



S1: okay, uh while we (xx) um recover the technology, um, what i wanna do today, uh is to continue on obviously through our rapid tour, of Roman history from the foundation of the city, down to the reign of Augustus. um, again you will find a few of the names that i am mentioning and going on about, uh also figure on your list, for this Friday, uh for the quiz, again as j- just to repeat there will be ten short answer questions taken off of that list. uh we'll take say the last twenty-five or so minutes of lecture to do it maybe, uh a little bit longer, um, just to go through it quickly i mean the names and concepts, on that list are of course, fairly central to things that i have been talking about, uh here in lecture and it will, uh enable me to, uh see how, things are going. um, what i wanna do today, as well, uh is, technology permitting, uh to have a look at, this object which is called H-double-oh-two, uh and linked to the web page for today's, session. uh this document is, the political testament essentially, uh of the emperor Augustus. uh and it is really a key statement, uh as to what made the Roman monarchy work. also as you browse this document uh which has a tendency to show up on hour exams on a regular basis, uh not to be completely unsubtle. um, the, you know you will see that it has a lot of notes attached to it. and, um get into the habit of clicking on notes on this web page, uh when you are doing assignments later on in the term which are based on, uh documents which are taken off this web page, the notes will really, i hope help you a very great deal, figure out what's going on. um, ancient documents uh as we have seen and as you've read indeed in the Literary Texts and the, Roman Historian are very tricky things. uh they are not simple stenographic records of anything. they are very carefully composed, with a point to them. um, and they will... be designed to tell a quite particular story. and there is perhaps no way, uh or no document that we have in the ancient world, uh which tells a story in a more complex way, uh than does, uh the tale of Augustus, um in this text which is H-double-oh-two, okay now let's see if we can find it. okay. so you can hear_ you can see hopefully this will now then m- miraculously materialize. um, we'll t- we'll be talking about how to read it today but as you see there, anywhere where there's, um a passage like that, uh you can, uh get some, discussion of what it means, because as we've seen again any statement that you take out, or find in antiquity, uh will very often need a very great deal of interpretation. and this will help ho- hopefully help you to get it, uh, (okay that's) (xx) okay. uh and as we can see the theme of today is the emergence of the monarchy, uh or how empire uh, made the Roman democracy impossible. uh we ended last time uh with the beginnings of political unrest in the uh march of Sulla on Rome, very briefly. uh but we wanna go and t- take a f- a few steps back uh before we continue with that story. uh, the main points of this lecture will first of all be the process of alienation. no political society is gonna fall apart if people are happy with it. one of the keys to the collapse of the Roman democracy is quite plainly, that people were distinctly unhappy with it. um, this leads to the rise of individuals of enormous power. uh where an individual can command so much support within the state that the apparatus of the state cannot take any action against that individual. this is a state which is in serious trouble indeed. uh and Augustus doesn't come from, just sort of nowhere. the Roman monarchy that's established by Augustus, comes at the end of a, series of, events, uh and Augustus is the last in a series of figures that really dominated Roman political society. we'll look at the reasons for his success, and then we'll look at how to read H-double-oh-two what it tells about Augustus, what it is as a piece of propaganda, and as a reflection of the main groups that have influence in Roman society. now why should you know this? first and foremost, the rest of what you will read in this course, presumes that you have an idea, fairly clear idea of when the emperor Augustus lived, and what he did. uh, without having a sense of Augustus, a lot of the rest of what we are gonna talk about, in this course, makes no sense. uh because the Roman, imperial system of entertainment is dominated by the office and person of the Roman emperor and the, establishment of imperial control, over public entertainment, is a feature of, primarily the time, of the emperor Augustus. now, as i say you will not be tested on the fall of the republic directly, uh but if you remember the process, again the general process because again in the readings, you'll see these constant references to repub- republic, empire, etcetera. remember the process, keep in the back of your mind that this is a process occurring in the first century B-C. okay? uh and coming to an end really in the second third of the, first century B-C, the bulk of the material we're gonna be talking about in this course, will either come very much earlier, uh or, much later in the first second and third centuries A-D. but this is the critical and pivotal period, in Roman history, where we see this, transformation from democracy to mo- to uh, to monarchy. and the first thing to remember again, when we think about this process, uh is it comes really, it begins with the process of conquest. and the conquest of the Mediterranean. you always have to keep in mind in this class, again, that, when we look at the Roman empire we're looking at an empire that consists of a lot of different states. and those states retain, their traditions and those traditions will sometimes shape, the broader spectrum of Roman culture. there is perhaps no better example of this to keep in mind, than the fact that the single most influential, intellectual movement in Roman history, began with a man who did not speak Greek or Latin, but spoke Aramaic. it began with a man who did not live in Italy or Greece it began with a man who lived in Judea, uh and was not a man of great wealth. because Jesus Christ was of course a phenomenon and the rise of Christianity is a phenomenon of Roman imperial history, one that is a very important feature of the latter part of what we're gonna be talking about, and Jesus spoke in Aramaic. and his words only became known in the Roman empire because they were later written down in Greek in a form that they could be transmitted outwards. uh but the Roman empire, or the intellectual world of the Roman empire in the fourth century A-D, is transformed, in part by the interpretation of the thought of a man who lived in the first century A-D, whose only contact with Roman imperial government was being crucified by a Roman governor. so, this vast process of local tradition is critically important so you've gotta keep in mind how all these different pla- uh in the back of your mind how all these different places come together. when we start talking about Roman entertainments more broadly more generally, uh again, uh we'll look at theatrical traditions which grew up in Greece, athletic traditions which come from Greece, um, etcetera. and the reason why they are different from, Italian traditions, is that they have a whole different history behind them. uh, and very often non-Roman traditions and non-Roman ideas will supercede ideas that emerged in Italy, will become more powerful than ideas that, emerged in Italy. and this is again a critical fact about the Roman empire. that the Roman empire does not export Roman culture to the exclusion of everything else. there is a constant dialogue between Italian culture and the culture of conquered peoples. so, this process of conquest begins, with what we might call defensive imperialism, the creation of an empire in the western Mediterranean, to protect Italy from Carthage. it continues at the beginning of the second century, uh with the acquisition of empire in the eastern Mediterranean, or what might almost be called, revenge imperialism, beginning with an attack on the king of Macedon who aided the Carthaginians in the second war. and if you look at the names of the wars again, first and second Punic war, that's in the western Mediterranean takes up the latter half of the third century B-C, is in the west. and then you have the Macedonian and Syrian wars, which is Rome moving east in the first part of the