Octavian Augustus & Mark Antony 37BC Thessalonica Ancient Roman Coin i22429

ROMAN IMPERATORIAL - Marc Antony & Octavian - Triumvirs - Bronze Dupondius 27mm (14.15 grams) of Thessalonica, Macedonia Struck circa 37 B.C. Reference: RPC 1551 ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΕΩΝ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΠΙΑΣ, diademed head of Agonothesia right. M ANT AYT Γ KAI AYT, Nike walking left, carrying wreath and palm.

*Numismatic Note: A nice example of a most unusual issue. These coins are struck on a lead alloy bronze flan, hence the low grades, but usually a quite ample flan diameter for the dies. 

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Pompey, Crassus and the Catilinarian Conspiracy A Roman marble head of Pompey (now found in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek )

In 77 BC, the senate sent one of Sulla's former lieutenants, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great"), to put down an uprising in Spain. By 71 BC, Pompey returned to Rome after having completed his mission. Around the same time, another of Sulla's former lieutenants, Marcus Licinius Crassus , had just put down the Spartacus led gladiator/slave revolt in Italy. Upon their return, Pompey and Crassus found the populares party fiercely attacking Sulla's constitution. They attempted to forge an agreement with the populares party. If both Pompey and Crassus were elected consul in 70 BC, they would dismantle the more obnoxious components of Sulla's constitution. The two were soon elected, and quickly dismantled most of Sulla's constitution.

Around 66 BC, a movement to use constitutional, or at least peaceful, means to address the plight of various classes began. After several failures, the movement's leaders decided to use any means that were necessary to accomplish their goals. The movement coalesced under an aristocrat named Lucius Sergius Catilina . The movement was based in the town of Faesulae, which was a natural hotbed of agrarian agitation. The rural malcontents were to advance on Rome, and be aided by an uprising within the city. After assassinating the consuls and most of the senators, Catiline would be free to enact his reforms. The conspiracy was set in motion in 63 BC. The consul for the year, Marcus Tullius Cicero , intercepted messages that Catiline had sent in an attempt to recruit more members. As a result, the top conspirators in Rome (including at least one former consul) were executed by authorisation (of dubious constitutionality) of the senate, and the planned uprising was disrupted. Cicero then sent an army, which cut Catiline's forces to pieces.

The most important result of the Catilinarian conspiracy was that the populares party became discredited. The prior 70 years had witnessed a gradual erosion in senatorial powers. The violent nature of the conspiracy, in conjunction with the senate's skill in disrupting it, did a great deal to repair the senate's image.

First Triumvirate

In 62 BC, Pompey returned victorious from Asia. The Senate, elated by its successes against Catiline, refused to ratify the arrangements that Pompey had made. Pompey, in effect, became powerless. Thus, when Julius Caesar returned from a governorship in Spain in 61 BC, he found it easy to make an arrangement with Pompey. Caesar and Pompey, along with Crassus, established a private agreement, now known as the First Triumvirate . Under the agreement, Pompey's arrangements would be ratified. Caesar would be elected consul in 59 BC, and would then serve as governor of Gaul for five years. Crassus was promised a future consulship.

Caesar became consul in 59 BC. His colleague, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus , was an extreme aristocrat. Caesar submitted the laws that he had promised Pompey to the assemblies. Bibulus attempted to obstruct the enactment of these laws, and so Caesar used violent means to ensure their passage. Caesar was then made governor of three provinces. He facilitated the election of the former patrician Publius Clodius Pulcher to the tribunate for 58 BC. Clodius set about depriving Caesar's senatorial enemies of two of their more obstinate leaders in Cato and Cicero. Clodius was a bitter opponent of Cicero because Cicero had testified against him in a sacrilege case. Clodius attempted to try Cicero for executing citizens without a trial during the Catiline conspiracy, resulting in Cicero going into self-imposed exile and his house in Rome being burnt down. Clodius also passed a bill that forced Cato to lead the invasion of Cyprus which would keep him away from Rome for some years. Clodius also passed a bill that gave the populace a free grain dole, which had previously just been subsidised.

The end of the First Triumvirate

Clodius formed armed gangs that terrorised the city and eventually began to attack Pompey's followers, who in response funded counter-gangs formed by Titus Annius Milo . The political alliance of the triumvirate was crumbling. Domitius Ahenobarbus ran for the consulship in 55 BC promising to take Caesar's command from him. Eventually, the triumvirate was renewed at Lucca. Pompey and Crassus were promised the consulship in 55 BC, and Caesar's term as governor was extended for five years. Crassus led an ill-fated expedition with legions led by his son, Caesar's lieutenant, against the Kingdom of Parthia. This resulted in his defeat and death at the Battle of Carrhae . Finally, Pompey's wife, Julia, who was Caesar's daughter, died in childbirth. This event severed the last remaining bond between Pompey and Caesar.

Beginning in the summer of 54 BC, a wave of political corruption and violence swept Rome.[66] This chaos reached a climax in January of 52 BC, when Clodius was murdered in a gang war by Milo. On 1 January 49 BC, an agent of Caesar presented an ultimatum to the senate. The ultimatum was rejected, and the senate then passed a resolution which declared that if Caesar did not lay down his arms by July of that year, he would be considered an enemy of the Republic. On 7 January of 49 BC, the senate passed a senatus consultum ultimum , which vested Pompey with dictatorial powers. Pompey's army, however, was composed largely of untested conscripts. On 10 January, Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his veteran army (in violation of Roman laws) and marched towards Rome. Caesar's rapid advance forced Pompey, the consuls and the Senate to abandon Rome for Greece. Caesar entered the city unopposed.

Marcus Antonius (in Latin : M·ANTONIVS·M·F·M·N ) (c. January 14, 83 BC–August 1, 30 BC), known in English as Mark Antony , was a Roman politician and General . He was an important supporter and the loyal friend of Gaius Julius Caesar as a military commander and administrator, being Caesar's second cousin, once removed, by his mother Julia Antonia . After Caesar's assassination , Antony formed an official political alliance with Octavian (Augustus) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus , known to historians today as the Second Triumvirate .

The triumvirate broke up in 33 BC. Disagreement between Octavian and Antony erupted into civil war, the Final War of the Roman Republic , in 31 BC. Antony was defeated by Octavian at the naval Battle of Actium , and in a brief land battle at Alexandria . He committed suicide, and his lover, Cleopatra , killed herself shortly thereafter.

Augustus
1st  Emperor  of the  Roman Empire
The statue known as the  Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century
Reign	16 January 27 BC – 19 August AD 14
Full name	Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Divi Filius Augustus
Born	23 September 63 BC
Birthplace	Rome,  Roman Republic
Died	19 August AD 14 (aged 75)
Place of death	Nola,  Italia,  Roman Empire
Buried	Mausoleum of Augustus,  Rome
Predecessor	None (Empire  founded)
Successor	Tiberius, stepson by 3rd wife
Consort to	Clodia Pulchra  (42–40 BC) Scribonia  (40–38 BC) Livia Drusilla  (37 BC – 14 AD)
Issue	Julia the Elder Gaius Caesar  (adoptive) Lucius Caesar  (adoptive) Agrippa Postumus  (adoptive) Tiberius  (adoptive)
Father	Gaius Octavius
Mother	Atia Balba Caesonia

These articles cover  Ancient Rome   and the fall of the  Republic

Mark Antony ,  Cleopatra VII ,  Assassination of Julius Caesar ,  Pompey ,  Theatre of Pompey ,Cicero ,  First Triumvirate ,  Roman Forum ,Comitium ,  Rostra ,  Curia Julia ,  Curia Hostilia

Augustus   (Latin:  Imperator Caesar Divi F. Augustus ,  23 September 63 BC – 19 August 14 AD) was the founder of the  Roman Empire  and its first  Emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.

Born into an old, wealthy  equestrian branch  of the  plebeian  Octavii  family, in 44 BC Augustus was  adopted  posthumously  by his maternal great-uncle  Gaius Julius Caesar  following Caesar's assassination. Together with  Mark Antony  and  Marcus Lepidus, he formed the  Second Triumvirate  to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Following their victory at  Phillipi, the Triumvirate divided the  Roman Republic  among themselves and ruled as  military dictators.  The Triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its members: Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the  Battle of Actium  by Augustus in 31 BC.

After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Augustus restored the outward facade of the free Republic, with governmental power vested in the  Roman Senate, the  executive magistrates, and the  legislative assemblies. In reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including  supreme military command, and those of  tribune  and  censor. It took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself  Princeps Civitatis   ("First Citizen"). The resulting  constitutional frameworkbecame known as the  Principate, the first phase of the  Roman Empire.

The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the  Pax Romana   (The Roman Peace ). Despite continuous wars or imperial expansion on the Empire's frontiers and one  year-long civil war  over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing  Egypt,  Dalmatia,  Pannonia,  Noricum, and  Raetia, expanded possessions in  Africa, expanded into  Germania, and completed the conquest of  Hispania.

Beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of  client states, and made peace with the  Parthian Empire  through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed  networks of roads  with an official  couriersystem, established a standing army, established the  Praetorian Guard, created official  police  and  fire-fighting services  for Rome, and rebuilt much of the city during his reign.

Augustus died in 14 AD at the age of 75. He may have died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son (also stepson and former son-in-law),Tiberius.

Name

Throughout his life, the man historians refer to as  Augustus   was known by many names:

• At birth he was named  Gaius Octavius   after his  biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as  Octavius   (or Octavian) between his birth in 63 until his posthumous adoption by  Julius Caesar  in 44 BC.
• Upon his adoption by Caesar, he took Caesar's name and become  Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus   in accordance with  Roman adoption naming standards. Though he quickly dropped "Octavianus" from his name and his contemporaries referred to him as "Caesar" during this period, historians refer to him as  Octavian   between 44 BC and 27 BC.
• As part of his actions to strengthen his political ties to Caesar's former soldiers, in 42 BC, following the  deification  of Caesar, Octavian added  Divi Filius   (Son of the Divine ) to his name, becoming  Gaius Julius Caesar Divi Filius .
• In 38 BC, Octavian replaced his  praenomen   "Gaius" and  nomen   "Julius" with  Imperator , the  title by which troops hailed their leader after military success, officially becoming  Imperator Caesar Divi Filius
• In 27 BC, following his defeat of  Mark Antony  and  Cleopatra, the  Roman Senate  voted new titles for him, officially becoming  Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus . It is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of  Augustus , which historians use in reference from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.

Early life Main article:  Early life of Augustus

While his paternal family was from the town of  Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) 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 nameGaius 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 after that time, Caesar 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 The Death of Caesar , by  Jean-Léon Gérôme  (1867). On 15 March 44 BC, Octavius's adoptive father Julius Caesar was assassinated by a conspiracy led by  Marcus Junius Brutus  and  Gaius Cassius Longinus

At the time  Caesar was killed  on the  Ides of March  (15 March) 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 whether 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 nameOctavianus , as it would have made his modest origins too obvious.

Despite the fact that he never officially bore the name  Octavianus , however, 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.

A statue of Augustus as a younger Octavian, dated ca. 30 BC

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. During the summer he managed to win support from Caesarian sympathizers, however, 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 Bust of Augustus in  Musei Capitolini, Rome

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 already was 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 also was 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 43 BC, Antony's forces were defeated at the battles of  Forum Gallorum  and  Mutina, forcing Antony to retreat to  Transalpine Gaul. Both consuls were killed, however, leaving Octavian in sole command of their armies.

After heaping many more rewards on Decimus Brutus than on 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 Roman  aureus  bearing the portraits ofMark Antony  (left) and Octavian (right), issued in 41 BC to celebrate the establishment of the  Second Triumvirate  by Octavian, Antony and  Marcus Lepidus  in 43 BC. Both sides bear the inscription "III VIR R P C", meaning "One of Three Men for the Regulation of the Republic".

In a meeting near  Bologna  in October 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 unofficialFirst Triumvirate  formed by  Gnaeus Pompey Magnus,  Julius Caesar, and  Marcus Licinius Crassus.  The triumvirs then set in motion  proscriptions  in which 300 senators and 2,000  equites , allegedly 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 the salaries of their troops 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 among Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian. For example, Octavian allowed the proscription of his ally  Cicero, Antony the proscription of his maternal uncle  Lucius Julius Caesar  (the consul of 64 BC), and Lepidus his brother  Paullus.

A  denarius  minted c. 18 BC. Obverse: CAESAR AVGVSTVS; reverse: DIVVS IVLIV[S] (DIVINE JULIUS)

Battle of Philippi and division of territory Further information:  Liberators' civil war

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 42, the Caesarian army was victorious and  Brutus  and  Cassius  committedsuicide. 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 these settlements of his soldiers 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. Lucius and Fulvia took a political and martial gamble in opposing Octavian, however, 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.  Octavian showed no mercy, however, 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 also was 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, ironically, was 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 their 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. This new conflict proved untenable for both Octavian and Antony, however. 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 Further information:  Sicilian revolt A  denarius  of  Sextus Pompeius, minted for his victory over Octavian's fleet, on the obverse the Pharus of  Messina, who defeated Octavian, on the reverse, the monster  Scylla

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. Antony's additional support to attack Pompeius, became a necessity to Octavian, however, 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.  Octavian sent only a tenth the number of those promised, however, 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.  Lepidus' troops deserted him, however, 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 effectively was 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, orsacrosanctitas .

War with Antony Main article:  Final War of the Roman Republic Anthony and Cleopatra , by  Lawrence Alma-Tadema

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 already was 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 inAlexandria  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.

The  Battle of Actium , by Lorenzo Castro, painted 1672, National Maritime Museum, London

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 spared only 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 was taken by his soldiers back to Alexandria where he died in Cleopatra's arms. Cleopatra died soon after, reputedly by the venomous bite of an  asp  or by poison.  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 Main article:  Constitutional Reforms of Augustus Aureus  of Octavian, circa 30 BC,  British Museum

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.

War and expansion Main article:  Wars of Augustus Further information:  Roman–Persian relations Extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus. The yellow legend represents the extent of the Republic in 31 BC, the shades of green represent gradually conquered territories under the reign of Augustus, and pink areas on the map represent  client states; however, areas under Roman control shown here were subject to change even during Augustus' reign, especially in  Germania.

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  Virgilattributes 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.

Bust of  Tiberius, a successful military commander under Augustus before he was designated as his heir and successor.

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.

Muziris  in the  Chera Kingdom  of  Southern India, as shown in the  Tabula Peutingeriana, with depiction of a "Temple of Augustus" ("Templum Augusti"), an illustration of  Indo-Roman relations  in the period.

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 A Roman  aureus  struck under Augustus,c.   AD 13–14; the reverse shows  Tiberius riding on a  quadriga, celebrating the fifteenth renewal of his tribunal power. At least six potential heirs, including Agrippa and his sons, had expired or proven incapable of succeeding Augustus, before he finally settled on Tiberius in AD 9.

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.

The  Mausoleum of Augustus

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  (henceforth referred to as Drusus) and  Tiberius Claudius  (henceforth Tiberius) granting them military commands and public office, though seeming to favor Drusus. After Agrippa died in 12 BC, 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,  as well as a sense of envy and exclusion over Augustus' apparent favouring of his young grandchildren-turned-sons, Gaius and Lucius, who 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 deified Augustus hovers over Tiberius and other Julio-Claudians in the  Great Cameo of France

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 birth father's death at  Nola. Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio wrote that Livia brought about Augustus' death by poisoning fresh figs, though this allegation remains unproven.  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 Further information:  Augustus in popular culture Laureate bust of Augustus

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 . The Roman Senate wished subsequent emperors to "be more fortunate than Augustus and better than Trajan". Augustus 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 enduring 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.

Augustus in an Egyptian-style depiction, a stone carving of theKalabsha Temple  in  Nubia.

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:

Fragment of a bronze equestrian statue of Augustus, 1st century AD Intelligent people praised or criticized him in varying ways. One opinion was as follows. Filial duty and a national emergency, in which there was no place for law-abiding conduct, had driven him to civil war—and this can neither be initiated nor maintained by decent methods. He had made many concessions to Anthony and to Lepidus for the sake of vengeance on his father's murderers. When Lepidus grew old and lazy, and Anthony's self-indulgence got the better of him, the only possible cure for the distracted country had been government by one man. However, Augustus had put the state in order not by making himself king or dictator, but by creating the Principate. The Empire's frontiers were on the ocean, or distant rivers. Armies, provinces, fleets, the whole system was interrelated. Roman citizens were protected by the law. Provincials were decently treated. Rome itself had been lavishly beautified. Force had been sparingly used—merely to preserve peace for the majority.

According to the second opposing opinion:

filial duty and national crisis had been merely pretexts. In actual fact, the motive of Octavian, the future Augustus, was lust for power ... There had certainly been peace, but it was a blood-stained peace of disasters and assassinations.

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:

"Opposites do not have to be mutually exclusive, and we are not obliged to choose one or the other. The story of his career shows that Augustus was indeed ruthless, cruel, and ambitious for himself. This was only in part a personal trait, for upper-class Romans were educated to compete with one another and to excel. However, he combined an overriding concern for his personal interests with a deep-seated patriotism, based on a nostalgia of Rome's antique virtues. In his capacity asprinceps , selfishness and selflessness coexisted in his mind. While fighting for dominance, he paid little attention to legality or to the normal civilities of political life. He was devious, untrustworthy, and bloodthirsty. But once he had established his authority, he governed efficiently and justly, generally allowed freedom of speech, and promoted the rule of law. He was immensely hardworking and tried as hard as any  democratic  parliamentarian to treat his senatorial colleagues with respect and sensitivity. He suffered from no delusions of grandeur."

