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brnycx's review
4.0
A surprisingly readable (considering how dense it is) biography of Augustus, the first Roman Emperor. This book does a good job of painting the complexity of Augustus's character, and did away with some of my assumptions of what a man who paved the way for turning the Republic into a monarchy would be like.
It starts with a lot of context, painting the scene of the Rome Augustus grew up in - one ravaged by a series of vicious civil wars, and which he in turn partook in when he sailed against Antony and Cleopatra. At this stage, he's essentially a warlord - able to exert huge influence by the (illegal) acquisition of a private army after Julius Caesar's murder.
Once all the threats are eliminated, Augustus shows himself to be an adept politician and propagandist, delicately maintaining the appearance of an independent Senate whilst increasingly consolidating his power. Over time, his military dominance of the empire brought a peace Rome hadn't experienced in decades.
This book, although limited by the sources, does a good job of bringing the complex man to life too. His reign was marked by many personal tragedies, including the loss of close family members, heirs and friends. One letters to his grandson, a favoured successor who died at the age of 23, is especially moving, where he affectionately calls him "my dear Gaius, my dearest little donkey". But, on the other hand, he harshly exiles his only daughter Julia for adultery and never sees her again, giving express orders for her not to be buried in the grand family mausoleum he had built. There are many contradictions like this - clear-headed statesman prone to fits of petulant rage, murderous warlord likely to grant you clemency, insanely rich while maintaining a humbler lifestyle (relative to the standards of later emperors of course) - and Goldsworthy draws them out, making Augustus feel more realised than I was expecting for a such a historic figure from our distant past.
It starts with a lot of context, painting the scene of the Rome Augustus grew up in - one ravaged by a series of vicious civil wars, and which he in turn partook in when he sailed against Antony and Cleopatra. At this stage, he's essentially a warlord - able to exert huge influence by the (illegal) acquisition of a private army after Julius Caesar's murder.
Once all the threats are eliminated, Augustus shows himself to be an adept politician and propagandist, delicately maintaining the appearance of an independent Senate whilst increasingly consolidating his power. Over time, his military dominance of the empire brought a peace Rome hadn't experienced in decades.
This book, although limited by the sources, does a good job of bringing the complex man to life too. His reign was marked by many personal tragedies, including the loss of close family members, heirs and friends. One letters to his grandson, a favoured successor who died at the age of 23, is especially moving, where he affectionately calls him "my dear Gaius, my dearest little donkey". But, on the other hand, he harshly exiles his only daughter Julia for adultery and never sees her again, giving express orders for her not to be buried in the grand family mausoleum he had built. There are many contradictions like this - clear-headed statesman prone to fits of petulant rage, murderous warlord likely to grant you clemency, insanely rich while maintaining a humbler lifestyle (relative to the standards of later emperors of course) - and Goldsworthy draws them out, making Augustus feel more realised than I was expecting for a such a historic figure from our distant past.
batbones's review against another edition
4.0
The best history book is not an unpunctuated flow of facts in a tell-all, nor a broad sweep that generalises fragments into trends where they may dangerously be none, but, as Goldworthy's masterpiece of a book proves, the meticulous putting together of facts woven with declared, substantiated conjecture, into something marvelously engaging, almost magical in its story-telling. Where the pieces can be seen to be pieces, and the gaps between declared no less than the silences they are, these seam lines declare a historian's laudable caution and modesty. And for a figure like Caesar Augustus, the question of 'what exactly do we know about his person?' is especially important, for a man out of whose mystery some have made myth, while others have rendered ruler in the word's less noble shades of meaning (oppressor, tyrant). Using the customs and rituals of 'ordinary', contemporary Roman life to pull impressions together where intermittent details are lacking (e.g. Augustus' childhood) is an interesting move done exceptionally well by deft pen and research. What is drawn through this book is an encounter with an exceptional person in Roman history. At the end of it, as this reader discovers, Caesar Augustus loses none of his charm and fascination he had held as a cultural figure before the book has begun.
scipio_africanus's review against another edition
5.0
Adrian Goldsworthy is undoubtedly one of the best Roman historians of recent years. Never a dull moment and always great insight. Im a Julius Caesar guy, but I can see why he adopted Octavian.
davehershey's review against another edition
5.0
A few months back I read Goldsworthy's biography of Julius Caesar, so it made sense to continue the story by reading the biography of Augustus Caesar. Simply put, this book is a fantastic account of the first Roman Emperor.
What I most appreciated was the story after Augustus had won the battle of Actium and the civil wars. Most overviews of history I've read go on to simply note that Augustus reigned until his death at 14 AD. But that's 45 years, a long reign in any era! Goldsworthy does not diminish the fact that Augustus had thousands of people killed and was as violent as any other military dictator. But as dictators go, Augustus is about as good as you can get and after the wars he set about to reforming and rebuilding the Empire. He left it in 14 AD much better then he found it.
Beyond Augustus' story, I was impressed with the character of Marcus Agrippa. Agrippa achieved great things in his own right and it is doubtful Augustus could have been so successful with Agrippa next to him. In a time of everyone competing for the top, it was amazing to me Agrippa remained loyal his entire life. He had no problem doing great things and giving credit to Augustus. I think we all could use an Agrippa by our sides throughout life.
It was also interesting to learn about how Augustus would have been referred. I always heard him as "Octavian" until he became "Caesar Augustus". But after Julius Caesar's death, when Octavian was adopted as his son, he went by "Caesar." So Goldsworthy calls him Caesar at this time, and when he has to mention the older Caesar he calls him Julius Caesar.