second century, uh A_ B-C, and the destruction of Carthage in one-four-six, just nice to remember. we go from conquest, to revolution. the second phase, of this development. and this is in the second half of the second century B-C. okay? um, and the f- key figures are first of all Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus who i mentioned at the end of last time, were the first people to seriously propose using the goods of empire, the profits of empire, to fund social programs in the city of Rome. prior to the latter part of the second century, B-C, Rome had not gotten used to the idea, or Romans had not gotten used to the idea that it was possible to turn a profit from empire. because the areas which they had acquired from Carthage to defend themselves against the Carthaginians, uh could on a good day, pay the support of the troops used to garrison them, and on the bad day were a financial drain on the Roman state. the Roman empire was not acquired for, economic reasons. this is very different, from European empires, uh in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. uh where both national pride and, uh notions of economic expansion go hand in hand. the second phase of the revolution, is an actual war, this so-called Social War which is the war between Rome and its allies, in the, eighties, B-C. uh it broke out because the Romans refused to share the goods of empire with the mass of Italians who had helped them gain that empire. and again as you recall, uh Rome is just one part of Italy. it's just one state within Italy, albeit the most important state within Italy, and there are a lot of other states in Italy, uh that had become allied with Rome over time, and now are fed up that they're not getting the rewards they think they should get. uh Rome wins this war effectively by agreeing to lose it, by giving in to the demands of the Italians saying, you stop fighting we'll give you what you want, and, most of the time that is what happened. but, it was not enough, at that point, uh to put an end to a much more serious, problem. so we go from conquest to revolution to dictatorship. alright. um, we begin as we did last time with the figure of Gaius Marius. in some ways_ and you can see in these people's activities some ups and downs. Marius, was never, single yo- uh the single all-powerful legislative figure. he was a very good general at the end of the second century, B-C he had, enabled the Romans to drive back, invaders from the Germanic north and this made him a great hero. uh he was routinely returned as one of the two annual magistrates one of the two consuls. for five years in a row he was elected. this is unprecedented in Roman history. uh and again it reflects a feeling a sudden need for expertise. old, in the good old days, you know Roman armies could go out in the summer and they could beat somebody and then come back home etcetera. um, in the second century, at the end of the second century war had become a lot more complicated, uh and interestingly enough uh for one reason or another that we really can't tell, there weren't a whole lot of very well trained Roman generals, at that time. um in the war with Hannibal the generals were a dime a dozen they were trained in the course of the war. uh that, it w- helped in, helped the Romans beat Hannibal. though early on in the war with Hannibal Roman generalship was indescribably incompetent, leading to a series of disasters. uh in the late second century, again there was a feeling that, the standard of generalship was remarkably low, and if you could find anybody who could keep the army from being destroyed then you just make sure he stays (then) in charge. uh and that is what Marius did and he was a good general and he did succeed, in, uh beating back the Germanic invaders from the north, uh and also he was not a member of the traditional aristocracy. he was something of an outsider. blue blooded Roman aristocrats the, Rockefellers or the Fords of the Roman world, couldn't stand it. uh they looked at him as a guy who had risen to power but didn't have the kind of social background or education, that they did. there was always a tendency of Marius to favor slightly left wing politicians. uh he supported for instance for a while a man named Saturninus, uh who m- moved bills for grain redistribution and what have you. Marius was always more sensitive to the desires of the Italians for equality, than members of the Roman aristocracy. but he wasn't a trained politician. he lacked, political skills. people could take advantage of him, and after a period of enormous influence at the end of the second century B-C, he dropped out of political life for a decade. he re-emerges, again as a symbol of opposition, to the aristocratic, um, controllers of aristocratic power in the Roman world in eighty-eight, uh, and part of the political confusion which led to Sulla's march on Rome. it was Marius who, who was given the command in the east, and it was Marius_ could i have the slides please? uh and it was Marius uh who would've led the army, and it was to prevent Marius from doing that and to acquire the goods of victory for himself, that Sulla who had once served under Marius, marched on Rome. but it's Sulla who changes the rules. a Roman army had never been used against the Roman people, in the history of the republic. this changes in eighty-eight when Sulla goes to his men and he says to them could i have the slides please? well he didn't actually say that, but um, <SS LAUGH> what he did say, was look here guys, uh i am your general, the booty in war that you will receive comes through me. you owe me more, than you owe the state. and you could look back at all these old s- guys who served with Marius and they've gotten their farms from serving with Marius etcetera, uh you're gonna get the same if you serve with me, but we've been deprived of the opportunity to make all of this money, by those crooked politicians back in Rome, so why don't we go kill them? and the army of Sulla said oh what a good idea. and they marched on Rome. again, this is a sign of the way that an individual politician, could take advantage of the (sort of) very serious alienation of large numbers of people. armies of twenty thousand, thirty thousand men involve a large number of guys, who are unhappy generally with life around them. they may be in the army but they feel that the world outside the army doesn't have much to give them. they are losing their land, they tend to be peasant farmers, uh and they tend to feel that their lot as peasants is going downhill. they're willing to follow Sulla. now Sulla after, taking Rome in eighty-eight and eighty-seven, goes off and fights in the east against Mithradates, wins the war, and finds that his political enemies have seized power behind his back. Marius's last act was to attack Rome to the end of eighty-si- uh in the course of eighty-seven, and he died as consul for the seventh time uh in January of eighty-six. but when Sulla returns, uh Sulla again changes all the rules. uh he invades Italy at the head of a Roman army supported with the money of a defeated foe. he is using the resources of the provinces, to fund a battle against the Roman state. and he is very successful at it. again, generalship matters. and he is a very good general. uh and he is able to unify his own supporters in ways that his opponents were incapable of doing for their supporters. he becomes dictator for life. uh a position which he resigns after a couple of years, uh but he seizes the lands of those who opposed him in war and distributes them to his supporters. uh, he orders, what are known as the proscriptions. uh, he posts a list of people who he regards as enemies of himself and the state. if your name appeared on the list you were automatically sentenced to death. if anybody brought your head in and gave it to Sulla y- that person could receive a monetary reward, and all of your land was confiscated to the state it would be sold by Sulla at knockdown prices to his best friends. Sulla intended to recreate a new political class in Rome, entirely s- based on loyalists to himself. now, he also, unfortunately for Rome, liked to drink a lot. and he died of drink in seventy-eight. um, but historical accidents can also matter. Sulla was a relatively old man when he achieved supreme power, and of course as i say he was in very bad health very soon. uh in large measure it seems due to his own personal habits. uh