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 Coin of Augustus found at the  Pudukottaihoard, from an  ancient Tamil country,Pandyan Kingdom  of present day  Tamil Naduin  India.  British Museum

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.

Coin of the  Himyarite  Kingdom, southern coast of the  Arabian peninsula. This is also an imitation of a coin of Augustus. 1st century

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 Main page:  :Category:Augustan building projects Further information:  Vitruvius and De architectura Close up on the sculpted detail of the  Ara Pacis  (Altar of Peace), 13 BC to 9 BC

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 thepraetorians, 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.

The Temple of Augustus and Livia inVienne, late 1st century BC

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 and official images

His biographer  Suetonius, writing about a century after Augustus' death, described his appearance as: "... unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life, though he cared nothing for personal adornment. He was so far from being particular about the dressing of his hair, that he would have several barbers working in a hurry at the same time, and as for his beard he now had it clipped and now shaved, while at the very same time he would either be reading or writing something ... 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 (although Julius Marathus, his freedman and keeper of his records, says that he was five feet and nine inches in height), but this was concealed by the fine proportion and symmetry of his figure, and was noticeable only by comparison with some taller person standing beside him. ... "

His official images were very tightly controlled and idealized, drawing from a tradition of  Hellenistic  royal portraiture rather than the tradition of realism in  Roman portraiture. He first appeared on  coins  at the age of 19, and from about 29 BC "the explosion in the number of Augustan portraits attests a concerted propaganda campaign aimed at dominating all aspects of civil, religious, economic and military life with Augustus' person".  The early images did indeed depict a young man, but although there were gradual changes his images remained youthful until he died in his seventies, by which time they had "a distanced air of ageless majesty".

Augustus (Latin: IMPERATOR·CAESAR·DIVI·FILIVS·AVGVSTVS ; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14 ), born Gaius Octavius Thurinus , was adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus . After 27 BC, he was named 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.

He became the first emperor of the Roman Empire , which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. 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 as an autocrat , seizing consular power after the deaths of the consuls Hirtius and Pansa and having himself perpetually re-elected. 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 work out 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 his paramount position. His rule through patronage, military power, and accumulation of the offices of the defunct Republic became the model for all later imperial government.

The rule of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana , or Roman peace . Despite continuous frontier wars, and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries. Augustus expanded the Roman Empire, secured its boundaries 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 (and a small navy), established the Praetorian Guard , and created official police and fire-fighting forces 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 month of Sextilis was officially renamed August in his honour. He was succeeded by his stepson and son-in-law, Tiberius .

The Roman Republic (Latin: Res Publica Romana ) was the period of the ancient Roman civilization when the government operated as a republic .

It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy , traditionally dated around 509 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls , elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate . A complex constitution gradually developed, centered on the principles of a separation of powers and checks and balances . Except in times of dire national emergency, public offices were limited to one year, so that, in theory at least, no single individual could dominate his fellow citizens.

Roman society was hierarchical . The evolution of the Constitution of the Roman Republic was heavily influenced by the struggle between the patricians , Rome's land-holding aristocracy, who traced their ancestry back to the early history of the Roman kingdom, and the plebeians , the far more numerous citizen-commoners. Over time, the laws that gave patricians exclusive rights to Rome's highest offices were repealed or weakened, and a new aristocracy emerged from among the plebeian class. The leaders of the Republic developed a strong tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military and political success inextricably linked.

During the first two centuries of its existence the Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, from central Italy to the entire Italian peninsula. By the following century it included North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula , Greece, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, despite the Republic's traditional and lawful constraints against any individual's acquisition of permanent political powers, Roman politics was dominated by a small number of Roman leaders, their uneasy alliances punctuated by a series of civil wars .

The victor in one of these civil wars, Octavian , reformed the Republic as a Principate , with himself as Rome's "first citizen" (princeps). The Senate continued to sit and debate. Annual magistrates were elected as before, but final decisions on matters of policy, warfare, diplomacy and appointments were privileged to the princeps as "first among equals" later to be known as imperator due to the holding of imperium , from which the term emperor is derived. His powers were monarchic in all but name, and he held them for his lifetime, on behalf of the Senate and people of Rome.

The Roman Republic was never restored, but neither was it abolished, so the exact date of the transition to the Roman Empire is a matter of interpretation. Historians have variously proposed the appointment of Julius Caesar as perpetual dictator in 44 BC, the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the Roman Senate 's grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian under the first settlement and his adopting the title Augustus in 27 BC, as the defining event ending the Republic.

Many of Rome's legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states and international organizations . Latin , the language of the Romans, has influenced language across parts of Europe and the world.

Constitution

The Constitution of the Roman Republic was an unwritten set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent. The Roman constitution was not formal or even official. It was largely unwritten, uncodified, and constantly evolving.

  The Roman Forum , the commercial, cultural, and political center of the city and the Republic which housed the various offices and meeting places of the government

Senate of the Roman Republic

The Senate's ultimate authority derived from the esteem and prestige of the Senate.This esteem and prestige was based on both precedent and custom, as well as the high calibre and prestige of the Senators.The Senate passed decrees, which were called senatus consulta . This was officially "advice" from the Senate to a magistrate. In practice, however, these were usually obeyed by the magistrates.The focus of the Roman Senate was directed towards foreign policy.Though it technically had no official role in the management of military conflict, the Senate ultimately was the force that oversaw such affairs.

Legislative Assemblies

The legal status of Roman citizenship was strictly limited and was a vital prerequisite to possessing many important legal rights such as the right to trial and appeal, to marry, to vote, to hold office, to enter binding contracts, and to special tax exemptions. Not all those rights were available to every citizen - women could be citizens, but were denied the rights to vote or hold elected office.

An adult male citizen with the full complement of legal and political rights was called "optimo jure." The optimo jure elected their assemblies, whereupon the assemblies elected magistrates, enacted legislation, presided over trials in capital cases, declared war and peace, and forged or dissolved treaties.There were two types of legislative assemblies . The first was the comitia ("committees"),which were assemblies of all optimo jure. The second was the concilia ("councils"), which were assemblies of specific groups of optimo jure.

Assembly of the Centuries

Citizens were organized on the basis of centuries and tribes . The centuries and the tribes would each gather into their own assemblies. The Comitia Centuriata ("Century Assembly") was the assembly of the centuries. The president of the Comitia Centuriata was usually a consul.The centuries would vote, one at a time, until a measure received support from a majority of the centuries. The Comitia Centuriata would elect magistrates who had imperium powers (consuls and praetors). It also elected censors. Only the Comitia Centuriata could declare war, and ratify the results of a census. It also served as the highest court of appeal in certain judicial cases.Assembly of the Tribes

The assembly of the tribes, the Comitia Tributa, was presided over by a consul, and was composed of 35 tribes. The tribes were not ethnic or kinship groups, but rather geographical subdivisions.The order that the thirty-five tribes would vote in was selected randomly by lot. Once a measure received support from a majority of the tribes, the voting would end. While it did not pass many laws, the Comitia Tributa did elect quaestors, curule aediles , and military tribunes.

Plebeian Council

The Plebeian Council was an assembly of plebeians, the non-patrician citizens of Rome, who would gather into their respective tribes. They elected their own officers, plebeian tribunes and plebeian aediles. Usually a plebeian tribune would preside over the assembly. This assembly passed most laws, and could also act as a court of appeal. Since it was organised on the basis of the tribes, its rules and procedures were nearly identical to those of the Comitia Tributa.

Executive Magistrates

Each magistrate was vested with a degree of maior potestas ("major power"). Each magistrate could veto any action that was taken by a magistrate of an equal or lower rank. Plebeian tribunes and plebeian aediles , on the other hand, were independent of the other magistrates.

Magisterial powers, and checks on those powers

Each republican magistrate held certain constitutional powers . Only the People of Rome (both plebeians and patricians) had the right to confer these powers on any individual magistrate. The most powerful constitutional power was imperium . Imperium was held by both consuls and praetors. Imperium gave a magistrate the authority to command a military force. All magistrates also had the power of coercion . This was used by magistrates to maintain public order.While in Rome, all citizens had a judgement against coercion. This protection was called provocatio (see below). Magistrates also had both the power and the duty to look for omens. This power would often be used to obstruct political opponents.

One check on a magistrate's power was his collegiality . Each magisterial office would be held concurrently by at least two people. Another such check was provocatio . Provocatio was a primordial form of due process . It was a precursor to habeas corpus . If any magistrate tried to use the powers of the state against a citizen, that citizen could appeal the decision of the magistrate to a tribune.In addition, once a magistrate's one year term of office expired, he would have to wait ten years before serving in that office again. This created problems for some consuls and praetors, and these magistrates would occasionally have their imperium extended. In effect, they would retain the powers of the office (as a promagistrate ), without officially holding that office.

