The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus

Assembled from 64 blocks · 2 evidence · 44 related

1. Story
2. Octavian formally returns the state to the Senate and People and receives in exchange an extraordinary provincial command and the name Augustus. The Republic is declared restored; in practice a monarchy is founded. The settlement is deliberately ambiguous, and reconstructing exactly what powers were conferred in 27 versus 23 BCE remains a scholarly argument.
3. Knowledge
4. Rome
5. Roman Law
6. The Roman Legion
7. Augustus (Gaius Octavius / Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus)
8. The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
9. Connections
10. Augustus (Gaius Octavius / Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus)
11. Roman Law
12. The Roman Legion
13. Rome
14. The Roman Legion
15. Assassination of Julius Caesar
16. Battle of Actium
17. The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
18. Rome
19. Latin as an Administrative Language
20. Justinian I
21. Traditional foundation of the Roman Republic
22. The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
23. The Antonine Constitution (Constitutio Antoniniana)
24. Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I
25. Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire
26. Compilation of the Corpus Iuris Civilis
27. Ottoman capture of Constantinople
28. Rome
29. Roman Citizenship (civitas Romana)
30. The Roman Road Network
31. Hadrian's Wall
32. Augustus (Gaius Octavius / Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus)
33. Gaius Julius Caesar
34. Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus)
35. The Punic Wars
36. Caesar crosses the Rubicon
37. The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
38. Construction of Hadrian's Wall begins
39. The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent
40. The Antonine Constitution (Constitutio Antoniniana)
41. Alaric's Goths sack Rome
42. Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire
43. Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre), Rome
44. The Roman Legion
45. Roman Law
46. The Mediterranean Sea (Mare Nostrum)
47. Ostia Antica
48. Via Appia
49. Traditional foundation of the Roman Republic
50. Construction of the Via Appia begins
51. The Punic Wars
52. Caesar crosses the Rubicon
53. Assassination of Julius Caesar
54. The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
55. Inauguration of the Flavian Amphitheatre
56. Dedication of Constantinople
57. Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I
58. Alaric's Goths sack Rome
59. Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire
60. The Pantheon, Rome
61. The Pantheon dome spans about 43 m in unreinforced concrete
62. Evidence
63. Augustus's own account of his achievements, in Latin and Greek, listing offices, benefactions, conquests and the claim that he 'transferred the state to the free disposal of the Senate and People'. It is the founding document of the Principate's self-presentation and simultaneously a piece of political advocacy, not a neutral record.
64. Augustan coinage circulated imperial titulature, portraiture and slogans (CIVIBVS SERVATEIS, SIGNIS RECEPTIS, AEGYPTO CAPTA) to a largely non-reading population across three continents. Coinage is the empire's highest-volume communication medium and one of its few genuinely empire-wide standardisations.