if Sulla had lived another thirty years Roman history would've been completely different. because we would not have had an emperor Augustus. the Roman monarchy would've been established on different principles by Sulla himself. Sulla clearly had some designs in this way and he had a general behind him by the name of Pompey who was a young man. and he wished Pompey in a sense to succeed to his position. but Pompey didn't have the kind of political experience that Sulla had, uh and was really quite a bad domestic politician, as bad a domestic politician as he was a very very good general again generalship counts. um, but he had no day to day political experience in fact when he was first the chief magistrate of Rome in seventy, B-C, uh he had to have a friend write a little handbook for him on how to run meetings of the senate, sort of Pompey's rules of order okay you will say good morning to the senators. you will stand up. you will sacrifice. you will do this. you will not be a boob. um, he had various unfortunate personal mannerisms, uh which affected the way that people would take him, uh how seriously people could take him when he was speaking. he had the tendency unfortunately to do this when he talked <GESTURE> <SS LAUGH> uh which if you are a Roman means, would you please penetrate me anally immediately. <SS LAUGH> not necessarily the message he wanted to send while he was speaking, uh, but nobody could get him to stop doing that. um, so i mean you can see why there were certain problems. uh, he managed to arrive in a position of great influence in the late sixties and early fifties, but his political inability, uh, left him wide open, uh to be unseated ultimately uh by Julius Caesar and then from Caesar (to s-) Antony and Cleopatra and the emperor Augustus, uh as leaders of Caesar's own party. but keep in pro- mind this process, conquest, revolution, dictatorship. um, from the third century to the second century, to the first century. now what were the consequences of conquest, which led to revolution and dictatorship? okay, the first and most important of these, is the uneven distribution of the spoils of war. when there's not a lot to go around, nobody cares a whole lot, (you know) okay the general took a large por- por- portion of the booty but there wasn't much booty anyway. uh i got my slave that's fine. um, by the, end of the second century however Roman wars were yielding enormous profits. uh and again, one could tell the difference. the standard of aristocratic life in Rome changed significantly. houses expanded in size, uh the size of estates became greater, the size of incomes became much greater on the part of the upper classes, and the poor were still living at a basic subsistence level. the circumstances that are described in Frier's chapter on Roman demography, hold very much true. the poor in the Roman world had a life expectancy of around about twenty-five years. uh half of their children died in infancy. the wealthy had a much longer life-span, uh we in in surveys which have g- gone some way to correct some of what Frier has had to say, it would appear that Roman aristocrats, uh would tend to live or be expected to live, uh into their forties as opposed to into their thirties. um, they lived a healthier life. they ate different food. um, an impoverished Roman lived on grain and vegetables, occasionally a little bit of meat and wine. uh a wealthy Roman, would have, the foods of all the world put before him, and put and would uh dine in quite splendid and spectacular ways. people saw this, they noticed it, they felt that something was unfair. um, there is also the expansion of the citizen body, beyond the capacity of the political structure. remember all votings at Rome took place, on a measure on a single day. and an- you had to get to Rome to vote. and only about fifty thousand people could vote. that's all that you could fit in the biggest voting areas. now when the political society of the Romans r- didn't have, more than a couple of hundred thousand people in it, this didn't matter all that much, and getting fifty thousand people together to vote, and voter turnout wasn't all that high, uh but when you have a political society of a million people, and only fifty thousand can vote, and people are rigging votes in all kinds of exciting and interesting ways, this begins to matter. there is a feeling that, you never get to vote. your vote never counts. what ma- who cares if it counts? because the next day some guy's gonna get another, group of his friends in and they'll pass a law to invalidate the one that you just walked all the way to Rome to pass. um, there is a, um a a sense that going to Rome no longer matters, that this political structure is no longer responsive to you. uh even if you do show up, somehow it is going to be corrupted. uh, the next is the alienation of the central government, um from the Italians and the poor now the alienation of the central government, from the poor is really a function of the first two features, on that slide, the uneven distribution of spoils and the fact, the feeling the political system no longer responds to your needs. uh the Italians, so we saw lying behind the Social War is a question, of whether or not they're g- receiving the goods of empire. and these people make up half the Roman army. so if you are ticking off the class which provi- provides, half of your soldiers, this is a problem. um, another aspect is the equilibrium of oligarchical government. now oligarchy means government by a few. it comes from the Greek word oligos which means a few, and arche which means power. the power of a few. now, in the second and third centuries, wealthy Romans were all about equally wealthy. they the the top, families that were able to, make sure that their members were elected to office on a regular basis, um all look about the same. when we move in to the end of the second century, this equilibrium of government begins to shift. it becomes very plainly an objective concern to Roman politicians, that some guy next to them, will acquire more power than they can ever hope to acquire. in the third century B-C this doesn't seem to have been an issue. in the second century, the early second century, this is something of an issue with one man in particular, the man who defeated Hannibal, whose political enemies set upon him ultimately like a pack of wild dogs, and he dies in exile having been sentenced for corruption. uh anybody could be sentenced for corruption at virtually any time, and he didn't have an ex-wife to buy him a pardon. the... end of the century however sees, much greater power, much greater wealth. um, and it's not so possible to control people and to control their ambitions. when Sulla dies he's the wealthiest man in the Mediterranean world. Pompey by the late sixties is the wealthiest man in the Mediterranean world in the history of the Mediterranean world. Caesar at his death is so much more wealthy th- so much wealthier than Pompey, that you c- can barely measure. uh there_ the opportunities_ the equilibrium of government is smashed, by a tendency for power to concentrate in the hands of the most powerful. if you want something done, you know you will go to, the man who seems most important. you won't just go to anybody. uh people will seek out, people to be their patrons, because they think they are more powerful than other people. and finally, military demands and the failure of equilibrium. um, a state which campaigns only in Italy, does not have to maintain armies in the field for very long periods of time. a state which has one overseas province, Spain, uh whi- actually it's divided into two provinces but it has two overseas provinces uh, with an army in them, doesn't have to worry abo- this isn't significant i mean there are a few thousand guys in Spain, but it doesn't change much. a state which suddenly has got to wage war, three to four months march from its home base, on a regular basis, has got to worry. because you can't change commanders on a regular basis the way you used to. there is a tendency for people to hold commands, for much longer periods of time uh b- binding, the, soldiers, to them, uh much more closely. people who fought with Sulla, when Sulla invaded Italy, had been fighting with Sulla for six years. that's a very long time to form a relationship between general and soldiers. Cnaeus Pompey when he returned to Italy after campaigns, in the east in sixty-one