Augustus

The bimillennium of Augustus' death on 19 August 2014 commemorated not only the end of his life but also the beginning of a two-thousand-year reception history. This volume addresses the range and breadth of that history. Beginning with the Emperor's death and continuing through Late Antiquity, Early Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and early modernity to the present day, chapters address political positioning, religious mythologisation, philosophy, rhetoric, narratives, memory, and material embodiment. As they collectively reveal, Augustus has meant radically different things from one time and place to another, and even to some individual commentators as the circumstances around them changed. The weight of established narratives has often also shaped those of subsequent generations, with or without their conscious awareness. The book outlines and analyses the major themes in Augustus' reception history, clarifying the cultural and historiographical issues at stake and providing a platform for further scholarship.

Excavations were carried out in 1999 on the location of Stela 2 at the ancient site of Aksum in northern Ethiopia.
These excavations have permitted the documentation of the foundation of this stela, which was transported to Rome in 1937. Preparations were also made for the stela’s return to the site in 2005 and its re-erection in 2008 at the exact location where it stood in the 3rd or 4th century AD.
The excavations also made it possible to re-examine our perception of the three giant stelae on the site, from their conception and erection to their destruction.

The paper examines the upsurge of piracy in the last century of the Roman Republic, to underline its impact on politics. Analysing the testimonials about the period after 105 BC, we can appreciate that as well as interfering in the wars against Mithridates, the fight against the pirates who were also infesting the western Mediterranean, gained a meaningful role in the political agenda. Some prominent figures on the public scene engaged by the institutions to solve the problem, exploited it to gain extraordinary powers that would take on a different meaning depending on the circumstances and their personalities, as shown by Pompey’s command of 67 BC. He took advantage of his skill to dissimulate his ambitions and the auctoritas he enjoyed, to obtain a position that, despite modern historiography’s difficulty with establishing its juridical limits, was the first step in his quest to rise to absolute power. This continued not only the following year with the new command that the Lex Manilia granted him, but also in the next decade when Pompey consolidated his position, taking advantage of the financial difficulties linked to the shortage of food supplies, not unlike those caused previously by the pirates’ incursions. All of this is witnessed on the one hand by Cicero, whose opinion of this figure became gradually more negative in the period from 66-49 BC, on the other by Imperial Age historiography. Centuries afterwards the latter was able to perceive and underline more and more explicitly the subversive novelty of the extraordinary command given to Pompey to eradicate piracy, bringing out its major role in the process leading to the decline of the Republican institutions and the creation of the Principality.

The study of ancient hydraulic infrastructures (e.g., aqueducts) is usually tackled in terms of their technical features and of classical texts and archaeological evidences while insufficient attention is devoted to the framing of the structure in the social, economic and political context of the crossed territory or of the cities and activities served. This method was applied in this study to one of the biggest ancient Roman aqueduct complex: the Augustan aqueduct in the Campania region of Southern Italy. The paper highlights which civitates or settlements were served and why some civitates, although in the same regional area, were instead excluded. The main roads and the centuriationes of the zones crossed are mentioned. This allows to clearly realize as great works, such as the Augustan aqueduct, were not isolated monuments but integrated in a context of very detailed, widespread and planned governance and organization of that territory.

Augustus came to power by being the adoptive son of Caesar. Up to receive the title of Augustus in the year 27 BC, he was known as G. Iulius Caesar Diui filius. Being the heir of Caesar had to be more to receive his name and his powers: their personal qualities should also remember the dictator. For this reason, during half of the triumvirate, Augusto tried to emulate his adoptive father in his qualities as a lover. His tumultuous, emotional and marital life is concentrated among 44 and 35 BC, with several marriages or betrothal, and the birth of his only daughter. From this period come the stories that, one and a half centuries later, would transmit Suetonius (from an unknown, close to Antonius, source). From the sacred Holiness enacted to Livia in year 35 BC, however, begins a new stage in the moral image of Augustus, focused on virtue and monogamy: a stage that would lead him years later to banish his own daughter and, later, his granddaughter, for adultery. This double image of Augustus, the first due to the emulation of his adoptive father, and the second due to a need for ideological justification of his regime against his enemy Mark Antony, come from the seemingly contradictory news on " private vices and public virtues " of Augustus.

