Augustus’ presentation of “empire” in his Res Gestae

Having defeated all his political enemies and expanded the rule of Rome enormously, Octavian, from 27 BC known as Augustus, ended the civil wars which had plagued the Late Republic and founded the system known as the Roman Principate. The Res Gestae purports to be a retrospective survey by Augustus of his own public achievements in restoring the res publica and conquering the world. It was published in Rome but the only surviving copies were found in the new and distant province of Galatia. In this paper I will try to explain how Augustus, as the founder of the new era known today as ‘the Roman Empire’, envisages and presents Roman rule under his leadership by analysing the content of the Res Gestae. From it we can see that there indeed emerges a concept similar to our ‘empire’. The narrative structure of the Res Gestae shows that Roman imperial rule is conceived of by Augustus in a scheme of core-periphery, in which the core is composed of the provinces under direct Roman control, while the periphery is an area of more vaguely subject people or places maintained by threats and intervention, or more weakly by ‘friendship’ (amicitia), which vary according to the historical specifics of contact between these areas or peoples and Rome. In both cases, whether subjection is in the name of the ‘rule’ or the ‘friendship’ of Roman people, it is Augustus’ personal authority that appears to matter the most, which indicates that Augustus’ institution of a monarchic system was a decisive element in the development of this new holistic concept of Roman imperial rule.

Sacratio capitis, devotio, and blood in the Roman law and religion

Some Roman rituals with political value ware provided with the power of a curse whose mechanics was similar to that of Greek defixiones. Those who injured a plebeian tribune were consecrated to the gods or to the gods of the dead. The consecratio of a man was sometimes enacted when the blood of a citizen or the tears of a parent were poured. Blood was particularly efficacious in unleashing a curse on the person responsible for something wrong and offensive to the gods and the Roman people.

Processing into Dominance: Nero, the Crowning of Tiridates I, and a New Narrative of Rome’s Supremacy in the East

In 66 CE, the emperor Nero crowned the Parthian prince Tiridates I king of Armenia before the Roman people in the Forum Romanum. Much scholarship on Roman interactions with Parthia or Armenia focuses on histories of military conflict or diplomatic negotiation. Ritual and ceremonial evidence, however, is often taken for granted. This article uses the coronation to highlight a different way in which Rome articulated its relations with Parthia and Armenia to domestic and foreign audiences. It will show how Nero and his regime used the art of public spectacle to project an image of Roman superiority over Parthia and Armenia in spite of Roman military losses in the recent Armenian war. Tiridates, a Parthian prince and a brother of the Parthian king of kings, traveled to Rome to be crowned the first king of Armenia from the Parthian royal family. To receive this title, Tiridates passed by several monuments to Augustan triumphs over Parthia and Armenia in the Forum. He was also surrounded by a group of Roman citizens, who watched him as they would have watched a defeated foreign leader in a triumph. At the culmination of the ceremony, Tiridates performed proskynesis before Nero at the rostra Augusti and was granted his crown. Through Augustus’ monuments, the collective viewing of Tiridates, and his acts of public submission and deference to Nero, the crowning intimated a new narrative about the state of Roman-Parthian/Armenian relations. While Augustus had represented Parthian and Armenian defeat in art, Nero had compelled a representative of both Parthia and Armenia to come to Rome and kneel before the emperor. Both states were now subservient to Rome, which remained the dominant power in the East.

Fields, Funerals and Furnaces: On the Use of Fire during the Pre-Roman Iron Age on the Island of Gotland

By studying the material culture of the island of Gotland, one can conclude that the use of fire was integrated into the lives of the Pre-Roman people. Agricultural land was cleared by fire and cremation was a part of the burial tradition. Fire converted clay into ceramics, wood into charcoal and bog ore into iron. By being subjected to the flames human beings, objects and the landscape were created and/or trans formed. This paper presents fossilized field systems, burial grounds and areas with iron production as places for this physical transformation, as well as places for the creation of bonds between people.

The Marsi

Up until now Marsian cultural identity has been approached from an old-fashioned theoretical angle of autoromanizazzione ("self-Romanization" or "emulation"). This perspective was one response to the unsatisfactory explanation of the previous paradigm ("Romanization") to assess the incorporation faced by pre-Roman people. Nonetheless, current scholars have found the "self-Romanization" approach untenable. This view changes the scope of the agency from Roman to Native in the assimilation process of the Italians in the Roman culture, turning the whole influence into the Native elites, but all of it has an irremediable ending of exactly the same cultural convergence. Besides, the concept is still a top-bottom approach and the knowledge of the final outcome of the process obscures our judgment, taking for granted cultural behaviors as Roman when those are not necessarily Romans or vice versa. This work aims to criticize the modern approach of the 1970s epistemology reassessing the Marsian identity in a new light reconsidering the degree of the Roman agency, as it was more than it was previously thought. Nonetheless, the high degree of the Native agency in the structuration of the Marsian ethnicity cannot be neglected, because Marsian identity was a malleable ethnic concept to channel collective supralocal efforts by indigenous elites. The work offers a new way of understanding the Marsian culture refracted through the imperialistic lens of Roman authors.

Economics Of Rome

In the terms of this essay we discus the economic and societal shift that would be shown in Roman History, mainly in the vain of economic differences in the Republic and Empire rule of the Roman people. The two events that are compared are the economic strategies in the 2nd Punic War and the Catiline conspiracy, and how the different economic strategies would affect the societal rule of the Roman classes. This also explores the laws that where implemented by the senate and the new tax reforms that would then give the Roman society a new way of life with the raising of taxes and the increased need for Raw materials and chattel.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Octavian/Augustus, following in the footsteps of both Pompey and Caesar, relentlessly pursues territorial expansion abroad, while at home he presents the Roman people with the image of himself as unstoppable expansionist. In one otherwise unprepossessing poem Propertius makes a strikingly romantic assertion: Cynthia prima fuit, Cynthia finis erit (1.12.20). The word choice—finis—gives pause, especially when this particular elegy (1.12) and the ones with which Propertius surrounds it (1.8a, 1.8b, and 1.11) emphasize geographical space. To be more precise, they focus on Cynthia’s propensity to move through geographical space, away from the Propertian amator. Anxieties emerge from Propertius’ elegies when he imagines the individual faced with an infinite and ever-changing world. The Propertian amator struggles to establish and cling to the possibility of known and definable boundaries. He seeks to render Cynthia his finis and to anchor his self-definition to her.