Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects

227 Pages·1984·10.742 MB·English

by  Millar F., Segal E. (ed.)

CAESAR
AUGUSTUS
SEVEN ASPECTS
EDITED BY
FERGUS MILLAR
AND
ERICH SEGAL
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
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© The President and Fellows of Wolf son College, Oxford 1934
First published 1984
Reprinted 1985
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Caesar, Augustus.
1. Rome - Politics, and government -30 B.C. -
68A.D. -Addresses, essays, lectures, etc.
I. Millar, Fergus II. Segal, Erich
III. Syme, Sir Ronald
93/09 DG277
ISBN 0-19-814858-5 Pbk
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Caesar Augustus: seven aspects.
Papers presented at a colloquium held at Wolf son College, Oxford.
Includes index.
I. Augustus, Emperor of Rome, 63 B.C. — 14 A.D. Congresses.
2. Rome - History - Augustus, 30 B.C. - 14 A.D. -
Congresses. 3. Roman emperors - Biography - Congresses.
4. Syme, Ronald, Sir, 1903- I. Millar, Fergus.
II. Segal, Erich, 1937-
DG279.C33 1984 937.07'0924 83-20976
ISBN 0-19-814858-5 (pbk.)
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn
PREFACE
These seven essays were originally delivered as lectures at a
colloquium organised by Wolfson College, Oxford, in April
1983, to honour the eightieth birthday of Sir Ronald Syme
O.M. Hence the individual speakers and their titles were
selected by the editors with a view to reflecting some of the
areas of concern which inform The Roman Revolution.
The volume is not, however, intended as a Festschrift, a
literary sub-species of which Sir Ronald is known to disap-
prove. Neither the editors nor the authors have set out to
express either adherence to, or distance from, Sir Ronald's
views. Nor has there been any attempt to eliminate differences
of interpretation among the seven contributors. The only
specific task assigned to each of the authors was to express his
own views on a particular aspect of the complex phenomenon
of Caesar Augustus.
We are deeply grateful to Sir Henry Fisher, President of
Wolfson College, and to the staff of the College for their
enthusiastic assistance in making the colloquium itself a
memorable occasion. We would also like to thank the Oxford
University Press for its support, and Mrs Elaine Matthews for
preparing the index.
F.M. E.S.
London
May 1983
CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations ix
I. The Res Gestae and Augustus' Public Image
ZVI YAVETZ 1
II. State and Subject: The Impact of Monarchy
FERGUS MILLAR 37
III. The Historians and Augustus
EMILIO GABBA 61
IV. Augustus, Government, and the
Propertied Classes
CLAUDE NICOLET 89
V. Senatorial Self-Representation: Developments
in the Augustan Period
WERNER ECK 129
VI. Augustus and the East: The Problem of
the Succession
GLEN BOWERSOCK 169
VII.. Augustus and the Poets: 'Caesar qui
cogère posset'
JASPER GRIFFIN 189
Index 219
ABBREVIATIONS
AE Année Épigraphique
AEA Archivo Espanol de Arqueologia
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
AJPh American Journal ofPhilology
AM Ν American Museum Notes
ANR W H. Temporini (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der
römischen Welt
BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique
BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
BJ Bonnerjahrbücher
BMC Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum
CAH Cambridge Ancient History
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum
CQ Classical Quarterly
CP Classical Philology
CRAI Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions
DP T. Mommsen, Le droit pénal romain
EJ V. Ehrenberg, A. H. M.Jones, Documents
Illustrating the Principates of Augustus and Tiberius3
FGrH F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker
FIRA2 S. Riccobono, Fontes luris Romani Anteiustiniani2
HRR H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae
HSCPh Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
IG Inscriptiones Graecae
IGR Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes
IGUR L. Moretti, Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae
I. K. Eph. . Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien, Ephesos
I. K. Kyme Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien, Kyme
ILLRP A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae
ILS H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae
IRT J. M. Reynolds, J. Ward-Perkins, Inscriptions of Roman
Tripolitania
JdAI Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts
x ABBREVIATIONS
JO AI Jahresheße des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
MAAR Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome
MEFRA Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome, Antiquité
MH Museum Helveticum
NSc Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità
OGIS W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae
PIR2 Prosopographia Imperii Romani2
PBSR Papers of the British School at Rome
POxy Oxyrhynchus Papyri
REG Revue des Études Grecques
REL Revue des Études Latines
RE Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyklopaedie der Klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft
RHD Revue historique de droit français et étranger
RhMus Rheinisches Museum
RPAA Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia
SCO Studi Classici e Orientali
SDHI Studia et Documenta Historiae et luris
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
SIG3 W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum3
TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
ZSS Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftungfur Rechtsgeschichte
I. THE RES GESTAE AND
AUGUSTUS' PUBLIC IMAGE
ZVI YAVETZ
In introducing the theme of Caesar Augustus and our image of
him, I shall concentrate on three questions: the first concerns
Augustus' Autobiography, the second the Res Gestae and its
intended audience, and the third the effect of Augustus' self-
representation on history and historians·.
I
A reconstruction of the Autobiography from the surviving
