Emperors of Rome | The First Emperor - Augustus (Lecture 4)

Lecture 4: The importance of Augustus to Roman (and European) history cannot be overstated. He brought an end to the civil wars that had torn the republic apart and established a system of governance that brought peace and prosperity to the empire. Yet for all the sources available to us, including his wholly unique political testament, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, penned by the man himself, he remains one of the most enigmatic eminences of European history. The private person has been almost wholly subsumed behind the public façade. In this lecture, we outline Augustus’s career from avenging revolutionary to senior statesman and briefly survey the main thrust of his domestic policies and the broad shape of culture in the Augustan Age.

Essential Reading:
Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti.
Appian, Civil Wars, books 2−5.
Cassius Dio, Roman History, books 50−56.
Suetonius, Deified Augustus.

Supplementary Reading:
De Imperatoribus Romanis (DIR), “Augustus.”
Southern, Augustus.