Darryl Phillips looks at the “Emperor” Augustus, his “Mausoleum” and the Fashioning of an Imperial Monarchy.
The vocabulary we employ when talking about historical people, places, and periods not only reflects our perceptions, but also shapes them. In the case of C. Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus (63 BCE – 14 CE), our loose application of terminology has fashioned an image of Rome’s first “emperor” that has long obscured the more nuanced reality of incremental political change in the Roman world at the end of the first century BCE.
Consider imperator, the Latin word from which we derive the English word “emperor.” Imperator had long been used as an honorific title in the centuries before the time of Augustus. The term began as a general name for a military commander, and evolved into a special honorific term used to designate a military victor. Roman troops would hail a victorious leader as imperator and the victor would adopt imperator as an honorific at the end of his name during the remainder of his command or until the celebration of a triumph in Rome (if one was awarded by the Senate). The young Augustus, at that time Caesar Octavianus, played with this tradition when he assumed the honorific. He employed imperator as a praenomen at the start of his name rather than the standard position of an honorific title at the end. Thus, the name Imperator Caesar appears on coins and inscriptions of the period, rather than Caesar Imperator which would have followed the existing custom.
While the term imperator was a valued honorific that enhanced the status of Augustus and emphasized his military success, it never carried with it any formal power. Indeed, imperator was not employed by the Romans in our sense of the word “emperor” to designate the ruler of the Roman world until the time of Vespasian, more than a century after the honorific Imperator Caesar was first taken up. And in Augustus’s own day there were other imperatores besides Augustus, as the practice of saluting victorious commanders continued even after Augustus’ death. To cite just one example of many, M. Statilius Taurus was hailed as imperator three times in the 30s and 20s BCE (ILS 893), yet we do not speak of the “Emperor Taurus.” Rome at the time had many imperatores, but no “emperor.”
These nuances of the history of the term imperator have not always been understood, not even in antiquity. The early 3rd century historian Dio Cassius, who wrote an 80-book history of Rome in Greek, is guilty of historical anachronism when he writes that Octavian, the future Augustus, received the title of “emperor” in 29 BCE. As Dio writes:
[in the year in which he was consul for the fifth time and] assumed the title
‘Imperator’ (αὐτοκράτωρ), not the title as bestowed by the troops on
victorious generals, according to the ancient custom, … but that other one
that signifies the holding of power, as it was voted to his father Caesar and
to the sons and descendants of Augustus
(Dio 52.41.3-4, translation by Meyer Reinhold)
Dio here is reading back two centuries a title and position that existed in his own day. Furthermore, he compounds his error by seeing Julius Caesar as a precedent and regarding the title as used by Augustus’ heirs. Julius Caesar did use imperator as an honorific, but at the end of his name as was customary in his day. And neither Tiberius, Caligula, nor Claudius, used imperator as a praenomen as Augustus had done. Like Dio, many people have regularly called Augustus an “emperor” without considering the meaning in Augustus’ own day, perpetuating the erroneous notion that an official position of “emperor” existed.
As a work-around to the problem of terminology, some today have adopted the practice of referring to Augustus as princeps – the leading man. This usage draws upon the language that Augustus himself employed in referring to his position. In the Res Gestae, the account of his accomplishments that Augustus wrote for his tomb in Rome, Augustus writes: “Three times the Senate ordered it (Janus Quirinus) to be closed when I was leading man (me principe) (Res Gestae 13).” Here the ablative absolute, me principe, presents the idea of an extended period starting in 29 BCE and continuing throughout Augustus’ lifetime, when Augustus was the leading man in Rome. Like imperator, princeps is an honorific title that does not convey any formal power. Building on the idea of Augustus as the princeps, scholars have taken to referring to the period when Augustus was in power as the “Principate of Augustus.”
Recently, however, a study of this terminology by Alison Cooley (JRS 2019) has called even this practice into question. Investigating the use of the Latin term principatus, Cooley has convincingly shown that the term did not hold the sense of a constitutional arrangement for the Romans at the time of Augustus. Thus, Cooley argues, we should refer to the lower case “principate of Augustus” as meaning the time when Augustus enjoyed a position as the leading citizen. We should not refer to the capital P “Principate of Augustus” because no such formal or constitutional conception of Augustus’ position existed at the time.
We run into a similar situation with the terminology that is applied to Augustus’ adopted sons (his biological grandsons) Gaius and Lucius Caesar. In English they are regularly referred to as “princes.” The term “princes” stems from their position as Principes Iuventutis – leaders of the youths – an honorary position that they were awarded by the Roman equestrians, as was celebrated on coins and inscriptions and recorded by Augustus himself in the Res Gestae (14.2). But principes does not mean “princes” in the sense of a hereditary monarchy, as the English term implies. Here too, a recent wave of scholarship has shown that we must be careful to draw a distinction between the personal heir to Augustus’ estate, and a political heir to Augustus’ position in the Roman state. Gaius and Lucius were personal heirs. Certainly, Augustus did work hard to help them build up their public experience with the hope that they one day might be voted a position similar to his, but such a status had to be voted, not bestowed by inheritance. Augustus’ adoptive sons Gaius and Lucius were not “princes” and could not inherit a position as “emperor”, because no such positions yet existed.
