However, Augustus is a figure so large and yet so distant from our own time that it is often hard for us today to understand him or to imagine what it meant to live in his time. But, the memories we have of Augustus and the stories we tell about him remain an important part of his enduring legacy. After Octavian dealt with the effects of this last civil war, he was a shrewd enough politician not to claim a monarchic title even though he had become the sole Roman ruler.
Instead he made a show of officially giving all of his powers back to the people of Rome and merely offering his services to the state should they need it. In his self-proclaimed generosity, he handled the defense of the frontier, the grain supply, and the maintenance of public works, thus taking on the biggest responsibilities of any government. As thanks, the Senate gave him a new name: Augustus. And he continued to expand the Roman Empire, reform the administration to lighten the tax burden, and increase the quality of living throughout the Mediterranean.
This story is usually told and appreciated like a power fantasy. Augustus went from a person of little significance to the most powerful man in the world by his cunning, as if he became a monarch with hardly anyone noticing. But, while we have little record of what common Romans might have thought, surely, the soldiers who died with gashes in their thighs or fractured skulls or drowned chained to the oars of warships would have noticed his meteoric rise to power.
So too would the men who were killed for supporting the wrong party or the people who had their land taken from them to placate the soldiers who survived. The women who lost their husbands, sons, and friends and who faced serious disadvantages if they did not help restore the population of Italy would also have noticed the effects of this rising, expansive leader.
They noticed, but there was nothing to be done, or perhaps they were too sick of fighting that they would take a megalomaniac in return for peace. Then we focus on how much good his power is doing—how grand the public works, how incredible the entertainments, how wealthy the city—that we overlook all the unsavory things he did to get that power. We ingest the story uncritically and appreciate the entertainment it gives.
We dwell not on the consequences of his actions because after two thousand years, the history seems so distant and disconnected from us that we see the people living then less like ourselves and more like imagined characters. Augustus lives on as a symbol of power, and the way we tell his story shows how we conceive and value power.
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