt, Caesar went to the Middle East, where he annihilated the king of Pontus; his victory was so swift and complete that he mocked Pompey's previous victories over such poor enemies. Thence, he proceeded to Africa to deal with the remnants of Pompey's senatorial supporters. He quickly gained a significant victory in 46 BC over Cato, who then committed suicide. After this victory, he was appointed Dictator for ten years. Nevertheless, Pompey's sons escaped to Spain. Caesar gave chase and defeated the last remnants of opposition in the Battle of Munda in March 45 BC. During this time, Caesar was elected to his third and fourth terms as consul in 46 BC and 45 BC (this last time without a colleague).

Dictatorship and assassination

While he was still campaigning in Spain, the Senate began bestowing honors on Caesar. Caesar had not proscribed his enemies, instead pardoning almost all, and there was no serious public opposition to him. Great games and celebrations were held in April to honor Caesar’s victory at Munda. Plutarch writes that many Romans found the triumph held following Caesar's victory to be in poor taste, as those defeated in the civil war had not been foreigners, but instead fellow Romans. On Caesar's return to Italy in September 45 BC, he filed his will, naming his grandnephew Gaius Octavius (Octavian) as the heir to everything, including his name. Caesar also wrote that if Octavian died before Caesar did, Marcus Junius Brutus would be the next heir in succession.

During his early career, Caesar had seen how chaotic and dysfunctional the Roman Republic had become. The republican machinery had broken down under the weight of imperialism, the central government had become powerless, the provinces had been transformed into independent principalities under the absolute control of their governors, and the army had replaced the constitution as the means of accomplishing political goals. With a weak central government, political corruption had spiraled out of control, and the status quo had been maintained by a corrupt aristocracy, which saw no need to change a system that had made its members rich.

Between his crossing of the Rubicon River in 49 BC, and his assassination in 44 BC, Caesar established a new constitution, which was intended to accomplish three separate goals. First, he wanted to suppress all armed resistance out in the provinces, and thus bring order back to the empire. Second, he wanted to create a strong central government in Rome. Finally, he wanted to knit together the entire empire into a single cohesive unit. and so he assumed these powers by increasing his own authority, and by decreasing the authority of Rome's other political institutions. Finally, he enacted a series of reforms that were meant to address several long neglected issues, the most important of which was his reform of the calendar.

Dictatorship

When Caesar returned to Rome, the Senate granted him triumphs for his victories, ostensibly over Gaul, Egypt, Pharnaces and Juba, rather than over his Roman opponents. Not everything went Caesar's way. When Arsinoe IV, Egypt's former queen, was paraded in chains, the spectators admired her dignified bearing and were moved to pity. Triumphal games were held, with beast-hunts involving 400 lions, and gladiator contests. A naval battle was held on a flooded basin at the Field of Mars. At the Circus Maximus, two armies of war captives, each of 2,000 people, 200 horse and 20 elephants, fought to the death. Again, some bystanders complained, this time at Caesar's wasteful extravagance. A riot broke out, and only stopped when Caesar had two rioters sacrificed by the priests on the Field of Mars.

When the triumph was over, Caesar set forth to passing an unprecedented legislative agenda. He ordered a census be taken, which forced a reduction in the grain dole. Then he mandated that jurors could only come from the senate or the equestrian ranks. Next, he passed a sumptuary law that restricted the purchase of certain luxuries. After this, he passed a law that rewarded families for having many children, to speed along the repopulation of Italy. Then he passed a law that outlawed professional guilds, except those of ancient foundation, since many of these were subversive political clubs. He then passed a term limit law applicable to governors. He passed a debt restructuring law, which ultimately eliminated about a fourth of all debts owed. The Forum of Caesar, with its Temple of Venus Genetrix, was then built among many other public works. Caesar also tightly regulated the purchase of state-subsidised grain and reduced the number of recipients to a fixed number, all of whom were entered into a special register. From 47 to 44 BC he made plans for the distribution of land to about 15,000 of his veterans. The most important change, however, was his reform of the calendar. The calendar at the time was regulated by the movement of the moon, and this had resulted in a great deal of disorder. Caesar replaced this calendar with the Egyptian calendar, which was regulated by the sun. He set the length of the year to 365.25 days by adding an intercalary/leap day at the end of February every fourth year. To bring the calendar into alignment with the seasons, he decreed that three extra months be inserted into 46 BC (the ordinary intercalary month at the end of February, and two extra months after November). Thus, the Julian calendar opened on 1 January 45 BC. This calendar is almost identical to the current Western calendar.

Shortly before his assassination, he passed a few more reforms. He established a police force, appointed officials to carry out his land reforms, and ordered the rebuilding of Carthage and Corinth. He also extended Latin rights throughout the Roman world, and then abolished the tax system and reverted to the earlier version that allowed cities to collect tribute however they wanted, rather than needing Roman intermediaries. His assassination prevented further and larger schemes. He wanted to build an unprecedented temple to Mars, a huge theater, and a library on the scale of the Library of Alexandria. He also wanted to convert Ostia to a major port, and cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Militarily, he wanted to conquer the Dacians, Parthians, and avenge the loss at Carrhae. Thus, he instituted a massive mobilization. Shortly before his assassination, the senate named him censor for life and Father of the Fatherland, and the month of Quintilis was renamed July in his honor. He was granted further honors, which were later used to justify his assassination as a would-be divine monarch; coins were issued bearing his image and his statue was placed next to those of the kings. He was granted a golden chair in the senate house, allowed to wear triumphal dress whenever he chose, and was offered a form of semi-official or popular cult, with Mark Antony as his high priest.

Political reforms

The history of Caesar's political appointments is complex and uncertain. Caesar held both the dictatorship and the tribunate, but alternated between the consulship and the Proconsulship. mostly because Caesar was frequently out of Italy. In 48 BC, Caesar was given permanent tribunician powers, which made his person sacrosanct and allowed him to veto the senate, To minimize the risk that another general might attempt to challenge him,

According to Plutarch, as Caesar arrived at the Senate, Tillius Cimber presented him with a petition to recall his exiled brother. The other conspirators crowded round to offer support. Both Plutarch and Suetonius say that Caesar waved him away, but Cimber grabbed his shoulders and pulled down Caesar's tunic. Caesar then cried to Cimber, "Why, this is violence!" ("Ista quidem vis est!"). At the same time, Casca produced his dagger and made a glancing thrust at the dictator's neck. Caesar turned around quickly and caught Casca by the arm. According to Plutarch, he said in Latin, "Casca, you villain, what are you doing?" Casca, frightened, shouted, "Help, brother!" in Greek ("", "adelphe, boethei!"). Within moments, the entire group, including Brutus, was striking out at the dictator. Caesar attempted to get away, but, blinded by blood, he tripped and fell; the men continued stabbing him as he lay defenceless on the lower steps of the portico. According to Eutropius, around 60 or more men participated in the assassination. He was stabbed 23 times. According to Suetonius, a physician later established that only one wound, the second one to his chest, had been lethal. The dictator's last words are not known with certainty, and are a contested subject among scholars and historians alike. Suetonius reports that others have said Caesar's last words were the Greek phrase "" (transliterated as "Kai su, teknon?": "You too, child?" in English). However, Suetonius says Caesar said nothing. Plutarch also reports that Caesar said nothing, pulling his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators. The version best known in the English-speaking world is the Latin phrase "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?", commonly rendered as "You too, Brutus?"); this derives from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where it actually forms the first half of a macaronic line: "Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar." It has no basis in historical fact and Shakespeare's use of Latin here is not from any assertion that Caesar would have been using the language, rather than the Greek reported by Suetonius, but because the phrase was already popular when the play was written. According to Plutarch, after the assassination, Brutus stepped forward as if to say something to his fellow senators; they, however, fled the building. Brutus and his companions then marched to the Capitol while crying out to their beloved city: "People of Rome, we are once again free!" They were met with silence, as the citizens of Rome had locked themselves inside their houses as soon as the rumour of what had taken place had begun to spread. Caesar's dead body lay where it fell on the Senate floor for nearly three hours before other officials arrived to remove it.

A lifesize wax statue of Caesar was later erected in the forum displaying the 23 stab wounds. A crowd who had gathered there started a fire, which badly damaged the forum and neighbouring buildings. In the ensuing chaos Mark Antony, Octavian (later Augustus Caesar), and others fought a series of five civil wars, which would end in the formation of the Roman Empire.

Aftermath of the assassination

The result unforeseen by the assassins was that Caesar's death precipitated the end of the Roman Republic. The Roman middle and lower classes, with whom Caesar was immensely popular and had been since before Gaul, became enraged that a small group of aristocrats had killed their champion. Antony, who had been drifting apart from Caesar, capitalised on the grief of the Roman mob and threatened to unleash them on the Optimates, perhaps with the intent of taking control of Rome himself. However, to his surprise and chagrin, Caesar had named his grandnephew Gaius Octavian his sole heir, bequeathing him the immensely potent Caesar name and making him one of the wealthiest citizens in the Republic. The crowd at the funeral boiled over, throwing dry branches, furniture and even clothing on to Caesar's funeral pyre, causing the flames to spin out of control, seriously damaging the Forum. The mob then attacked the houses of Brutus and Cassius, where they were repelled only with considerable difficulty, ultimately providing the spark for the Liberators' civil war, fulfilling at least in part Antony's threat against the aristocrats. However, Antony did not foresee the ultimate outcome of the next series of civil wars, particularly with regard to Caesar's adopted heir. Octavian, aged only 18 when Caesar died, proved to have considerable political skills, and while Antony dealt with Decimus Brutus in the first round of the new civil wars, Octavian consolidated his tenuous position. To combat Brutus and Cassius, who were massing an enormous army in Greece, Antony needed soldiers, the cash from Caesar's war chests, and the legitimacy that Caesar's name would provide for any action he took against them. With the passage of the lex Titia on 27 November 43 BC, the Second Triumvirate was officially formed, composed of Antony, Octavian, and Caesar's loyal cavalry commander Lepidus. It formally deified Caesar as Divus Iulius in 42 BC, and Caesar Octavian henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a god"). Because Caesar's clemency had resulted in his murder, the Second Triumvirate brought back the practice of proscription, abandoned since Sulla. It engaged in the legally sanctioned murder of a large number of its opponents to secure funding for its forty-five legions in the second civil war against Brutus and Cassius. Antony and Octavius defeated them at Philippi. Afterward, Mark Antony married Caesar's lover, Cleopatra, intending to use the fabulously wealthy Egypt as a base to dominate Rome. A third civil war broke out between Octavian on one hand and Antony and Cleopatra on the other. This final civil war, culminating in the latter's defeat at Actium, resulted in the permanent ascendancy of Octavian, who became the first Roman emperor, under the name Caesar Augustus, a name that raised him to the status of a deity.

Julius Caesar had been preparing to invade Parthia, the Caucasus and Scythia, and then march back to Germania through Eastern Europe. These plans were thwarted by his assassination. His successors did attempt the conquests of Parthia and Germania, but without lasting results.

Julius Caesar was the first historical Roman to be officially deified. He was posthumously granted the title Divus Iulius or Divus Julius (the divine Julius or the deified Julius) by decree of the Roman Senate on 1 January 42 BC. Though his temple was not dedicated until after his death, he may have received divine honours during his lifetime: and shortly before his assassination, Mark Antony had been appointed as his flamen (priest). Both Octavian and Mark Antony promoted the cult of Divus Iulius. After the death of Antony, Octavian, as the adoptive son of Caesar, assumed the title of Divi Filius (son of a god).

Personal life

Health and physical appearance

Based on remarks by Plutarch, Caesar is sometimes thought to have suffered from epilepsy. Modern scholarship is "sharply divided" on the subject, and some scholars believe that he was plagued by malaria, particularly during the Sullan proscriptions of the 80s. Despite the commonly held belief that Caesar suffered from epilepsy, several specialists in headache medicine believe that a more accurate diagnosis would be migraine headache.

Caesar had four documented episodes of what may have been complex partial seizures. He may additionally have had absence seizures in his youth. The earliest accounts of these seizures were made by the biographer Suetonius, who was born after Caesar died. The claim of epilepsy is countered among some medical historians by a claim of hypoglycemia, which can cause epileptoid seizures.

In 2003, psychiatrist Harbour F. Hodder published what he termed as the "Caesar Complex" theory, arguing that Caesar was a sufferer of temporal lobe epilepsy and the debilitating symptoms of the condition were a factor in Caesar's conscious decision to forgo personal safety in the days leading up to his assassination.

A line from Shakespeare has sometimes been taken to mean that he was deaf in one ear: Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf. No classical source mentions hearing impairment in connection with Caesar. The playwright may have been making metaphorical use of a passage in Plutarch that does not refer to deafness at all, but rather to a gesture Alexander of Macedon customarily made. By covering his ear, Alexander indicated that he had turned his attention from an accusation in order to hear the defense.

The Roman historian Suetonius describes Caesar as "tall of stature with a fair complexion, shapely limbs, a somewhat full face, and keen black eyes."

Name and family

Using the Latin alphabet as it existed in the day of Caesar (i.e., without lower case letters, "J", or "U"), Caesar's name would be rendered "GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR"; the form "CAIVS" is also attested, using the old Roman representation of G by C; it is an antique form of the more common "GAIVS". The standard abbreviation was, and this is not archaic, "C. IVLIVS CAESAR". (The letterform "Æ" is a ligature, which is often encountered in Latin inscriptions where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".) In Classical Latin, it was pronounced . In the days of the late Roman Republic, many historical writings were done in Greek, a language most educated Romans studied. Young wealthy Roman boys were often taught by Greek slaves and sometimes sent to Athens for advanced training, as was Caesar's principal assassin, Brutus. In Greek, during Caesar's time, his family name was written Καίσαρ, reflecting its contemporary pronunciation. Thus, his name is pronounced in a similar way to the pronunciation of the German Kaiser. In Vulgar Latin, the plosive /k/ before front vowels began, due to palatalization, to be pronounced as an affricate – hence renderings like in Italian and in German regional pronunciations of Latin, as well as the title of Tsar. With the evolution of the Romance languages, the affricate [ts] became a fricative [s] (thus, ) in many regional pronunciations, including the French one, from which the modern English pronunciation is derived. The original /k/ is preserved in Norse mythology, where he is manifested as the legendary king Kjárr.

