Caesar Augustus Quotes

I found Rome built of bricks; I leave her clothed in marble.

How you are in this place that has been sealed since the time of Caesar Augustus?" one of the archaeologists demanded in amazement. "I was looking for my sister," Dan quipped. "Your sister?" "Oh—here she is." Dan reached through the opening and hauled out an equally grubby Amy.

God did not choose Herod or Pontius Pilate or Caesar Augustus as His instrument. He chose the unknown son of an unknown carpenter in one of the least important stretches of the Roman Empire.

Mankind in the aggregate I have found to be brutish, ignorant and unkind, whether those qualities were covered by the coarse tunic of the peasant of the white and purple toga of a senator. And yet in the weakest of men, in moments when they are alone and themselves, I have found veins of strength like gold in decaying rock; in the cruelest of men, flashes of tenderness and compassion; and in the vainest of men, moments of simplicity and grace.

When you fear nothing, you have nothing to fear

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times. But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

Who had the biggest army in the ancient world? Caesar Augustus in Rome, and that is precisely how he was able to dominate that world. Nevertheless, his army is nothing compared to this angelic stratias that has lined up behind the new emperor. Remember Isaiah's prophesy that Yahweh would one day bare his mighty arm before all the nations. N.T. Wright has magnificently observed that the prophecy finds its fulfillment in the tiny arm of the baby Jesus coming out of his manger-crib.

The historical problems with Luke are even more pronounced. For one thing, we have relatively good records for the reign of Caesar Augustus, and there is no mention anywhere in any of them of an empire-wide census for which everyone had to register by returning to their ancestral home. And how could such a thing even be imagined? Joesph returns to Bethlehem because his ancestor David was born there. But David lived a thousand years before Joseph. Are we to imagine that everyone in the Roman Empire was required to return to the homes of their ancestors from a thousand years earlier? If we had a new worldwide census today and each of us had to return to the towns of our ancestors a thousand years back—where would you go? Can you imagine the total disruption of human life that this kind of universal exodus would require? And can you imagine that such a project would never be mentioned in any of the newspapers? There is not a single reference to any such census in any ancient source, apart from Luke. Why then does Luke say there was such a census? The answer may seem obvious to you. He wanted Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, even though he knew he came from Nazareth ... there is a prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah that a savior would come from Bethlehem. What were these Gospel writer to do with the fact that it was widely known that Jesus came from Nazareth? They had to come up with a narrative that explained how he came from Nazareth, in Galilee, a little one-horse town that no one had ever heard of, but was born in Bethlehem, the home of King David, royal ancestor of the Messiah.

Therefore the words in Psalm 72:7: "In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth," must not be explained as signifying such earthly peace as the world enjoyed under Caesar Augustus, as many believe, but "peace with God," or spiritual peace.

When this happens, as it is today, then, to quote Eric Hoffer, “When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom.” At that point the words left or right will make no difference. They are only two roads to the same end. There is no difference between authoritarian government from the right or the left: the results are the same. An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go on to chaos. And most people will accept it - from the desire for personal peace and affluence, from apathy, and from the yearning for order to assure the functioning of some political system, business, and the affairs of daily life. That is just what Rome did with Caesar Augustus

We’re all atheists. You don’t believe in Zeus or Thor or Neptune or Augustus Caesar or Mars or Venus or Sun Ra. You reject a thousand gods. Why should it bother you if someone else rejects a thousand and one?

Well done is quickly done

Unless Caesar Augustus is unwittingly complying with the will of God, if it is true that in His divine wisdom He has ordained that Joseph and Mary should go to Bethlehem at this time.

And why did Caesar Augustus make just such a decree at that precise moment? Bible in hand, we answer, because Micah had said that the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). So

I’m in love, aren’t I? She thought she knew the answer by how much she wanted to be there. Wouldn’t have traded being there for any other location in the world. Wouldn’t have traded it for all the exotic destinations flaunted in Pan Am travel brochures. Not Tahiti, not Monte Carlo, not Hong Kong. No, she wanted to be here, in this ramshackle market not a ten-minute drive from her humdrum house and life. Except it wasn’t a humdrum life anymore, was it? No, I’m at the most exciting place on Earth. The center of the world. The Roman Forum during the reign of Augustus Caesar.

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Requests the pleasure of your company At the burning of The Greater New York Metropolitan Area Forty-eight hours after receipt of this Invitation UNLESS The former god Apollo, now known as Lester Papadopoulos, Surrenders himself before that time to imperial justice At the Tower of Nero IN WHICH CASE We will just have cake GIFTS: Only expensive ones, please R.S.V.P. Don’t bother. If you don’t show up, we’ll know. I

Literature was an utterly respectable and highly fashionable leisure interest for the Roman elite – the mark of the truly civilised man. Julius Caesar’s staff in Gaul were an especially literary bunch, and Augustus shared Maecenas’ reverence for poets and writers.