Consuls, Praetors, Censors, Aediles, Quaestors, Tribunes, and Dictators

 of Marius, had been put on full display. The populares party took full advantage of this opportunity by allying itself with Marius.

Several years later, in 88 BC, a Roman army was sent to put down an emerging Asian power, king Mithridates of Pontus . The army, however, was defeated. One of Marius' old quaestors, Lucius Cornelius Sulla , had been elected consul for the year, and was ordered by the senate to assume command of the war against Mithridates. Marius, a member of the "populares " party, had a tribune revoke Sulla's command of the war against Mithridates. Sulla, a member of the aristocratic ("optimates ") party, brought his army back to Italy and marched on Rome . Sulla was so angry at Marius' tribune that he passed a law intended to permanently weaken the tribunate.He then returned to his war against Mithridates. With Sulla gone, the populares under Marius and Lucius Cornelius Cinna soon took control of the city.

During the period in which the populares party controlled the city, they flouted convention by re-electing Marius consul several times without observing the customary ten-year interval between offices. They also transgressed the established oligarchy by advancing unelected individuals to magisterial office, and by substituting magisterial edicts for popular legislation.

Sulla soon made peace with Mithridates. In 83 BC, he returned to Rome, overcame all resistance, and recaptured the city. Sulla and his supporters then slaughtered most of Marius' supporters. Sulla, having observed the violent results of radical popular reforms, was naturally conservative. As such, he sought to strengthen the aristocracy, and by extension the senate.Sulla made himself dictator, passed a series of constitutional reforms , resigned the dictatorship, and served one last term as consul. He died in 78 BC.

Pompey, Crassus and the Catilinarian Conspiracy A Roman marble head of Pompey (now found in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek )

In 77 BC, the senate sent one of Sulla's former lieutenants, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great"), to put down an uprising in Spain. By 71 BC, Pompey returned to Rome after having completed his mission. Around the same time, another of Sulla's former lieutenants, Marcus Licinius Crassus , had just put down the Spartacus led gladiator/slave revolt in Italy. Upon their return, Pompey and Crassus found the populares party fiercely attacking Sulla's constitution. They attempted to forge an agreement with the populares party. If both Pompey and Crassus were elected consul in 70 BC, they would dismantle the more obnoxious components of Sulla's constitution. The two were soon elected, and quickly dismantled most of Sulla's constitution.

Around 66 BC, a movement to use constitutional, or at least peaceful, means to address the plight of various classes began. After several failures, the movement's leaders decided to use any means that were necessary to accomplish their goals. The movement coalesced under an aristocrat named Lucius Sergius Catilina . The movement was based in the town of Faesulae, which was a natural hotbed of agrarian agitation. The rural malcontents were to advance on Rome, and be aided by an uprising within the city. After assassinating the consuls and most of the senators, Catiline would be free to enact his reforms. The conspiracy was set in motion in 63 BC. The consul for the year, Marcus Tullius Cicero , intercepted messages that Catiline had sent in an attempt to recruit more members. As a result, the top conspirators in Rome (including at least one former consul) were executed by authorisation (of dubious constitutionality) of the senate, and the planned uprising was disrupted. Cicero then sent an army, which cut Catiline's forces to pieces.

The most important result of the Catilinarian conspiracy was that the populares party became discredited. The prior 70 years had witnessed a gradual erosion in senatorial powers. The violent nature of the conspiracy, in conjunction with the senate's skill in disrupting it, did a great deal to repair the senate's image.

First Triumvirate

In 62 BC, Pompey returned victorious from Asia. The Senate, elated by its successes against Catiline, refused to ratify the arrangements that Pompey had made. Pompey, in effect, became powerless. Thus, when Julius Caesar returned from a governorship in Spain in 61 BC, he found it easy to make an arrangement with Pompey. Caesar and Pompey, along with Crassus, established a private agreement, now known as the First Triumvirate . Under the agreement, Pompey's arrangements would be ratified. Caesar would be elected consul in 59 BC, and would then serve as governor of Gaul for five years. Crassus was promised a future consulship.

Caesar became consul in 59 BC. His colleague, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus , was an extreme aristocrat. Caesar submitted the laws that he had promised Pompey to the assemblies. Bibulus attempted to obstruct the enactment of these laws, and so Caesar used violent means to ensure their passage. Caesar was then made governor of three provinces. He facilitated the election of the former patrician Publius Clodius Pulcher to the tribunate for 58 BC. Clodius set about depriving Caesar's senatorial enemies of two of their more obstinate leaders in Cato and Cicero. Clodius was a bitter opponent of Cicero because Cicero had testified against him in a sacrilege case. Clodius attempted to try Cicero for executing citizens without a trial during the Catiline conspiracy, resulting in Cicero going into self-imposed exile and his house in Rome being burnt down. Clodius also passed a bill that forced Cato to lead the invasion of Cyprus which would keep him away from Rome for some years. Clodius also passed a bill that gave the populace a free grain dole, which had previously just been subsidised.

The end of the First Triumvirate

Clodius formed armed gangs that terrorised the city and eventually began to attack Pompey's followers, who in response funded counter-gangs formed by Titus Annius Milo . The political alliance of the triumvirate was crumbling. Domitius Ahenobarbus ran for the consulship in 55 BC promising to take Caesar's command from him. Eventually, the triumvirate was renewed at Lucca. Pompey and Crassus were promised the consulship in 55 BC, and Caesar's term as governor was extended for five years. Crassus led an ill-fated expedition with legions led by his son, Caesar's lieutenant, against the Kingdom of Parthia. This resulted in his defeat and death at the Battle of Carrhae . Finally, Pompey's wife, Julia, who was Caesar's daughter, died in childbirth. This event severed the last remaining bond between Pompey and Caesar.

Beginning in the summer of 54 BC, a wave of political corruption and violence swept Rome.[66] This chaos reached a climax in January of 52 BC, when Clodius was murdered in a gang war by Milo. On 1 January 49 BC, an agent of Caesar presented an ultimatum to the senate. The ultimatum was rejected, and the senate then passed a resolution which declared that if Caesar did not lay down his arms by July of that year, he would be considered an enemy of the Republic. On 7 January of 49 BC, the senate passed a senatus consultum ultimum , which vested Pompey with dictatorial powers. Pompey's army, however, was composed largely of untested conscripts. On 10 January, Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his veteran army (in violation of Roman laws) and marched towards Rome. Caesar's rapid advance forced Pompey, the consuls and the Senate to abandon Rome for Greece. Caesar entered the city unopposed.

The period of transition (49–29 BC)

The era that began when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC and ended when Octavian returned to Rome after Actium in 29 BC, saw the constitutional evolution of the prior century accelerate at a rapid pace. By 29 BC, Rome had completed its transition from being a city-state with a network of dependencies, to being the capital of a world empire.

With Pompey defeated and order restored, Caesar wanted to ensure that his control over the government was undisputed. The powers which he would give himself would ultimately be used by his imperial successors.He would assume these powers by increasing his own authority, and by decreasing the authority of Rome's other political institutions.

Caesar would hold both the dictatorship and the tribunate, but alternated between the consulship and the proconsulship. In 48 BC, Caesar was given permanent tribunician powers. This made his person sacrosanct, gave him the power to veto the senate, and allowed him to dominate the Plebeian Council. In 46 BC, Caesar was given censorial powers, which he used to fill the senate with his own partisans. Caesar then raised the membership of the Senate to 900. This robbed the senatorial aristocracy of its prestige, and made it increasingly subservient to him. While the assemblies continued to meet, he submitted all candidates to the assemblies for election, and all bills to the assemblies for enactment. Thus, the assemblies became powerless and were unable to oppose him.

Near the end of his life, Caesar began to prepare for a war against the Parthian Empire . Since his absence from Rome would limit his ability to install his own consuls, he passed a law which allowed him to appoint all magistrates in 43 BC, and all consuls and tribunes in 42 BC. This, in effect, transformed the magistrates from being representatives of the people to being representatives of the dictator.

Caesar's assassination and the Second Triumvirate

Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 BC. The assassination was led by Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus . Most of the conspirators were senators, who had a variety of economic, political, or personal motivations for carrying out the assassination. Many were afraid that Caesar would soon resurrect the monarchy and declare himself king. Others feared loss of property or prestige as Caesar carried out his land reforms in favor of the landless classes. Virtually all the conspirators fled the city after Caesar's death in fear of retaliation. The civil war that followed destroyed what was left of the Republic.