Caesar's cognomen would itself become a title; it was greatly promulgated by the Bible, by the famous verse "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". The title became the German Kaiser and Slavic Tsar/Czar. The last tsar in nominal power was Simeon II of Bulgaria whose reign ended in 1946; for two thousand years after Julius Caesar's assassination, there was at least one head of state bearing his name.

Parents

Father Gaius Julius Caesar the Elder

Mother Aurelia (related to the Aurelii Cottae)

Sisters

Julia Caesaris "Maior" (the elder)

Julia Caesaris "Minor" (the younger)

Wives

First marriage to Cornelia Cinnilla, from 83 BC until her death in childbirth in 69 or 68 BC

Second marriage to Pompeia, from 67 BC until he divorced her around 61 BC

Third marriage to Calpurnia Pisonis, from 59 BC until Caesar's death

Children

Julia with Cornelia Cinnilla, born in 83 or 82 BC

Caesarion, with Cleopatra VII, born 47 BC. He was killed at age 17 by Caesar's adopted son Octavianus.

adopted: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, his great-nephew by blood, who later became Emperor Augustus.

Marcus Junius Brutus: The historian Plutarch notes that Caesar believed Brutus to have been his illegitimate son, as his mother Servilia had been Caesar's lover during their youth.

Grandchildren

Grandson from Julia and Pompey, dead at several days, unnamed.

Lovers

Cleopatra VII mother of Caesarion

Servilia Caepionis mother of Brutus

Eunoë, queen of Mauretania and wife of Bogudes

Notable relatives

Gaius Marius (married to his Aunt Julia)

Mark Antony

Lucius Julius Caesar

Julius Sabinus, a Gaul of the Lingones at the time of the Batavian rebellion of AD 69, claimed to be the great-grandson of Caesar on the grounds that his great-grandmother had been Caesar's lover during the Gallic war.

Political rumors

Roman society viewed the passive role during sexual activity, regardless of gender, to be a sign of submission or inferiority. Indeed, Suetonius says that in Caesar's Gallic triumph, his soldiers sang that, "Caesar may have conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar." According to Cicero, Bibulus, Gaius Memmius, and others (mainly Caesar's enemies), he had an affair with Nicomedes IV of Bithynia early in his career. The tales were repeated, referring to Caesar as the Queen of Bithynia, by some Roman politicians as a way to humiliate him. It is very likely that the rumours were spread only as a form of character assassination; Caesar himself denied the accusations repeatedly throughout his lifetime, and according to Cassius Dio, even under oath on one occasion. This form of slander was popular during this time in the Roman Republic to demean and discredit political opponents. A favorite tactic used by the opposition was to accuse a popular political rival as living a Hellenistic lifestyle based on Greek and Eastern culture, where homosexuality and a lavish lifestyle were more acceptable than in Roman tradition.

Catullus wrote two poems suggesting that Caesar and his engineer Mamurra were lovers, but later apologised.

Mark Antony charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favours. Suetonius described Antony's accusation of an affair with Octavian as political slander. Octavian eventually became the first Roman Emperor.

Literary works

Caesar was considered during his lifetime to be one of the best orators and authors of prose in Rome—even Cicero spoke highly of Caesar's rhetoric and style. Among his most famous works were his funeral oration for his paternal aunt Julia and his Anticato, a document written to blacken Cato's reputation and respond to Cicero's Cato memorial. Poems by Caesar are also mentioned in ancient sources. His works other than his war commentaries have been lost, although a few sentences are quoted by other authors.

Memoirs

The Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), campaigns in Gallia and Britannia during his term as proconsul; and

The Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War), events of the Civil War until immediately after Pompey's death in Egypt.

Other works historically attributed to Caesar, but whose authorship is doubted, are:

De Bello Alexandrino (On the Alexandrine War), campaign in Alexandria;

De Bello Africo (On the African War), campaigns in North Africa; and

De Bello Hispaniensi (On the Hispanic War), campaigns in the Iberian peninsula.

These narratives were written and published on a yearly basis during or just after the actual campaigns, as a sort of "dispatches from the front". Apparently simple and direct in style—to the point that Caesar's Commentarii are commonly studied by first and second year Latin students—they are in fact highly sophisticated tracts, aimed most particularly at the middle-brow readership of minor aristocrats in Rome, Italy, and the provinces.

Legend and legacy

In the Middle Ages Caesar was created a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry.

Chronology of his life

Depictions

For the marble bust from Arles discovered in 2007–8 alleged to be Caesar's likeness, and the ensuing controversy, see Arles portrait bust.

See also

Comet Caesar

Emperor: Young Caesar (film)

References

Primary sources

Own writings

Forum Romanum Index to Caesar's works online in Latin and translation

omnia munda mundis Hypertext of Caesar's De Bello Gallico

Ancient historians' writings

Appian, Book 13 (English translation)

Cassius Dio, Books 37–44 (English translation)

Plutarch on Antony (English translation, Dryden edition)

Plutarch: The Life of Julius Caesar (English translation)

Plutarch: The Life of Mark Antony (English translation)

Suetonius: The Life of Julius Caesar. (Latin and English, cross-linked: the English translation by J. C. Rolfe)

Suetonius: The Life of Julius Caesar (J. C. Rolfe English translation, modified)

Secondary sources

External links

C. Julius Caesar Jona Lendering's in‑depth history of Caesar (Livius. Org)

Guide to online resources

History of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar at BBC History

Grey, D. The Assassination of Caesar, Clio History Journal, 2009.

Succession table

Caesar was acclaimed Imperator in 60 and 45 BC. In the Roman Republic, this was an honorary title assumed by certain military commanders. After an especially great victory, an army's troops in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph. After being acclaimed imperator, the victorious general had a right to use the title after his name until the time of his triumph, where he would relinquish the title as well as his imperium.

Category:100 BC births Category:44 BC deaths Category:Ancient Roman generals Category:Ancient Roman politicians Category:Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid Category:Correspondents of Cicero Category:Deaths by stabbing Category:Golden Age Latin writers Category:Iulii Category:Latin-language writers Category:Ancient Roman writers Category:People from Rome (city) Category:Republican holders of the role of pontifex maximus Category:Roman military writers Category:Roman Republican consuls Category:Roman governors of Hispania Category:Assassinated military personnel Category:1st-century BC Romans Category:1st-century BC clergy Category:1st-century BC writers Category:1st-century BC historians Category:1st-century BC rulers Category:Assassinated Roman politicians Category:Assassinated heads of state Category:Ancient Roman dictators Category:Deified people

rue:Юлій Цезар

af:Julius Caesar als:Gaius Julius Cäsar ar:يوليوس قيصر an:Chulio César ast:Xuliu César az:Qay Yuli Sezar bn:জুলিয়াস সিজার zh-min-nan:Julius Caesar be:Гай Юлій Цэзар be-x-old:Гай Юліюс Цэзар bo:ཡིའུ་ལི་ཝུའུ་སི་ཁའེ་ས། bs:Julije Cezar br:Caius Julius Caesar bg:Юлий Цезар ca:Juli Cèsar ceb:Julius Caesar cs:Julius Caesar cy:Iŵl Cesar da:Julius Cæsar de:Gaius Iulius Caesar et:Julius Caesar el:Ιούλιος Καίσαρας es:Julio César eo:Julio Cezaro ext:Júliu Cesa eu:Julio Zesar fa:ژولیوس سزار hif:Julius Caesar fr:Jules César fy:Julius Caesar ga:Iúil Caesar gd:Iulius Caesar gl:Xulio César gan:凱撒大帝 ko:율리우스 카이사르 hy:Հուլիոս Կեսար hi:जुलियस सीसर hr:Gaj Julije Cezar io:Julius Cezaro id:Julius Caesar ia:Julio Cesare is:Júlíus Caesar it:Gaio Giulio Cesare he:יוליוס קיסר jv:Julius Caesar kn:ಜೂಲಿಯಸ್ ಸೀಜರ್ ka:იულიუს კეისარი kk:Гай Юлий Цезарь sw:Julius Caesar ku:Julius Caesar la:Gaius Iulius Caesar lv:Jūlijs Cēzars lb:Gaius Iulius Caesar lt:Gajus Julijus Cezaris li:Julius Caesar jbo:iulius. kaisar hu:Caius Iulius Caesar mk:Гај Јулиј Цезар mg:Joliosy Kaisara ml:ജൂലിയസ് സീസർ mr:जुलियस सीझर arz:يوليوس قيصر mzn:سزار ms:Julius Caesar mn:Юлий Цезарь nl:Julius Caesar ja:ガイウス・ユリウス・カエサル nap:Gaio Giulio Cesare pih:Julius Caesar no:Julius Cæsar nn:Julius Cæsar oc:Juli Cesar uz:Julius Caesar pnb:جولیس سیزر pl:Gajusz Juliusz Cezar pt:Júlio César ksh:Gaius Julius Caesar ro:Iulius Cezar qu:Gaius Iulius Caesar ru:Гай Юлий Цезарь sa:जुलियस कैसर sco:Julius Caesar stq:Julius Caesar sq:Gaius Julius Caesar scn:Caiu Giuliu Cesari si:ජුලියස් සීසර් simple:Julius Caesar sk:Gaius Iulius Caesar sl:Gaj Julij Cezar sr:Гај Јулије Цезар sh:Gaj Julije Cezar fi:Julius Caesar sv:Julius Caesar tl:Julius Caesar ta:யூலியசு சீசர் tt:Гай Юлий Цезарь te:జూలియస్ సీజర్ th:จูเลียส ซีซาร์ tr:Jül Sezar uk:Гай Юлій Цезар ur:جولیس سیزر za:Gaejsa vec:Gaio Giulio Cesare vi:Julius Caesar fiu-vro:Julius Caesar wa:Djule Cezår zh-classical:凱撒 war:Julius Caesar yi:יוליוס קייסער yo:Juliu Késárì zh-yue:凱撒 bat-smg:Gajos Jolėjos Cezaris zh:尤利烏斯·凱撒

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
birth name	James Callis
birth date	June 04, 1971
birth place	London, United Kingdom
spouse	Neha Callis }}

James Callis (born 4 June 1971) is a British actor. He is best known for playing Dr. Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, and Bridget Jones' best friend in Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. He joined the cast of the TV Series Eureka, on Syfy, in 2010.

Early life

Callis was born and raised in London, where he attended Harrow School in north west London. His parents owned a bed-and-breakfast. Callis is Jewish, the descendant of immigrants from Russia and Poland.

Callis attended the University of York, graduating in 1993 with a BA in English and Related Literature. He was a member of Derwent College, for which he was an enthusiastic rugby player. At university he was also a keen student actor, director and writer, sometimes also appearing in productions put on by friends at Cambridge University, including a production of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party.

Career

Callis went on to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 1996. In the same year, he was awarded the Jack Tinker Award (Theatre Record Critic of the Year) for Most Promising Newcomer for his performance in Old Wicked Songs, a two-hander by Jon Marans, in which he starred alongside Bob Hoskins.

Callis has appeared in various West End productions and television series as well as on radio. He has also been involved in writing and directing. His directorial debut was Beginner's Luck, a co-production of his and writer/director Nick Cohen's Late Night Pictures and Angel Eye Film & TV, starring Julie Delpy, Steven Berkoff and Fenella Fielding. Beginner's Luck was critically panned, but ran for almost three weeks on one print (all the low-budget film could afford) in one cinema in central London, then went on a tour of student cinemas around the U.K. The U.K. distributor was Guerrilla Films. The film is still on the Icon Catalogue.

Callis finished filming his first role in a cinema film, Bridget Jones's Diary, alongside Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant, in the summer of 2000 and between a few further film and TV roles went back on stage in the Soho Theatre in December 2002.

In 2003, Callis played the role of Dr. Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries, and continued the role in the regular series that followed. In 2006, Callis won Best Supporting Actor Saturn Award and an AFI award for his performance as Baltar.

Personal life

Callis and his wife, Neha, married in December 1998. They have three children: Joshua, Sacha, and Anika.

Filmography

Film and Television
! Year	! Film	! Genre	! Other notes
rowspan="2"	Murder Most Horrid	(TV)	Mark (in episode: "Confess")
Soldier Soldier	(TV)	Major Tim Forrester
rowspan="2"	A Dance to the Music of Time	(TV)	Prof. Russell Gwinnett
Weekend Bird	Film	Mike
rowspan="2"		(TV)	Henri
	(TV)	Guy Curran
rowspan="4"	Heat of the Sun	(TV)	Clive Lanyard
Surety	Short film	directed & produced with Nick Cohen
Sex, Chips & Rock n' Roll	(TV)	The Wolf
	Film	Aspyrtes
		(TV)	Prince Ahmed
rowspan="4"		Film	Tom
As If	(TV)	Sebastian
	(TV)	Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Prince Albert's brother)
	Film	Mark (James also wrote, co-directed & co-produced this film)
	Relic Hunter	Film	Raoul
rowspan="3"	Blue Dove	Film	Dominic
	(TV)	King Menelaus (Helen's husband)
	(2003–2009) (TV)	Doctor Gaius Baltar
rowspan="2"		Film	Tom
Dead Cool	Film	Josh
	One Night with the King	Film	Haman
rowspan="2"	Merlin and the Book of Beasts	Film	Merlin
Numb3rs	(TV)
rowspan="2"	FlashForward	(TV)	Gabriel McDow (3 episodes)
	(TV)	Dr. Trevor Grant (9 episodes)
Radio
! Year	! Title	! Genre	! Notes
	Daisy Miller		Winterbourne
	HMS Ulysses	Saturday Playhouse (Radio 4)	aired on 14 June 1997

References

External links

Category:1971 births Category:Alumni of the University of York Category:Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Category:English film actors Category:English Jews Category:English television actors Category:Jewish actors Category:Living people Category:Actors from London

bg:Джеймс Калис cs:James Callis de:James Callis es:James Callis fr:James Callis it:James Callis ms:James Callis nl:James Callis no:James Callis pl:James Callis pt:James Callis ru:Кэллис, Джеймс fi:James Callis

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
name	Augustus
title	1st Emperor of the Roman Empire
reign	16 January 27 BC - 19 August AD 14 (40 years, 215 days)
predecessor	None (Empire founded)
successor	Tiberius
spouse	Clodia PulchraScriboniaLivia Drusilla
issue	Julia the ElderGaius Caesar (adoptive)Lucius Caesar (adoptive)Agrippa Postumus (adoptive)Tiberius (adoptive)
house	Julio-Claudian Dynasty
full name	Birth to adoption: Gaius Octavius ThurinusAdoption to accession: Gaius Julius CaesarAs Emperor: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus
father	Gaius Octavius
mother	Atia Balba Caesonia
birth date	23 September 63 BC
birth place	Rome, Roman Republic
death date	19 August AD 14 (aged 75)
death place	Nola, Italia, Roman Empire
place of burial	Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome }}

Augustus (; ; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC via his last will and testament, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the revered one"), and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. Because of the various names he bore, it is common to call him Octavius when referring to events between 63 and 44 BC, Octavian (or Octavianus) when referring to events between 44 and 27 BC, and Augustus when referring to events after 27 BC. In Greek sources, Augustus is known as (Octavius/Oktabios), (Caesar/Kaisar), (Augustus/Augustos), or Σεβαστός (Sebastos), depending on context.