I am the son of Julius Caesar, and I am consul of Rome. You will not call me boy again.

Vitruvius didn’t conjure up Vitruvian Man only as an abstraction. He also wanted his readers to associate the figure directly with a specific person: the august ruler who had just begun to build a body of empire in his own perfect image, and whose ideal form was embodied in all temples. Vitruvian Man, in other words, was none other than the figure to whom Vitruvius dedicated his Ten Books: Caesar Augustus himself.

For fortune having hitherto seconded him in his designs, made him resolute and firm in his opinions, and the boldness of his temper raised a sort of passion in him for surmounting difficulties; as if it were not enough to be always victorious in the field, unless places and seasons and nature herself submitted to him.

Letter from Philippus of Athens to Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Yet the Empire of Rome that [Octavius] created has endured the harshness of a Tiberius, the monstrous cruelty of a Caligula, and the ineptness of a Claudius. And now our new Emperor is one whom you tutored as a boy, and to whom you remain close in his new authority; let us be thankful for the fact that he will rule in the light of your wisdom and virtue, and let us pray to the gods that, under Nero, Rome will at last fulfill the dream of Octavius Caesar.

But only two people known by name were also called “Son of God.” One was the Roman emperor—starting with Octavian, or Caesar Augustus—and the other was Jesus. This is probably not an accident. When Jesus came on the scene as a divine man, he and the emperor were in competition.

CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP The bright mirror I braved: the devil in it Loved me like my soul, my soul: Now that I seek myself in a serpent My smile is fatal. Nile moves in me; my thighs splay Into the squalled Mediterranean; My brain hides in that Abyssinia Lost armies foundered towards. Desert and river unwrinkle again. Seeming to bring them the waters that make drunk Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank. Now let the snake reign. A half-deity out of Capricorn, This rigid Augustus mounts With his sword virginal indeed; and has shorn Summarily the moon-horned river From my bed. May the moon Ruin him with virginity! Drink me, now, whole With coiled Egypt's past; then from my delta Swim like a fish toward Rome.

The emperor Caesar Augustus had a parakeet who greeted him daily, and after his victory over Mark Antony in Egypt in 29 B.C., he purchased a raven whose trainer had taught him to say “Ave, Caesar Victor Imperator.” (The trainer had wisely taught another bird to say “Ave, Victor Imperator Antoni” in case the battle went the other way.)

About this time he had the sarcophagus and body of Alexander the Great brought forth from its shrine, and after gazing on it, showed his respect by placing upon it a golden crown and strewing it with flowers; and being then asked whether he wished to see the tomb of the Ptolemies as well, he replied, "My wish was to see a king, not corpses.

Octavian’s patron, Apollo, the god of reason, had defeated Antony’s patron, Hercules, the symbol of might.

Festina lente.

odious,

called Vergil a superstitious child of Maecenas, that inventor of a new kind of affected language, neither bombastic nor of studied simplicity, but in ordinary words and hence less obvious.

Cleopatra’s daughter Scribonia, Julia’s mother, briefly married to Caesar Augustus, then divorced Tiberius, Livia’s older son by her first marriage Drusus, Livia’s younger son by her first marriage Marcus Agrippa, Rome’s foremost general, Caesar Augustus’s friend since boyhood Gaius Maecenas, another boyhood friend of Caesar Augustus, now a political advisor and patron of the

You’ll feel like Jesu Himself in the End Times, when He will descend on Rome with Augustus and Vespasian on His left and right hands, to establish the final dominion of the Caesars across the stars.

After his death, Augustus was declared a god by the Senate, to be worshipped by the Romans. His titles Augustus and Caesar were adopted by every subsequent emperor, and the month of Sextilius was officially renamed August in his honour.

This was it. This would be my final mission. An overwhelming sadness swept over me at the realization. There would be no more racing across campus to replace the missing arm of the Caesar Augustus statue with one made of pink duct tape. My mind would no longer be used as a photographic tool to unveil a terrorist’s plan. No more last-minute science experiments to help rescue a father and daughter from a terrorist organization. I wouldn’t get to rescue myself with the aid of a Millard-enhanced device. No more disguises involving wigs and glasses to save a Van Gogh painting. The Mariinsky Theatre, the Superman building, the Louvre—my stories would disappear, along with my memories. Light had vanished around me as the ocean swallowed me. I’d been unable to save a helpless girl from her evil kidnapper. In the darkness I heard Daly’s voice, clear and strong, almost like he was there. Don’t give up. Fight. Push yourself. Alexandra Stewart can make a masterpiece out of any canvas. He was right—I couldn’t give up. (page 206)

the Royal Scribe of the Metropolis from Haran ben Philip Levias of the Jewish Council. I attest that Chaya, daughter of my sister, Yaltha, died in the month of Epeiph of the 32nd year of the Emperor Augustus Caesar. As her guardian and kinsman, I request that her name be entered

The militarily incompetent Augustus succeeded in establishing a stable imperial regime, achieving something that eluded both Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, who were much better generals. Both his admiring contemporaries and modern historians often attribute this feat to his virtue of clementia – mildness and clemency.

