Octavian Augustus: A brief overview of the “Pater Patriae”
25/05/2016 18:13
Imperator Cesar Divi Filius. Octavian was officially known by this title. He was the first emperor of Rome and ruled from 27 BC to 14 AD. The Senate gave him the name August (Augustus), a title attributed only to the gods, and had the meaning of “increase”, expansion, rise. He was a man worshiped as a god from one end of the empire to the other. He was the one to reconstruct the torn by civil wars Roman world.
After the battle of Actium, in 27 BC, and the death of Anthony, Octavian began to initiate the procedures for the recovery and reconstruction of the Roman Empire. He successfully ended the ethnocide civil wars and during his reign the Roman territory, as well as the whole of the ancient world, enjoyed peace, prosperity, order and security. He professed the Roman Tradition in its purest form and the Roman virtues in the way they expressed and influenced the Roman republic in the past. His personality and perceptions are strongly identified and clearly distinguished from those of his predecessors. Let's briefly examine the national aspects of the groundbreaking political system he implemented.
The difference with Julius Caesar was that Caesar had underestimated the beliefs of the Roman people and the Italian nation about any form of egalitarianism, and thus, he proceeded to the impropriety of assimilating the Roman citizens with their vassals from the provinces. Of course, this “equality” did not appeal to the proud Roman citizens who wanted to maintain their political and national identity. On the contrary, Augustus believed that the Roman citizens and their Italian allies should not be in the same political position as their vassals (dediticii). He fought to hold the Romans in a dominant position within the Empire. This perception of Augustus permeated all aspects of Roman society and contributed to the defeat of Antony. Having realized the power of the Roman sense of National identity, he used it as an ideological weapon in the struggle against Antony. Taking advantage of the subservience Antony showed towards Cleopatra and a clause of his will according to which Antony bequeathed a part of the Roman territory to the queen’s children, Augustus presented himself as the guardian of the Roman Tradition and the Roman Identity, in contrast to Antony who was charged with disobedience, treason and cosmopolitanism.
The measures taken to strengthen the Identity of the Roman element are very interesting. Indisputably, the identity- cleansing measures contributed to the protection of homogeneity. He considered that the uncontrolled influx of people from the provinces (vassals) into the body of the citizens had a corrosive result for the whole society, therefore he passed laws stating that the Roman citizens had to get married and become fathers in order to increase the Roman blood and the population of the Republic. This way, the dominant element would be the Italian. Marriages with freedmen were prohibited. The imposed measures aimed at the preserving of the racial and ethnic Identity of the Romans.
In the context of safeguarding the ethnic homogeneity, Augustus tried to establish a national military unit. Unlike Caesar and Mark Antony, Augustus wanted the army to consist solely of Roman citizens, thus laying the foundations for a strong, permanent, national army. He was convinced that the Roman Empire could not be effectively defended by any army unless it was founded on a pure Roman basis. Therefore, the legionnaires were, mainly, either Roman citizens or Italian allies. The creation of a second military unit that was composed of vassals, had, of course, a subsidiary role and was not of primary importance.
In 29 BC Augustus proceeded to the reconstruction of the ruling class. He revised the list of the Senate deleting 190 members. His criterion: corruption, scheming and dishonesty. In his opinion, the Senate was eroded by people who lacked the appropriate moral background and for this reason they were expelled. It was a matter of Meritocracy against Bureaucracy and putting the interests of the community above the interests of the individual.
In 27 BC he relinquished many of the additional powers assigned to him, renouncing thus the arrogance of his predecessors, and retained only the title of the “Imperator”, a purely military title. It is obvious that the notion of the army held an important position in the Roman tradition. In the same year, showing his undiminished interest and love for his country, he initiated the famous “Restoration” of the Roman constitution. Even though we cannot name or define even in a descriptive manner the new regime he created, we can still distinguish and describe the National policy it contained and which included many populist perceptions. Augustus managed to combine the elements of ancient Rome, of the old regime, with the new perceptions, conditions and requirements of his time, without inflicting the slightest damage on the current social and traditional structures.
Concluding this brief overview of the personality of Augustus and his political program, we should highlight the obvious attempt to raise, bring forth and maintain the Roman - Italian element according to the popular demand, which raised a unanimous refusal to equalize with the rest of the population of the provinces; an equation that eventually led to the catastrophic disparities of the late Roman period. This was Augustus. Imperator of the Roman army, princeps of the Roman people. He led the Roman state into a true National Reconstruction, bequeathing a huge political and cultural heritage to the western culture.
Giorgos Syros
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