After the assassination, Mark Antony formed an alliance with Caesar's adopted son and great-nephew, Gaius Octavian . Along with Marcus Lepidus , they formed an alliance known as the Second Triumvirate . They held powers that were nearly identical to the powers that Caesar had held under his constitution. As such, the Senate and assemblies remained powerless, even after Caesar had been assassinated. The conspirators were then defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. Eventually, however, Antony and Octavian fought against each other in one last battle. Antony was defeated in the naval Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and he committed suicide with his love, Cleopatra . In 29 BC, Octavian returned to Rome as the unchallenged master of the Empire and later accepted the title of Augustus - "Exalted One" .

Culture   Julius Caesar , from the bust in the British Museum , in Cassell's History of England (1902).

Life in the Roman Republic revolved around the city of Rome, and its famed seven hills . The city also had several theatres ,gymnasiums, and many taverns, baths and brothels. Throughout the territory under Rome's control, residential architecture ranged from very modest houses to country villas , and in the capital city of Rome, to the residences on the elegant Palatine Hill , from which the word "palace " is derived. The vast majority of the population lived in the city center, packed into apartment blocks.

Most Roman towns and cities had a forum and temples, as did the city of Rome itself. Aqueducts brought water to urban centers and wine and cooking oil were imported from abroad. Landlords generally resided in cities and left their estates in the care of farm managers. To stimulate a higher labour productivity, many landlords freed large numbers of slaves.

Beginning in the middle of the 2nd century BC, Greek culture was increasingly ascendant,in spite of tirades against the "softening" effects of Hellenised culture. By the time of Augustus, cultured Greek household slaves taught the Roman young (sometimes even the girls). Greek sculptures adorned Hellenistic landscape gardening on the Palatine or in the villas, and much of Roman cuisine was essentially Greek. Roman writers disdained Latin for a cultured Greek style.

Social history and structure

Many aspects of Roman culture were borrowed from the Greeks . In architecture and sculpture , the difference between Greek models and Roman paintings are apparent. The chief Roman contributions to architecture were the arch and the dome. Rome has also had a tremendous impact on European cultures following it. Its significance is perhaps best reflected in its endurance and influence, as is seen in the longevity and lasting importance of works of Virgil and Ovid. Latin, the Republic's primary language, remains used for liturgical purposes by the Roman Catholic Church, and up to the 19th century was used extensively in scholarly writings in, for example, science and mathematics. Roman law laid the foundations for the laws of many European countries and their colonies.

The center of the early social structure was the family, which was not only marked by blood relations but also by the legally constructed relation of patria potestas .The Pater familias was the absolute head of the family; he was the master over his wife, his children, the wives of his sons, the nephews, the slaves and the freedmen, disposing of them and of their goods at will, even putting them to death. Roman law recognised only patrician families as legal entities.

Slavery and slaves were part of the social order; there were slave markets where they could be bought and sold. Many slaves were freed by the masters for services rendered; some slaves could save money to buy their freedom. Generally, mutilation and murder of slaves was prohibited by legislation. It is estimated that over 25% of the Roman population was enslaved.

Clothing and dining     Roman clad in a toga .

Men typically wore a toga , and women a stola . The woman's stola differed in looks from a toga, and was usually brightly coloured. The cloth and the dress distinguished one class of people from the other class. The tunic worn by plebeians , or common people, like shepherds and slaves, was made from coarse and dark material, whereas the tunic worn by patricians was of linen or white wool.[83] A knight or magistrate would wear an augusticlavus , a tunic bearing small purple studs. Senators wore tunics with broad red stripes, called tunica laticlavia . Military tunics were shorter than the ones worn by civilians. Boys, up until the festival of Liberalia , wore the toga praetexta , which was a toga with a crimson or purple border. The toga virilis , (or toga pura ) was worn by men over the age of 16 to signify their citizenship in Rome. The toga picta was worn by triumphant generals and had embroidery of their skill on the battlefield. The toga pulla was worn when in mourning.

Even footwear indicated a person's social status. Patricians wore red and orange sandals, senators had brown footwear, consuls had white shoes, and soldiers wore heavy boots. The Romans also invented socks for those soldiers required to fight on the northern frontiers, sometimes worn in sandals.

Romans had simple food habits. Staple food was generally consumed at around 11 o'clock, and consisted of bread, salad, cheese, fruits, nuts, and cold meat left over from the dinner the night before. The Roman poet, Horace mentions another Roman favorite, the olive, in reference to his own diet, which he describes as very simple: "As for me, olives, endives , and smooth mallows provide sustenance." The family ate together, sitting on stools around a table. Fingers were used to eat solid foods and spoons were used for soups.

Wine was considered a staple drink, consumed at all meals and occasions by all classes and was quite cheap. Cato the Elder once advised cutting his rations in half to conserve wine for the workforce.[89] Many types of drinks involving grapes and honey were consumed as well. Drinking on an empty stomach was regarded as boorish and a sure sign for alcoholism, the debilitating physical and psychological effects of which were known to the Romans. An accurate accusation of being an alcoholic was an effective way to discredit political rivals. Prominent Roman alcoholics included Mark Antony , and Cicero's own son Marcus (Cicero Minor). Even Cato the Younger was known to be a heavy drinker.

Education and language

Following various military conquests in the Greek East , Romans adapted a number of Greek educational precepts to their own fledgling system. Physical training to prepare the boys to grow as Roman citizens and for eventual recruitment into the army. Conforming to discipline was a point of great emphasis. Girls generally received instruction from their mothers in the art of spinning, weaving, and sewing. Schooling in a more formal sense was begun around 200 BC. Education began at the age of around six, and in the next six to seven years, boys and girls were expected to learn the basics of reading, writing and counting. By the age of twelve, they would be learning Latin, Greek, grammar and literature, followed by training for public speaking. Oratory was an art to be practiced and learnt, and good orators commanded respect.

The native language of the Romans was Latin. Although surviving Latin literature consists almost entirely of Classical Latin , an artificial and highly stylised and polished literary language from the 1st century BC, the actual spoken language was Vulgar Latin , which significantly differed from Classical Latin in grammar, vocabulary, and eventually pronunciation. Rome's expansion spread Latin throughout Europe, and over time Vulgar Latin evolved and dialectised in different locations, gradually shifting into a number of distinct Romance languages . Many of these languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish, flourished, the differences between them growing greater over time. Although English is Germanic rather than Roman in origin, English borrows heavily from Latin and Latin-derived words.

The arts

Roman literature was from its very inception influenced heavily by Greek authors. Some of the earliest works we possess are of historical epics telling the early military history of Rome. As the republic expanded, authors began to produce poetry, comedy, history, and tragedy. Virgil represents the pinnacle of Roman epic poetry. His Aeneid tells the story of flight of Aeneas from Troy and his settlement of the city that would become Rome. Lucretius , in his On the Nature of Things , attempted to explicate science in an epic poem. The genre of satire was common in Rome, and satires were written by, among others, Juvenal and Persius . The rhetorical works of Cicero are considered to be some of the best bodies of correspondence recorded in antiquity.

In the 3rd century BC, Greek art taken as booty from wars became popular, and many Roman homes were decorated with landscapes by Greek artists. Portrait sculpture during the period utilised youthful and classical proportions, evolving later into a mixture of realism and idealism. Advancements were also made in relief sculptures, often depicting Roman victories.

Music was a major part of everyday life. The word itself derives from Greek μουσική (mousike ), "(art) of the Muses ".[96] Many private and public events were accompanied by music, ranging from nightly dining to military parades and manoeuvres. In a discussion of any ancient music, however, non-specialists and even many musicians have to be reminded that much of what makes our modern music familiar to us is the result of developments only within the last 1,000 years; thus, our ideas of melody, scales, harmony, and even the instruments we use would not be familiar to Romans who made and listened to music many centuries earlier.

Over time, Roman architecture was modified as their urban requirements changed, and the civil engineering and building construction technology became developed and refined. The Roman concrete has remained a riddle, and even after more than 2,000 years some Roman structures still stand magnificently.[97] The architectural style of the capital city was emulated by other urban centers under Roman control and influence. Roman cities were well planned, efficiently managed and neatly maintained.

Sports and entertainment

The city of Rome had a place called the Campus Martius ("Field of Mars"), which was a sort of drill ground for Roman soldiers. Later, the Campus became Rome's track and field playground. In the campus, the youth assembled to play and exercise, which included jumping, wrestling, boxing and racing. Equestrian sports, throwing, and swimming were also preferred physical activities. In the countryside, pastime included fishing and hunting. Board games played in Rome included dice (Tesserae or Tali ), Roman Chess (Latrunculi), Roman Checkers (Calculi), Tic-tac-toe (Terni Lapilli), and Ludus duodecim scriptorum and Tabula, predecessors of backgammon.There were several other activities to keep people engaged like chariot races, musical and theatrical performances.

