Augustus Becomes First Roman Emperor (27 BC): The Principate

Augustus became the first Roman emperor in January 27 BC, when Octavian, master of the Roman world since his victory at Actium, formally handed power back to the Senate and people of Rome and was rewarded with the name Augustus. Behind the language of a restored Republic, he kept command of the armies and the most important provinces. The arrangement, which historians call the Principate, became the framework of Roman government for the next two and a half centuries.

Background: from Octavius to Octavian

Augustus was born Gaius Octavius on 23 September 63 BC, the great-nephew of Julius Caesar. When Caesar was murdered in March 44 BC, his will named the 18-year-old as his adopted son and main heir. Taking the name Gaius Julius Caesar, known to historians as Octavian, he raised a private army and used Caesar’s name to win over the dictator’s veterans.

In 43 BC he formed the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus, a legal dictatorship of three men that carried out bloody proscriptions of political enemies. After defeating Caesar’s assassins at Philippi in 42 BC and pushing Lepidus aside in 36 BC, Octavian faced Antony alone. His victory at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the conquest of Egypt in 30 BC left him the sole master of the Roman world.

Octavian now faced the problem that had destroyed Caesar. Rome’s elite was attached to the traditions of the Republic and hated the idea of a king. Yet decades of civil war had shown that the old system could not control ambitious generals with private armies. He needed a form of rule that gave him lasting control while looking legitimate.

The settlement of January 27 BC

Octavian prepared the ground carefully. In 28 BC he and Agrippa, as consuls, held a census, reduced the Senate and annulled illegal acts of the triumviral years. Then, at a meeting of the Senate on 13 January 27 BC, he announced that he was giving up his extraordinary powers and returning the res publica, the “public affair” or state, to the Senate and the Roman people.

The senators, many of them his supporters, protested and pressed him to stay in charge. The result was a compromise. Octavian accepted, for an initial ten years, responsibility for a large “province” made up of Spain, Gaul, Syria and Egypt. These were the regions where most of the legions were stationed. The other, more peaceful provinces were governed by proconsuls chosen by the Senate in the traditional way.

On 16 January the Senate voted him further honours. He received the new name Augustus, meaning “revered” or “majestic”. The doorposts of his house were decorated with laurels, and an oak-leaf crown, the civic crown traditionally given for saving the lives of citizens, was placed above his door. A golden shield inscribed with his virtues was set up in the Senate house. The proposal for the name Augustus was put forward, according to the ancient sources, by the senator Lucius Munatius Plancus.

How the Principate worked

Augustus described his position in his own record of achievements, the Res Gestae. He claimed that after 27 BC he surpassed everyone in auctoritas, a Latin word for prestige and influence, but had no more official power than his colleagues in each office. This was carefully worded and only partly true.

In practice, his power rested on a few key elements. He commanded most of the army through legates, deputies whom he appointed and who answered to him. He controlled Egypt, whose grain fed Rome, through a prefect of equestrian rank, and senators were forbidden to visit Egypt without his permission. He held the consulship every year from 31 to 23 BC. He was also immensely rich, and he used his wealth to pay soldiers, fund buildings and support the treasury.

The title he preferred was princeps, “first citizen”, which gives the Principate its name. He avoided the titles of king (rex) and dictator. Imperator, originally a victorious general’s acclamation, became part of his name, and from it comes the English word “emperor”.

Adjustments after 27 BC

The first settlement was not the last. In 23 BC, after a serious illness and political tensions, Augustus gave up the annual consulship. In exchange he received the tribunician power for life, which allowed him to propose laws, veto decisions and claim to protect the common people, together with a superior proconsular command over provincial governors.

Further honours followed over the years. In 12 BC he became pontifex maximus, the chief priest of Roman religion, after the death of Lepidus. In 2 BC the Senate named him Pater Patriae, “Father of the Fatherland”. The month Sextilis was renamed August in his honour in 8 BC. His provincial command was renewed repeatedly for periods of five or ten years.

