Page 160 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

Augustus. Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son, emerged victorious from the civil conflict that racked the republic after Caesar’s assassination. The senate awarded him the title Augustus. This marble statue from Prima Porta is an idealized portrait, based on Greek rather than Roman models. The statue was meant to be a propaganda piece depicting a youthful general addressing his troops. At the bottom stands Cupid, the son of Venus, goddess of love, as a reminder that the Julians, Caesar’s family, claimed descent from Venus and thus the ruler had a divine background.
for a longer period. The shift to a professional army was completed when early emperors created a bureauc- racy that could train and administer such an army. The peace of the Roman Empire depended on the army, and so did the security of the princeps. Though primar- ily responsible for guarding the frontiers of the empire, the army was also used to maintain domestic order within the provinces.
122 Chapter 6 The Roman Empire
Augustus maintained a standing army of twenty- eight legions, or about 150,000 men. Roman legionaries were recruited only from the citizenry and, under Augustus, largely from Italy. Augustus also maintained a large contingent of auxiliary forces—around 130,000— enlisted from the subject peoples. He was also responsi- ble for establishing the praetorian guard. Although nominally a military reserve, these “nine cohorts of elite troops,” roughly 9,000 men, had the important task of guarding the person of the princeps. Eventually, the praetorian guard would play an important role in mak- ing and deposing emperors.
The role of the princeps as military commander gave rise to a title by which this ruler eventually came to be known. When victorious, a military commander was acclaimed by his troops as imperator (im-puh-RAH-tur), a title that is the source of the word emperor. Augustus was so acclaimed on a number of occasions. Although this title was applied to Augustus and his successors, Augustus still preferred to use the title princeps.
ROMAN PROVINCES AND FRONTIERS Augustus inaugu- rated a new system for governing the provinces. Under the republic, the senate had appointed the provincial governors. Now certain provinces were allotted to the princeps, who assigned deputies known as legates to govern them. These legates were from the senatorial class and held office as long as the emperor chose. The senate continued to designate the governors of the remaining provinces, but the authority of Augustus enabled him to overrule the senatorial governors and establish a uniform imperial policy.
Augustus added more territory to the Roman Empire than any other single Roman. In the East, instead of creating new provinces, he established cli- ent kingdoms, continuing a policy that had begun in the early second century B.C.E. with the conquest of Greece and parts of the Near East; this policy enabled Augustus to minimize the Roman military presence in the East so that he could use his forces elsewhere. He conquered the central and maritime Alps and then expanded Roman control of the Balkan Peninsula up to the Danube River. His attempt to conquer Ger- many failed, however, when three Roman legions under Varus were massacred in 9 C.E. in the Teuto- burg Forest by a coalition of German tribes. The defeat severely dampened Augustus’s enthusiasm for continued expansion in central Europe. Thereafter, the Romans were content to use the Rhine as the frontier between the Roman province of Gaul and the German tribes to the east. In fact, Augustus’s
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Braccio Nuovo, Vatican Museums, Vatican State//Scala/Art Resource, NY