General Perspectives

When we look at Augustus’ Roman empire, the same perspectives apply as on most Augustan phenomena: there had been substantive prior developments that Augustus continued and, at the same time, fundamentally changed. Symptomatic of this process is the Romans’ use of imperium: before Augustus, it did not connote territorial empire but simply the power exercised by the Roman people, analogous to the imperium of Roman magistrates. In his Res Gestae, imperium populi Romani appears for the first time as a territorial entity: “When throughout the whole imperium of the Roman people pax had been achieved on land and sea by victories” (13). It is again typical of the Augustan blend of tradition and innovation that in the other seven mentions of imperium in the Res Gestae, the word, as before, means “power” (Richardson 2008, 118–19).

The shift reflects Augustus’ view of the empire as a unified entity rather than a mere agglomeration of territories under Roman control as had been the case in republican times. Establishing that sense of cohesiveness and community, or at least a noticeable degree of it, was indeed a hallmark of his reign. Again, we are dealing with a process rather than a fixed outcome – one of the problems with the convenient term “Romanization” is that it expresses both – and, just as typical, it was not a process aiming at homogeneity. And, again characteristic of Augustus, it was not a policy announced by official proclamation. Neither was he the sole agent; effecting change was a matter of mutual contributions and depended on the provincials and Italians more than on him. The exact degree of this interaction was variable and eludes attempts to pin it down precisely. Its dynamic, however, shaped the Roman empire of Augustus, and of successors like Trajan and Hadrian, and was basic to its vitality.

The Augustan period was a time of outstanding creativity. The recuperation of peace and stability certainly was conducive – we may compare the creative burst of fifth-century Athens after the trauma of defeat and destruction had been banished; for good reasons, Augustan Rome looked back to the Athens of Pericles, its architecture and art in particular. But there was more. A major element in the dynamic of Augustan culture – besides, of course, the ideas, ideals, and values Augustan projected – was the characteristics of Augustus’ style of governing. They were not simply transferred to the arts, let alone mandated by him from the top down. Instead, and as can be readily imagined, what he did and the way he reshaped things engaged the imagination of his contemporaries and stimulated many responses. Parallels, then, are evident. They do not comprise the entire, rich spectrum of the arts under Augustus, but I will foreground them in this book, which centers on Augustus and his impact.

“Augustan” Characteristics: Overview and Some Examples

Augustus’ evolutionary principate, as we have seen, was marked by experimentation and innovation. There was a framework of guiding principles, but their execution was undoctrinaire: if one road did not work, there would be another (and in the end they all would lead to Rome and Augustus). The past was invoked but at the same time recast; diverse traditions were melded. One result was that most Augustan phenomena are, by design, many-sided; a representative sample is the varied meanings of libertas and para-constitutional terms such as auctoritas, the range of associations evoked in the first sentence of the Res Gestae, the purposes of the “moral” legislation, and the very name “Augustus.” They all have multiple dimensions, are rich in associations, and therefore elicited involvement and response.