How Is Augustus So Powerful

Quod natum est Imperii

In 27 B.C. The Roman Republic fell into disarray, in its wake, the great-nephew of Julius Caesar, Octavian. Later named Augustus when he became emperor, he would become the leader of the greatest empire ever built. This began the Pax Romana, the “Roman Peace”, and an empire was born. A period of turmoil and strife was being dissolved; peace and prosperity began to surge through the veins of Rome. Little did they know these veins would once again clot in the years ahead.

Tragedy at Teutoburg

Augustus became a god-like figure to the Romans. During Augustus’ reign, Rome expanded to its pinnacle of power and was flourishing in every area. Rome was now a goliath, the superpower of the ancient world, recently spreading

Ruling from 54-68 A.D, he is often portrayed as an atrocious ruler, yet also seen as a man of the arts and the people as some historians debate (Jarus) . Despite his good deeds, the list of atrocities he committed are near endless and often outweigh them. Among these acts lie: The killing of his own mother; sentencing his first wife, Octavia, to death for not giving him an heir, charging her of adultery to justify his actions; and personally strangling his young nephew for playing emperor, seeing it as a threat to his power. He was very self centered and determined to get his way. He went to the senate and proposed that he would rebuild a third of Rome to build the “Neropolis”, a collection of elaborate palaces. This is the reason he is blamed for The Great Fire of Rome of 64 A.D. It wasn’t long after this proposal that shops within the Circus Maximus caught fire, While this was relatively common in the hot summer months this fire had been different. Rapidly, the fire spread, eventually engulfing more than two-thirds of the entire city. The fire raged for six days until it was controlled; however, it re-emerged and continued to burn for three days,converting even more of the great city to ash, before it was finally tamed. Of the total 14 districts of Rome, all but four were damaged or destroyed; within the lost districts laid the ruins of two of Rome’s most eloquent religious sites - The Temple of Jupiter Stator and

Most of the city was burned and many of the middle class men and poor had no place to go. The fire destroyed food, materials, arms, a multitude of religious artifacts, anything that Rome would need to survive, both spiritually and physically, was mostly burned. Nero needed a lot of money to rebuild the city and his palaces, which he ran out of relatively quickly. He decided that the best approach was to increase taxes across the empire, especially in the North. The barbarians who lived under Roman control would not take this lightly. But the taxation wasn't enough. Ordering his soldiers to steal the riches from the temples of the gods in order to pay for the costs. Most Romans saw this as sacrilegious. To steal from the gods was of the highest disrespect to the gods and Rome. (Ewhelan) In time, Nero’s support declined more and more. Eventually the praetorian guard thought that this was enough and publicly deemed Nero an enemy of the State. Nero committed suicide the next day. Leaving Rome without a leader, and angered populace and army, a terrible