fragments1 is a vain labour.2 Nor is a meticulous and rigid
scrutiny of the authenticity of each of the fragments going to
be any more fruitful. An East German scholar has recently
attempted to distinguish between fragments quoted in direct
and in indirect speech, between those quoted verbatim and
those summarizing the content of a passage, only to reach the
not very surprising conclusion that the work cannot be re-
covered: 'Im Endergebnis muss die Autobiographie des Kaiser
Augustus als verloren gelten.'3 However, even if one admits
that most quotations which survive in ancient authors do not
originate directly from the Autobiography, but rather from
some obscure intermediate source (e.g. an anthology of pro-
digio), and even if .the authenticity of some passages is to be
completely rejected,4 there is still enough room to establish
two basic facts: that the Autobiography in thirteen books,
which was dedicated to Maecenas and Agrippa,5 was discon-
tinued after the Cantabrian War;6 and that conscious efforts,
which are easily detectable, were made by Augustus to project
a public image different from that which prevailed in his
enemies' propaganda.
First, August defended himself against all those who attacked
the ignobility of his family;7 he admitted that his father was the
2 THE RES CESTAE AND
first of his line to become a senator, but emphasized the fact
that his equestrian family was old, wealthy, and respectable.8
Secondly, from an uncertain passage in Tertullian, combined
with some passages in Suetonius, Plutarch, and Nicolaus of
Damascus,9 it is clear that Augustus intended to tell his readers
that his great talents had already been recognized in early
childhood. His adoption by his great-uncle was neither an
accident nor due to the manipulations of his mother. Fate had
great things in store for him.
The following pages of the Autobiography must have been
dedicated to explaining his behaviour towards some of his
previous allies (e.g. Cicero and Antonius), behaviour which
could have been condemned not only as inconsistent but even
as treacherous. Augustus probably stressed the fact that the
end was to avenge his father's murder and to save the
Republic.10 In order to carry out these salient tasks all means
had been justifiable.
To survive five civil wars, he had had to be firm and ruthless,
but he must have found out to his distress that he had acquired
a reputation as a cruel, vengeful, selfish, and treacherous
youth. ' ' This image had to be changed. It was not easy to alter
public opinion, and he could not become a 'clementissirnus'
overnight; but slanders had to be refuted immediately. One
example may suffice. His enemies had spread the story that
once Octavian had suspected a praetor, Quintus Gallius, of
having approached him with a sword concealed under his
robe. Octavian had Gallius tortured like a slave, and ordered
his execution, first tearing out the man's eyes with his own
hands. Augustus must have felt that the story could not be
ignored altogether, and a new version had to be produced.
True, Gallius had been suspected of conspiracy, but he had
been properly tried and sentenced to banishment; unfortu-
nately, however, he had lost his life by some tragic accident on
his way to exile.12
There was another set of rumours against which Augustus
had to defend himself; these concerned his behaviour during
the decisive battles of the civil war. Rumour had it that
Octavian had behaved in a cowardly fashion on the battlefield,
and that the palm for the victory should have been bestowed
upon his aides. Indeed, at Philippi Octavian had been unable to
AUGUSTUS' PUBLIC IMAGE 3
participate actively in the preparations for the encounter
because of sickness. This could be forgiven; but how to explain
away the fact that he disappeared from his litter? The excuse
was that one of his friends had been visited by a heavenly
vision, telling Octavian to arise from his bed and depart from
the camp.13 Credulous and superstitious people might have
swallowed this.14 The conservative and old-fashioned
Octavian himself did not disdain popular beliefs.15 Elsewhere
in his Autobiography Augustus admitted that on the day on
which he was almost overthrown by a mutiny in the army he
put his left boot on the wrong foot;16 and in a letter to Tiberius
he wrote that he dreaded the unlucky sound 'Nonis' ('y°u are
not going'); and therefore never took up important business
on the Nones.17
It is plausible to assume that in some other parts of the
Autobiography Augustus was at pains to explain his not very
distinguished performance at Actium.18 But he had no diffi-
culty in boasting of his previous brilliant successes against the
Illyrian tribes: he had brought back those who revolted and
compelled them to pay tribute; he had subjugated others who
had been independent from the beginning; he had also con-
quered the tribes that inhabited the summit of the Alps, bar-
barous and warlike peoples who had often plundered Italy.19
Without going into too much detail, the apologetic, defen-
sive, and occasionally polemical undercurrents are obvious in
the surviving fragments of the Autobiography.20 His enemies
vilified his performance in war - he represented himself as a
man of virtus. His enemies depicted him as cruel and savage-
he emphasized his dementia. His enemies charged him with
defiance of legal procedures - he paraded his iustitia. His
enemies condemned his treacherous behaviour towards former
friends, benefactors, and even members of his own family -
Augustus stressed his loyalty. There were, of course, excep-
tions. He had been unable to tolerate Scribonia, and hoped that
decent people would eventually understand and justify his
behaviour when finally 'wearied by the perversity of her charac-
ter': 'pertaesus . . . morum perversitatem eius'.21
But why did he stop writing his Autobiography after the
Cantabrian War? Did he consider the second closing of the
gates of Janus a suitable date? Perhaps, but so was the first