Chapter 2 discusses the survivors of the Civil Wars, many of whom actively or reluctantly joined the regime to seek honour and wealth under the new faction that controlled Rome (an oligarchy, not a monarchy).  Eventually Agrippa's powers and honours rose so far above the rest that he became Augustus's partner in power, but only after he made a show by his conspicuous withdrawal to Miletus in 23.  The regime nearly collapsed without him.  Many other magnates rose to prominence and enjoyed favour in the 20s, although a few recalcitrants ostentatiously abstained from joining the regime, expecting it to collapse and their purity to win them popular acclaim in the post-Caesarian Republic.  Statilius Taurus, Lucius Arruntius, Messalla Corvinus, and Sallust the Younger exercised great power and held distinction, among others.

The visual devices used by Tony Blair and George Bush to get themselves elected and maintain power, come not from modern times, but a world that is thousands of years old. How Art Made the World ventures back to the creation of Stonehenge and the reign of Alexander the Great to reveal how imagery became an indispensable weapon in every leader's political armoury.

This episode explores how art can be used as a persuasion device by those in power and when did we learn to use images, to create a powerful icon or symbol, this way?

The use of art as a tool for those in power, started at different times, in different cultures. Near Stonehenge the grave of the Amesbury Archer was discovered in 2002, the grave was different to those previously found near the site, as this one was not Roman, but much earlier, dating to when the first sarsen stones were erected. What made him interesting were his gold hair tresses, possibly the oldest dated gold objects in Britain, and the fact that he was a foreigner, from the region that is now Germany / Switzerland. The archer had completed an epic journey for the time, and the treasures in his grave show a man of status. Art for personal adornment, like these hair clasps, elevated him above his peers.

As time progressed, art became a political tool, kings competed for more dazzling adornments. As kingdoms got bigger the kings had to overcome communication issues. Darius the Great of Persia, ruled over 20 nations from Persepolis. As very few people could read, Darius had stone reliefs created that combined styles from all over the empire, the carvings showed each nation bring tributes to their king. This showed respect, and the carvings communicated that Darius admired and respected his people. Darius created a symbol for himself, that of the archer, symbolic to Persians of leadership and wisdom, central to the concept of kingship. Darius embossed this symbol on gold coins, which became the currency to trade within the empire.

Darius’ conqueror, Alexander the Great, took this concept further. From an early age, Alexander’s image was being made for him. In his fathers tomb, an Ivory head recognisable as Alexander’s was found, showing that his image had been made for him in advance of him becoming king. In Pompeii, a copy of an original Macedonian painting, shows Alexander the Great, fearless, fixated on his enemy and leading from the front. He is in the midst of battle with king Darius, shown fearful and panicking. Where Darius had used a symbol to communicate his power, Alexander used his face. On defeating the Persians, Alexander melted down all their coins replacing them with coins bearing his head. Tests have shown that people are more influenced by the image of the head and this technique has endured 2500 years and still used today.

This artistic power can be used for sinister purposes, to persuade us to see things a certain way or even deceive us. The earliest known use of this dates back to the Romans. In 40BC Rome was in crisis, the city state was split between royalists and republicans. You could tell people’s political allegiance by how they dressed. Octavian (Augustus) understood the power of art and used it to his advantage. He needed to persuade his opponents ,and used artists to create a less threatening image, one that won over the republicans. Although the image showed him as a powerful general, it didn’t show any military arms, and his gestures were more about humility than power. His armour breast plates show him accepting surrender of the Parthian Empire, with the gods looking on approvingly. The statue offered reassurance, but it was all a lie. While he portrayed himself as a peace maker, he was getting rid of the opposition; while he was preaching humility, he lived like corrupt royalty and while pretending to hand power to the people he reinstated himself as a king.

The leaders of past used paint and marble, today we use digital manipulation. But as humans we still remain vulnerable to the persuasive power of art.