The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces. The triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by the fleet of Octavian commanded by Agrippa in 31 BC.

After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Octavian restored the outward facade of the Roman Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, but in practice retained his autocratic power. It took several years to determine the exact framework by which a formally republican state could be led by a sole ruler; the result became known as the Roman Empire. The emperorship was never an office like the Roman dictatorship which Caesar and Sulla had held before him; indeed, he declined it when the Roman populace "entreated him to take on the dictatorship". By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including those of tribune of the plebs and censor. He was consul until 23 BC. His substantive power stemmed from financial success and resources gained in conquest, the building of patronage relationships throughout the Empire, the loyalty of many military soldiers and veterans, the authority of the many honors granted by the Senate, and the respect of the people. Augustus' control over the majority of Rome's legions established an armed threat that could be used against the Senate, allowing him to coerce the Senate's decisions. With his ability to eliminate senatorial opposition by means of arms, the Senate became docile towards him. His rule through patronage, military power, and accumulation of the offices of the defunct Republic became the model for all later imperial governments.

The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana, or Roman peace. Despite continuous wars on the frontiers, and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries. Augustus enlarged the empire dramatically, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Raetia, expanded possessions in Africa, and completed the conquest of Hispania. Beyond the frontiers, he secured the empire with client states, and made peace with Parthia through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard, and created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome. Much of the city was rebuilt under Augustus; and he wrote a record of his own accomplishments, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which has survived. Upon his death in AD 14, Augustus was declared a god by the Senate—to be worshipped by the Romans. His names Augustus and Caesar were adopted by every subsequent emperor; and the sixth month of the Roman calendar, previously named Sextilis, was renamed Augustus (August in English) in his honour. He was succeeded by his adopted son (also stepson and former son-in-law), Tiberius.

Early life

While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, about 25 miles from Rome, Augustus was born in the city of Rome on 23 September 63 BC. He was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his father's victory at Thurii over a rebellious band of slaves. Due to the crowded nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his father's home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his father's equestrian family briefly in his memoirs. His paternal great-grandfather was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War. His grandfather had served in several local political offices. His father, also named Gaius Octavius, had been governor of Macedonia. His mother Atia was the niece of Julius Caesar.

In 59 BC, when he was four years old, his father died. His mother married a former governor of Syria, Lucius Marcius Philippus. Philippus claimed descent from Alexander the Great, and was elected consul in 56 BC. Philippus never had much of an interest in young Octavius. Because of this, Octavius was raised by his grandmother (and Julius Caesar's sister), Julia Caesaris.

In 52 or 51 BC, Julia Caesaris died. Octavius delivered the funeral oration for his grandmother. From this point, his mother and stepfather took a more active role in raising him. He donned the toga virilis four years later, and was elected to the College of Pontiffs in 47 BC. The following year he was put in charge of the Greek games that were staged in honor of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, built by Julius Caesar. According to Nicolaus of Damascus, Octavius wished to join Caesar's staff for his campaign in Africa but gave way when his mother protested. In 46 BC, she consented for him to join Caesar in Hispania, where he planned to fight the forces of Pompey, Caesar's late enemy, but Octavius fell ill and was unable to travel.

When he had recovered, he sailed to the front, but was shipwrecked; after coming ashore with a handful of companions, he crossed hostile territory to Caesar's camp, which impressed his great-uncle considerably. Velleius Paterculus reports that Caesar afterwards allowed the young man to share his carriage. When back in Rome, Caesar deposited a new will with the Vestal Virgins, naming Octavius as the prime beneficiary.

Rise to power

Heir to Caesar

At the time Caesar was killed on the Ides of March (the 15th) 44 BC, Octavius was studying and undergoing military training in Apollonia, Illyria. Rejecting the advice of some army officers to take refuge with the troops in Macedonia, he sailed to Italia to ascertain if he had any potential political fortunes or security. After landing at Lupiae near Brundisium, he learned the contents of Caesar's will, and only then did he decide to become Caesar's political heir as well as heir to two-thirds of his estate. Having no living legitimate children, Caesar had adopted his great-nephew Octavius as his son and main heir. Upon his adoption, Octavius assumed his great-uncle's name, Gaius Julius Caesar. Although Romans who had been adopted into a new family usually retained their old nomen in cognomen form (e.g. Octavianus for one who had been an Octavius, Aemilianus for one who had been an Aemilius, etc.) there is no evidence that he ever bore the name Octavianus, as it would have made his modest origins too obvious. However, despite the fact that he never officially bore the name Octavianus, to save confusing the dead dictator with his heir, historians often refer to the new Caesar—between his adoption and his assumption, in 27 BC, of the name Augustus—as Octavian. Mark Antony later charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favours, though Suetonius, in his work Lives of the Twelve Caesars, describes Antony's accusation as political slander.

To make a successful entry into the upper echelons of the Roman political hierarchy, Octavian could not rely on his limited funds. After a warm welcome by Caesar's soldiers at Brundisium, Octavian demanded a portion of the funds that were allotted by Caesar for the intended war against Parthia in the Middle East. This amounted to 700 million sesterces stored at Brundisium, the staging ground in Italy for military operations in the east. A later senatorial investigation into the disappearance of the public funds made no action against Octavian, since he subsequently used that money to raise troops against the Senate's arch enemy, Mark Antony. Octavian made another bold move in 44 BC when without official permission he appropriated the annual tribute that had been sent from Rome's Near Eastern province to Italy. Octavian began to bolster his personal forces with Caesar's veteran legionaries and with troops designated for the Parthian war, gathering support by emphasizing his status as heir to Caesar. On his march to Rome through Italy, Octavian's presence and newly acquired funds attracted many, winning over Caesar's former veterans stationed in Campania. By June he had gathered an army of 3,000 loyal veterans, paying each a salary of 500 denarii.

Arriving in Rome on 6 May 44 BC, Octavian found the consul Mark Antony, Caesar's former colleague, in an uneasy truce with the dictator's assassins; they had been granted a general amnesty on 17 March, yet Antony succeeded in driving most of them out of Rome. This was due to his "inflammatory" eulogy given at Caesar's funeral, mounting public opinion against the assassins. Although Mark Antony was amassing political support, Octavian still had opportunity to rival him as the leading member of the faction supporting Caesar. Mark Antony had lost the support of many Romans and supporters of Caesar when he at first opposed the motion to elevate Caesar to divine status. Octavian failed to persuade Antony to relinquish Caesar's money to him. However, during the summer he managed to win support from Caesarian sympathizers, who saw the younger heir as the lesser evil and hoped to manipulate him, or to bear with him during their efforts to get rid of Antonius. In September, the Optimate orator Marcus Tullius Cicero began to attack Antony in a series of speeches portraying Antony as the greatest threat to the order of the Senate. With opinion in Rome turning against him and his year of consular power nearing its end, Antony attempted to pass laws which would lend him control over Cisalpine Gaul, which had been assigned as part of his province, from Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, one of Caesar's assassins. Octavian meanwhile built up a private army in Italy by recruiting Caesarian veterans, and on 28 November won over two of Antony's legions with the enticing offer of monetary gain. In the face of Octavian's large and capable force, Antony saw the danger of staying in Rome, and to the relief of the Senate he fled to Cisalpine Gaul, which was to be handed to him on 1 January.

First conflict with Antony

After Decimus Brutus refused to give up Cisalpine Gaul, Antony besieged him at Mutina. The resolutions passed by the Senate to stop the violence were rejected by Antony, as the Senate had no army of its own to challenge him; this provided an opportunity for Octavian, who was already known to have armed forces. Cicero also defended Octavian against Antony's taunts about Octavian's lack of noble lineage; he stated "we have no more brilliant example of traditional piety among our youth." This was in part a rebuttal to Antony's opinion of Octavian, as Cicero quoted Antony saying to Octavian, "You, boy, owe everything to your name." In this unlikely alliance orchestrated by the arch anti-Caesarian senator Cicero, the Senate inducted Octavian as senator on 1 January 43 BC, yet he was also given the power to vote alongside the former consuls. In addition, Octavian was granted imperium (commanding power), which made his command of troops legal, sending him to relieve the siege along with Hirtius and Pansa (the consuls for 43 BC). In April of 43 BC, Antony's forces were defeated at the battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina, forcing Antony to retreat to Transalpine Gaul. However, both consuls were killed, leaving Octavian in sole command of their armies.

After heaping many more rewards on Decimus Brutus than Octavian for defeating Antony, the Senate attempted to give command of the consular legions to Decimus Brutus, yet Octavian decided not to cooperate. Instead, Octavian stayed in the Po Valley and refused to aid any further offensive against Antony. In July, an embassy of centurions sent by Octavian entered Rome and demanded that he receive the consulship left vacant by Hirtius and Pansa. Octavian also demanded that the decree declaring Antony a public enemy should be rescinded. When this was refused, he marched on the city with eight legions. He encountered no military opposition in Rome, and on 19 August 43 BC was elected consul with his relative Quintus Pedius as co-consul. Meanwhile, Antony formed an alliance with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, another leading Caesarian.

Second Triumvirate

Proscriptions

In a meeting near Bologna in October of 43 BC, Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus formed a junta called the Second Triumvirate. This explicit arrogation of special powers lasting five years was then supported by law passed by the plebs, unlike the unofficial First Triumvirate formed by Gnaeus Pompey Magnus, Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus. The triumvirs then set in motion proscriptions in which allegedly 300 senators and 2,000 equites were branded as outlaws and deprived of their property and, for those who failed to escape, their lives. The estimation that 300 senators were proscribed was presented by Appian, although his earlier contemporary Livy asserted that only 130 senators had been proscribed. This decree issued by the triumvirate was motivated in part by a need to raise money to pay their troops' salaries for the upcoming conflict against Caesar's assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Rewards for their arrest gave incentive for Romans to capture those proscribed, while the assets and properties of those arrested were seized by the triumvirs.

Contemporary Roman historians provide conflicting reports as to which triumvir was more responsible for the proscriptions and killing. However, the sources agree that enacting the proscriptions was a means by all three factions to eliminate political enemies. Marcus Velleius Paterculus asserted that Octavian tried to avoid proscribing officials whereas Lepidus and Antony were to blame for initiating them. Cassius Dio defended Augustus as trying to spare as many as possible, whereas Antony and Lepidus, being older and involved in politics longer, had many more enemies to deal with. This claim was rejected by Appian, who maintained that Octavian shared an equal interest with Lepidus and Antony in eradicating his enemies. Suetonius presents the case that Octavian, although reluctant at first to proscribe officials, nonetheless pursued his enemies with more rigor than the other triumvirs. Plutarch describes the proscriptions as a ruthless and cutthroat swapping of friends and family between Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian. For example, Octavian allowed the proscription of his ally Cicero, Antony the proscription of his maternal uncle Lucius Julius Caesar IV, and Lepidus his brother Paulus.

Battle of Philippi and division of territory

On 1 January 42 BC, the Senate posthumously recognized Julius Caesar as a divinity of the Roman state, Divus Iulius. Octavian was able to further his cause by emphasizing the fact that he was Divi filius, "Son of God". Antony and Octavian then sent 28 legions by sea to face the armies of Brutus and Cassius, who had built their base of power in Greece. After two battles at Philippi in Macedonia in October of 42, the Caesarian army was victorious and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide. Mark Antony would later use the examples of these battles as a means to belittle Octavian, as both battles were decisively won with the use of Antony's forces. In addition to claiming responsibility for both victories, Antony also branded Octavian as a coward for handing over his direct military control to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa instead.

After Philippi, a new territorial arrangement was made among the members of the Second Triumvirate. While Antony placed Gaul, the provinces of Hispania, and Italia in the hands of Octavian, Antony traveled east to Egypt where he allied himself with Queen Cleopatra VII, the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son, Caesarion. Lepidus was left with the province of Africa, stymied by Antony who conceded Hispania to Octavian instead. Octavian was left to decide where in Italy to settle the tens of thousands of veterans of the Macedonian campaign whom the triumvirs had promised to discharge. The tens of thousands who had fought on the republican side with Brutus and Cassius, who could easily ally with a political opponent of Octavian if not appeased, also required land. There was no more government-controlled land to allot as settlements for their soldiers, so Octavian had to choose one of two options: alienating many Roman citizens by confiscating their land, or alienating many Roman soldiers who could mount a considerable opposition against him in the Roman heartland; Octavian chose the former. There were as many as eighteen Roman towns affected by the new settlements, with entire populations driven out or at least given partial evictions.

Rebellion and marriage alliances

Widespread dissatisfaction with Octavian over his soldiers' settlements encouraged many to rally at the side of Lucius Antonius, who was brother of Mark Antony and supported by a majority in the Senate. Meanwhile, Octavian asked for a divorce from Clodia Pulchra, the daughter of Fulvia and her first husband Publius Clodius Pulcher. Claiming that his marriage with Clodia had never been consummated, he returned her to her mother, Mark Antony's wife. Fulvia decided to take action. Together with Lucius Antonius she raised an army in Italy to fight for Antony's rights against Octavian. However, Lucius and Fulvia took a political and martial gamble in opposing Octavian, since the Roman army still depended on the triumvirs for their salaries. Lucius and his allies ended up in a defensive siege at Perusia (modern Perugia), where Octavian forced them into surrender in early 40 BC. Lucius and his army were spared due to his kinship with Antony, the strongman of the East, while Fulvia was exiled to Sicyon. However, Octavian showed no mercy for the mass of allies loyal to Lucius; on 15 March, the anniversary of Julius Caesar's assassination, he had 300 Roman senators and equestrians executed for allying with Lucius. Perusia was also pillaged and burned as a warning for others. This bloody event sullied Octavian's reputation and was criticized by many, such as the Augustan poet Sextus Propertius.