Religion

Roman religious beliefs date back to the founding of Rome, around 800 BC. However, the Roman religion commonly associated with the republic and early empire did not begin until around 500 BC, when Romans came in contact with Greek culture, and adopted many of the Greek religious beliefs. Private and personal worship was an important aspect of religious practices. In a sense, each household was a temple to the gods . Each household had an altar (lararium ), at which the family members would offer prayers, perform rites, and interact with the household gods. Many of the gods that Romans worshiped came from the Proto-Indo-European pantheon , others were based on Greek gods . The two most famous deities were Jupiter (the king God) and Mars (the god of war). With its cultural influence spreading over most of the Mediterranean, Romans began accepting foreign gods into their own culture, as well as other philosophical traditions such as Cynicism and Stoicism .

Military

Structural history

The structural history of the Roman military describes the major chronological transformations in the organisation and constitution of the Roman armed forces. The Roman military was split into the Roman army and the Roman navy , although these two branches were less distinct than they tend to be in modern defence forces. Within the top-level branches of army and navy, structural changes occurred both as a result of positive military reform and through organic structural evolution.

Hoplite armies (509–c. 315 BC)

During this period, Roman soldiers seem to have been modelled after those of the Etruscans to the north, who themselves seem to have copied their style of warfare from the Greeks. Traditionally, the introduction of the phalanx formation into the Roman army is ascribed to the city's penultimate king, Servius Tullius (ruled 578 to 534 BC).[101] According to Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus ,the front rank was composed of the wealthiest citizens, who were able to purchase the best equipment. Each subsequent rank consisted of those with less wealth and poorer equipment than the one before it.

One disadvantage of the phalanx was that it was only effective when fighting in large, open spaces, which left the Romans at a disadvantage when fighting in the hilly terrain of central Italian peninsula . In the 4th century BC, the Romans abandoned the phalanx in favour of the more flexible manipular formation. This change is sometimes attributed to Marcus Furius Camillus and placed shortly after the Gallic invasion of 390 BC; it is more likely, however, that they were copied from Rome's Samnite enemies to the south, possibly as a result of Samnite victories during the Second Samnite War (326 to 304 BC).

Manipular legion (c. 315–107 BC)

During this period, an army formation of around 5,000 men (of both heavy and light infantry) was known as a legion. The manipular army was based upon social class, age and military experience. Maniples were units of 120 men each drawn from a single infantry class. The maniples were typically deployed into three discrete lines based on the three heavy infantry types.

Each first line maniple were leather-armoured infantry soldiers who wore a bronze breastplate and a bronze helmet adorned with 3 feathers approximately 30 cm (12 in) in height and carried an iron-clad wooden shield. They were armed with a sword and two throwing spears. The second infantry line was armed and armoured in the same manner as was the first infantry line. The second infantry line, however, wore a lighter coat of mail rather than a solid brass breastplate. The third infantry line was the last remnant of the hoplite-style (the Greek-style formation used occasionally during the early Republic) troops in the Roman army. They were armed and armoured in the same manner as were the soldiers in the second line, with the exception that they carried a lighter spear.

The three infantry classes may have retained some slight parallel to social divisions within Roman society, but at least officially the three lines were based upon age and experience rather than social class. Young, unproven men would serve in the first line, older men with some military experience would serve in the second line, and veteran troops of advanced age and experience would serve in the third line.

The heavy infantry of the maniples were supported by a number of light infantry and cavalry troops, typically 300 horsemen per manipular legion.The cavalry was drawn primarily from the richest class of equestrians. There was an additional class of troops who followed the army without specific martial roles and were deployed to the rear of the third line. Their role in accompanying the army was primarily to supply any vacancies that might occur in the maniples. The light infantry consisted of 1,200 unarmoured skirmishing troops drawn from the youngest and lower social classes. They were armed with a sword and a small shield, as well as several light javelins.

Rome's military confederation with the other peoples of the Italian peninsula meant that half of Rome's army was provided by the Socii , such as the Etruscans, Umbrians, Apulians, Campanians, Samnites, Lucani, Bruttii, and the various southern Greek cities. Polybius states that Rome could draw on 770,000 men at the beginning of the Second Punic War, of which 700,000 were infantry and 70,000 met the requirements for cavalry. Rome's Italian allies would be organized in alae , or wings , roughly equal in manpower to the Roman legions, though with 900 cavalry instead of 300.

A small navy had operated at a fairly low level after about 300 BC, but it was massively upgraded about forty years later, during the First Punic War . After a period of frenetic construction, the navy mushroomed to a size of more than 400 ships on the Carthaginian ("Punic") pattern. Once completed, it could accommodate up to 100,000 sailors and embarked troops for battle. The navy thereafter declined in size.

The extraordinary demands of the Punic Wars , in addition to a shortage of manpower, exposed the tactical weaknesses of the manipular legion, at least in the short term. In 217 BC, near the beginning of the Second Punic War , Rome was forced to effectively ignore its long-standing principle that its soldiers must be both citizens and property owners. During the 2nd century BC, Roman territory saw an overall decline in population, partially due to the huge losses incurred during various wars. This was accompanied by severe social stresses and the greater collapse of the middle classes. As a result, the Roman state was forced to arm its soldiers at the expense of the state, which it had not had to do in the past.

The distinction between the heavy infantry types began to blur, perhaps because the state was now assuming the responsibility of providing standard-issue equipment. In addition, the shortage of available manpower led to a greater burden being placed upon Rome's allies for the provision of allied troops. Eventually, the Romans were forced to begin hiring mercenaries to fight alongside the legions.

The legion after the reforms of Gaius Marius (107–27 BC)   Bust of Gaius Marius , instigator of the Marian reforms .

In a process known as the Marian reforms , Roman consul Gaius Marius carried out a programme of reform of the Roman military. In 107 BC, all citizens, regardless of their wealth or social class, were made eligible for entry into the Roman army. This move formalised and concluded a gradual process that had been growing for centuries, of removing property requirements for military service.The distinction between the three heavy infantry classes, which had already become blurred, had collapsed into a single class of heavy legionary infantry. The heavy infantry legionaries were drawn from citizen stock, while non-citizens came to dominate the ranks of the light infantry. The army's higher-level officers and commanders were still drawn exclusively from the Roman aristocracy.

Unlike earlier in the Republic, legionaries were no longer fighting on a seasonal basis to protect their land. Instead, they received standard pay, and were employed by the state on a fixed-term basis. As a consequence, military duty began to appeal most to the poorest sections of society, to whom a salaried pay was attractive. A destabilising consequence of this development was that the proletariat "acquired a stronger and more elevated position within the state.

The legions of the late Republic were, structurally, almost entirely heavy infantry. The legion's main sub-unit was called a cohort and consisted of approximately 480 infantrymen. The cohort was therefore a much larger unit than the earlier maniple sub-unit, and was divided into six centuries of 80 men each.Each century was separated further into 10 "tent groups" of 8 men each. Legions additionally consisted of a small body, typically 120 men, of Roman legionary cavalry. The cavalry troops were used as scouts and dispatch riders rather than battlefield cavalry. Legions also contained a dedicated group of artillery crew of perhaps 60 men. Each legion was normally partnered with an approximately equal number of allied (non-Roman) troops.

However, the most obvious deficiency of the Roman army remained its shortage of cavalry, especially heavy cavalry. As Rome's borders expanded and its adversaries changed from largely infantry-based to largely cavalry-based troops, the infantry-based Roman army began to find itself at a tactical disadvantage, particularly in the East.

After having declined in size following the subjugation of the Mediterranean, the Roman navy underwent short-term upgrading and revitalisation in the late Republic to meet several new demands. Under Caesar , an invasion fleet was assembled in the English Channel to allow the invasion of Britannia ; under Pompey , a large fleet was raised in the Mediterranean Sea to clear the sea of Cilician pirates. During the civil war that followed, as many as a thousand ships were either constructed or pressed into service from Greek cities.

Campaign history

The core of the campaign history of the Roman Republican military is the account of the Roman military 's land battles. Despite the encompassing of lands around the periphery of the Mediterranean sea, naval battles were typically less significant than land battles to the military history of Rome.

As with most ancient civilisations, Rome's military served the triple purposes of securing its borders, exploiting peripheral areas through measures such as imposing tribute on conquered peoples, and maintaining internal order. From the outset, Rome's military typified this pattern and the majority of Rome's campaigns were characterised by one of two types. The first is the territorial expansionist campaign, normally begun as a counter-offensive,[122] in which each victory brought subjugation of large areas of territory. The second is the civil war, of which examples plagued the Roman Republic in its final century.

Roman armies were not invincible, despite their formidable reputation and host of victories. Over the centuries the Romans "produced their share of incompetents " who led Roman armies into catastrophic defeats. Nevertheless, it was generally the fate of even the greatest of Rome's enemies, such as Pyrrhus and Hannibal , to win the battle but lose the war. The history of Rome's campaigning is, if nothing else, a history of obstinate persistence overcoming appalling losses.