O presente artigo busca realizar uma análise comparativa das iconografias presentes em dois camafeus romanos datados do início do século I d.C., o primeiro conhecido por Gemma Augustea e o segundo por Grand Camée de France (ou Gemma Tiberiana). Ambas as joias foram lapidadas no início do Principado e portam os nomes dos dois primeiros principes romanos, Augusto e Tibério, membros da dinastia Júlio-Claudiana. Investigaremos as iconografias atentando para o tema da memória. Para tanto, duas problemáticas serão esquadrinhadas. A primeira delas analisa os elementos da memória cultural romana presentes na visualidade das gemas. Assim, buscaremos desvendar o modo como a iconografia articulou os elementos do passado romano com aqueles contemporâneos à confecção dos artefatos, construindo imageticamente tanto a memória cultural quanto a memória comunicativa (associada a um passado recente ou ao tempo presente). Já a segunda problemática sondará a temporalidade criada pela visualidade das fontes, uma vez que o tempo passa a ser também objeto de representação. Nesse sentido, questionaremos a noção de temporalidade forjada pelos camafeus ao tecerem as memórias cultural e a comunicativa juntas em um mesmo plano imagético.

UPDATE:  the entire article now appears in one file.  If it is too large to download easily I will split it into 2 files.  I have corrected some translation errors in the first 20 pages and put in many photos to make it easier to understand. 
      This early, long article on the Ara Pacis does not benefit from the excavations of 1936.  Studniczka has some peculiar opinions worth examining, for when one sees how far off base early research was, one can better appreciate and give credit to those who doggedly fought uphill to assert sensible ideas about the Ara Pacis.  He did correctly look at the real Augustus and rule out Lepidus for Agrippa - whom he compares rightly and favorably to the Louvre Agrippa.    GCS

CONTENTS

October 17th, 2011 [pages 6-15]
I
Persecution and the Art of Writing or Towards a Hermeneutics of Suspicion
from interpretation of the meaning between lines to explanation of the transcendental effect of forms

1. ‘PERSECUTION’: from the threat of philosophical truth to the subversion of the verisimilitude of fiction

2. ‘THE ART OF WRITING’: protection for the author and selective communication with accomplices

i. The protective output: the censor’s impasse and authority outwitted

ii. The communicational output: separation of readerships and selective training in the subversive knowledge

3. The ‘ART OF READING’: from interpretation of the implicit message to explanation of the transcendental revolution in forms

i. The ‘interpretation’ stage: moving from the explicit sense to the implicit intended meaning—criteria for recognizing and reconstructing the concealed message.
  * First stage: criteria for recognizing anomalies that give grounds to suspect second intentions
  * Second stage: reconstruction criteria allowing the implicit meaning to be established

ii. The stage of ‘explanation’: from the sociology of knowledge to transcendental stylistics

October 18th, 2011 [pages 16-31]
II
The Latin Erotic Elegy and the Case of Propertius
from subversion of the Augustan imperial ethos to the metaphysics of dissimulatio

1. Introduction. From the elegiac paradox (irrepressible passion-love in an interruptive texture) to an art of writing between the lines

2. A historico-literary context of substitution: the Roman erotic elegy between poetic dissimulatio and Augustan auctoritas

i. Literary elements that contribute to ‘recognition’ of the elegiac art of writing: from literature as imitatio to irony as dissimulatio

ii. Political elements that contribute to the ‘reconstruction’ of the implied message: elegiac values versus the values of Augustan auctoritas—Propertius’ authorial situation vis-à-vis the vates, Horace and Virgil.

3. Interpretation: an amatory façade for the subversion of imperial values—progressive dissimulatio in Propertius’ writing

i. Propertius’ independence in the Monobiblos: from amatory etiology to the sphragis of political resistance

ii. Propertius’ precautions in Maecenas’ circle, or the art of writing in Books 2 and 3: from the amatory mask to the mask of literary rivalry
  * The love mask: frontal subversion of Augustan moral reforms and marriage laws sheltered in the imperative of ‘irregular elegiac passion’
  * The mask of literary rivalry in the programmatic elegies: from urban recusatio, the refusal to write epic on national themes, to subversion of the Augustan ideals expressed in the official poetry of Horace and Virgil.
  -Subversion of the imperial ideals in Virgil’s poetry: mocking the claims of the Aeneid. Propertius 2.34.
  -Subversion of Horace’s public stances in the Odes. Propertius 3.1-2.
  * The final mask: the use of hyperbole, bad taste and mythological harmonics to subvert the political values and legitimated triumphs of the imperial authority

iii. Propertius under Augustus’ eye: the final dissimulatio in Book 4—subversion by deliberate bad taste and allusion by mythological harmonics.

