Preface

The Age of Augustus, the period between the death of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 B. c. and the death of Augustus himself on 19 August a. d. 14, was of crucial importance for the history of Europe. At the beginning of the period the Roman world stood on the brink of disintegration; at its end Rome, Italy and the empire had received, for the first time in Rome’s history as a Mediterranean power, an adequate and effective system of government which was to endure for three centuries. The Roman empire shaped western Europe and it was Augustus, more than any other single man, who created the Roman empire and the imperial system. It is this conception which has conditioned my treatment of the subject. The chief bias is biographical, the main framework political, constitutional and administrative, as they must be, partly because of the nature of the ancient sources, but, above all, because of the nature of the Augustan achievement, without which the past history and present state of western Europe would be vastly different from what it is. Into the main framework I have attempted to integrate economic and social developments, in particular that of the expansion of the Roman ruling class. The main theme is how Augustus’ ambition for personal power and survival in the enjoyment of it led to the establishment of peace and stabili./ in the Roman world, the proper administration of the empire, the integration of all classes of society in the business of government.

Just as economic and social developments, literature and architecture, thought and religion are considered not as discreet phenomena but as integral parts ofa single whole, so the illustrations have been conceived not as decoration but as documenting and expanding the text. My thanks are due to all those who were concerned in the collection and supply of the photographs and especially to Miss Judith Farmer for her patient and courteous stimulation of my natural dilatoriness.

To attempt an exhaustive bibliography of the subject would be presumptuous were it not impossible. The Bibliography and Notes have two purposes only, to acknowledge the sources of information I have used in writing the text and to direct the interested reader to fuller discussions of the various topics treated. One work requires special acknowledgement. The Roman Revolution by Sir Ronald Syme. My debt to this book, which has revolutionized the study of the Augustan Principate, will be apparent on every page which follows.

I wish to thank my colleagues at Leeds University Dr A. R. Birley, Mr E. L. Harrison and Mr K. R. Rowe for their suggestions and their help.

Leeds April 1968 Donald Earl