B-C, was surrounded by soldiers who had again served with him for six years. Gaius Julius Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon and began the civil war which would lead to his becoming the single most powerful man in Rome, was followed by soldiers who served with him for a decade. these are armies which are phenomenally loyal to their general. extended commands provide great opportunities for patronage. you want a job in the fifties that's gonna pay pretty well? you go to Caesar and ask him for a job up in Gaul. and he'll put you in charge of the grain supply or he'll put you in charge of, um, the slave supply or put you in charge of something if you're one of his friends. and victory of course opportuni- offers opportunities, for enormous acquisition of wealth. uh so these are the consequences, uh of conquest... now who is Julius Caesar who i've been talking about and is on your list of people for Friday? uh, Caesar was born in a hundred B-C. he was the nephew of Gaius Marius. very important factor. because Sulla after his victories, uh and his ef- and in the course of his efforts to put people to death, at one point even had Caesar on his list. but friends of Caesar who was at that point, uh barely twenty years old managed to have him, uh to get him spared and he went off to study in Greece this was often the way of doing things. uh but throughout his life, he was able to exploit discontent with Sulla's settlement. Sulla died too early, to really solidify what he saw as his political accomplishments. the seventies or the politics of the seventies after the death of Sulla, were in large measure a referendum on what Sulla had done, and much of what Sulla had done was repealed by other politicians. Caesar took advantage of this. he had immediate name recognition, he was Marius's nephew, and he played it to the hilt. in sixty-five, B-C, when he was elected to his second office in the course of all al- on, in the course of his climb to, up the ladder of Roman politics, restored to the capital line, the monuments of Marius's victories over the Germans. these had been torn down by Sulla seventeen years earlier, and Sulla_ and Caesar's fixed them back up. on one occasion when he goes after a political opponent in sixty-three B-C, he has an actual military standard from the army of Marius waved around. people can see him standing up for not the status quo. he might be an extraordinarily blue blooded aristocrat, but he throws this aside and says i'm a friend of the people, and those who were impressed by Sulla. he is a remarkably able politician. we can see in his own writings that he had a sense of humor. i mean there are passages in Caesar's commentary, which are among the funniest bits of prose, written in Latin as he is, uh, uh sending up various of his political opponents. uh very subtly done. uh he was clearly and we were we are told by those who saw him, one of the best, speakers, in Rome. he could, command an audience he was a tremendously powerful presence. he was also very tall he was about six feet tall, uh so people would actually physically look up to him cuz most Romans aren't that big. you know your average Roman would be between about five and a half feet, five eight somewhere in there and Caesar is a big guy, um and he looks out as he looks out over the crowd. uh he has a capacity as a politician, to put his opponents in positions where there is no decent solution for them. when he was consul in fifty-nine, when he was chief magistrate himself, with a colleague who hated his guts, uh he, arranged an event in the Roman forum, whereby he was giving a speech to the Roman people asking them to vote on legislation that he wanted them to vote on, as a way of paying off various political supporters in the previous year, knowing that this was wildly unpopular with his colleague. and that his colleague had two choices he could either sit home in his house and ignore it, uh or he could come down and try to obstruct what was going on. Caesar knowing his colleague very well, uh presumed that he would come to obstruct the business that Caesar was conducting, um and when his colleague arrived, he suddenly found that he had a bucket of shit poured over his head. not even Romans carried buckets of shit around with them on a regular basis. Caesar had obviously got the guy down there, (get him if_ and) when Bibulus comes, chuck. and there is his colleague, and it is very hard politically to recover from standing in front of a very large crowd of your fellow citizens covered in that. Bibulus doesn't come out in public for the rest of the year. uh but again you know Caesar had left him with a choice. and that was again fairly typical of what he did. um, you know and this would expand, um the instances of this expand throughout, um particularly the fifties. he is also a great general. and that he_ when, Caesar decided that he wanted to go north to fight uh, in France, many of his political rivals said thank god for that. uh they thought that he would have no military ability whatsoever. uh and he proved to be the most, able and brilliant general that Rome, uh ever produced the man who was able to command, the extraordinary loyalty of his own soldiers. who seemed to have been willing to put up with physical hardships for Caesar, that woulda led them to mutiny under any other general. um, and when it came right down to it, uh and he was fighting for control of the Roman world with Cnaeus Pompey between forty-nine and forty-eight, uh it is very clear that these two men, understood each other very well. uh the campaigns which they fought against each other uh are, almost textbook examples, of Roman strategy and tactics and operation. uh it is very clear that Pompey understood what moves Caesar would make and Caesar what moves that Pompey would make, and Pompey understood how Caesar had backed him into a corner and fo- forced him to go to battle, uh in the decisive, encounter in eighty, in forty-eight B-C, he knew that he had one possible way of winning the battle and Caesar knew exactly the same thing and when Pompey saw that his trick had not worked, having tried the only thing he could've done, uh although the battle seemed barely to have begun we are told, that he, rode back to the camp, took off his general's cloak and sat in his tent, waiting for the sound of his troops to flee by him because he knew that would inevitably follow from what he had seen. and then he fled, to the Medit- across the Mediterranean to Egypt where Cnaeus Pompey who was once the greatest man and the most powerful man in the Roman world, got onto a little boat to visit the king of Egypt, and was stabbed in the back by a former officer and his headless body was left on the shore unburied, a scene that evoked, an enormous amount, of thought in the Roman world what is it_ what is fortune in the Roman world when even Cnaeus Pompey could end up alone and headless on a foreign shore? Caesar, um also had another characteristic which was unusual to Rom- among Roman politicians, which is he kept his promises to his supporters. he kept his promises to his veterans that he would give them land, he kept promises to the Roman people, uh that he would give them grain or that he would find them new places to live around the empire. he was wildly popular among the poor. he was equally unpopular among the governing classes. those who had served with Caesar felt that their rewards were often inadequate, and they could not understand why it was he allowed his opponents to live. why was it when Pompey's officers surrendered they weren't killed the way Sulla had killed them? why was it they were brought back into service? there was not enough of the pie to go around it seemed. uh and so, a conspiracy developed, in the course of forty-four B-C, uh consisting, drawing in a wide range of characters, uh albeit not as wide a range as many of them thought they would be. it would. consisting of former supporters of Pompey and former supporters of Caesar, uh including one man who was arguably his illegitimate son. on March fifteenth of forty-four B-C this group of senators, stabbed Caesar at a meeting of the senate that was being held in a theater that Pompey had built at the height of his glory in the fifties. and that it was somewhat ironic, that Julius Caesar dropped dead stabbed, multiple times right at the feet of a statue of Pompey. but what happened next? those who had s- murdered Caesar, had