4. Explanation: from the counterworld of the elegiac fiction to the metaphysics of dissimulatio

i. The sociology of discourse: the counterworld of the elegiac fiction, or the Dionysiac inversion of Apollonian values

ii. Transcendental poetics: the metaphysics of dissimulatio


October 19th, 2011 [pages 32-56]
III
The Love Poetry of the Provençal Troubadours
from the sensualism of the gai saber to the synthesis of sound against the totalitarianism of vision

1. Introduction. A paradoxical contrast – the monotony of the motives of idealized love versus the originality of the couplings of rhyme – as promotion of the queen in a game of warfare

2. A historico-literary context of substitution. Troubadour joi: from the gai saber of Occitan dispersion to the linguistic joculum of the couplings of rhyme

i. The philosophico-discursive side: the naturalistic sensualism of the gai saber vs. Christian orthodox ontotheology

ii. The poetico-literary aspect: the promotion of musical joculum in the couplings of rhyme

3. Interpretation. The naturalistic sensualism of the gai saber: a provocative defense of ‘sensory passion’ in a ‘world governed by chance’

i. The trobar prim (naturau e cortes) of William of Aquitaine (1071-1126): from the paradox of a ‘double-faced poet’ to the game of con in a world of chance
  * The contradictions of a ‘double-faced poet.’ A reading in context
  * The natural register in the companion songs: a pornographic imaginary behind the explicit defense of natural passion.
  * The invention of the ‘courtly love’ register: a confession of unsatisfied desire and submission to the domna as a parody of the new ideals of monastic asceticism.
  * The pseudo-metaphysical register in Farai un vers de dreit nien: an ‘Enigma about Nothingness’ as a parody of the Hyperessence, or immanent naturalism against negative theology.

* Conclusion regarding the interwoven registers at the origin of the trobar: the promotion of passion-love in the immanence of the world behind the defensive façade of courtly love.

ii. Marcabrú’s trobar brau: the paradox of a moralizing but obscene condemnation of love as a parody of preachers that awakens desire.

iii. The courtly trobar or the classic canso in anamorphosis: from confession of a belligerent confrontation over sensory passion to staging of the experience of joi

iv. Arnaut Daniel’s trobar clus: concealment and final communication of the gai saber in the arts of the miglior fabbro del parlar materno
  * The trobar leu and the arrival of the trobar clus: the case of Arnaut Daniel’s trobar ric.
  * The concealment of meanings in the trobar clus.
  * Lexicon and images: the dir strano e bello or the subversion of the metaphorical order
  * Linguistic Marranism and barbarolexia: the Provençal parody of official Latin
  * Impossible images and dream allegories: subversion of the metaphorical order.
  * Verbal music: from the sensory materialization of the joi of the world to the experience of pleasure in the arts of delay
  * Daniel’s characteristic consonance: the song of nature as an invitation to joi
  * The cobla ‘dissoluta’: the arts of amatory delay, intensification of desire by deferred satisfaction, in the sensory field of rhyme. (Sim fos amors de joi donar tan larga).
  * The last stage of the trobar (Lo ferm voler qu’el cor m’intra): linguistic, sexual and metaphysical dissemination in the ‘sestina.’
-The involution of the sestina as the final stage of experimentation in the arts of delay of the trobar (mot refranh, rims estrams, permutations).
-The linguistic dissemination of the words in the poem: from the banal motifs of courtly love to the martial imagery and sensory experience of the pleasures of delay
-The sexual dissemination of images: the pornographic double meaning behind the mask of courtly love
-Metaphysical dissemination in the formal device: the imperative of a ‘game of chance’

4. Explanation. From the foundation of the space of modern lyrical fiction to the synthesis of sound against the totalitarianism of vision

i. Sociology of discourse: the forms of meaning of the trobar as the foundation for the sphere of modern lyrical fiction – from concealment of enjoyment in form to promotion of independent enjoyment of form

ii. Emancipation of the synthesis of hearing versus the totalitarianism of vision and the diurnal image
  * The oral forms of meaning of the Romance tongues versus the written Latinitas
  * From reversal of the hierarchy between material sound and spiritual light to the synthesis of listening vs. the epistemology of vision
  * The significant detail of the ‘alba’: explicit defense of natural passion in the context of a musical and nocturnal perception that turns away from the diurnal vision of the opponents of joi

* Coda. A detective’s art of reading of selective application

La généralisation du consulat suffect à partir des triumvirs est une réalité dont les implications sociales, politiques et institutionnelles ont été peu étudiées. Il s’agira de proposer à ce sujet plusieurs angles d’approche qui aborderont les points suivants : le caractère progressif de la mise en place du consulat suffect ; les modalités de l’élection des consuls suffects ; leur origine sociale ; ce que la généralisation du consulat suffect révèle de la culture politique et des relations entre le prince et l’aristocratie romaine.