Early Republic (458–274 BC)

Early Italian campaigns (458–396 BC)

The first Roman republican wars were wars of both expansion and defence, aimed at protecting Rome itself from neighbouring cities and nations and establishing its territory in the region. Initially, Rome's immediate neighbours were either Latin towns and villages, or else tribal Sabines from the Apennine hills beyond. One by one Rome defeated both the persistent Sabines and the local cities that were either under Etruscan control or else Latin towns that had cast off their Etruscan rulers. Rome defeated Latin cities in the Battle of Lake Regillus in 496 BC, the Battle of Mons Algidus in 458 BC, the Battle of Corbione in 446 BC,[129][130] the Battle of Aricia ,[131] and an Etruscan city in the Battle of the Cremera in 477 BC

By the end of this period, Rome had effectively completed the conquest of their immediate Etruscan and Latin neighbours, as well as secured their position against the immediate threat posed by the tribespeople of the nearby Apennine hills.

Celtic invasion of Italia (390–387 BC)

By 390 BC, several Gallic tribes had begun invading Italy from the north as their culture expanded throughout Europe. The Romans were alerted of this when a particularly warlike tribe invaded two Etruscan towns from the north. These two towns were not far from Rome's sphere of influence. These towns, overwhelmed by the size of the enemy in numbers and ferocity, called on Rome for help. The Romans met them in pitched battle at the Battle of Allia River around 390–387 BC. The Gauls, under their chieftain Brennus , defeated the Roman army of around 15,000 troops and proceeded to pursue the fleeing Romans back to Rome itself and sacked the city[136] before being either driven off or bought off. Now that the Romans and Gauls had bloodied one another, intermittent warfare was to continue between the two in Italy for more than two centuries. The Celtic problem would not be resolved for Rome until the final subjugation of all Gaul by Julius Caesar at the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC.

Roman expansion into Italia (343–282 BC) Map showing Roman expansion in Italy.

After recovering surprisingly swiftly from the sack of Rome,the Romans immediately resumed their expansion within Italy. The First Samnite War of between 343 BC and 341 BC was a relatively short affair: the Romans beat the Samnites in two battles, but were forced to withdraw from the war before they could pursue the conflict further due to the revolt of several of their Latin allies in the Latin War . Rome bested the Latins in the Battle of Vesuvius and again in the Battle of Trifanum , after which the Latin cities were obliged to submit to Roman rule.

The Second Samnite War , from 327 BC to 304 BC, was a much longer and more serious affair for both the Romans and Samnites. The fortunes of the two sides fluctuated throughout its course. The Romans then proved victorious at the Battle of Bovianum and the tide turned strongly against the Samnites from 314 BC onwards, leading them to sue for peace with progressively less generous terms. By 304 BC the Romans had effectively annexed the greater degree of the Samnite territory, founding several colonies.

Seven years after their defeat, with Roman dominance of the area looking assured, the Samnites rose again and defeated a Roman army in 298 BC, to open the Third Samnite War . With this success in hand they managed to bring together a coalition of several previous enemies of Rome. In the Battle of Populonia in 282 BC Rome finished off the last vestiges of Etruscan power in the region.

Pyrrhic War (280–275 BC) Route of Pyrrhus of Epirus

By the beginning of the 3rd century, Rome had established itself as a major power on the Italian Peninsula , but had not yet come into conflict with the dominant military powers in the Mediterranean Basin at the time: Carthage and the Greek kingdoms.

When a diplomatic dispute between Rome and a Greek colony erupted into open warfare in a naval confrontation, the Greek colony appealed for military aid to Pyrrhus , ruler of the northwestern Greek kingdom of Epirus . Motivated by a personal desire for military accomplishment, Pyrrhus landed a Greek army of some 25,000 men on Italian soil in 280 BC.

Despite early victories, Pyrrhus found his position in Italy untenable. Rome steadfastly refused to negotiate with Pyrrhus as long as his army remained in Italy. Facing unacceptably heavy losses with each encounter with the Roman army, Pyrrhus withdrew from the peninsula (thus deriving the term "pyrrhic victory"). In 275 BC, Pyrrhus again met the Roman army at the Battle of Beneventum . While Beneventum was indecisive, Pyrrhus realised his army had been exhausted and reduced, by years of foreign campaigns, and seeing little hope for further gains, he withdrew completely from Italy.

The conflicts with Pyrrhus would have a great effect on Rome. Rome had shown it was capable of pitting its armies successfully against the dominant military powers of the Mediterranean, and that the Greek kingdoms were incapable of defending their colonies in Italy and abroad. Rome quickly moved into southern Italia, subjugating and dividing the Greek colonies. Now, Rome effectively dominated the Italian peninsula,and won an international military reputation.

Mid-Republic (274–148 BC)

Punic Wars (264–146 BC) Theatre of the Punic Wars

The First Punic War began in 264 BC when settlements on Sicily began to appeal to the two powers between which they lay – Rome and Carthage – to solve internal conflicts. The war saw land battles in Sicily early on, but the theatre shifted to naval battles around Sicily and Africa. Before the First Punic War there was no Roman navy to speak of. The new war in Sicily against Carthage , a great naval power, forced Rome to quickly build a fleet and train sailors.

The first few naval battles were catastrophic disasters for Rome. However, after training more sailors and inventing a grappling engine,a Roman naval force was able to defeat a Carthaginian fleet, and further naval victories followed. The Carthaginians then hired Xanthippus of Carthage , a Spartan mercenary general, to reorganise and lead their army. He managed to cut off the Roman army from its base by re-establishing Carthaginian naval supremacy. With their newfound naval abilities, the Romans then beat the Carthaginians in naval battle again at the Battle of the Aegates Islands and leaving Carthage without a fleet or sufficient coin to raise one. For a maritime power the loss of their access to the Mediterranean stung financially and psychologically, and the Carthaginians sued for peace.

Continuing distrust led to the renewal of hostilities in the Second Punic War when Hannibal Barca attacked a Spanish town, which had diplomatic ties to Rome. Hannibal then crossed the Italian Alps to invade Italy. Hannibal's successes in Italy began immediately, and reached an early climax at the Battle of Cannae , where 70,000 Romans were killed.

In three battles, the Romans managed to hold off Hannibal but then Hannibal smashed a succession of Roman consular armies. By this time Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal Barca sought to cross the Alps into Italy and join his brother with a second army. Hasdrubal managed to break through into Italy only to be defeated decisively on the Metaurus River . Unable to defeat Hannibal himself on Italian soil, the Romans boldly sent an army to Africa under Scipio Africanus with the intention of threatening the Carthaginian capital. Hannibal was recalled to Africa, and defeated at the Battle of Zama .

Carthage never managed to recover after the Second Punic War and the Third Punic War that followed was in reality a simple punitive mission to raze the city of Carthage to the ground. Carthage was almost defenceless and when besieged offered immediate surrender, conceding to a string of outrageous Roman demands. The Romans refused the surrender, and the city was stormed after a short siege and completely destroyed. Ultimately, all of Carthage's North African and Spanish territories were acquired by Rome.

Kingdom of Macedonia, the Greek poleis, and Illyria (215–148 BC)

Rome's preoccupation with its war with Carthage provided an opportunity for Philip V of the kingdom of Macedonia , located in the north of the Greek peninsula , to attempt to extend his power westward. Philip sent ambassadors to Hannibal's camp in Italy, to negotiate an alliance as common enemies of Rome. However, Rome discovered the agreement when Philip's emissaries were captured by a Roman fleet.The First Macedonian War saw the Romans involved directly in only limited land operations, but they ultimately achieved their objective of pre-occupying Philip and preventing him from aiding Hannibal.

Macedonia began to encroach on territory claimed by Greek city states in 200 BC and these states pleaded for help from their newfound ally Rome. Rome gave Philip an ultimatum that he must submit several parts of Greater Macedonia to Rome and give up his designs on Greece. Philip refused, and Rome declared war starting the Second Macedonian War . Ultimately, in 197 BC, the Romans decisevely defeated Philip at the Battle of Cynoscephalae ,subsequently Macedonia was reduced to a central rump state.

Rome now turned its attentions to one of the Greek kingdoms, the Seleucid Empire , in the east. A Roman force defeated the Seleucids at the Battle of Thermopylae and forced them to evacuate Greece.The Romans then pursued the Seleucids beyond Greece, beating them in the decisive engagement of the Battle of Magnesia .

In 179 BC, Philip died and his talented and ambitious son, Perseus, took his throne and showed a renewed interest in Greece. Rome declared war on Macedonia again, starting the Third Macedonian War . Perseus initially had some success against the Romans. However, Rome responded by simply sending another stronger army. The second consular army decisively defeated the Macedonians at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC and the Macedonians duly capitulated, ending the Third Macedonian War .The Kingdom of Macedonia was then divided by the Romans into four client republics.

