Rome in the Augustan Age

This is the fifth book in the Centers of Civilization Series and an excellent addition to the series. While there have been equally brilliant eras in the history of the world, few have surpassed the achievements of reign of Augustus Caesar. Augustus managed to bring about a period stability to the Roman world after the collapse of the Roman republic. As commentators, such as Kenneth Clark, have observed, this stability is apparently necessary for any particular dynamic creative era to come into being. By ending the eternal fights between ambitious aristocrats, Augustus can claim not only political success, but also social and cultural success as well. Like most successful leaders, Augustus was able to achieve political success by convincing most of the Roman polity that he was restoring institutions of the past. In reality what he had restored monarchical government, a system as odious to the Romans as it would be to 21st century Americans. One of the great moments of early Roman history as described by Livy was the exile of the Tarquin kings and the establishment of a republic. While the Romans wallowed in the civic virtues of "republican government" modern societies would not recognize it as anything of the sort. It was, and remained, an oligarchy in which the aristocratic element managed to fool the lower orders into believing they had more of a role to play in the government than they did. Voting was done by assemblies of Roman citizens and carried out by tribes. The older and more established the tribe, regardless of the numbers in them, got to vote first. The head count, the last and largest of the tribes in terms of numbers of members, voted last if it voted at all under Roman rules. The only time ordinary people had a voice in the political life was when it rioted. What Augustus did was to revitalize tradition institutions, like the senate, to restore temples and religious practices that had fallen into obscurity, as well as bringing former anti-Caesarians into the government. He was the restorer of the past and the promoter of stability. All the while he ruled while observing the forms of the republic while inventing the imperial tradition. It is noteworthy that the members of the old senate class who wrote the histories that dismissed most of the emperors as tyrants, generally portray Augustus in positive terms. The book is very strong on a number of points. First and foremost are the ways in which the various classes interacted with each other, these were the aristocratic class, the knights, ordinary people (to include former slaves) and slaves themselves. The economic dynamic is also examined, urban land speculation and money lending were the basis of more than a few fortunes during the Augustine age. The Augustine age was also a highly cultured one. The theater had reached its pinnacle during the second century BC with the comedies of Plautus, but Virgil, Horace and Ovid were very much a part of the scene. Augustu