Augustus Caesar

Augustus Caesar Synopsis

History sees Augustus Caesar as the first emperor of Rome, whose system of ordered government provided a firm and stable basis for the successive expansion and prosperity of the Roman Empire over the next two centuries. Hailed as restorer of the Republic' and regarded by some as a deity in his own lifetime, Augustus became an object of emulation for many of his successors. This pamphlet reviews the evidence in order to place Augustus firmly in the context of his own times.

It explores the background to his spectacular rise to power, his political and imperial reforms, and the creation of the Respublica of Augustus and the legacy left to his successors. By examining the hopes and expectations of his contemporaries and his own personal qualities of statesmanship and unscrupulous ambition, Shotter reveals that the reasons for Augustus' success lie partly in the complexity of the man himself, and partly in the unique nature of the times in which he lived.