Sourcing – “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus” Excerpts
STUDENT MATERIALSSTUDENT MATERIALSS-8SOURCING - THE DEEDS OF THE DIVINE AUGUSTUSWORLD HISTORY PROJECT / LESSON 3.7 ACTIVITYSOURCING EXCERPTS –“THE DEEDS OF THE DIVINE AUGUSTUS” EXCERPTSGaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (63 BCE–14 CE) is better known today by the title Augustus. The Roman Senate gave him this religious title, meaning venerable (honored), in 27 BCE. This date marks his defeat of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, making Augustus the sole ruler of Rome. Augustus was the nephew of Julius Caesar and was adopted by him before Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE. Augustus helped hunt down the assassins of Caesar and then ruled the Roman world along with two of Caesar’s allies—Marc Antony and Lepidus. Eventually, Augustus forced Lepidus into retirement and waged war with Marc Antony and the pharaoh Cleopatra over control of Egypt. Augustus defeated Antony and Cleopatra’s forces in 31 BCE, adding Egypt as a Roman territory. Four years later, he became emperor of the Roman Empire; a position he would hold for 40 years. Augustus had many accomplishments, including expanding the empire’s territory, establishing the Pax Romana (Roman Peace), strengthening networks of trade and exchange, and uniting the empire after years of wars and civil unrest. Augustus wrote “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus” (“Res Gestae Divi Augusti,” in Latin) toward the end of his life around 3 BCE. The text was included in his will, along with instructions to inscribe his words on funerary monuments across the empire.1. In my nineteenth year, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army with which I set free the state, which was oppressed by the domination [control] of a faction. For that reason, the senate enrolled me in its order by laudatory [praising] resolutions, when Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius were consuls [43 BC], assigning me the place of a consul in the giving of opinions, and gave me the imperium [supreme power of the executive branch of the Roman government]...2. I drove the men who slaughtered my father into exile with a legal order, punishing their crime, and afterwards, when they waged war on the state, I conquered them in two battles.3. I often waged war, civil and foreign, on the earth and sea, in the whole wide world, and as victor I spared all the citizens who sought pardon. As for foreign nations, those which I was able to safely forgive, I preferred to preserve than to destroy....4. Twice I triumphed with an ovation...and twenty one times I was named emperor. When the senate decreed more triumphs for me, I sat out from all of them...5. When the dictatorship was offered to me, both in my presence and my absence, by the people and the senate, when Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius were consuls [22 BCE], I did not accept it ... I freed the entire city [Rome] from the present fear and danger [of a grain shortage] by my own expense and administration. When the annual and perpetual consulate was then again offered to me, I did not accept it...8. When I was consul the fifth time [29 BCE] ... I conducted a lustrum [census], after a forty-one year gap, in which lustrum were counted 4,063,000 heads of Roman citizens ... And the third time, with consular imperium, I conducted a lustrum with my son Tiberius Caesar as colleague, when Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius were consuls [14 CE], in which lustrum were counted 4,937,000 of the heads of Roman citizens. By new laws passed with my sponsorship, I restored many traditions of the ancestors, which were falling into disuse in our age, and myself I handed on precedents [models] of many things to be imitated in later generations.9. The senate decreed [declared] that vows be undertaken for my health by the consuls and priests every fifth year. In fulfillment of these vows they often celebrated games for my life ... Also both privately and as a city all the citizens unanimously and continuously prayed at all the shrines for my health...