Among the most-dicussed findings of the past decades' excavations in the 'Valle del Colosseo' in Rome are the remains of an Augustan-time version of the 'Meta Sudans', one of largest monumental fountains of the city, situated below the north-eastern slope of Palatine Hill. While the symbolic message of the fountain's architecture and decoration have been well-explained in a series of recent studies as those of a triumphal monument (Apollo Agyieus = Apollo Actius), this article attempts to reconstruct the cultural symbolism of the fountain square in the urban life of Rome, thus shifting the view from the architect's intentions ('Baumeisterperspektive') to the cultural practices attested at this spot of the city, to which communal and imperial festivities (compitalia, religious processions) belong just as well as individual daily activties in urban traffic or private water supply.
The archeological record suggests that the fountain had some relation to the sacred precint of the Roman brass players ('aenatores Romani') across the street. That the activities (from training to religious performance) of musicians around this precint dominated the public connotations of the whole fountain square is demonstrated by the remarks of Seneca - who regards the Meta Sudans as a place of excessive instrumental noise - as well as Propertius, who envisions the area as a symbol of the antagonism of aetiological (Apollonian) and erotic (Dionysiac) poetry in his fourth book of elegies.

La sospecha sobre la incorrecta traducción que se venía haciendo del fundamental texto sobre Mérida de Dión Casio, LIII, 26, 1 (al.ed. LIII, 25, 8, cf. infra, nº 3) me asaltó en 1986 gracias al préstamo, por mi buen amigo Michael Blech, del DAIM, de la monografía recién aparecida de Michel Casevitz sobre la terminología usual en los textos sobre la colonización griega clásica, y su posterior evolución (Le vocabulaire de la colonisation en grec ancien. Etude léxicologique: la famille de ktitso et de oikéo-oikítso, Études et Commentaires 97, París, 1985). Aunque Casevitz no citaba el caso de Mérida, los paralelos que leí en él para época romana me incitaron a revisar bajo una nueva y distinta perspectiva la traducción de tan famoso texto, que para todos los autores "clavaba" la fundación 'ex novo' de Augusta Emerita en el 25 a.C., y a buscar otros indicios que apoyaran la preexistencia de Mérida. Eso fue lo que hice desde 1986, aunque sabía lo difícil que es en España ir contra corriente en un asunto indiscutido, uno de los muchos axiomas históricos en vigor. Y claro que los había, bastantes hechos anómalos y sin explicar. La mayoría (11) los expuse en 1987 (publ. en 1990: http://www.academia.edu/2406869/_Las_tres_fundaciones_de_Augusta_Emerita_ ), y otros en otras publicaciones posteriores (véase al final una sucinta relación). Luego he añadido otros nueve argumentos más, hasta 20. En este artículo los enumero todos, en forma lógicamente breve, y divididos en dos grupos: 1) argumentos histórico-epigráficos y numismáticos, y 2) argumentos de orden arqueológico, explicados lo más claramente posible y ordenados según el peso que les atribuyo, excepto los núms. 19 y 20, que considero de carácter fundamental y cierran las reflexiones (este trabajo, en Internet ya en 2004 y 2005 http://www.celtiberia.net/articulo.asp?id=1597 , está siendo objeto de una publicación en formato más científico). Véase tb., sobre dos réplicas, http://www.celtiberia.net/articulo.asp?id=1597#r21239 y http://www.celtiberia.net/articulo.asp?id=1597#r21615

