Augustus Timeline

(63 BCE – 14 CE)

Augustus, born Gaius Octavius in 63 BCE, was the founder of the Roman Empire and its first emperor. The grandnephew and adopted heir of Julius Caesar, he defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, consolidated power, and ushered in the era of peace known as the Pax Romana. More Less

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Reign and Legacy

Beginning of the Pax Romana

27 BC

Augustus created a regime that maintained relative peace and prosperity in the Latin West and Greek East for two centuries, initiating the celebrated Pax Romana, also known as the Pax Augusta.

Image source: Pax Romana

The Augustan golden age myth

27 BC

While the era was celebrated as a golden age, historians note that the Augustan golden age myth may obscure the complicated political challenges faced by Augustus during his consolidation of power.

Image source: Augustus

Praetorians serve emperors into the early 4th century

27 BC - 312 AD

The Praetorian Guard, reorganized by Augustus as an imperial bodyguard, served successive emperors into the early 4th century before being disbanded by Constantine the Great.

Image source: Praetorian Guard

Establishment of the principate

Jan 16, 27 BC

During his reign, Augustus established the principate, a style of government in which the emperor showed nominal deference to the Senate while holding ultimate power himself. This system endured as the defining structure of imperial Rome until the Crisis of the Third Century.

Image source: Principate

Foundations of universal monarchy

14 AD

His regime laid the foundations of a concept of universal monarchy that influenced the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires down to their dissolutions in 1453 and 1806, respectively.

Caesar and augustus become permanent titles

14 AD

After Augustus's death, the surname Caesar and the title augustus became permanent titles of Roman rulers for fourteen centuries, used in both Rome and Constantinople following the Empire's division.

Image source: Augustus (title)

Emperors favor the title civilis princeps

14 AD - 284 AD

For three centuries after Augustus, emperors preferred his title of civilis princeps, maintaining the fiction of deference to republican norms, until they adopted the title domini ('lords') beginning with Diocletian.

Adoption of the title domini under Diocletian

284 AD

Beginning with Diocletian, Roman emperors abandoned the modest style of civilis princeps favored since Augustus and adopted the more openly autocratic title domini ('lords'), marking a shift in imperial ideology.

Image source: Diocletian

Ancient and Medieval Views

Lucan links Caesar's victory to end of liberty

65 AD

The 1st-century poet Lucan argued that Caesar's victory over Pompey and the death of Cato the Younger in 46 BC marked the end of traditional liberty in Rome, framing the rise of imperial rule as a loss of freedom.

Image source: Lucan

Cassius Dio assesses Augustus

200 AD

The 3rd-century historian Cassius Dio acknowledged Augustus as a benign, moderate ruler, yet like most other post-Augustan historians he viewed him fundamentally as an autocrat.

Image source: Cassius Dio

Golden Legend promotes the Tiburtine Sibyl legend

1250

The c. 1250 Golden Legend hagiographical anthology promoted the legend of the Tiburtine Sibyl, in which Augustus had an alleged vision of Jesus and his mother Mary, blending imperial history with Christian prophecy.

Image source: Tiburtine Sibyl

Dante-era imagery: Augustus ordering world survey

1300

Medieval iconography depicted Augustus wearing a papal tiara as he ordered geographers to create a survey of the world, reflecting the emperor's elevated status in medieval imagination.

Renaissance to Enlightenment

Petrarch praises Augustus as righteous ruler

1350

Petrarch viewed Augustus as a righteous ruler, an idea widely accepted in Renaissance humanist literature until the 16th century, when more negative views found acceptance.

Image source: Petrarch

Montesquieu calls Augustus a coward in battle

1734

French political philosopher Montesquieu remarked that Augustus was a coward in battle, contributing to a critical Enlightenment-era assessment of the first emperor's military character.

Image source: Montesquieu

Art and Popular Culture

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar features Octavius

1599

Shakespeare's 1599 play Julius Caesar features the character of Octavius, presenting the future emperor on the Elizabethan stage in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination.

Image source: Julius Caesar (play)

Antony and Cleopatra portrays 'Caesar' as cowardly

1607

In Shakespeare's 1607 play Antony and Cleopatra, Octavius appears under the name Caesar as a weak, cowardly, and manipulative foe to Antony, shaping literary perceptions of Augustus for generations.