The Fourth Macedonian War, fought from 150 BC to 148 BC, was fought against a Macedonian pretender to the throne who was attempting to re-establish the old Kingdom. The Romans swiftly defeated the Macedonians at the Second battle of Pydna . The Achaean League chose this moment to rebel against Roman domination but was swiftly defeated. Corinth was besieged and destroyed in 146 BC, the same year as the destruction of Carthage , which led to the league's surrender.

 

Late Republic (147–30 BC)

Jugurthine War (111–104 BC)

The Jugurthine War of 111–104 BC was fought between Rome and Jugurtha of the North African kingdom of Numidia . It constituted the final Roman pacification of Northern Africa, after which Rome largely ceased expansion on the continent after reaching natural barriers of desert and mountain. Following Jugurtha's usurpation of the throne of Numidia, a loyal ally of Rome since the Punic Wars,[174] Rome felt compelled to intervene. Jugurtha impudently bribed the Romans into accepting his usurpation. Jugurtha was finally captured not in battle but by treachery.

The Celtic threat (121 BC) and the new Germanic threat (113–101 BC)

In 121 BC, Rome came into contact with two Celtic tribes (from a region in modern France), both of which they defeated with apparent ease. The Cimbrian War (113–101 BC) was a far more serious affair than the earlier clashes of 121 BC. The Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and the Teutons migrated from northern Europe into Rome's northern territories, and clashed with Rome and her allies. At the Battle of Aquae Sextiae and the Battle of Vercellae both tribes were virtually annihilated, which ended the threat.

Internal unrest (135–71 BC)

The extensive campaigning abroad by Roman generals, and the rewarding of soldiers with plunder on these campaigns, led to a general trend of soldiers becoming increasingly loyal to their generals rather than to the state.[178] Rome was also plagued by several slave uprisings during this period, in part because vast tracts of land had been given over to slave farming in which the slaves greatly outnumbered their Roman masters. In the last century BC at least twelve civil wars and rebellions occurred. This pattern did not break until Octavian (later Caesar Augustus ) ended it by becoming a successful challenger to the Senate's authority, and was made princeps (emperor).

Between 135 BC and 71 BC there were three "Servile Wars" involving slave uprisings against the Roman state. The third and final uprising was the most serious, involving ultimately between 120,000 and 150,000 slaves under the command of the gladiator Spartacus . Additionally, in 91 BC the Social War broke out between Rome and its former allies in Italy over dissent among the allies that they shared the risk of Rome's military campaigns, but not its rewards. Although they lost militarily, the allies achieved their objectives with legal proclamations which granted citizenship to more than 500,000 Italians.

The internal unrest reached its most serious state, however, in the two civil wars that were caused by the consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla at the beginning of 82 BC. In the Battle of the Colline Gate at the very door of the city of Rome, a Roman army under Sulla bested an army of the Roman Senate and entered the city. Sulla's actions marked a watershed in the willingness of Roman troops to wage war against one another that was to pave the way for the wars which ultimately overthrew the Republic, and caused the founding of the Roman Empire .

Conflicts with Mithridates (89–63 BC) and the Cilician pirates (67 BC)

Mithridates the Great was the ruler of Pontus , a large kingdom in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), from 120 to 63 BC. Mithridates antagonised Rome by seeking to expand his kingdom, and Rome for her part seemed equally keen for war and the spoils and prestige that it might bring.In 88 BC, Mithridates ordered the killing of a majority of the 80,000 Romans living in his kingdom. The massacre was the official reason given for the commencement of hostilities in the First Mithridatic War . The Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla forced Mithridates out of Greece proper, but then had to return to Italy to answer the internal threat posed by his rival, Gaius Marius . A peace was made between Rome and Pontus, but this proved only a temporary lull.

The Second Mithridatic War began when Rome tried to annex a province that Mithridates claimed as his own. In the Third Mithridatic War , first Lucius Licinius Lucullus and then Pompey the Great were sent against Mithridates.[186] Mithridates was finally defeated by Pompey in the night-time Battle of the Lycus .The Mediterranean had at this time fallen into the hands of pirates, largely from Cilicia . The pirates not only strangled shipping lanes but also plundered many cities on the coasts of Greece and Asia. Pompey was nominated as commander of a special naval task force to campaign against the pirates. It took Pompey just forty days to clear the western portion of the sea of pirates and restore communication between Iberia (Spain), Africa, and Italy.

Caesar's early campaigns (59–50 BC) Map of the Gallic Wars

During a term as praetor in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain), Pompey's contemporary Julius Caesar defeated two local tribes in battle.[189] Following his term as consul in 59 BC, he was then appointed to a five-year term as the proconsular Governor of Cisalpine Gaul (current northern Italy), Transalpine Gaul (current southern France) and Illyria (the modern Balkans).[189][190] Not content with an idle governorship, Caesar strove to find reason to invade Gaul, which would give him the dramatic military success he sought. When two local tribes began to migrate on a route that would take them near (not into) the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, Caesar had the barely sufficient excuse he needed for his Gallic Wars , fought between 58 BC and 49 BC.

Caesar defeated large armies at major battles 58 BC and 57 BC. In 55 and 54 BC he made two expeditions into Britain , becoming the first Roman to do so. Caesar then defeated a union of Gauls at the Battle of Alesia ,[191] completing the Roman conquest of Transalpine Gaul. By 50 BC, the entirety of Gaul lay in Roman hands. Gaul never regained its Celtic identity, never attempted another nationalist rebellion, and, other than the crisis of the 3rd century, remained loyal to Rome until the fall of the western empire in 476.

Triumvirates and Caesarian ascension (53–30 BC)

By 59 BC an unofficial political alliance known as the First Triumvirate was formed between Gaius Julius Caesar , Marcus Licinius Crassus , and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") to share power and influence.[192] In 53 BC, Crassus launched a Roman invasion of the Parthian Empire (modern Iraq and Iran). After initial successes,[193] he marched his army deep into the desert;[194] but here his army was cut off deep in enemy territory, surrounded and slaughtered at the Battle of Carrhae in which Crassus himself perished. The death of Crassus removed some of the balance in the Triumvirate and, consequently, Caesar and Pompey began to move apart. While Caesar was fighting in Gaul, Pompey proceeded with a legislative agenda for Rome that revealed that he was at best ambivalent towards Caesar[195] and perhaps now covertly allied with Caesar's political enemies. In 51 BC, some Roman senators demanded that Caesar not be permitted to stand for consul unless he turned over control of his armies to the state, which would have left Caesar defenceless before his enemies. Caesar chose civil war over laying down his command and facing trial.

By the spring of 49 BC, the hardened legions of Caesar crossed the river Rubicon and swept down the Italian peninsula towards Rome, while Pompey ordered the abandonment of Rome. Afterwards Caesar turned his attention to the Pompeian stronghold of Iberia (modern Spain)[196] but decided to tackle Pompey himself in Greece.[197] Pompey initially defeated Caesar, but failed to follow up on the victory, and was decisively defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC,[198] despite outnumbering Caesar's forces two to one, albeit with inferior quality troops.[199] Pompey fled again, this time to Egypt, where he was murdered.

Pompey's death did not result in an end to the civil war as Caesar's enemies were manifold and continued to fight on. In 46 BC Caesar lost perhaps as much as a third of his army, but ultimately came back to defeat the Pompeian army of Metellus Scipio in the Battle of Thapsus , after which the Pompeians retreated yet again to Iberia. Caesar then defeated the combined Pompeian forces at the Battle of Munda .

Caesar was now the primary figure of the Roman state, enforcing and entrenching his powers and his enemies feared that he had ambitions to become an autocratic ruler. Arguing that the Roman Republic was in danger a group of senators hatched a conspiracy and murdered Caesar in the Senate in March 44 BC. [200] Mark Antony , Caesar's lieutenant, condemned Caesar's assassination, and war broke out between the two factions. Antony was denounced as a public enemy, and Caesar's adopted son and chosen heir, Gaius Octavian , was entrusted with the command of the war against him. At the Battle of Mutina Antony was defeated by the consuls Hirtius and Pansa , who were both killed.

Octavian came to terms with Caesarians Antony and Lepidus in 43 BC when the Second Triumvirate was formed.[74] In 42 BC Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fought the Battle of Philippi with Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius . Although Brutus defeated Octavian, Antony defeated Cassius, who committed suicide. Brutus joined him shortly afterwards.

However, civil war flared again when the Second Triumvirate of Octavian, Lepidus and Mark Antony failed. The ambitious Octavian built a power base of patronage and then launched a campaign against Mark Antony.[200] At the naval Battle of Actium off the coast of Greece, Octavian decisively defeated Antony and Cleopatra . Octavian was granted a series of special powers including sole "imperium" within the city of Rome, permanent consular powers and credit for every Roman military victory, since all future generals were assumed to be acting under his command. In 27 BC Octavian was granted the use of the names "Augustus" and "Princeps" indicating his primary status above all other Romans, and he adopted the title "Imperator Caesar" making him the first Roman Emperor.[