felt, that it would be possible for them, to restore the old style of government. where there was no big boss. this was impossible, Caesar's supporters couldn't stand them, uh and Caesar's supporters were led by Mark Antony who you can see there uh at the top looking as if he'd been at one too many parties. <SS LAUGH> uh, he tried to take over after Caesar's um, take complete control of Caesar's party and Caesar's supporters, uh after Caesar's assassination. problem was that also after Caesar's assassination, he had a dinner party uh with the leaders of the conspirators. and nobody, in Caesar's side could really trust him after that. uh because nobody quite knew where where the chips would fall and, and he had tried to straddle both sides of the fence, uh and then there so later he'd gone down to give his fam- famous funeral oration, the one that sh- that s- Shakespeare so brilliantly rewrote to begin with friends Romans countrymen lend me your ears, the original was perhaps somewhat less... wordy, or at least Antony perhaps had a little less to say, because what he had done was arrange for choruses of singers, to sing hymns in Caesar's memory, it was sort of like a rock concert in the forum, uh while a spinning image of Caesar was erected above the funeral pyre displaying the wounds of Caesar. uh so you can imagine that, the spinning bleeding wax Caesar, circling around on a cart, while people sing songs about him, which ends with an invitation to go burn down the houses of his political rivals. the Romans loved display i mean if the Romans could go to Disneyland they'd be there all the time, uh led by Mark Antony. um, but Antony obtained control of the situation in Rome he was a decent enough general, uh better than most around him. but again he lacked critical political skills. it didn't help, uh that he liked to drink, an extraordinary amount. uh Cicero provides a scene_ Cicero of course hated his guts, uh but he, produces a brilliant depiction of Antony, uh, coming out of the forum after uh w- uh after a uh wedding party the night before, uh and as he sat down to hold court promptly losing his breakfast. um and Cicero has various extended comments on it and it may even have happened. uh Cicero again of course you know is on your list of people, uh for Friday and you'll see him endlessly discussed in the Literary Texts and the Roman Empire, uh and the Rom- and the Roman Historian, he is the greatest single, Roman man of letters, uh in the first century B-C and was recognized as a model for all later writing of Latin. and again he was a man who was a brilliant political speaker, uh who published his speeches as a way of creating a political image for himself which you could see again in the Literary Texts, uh book_ uh stood somewhat to the right of Roman politics. uh but remained a very powerful figure because he was able to speak so well. uh public oratory matters a lot in the Roman world, uh and he would get up and he could sway a crowd in the forum he could sway the senate to do what he wanted to do. uh and he was, uh really really quite again a a brilliant man in his, in his own way, uh, and he, among others helped drive Antony from power in Rome in forty-four, uh and they would support a young man not yet nineteen years old, Gaius Octavius who Caesar had adopted in his will, uh and had um as his heir. um, it didn't help as well that Antony had a thing for Cleopatra, who was the other person that you can see there on your slide. Cleopatra was the queen of Egypt, and the Romans had a dislike for people with royal titles. um, it didn't help his relationship with, uh Gaius Octavius the future emperor Augustus, that he started having this affair with Cleopatra while he was married to Octavius's sister. uh not really the best most subtle thing that you could possibly do. didn't help his reputation in Rome that his affair also involved wild dinner parties in Alexandria, where it is alleged that various of his associates would paint themselves blue take off their clothes and roll around on the floor wearing fish tails. <SS LAUGH> that may or may not be true. uh but it made a good story. um the tendency to drink, the tendency to um, take off with Cleopatra for months at a time, uh led to squandered opportunities. uh and he probably could've, done what he wanted to do to be the next Caesar. um, but he was lazy. and at the end he lost out to the emperor Augustus. <P :06> now who was Augustus? first of all, he begins, with the name of Caesar and we'll look at a slide, uh just after this one, um, to see just what it means, to use_ well actually let's see here... um and here he is th- what he means by the name of Caesar. he's born Gaius Octavius, he is the, son of a Roman by the name of Gaius Octavius, and Caesar's, and a sister of Caesar. um, he's adopted by Caesar in his will, and so when he's first coming to power, he tells everybody that, my name is Gaius Julius Caesar, the son of Julius, or Gaius Julius the son of Julius Caesar. i am the living embodiment of the political testament of my deceased adoptive father. uh and this is a very powerful message. Roman soldiers as his armies fight against those of Antony, actually f- mutinied and forced their generals to stop fighting. some would say we will not fight against the name of Caesar and others said if you bear the name of Caesar, then you must do something first about the assassins of Caesar and stop trying to kill Antony and Antony stop trying to kill him they forced an alliance between Antony and and the power of the name is important. then it turned out that Julius Caesar conveniently turned into a god, in forty-two, there was a um uh mete- a comet, spied above the city of Rome, it was interpreted as the soul of Caesar in heaven, uh and so he got to change his name to Gaius Julius Son of a God Caesar, and obviously it's better be son of a god than son of Julius. uh, but that is the beginning of a tr- of a subtle transformation forty-two is also an interesting year useful to become a son of a god in because that's the year, in which the assassins of Caesar were finally defeated at the battle of Philippi. um, then um after maintaining himself in this wonderful style, um in the next few years he engages in a war with a son of Pompey, who had a large fleet off the coast of Italy, uh and finally uh manages to defeat the son of Pompey, uh and he takes a new name. i mean it's, again to defeat the son of Pompey is sort of, misnomer, he is, appoints the man who defeats the son of Pompey because when Augustus or Octavian as he then was, got on a ship, he tended to become violently seasick, and spent the major naval battles that occurred under his technical comp- command, hiding in his cabin, uh which by the way is also where he spent most of the major battles in which he was theoretically in command, the battle of Philippi he was allegedly so sick he couldn't appear in the, uh before his troops, uh who promp- who, uh were not highly successful, uh and had to flee and hide into the woods. he was well enough to go run and hide in the woods but he wasn't well enough to go and watch the battle. um, but he wasn't a coward at all. um, nonetheless he takes, a new name, as a result of his victories he's beginning to sort of strike out on his own, and he takes the name victorious general, that's what imperator means so you can now see when you meet him on the street you could say oh how are you? uh you are the Victorious General Son of a God Caesar, uh how very nice for you. um, and you can see how Roman names can be used to carry a message. um, and the way you can alter your name is partially a political message. and then when he becomes all-powerful in twenty-seven, he changes his name completely and you can see Julius Caesar, has receded very much into the background he uses the name of Caesar, to gain power initially, but as he becomes more and more powerful the memory of Caesar goes further and further in the background, and you wouldn't imagine w- really much there at all when he becomes the Victorious General Son of a God Caesar Extraordinary Human Being, which is what Augustus means. um, uh so there he is. um and the name of Caesar and the name of Augustus are very useful things to keep in mind as a way of, reflecting on the, uh... okay. so needless to say with the name, uh he also was supported very much by Caesar's veterans. um, and they feel that, his survival and their survival, are intimately linked and again