FIRST OCTAVIAN AND THEN AUGUSTUS: THE TWO FACES OF THE FOUNDER OF THE EMPIRE
Part one: Octavian
Historians and scholars often face the problem of homonyms and intermarriage between relatives: the genealogy of Octavian Augustus can be considered a case study for its intricate web of kinship and recurring homonyms.
Gaius Julius Caesar had adopted Octavian, making him his designated heir, since he had no male children (Caesarion, his son with Cleopatra, was too young to succeed him to power). Octavian was also his great-grandson by actual blood ties, since his maternal grandmother Julia was Julius Caesar's sister.
The most famous figures in Roman history are united by a lust for power and the desire to pass it on to their descendants. And, in some cases, by the masterly use of propaganda to create a magnanimous and positive image, and to obscure their bloodiest pasts.
In this too, Octavian Augustus — a man with two faces and two names — is a significant example, one that would be imitated by subsequent emperors, including Publius Aelius Hadrianus.
After the period of the monarchy and the seven kings, which had seen contested and turbulent successions, the transition to the republic was made with the consulate, ensuring that the succession of power occurred smoothly and was shared among equals; in practice, it was a diarchy.
But in the 2nd-1st centuries BC, dictators emerged, sparking a century of civil wars between opposing factions: Marius and Sulla, Caesar and Pompey, and finally Octavian, first against Pompey and Crassus and then against Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
The dictators' power rested on the army, because they were generals who had conquered new territories and were greatly loved by their soldiers, with whom they shared part of the spoils of war. In practice, the legions became the personal militias of their commanders.
Roman conquests — in Italy and then in the Mediterranean — were brutal, following the motto "mors tua, vita mea" (your death is my life): mass killings, deportations, enslavement — but the enemies were no less, such was war.
Conquest meant having new territories to colonize and, above all, rich spoils of war: treasures and precious metals that were displayed in Rome during triumphs and allowed the victors to gain popular favor with donations and the classic panem et circenses (bread and circus). And, of course, they served to reward their own soldiers.
An important feature of the mechanisms of power was propaganda, which Caesar skillfully used to create his image of valiant, invincible, and charismatic leader, epitomized by the famous motto "veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, and I conquered). Until a part of the Senate decided to oppose his rule by killing him on the Ides of March in 44 BC.
Augustus followed his example and can be considered one of the greatest experts in the use of propaganda and image.
The first face of the future emperor is the ruthless Octavian, the implacable avenger of his adoptive father Caesar, who achieved power through military victories over conspirators and adversaries.
We know from ancient sources that Augustus was not a great strategist; indeed, he had often been defeated and was not at all loved by his soldiers. His rival Mark Antony was a much better general, as was Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (his son-in-law), who was responsible for the victory of Actium in 31 BC, which definitively paved the way for him to power.
Octavian's power did not derive solely from military victories: under the same virtuous and pious pretext of punishing Caesar's assassins, he promoted a veritable persecution of senators and knights hostile to him, drawing up proscription lists that forced many to flee to escape death: among them was the father of the future emperor Tiberius, with his wife Livia Drusilla, who would later marry Octavian Augustus.
Octavian physically eliminated at least three hundred senators and two thousand knights who had sided with Caesar's assassins, and then granted an amnesty with the Brindisi Accords of 40 BC, which also allowed Tiberius's parents to return to Rome.
A not insignificant aspect of this purge, rarely discussed, was that the assets of the proscribed were confiscated by Octavian. With his victory at Actium, he also seized the assets of Cleopatra and the Ptolemies, as well as the immensely wealthy Egypt, a province that would remain the personal and exclusive property of the emperors for centuries to come.