Sextus Pompeius, son of the First Triumvir Pompey and still a renegade general following Julius Caesar's victory over his father, was established in Sicily and Sardinia as part of an agreement reached with the Second Triumvirate in 39 BC. Both Antony and Octavian were vying for an alliance with Pompeius, who was ironically a member of the republican party, not the Caesarian faction. Octavian succeeded in a temporary alliance when in 40 BC he married Scribonia, a daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo who was a follower of Pompeius as well as his father-in-law. Scribonia conceived Octavian's only natural child, Julia, who was born the same day that he divorced Scribonia to marry Livia Drusilla, little more than a year after his marriage.

While in Egypt, Antony had been engaged in an affair with Cleopatra and had fathered three children with her. Aware of his deteriorating relationship with Octavian, Antony left Cleopatra; he sailed to Italy in 40 BC with a large force to oppose Octavian, laying siege to Brundisium. However, this new conflict proved untenable for both Octavian and Antony. Their centurions, who had become important figures politically, refused to fight due to their Caesarian cause, while the legions under their command followed suit. Meanwhile in Sicyon, Antony's wife Fulvia died of a sudden illness while Antony was en route to meet her. Fulvia's death and the mutiny of their centurions allowed the two remaining triumvirs to effect a reconciliation. In the autumn of 40, Octavian and Antony approved the Treaty of Brundisium, by which Lepidus would remain in Africa, Antony in the East, Octavian in the West. The Italian peninsula was left open to all for the recruitment of soldiers, but in reality, this provision was useless for Antony in the East. To further cement relations of alliance with Mark Antony, Octavian gave his sister, Octavia Minor, in marriage to Antony in late 40 BC. During their marriage, Octavia gave birth to two daughters (known as Antonia Major and Antonia Minor).

War with Pompeius

Sextus Pompeius threatened Octavian in Italy by denying to the peninsula shipments of grain through the Mediterranean; Pompeius' own son was put in charge as naval commander in the effort to cause widespread famine in Italy. Pompeius' control over the sea prompted him to take on the name Neptuni filius, "son of Neptune". A temporary peace agreement was reached in 39 BC with the treaty of Misenum; the blockade on Italy was lifted once Octavian granted Pompeius Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and the Peloponnese, and ensured him a future position as consul for 35 BC. The territorial agreement amongst the triumvirs and Sextus Pompeius began to crumble once Octavian divorced Scribonia and married Livia on 17 January 38 BC. One of Pompeius' naval commanders betrayed him and handed over Corsica and Sardinia to Octavian. However Octavian needed Antony's additional support to attack Pompeius, so an agreement was reached with the Second Triumvirate's extension for another five-year period beginning in 37 BC. In supporting Octavian, Antony expected to gain support for his own campaign against Parthia, desiring to avenge Rome's defeat at Carrhae in 53 BC. In an agreement reached at Tarentum, Antony provided 120 ships for Octavian to use against Pompeius, while Octavian was to send 20,000 legionaries to Antony for use against Parthia. However, Octavian sent only a tenth the number of those promised, which was viewed by Antony as an intentional provocation.

Octavian and Lepidus launched a joint operation against Sextus in Sicily in 36 BC. Despite setbacks for Octavian, the naval fleet of Sextus Pompeius was almost entirely destroyed on 3 September by general Agrippa at the naval battle of Naulochus. Sextus fled with his remaining forces to the east, where he was captured and executed in Miletus by one of Antony's generals the following year. Both Lepidus and Octavian gathered the surrendered troops of Pompeius, yet Lepidus felt empowered enough to claim Sicily for himself, ordering Octavian to leave. However, Lepidus' troops deserted him and defected to Octavian since they were weary of fighting and found Octavian's promises of money to be enticing. Lepidus surrendered to Octavian and was permitted to retain the office of pontifex maximus (head of the college of priests), but was ejected from the Triumvirate, his public career at an end, and was effectively exiled to a villa at Cape Circei in Italy. The Roman dominions were now divided between Octavian in the West and Antony in the East. To maintain peace and stability in his portion of the Empire, Octavian ensured Rome's citizens of their rights to property. This time he settled his discharged soldiers outside of Italy while returning 30,000 slaves to former Roman owners that had previously fled to Pompeius to join his army and navy. To ensure his own safety and that of Livia and Octavia once he returned to Rome, Octavian had the Senate grant him, his wife, and his sister tribunal immunity, or sacrosanctitas.

War with Antony

Meanwhile, Antony's campaign against Parthia turned disastrous, tarnishing his image as a leader, and the mere 2,000 legionaries sent by Octavian to Antony were hardly enough to replenish his forces. On the other hand, Cleopatra could restore his army to full strength, and since he was already engaged in a romantic affair with her, he decided to send Octavia back to Rome. Octavian used this to spread propaganda implying that Antony was becoming less than Roman because he rejected a legitimate Roman spouse for an "Oriental paramour". In 36 BC, Octavian used a political ploy to make himself look less autocratic and Antony more the villain by proclaiming that the civil wars were coming to an end, and that he would step down as triumvir if only Antony would do the same; Antony refused.

After Roman troops captured the Kingdom of Armenia in 34 BC, Antony made his son Alexander Helios the ruler of Armenia; he also awarded the title "Queen of Kings" to Cleopatra, acts which Octavian used to convince the Roman Senate that Antony had ambitions to diminish the preeminence of Rome. When Octavian became consul once again on 1 January 33 BC, he opened the following session in the Senate with a vehement attack on Antony's grants of titles and territories to his relatives and to his queen. Defecting consuls and senators rushed over to the side of Antony in disbelief of the propaganda (which turned out to be true), yet so did able ministers desert Antony for Octavian in the autumn of 32 BC. These defectors, Munatius Plancus and Marcus Titius, gave Octavian the information he needed to confirm with the Senate all the accusations he made against Antony. By storming the sanctuary of the Vestal Virgins, Octavian forced their chief priestess to hand over Antony's secret will, which would have given away Roman-conquered territories as kingdoms for his sons to rule, alongside plans to build a tomb in Alexandria for him and his queen to reside upon their deaths. In late 32 BC, the Senate officially revoked Antony's powers as consul and declared war on Cleopatra's regime in Egypt.

In early 31 BC, while Antony and Cleopatra were temporarily stationed in Greece, Octavian gained a preliminary victory when the navy under the command of Agrippa successfully ferried troops across the Adriatic Sea. While Agrippa cut off Antony and Cleopatra's main force from their supply routes at sea, Octavian landed on the mainland opposite the island of Corcyra (modern Corfu) and marched south. Trapped on land and sea, deserters of Antony's army fled to Octavian's side daily while Octavian's forces were comfortable enough to make preparations. In a desperate attempt to break free of the naval blockade, Antony's fleet sailed through the bay of Actium on the western coast of Greece. It was there that Antony's fleet faced the much larger fleet of smaller, more maneuverable ships under commanders Agrippa and Gaius Sosius in the battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC. Antony and his remaining forces were only spared due to a last-ditch effort by Cleopatra's fleet that had been waiting nearby. Octavian pursued them, and after another defeat in Alexandria on 1 August 30 BC, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide; Antony fell on his own sword and into Cleopatra's arms, while she let a venomous snake bite her. Having exploited his position as Caesar's heir to further his own political career, Octavian was only too well aware of the dangers in allowing another to do so and, reportedly commenting that "two Caesars are one too many", he ordered Caesarion—Julius Caesar's son by Cleopatra—to be killed, whilst sparing Cleopatra's children by Antony, with the exception of Antony's older son.

Octavian had previously shown little mercy to military combatants and acted in ways that had proven unpopular with the Roman people, yet he was given credit for pardoning many of his opponents after the Battle of Actium.

Octavian becomes Augustus

After Actium and the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian was in a position to rule the entire Republic under an unofficial principate, but would have to achieve this through incremental power gains, courting the Senate and the people, while upholding the republican traditions of Rome, to appear that he was not aspiring to dictatorship or monarchy. Marching into Rome, Octavian and Marcus Agrippa were elected as dual consuls by the Senate. Years of civil war had left Rome in a state of near lawlessness, but the Republic was not prepared to accept the control of Octavian as a despot. At the same time, Octavian could not simply give up his authority without risking further civil wars amongst the Roman generals, and even if he desired no position of authority whatsoever, his position demanded that he look to the well-being of the city of Rome and the Roman provinces. Octavian's aims from this point forward were to return Rome to a state of stability, traditional legality and civility by lifting the overt political pressure imposed on the courts of law and ensuring free elections in name at least.

First settlement

In 27 BC, Octavian made a show of returning full power to the Roman Senate and relinquishing his control of the Roman provinces and their armies. Under his consulship, however, the Senate had little power in initiating legislation by introducing bills for senatorial debate. Although Octavian was no longer in direct control of the provinces and their armies, he retained the loyalty of active duty soldiers and veterans alike. The careers of many clients and adherents depended on his patronage, as his financial power in the Roman Republic was unrivaled. The historian Werner Eck states:

The sum of his power derived first of all from various powers of office delegated to him by the Senate and people, secondly from his immense private fortune, and thirdly from numerous patron-client relationships he established with individuals and groups throughout the Empire. All of them taken together formed the basis of his auctoritas, which he himself emphasized as the foundation of his political actions.

To a large extent the public was aware of the vast financial resources Augustus commanded. When he failed to encourage enough senators to finance the building and maintenance of networks of roads in Italy, he undertook direct responsibility for them in 20 BC. This was publicized on the Roman currency issued in 16 BC, after he donated vast amounts of money to the aerarium Saturni, the public treasury.

According to H.H. Scullard, however, Augustus's power was based on the exercise of "a predominant military power and [...] the ultimate sanction of his authority was force, however much the fact was disguised."

The Senate proposed to Octavian, the victor of Rome's civil wars, that he once again assume command of the provinces. The senate's proposal was a ratification of Octavian's extra-constitutional power. Through the senate Octavian was able to continue the appearance of a still-functional constitution. Feigning reluctance, he accepted a ten-year responsibility of overseeing provinces that were considered chaotic. The provinces ceded to him, that he might pacify them within the promised ten-year period, comprised much of the conquered Roman world, including all of Hispania and Gaul, Syria, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Egypt. Moreover, command of these provinces provided Octavian with control over the majority of Rome's legions.

While Octavian acted as consul in Rome, he dispatched senators to the provinces under his command as his representatives to manage provincial affairs and ensure his orders were carried out. On the other hand, the provinces not under Octavian's control were overseen by governors chosen by the Roman Senate. Octavian became the most powerful political figure in the city of Rome and in most of its provinces, but did not have sole monopoly on political and martial power. The Senate still controlled North Africa, an important regional producer of grain, as well as Illyria and Macedonia, two martially strategic regions with several legions. However, with control of only five or six legions distributed amongst three senatorial proconsuls, compared to the twenty legions under the control of Augustus, the Senate's control of these regions did not amount to any political or martial challenge to Octavian. The Senate's control over some of the Roman provinces helped maintain a republican façade for the autocratic Principate. Also, Octavian's control of entire provinces for the objective of securing peace and creating stability followed Republican-era precedents, in which such prominent Romans as Pompey had been granted similar military powers in times of crisis and instability.

In January of 27 BC, the Senate gave Octavian the new titles of Augustus and Princeps. Augustus, from the Latin word Augere (meaning to increase), can be translated as "the illustrious one". It was a title of religious rather than political authority. According to Roman religious beliefs, the title symbolized a stamp of authority over humanity—and in fact nature—that went beyond any constitutional definition of his status. After the harsh methods employed in consolidating his control, the change in name would also serve to demarcate his benign reign as Augustus from his reign of terror as Octavian. His new title of Augustus was also more favorable than Romulus, the previous one he styled for himself in reference to the story of Romulus and Remus (founders of Rome), which would symbolize a second founding of Rome. However, the title of Romulus was associated too strongly with notions of monarchy and kingship, an image Octavian tried to avoid. Princeps, comes from the Latin phrase primum caput, "the first head", originally meaning the oldest or most distinguished senator whose name would appear first on the senatorial roster; in the case of Augustus it became an almost regnal title for a leader who was first in charge. Princeps had also been a title under the Republic for those who had served the state well; for example, Pompey had held the title. Augustus also styled himself as Imperator Caesar divi filius, "Commander Caesar son of the deified one". With this title he not only boasted his familial link to deified Julius Caesar, but the use of Imperator signified a permanent link to the Roman tradition of victory. The word Caesar was merely a cognomen for one branch of the Julian family, yet Augustus transformed Caesar into a new family line that began with him.

Augustus was granted the right to hang the corona civica, the "civic crown" made from oak, above his door and have laurels drape his doorposts. This crown was usually held above the head of a Roman general during a triumph, with the individual holding the crown charged to continually repeat "memento mori", or, "Remember, you are mortal", to the triumphant general. Additionally, laurel wreaths were important in several state ceremonies, and crowns of laurel were rewarded to champions of athletic, racing, and dramatic contests. Thus, both the laurel and the oak were integral symbols of Roman religion and statecraft; placing them on Augustus' doorposts was tantamount to declaring his home the capital. However, Augustus renounced flaunting insignia of power such as holding a scepter, wearing a diadem, or wearing the golden crown and purple toga of his predecessor Julius Caesar. If he refused to symbolize his power by donning and bearing these items on his person, the Senate nonetheless awarded him with a golden shield displayed in the meeting hall of the Curia, bearing the inscription virtus, pietas, clementia, iustitia—"valor, piety, clemency, and justice."

Second settlement

In 23 BC, there was a political crisis that involved Augustus' co-consul Terentius Varro Murena, who was part of a conspiracy against Augustus. The exact details of the conspiracy are unknown, yet Murena did not serve a full term as consul before Calpurnius Piso was elected to replace him. Piso was a well known member of the republican faction, and serving as co-consul with him was another means by Augustus to show his willingness to make concessions and cooperate with all political parties. In the late spring Augustus suffered a severe illness, and on his supposed deathbed made arrangements that would put in doubt the senators' suspicions of his anti-republicanism. Augustus prepared to hand down his signet ring to his favored general Agrippa. However, Augustus handed over to his co-consul Piso all of his official documents, an account of public finances, and authority over listed troops in the provinces while Augustus' supposedly favored nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus came away empty-handed. This was a surprise to many who believed Augustus would have named an heir to his position as an unofficial emperor. Augustus bestowed only properties and possessions to his designated heirs, as a system of institutionalized imperial inheritance would have provoked resistance and hostility amongst the republican-minded Romans fearful of monarchy.

