Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor
by Anthony Everitt
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anthony EverittEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-10-09
ISBN: 0812970586
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor
Book Review: passable bio, but fails to evoke the times or explore its meaning
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a bio that covers the facts of Augustus' career and personal life, with some interpretation on controversies (such as Livia's purported murders). However, it only barely mentions the wider context - what was happening to the Empire, what the political changes meant, what it was like to live then. There was a lack of density to the writing, or it seemed an inability on the author's part to push beyond the surface of events. As such, I was continually disappointed in the reading experience.
Augustus is one of those figures that appears at historical watersheds: he embodies and also shapes his time, setting in motion forces that will dominate whole peoples for centuries. He started out in the country as Octavian, in a peripheral branch of the Julii family, of which Julius Caesar is the most famous. Somehow, perhaps on the way back from the Spanish civil wars, he was able to impress his great uncle Julius, who made him his heir just prior to his assassination. Octavian then became Octavius (a name change that Everitt inexplicably reverses), and at 19 is an aspirant to the center of political power in the world's greatest empire.
Rome at that time was facing a terrible dilemma: the institutions of the Republic were unable to cope with the complexities of the empire. In a way, governance by the Senate was amateurish, attention could not be focused on issues that needed resolution, and there were more opportunities to block action than to undertake it. This resulted in a drift towards autocracy, initiated by military leaders who commanded troups loyal only to their person in large part because political rivalries in the Senate hindered the great generals from taking care of their troups' retirement promises.
Octavian and Marc Antony were the two remaining Caesarians after the assassination of Julius, bitter rivals by temperament and thirst for power. Once Octavian emerged victorious, he consolidated power by maintaining the appearance of the Republic's institutions while holding military power with proconsular imperium in the largest colonies. At this time, he had a few trusted allies, Agrippa and Maecenas, who accomplished, respectively, great things in terms of rebuilding the EMpire and establishing its images of power. The result was a centrally controlled state that could implement long-terms policies of reform under the rule of law, with rights extended to members of the Empire, co-opting them into the Roman system as stakeholders. This is a political accomplishment of genius.
While this is ably covered in the book, it fails to push into new territory, such as questioning whether the Republic had to end the way that it did or if there might have been another way that would have left the future open to evolution in a more pliant manner than pure autocracy. In a way, it was a return to kingship with another name, the pattern that survived in most of the world into the 20C. It was the end of the great experiments in republican government in the ancient world.
Could it have been different? What might have happened had the Republic been preserved in a new form? What experiments in government might have been possible? These are paths that the author did not explore - there is no political theory in the book, and I felt that it cried out for it. In contrast, Heather's Fall of the Roman Empire, addresses many of these questions at a later period: it is a profound inquiry into the meaning of the late Empire. I was hoping for the same about the establishment of the Empire by Octavian, and this book did not provide it. Perhaps this is unfair, but I wanted much more.
Instead, the author looks at the personal relationships within Augustus' "Divine Family" and his never-ending search for an heir. Even here, which should be covered of course, he comes short. Livia is portrayed as a simple loving wife of great intelligence: Everitt dismisses any speculation on whether she murdered potential heirs as the crude stereotypes of evil step mothers. Maybe, but there is no way to know. Again, I wanted much more and felt continually disappointed in the conventionality of Everitt's approach.
Recommended only as the most superficial introduction. This book just isn't a full meal.
Summary of Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor
He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. As Rome's first emperor, Augustus transformed the unruly Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, for all of Western history to follow. Yet, despite Augustus's accomplishments, very few biographers have concentrated on the man himself, instead choosing to chronicle the age in which he lived. Here, Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of Cicero, gives a spellbinding and intimate account of his illustrious subject.Augustus began his career as an inexperienced teenager plucked from his studies to take center stage in the drama of Roman politics, assisted by two school friends, Agrippa and Maecenas. Augustus's rise to power began with the assassination of his great-uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and culminated in the titanic duel with Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
The world that made Augustus-and that he himself later remade-was driven by intrigue, sex, ceremony, violence, scandal, and naked ambition. Everitt has taken some of the household names of history-Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Antony, Cleopatra-whom few know the full truth about, and turned them into flesh-and-blood human beings.
At a time when many consider America an empire, this stunning portrait of the greatest emperor who ever lived makes for enlightening and engrossing reading. Everitt brings to life the world of a giant, rendered faithfully and sympathetically in human scale. A study of power and political genius, Augustus is a vivid, compelling biography of one of the most important rulers in history.
From the Hardcover edition.
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