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Augustus Biography

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AUGUSTUS (by birth GAIUS OCTAVIUS; after his adoption by Caesar, GAIUS IULIUS CAESAR OCTAVIANUS; by decree of the Senate, in 27 B.C., AUGUSTUS) (63 B.C.-14 A.D.). The first Roman Emperor. He was the son of Octavius and Attia (daughter of Julia, the youngest sister of Julius Cæsar). He was born Sept. 23, 63 B.C. The Octavian family came originally from Velitræ, in the country of the Volsci, and the branch from which Augustus descended was rich and honorable. His father had risen to the rank of senator and prætor, but died in the prime of life, when Augustus was only four years old. Augustus was carefully educated in Rome under the guardianship of his mother and his stepfather, L. Marcius Philippus. At the age of 12 Augustus delivered a funeral oration over his grandmother; at 16 he assumed the toga virilis. The talents of the youth recommended him to his grand uncle, Julius Cæsar, who adopted him as his son and heir in 45 B.C. At the time of Cæsar's assassination (March 15, 44) , Augustus was a student under the celebrated orator, Apollodorus, at Apollonia, in Illyricum, where, however, he had been sent chiefly with a view to gain practical instruction in military affairs. On learning of Cæsar's murder, he returned to Italy, and at his landing at Brundisium was welcomed by deputies from the veterans there assembled; but, declining their offers, he chose to enter Rome privately. At this time he received a copy of Cæsar's will and learned that he had been named by Cæsar as his heir, and had been adopted by him in his will. The city was at this time divided between the two parties of the Republicans and the friends of Marcus Antonius, who was Consul; but the latter had, by adroit manoeuvres, gained the ascendency and enjoyed almost absolute power. Augustus was at first haughtily treated by the Consul, who refused to surrender the property of Cæsar. After some fighting, known as the Mutinensian War, which ended in the defeat of Antonius by the forces of the Senate, and his flight across the Alps, Augustus, who had made himself a favorite with the people and the army, succeeded in getting the will of Julius Cæsar carried out. He found an able friend and advocate in Cicero, who had at first regarded him with contempt. The great orator, while imagining that he was laboring in behalf of the Republic, was in fact only an instrument for raising Augustus to supreme power. Presently Decimus Brutus, having assumed control in Gallia Cisalpina, ordered Augustus to oppose Antony; when Octavianus refused to do this, the Senate turned against him, and Octavianus, in self-defense, entered into secret negotiations with Antony. Finally, on receipt of an order from the Senate to fight Antony and Lepidus, he refused and, advancing to Rome, demanded and secured for himself the consulship. When Antonius returned from Gaul with Lepidus, Augustus joined them in establishing a triumvirate, Nov. 27, 43 B.C. He obtained Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily; Antonius, Gaul; and Lepidus, Spain. The Eastern provinces were in control of Brutus and Cassius. The power of the triumvirs was soon made absolute by the massacre of those unfriendly to them in Italy, and by their victories at Philippi over the Republican army, commanded by Brutus and Cassius. After the battles of Philippi the triumvirs made a new division of the provinces-Augustus obtaining Italy, Antony, the East, and Lepidus, Africa.

The Perusian War, excited by Fulvia, wife of Antonius, seemed likely to lead to a contest between Augustus and his rival, but was ended by the death of Fulvia, and the subsequent marriage of Antonius and Octavia, sister of Augustus. Shortly afterward, the claims of Sextus Pompeius and Lepidus having been settled by force and fraud, largely through the aid of Agrippa, the Roman world was divided between Augustus and Antonius, and a contest for supremacy began between them. While Antonius was lost in luxurious dissipation at the court of Cleopatra, Augustus was industriously striving to gain the love and confidence of the Roman people and to damage his rival in public estimation. At length war was declared against the Queen of Egypt, and at the naval battle of Actium (q.v.), 31 B.C., Augustus was victorious and became sole ruler of the whole Roman world. Soon afterward Antonius and Cleopatra ended their lives by suicide. The son of Antonius, by Fulvia, and Cæsarion, son of Cæsar and Cleopatra, were put to death; and in 29 B.C., after disposing of several affairs in Egypt (which had now become part of the Roman Empire), Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor, Augustus returned to Rome in triumph, and, closing the temple of Janus, proclaimed universal peace.

His subsequent measures were mild and prudent. To insure popular favor, he abolished the laws of the triumvirate, adorned the city of Rome, and reformed many abuses. At the end of his seventh consulship he proposed to retire from office, in order that the old republican form of government might be reestablished, but he was ultimately induced to retain his power. Hitherto, since Caæsar's death, the Consul had been named Octavianus (Octavian); but now, in January, 27 B.C., the title of Augustus (from Latin augeo, ‘to increase’: it means ‘exalted,’ ‘sacred,’ or ‘consecrated’) was conferred on him. In the eleventh consulship of Augustus (23 B.C.), the tribunitian power was conferred on him for life by the Senate. Republican names and forms still remained, but they were mere shadows. Augustus was in all but name absolute monarch. In 12 B.C., after the death of Lepidus, he had the high title of Pontifex Maximus, or high priest, bestowed on him. The nation surrendered to him all the power and honor that it had to give.

After a course of victories in Asia, Spain, Pannonia, Dalmatia, Gaul, etc., Augustus (9 A.D.) suffered the greatest defeat he had sustained in the course of his long rule, in the person of Quintilius Varus, whose army was totally destroyed by the Germans. (See Arminius) This loss so affected Augustus that for some time he allowed his beard and hair to grow as a sign of deep mourning, and often exclaimed, "O Varus, restore to me my legions!" From this time Augustus confined himself to plans of domestic improvement and reform, and so beautified Rome that it was said, "Augustus found Rome a city of brick, and left it a city of marble." He also founded cities in several parts of the Empire. Altars were raised by the grateful people to commemorate his beneficence; and, by a decree of the Senate, the name Augustus was given to the month Sextilis. Agrippa and Mæcenas were his friends and counselors.

Though surrounded thus with honor and prosperity, Augustus was not free from domestic trouble. The abandoned conduct of his daughter Julia was the cause of sore vexation to him. He had no son, and Marcellus, the son of his sister, and Gains and Lucius, the sons of his daughter, whom he had appointed as his successors and heirs, as well as his favorite stepson Drusus, all died early. Age, domestic sorrows, and failing health warned him to seek rest, and to recruit his strength he undertook a journey to Campania, but his infirmity increased, and he died at Nola (Aug. 19, 14 A.D.), in the seventy-seventh year of his age. According to tradition, shortly before his death, he called for a mirror, arranged his hair neatly, and said to his attendants: "Have I played my part well? If so, applaud me!" Augustus had consummate tact and address as a ruler and politician, and could keep his plans in secrecy while he made use of the passions and talents of others to forward his own designs. The good and great measures which marked his reign were originated mostly by Augustus himself. He encouraged agriculture, patronized the arts and literature, and was himself an author; but only a few fragments of his writings have been preserved. Horace, Vergil, and other celebrated poets and scholars were his friends. His was the Augustan Age of literature. His death threw a shade of sorrow over the whole Roman world; the bereaved people erected temples and altars to his memory, and numbered him among the gods. For ancient accounts of Augustus' life see the biography by Suetonius, especially as edited by E. S. Schuckburgh (Cambridge, 1896) , and the Monumentum Ancyranum. (See ANGORA.)

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. II (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 373-374.