The way we talk about places matters too. Augustus’ tomb in Rome, which was completed early in the 20s BCE at the end of the civil wars (Suetonius, Aug. 100.4, assigns it to 28 BCE), is commonly referred to as the “Mausoleum of Augustus.” The term “Mausoleum” derives from the funerary monument of Mausolus, the 4th century BCE dynastic ruler of Caria (Asia Minor) whose tomb was one of the wonders of the ancient world. But did Augustus call his tomb a “Mausoleum” at the time when it was constructed? It is hard to believe that Augustus would have used the term “Mausoleum” – invoking an association with eastern kingship – at precisely the moment when he had triumphed over the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and was himself engaged in re-establishing Republican political practices in Rome. The earliest datable reference to Augustus’ tomb is found in Virgil’s Aeneid (6.874), in a passage where Anchises in the underworld tells Aeneas about the death of his descendant Marcellus. Famously, Virgil is said to have recited this passage to Augustus and his sister Octavia, the mother of Marcellus, shortly after Marcellus’ death in 23 BCE, causing Octavia to faint (Vita Verg. 32). Here the tomb is simply called tumulus.
The earliest extant reference to the tomb as a “mausoleum” is found in the Geography (5.3.8) of Strabo, a native of Asia Minor, who likely began writing after Augustus’ death in the early years under Tiberius around 17 or 18 CE. It is perhaps not a coincidence that this first use of “mausoleum” comes from a Greek writer from Asia Minor. Larry Richardson, in a characteristically insightful passing comment in his New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (p. 351), suggests that the application of the term ‘mausoleum’ to Augustus’ tomb was perhaps the work of “some wit.” The term stuck, and ancient writers and modern scholars alike speak of the Mausoleum of Augustus that was constructed in 28 BCE, despite the incongruity of the regal connotations of the name with the other actions of Augustus at the time.
The problem with the use of terms such as “emperor”, “princes” and “mausoleum” is that they fashion an image of a developed political structure that did not (yet) exist during Augustus’ lifetime. Indeed, it makes us view the Augustan age as a period that begins with a monarchy firmly established. We thus see the era as static, envisioning a “reign” of Augustus that lasted from the battle of Actium in 31 BCE until his death in 14 CE. Such a view masks the reality of incremental changes to political institutions of the Roman Republic throughout the period. It obscures the evolving role of the Senate and people of Rome and the actual process of political change in the state. The political reality is much more complicated (and much more interesting!) than the simple application of the term “Emperor” would suggest.
In their influential 2018 book How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a comparative study of the decline of modern western democracies, arguing that the leading threat to democracies today comes not from civil wars, revolutions, or coups, but rather from internal threats such as the abandonment of long-standing norms and the undermining of democratic political institutions. Through their analysis of the United States and countries in modern Latin America and Europe, Levitsky and Ziblatt provide a useful model for understanding political change in Rome in the late first century BCE.
Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that authoritarian populist leaders often gain power in democratic states from the inside, with the help of establishment politicians who fail in their role as gatekeepers. In Rome under Augustus, this is exactly what we see. First was Cicero who elevated and legitimize the young Octavian for his own purposes, but quickly lost control and paid the price with his life. The Senate and people as a whole also failed by appointing Augustus to unparalleled provincial governorships and electing him to an unprecedented string of consecutive consulships. These actions were the source of Augustus’ real and lasting power and it was these positions that undermined the Republican system. Augustus was a willing participant in this process and contributed directly to the subversion of governmental institutions. His building program offers insight into his approach. Augustus constructed new meeting places for the Senate and for electoral and legislative assemblies of the Roman people. These monumental sites forged new connections between Augustus, his family, and the political institutions of the Roman Republic. As the Senate and Roman people voted away their own powers, they in turn were honored and rewarded by Augustus.
The Roman Republic died from within, through a gradual process of disregarding political norms and devaluing traditional political institutions while promoting Augustus. These changes took place throughout Augustus’ lifetime as the Romans slowly transformed their state and gave away their rights to make room for a new autocrat at the top. Augustus was not an emperor; but together with the Senate and people of Rome he invented the concept. If we can gain a clearer understanding of the political changes that brought down the Roman Republic, we may be better able to foresee, and hopefully forestall, a similar fate for our own governments today.
Darryl A. Phillips is Professor of Classics at Connecticut College, USA. In 2023 he published a new commentary on Suetonius’ Life of Augustus in the ‘Oxford Greek and Latin College Commentaries’ series. He has published many articles in the field of Ancient History and Culture, with a special focus on Roman topography and the age of Augustus.
DISCLAIMER: the views expressed in these articles are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Classics for All.