STUDENT MATERIALSSTUDENT MATERIALSS-9SOURCING - THE DEEDS OF THE DIVINE AUGUSTUSWORLD HISTORY PROJECT / LESSON 3.7 ACTIVITY15. I paid to the Roman plebs [Roman citizens, lower class], HS [sestertii, Roman coin] 300 per man from my father’s will and in my own name gave HS 400 from the spoils of war when I was consul for the fifth time [29 BCE]; furthermore, I again paid out a public gift of HS 400 per man, in my tenth consulate [24 BCE] ... And these public gifts of mine never reached fewer than 250,000 men...16. I paid the towns money for the fields which I had assigned to soldiers in my fourth consulate [30 BCE] and then when Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Lentulus Augur were consuls [14 BCE]; the sum was about HS 600,000,000 which I paid out for Italian estates, and about HS 260,000,000 which I paid for provincial fields. I was first and alone who did this among all who founded military colonies in Italy or the provinces according to the memory of my age...18. From that year when Gnaeus and Publius Lentulus were consuls [18 BCE], when the taxes fell short, I gave out contributions of grain and money from my granary and patrimony [inheritance], sometimes to 100,000 men, sometimes to many more.19. I built the senate-house and the Chalcidicum which adjoins it and the temple of Apollo on the Palatine with porticos, the temple of divine Julius ... the temples of Minerva and Queen Juno and Jupiter Liberator on the Aventine ... the temple of Youth, and the temple of the Great Mother on the Palatine.20. I rebuilt the Capitol and the theater of Pompey, each work at enormous cost, without any inscription of my name. I rebuilt aqueducts in many places that had decayed with age ... I rebuilt eighty-two temples of the gods in the city by the authority of the senate, omitting nothing which ought to have been rebuilt at that time...21. I built the temple of Mars Ultor on private ground and the forum of Augustus from war-spoils ... I sent back gold crowns weighing 35,000 to the towns and colonies of Italy, which had been contributed for my triumphs...22. Three times I gave shows of gladiators under my name and five times under the name of my sons and grandsons; in these shows about 10,000 men fought. Twice I furnished under my name spectacles of athletes gathered from everywhere ... Twenty-six times, under my name or that of my sons and grandsons, I gave the people hunts of African beasts in the circus, in the open, or in the amphitheater; in them about 3,500 beasts were killed...23.I gave the people a spectacle of a naval battle ... in which thirty beaked ships ... fought among themselves; in these ships about 3,000 men fought in addition to the rowers.25. I restored peace to the sea from pirates. In that slave war I handed over to their masters for the infliction [serving out] of punishments about 30,000 captured, who had fled their masters and taken up arms against the state. All Italy swore allegiance [loyalty] to me voluntarily, and demanded me as a leader of the war which I won at Actium...26. I extended the borders of all the provinces of the Roman people which neighbored nations not subject to our rule. I restored peace to the provinces of Gaul and Spain, likewise Germany ... I sailed my ships on the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine to the east region ... where no Roman had gone before that time by land or sea...27.I added Egypt to the rule of the Roman people...28. I founded colonies of soldiers in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, each Spain, Greece, Asia, Syria ... and furthermore had twenty-eight colonies founded in Italy under my authority, which were very populous and crowded while I lived ...
STUDENT MATERIALSSTUDENT MATERIALSS-10SOURCING - THE DEEDS OF THE DIVINE AUGUSTUSWORLD HISTORY PROJECT / LESSON 3.7 ACTIVITY31. Emissaries [representatives] from the Indian kings were often sent to me, which had not been seen before that time by any Roman leader ...32. To me were sent supplications [appeals] by kings ... And in my principate [reign] many other peoples experienced the faith of the Roman people, of whom nothing had previously existed of embassies or interchange of friendship with the Roman people ...34. In my sixth and seventh consulates [28–27 BC], after putting out the civil war, having obtained all things by universal consent, I handed over the state from my power to the dominion [authority] of the senate and the Roman people. And for this merit of mine, by a senate decree, I was called Augustus ... After that time, I exceeded all in influence, but I had no greater power than the others who were colleagues with me ...35. When I administered my thirteenth consulate [2 BCE], the senate and Equestrian order and Roman people all called me father of the country, and voted that the same be inscribed in the vestibule [entrance] of my temple...When I wrote this I was seventy-six years old.Excerpts source: “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus.” Translated by Thomas Bushnell. The Internet Classics Archive MIT, 1998. Accessed June 10, 2019. http://classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html