Soon after his bout of illness subsided, Augustus gave up his permanent consulship. The only other times Augustus would serve as consul would be in the years 5 and 2 BC. Although he had resigned as consul, Augustus retained his consular imperium, leading to a second compromise between him and the Senate known as the Second Settlement. This was a clever ploy by Augustus; by stepping down as one of two consuls, this allowed aspiring senators a better chance to fill that position, while at the same time Augustus could "exercise wider patronage within the senatorial class." Augustus was no longer in an official position to rule the state, yet his dominant position over the Roman provinces remained unchanged as he became a proconsul. Earlier as a consul he had the power to intervene, when he deemed necessary, with the affairs of provincial proconsuls appointed by the Senate. As a proconsul Augustus did not want this authority of overriding provincial governors to be stripped from him, so imperium proconsulare maius, or "power over all the proconsuls" was granted to Augustus by the Senate. The existence of imperium maius is debated by scholars, and it is also argued that he was only granted imperium aequum, or power equal to that of the governors, but his supreme influence allowed him to control the affairs of the provinces.

Augustus was also granted the power of a tribune (tribunicia potestas) for life, though not the official title of tribune. Legally it was closed to patricians, a status that Augustus had acquired years ago when adopted by Julius Caesar. This allowed him to convene the Senate and people at will and lay business before it, veto the actions of either the Assembly or the Senate, preside over elections, and the right to speak first at any meeting. Also included in Augustus' tribunician authority were powers usually reserved for the Roman censor; these included the right to supervise public morals and scrutinize laws to ensure they were in the public interest, as well as the ability to hold a census and determine the membership of the Senate. With the powers of a censor, Augustus appealed to virtues of Roman patriotism by banning all other attire besides the classic toga while entering the Forum. There was no precedent within the Roman system for combining the powers of the tribune and the censor into a single position, nor was Augustus ever elected to the office of censor. Julius Caesar had been granted similar powers, wherein he was charged with supervising the morals of the state, however this position did not extend to the censor's ability to hold a census and determine the Senate's roster. The office of the tribune plebis began to lose its prestige due to Augustus' amassing of tribunal powers, so he revived its importance by making it a mandatory appointment for any plebeian desiring the praetorship.

In addition to tribunician authority, Augustus was granted sole imperium within the city of Rome itself: all armed forces in the city, formerly under the control of the prefects and consuls, were now under the sole authority of Augustus. With maius imperium proconsulare, Augustus was the only individual able to receive a triumph as he was ostensibly the head of every Roman army. In 19 BC, Lucius Cornelius Balbus, governor of Africa and conqueror of the Garamantes, was the first man of provincial origin to receive this award, as well as the last. For every following Roman victory the credit was given to Augustus, because Rome's armies were commanded by the legatus, who were deputies of the princeps in the provinces. Augustus' eldest son by marriage to Livia, Tiberius, was the only exception to this rule when he received a triumph for victories in Germania in 7 BC. Ensuring that his status of maius imperium proconsulare was renewed in 13 BC, Augustus stayed in Rome during the renewal process and provided veterans with lavish donations to gain their support.

Many of the political subtleties of the Second Settlement seem to have evaded the comprehension of the Plebeian class. When Augustus failed to stand for election as consul in 22 BC, fears arose once again that Augustus was being forced from power by the aristocratic Senate. In 22, 21, and 19 BC, the people rioted in response, and only allowed a single consul to be elected for each of those years, ostensibly to leave the other position open for Augustus. In 22 BC there was a food shortage in Rome which sparked panic, while many urban plebs called for Augustus to take on dictatorial powers to personally oversee the crisis. After a theatrical display of refusal before the Senate, Augustus finally accepted authority over Rome's grain supply "by virtue of his proconsular imperium", and ended the crisis almost immediately. It was not until AD 8 that a food crisis of this sort prompted Augustus to establish a praefectus annonae, a permanent prefect who was in charge of procuring food supplies for Rome. In 19 BC, the Senate voted to allow Augustus to wear the consul's insignia in public and before the Senate, as well as sit in the symbolic chair between the two consuls and hold the fasces, an emblem of consular authority. Like his tribune authority, the granting of consular powers to him was another instance of holding power of offices he did not actually hold. This seems to have assuaged the populace; regardless of whether or not Augustus was actually a consul, the importance was that he appeared as one before the people. On 6 March 12 BC, after the death of Lepidus, he additionally took up the position of pontifex maximus, the high priest of the collegium of the Pontifices, the most important position in Roman religion. On 5 February 2 BC, Augustus was also given the title pater patriae, or "father of the country".

Later Roman Emperors would generally be limited to the powers and titles originally granted to Augustus, though often, to display humility, newly appointed Emperors would decline one or more of the honorifics given to Augustus. Just as often, as their reign progressed, Emperors would appropriate all of the titles, regardless of whether they had actually been granted them by the Senate. The civic crown, which later Emperors took to actually wearing, consular insignia, and later the purple robes of a Triumphant general (toga picta) became the imperial insignia well into the Byzantine era.

War and expansion

Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus chose Imperator, "victorious commander" to be his first name, since he wanted to make the notion of victory associated with him emphatically clear. By the year 13, Augustus boasted 21 occasions where his troops proclaimed "imperator" as his title after a successful battle. Almost the entire fourth chapter in his publicly released memoirs of achievements known as the Res Gestae was devoted to his military victories and honors. Augustus also promoted the ideal of a superior Roman civilization with a task of ruling the world (the extent to which the Romans knew it), a sentiment embodied in words that the contemporary poet Virgil attributes to a legendary ancestor of Augustus: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento—"Roman, remember by your strength to rule the Earth's peoples!" The impulse for expansionism, apparently prominent among all classes at Rome, is accorded divine sanction by Virgil's Jupiter, who in Book 1 of the Aeneid promises Rome imperium sine fine, "sovereignty without limit".

By the end of his reign, the armies of Augustus had conquered northern Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal), the Alpine regions of Raetia and Noricum (modern Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Slovenia), Illyricum and Pannonia (modern Albania, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, etc.), and extended the borders of the Africa Province to the east and south. After the reign of the client king Herod the Great (73–4 BC), Judea was added to the province of Syria when Augustus deposed his successor Herod Archelaus. Like Egypt which had been conquered after the defeat of Antony in 30 BC, Syria was governed not by a proconsul or legate of Augustus, but a high prefect of the equestrian class. Again, no military effort was needed in 25 BC when Galatia (modern Turkey) was converted to a Roman province shortly after Amyntas of Galatia was killed by an avenging widow of a slain prince from Homonada. When the rebellious tribes of Cantabria in modern-day Spain were finally quelled in 19 BC, the territory fell under the provinces of Hispania and Lusitania. This region proved to be a major asset in funding Augustus' future military campaigns, as it was rich in mineral deposits that could be fostered in Roman mining projects, especially the very rich gold deposits at Las Medulas for example.

Conquering the peoples of the Alps in 16 BC was another important victory for Rome since it provided a large territorial buffer between the Roman citizens of Italy and Rome's enemies in Germania to the north. The poet Horace dedicated an ode to the victory, while the monument Trophy of Augustus near Monaco was built to honor the occasion. The capture of the Alpine region also served the next offensive in 12 BC, when Tiberius began the offensive against the Pannonian tribes of Illyricum and his brother Nero Claudius Drusus against the Germanic tribes of the eastern Rhineland. Both campaigns were successful, as Drusus' forces reached the Elbe River by 9 BC, yet he died shortly after by falling off his horse. It was recorded that the pious Tiberius walked in front of his brother's body all the way back to Rome.

To protect Rome's eastern territories from the Parthian Empire, Augustus relied on the client states of the east to act as territorial buffers and areas which could raise their own troops for defense. To ensure security of the Empire's eastern flank, Augustus stationed a Roman army in Syria, while his skilled stepson Tiberius negotiated with the Parthians as Rome's diplomat to the East. Tiberius was responsible for restoring Tigranes V to the throne of the Kingdom of Armenia. Yet arguably his greatest diplomatic achievement was negotiating with Phraates IV of Parthia (37–2 BC) in 20 BC for the return of the battle standards lost by Crassus in the Battle of Carrhae, a symbolic victory and great boost of morale for Rome. Werner Eck claims that this was a great disappointment for Romans seeking to avenge Crassus' defeat by military means. However, Maria Brosius explains that Augustus used the return of the standards as propaganda symbolizing the submission of Parthia to Rome. The event was celebrated in art such as the breastplate design on the statue Augustus of Prima Porta and in monuments such as the Temple of Mars Ultor ('Mars the Avenger') built to house the standards.

Although Parthia always posed a threat to Rome in the east, the real battlefront was along the Rhine and Danube rivers. Before the final fight with Antony, Octavian's campaigns against the tribes in Dalmatia was the first step in expanding Roman dominions to the Danube. Victory in battle was not always a permanent success, as newly conquered territories were constantly retaken by Rome's enemies in Germania. A prime example of Roman loss in battle was the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, where three entire legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were destroyed with few survivors by Arminius, leader of the Cherusci, an apparent Roman ally. Augustus retaliated by dispatching Tiberius and Drusus to the Rhineland to pacify it, which had some success although the battle of AD 9 brought the end to Roman expansion into Germany. The Roman general Germanicus took advantage of a Cherusci civil war between Arminius and Segestes; they defeated Arminius, who fled that battle but was killed later in 21 due to treachery.

Death and succession

The illness of Augustus in 23 BC brought the problem of succession to the forefront of political issues and the public. To ensure stability, he needed to designate an heir to his unique position in Roman society and government. This was to be achieved in small, undramatic, and incremental ways that did not stir senatorial fears of monarchy. If someone was to succeed his unofficial position of power, they were going to have to earn it through their own publicly proven merits. Some Augustan historians argue that indications pointed toward his sister's son Marcellus, who had been quickly married to Augustus' daughter Julia the Elder. Other historians dispute this due to Augustus' will read aloud to the Senate while he was seriously ill in 23 BC, instead indicating a preference for Marcus Agrippa, who was Augustus' second in charge and arguably the only one of his associates who could have controlled the legions and held the Empire together. After the death of Marcellus in 23 BC, Augustus married his daughter to Agrippa. This union produced five children, three sons and two daughters: Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, Vipsania Julia, Agrippina the Elder, and Postumus Agrippa, so named because he was born after Marcus Agrippa died. Shortly after the Second Settlement, Agrippa was granted a five-year term of administering the eastern half of the Empire with the imperium of a proconsul and the same tribunicia potestas granted to Augustus (although not trumping Augustus' authority), his seat of governance stationed at Samos in the eastern Aegean. Although this granting of power would have shown Augustus' favor for Agrippa, it was also a measure to please members of his Caesarian party by allowing one of their members to share a considerable amount of power with him.

Augustus' intent to make Gaius and Lucius Caesar his heirs was apparent when he adopted them as his own children. He took the consulship in 5 and 2 BC so he could personally usher them into their political careers, and they were nominated for the consulships of AD 1 and 4. Augustus also showed favor to his stepsons, Livia's children from her first marriage, Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus and Tiberius Claudius, granting them military commands and public office, and seeming to favor Drusus. However, Drusus' marriage to Antonia, Augustus' niece, was a relationship far too embedded within the family to disturb over succession issues. After Agrippa died in 12 BC, Livia's son Tiberius was ordered to divorce his own wife Vipsania and marry Agrippa's widow, Augustus' daughter Julia—as soon as a period of mourning for Agrippa had ended. While Drusus' marriage to Antonia was considered an unbreakable affair, Vipsania was "only" the daughter of the late Agrippa from his first marriage.

Tiberius shared in Augustus' tribune powers as of 6 BC, but shortly thereafter went into retirement, reportedly wanting no further role in politics while he exiled himself to Rhodes. Although no specific reason is known for his departure, it could have been a combination of reasons, including a failing marriage with Julia. It could very well have been from feelings of jealousy and being left out since Augustus' young grandchildren-turned-sons, Gaius and Lucius, joined the college of priests at an early age, were presented to spectators in a more favorable light, and were introduced to the army in Gaul. After the early deaths of both Lucius and Gaius in AD 2 and 4 respectively, and the earlier death of his brother Drusus (9 BC), Tiberius was recalled to Rome in June AD 4, where he was adopted by Augustus on the condition that he, in turn, adopt his nephew Germanicus. This continued the tradition of presenting at least two generations of heirs. In that year, Tiberius was also granted the powers of a tribune and proconsul, emissaries from foreign kings had to pay their respects to him, and by 13 was awarded with his second triumph and equal level of imperium with that of Augustus. The only other possible claimant as heir was Postumus Agrippa, who had been exiled by Augustus in AD 7, his banishment made permanent by senatorial decree, and Augustus officially disowned him. He certainly fell out of Augustus' favor as an heir; the historian Erich S. Gruen notes various contemporary sources that state Postumus Agrippa was a "vulgar young man, brutal and brutish, and of depraved character." Postumus Agrippa was murdered at his place of exile either shortly before or after the death of Augustus.

On 19 August AD 14, Augustus died while visiting the place of his father's death at Nola, and Tiberius—who was present alongside Livia at Augustus' deathbed—was named his heir. Augustus' famous last words were, "Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit"—referring to the play-acting and regal authority that he had put on as emperor. Publicly, though, his last words were, "Behold, I found Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble." An enormous funerary procession of mourners traveled with Augustus' body from Nola to Rome, and on the day of his burial all public and private businesses closed for the day. Tiberius and his son Drusus delivered the eulogy while standing atop two rostra. Coffin-bound, Augustus' body was cremated on a pyre close to his mausoleum. It was proclaimed that Augustus joined the company of the gods as a member of the Roman pantheon. In 410, during the Sack of Rome, the mausoleum was despoiled by the Goths and his ashes scattered.

The historian D.C.A. Shotter states that Augustus' policy of favoring the Julian family line over the Claudian might have afforded Tiberius sufficient cause to show open disdain for Augustus after the latter's death; instead, Tiberius was always quick to rebuke those who criticized Augustus. Shotter suggests that Augustus' deification, coupled with Tiberius' "extremely conservative" attitude towards religion, obliged Tiberius to suppress any open resentment he might have harbored. Also, the historian R. Shaw-Smith points to letters of Augustus to Tiberius which display affection towards Tiberius and high regard for his military merits. Shotter states that Tiberius focused his anger and criticism on Gaius Asinius Gallus (for marrying Vipsania after Augustus forced Tiberius to divorce her) as well as the two young Caesars Gaius and Lucius, instead of Augustus, the real architect of his divorce and imperial demotion.

