Augustus Caesar Essay Research Paper Augustus Caesar

Augustus Caesar Essay, Research Paper Augustus Caesar, the Rome’s first true Emperor was the historical figure who had the greatest impact upon the western world between the dawn of civilization and the end of the middle ages. Augustus Caesar (31B.C. – 14 A.D.) was originally named Gaius Octivian, the name Augustus was granted by the Roman Senate, which means magnificent. The success of Augustus was he developed an honest government, and during his reign, he rebuilt many structures to improve the Roman Empire, which included temples and roads with classical style. He created an efficient postal service that encouraged free trade among the region. The soul power of Augustus had established him to distribute the long standing of Rome. Augustus Caesar did not gain his

position easily. He was the adopted heir of Julius Caesar, and he attained his position and held it without meeting with the same fate as his Uncle Julius Caesar. Augustus had to bring the people to his side and win the support of the military in order to gain his trust from the senate. He had raised his own military. Meanwhile, many of the senate was against Mark Antony, who was the right hand man of Julius Caesar and also wanted to become the heir. The leader of the senate, Cicero, realized Augustus was a useful alley, ordered Angustus to make war on Antony and forced him to retreated to Gaul, but Cicero failed to do so (Scarre, 17). Because during 43B.C. “Augustus marched on Rome with his army, and compelled the senate to to accept him as a consul” (Scarre, 17). Later on,

Augustus met Antony and Lepidus and the three of them started to form a triumvirate, which excluded the senate power. They divided three parts of the Roman Empire. Antony took the east, Augustus took the west, and Lepidus away to Africa, since he was no long an equal partner (Scarre, 17). Augustus started to gain some reputation in the west; meanwhile Antony had left and conquered Egypt in order to gain his popularity. Unfortunately he married the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, which was a disgraceful to Rome. Augustus raised an army of his own to fight Antony. The battle took place in Actium, and Augustus won the battle. In addition, Egypt was also conquered by Augustus and it became a new territory of Rome. “Augustus’s overall policy was to keep the military establishment at

the minimum necessary to ensure peace within the empire and guard the frontiers” (Scarre, 24). The senate realized Augustus’ power and invited him to become the Empire of Rome and the senate did whatever he told them to do. Meanwhile, Augustus’ role of emperor was to never call himself emperor. He referred to himself as “the first citizen”. In this way Augustus presented himself as an ordinary Roman citizen doing his duty to the state. During his reign, he developed a fiscal policy, which made the economy stronger by collecting taxes. He believed that people’s fortunes were going down the drain “thus private individuals were able to save nothing or almost nothing because, in addition to the other exactions, they were obliged to find slaves for the navy, buying them

if they had none, and senators had to mend the roads at their own expenses. Only those who bore arms got rich” (Millar and Sega, 109). At first, the tax system was only approved by the senate. The tax which was collected would flow directly into private and public landed property, rebuild structures, census and contribute five percent tax to manumission of slaves (Millar and Sega, 110). These tax are only applied to citizens which the fiscal system had benefits for them, by the guarantee of the security of property. The tax that was collected was also contributed to rebuild the Roman Empire. Augustus claimed he had rebuilt eighty-two different structures, including roads, aqueducts, temples and buildings with remarkable work of art created a classical style. Most of them were