The defeat of Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE had profound repercussions for Roman history as it opened the way for the transition from Republic to principate. The conditions that allowed the Battle of Actium to occur were the result of the competition between Mark Antony and Octavian (Caesar), a competition that reached a critical point in 32 BCE. Different versions of the events that led to the Battle of Actium, however, can be observed in Plutarch's 'Life of Antony' (late 1st or early 2nd second centuries CE) and Dio Cassius' 'Roman History' (early 3rd century CE). An examination of Plutarch and Dio Cassius highlights points of difference and similarity and from this a plausible narrative of events for 32 can be reconstructed. The issue centres around Mark Antony's will. Both Plutarch and Dio demonstrate that Octavian manoeuvred effectively to gain access to Antony's will. In Dio's version the action flowed smoothly, while in Plutarch's account the action was slowed by the obstruction of the Vestals. One discrepancy between these two accounts lies in the identification of the custodian of Antony's will in Rome. Plutarch and Dio proposed different custodians - the Vestal Virgins, and a (nameless) man. Both sources could be wrong, but they certainly cannot both be correct. This paper proposes that Plutarch's inclusion of the Vestal Virgins represents the more plausible version of events and that Dio's identification of a man as the custodian of the will indicates the differing aims of his narrative.

Many of the wars of the Late Republic were largely civil conflicts. There was, therefore, a tension between the traditional expectation that triumphs should be celebrated for victories over foreign enemies and the need of the great commanders to give full expression to their prestige and charisma, and to legitimize their power.Triumphs in the Age of Civil War rethinks the nature and the character of the phenomenon of civil war during the Late Republic. At the same time it focuses on a key feature of the Roman socio-political order: the triumph, and argues that a commander could in practice expect to triumph after a civil war victory if it could also be represented as being over a foreign enemy, even if the principal opponent was clearly Roman. Significantly, the civil aspect of the war did not have to be denied.Carsten Hjort Lange provides the first study to consider the Roman triumph during the age of civil war, and argues that the idea of civil war as "normal" reflects the way civil war permeated the politics and society of the Late Roman Republic. -


Reviews

“The first comprehensive monograph on the Roman triumph in the momentous civil war era, this insightful and thought-provoking study is as much a study of a well-known but poorly understood aspect of late republican Roman political life as an alternative viewpoint on the historic transition from Republic to Empire. This original and readily accessible book much advances our understanding of one of the Roman aristocracy's foremost rituals in a transformative period and is bound to stimulate further debate and reflection.” –  Frederik J. Vervaet, Associate Professor of Ancient History, The University of Melbourne, Australia

“Carsten Hjort Lange's book is the first to tell the story of what happened to the triumph – Rome's highest military honor – in a long period of civil war. In doing so, he offers new answers to the urgent question of how societies end civil war and come back together as one. There is bold and confident argument throughout, culminating in a superb discussion of the triumph's development under the emperor Augustus and its foundational role in the establishment of imperial government.” –  Josiah Osgood, Professor of Classics, Georgetown University, USA

See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/triumphs-in-the-age-of-civil-war-9781474267847/#sthash.zJIWwL0U.dpuf

SEE PROMOTIONAL CODE!

Agrippa's Pantheon remains the subject of lively debates. A much-discussed passage is found in Cassius Dio's Roman History (53.27.2-3), which is most often treated as a stand-alone, self-explanatory whole. However, in order to be comprehensible, each text needs a broader range of reference points in order for meaning to be extracted. In this paper, I analyze part of that contextual spectrum (including Dio's attitude to the so-called imperial cult and the roles played in his narrative by the cults of both Augustus and Caesar), and I argue that we should view his account of the Pantheon with considerable caution. That account contains three different narrative threads: one based on the annalist tradition, but also one which drew on the author's own experiences, and one that constituted a literary and rhetorical overlay aimed at realizing the general objectives of the Roman History. In this account, the 'former Caesar' has been placed in between twice over: between the author's historical knowledge and his present circumstances, and between the realms of gods and humans. That imprecise nature of this expression was no accident. I believe the expression was not so much a reference to a specific statue as a figure of speech emphasizing the difference, fundamental from Dio's perspective, between the incumbent emperor and his deceased predecessor.

For Rome and the Romans alike, the Roman civil wars brought about the end of an era. They also reconfigured Roman identity for good. The clash between factions prompted a fratricidal struggle, leading to citizens fighting citizens and to kinspeople killing each other. Anybody could be an enemy, a hostis. Only Octavian was able to put an end to the civil wars and to this climate of universal distrust. He alone could give back to his fellow citizens a history and a purpose in which they could recognise themselves.
Antonietta Castiello shows in her study how Octavian, later Augustus, was able to bring Rome back to life: not physically, but symbolically. Through a juxtaposition never made fully explicit, Augustus managed to enter the hearts of the Romans as their new leader, a charismatic ruler who could easily be assimilated to the Pater Patriae par excellence, Romulus. The revival of the figure of Romulus allowed Augustus and those who recognised in him the leadership of the first founder to breathe new life into the Romans’ legendary past: an intentional history linked to the birth of the city, the creation of its first sacred boundary, the pomerium, and in general to the myth of fratricide, a myth so brutally symbolic that it was open to an Augustan re-interpretation.