Reforms and building

Augustus turned the army into a permanent professional force. After the civil wars he reduced the number of legions from around 60 to 28, settled many veterans in colonies and, in AD 6, created a military treasury to pay soldiers’ retirement bonuses. He set up the Praetorian Guard as a standing bodyguard in Italy.

He also reorganised the city of Rome. He divided it into 14 regions, created a fire brigade (the vigiles) and appointed officials to oversee the grain supply and water. Agrippa repaired and extended the aqueducts of Rome, and between 27 and 25 BC built the first Pantheon. Suetonius reports Augustus’s boast that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.

Augustus passed laws to encourage marriage and children among the upper classes and to punish adultery, and he revived old religious rites and restored dozens of temples. In the Res Gestae he claims to have restored 82 temples in a single year, 28 BC. He also held three censuses of Roman citizens, which recorded a rise from about 4.06 million citizens in 28 BC to about 4.94 million in AD 14.

Monuments in Rome advertised the new order. In 28 BC Augustus began a huge dynastic tomb, the Mausoleum of Augustus, in the Campus Martius, and the Senate later voted the Altar of Augustan Peace nearby. His new Forum of Augustus, dedicated in 2 BC, was centred on a temple of Mars the Avenger and lined with statues of great Romans of the past, presenting his rule as the climax of Roman history. Poets such as Virgil, Horace and Ovid, some of them supported by his friend Maecenas, celebrated the new peace, though Ovid was later exiled.

Key people

Augustus (63 BC-AD 14) combined ruthless ambition in his early career with great political patience later. He ruled for about four decades after 27 BC.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (c. 63-12 BC) was his general, builder and, from 21 BC, son-in-law. He shared some of Augustus’s powers and was long expected to succeed him.

Gaius Maecenas (died 8 BC) was a trusted adviser and patron of poets who helped shape the cultural image of the new regime.

Livia Drusilla (58 BC-AD 29), Augustus’s wife from 38 BC, was an influential figure and the mother of his eventual successor, Tiberius.

Succession and the end of the reign

Augustus had no son, and planning the succession proved difficult. His nephew Marcellus died in 23 BC, Agrippa in 12 BC, and his grandsons and adopted sons Lucius and Gaius Caesar in AD 2 and AD 4. In AD 4 he adopted his stepson Tiberius, who shared his powers in his last years.

Augustus died at Nola in Campania on 19 August AD 14, a month short of his 76th birthday. Tiberius succeeded him smoothly, which showed that the Principate had become a permanent institution rather than a personal arrangement.

Myths and debates

A common simplification is that the Republic “ended” on a single day in 27 BC. In fact the change was gradual, and contemporaries were encouraged to see it as a restoration, not a revolution. The senators of 27 BC may have understood very well where power lay, but the forms of the Republic, such as elections, consuls and Senate debates, continued.

Ancient and modern judgements differ sharply. The historian Tacitus, writing about a century later, saw the Principate as the loss of liberty, accepted by a tired elite in exchange for peace. In The Roman Revolution (1939) Ronald Syme portrayed Augustus as a ruthless party leader who seized power and disguised it. Others stress his achievement in ending civil war and building a stable state.

Timeline

• 63 BC, 23 September: Gaius Octavius is born in Rome.
• 44 BC, March: Julius Caesar’s will names Octavius as his adopted son and heir.
• 31 BC, 2 September: Octavian defeats Antony and Cleopatra at Actium.
• 27 BC, 13 January: Octavian returns control of the state to the Senate and people.
• 27 BC, 16 January: The Senate grants him the name Augustus.
• 23 BC: Augustus gives up the consulship and receives tribunician power for life.
• 12 BC: Augustus becomes pontifex maximus.
• 2 BC, 5 February: He is named Pater Patriae, Father of the Fatherland.
• AD 14, 19 August: Augustus dies at Nola; Tiberius succeeds him.

Why it matters

The settlement of 27 BC created the Roman Empire in all but name. By wrapping one-man rule in Republican forms, Augustus ended a century of civil war and established a system that lasted, with changes, until the late third century. His reign also launched the long period of stability known as the Pax Romana.