notice, this important point that we've alluded to already in this hour, that Roman armies are loyal to generals they're not loyal to the state, until the general becomes the state. as it will do in the case of Augustus. uh, these veterans matter, because when we talked about warfare last time you remember, uh we discussed what a physical process it is, how well conditioned you have to be and indeed ha- skillful hand-to-hand fighter you have to be. Caesar's veterans with ten years of experience behind them were unquestionably the finest soldiers in the Mediterranean world. and we're told in fact in forty-three when Antony and Octavian were, engaged in a civil war that two veteran legions encountered each other, one on either side, and everyone else stood back and watched, because there was no point in these legions raised of younger soldiers, trying to intervene with the old veterans, and they all knew whichever of these two, units won, that would be the victory in the battle. because nobody else could stand up to the people, who were involved. um, he is also utterly ruthless. uh Caesar, had a tendency, to spare his enemies. uh Caesar was a man, again of considerable political char- personal charm, uh and he was also, very much opposed to anything that Sulla stood for. and he wa- the last thing he was going to do, was to engage in a wholesale massacre of people who had opposed him. he felt he could beli- build a new world, without engaging in that kind of behavior. and of course he would prove to be wrong. Octavian slash Augustus was not going to make that mistake. and in forty-three he joined with Mark Antony, to issue an edict of proscription, which made anything that Sulla did look like a Christmas party. hundreds of people died, uh the first one was in fact Cicero, who was hunted down by Antony's soldiers, decapitated, his head and his hand were stuck up on the Roman, on the Rostra in in Rome, and Antony's wife stuck a pin through the tongue of Cicero um, reflecting on the things that sh- he'd had to say about her as well, uh, but again the this period of the of forty-three forty-two saw hundreds of deaths, confiscations of, hundreds of estates to support and to pay the army that Ocatvian and Antony were gonna use against the assassins of Caesar. um, he was able to conciliate factions, he may've been completely ruthless, but he knew how to talk to people and that's his greatest, in many ways his greatest skill. uh he was able to talk to Cicero, he was able to talk to Caesar's supporters, uh in the long run he would even be able to s- talk to Antony's supporters. he was able to, bring people together. you knew that, if you opposed him you would die. but he had also made it very clear, that there would be room for you to join his his party, to join his faction. and this is what sets him apart from Sulla. in Sulla, you were either with me, at the beginning, or against me at the beginning, and if you were against me at the beginning, that's just too b- bad. uh, with Augustus, he says you know perfectly well that you're very lucky that i've spared your life, but now that i have, uh why don't you come along and join my, join my party? uh this is a an ability, um that really stands him in good stead and he is as i have said an absolutely appalling soldier. uh he is, you know we've seen that military ability has often been intimately connected with, success in Roman political society. Marius was a great soldier, Sulla was a successful soldier, Pompey was a great soldier, uh Caesar was a great soldier, um, Antony was a decent enough soldier and Augustus just stank he was a physical coward. um, he didn't like watching people um g- watching battles because, they made him scared. uh he didn't like being on the deck of a ship during the sea battles because he threw up, um, uh you name it i- he i mean he was virtually a caricature of a Roman when it came to a battle. but he knew how to hire, and he knew how to trust 'em. uh and he hired a series and employed a series of very good generals to do the fighting for him... now, um, the main events in his rise to power reflect and are connected with the name, um we have the war at Mutina and again look at how he changes his enemies all the time. in forty-three he's against Mark Antony, late in forty-three he joins with Antony and Lepidus, who is another supporter of Caesar's and in- had indeme- independent command of an army, but this (xx) conciliate factions, from a very young age this is what he's able to do. he's able to go from being Antony's enemy to Antony's ally. and they defeat Brutus, and the assassins of Caesar in forty-two, um he fights Sextus Pompey the son of of Pompey in thirty-s- from f- between forty-two and thirty-six. uh he removes Lepidus in thirty-six, and then defeats Antony at the battle of Actium in thirty-one B-C. if there is one date, that you remember, aside from forty-four B-C and the death of Caesar, remember thirty-one B-C. this is the date at which the monarchy at Rome was firmly and finally established, by virtue of the fact as one great Roman historian, put it, writing in the second century A-D, there weren't nobody else left. because they had all been either killed or brought within the faction of Augustus. it is from this time onwards, that a success- that a monarchy will, come into being, where one man will succeed another, uh without any period um, by a legal process, that had never happened in Rome before there had been no legal process, there had been p- no position to hand on. uh but now it comes into being and it evolves in the long lifetime of Augustus, uh after, thirty-one B-C. the regime is based upon what he regards as the consensus, of all men. um, when you look through, H-double-oh-two the Res Gestae of Augustus you will see, the word consensus is used many times, it's used in Latin and then the translation is intended to cat- catch that. perhaps the most significant of all of these, is when he describes the aftermath of his victory over Mark Antony at the battle of Actium. begins with that section begins with, sexto et septimo, consulato meo, postquam bella civilia exstinxeram, consensu universorum potitus rerum omnium rem publicam, ex mea potestate in arbitrio senatus populusque Romani in my sixth and seventh consulship, when i had extinguished civil w- after i had extinguished civil wars, when through the consensus of all living people, i was all-powerful, i transferred the Roman republic, from my power into that of the senate and people of Rome. a remarkable statement, uh for any single one man to issue. and the Latin, is remarkably sort of, redolent pompous tone struck any reader as it did another late Roman historian who when alluding to that would simply say, um the sixth and seventh consulships of Augustus would sum up immediately, uh memory of that one passage that Augustus wrote, but look what he's saying. i have extinguished civil wars. now the absolute opposite of consensus, is bellum civile or civil war. and then in that phrase, postquam bella civilia exstinxeram consensu universorum after i had extinguished civil war, by the consensus of all men, by the agreement of all human beings, i was then powerful over all, the connection between extinguishing civil war, and the existence of the power of consensus, in that phrase is very significant because that is what the regime is about. the, demise of civil war and the consensus of all Romans who will agree that Augustus is the greatest thing um, since the beginning of time, uh which he also thought. is there any possibility of getting the slides please? okay. uh there we go um, thank you. now look at his, another image of Augustus here, um this image so-called Prima Porta <P :05> it's actually, well, the focus isn't great is it? right. okay because (you'll) see this sort of image of him he never changed his appearance by the way as we saw, even though he lived to be seventy-seven years old he always sort of looked like, a youthfully, youthful guy i wish i could say the same, <SS LAUGH> um but sort of staring off into sa- in into space, um with a breastplate on and on that breastplate, uh is an image of a barbarian handing, Roman standards over to him. um, and he's doing it peacefully. he wins fighting through negotiation, as well as through warfare, uh and in the latter part of H-double-oh-two he will tell you, how his armies have conquered the world, and that triumphal arch that you can see on this slide too, and