Przedmowa do niedokończonej powieści Prof. Kazimierza Kumanieckiego, w: Kazimierz Kumaniecki, August, red. nauk. Mikołaj Szymański, z autografu wydała Anna Zawalska, Instytut Filologii Klasycznej, Wydział Polonistyki UW, Warszawa 2010 (pp. 5-27).

Quali istituzioni politiche hanno accompagnato - e in parte determinato - la straordinaria vicenda storica di Roma antica? Cosa conosciamo del loro funzionamento e della loro evoluzione? Quali sono stati i principali interrogativi della lunghissima tradizione esegetica della quale siamo debitori? In base a quali suggestioni, invece, per secoli si è reinterpretato, attualizzato e, non da ultimo, strumentalizzato il vincente – e avvincente – “modello romano” nelle sue varie declinazioni? Per quali ragioni la comprensione di concetti politici d’indubbia attualità non può prescindere dallo studio di Roma antica? Tenendo presenti questi interrogativi di fondo, l’autore propone una guida sintetica al complesso sistema politico-istituzionale romano: un sistema che, sebbene lontano, offre ancora molti spunti di riflessione

Beginning with a semantic history of the term negotiator, this essay reconsiders Augustus’s role in the history of Roman citizenship. It restores negotiator as a byword for how Roman officials in the Late Republic understood Romans in the provinces and argues that the term’s connotations, combined with several Late Republican institutions, reveal a vision of these Romans as partaking in Roman imperialism. Several of Augustus’s actions, including the development of a new language for understanding these Romans, promoted a new vision of the place of citizens in the empire, making them subjects of an empire which had previously been theirs.

The first Roman emperor, Augustus bequeathed to posterity a protean image that opposes the cold determination of a man ready to do anything to seize power, and his idealized status as the founder of the deified empire. The historical reality reveals the chaotic destiny of a man of modest origin who was thrown into the crisis of the Roman Republic, and who ended by creating a new regime after much trial and error. It contrasts with the figure of the wise and virtuous prince patiently constructed by Augustus, and taken up by his successors for purposes of legitimization. This biography intends to reconcile history, memory, and the myth(s) to which a man gave rise, and one that has(ve) continued to evolve from Charlemagne to its exploitation by the authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. The key for interpreting the figure is the fundamental ambiguity attached to any form of power, which Augustus brought to its peak. This explains how, based on different periods and contexts, he was perceived as an absolute monarch or as a republican prince, even as the restorer of the Republic.

O gênero épico tinha por objetivo mais nobre a preservação de histórias contadas por gerações e nessas histórias, narradas por versos cantados – elemento antigo para memorização –, preservavam os nomes de heróis, pais fundadores, espaços míticos, cotidiano antigo, pensamentos arcaicos, buscava-se preservar o máximo de um contexto ao qual os ouvintes já não faziam mais parte ou, notavam resquícios de um tempo que não conheceram. Foi a escrita que eternizou, na melhor das hipóteses, todo esse elemento épico que estava por ameaça constante do esquecimento.

Campaigns of Germanicus, AD 13-16 describes briefly the campaigns, joint and combined ops., tactics, strategy, foreign policy, espionage, intelligence gathering, and strategy between ca. 60 BC and AD 150 with particular focus on Germanicus' campaigns.

Octavian took the title of princeps senatus during the first lectio senatus of his long reign. The article deals with the role of the title of princeps of the Senate in the system of government under Augustus. I argue that the first Roman Emperor attached importance to his position of the princeps senatus not only in the context of the First settlement but during his whole long reign. The Emperor was eager to highlight the overall importance of this post. Moreover, he defined his place in the Senate with this position and it had functional significance for him during sessions of the consilium publicum. The restoration of the title of princeps senatus took place in a new circumstance. The reality of the epoch led to some transformations in the title’s functionality.