From the Augustan Principate to the Invention of the Age of Augustus

I would like to thank the following for offering constructive feedback on drafts of this article: Ingo Gildenhard, Wolfgang Havener and members of the JRS Editorial Board.

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I AUGUSTUS AS ‘FIRST EMPEROR OF ROME’ AND ‘FOUNDER OF THE PRINCIPATE’

A survey of the scholarship inspired by the bimillennium of Augustus’ death in 2014 has pinpointed a recent shift in scholarship whereby Augustus’ own centrality to the ‘age of Augustus’ has come into question.¹ This is largely a reflection of the fact that interest has moved away from examining Augustus’ formal political position. Despite this shift away from analysing the Augustan era in terms of the contribution of Augustus himself, two ways of thinking about Augustus still linger in scholarly literature — as first emperor of Rome and as founder of a new constitution, the Principate — even though neither is helpful in making sense of the political changes that took place between 44 b.c. and a.d. 14. One analysis of the ‘transition from Republic to Principate’, for example, unequivocally states: ‘The Principate institutionalized by Augustus in 27 BCE was vigorously cheered by the legions and by the Roman citizens of the capital; it was welcomed by large parts of the socially ruling classes and accepted by a large fraction of the senatorial aristocracy.’² Such a statement risks creating the impression that the ‘Augustan Principate’ sprang into being, fully formed, at a single moment. Just as writing of the ‘Roman Republic’ does more to obscure than illuminate our understanding of earlier periods of Roman history,³ so discussion of the ‘Augustan Principate’ (with a capital letter) misleadingly encourages us to assume that it was a distinctive constitutional phenomenon.

This paper will explore how viewing political changes under Augustus in ways which go beyond the narrowly constitutional and how focusing upon contemporary texts rather than those written with the benefit of hindsight both better illuminate the process of experimentation by which Augustus and his contemporaries tried to make sense of his political position. It illustrates how one of the challenges faced by Tiberius was that there was no clearly defined Principate to which he could be the successor. Instead, this paper suggests that one of the main changes in the political landscape...