Legacy

Augustus' reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire and until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, and his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death, in use both at Old Rome and at New Rome. In many languages, caesar became the word for emperor, as in the German Kaiser and in the Bulgarian and subsequently Russian Tsar. The cult of Divus Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391 by Theodosius I. Consequently, there are many excellent statues and busts of the first emperor. He had composed an account of his achievements, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, to be inscribed in bronze in front of his mausoleum. Copies of the text were inscribed throughout the Empire upon his death. The inscriptions in Latin featured translations in Greek beside it, and were inscribed on many public edifices, such as the temple in Ankara dubbed the Monumentum Ancyranum, called the "queen of inscriptions" by historian Theodor Mommsen. There are a few known written works by Augustus that have survived. This includes his poems Sicily, Epiphanus, and Ajax, an autobiography of 13 books, a philosophical treatise, and his written rebuttal to Brutus' Eulogy of Cato. However, historians are able to analyze existing letters penned by Augustus to others for additional facts or clues about his personal life.

Many consider Augustus to be Rome's greatest emperor; his policies certainly extended the Empire's life span and initiated the celebrated Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. He was intelligent, decisive, and a shrewd politician, but he was not perhaps as charismatic as Julius Caesar, and was influenced on occasion by his third wife, Livia (sometimes for the worse). Nevertheless, his legacy proved more enduring. The city of Rome was utterly transformed under Augustus, with Rome's first institutionalized police force, fire fighting force, and the establishment of the municipal prefect as a permanent office. The police force was divided into cohorts of 500 men each, while the units of firemen ranged from 500 to 1,000 men each, with 7 units assigned to 14 divided city sectors. A praefectus vigilum, or "Prefect of the Watch" was put in charge of the vigiles, Rome's fire brigade and police. With Rome's civil wars at an end, Augustus was also able to create a standing army for the Roman Empire, fixed at a size of 28 legions of about 170,000 soldiers. This was supported by numerous auxiliary units of 500 soldiers each, often recruited from recently conquered areas. With his finances securing the maintenance of roads throughout Italy, Augustus also installed an official courier system of relay stations overseen by a military officer known as the praefectus vehiculorum. Besides the advent of swifter communication amongst Italian polities, his extensive building of roads throughout Italy also allowed Rome's armies to march swiftly and at an unprecedented pace across the country. In the year 6 Augustus established the aerarium militare, donating 170 million sesterces to the new military treasury that provided for both active and retired soldiers. One of the most lasting institutions of Augustus was the establishment of the Praetorian Guard in 27 BC, originally a personal bodyguard unit on the battlefield that evolved into an imperial guard as well as an important political force in Rome. They had the power to intimidate the Senate, install new emperors, and depose ones they disliked; the last emperor they served was Maxentius, as it was Constantine I who disbanded them in the early 4th century and destroyed their barracks, the Castra Praetoria.

Although the most powerful individual in the Roman Empire, Augustus wished to embody the spirit of Republican virtue and norms. He also wanted to relate to and connect with the concerns of the plebs and lay people. He achieved this through various means of generosity and a cutting back of lavish excess. In the year 29 BC, Augustus paid 400 sesterces each to 250,000 citizens, 1,000 sesterces each to 120,000 veterans in the colonies, and spent 700 million sesterces in purchasing land for his soldiers to settle upon. He also restored 82 different temples to display his care for the Roman pantheon of deities. In 28 BC, he melted down 80 silver statues erected in his likeness and in honor of him, an attempt of his to appear frugal and modest.

The longevity of Augustus' reign and its legacy to the Roman world should not be overlooked as a key factor in its success. As Tacitus wrote, the younger generations alive in AD 14 had never known any form of government other than the Principate. Had Augustus died earlier (in 23 BC, for instance), matters might have turned out differently. The attrition of the civil wars on the old Republican oligarchy and the longevity of Augustus, therefore, must be seen as major contributing factors in the transformation of the Roman state into a de facto monarchy in these years. Augustus' own experience, his patience, his tact, and his political acumen also played their parts. He directed the future of the Empire down many lasting paths, from the existence of a standing professional army stationed at or near the frontiers, to the dynastic principle so often employed in the imperial succession, to the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense. Augustus' ultimate legacy was the peace and prosperity the Empire enjoyed for the next two centuries under the system he initiated. His memory was enshrined in the political ethos of the Imperial age as a paradigm of the good emperor. Every emperor of Rome adopted his name, Caesar Augustus, which gradually lost its character as a name and eventually became a title. The Augustan era poets Virgil and Horace praised Augustus as a defender of Rome, an upholder of moral justice, and an individual who bore the brunt of responsibility in maintaining the empire. However, for his rule of Rome and establishing the principate, Augustus has also been subjected to criticism throughout the ages. The contemporary Roman jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo (d. AD 10/11), fond of the days of pre-Augustan republican liberty in which he had been born, openly criticized the Augustan regime. In the beginning of his Annals, the Roman historian Tacitus (c. 56–c.117) wrote that Augustus had cunningly subverted Republican Rome into a position of slavery. He continued to say that, with Augustus' death and swearing of loyalty to Tiberius, the people of Rome simply traded one slaveholder for another. Tacitus, however, records two contradictory but common views of Augustus:

According to the second opposing opinion:

In a recent biography on Augustus, Anthony Everitt asserts that through the centuries, judgments on Augustus' reign have oscillated between these two extremes but stresses that:

Tacitus was of the belief that Nerva (r. 96–98) successfully "mingled two formerly alien ideas, principate and liberty." The 3rd century historian Cassius Dio acknowledged Augustus as a benign, moderate ruler, yet like most other historians after the death of Augustus, Dio viewed Augustus as an autocrat. The poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (AD 39–65) was of the opinion that Caesar's victory over Pompey and the fall of Cato the Younger (95 BC–46 BC) marked the end of traditional liberty in Rome; historian Chester G. Starr, Jr. writes of his avoidance of criticizing Augustus, "perhaps Augustus was too sacred a figure to accuse directly."

The Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), in his Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome, criticized Augustus for installing tyranny over Rome, and likened what he believed Great Britain's virtuous constitutional monarchy to Rome's moral Republic of the 2nd century BC. In his criticism of Augustus, the admiral and historian Thomas Gordon (1658–1741) compared Augustus to the puritanical tyrant Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658). Thomas Gordon and the French political philosopher Montesquieu (1689–1755) both remarked that Augustus was a coward in battle. In his Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, the Scottish scholar Thomas Blackwell (1701–1757) deemed Augustus a Machiavellian ruler, "a bloodthirsty vindicative usurper", "wicked and worthless", "a mean spirit", and a "tyrant".

Revenue reforms

Augustus' public revenue reforms had a great impact on the subsequent success of the Empire. Augustus brought a far greater portion of the Empire's expanded land base under consistent, direct taxation from Rome, instead of exacting varying, intermittent, and somewhat arbitrary tributes from each local province as Augustus' predecessors had done. This reform greatly increased Rome's net revenue from its territorial acquisitions, stabilized its flow, and regularized the financial relationship between Rome and the provinces, rather than provoking fresh resentments with each new arbitrary exaction of tribute. The measures of taxation in the reign of Augustus were determined by population census, with fixed quotas for each province. Citizens of Rome and Italy paid indirect taxes, while direct taxes were exacted from the provinces. Indirect taxes included a 4% tax on the price of slaves, a 1% tax on goods sold at auction, and a 5% tax on the inheritance of estates valued at over 100,000 sesterces by persons other than the next of kin.

An equally important reform was the abolition of private tax farming, which was replaced by salaried civil service tax collectors. Private contractors that raised taxes had been the norm in the Republican era, and some had grown powerful enough to influence the amount of votes for politicians in Rome. The tax farmers had gained great infamy for their depredations, as well as great private wealth, by winning the right to tax local areas. Rome's revenue was the amount of the successful bids, and the tax farmers' profits consisted of any additional amounts they could forcibly wring from the populace with Rome's blessing. Lack of effective supervision, combined with tax farmers' desire to maximize their profits, had produced a system of arbitrary exactions that was often barbarously cruel to taxpayers, widely (and accurately) perceived as unfair, and very harmful to investment and the economy.

The use of Egypt's immense land rents to finance the Empire's operations resulted from Augustus' conquest of Egypt and the shift to a Roman form of government. As it was effectively considered Augustus' private property rather than a province of the Empire, it became part of each succeeding emperor's patrimonium. Instead of a legate or proconsul, Augustus installed a prefect from the equestrian class to administer Egypt and maintain its lucrative seaports; this position became the highest political achievement for any equestrian besides becoming Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. The highly productive agricultural land of Egypt yielded enormous revenues that were available to Augustus and his successors to pay for public works and military expeditions, as well as bread and circuses for the population of Rome.

Month of August

The month of August (Latin: Augustus) is named after Augustus; until his time it was called Sextilis (named so because it had been the sixth month of the original Roman calendar and the Latin word for six is sex). Commonly repeated lore has it that August has 31 days because Augustus wanted his month to match the length of Julius Caesar's July, but this is an invention of the 13th century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sextilis in fact had 31 days before it was renamed, and it was not chosen for its length (see Julian calendar). According to a senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, Sextilis was renamed to honor Augustus because several of the most significant events in his rise to power, culminating in the fall of Alexandria, fell in that month.

Building projects

On his deathbed, Augustus boasted "I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble". Although there is some truth in the literal meaning of this, Cassius Dio asserts that it was a metaphor for the Empire's strength. Marble could be found in buildings of Rome before Augustus, but it was not extensively used as a building material until the reign of Augustus. Although this did not apply to the Subura slums, which were still as rickety and fire-prone as ever, he did leave a mark on the monumental topography of the centre and of the Campus Martius, with the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) and monumental sundial, whose central gnomon was an obelisk taken from Egypt. The relief sculptures decorating the Ara Pacis visually augmented the written record of Augustus' triumphs in the Res Gestae. Its reliefs depicted the imperial pageants of the praetorians, the Vestals, and the citizenry of Rome. He also built the Temple of Caesar, the Baths of Agrippa, and the Forum of Augustus with its Temple of Mars Ultor. Other projects were either encouraged by him, such as the Theatre of Balbus, and Agrippa's construction of the Pantheon, or funded by him in the name of others, often relations (e.g. Portico of Octavia, Theatre of Marcellus). Even his Mausoleum of Augustus was built before his death to house members of his family. To celebrate his victory at the Battle of Actium, the Arch of Augustus was built in 29 BC near the entrance of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and widened in 19 BC to include a triple-arch design. There are also many buildings outside of the city of Rome that bear Augustus' name and legacy, such as the Theatre of Merida in modern Spain, the Maison Carrée built at Nîmes in today's southern France, as well as the Trophy of Augustus at La Turbie, located near Monaco.

After the death of Agrippa in 12 BC, a solution had to be found in maintaining Rome's water supply system. This came about because it was overseen by Agrippa when he served as aedile, and was even funded by him afterwards when he was a private citizen paying at his own expense. In that year, Augustus arranged a system where the Senate designated three of its members as prime commissioners in charge of the water supply and to ensure that Rome's aqueducts did not fall into disrepair. In the late Augustan era, the commission of five senators called the curatores locorum publicorum iudicandorum (translated as "Supervisors of Public Property") was put in charge of maintaining public buildings and temples of the state cult. Augustus created the senatorial group of the curatores viarum (translated as "Supervisors for Roads") for the upkeep of roads; this senatorial commission worked with local officials and contractors to organize regular repairs.

The Corinthian order of architectural style originating from ancient Greece was the dominant architectural style in the age of Augustus and the imperial phase of Rome. Suetonius once commented that Rome was unworthy of its status as an imperial capital, yet Augustus and Agrippa set out to dismantle this sentiment by transforming the appearance of Rome upon the classical Greek model.

Physical appearance

The biographer Suetonius describes Augustus' outward appearance as follows: "He was unusually handsome ... He had clear, bright eyes ... His teeth were wide apart, small, and ill-kept; his hair was slightly curly and inclining to golden; his eyebrows met. His ears were of moderate size, and his nose projected a little at the top and then bent ever so slightly inward. His complexion was between dark and fair. He was short of stature ..."

Ancestry

Descendants

Augustus' only child was his daughter. :1. Julia Caesaris, 39 BC – AD 14, had five children; ::A. Gaius Julius Caesar, 20 BC – AD 4, died without issue ::B. Vipsania Julia (Julia the Younger), 19 BC – AD 28, had two children; :::I. Aemilia Lepida (fiancee of Claudius), 4 BC – AD 53, had five children; ::::a. Marcus Junius Silanus Torquatus, 14 – 54, had one child; :::::i. Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus the younger, 50–66, died young ::::b. Junia Calvina, 15–79, died without issue ::::c. Decimus Junius Silanus Torquatus, d. 64 without issue ::::d. Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus the elder, d. 49 without issue ::::e. Junia Lepida, ca 18–65, issue unknown :::II. Unnamed illegitimate son (by Decimus Junius Silanus), d. AD 8 (ordered to be exposed by Augustus) ::C. Lucius Julius Caesar, 17 BC – AD 2, died without issue ::D. Vipsania Agrippina II (Agrippina the Elder), 14 BC – AD 33, had six children; :::I. Nero Julius Caesar, 6–30, died without issue :::II. Drusus Julius Caesar, 7–33, died without issue :::III. Gaius Julius Caesar, bef. AD 12 - bef. AD 12 :::IV. Gaius Julius Caesar (Caligula), 12–41, had one child; ::::a. Julia Drusilla, 39–41, died young :::V. Julia Agrippina, 15–59, had one child; ::::a. Nero Claudius Caesar (Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus), 37–68, had one child; :::::i. Claudia Augusta, Jan. 63 – April 63; died young :::VI. Julia Drusilla, 16–38, died without issue :::VII. Julia Livilla, 18–42, died without issue :::VIII. Tiberius Julius Caesar, ? - ? (either born before Nero Caesar, between Drusus Caesar and Gaius Caesar (Caligula) or between Gaius Caesar (Caligula) and Julia Agrippina) :::?IX. Son (name unknown), ? - ? ::E. Agrippa Postumus, 12 BC – AD 14, died without issue

Bibliography

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See also

Augustan literature (ancient Rome)

Augustan poetry

Bierzo Edict

Caesar's Comet

Gaius Maecenas

Gaius Octavian (Rome character)

Indo-Roman trade and relations

Julio-Claudian family tree

Octavia (gens)

Temple of Augustus

References

Footnotes

Citations

Further reading

Bleicken, Jochen. (1998). Augustus. Eine Biographie. Berlin.