a- Augustus and a four horse chariot, images of the people he defeated all round the place, uh the arch celebrating the battle of Actium, which he conveniently has pointed out, um had ceased to be a part of a civil war but was a foreign war. in H-double-oh-two, uh as well in this text, uh there are five sections. uh and as you look fo- through it keep it in mind, they they really explain the theory behind uh the rise of Augustus to a, uh to his position. the first three chapters are, the rise to power. how i went, from being a nineteen-year-old boy, and how i re- saved the repubic public, um, from the, domination of a fan- vindicavi rem publicam oppressum um, uh dominationus- dominatio factiones, i in libertatem how i, restored the Roman republic's, which was oppressed by the domination of a faction, into liberty, how i brought liberty out of domination and what he's saying is i thought Antony was a jerk. um, but he's he he uses this language and, he stands for libertas freedom what does freedom mean, uh to a Roman? um... it can mean a very great number of things. it has no single meaning. at one po- time it will mean, libertas can mean the, ordinary workings of the Roman constitution. and another time, it can mean, freedom from having to be told b- to be told what to do by somebody else. um, the meaning of the word libertas shifts, and Augustus shifts it what Augustus means by libertas is the freedom of the Roman state to be ruled by Augustus. um, and then the public honors. now this is in many ways the most, uh the first time you read it you might say this is you know, what is happening? you know there's this astonishingly boring list of things. uh but it's not boring. uh it is, what's missing, that counts. the position of Augustus, is the accumulation of all of these different individual honors. and Augustus keeps telling us, and the senate and the people voted th- this, and the senate and the people voted that, and they were so nice that they wanted me to do this and, on this occasion they asked me to be dictator but i decided i didn't want to do it and i restored the grain supply of the people of Rome in three days, because i'd been hoarding the grain so i could do it, didn't quite say that, um, and so on and so forth, the position of Augustus remember you're_ as he said, once i had, was powerful, over the entire world through the consensus of all men, um, of all human beings, uh i transferred the state from my power into that of the Roman senate and people, and how nice of the Roman senate and people they just gave it all back to me bit by bit. um, he created something which he referred to as my station. statio mea he wrote to his grandson in the year, two B-C, saying i hope desperately my dear little ass that's what he called his grandson, um, uh that you won't become sick. because uh, you know i so much want you to succeed ad meum stationem to my, to my position. uh he would write to his old (xx) Tiberius who he basically didn't like, uh saying you know i i do hope that you don't become sick lest your mother and i should die and the Roman state should tremble. uh, others would speak of this position of Augustus, not a single office. it's a collection of many different offices. and that's what really appears in those sections he nowhere says_ there there isn't even a word for it. we call him the princeps or the emperor. but, that's a word that we've made up and we apply backwards. when he uses the word princeps of himself he uses it in two completely different ways. um, princeps means leading man, or nu- numero uno or whatever. um, it can be used to mean the most respected member of the Roman senate, and then he uses it to mean, a- the general leader of the Roman world against barbarians. it isn't until he dies, that somebody actually defines what it is that he was, uh and passes on all of his powers to his successor. um, and then you have the benefactions. uh and this is very much the world of the Roman aristocrat here. the benefactions of Augustus, uh aside from peace and you can see this great memorial here, uh the altar of peace, are in a way saying thank you to the Roman people for all the things they gave to him. this is a central aspect of the theory of ancient government. the wealthy and the powerful rule, but in return for that they are expected to give back to the poor and the downtrodden. so Augustus gives the people of Rome, free grain, or cheap grain. he gives them a lot of cash. he gives them money from the legacies of Caesar, Caesar had ordered that an, large amount of money be distributed to the Roman people, he gives them money on top of what Caesar had asked, uh that they be given, he settles them abroad in new cities which many of them seem to have wanted to do, um he provides them fantastic games, uh again uh, games and politics go hand in hand, uh and he sponsors 'em he puts 'em on he pays for them, and these two sections balance each other you see, and these three sections really support each other. there is the rise to saving Rome, and then the public honors to thank him for rising to power, and then the benefactions, to thank the Roman people, for recognizing the fact that he's risen to power. uh, but it's as if it's part of a continuing dialogue, between Augustus and the Roman people, oh Augustus you've saved us you're so great yes thank you very much would you like some more money? yes that's very good. uh, would you like a new temple? yes i'll put the new temple over here. i'm sure you will all enjoy this enormously, um and then we have the conquests. and, you have the civil order of Rome, as you can see takes up the bulk of this do- document. uh from four to twenty-four twenty chapters. um how the people liked him what he gave to them, and then the conquest of the rest of the world. uh the second thing that he stood for was military success, uh and always against barbarian peoples. and you can see this on this, the so-called gemma Augustae the gem of Augustus. um, this sort of imagery of Augustus there he is at the top sitting there, um, being crowned with a crown of victory, uh talking to the goddess of wisdom Minerva, uh, and look at what's, at his feet. but northern barbarian peoples they always look sad they always do in Roman art they're so sad, we're so sad that we've been conquered and then we're being enslaved etcetera, with with soldiers, uh raising above them, uh an image of victory. uh and those are the conquests that he described the reasons, uh why Rome needs him, and then the conclusion, um it's like a good essay we've written our several paragraphs and now in conclusion i'll tell you why i'm still the most wonderful person that ever lived, uh and why you thank me for it. uh, so that's how to read it in those five sections. what does it tell us about Augustus? what are the major points of the public, um, of the public image? first of all, that he is a traditional politician. uh, Roman reformers are, inevitably going to p- portray themselves as, maintaining the status quo. cuz the Romans are greatly devout they have a term the mos maiorum the custom of the ancestors. uh and he will maintain that, he is a traditional politician. he is a great benefactor to the Roman people, as we've already seen. he seeks nothing in excess, okay? uh at one point he says i held no position, that didn't already exist and no- nothing new was created for me a- biggest lie in all of the Res Gestae. uh, but in a sense it isn't you know, no single new position was created for me i just happened to take every possible conceivable position th- th- that, um, you know there's something called the tribunician power which i acquired well the tribunician power has always existed, th- never been separated from the office and given to me but,= you know that's alright. uh i have imperium maius he never says it he never uses the phrase, anywhere. he had what was called greater imparity. uh which enabled him to give orders to anybody in any province in the Roman empire never mentions that. uh it just is there by implication cuz it's not an office, it's just something that he gets. um, but it's he tries to show you he seeks nothing to excess. and then critically, the civil war is not his fault. the very opening lines of it, when i was not yet nineteen years old, i liberated the Roman republic, oppressed by the domination, of a faction that phrase which we'd looked at earlier. um, it isn't his fault. the Roman state had fallen apart, and he, was going