Finally, for those interested in Christian faith, there is an interesting appendix on the birth of Jesus. It was refreshing to read a historian with no skin in the game write on this. I have no idea what Goldsworthy's faith is, but he clearly is not trying to prove anything, like most Christians and skeptics who approach this text. He notes difficulties and probabilities and moves on.
Overall, a very interesting and engaging piece of historical biography.
What I most appreciated was the story after Augustus had won the battle of Actium and the civil wars. Most overviews of history I've read go on to simply note that Augustus reigned until his death at 14 AD. But that's 45 years, a long reign in any era! Goldsworthy does not diminish the fact that Augustus had thousands of people killed and was as violent as any other military dictator. But as dictators go, Augustus is about as good as you can get and after the wars he set about to reforming and rebuilding the Empire. He left it in 14 AD much better then he found it.
Beyond Augustus' story, I was impressed with the character of Marcus Agrippa. Agrippa achieved great things in his own right and it is doubtful Augustus could have been so successful with Agrippa next to him. In a time of everyone competing for the top, it was amazing to me Agrippa remained loyal his entire life. He had no problem doing great things and giving credit to Augustus. I think we all could use an Agrippa by our sides throughout life.
It was also interesting to learn about how Augustus would have been referred. I always heard him as "Octavian" until he became "Caesar Augustus". But after Julius Caesar's death, when Octavian was adopted as his son, he went by "Caesar." So Goldsworthy calls him Caesar at this time, and when he has to mention the older Caesar he calls him Julius Caesar.
Finally, for those interested in Christian faith, there is an interesting appendix on the birth of Jesus. It was refreshing to read a historian with no skin in the game write on this. I have no idea what Goldsworthy's faith is, but he clearly is not trying to prove anything, like most Christians and skeptics who approach this text. He notes difficulties and probabilities and moves on.
Overall, a very interesting and engaging piece of historical biography.
markk's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Ask most people who was the first Roman emperor, and the name you are mostly likely to hear is that of Julius Caesar. Yet for all his prominence in the events surrounding the fall of the Republic, it was not Julius Caesar who became Rome’s first emperor, but his great-nephew Caius Octavius, a man better known to history as Augustus. Named Caesar’s heir in the dictator’s will, Augustus spent over a decade after his great-uncle’s assassination consolidating power through a series of wars and alliances. After establishing himself as Rome’s sole ruler, he received from the Senate the titles of augustus and princeps, which not only confirmed Octavius’s ascendancy but the establishment as well of a new system of rule, one that would endure for centuries after his death.
Despite these achievements, Augustus’s lengthy reign has not received anywhere near the attention enjoyed by his legendary great uncle and the tumultuous events of the latter man’s life. Part of the reason for this, as Adrian Goldsworthy notes in his excellent biography of the emperor, is due to the uneven amount of information available about it in the surviving literary sources. These he employs with the growing body of physical evidence to provide not just an account of Augustus’s life, but an account as well of how the emperorship emerged to become the new center of power in the Roman Empire.
To recount Augustus’s life, Goldsworthy divides his book into five parts. Though the first of these covers the years of his upbringing, the paucity of reliable details leads the author to recount instead the contemporaneous events of the civil war and Julius Caesar’s rise to power. Not only does this help Goldsworthy set the context for Caius Octavius’s rise, it underscores the unique set of circumstances required for it. Had Caesar lost to Pompey, it is debatable whether history would even know his grand-nephew’s name; had he avoided or survived assassination, it is possible someone else would have been the beneficiary of Caesar’s contacts and alliances. Instead, Caius Octavius was the inheritor of the bulk of his great-uncle’s vast fortune and patronage network, catapulting him instantly to the front rank of politics.
Yet Caius Julius Caesar (as Caius Octavius now renamed himself) was just one contender for power in the vacuum caused by his great-uncle’s death. Thirteen years would pass before young Caesar would defeat the last of his enemies in battle to become the sole ruler of the republic. Recounting this process takes up the second and third parts of Goldsworthy’s book, as he details the various campaigns, partnerships, and conspiracies that brought it about. Here he downplays the inevitability of young Caesar’s rise, noting the numerous missteps and defeats that he suffered during this period. In many respects this period proved a learning process, one in which he learned how to better navigate politics and outmaneuver his enemies. Thanks to this experience, by the time of Mark Antony’s death in the aftermath of the battle of Actium in 31 BCE, Caius Julius Caesar had not only secured his power, he had mastered his ability to wield it on the Roman political scene.
The Senate’s vote of the title of augustus in 27 BCE was thus an acknowledgement of Caius Julius Caesar’s unprecedented status. Though Augustus held a variety of different offices in the years that followed, Goldsworthy makes clear in the final two sections of the book that his real power lay in his control over the military. This he exercised in a peripatetic existence punctuated by campaigns designed to add to Rome’s glory. Augustus was aided in his efforts by a select clique of family and friends with whom he shared power, an arrangement that Goldsworthy notes was virtually unique in Roman history. Yet the deaths of his adopted stepsons, Gaius and Lucius, and the banishment of Agrippa Postumus meant that Augustus soldiered on with the duties of his position right up to his death in 14 CE, aided only by the reluctant support of his successor, Tiberius.
Goldsworthy recounts all of this with an assuredness born of a thorough command of his subject. His confidence in his conclusions might be greater than his sources can support, but nevertheless speaks to a judgment honed by his considerably familiarity with the era. This he employs to bridge the many gaps in our knowledge of Augustus’s life and reign with speculation grounded in the sources we do have, supplemented by archaeological finds that fill out our understanding in important ways. Conveyed as it is with Goldsworthy’s deft writing style, it all makes for a biography that is a both an enjoyable read and one that is highly recommended for anyone seeking to learn about Rome’s first emperor and his enduring legacy for its empire.