Image source: Antony and Cleopatra

Louis XV removes van Loo's painting from hunting lodge

1765

Louis XV disliked van Loo's painting of Augustus closing the gates of Janus and had it removed from his hunting lodge, though the work would later gain renewed significance.

Image source: Charles-André van Loo

Louis XV commissions van Loo's Temple of Janus painting

1765

In 1765 Louis XV commissioned French painter Charles-André van Loo to create a painting depicting Augustus closing the gates of the Temple of Janus in the Forum, a signal that Rome was at peace.

Van Loo painting backdrops the Treaty of Amiens

Mar 25, 1802

Historian Mary Beard contends that van Loo's painting of Augustus at the Temple of Janus served as 'an appropriate backdrop' during the signing of the 1802 Treaty of Amiens during the Napoleonic Wars.

Image source: Treaty of Amiens

Graves publishes I, Claudius

1934

Robert Graves's 1934 novel I, Claudius depicts the older Augustus in a far more sympathetic light as he is outmaneuvered by his murderous wife Livia, though he plays only a supporting character.

Image source: I, Claudius

Mussolini holds the Augustan exhibition in Rome

1937 - 1938

In 1937–1938 Benito Mussolini held an 'Augustan exhibition' in Rome to celebrate the bimillenary of the birth of Augustus, an event which influenced architectural trends of Fascist Italy.

Image source: Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution

Roddy McDowall's cold Octavian in Cleopatra

1963

Negative portrayals of Augustus are perhaps based on ancient sources reflecting the propaganda war between Antony and Octavian, manifested in the cold performance of actor Roddy McDowall as Octavian in the 1963 film Cleopatra.

Image source: Cleopatra (1963 film)

I, Claudius television adaptation airs

1976

The 1976 television adaptation of Robert Graves's I, Claudius depicts the older Augustus sympathetically as he is outmaneuvered by his wife Livia, bringing the sympathetic portrayal to a wide audience.

Image source: I, Claudius (TV series)

Modern Scholarship

19th-century view of Augustus as reformer

1800 - 1900

During the 19th century Augustus was widely considered a reformer who brought peace and prosperity after the chaos caused by a failed Republic, marking a broadly positive reassessment of his reign.

Napoleon dismisses Augustus in favor of Julius Caesar

1800 - 1821

Though 19th-century opinion generally praised Augustus, Napoleon Bonaparte emulated Julius Caesar as a role model and remained slightly dismissive of Augustus as a model ruler.

Image source: Napoleon

Negative scholarship amid 1930s–40s fascism

1930 - 1949

Attitudes about Augustus shifted during the 20th century, as scholarship during the upheavals of fascism in the 1930s and 1940s generally held negative views about his seizure of power.

Syme publishes The Roman Revolution

1939

Ronald Syme sparked debate by publishing the then controversial The Roman Revolution (1939) at the onset of the Second World War, acknowledging the political climate that impacted his research.

Image source: The Roman Revolution

The Roman Revolution circulates in continental Europe

1952

Syme's The Roman Revolution was not widely circulated in continental Europe until 1952, but this and other works by Syme left a major impact on scholarship in the English-speaking world and its views on Augustus.

Eck and Takács summarize Augustus's achievements

2000

Historians Eck and Takács stress that Augustus was responsible for establishing a standing professional army, the dynastic principle of imperial succession, the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense, and relative peace and prosperity for over two centuries.

Goldsworthy calls Augustus a military dictator

2014

In 2014 historian Adrian Goldsworthy stressed that, in modern terms, Augustus was essentially a military dictator, but argued he was no more ruthless than 'other warlords' and that comparing him to Mussolini or other modern dictators is anachronistic and inaccurate.

Image source: Adrian Goldsworthy

Key Facts

Augustus was born Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 BCE, and was posthumously adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar in Caesar's will.
He won the final war of the Roman Republic by defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE.
In 27 BCE, the Roman Senate granted him the title 'Augustus,' marking the traditional beginning of the Roman Empire.
His reign initiated the Pax Romana, a long period of relative peace and stability across the Mediterranean world lasting about two centuries.
Augustus died on August 19, 14 CE, having transformed Rome from a republic into an empire ruled by an emperor.

Source

This Augustus timeline was generated with the help of AI, using information found on the internet.

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