to save it. he is not the cause for the demise of libertas in the Roman world. uh he is, its savior in his, in his version. you can believe that if you like. you can believe the people who for- who found monarchies are saviors of democratic systems you can believe that. uh, but that's what he wants to, wants you to see the civil war isn't his fault the situation had already fallen apart people had already murdered his father and he was right to take vengeance upon them for the murder of his father. and then that he is a great consular he justifies his position, and he always r- he refers throughout in tremendously interesting language in this case, he kept ref- he keeps referring to exercitus meus, to my army. now, and the terms are interchangeable cuz sometimes it'd be exercitus populi romani the army of the Roman people, and sometimes it's my army and he_ it's just an unconscious trading of these phrases back and forth, um it's his army with which he conquers all these people, but most important of all, is this notion that his pose- his position, descends, from the will of the Roman people. he doesn't take anything. they give it all to him. and then he, humbly decides to serve the Roman people, as he would have it. uh, and finally, um, i'm sorry that's doesn't show clearly, uh he's the example to everybody. uh and he is very conscious of the fact that he should be an example that his life should be an example, um we have_ the biography of uh of Augustus in antiquity, you know showed that he was very conscious of the fact that everybody was looking at him, that what he would write would be an example to other people, that he was setting an example, uh of excellent Romans, uh to follow, uh in coming generations... it is also, of course, um an extraordinary piece of propaganda. uh, as you read through it you will see again that often, uh action is initiated by the senate and people. well, there're various ways in which actions can be initiated by the senate and people of Rome, such as, you send a letter to them telling them that you want them to initiate the action. um, the Roman people are always flowing out of Rome and offering to do various things for him. um, but these are often actions which are dictated by custom, uh and what have you. uh, we know, very much that, for instance there was a debate in the senate as to what title, um, the, Victorious General Son of a God Caesar should take after the end of the civil wars, uh and some people thought he should be this and some people thought he should be that, so they gave him a list and said what do you want? and he picked Augustus. um, and others, in in many other ways, uh he would have people sending him lists of powers many of which had been suggested already, uh, and he would pick what he wanted. um, the process of initiation, is formally correct by the senate and people, it's a problem of what put their i- or who put the ideas in their head that they wanted to do something that's, invaria- inevitably Augustus. there is of course in this text no mention whatsoever of the proscriptions. another commend- i mean, we'll just banish that from memory, and other Augustan propaganda is all blamed on Antony it's all Antony's fault, Antony killed Caes- Cicero, Antony's a bad guy, the death of Cicero, shall haunt the memory of Antony for the rest of time says one Augustan historian, uh etcetera. uh, no mention of that, and the civil wars, wherever possible are gonna become foreign wars. now he may have extinguished civil war but we really wanna forget the fact that he fought quite a few of 'em, uh and in later life he keeps trying to push back, this sort of rebellious image, because the one example he does not want to leave, to the rest of the Roman people, is this notion that if you manage to take control of a large army and attack Rome you too can become a ruler. um, we'll leave that one out, as it were... um, but another f- section of this text, is the way that it is a reflection of the interests of the main groups in society. and you'll see this also as it's broken down. um, first and foremost it reflects, uh the interests of the senate. the way that Augustus negotiates his power, but what the senate wants above all else is stability. is order. is an end to war. the plebs, what do the Roman people want? what do they really want from the government? well they want money, they want games, uh they want somebody who will look after their welfare. uh that large section on the benefactions gives you a good idea of how you become a very successful Roman politician. spend a lot of your own money on th- uh on the p- inhabitants of the city of Rome. it also, brings back, brings us back to something that you've seen discussed in the introduction to Life Death and Entertainment in the Roman World, uh and that is this very great importance of the inhabitants of the city of Rome. uh they are their own political interest group. they have physical access to the Roman emperor in a way other people do not. at one point in the early thirties when Augustus was, arm- armies were losing against Sextus Pompey and the city was blockaded and grain was short, when Augustus tried to walk through the forum he was pelted with rocks. there is no secret service, in Rome, in the thirties and twenties B-C there becomes one a little bit later, uh as we shall see in response to this sort of thing. but public order is a very tenuous thing in Rome. when people are not happy they are gonna let you know about it. they are gonna let you know about it not only by throwing stones at you in the forum but by booing you in the theater, by hissing at you at the chariot races, by refusing to applaud your gladiatorial combats. um, the Roman people, the benefactions that the Roman people want, are a statement, from Augustus, that he cares. now, think back to what we were talking about earlier on in this hour, about the alienation, of the lower classes of the Roman world. about the fact that people, felt that the government of the Roman state was not taking an interest in their welfare. Augustus, and benefactions of his friends around the world, are a clear statement that he recognizes that problem. uh the Roman state will now be responsive, to the Roman people. the goods of empire to some degree will be distributed to the Roman people. there is no better way to see the distribution of the goods of empire than the fact that in a gladiatorial combat, uh or in a surface r- race where they will be paraded before you, or at a beast hunt, where animals from around the world will be put on display so that you can watch them die, and you can feel for once that you're in control of something and be, awestruck by the power of the man who can bring, an elephant to Rome and put him out on stage for you and what have you. and what does the army want? the army wants two things. one of the greatest weaknesses in the Roman republic is there was no retirement plan for soldiers. they were dependent for their retirement pay entirely on their generals. successful general good package bad general bad package. uh Augustus regularizes the retirement sche- schedule for s- Roman soldiers. and it's enormously expensive. you get, sixteen times the annual income of a family of four when you retire, as a Roman soldier. uh we t- ten- uh you can go from, being a member of the peasant class, living at a subsistence level, if you survive your sixteen years of service in the Roman army, at the end of it you're a rich person. and the state has taken care of you, in the meantime. and aside from the settlement, uh and land, and a place to go, the army wants to be alive. soldiers on the whole don't want to be dead, uh and Augustus does manage to select on the whole good generals to lead them. the victories that you see at the end of the Res Gestae, reflect the importance of victory to the army, of they reflect the the importance of the fact that these people are going to live through to their retirement, uh in the very end. but these three groups, the senate the plebs and the army, uh that Augustus is writing for in the Res Gestae sum up for you, the three most important political classes, uh in Rome, in the time, of Augustus. <P :06> and there we will leave him, uh for today, uh for next time i wanna then move, on into looking at the Roman family, and then as i say at the last part of of the time, uh we'll have that quick quiz. take care. 
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