Galinsky, Karl. Augustan Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998 (paperback, ISBN 978-0-691-05890-0).

Lewis, P. R. and G. D. B. Jones, Roman gold-mining in north-west Spain, Journal of Roman Studies 60 (1970): 169–85

Jones, R. F. J. and Bird, D. G., Roman gold-mining in north-west Spain, II: Workings on the Rio Duerna, Journal of Roman Studies 62 (1972): 59–74.

Jones, A.H.M. "The Imperium of Augustus", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 41, Parts 1 and 2. (1951), pp. 112–119.

Jones, A.H.M. Augustus. London: Chatto & Windus, 1970 (paperback, ISBN 978-0-7011-1626-2).

Osgood, Josiah. Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire. New York: Cambridge University Press (USA), 2006 (hardback, ISBN 978-0-521-85582-2; paperback, ISBN 978-0-521-67177-4).

Raaflaub, Kurt A. & Toher, Mark (eds.). Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate. Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993 (paperback, ISBN 978-0-520-08447-6).

Reinhold, Meyer. The Golden Age of Augustus (Aspects of Antiquity). Toronto, ON: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1978 (hardcover, ISBN 978-0-89522-007-3; paperback, ISBN 978-0-89522-008-0).

Roebuck, C. (1966). The World of Ancient Times. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Southern, Pat. Augustus (Roman Imperial Biographies). New York: Routledge, 1998 (hardcover, ISBN 978-0-415-16631-7); 2001 (paperback, ISBN 978-0-415-25855-5).

Zanker, Paul. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1989 (hardcover, ISBN 978-0-472-10101-6); 1990 (paperback, ISBN 978-0-472-08124-0).

External links

;Primary sources

Cassius Dio's Roman History: Books 45–56, English translation

Gallery of the Ancient Art: August

Humor of Augustus

Life of Augustus by Nicolaus of Damascus, English translation

Suetonius' biography of Augustus, Latin text with English translation

The Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Deeds of Augustus, his own account: complete Latin and Greek texts with facing English translation)

The Via Iulia Augusta: road built by the Romans; constructed on the orders of Augustus between the 13–12 B.C.

;Secondary source material

Augustus—short biography at the BBC

Brown, F. The Achievements of Augustus Caesar, Clio History Journal, 2009.

"Augustus Caesar and the Pax Romana"—essay by Steven Kreis about Augustus's legacy

"De Imperatoribus Romanis"—article about Augustus at Garrett G. Fagan's online encyclopedia of Roman Emperors

Octavian / Augustus—pages by Yong-Ling Ow

Category:Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid Category:Deified Roman emperors Category:Heirs of Julius Caesar Category:Imperial Roman consuls Category:Iulii Category:Julio-Claudian Dynasty Category:Octavii Category:People from Rome (city) Category:Republican holders of the role of pontifex maximus Category:63 BC births Category:14 deaths Category:1st-century BC Romans Category:1st-century BC clergy Category:1st-century clergy Category:1st-century Roman emperors

kbd:Октавиан Аугуст

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Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
name	Gaius Marius
birth date	ca. 157 BC
birth place	Arpinum, Roman Republic
death date	January 13, 86 BC (aged 70)
death place	Rome, Roman Republic
office	Consul of the Roman Republic
term start	107 BC, 104 BC – 100 BC, 86 BC
predecessor	M. Aurelius Scaurus
successor	Quintus Servilius Caepio and Gaius Atilius Serranus
spouse	Julia (paternal aunt of Julius Caesar)
children	Young Marius
footnotes	}}

Gaius Marius (157 BC – January 13, 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminating the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the structure of the legions into separate cohorts. Marius defeated the invading Germanic tribes, for which he was called "the third founder of Rome." His life and career were significant in Rome's transformation from Republic to Empire.

Life

Early career

Marius was born in 157 BC in the town of Arpinum in southern Latium. The town had been conquered by the Romans in the late 4th century BC and was given Roman citizenship without voting rights. Only in 188 BC did the town receive full citizenship. Although Plutarch claims that Marius' father was a laborer, this is almost certainly false since Marius had connections with the nobility in Rome, he ran for local office in Arpinum, and he had marriage relations with the local nobility in Arpinum, which all combine to indicate that he was born into a locally important family of equestrian status. The problems he faced in his early career in Rome show the difficulties that faced a "new man" (novus homo).

There is a legend that Marius, as a teenager, found an eagle's nest with seven chicks in it – eagle clutches hardly ever have more than 3 eggs; even if two females used the same nest, finding 7 offspring in a single nest would be exceptionally rare. Since eagles were considered sacred animals of Jupiter, the supreme god of the Romans, it was later seen as an omen predicting his election to the consulship seven times. Later, as consul, he decreed that the eagle would be the symbol of the Senate and People of Rome.

In 134 BC, he was serving with the army at Numantia and his good services brought him to the attention of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus. Whether he arrived with Scipio Aemilianus or was already serving in the demoralized army that Scipio Aemilianus took over at Numantia is not clear. It would seem that even at this early stage in his army career, Marius had ambitions for a political career in Rome. He ran for election as one of the twenty-four special military tribunes of the first four legions who were elected (the rest were appointed by the magistrate who raised the legion). Sallust tells us that he was unknown by sight to the electors but was returned by all the tribes on the basis of his accomplishments.

Next, he ran for the quaestorship after losing an election for local office in Arpinum. The military tribunate shows that he was already interested in Roman politics before the quaestorship. Perhaps he simply ran for local office as a means of gaining support back home, and lost to some other local worthy. Nothing is known of his actions while quaestor.

In 120 BC, Marius was returned as plebian tribune for the following year. He won with the support of Quintus Caecilius Metellus (later known as Metellus Numidicus), who was an inherited patronus. The Metelli, though neither ancient nor patrician, were one of the most powerful families in Rome at this time. During his tribunate, Marius pursued a populares line. He passed a law that restricted the interference of the wealthy in elections. In the 130s voting by ballot had been introduced in elections for choosing magistrates, passing laws and deciding legal cases, replacing the earlier system of oral voting. The wealthy continued to try to influence the voting by inspecting ballots and Marius passed a law narrowing the passages down which voters passed to cast their votes in order to prevent outsiders from harassing the electors. In the passage of this law, Marius alienated the Metelli, who opposed it.

Soon thereafter, Marius ran for the aedileship and lost. This loss was at least in part due to the enmity of the Metelli. In 116 BC he barely won election as praetor for the following year (presumably coming in sixth) and was promptly accused of ambitus (electoral corruption). He barely won acquittal on this charge, and spent an uneventful year as praetor in Rome (as Urban Praetor, Peregrine Praetor or President of the extortion court). In 114 BC, Marius' imperium was prorogued and he was sent to govern Lusitania, where he engaged in some sort of minor military operation. During this period in Roman history governors seem regularly to have served two years in Hispania, so he was probably replaced in 113 BC.

He received no triumph on his return and did not apparently run for the consulship, but he did marry Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar. The Julii Caesares were a patrician family, but at this period seem to have found it hard to advance above the praetorship. (Only once in the 2nd century – in 157 BC – did a member of the family become consul.) To judge by this marriage, Marius had apparently achieved some substantial political or financial influence by this point (possibly from his governship in Hispania).

Subordinate to Metellus

The Marii were the inherited clients of the Caecilii Metelli and a Caecilius Metellus had aided Marius' campaign for the tribunate. Although he seems to have had a break with the Metelli as a result of the laws he passed while tribune, the rupture was not permanent, since in 109 BC Quintus Caecilius Metellus took Marius with him as his legate on his campaign against Jugurtha. Legates (legati) were originally simply envoys sent by the Senate, but men appointed as legates by the Senate were used by generals as subordinate commanders, usually becoming the general's most trusted lieutenant. Hence, Metellus had to have asked the Senate to appoint Marius as legate to allow him to serve as Metellus' subordinate. In Sallust's long account of Metellus' campaign no other legates are mentioned, so it is assumed that Marius was Metellus's senior subordinate and right-hand man. Thus Metellus was using Marius' military experience, while Marius was strengthening his position to run for the consulship. The rupture in 119 BC may have been exaggerated after the fact in light of his later and much more serious disagreement with Metellus about Numidia.

Run for the consulship

By 108 BC, Marius conceived the desire to run for the consulship. Despite lack of approval from Metellus (brought on by Marius' status as a novus homo) who instead advised Marius to wait and run with Metellus' son (who was only twenty, which would signify a campaign 20 years in the future) Marius began to campaign for the consulship. Sallust claims that this was catalyzed, in part, by a fortune-teller who "told him that great and wonderful things were presaged to him that he might therefore pursue whatever designs he had formed trusting to the gods for success, and that he might try fortune as often as he pleased for that all his undertakings would prosper." Marius soon earned the respect of the troops by his conduct towards them, eating his meals with them and proving he was not afraid to share in any of their labours. He also won over the Italian traders by claiming that he could capture Jugurtha in a few days with half Metellus' troops. Both groups wrote home in praise of him, suggesting that he could end the war quickly unlike Metellus, who was pursuing a policy of methodically subduing the countryside. Eventually Metellus gave in, realizing that it was counterproductive to have a resentful subordinate.

Under these circumstances, Marius was triumphantly elected consul later that year, for 107 BC. He was campaigning against Metellus's apparent lack of swift action against Jugurtha. Because of the repeated military debacles from 113 BC to 109 BC and the accusations that the oligarchy was open to flagrant bribery, it became easier for the virtuous new man who had worked with difficulty up the ladder of offices to be elected as an alternative to the inept or corrupt nobility. The Senate had a trick up its sleeve, however. In accordance with the provisions of the Lex Sempronia on Consular provinces, which dictated that the Senate in a given year was to determine the Consular provinces for the next year at the end of year before the elections, the Senate decided not to make the war against Jugurtha one of the provinces and to prorogue Metellus in Numidia. Marius got around this through a ploy that had been used in 131 BC. In that year there was a dispute as to who should command the war against Aristonicus in Asia, and a tribune had passed a law authorizing an election to select the commander (there was precedent for this procedure from the Second Punic War). A similar law was passed in 108 BC and Marius was voted the command by the People in this special election. Metellus shed bitter tears when he learned of the decision. Upon returning home, he avoided meeting Marius, and was granted a Triumph and the agnomen Numidicus (conqueror of Numidia).

Recruitment

The most dramatic and influential changes Marius made to the Roman army were named the Marian Reforms. In 107 BC, shortly after being elected as Consul, Marius, fearing Barbarian invasion, saw the dire need for an increase in troop numbers. Until this time, the standard requirements to become a Roman soldier were very strict. To be considered a soldier in the service of the republic, an individual had to be a member of the 5th Census Class or higher and own property worth over 3000 sesterces in value. Furthermore, soldiers were required to provide their own arms and uniform for combat. Marius relaxed the recruitment policies by removing the necessity to own land, and allowed all Roman citizens entry, regardless of social class (Plutarch, The Life of Marius). The benefits to the army were numerous, with the disenfranchised, unemployed masses enlisting for military service alongside the more fortunate citizens. Poorer citizens were drawn to life-long service, as they were rewarded with the prospect of settlement in conquered land. This also 'Romanized' the population in newly subjugated provinces, thus reducing unrest and lowering the chance of revolt against the Roman Republic. The new Roman army, its numbers vastly bolstered by lower class citizens whose future was tied to their permanent career, was always able to provide reserves in times of disaster. In addition, the growth of the army ensured continued military success due to the high number of fresh soldiers available for each campaign. Even though the army increased in size considerably, Marius also sought to improve organization among his troops.

Marius needed more troops, and to this effect he made a change in procedure used for recruiting troops, probably unaware of the momentous implications of this change. All of the Gracchian agrarian reforms had been premised on the traditional Roman levy, which excluded from service those whose property qualification fell below the minimum property qualification for the fifth census class. The Gracchi had tried to restore the smallholders who would constitute the majority of those qualified to serve. The end of the Gracchan land legislation did nothing to change the military crisis that gave rise to that legislation. It seems that the minimum qualification for the fifth census class (the lowest one eligible for military service) was lowered from 11,000 to 3000 sesterces of property, and already in 109 BC the consuls had had to seek suspension of Gaius Gracchus' restrictions on the levy. In 107 BC Marius decided to ignore the census qualification altogether and recruited with no inquiry into the property of the potential soldier. From now on Rome's legions would largely consist of poor citizens (the "capite censi" or "head count") whose future after service could only be assured if their general could somehow bring about a land distribution on their behalf. Thus the soldiers had a very strong personal interest in supporting their general against the Senate (i.e., the oligarchy) and the "public interest" that was often equated with the Senate. Marius did not avail himself of this potential source of support, but in less than two decades Marius' ex-quaestor Sulla would use it against the Senate and Marius.

War in Numidia

Marius found that it wasn't as easy to end the war as he had claimed. He arrived comparatively late in 107 BC and in that year and the next he forced Jugurtha to the south and west toward Mauretania. Marius' quaestor in 107 BC had been Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, the son of a patrician family that had fallen on hard times. Marius was supposedly unhappy at receiving the dissolute youth as his subordinate, but Sulla proved a competent military leader. By 105 the king of Mauretania, Bocchus, who was also Jugurtha's father-in-law and reluctant ally, was worried about the approaching Romans. After receiving word that an accommodation with them was possible, Bocchus insisted that Sulla make the hazardous journey to his capital, where Sulla induced Bocchus to betray Jugurtha, who was duly handed over to Sulla, thus ending the war. Since Marius held the imperium and Sulla was acting as his subordinate, the honor of capturing Jugurtha belonged strictly to Marius, but Sulla had clearly been immediately responsible and had a signet ring made for himself commemorating the event. Sulla would later claim that the credit for ending the war was his. Meanwhile, Marius was the hero of the hour, and his services would be needed in another emergency.

Cimbri and Teutones

The arrival of the Cimbri in Gaul in 109 BC and their complete defeat of Marcus Junius Silanus had resulted in unrest among the Celtic tribes recently conquered by the Romans in southern Gaul. In 107 the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus was completely defeated by the Tigurini clan, and the senior surviving officer (Gaius Popillius Laenas, son of the consul of 132) had saved what was left only by surrendering half the baggage and suffering the humiliation of having his army "march under the yoke." The next year (106 BC) another consul, Quintus Servilius Caepio, marched to Gaul and captured the disloyal community of Tolosa (Toulouse), where a huge sum of money (the Gold of Tolosa), was taken from shrines. The larger part of it mysteriously vanished when being transported to Massilia (Marseille). Caepio was prorogued into the next year, when one of the new consuls, Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, also operated in southern Gaul. Mallius was a new man like Marius, and he and the noble Caepio found it impossible to co-operate.

The Cimbri and the Teutones (both migrating Germanic tribes) appeared on the Rhône, and while Caepio was on the west bank he refused to come to the aid of Mallius on the left. Eventually the Senate got Caepio's reluctant agreement to co-operate, but even when he crossed the river to help the threatened Mallius, he refused to join forces and kept his own at a fair distance. First the Germans routed Caepio and then destroyed Mallius's army on October 6, 105 BC at Arausio. Since the Romans fought with the river at their back, flight was not possible and reportedly 80,000 were killed. The losses in the preceding decade had been bad enough, but this defeat, apparently caused by the arrogance of the nobility and its refusal to co-operate with talented non-nobles, was the last straw. Not only had huge numbers of Romans lost their lives but Italy itself was now exposed to invasion from barbarian hordes. The failure to deal with this threat marked the start of a period when dissatisfaction with the oligarchy (and thus, conflict between the optimates and the populares) was becoming increasingly, and dangerously, bitter. Sometime during this war Marius participated in the Trial of Trebonius.

As consul

In late 105 BC Marius was elected consul again while still in Africa. Election in absentia was unusual enough, but at some time after 152 BC a law had been passed dictating a ten-year interval between consulships, and there is even some evidence to indicate that by 135 BC a law had been passed that prohibited second consulships altogether. Nonetheless by this time news of a new advancing tribe known as the Cimbri had reached Rome and in the emergency Marius was again chosen consul. The law was either repealed or set aside under the circumstances of emergency, as Marius was then elected to an unprecedented five successive consulships (104 BC–100 BC). He returned to Rome by January 1, 104 BC, when he celebrated his triumph over Jugurtha, who was first led in the procession, then killed in the public prison.

The Cimbri conveniently marched into Hispania and the Teutoni milled around in northern Gaul, leaving Marius to prepare his army. One of his legates was his old quaestor, Sulla, which shows that at this time there was no ill-will between them. In 104 BC, Marius was returned as consul again for 103 BC. Though he could have continued to operate as proconsul, it seems that the position as consul would make his position as commander unassailable and avoid any problems with the consuls if he was only a proconsul. Marius seems to have been able to get exactly what he wanted, and it even seems that his support determined whom the people would elect as his colleagues (his choice was apparently determined, on several occasions, on the basis of their malleability: only Catulus in 102 BC, and Flaccus in 100 BC, would have been serious candidates in their own right without his support, and even Flaccus was described as more servant than partner in the office.) In 103 BC, the Germans still did not emerge from Hispania, and conveniently Marius's colleague (L. Aurelius Orestes, son of C. Gracchus's commander in Sardinia in 126 BC–124 BC) died, so Marius had to return to Rome to oversee the elections, being re-elected for 102 BC.

Battle with the Germanic tribes

In 102 BC the Cimbri returned from Hispania into Gaul and together with the Teutones decided to invade Italy. The Teutones were to head south and advance toward Italy along the Mediterranean coast; the Cimbri were to attempt to cross the Alps into Italy from the northwest by the Brenner Pass; and the Tigurini (the allied Celtic tribe who had defeated Longinus in 107) were to cross the Alps from the northeast. This decision proved fatally flawed. The Germanic soldiers divided their forces, making each contingent manageable, and the Romans could use their shorter lines of communication and supply to concentrate their forces at will.

First, Marius had to deal with the Teutones, who were in the province of Narbonensis marching toward the Alps. He refused to give them a battle where they wanted, and withdrew to Aquae Sextiae (a settlement founded by Gaius Sextius Calvinus in 124 BC), which blocked their path. The leading contingent of the Germanic warriors, the Ambrones, foolishly attacked the Roman position without waiting for reinforcements and 30,000 were killed. Marius then hid 3,000 troops in ambush, so when the main Germanic contingent finally attacked, the hidden Roman troops could fall on them from behind. In the ensuing defeat, the Teutones were completely annihilated, to the number of something over 100,000.

Marius's colleague Quintus Lutatius Catulus in 102 BC did not have as much luck. He botched the holding of the Brenner Pass, allowing the Cimbri to advance into northern Italy by late 102 BC. Marius was in Rome, and after becoming elected consul for 101 BC and deferring his Triumph over the Teutones, he marched north to join Catulus, whose command was prorogued into 101. Finally, in the summer of that year a battle was fought at Vercellae in Cisalpine Gaul. Once again, Roman discipline overcame a larger barbarian force. At least 65,000 were killed (perhaps as many as 100,000 again) and all the remainder enslaved. The Tigurini gave up their efforts to enter Italy from the northeast and went home. Catulus and Marius celebrated a joint Triumph, but in popular thinking all the credit went to Marius, who was praised as "the third founder of Rome." Catulus became alienated from Marius and would later become one of his chief opponents. As a sort of reward (the danger was now gone) Marius was returned as consul for 100 BC. This year would not go at all well for Marius.

Sixth consulship

During this year Lucius Appuleius Saturninus was tribune for the second time (having apparently had Marius's support on both this occasion and the previous one), and advocated reforms like those earlier put forth by the Gracchi. He pushed for a bill that gave colonial lands to the veterans of the recent war and offered to lower the price of wheat distributed by the state. The Senate, however, opposed these measures and violence broke out. The Senate then ordered Marius, as consul, to put down the revolt. Marius, although he was generally allied with the radicals, complied with the request and put down the revolt in the interest of public order. He then went to the east and into retirement.

What is important in this incident is that instead of seizing the opportunity to establish himself as supreme ruler and reformer of the state, Marius showed the senate, who had always been suspicious of his motives, that he was one of them instead of the outsider that Quintus Metellus said he was in 108 BC. Marius' overall concern, for his part, was how to maintain the Senate's esteem.

Social War

While Marius was away and after he returned, Rome had several years of relative peace. But in 95 BC, Rome passed a decree expelling from the city all residents who were not Roman citizens. In 91 BC Marcus Livius Drusus was elected tribune and proposed a greater division of state lands, the enlargement of the Senate, and a conferral of Roman citizenship upon all freemen of Italy. But Drusus was assassinated, and many of the Italian states then revolted against Rome in the Social War of 91–88 BC. Marius took command (following the deaths of the consul, Publius Rutilius Lupus, and the praetor Quintus Servilius Caepio) and fought along with Sulla against the rebel cities, but retired from the war in its early stages – probably due to poor health (it has been suggested that he suffered a stroke.)

Sulla and the First Civil War

After the Social War, King Mithridates of Pontus began his bid to conquer Rome's eastern provinces and invaded Greece. In 88 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla was elected consul. The choice before the Senate was to put either Marius or Sulla in command of an army which would aid Rome's Greek allies and defeat Mithridates. The Senate chose Sulla, but soon the Assembly appointed Marius. In this unsavory episode of low politics, he was helped by the unscrupulous actions of Publius Sulpicius Rufus, whose debts Marius had promised to erase. Sulla refused to acknowledge the validity of the Assembly's action.

Sulla left Rome and traveled to the army waiting in Nola, the army the Senate had asked him to lead against Mithridates. Sulla urged his legions to defy the Assembly's orders and accept him as their rightful leader. Sulla was successful and the legions stoned the representatives from the Assembly. Sulla then commanded six legions to march with him to Rome and institute a civil war. This was a momentous event, and was unforeseen by Marius, as no Roman army had ever marched upon Rome—it was forbidden by law and ancient tradition.

Once it became obvious that Sulla was going to defy the law and seize Rome by force, Marius attempted to organize a defense of the city using gladiators. Unsurprisingly Marius' ad-hoc force was no match for Sulla's legions. Marius was defeated and fled Rome. Marius narrowly escaped capture and death on several occasions and eventually found safety in Africa. Sulla and his supporters in the Senate passed a death sentence on Marius, Sulpicius and a few other allies of Marius. A few men were executed but (according to Plutarch), many Romans disapproved of Sulla's actions; some who opposed Sulla were actually elected to office in 87 BC. (Gnaeus Octavius, a supporter of Sulla, and Lucius Cornelius Cinna, a supporter of Marius, were elected consul). Regardless, Sulla was confirmed again as the commander of the campaign against Mithridates, so he took his legions out of Rome and marched east to the war.

Seventh consulship and death

While Sulla was on campaign in Greece, fighting broke out between the conservative supporters of Sulla, led by Octavius, and the popular supporters of Cinna. Marius along with his son then returned from exile in Africa with an army he had raised there and combined with Cinna to oust Octavius. This time it was the army of Marius that entered Rome.

Some of the soldiers went through Rome killing the leading supporters of Sulla, including Octavius. Their heads were exhibited in the Forum. After five days, Cinna ordered his more disciplined troops to kill the rampaging soldiers. All told some dozen Roman nobles had been murdered.

The Senate passed a law exiling Sulla, and Marius was appointed the new commander in the eastern war. Cinna was chosen for his third consulship and Marius to his seventh consulship. But just one month after his return to Rome, Marius died suddenly at age 70.

Legacy

Cinna was elected to two more consulships afterwards and then died during a mutiny when trying to lead his forces into Greece. The forces of Sulla returned to Italy at Brundisium in 83 BC in another civil war, and Gaius Marius the Younger died defending Praeneste, a city east of Rome. Upon his return to Rome, Sulla instituted a new reign of terror that dwarfed everything that came before. Thousands, including Senators, Knights, and other Roman nobles who had supported Marius in any way, were outlawed and executed. Julius Caesar, a nephew of the wife of Marius the Elder and married to the younger daughter of Cinna, was one of the many who were outlawed. Caesar was to divorce his wife – or to be killed. The young Caesar refused to divorce his wife but several of Sulla's council and friends entreated that he let the young Caesar live. Sulla's wrath was spared on the young Caesar, but Sulla remarked: "...in this youth are many a Marius...". A great-nephew of Julius Caesar – the first emperor Augustus – was also a descendant of Gnaeus Octavius. The second wife of Caesar was Sulla's granddaughter. A descendant of Sulla married a daughter of Emperor Claudius, a great nephew of Augustus.

Marius was a successful Roman general and military reformer. His improvements to the structure and organization of the Roman legion were profound and effective. However he was, in part, responsible for the breakdown in relations with Sulla which led to Sulla's march on Rome. He himself had broken with tradition on previous occasions and his effort to reverse the Senate's appointment of Sulla as commander of the Mithridatic War was highly questionable under Roman constitutional tradition. The five days of terror upon his return to Rome saw many hundreds slaughtered in his name.

The struggle between Marius and Sulla led to the deaths of numerous distinguished Roman senators, equestrians and unknown thousands of Roman soldiers and citizens. It set a precedent for the civil wars to come that led ultimately to the destruction of the Republican form of government and thus to the establishment of the principate system of the Empire.

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mark:(line, white) at:-157 text: BC 157 – Born in Arpinum at:-134 text: BC 134 – Military tribune at:-122 text: BC 122 – Quaestor in Transalpine Gaul at:-120 text: BC 120 – Plebeian tribune at:-116 text: BC 116 – Praetor at:-114 text: BC 114 – Sent to govern Lusitania at:-110 text: BC 110 – Marriage to Julia at:-109 text: BC 109 – Returned to army service as legate to Caecilius Metellus at:-107 text: BC 107 – First consulship, abolished land ownership qualification for military service (Marian Reforms) at:-101 text: BC 101 – Led successful Roman defense during the Germanic Invasions from:-104 till:-100 text: Elected as consul for five consecutive years. from:-91 till:-88 text: Returns to lead Roman army in the Social War at:-87 text: BC 87 – Demands command against Mithradates in bargain with Sulpiscius, Sulla assaults Rome and reclaims command, Marius exiled to Africa, returns from exile with an army and assaults Rome at:-86 text: BC 86 – Seventh consulship, dies January 13

Consulships

In fiction

The historical novel The First Man in Rome, by Colleen McCullough, is largely focused upon the rise of Gaius Marius and his subsequent lengthy career.

See also

Maria (gens)

Notes

Further reading

Carney, Thomas Francis. A Biography of C. Marius. Chicago: Argonaut, 1970 (hardcover, ISBN 0824400232).

D'Arms, John H. "The Campanian Villas of C. Marius and the Sullan Confiscations", The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1. (1968), pp. 185–188.

Evans, Richard J. Gaius Marius: A Political Biography. Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1994 (hardcover, ISBN 0869818503).

* Reviewed by John Carter in The Classical Review, Vol. 46, No. 2. (1996), pp. 313–315.

Farrand, Michael J. The Man Who Saved History, narrative poem based on the life of Caius Marius found in Plutarch's Lives (originally Parallel Lives) by the Greek historian Plutarch.

Frank, Elfrieda. "Marius and the Roman Nobility", The Classical Journal, Vol. 50, No. 4. (1955), pp. 149–152.

Gilbert, C.D. "Marius and Fortuna", The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1. (1973), pp. 104–107.

Hildinger, Erik, Swords Against the Senate: The Rise of the Roman Army and the Fall of the Republic, Da Capo Press, 2002 (softcover ISBN 978-0-306-81279-8).

Kildahl, Phillip Andrew. Caius Marius. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1968 (hardcover, ISBN 0829017569).

Weinrib, Ernest Joseph. The Spaniards in Rome: From Marius to Domitian. London: Taylor & Francis Books, 1990 (hardcover, ISBN 0824033086).

Ancient Warfare magazine, Vol. V, Issue 1 (Feb/Mar, 2011), was devoted to "Gaius Marius: The 'new man' who saved Rome", with articles by Alberto Pérez, Michael J. Taylor, Christopher A. Matthew, Sean Hussmann, and Duncan B. Campbell.

External links

Life of Marius by Plutarch

Marius and Sulla

Vancea, Oscar. The Military Reforms of Caius Marius, Clio History Journal, 2007.

The Roman Army After Marius' Reforms—An introduction.

Category:Graphical timelines Category:157 BC births Category:86 BC deaths Gaius Category:People from the Province of Frosinone Category:Ancient Roman generals Category:Roman Republican consuls Category:Roman governors of Hispania Category:2nd-century BC Romans Category:1st-century BC Romans Category:Ancient Roman exiles

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