Democracy, indeed, has a fair-appearing name and conveys the impression of bringing equal rights to all through equal laws, but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them, section 2and if even this seems to some a difficult feat, it is quite inevitable that the other alternative should be acknowledged to be impossible; for it does not belong to the majority of men to acquire virtue. And again, even though a base man should obtain supreme power, yet he is preferable to the masses of like character, as the history of the Greeks and barbarians and of the Romans themselves proves. section 3For successes have always been greater and more frequent in the case both of cities and of individuals under kings than under popular rule, and disasters do not happen so frequently under monarchies as under mob-rule. Indeed, if ever there has been a prosperous democracy, it has in any case been at its best for only a brief period, so long, that is, as the people had neither the numbers nor the strength sufficient to cause insolence to spring up among them as the result of good fortune or jealousy as the result of ambition.

We are all the children of Rome, without knowing it. Our months are called after Roman emperors or gods, our summer is July and August, named after Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. When you people scream fascist at us, you are referring to the rods of authority called fasces by the Romans. The idea of law written down and to be observed equally comes to us from the Romans, and our alphabet comes to us exactly from the Roman. From plumbing to the idea that surrounding someone in battle gives victory, Rome gave them to us. Rome is our common, civilized roots, so deep that many of us in the West do not even realize it unless we are educated to it. Rome is our intellectual father, and we have been living off its remnants for two thousand years.

To the followers of the murdered Caesar: Do you march against Decimus Brutus Albinus in Gaul, or against the son of Caesar in Rome? Ask Marcus Antonius. Are you mobilized to destroy the enemies of your dead leader, or to protect his assassins? Ask Marcus Antonius. Where is the will of the dead Caesar which bequeathed to every citizen of Rome three hundred pieces of silver coin? Ask Marcus Antonius. The murderers and conspirators against Caesar are free by an act of the Senate sanctioned by Marcus Antonius. The murderer Gaius Cassius Longinus has been given the governorship of Syria by Marcus Antonius. The murderer Marcus Junius Brutus has been given the governorship of Crete by Marcus Antonius. Where are the friends of the murdered Caesar among his enemies? The son of Caesar calls to you.

To the Royal Scribe of the Metropolis from Haran ben Philip Levias of the Jewish Council. I attest that Chaya, daughter of my sister, Yaltha, died in the month of Epeiph of the 32nd year of the Emperor Augustus Caesar. As her guardian and kinsman, I request that her name be entered among those who have died. She is not default in the payment of taxes being the age of two years at the time of her death.

Wars are not a pub brawl. They are very complex projects that require an extraordinary degree of organisation, cooperation and appeasement. The ability to maintain peace at home, acquire allies abroad, and understand what goes through the minds of other people (particularly your enemies) is usually the key to victory. Hence an aggressive brute is often the worst choice to run a war. Much better is a cooperative person who knows how to appease, how to manipulate and how to see things from different perspectives. This is the stuff empire-builders are made of. The militarily incompetent Augustus succeeded in establishing a stable imperial regime, achieving something that eluded both Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, who were much better generals. Both his admiring contemporaries and modern historians often attribute this

The denarius was the silver coin that traded at the time of the Roman Republic, containing 3.9 grams of silver, while gold became the most valuable money in the civilized areas of the world at the time and gold coins were becoming more widespread. Julius Caesar, the last dictator of the Roman Republic, created the aureus coin, which contained around 8 grams of gold and was widely accepted across Europe and the Mediterranean, increasing the scope of trade and specialization in the Old World. Economic stability reigned for seventy-five years, even through the political upheaval of his assassination, which saw the Republic transformed into an Empire under his chosen successor, Augustus. This continued until the reign of the infamous emperor Nero, who was the first to engage in the Roman habit of “coin clipping,” wherein the Emperor would collect the coins of the population and mint them into newer coins with less gold or silver content.

I must tell you now that I did not drop my shield and run from the battle out of mere cowardice - though that was no doubt part of it. But when I suddenly saw one of Octavius Caesar’s soldiers (or maybe Antonius’s, I do not know) advancing toward me with naked steel flashing in his hands and in his eyes, it was as if time suddenly stood still; and I remembered you and all the hopes you had of my future. I remembered that you had been born a slave, and had managed to buy your freedom; that your labor and your life were early turned to your son, so that he might leave in an ease and comfort and security that you never had. And I saw that son uselessly slaughtered on an earth he had no love for, for a cause he did not understand - and I had a sense of what your years might have been with the knowledge of your son’s discarded life - and I ran. I ran over bodies of fallen soldiers, and saw their empty eyes staring at the sky which they would never see again; and it did not matter to me whether they were friend or foe. I ran.

The remaining months they named, from the order in which they came, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth: Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December. Then Quintilis was called Julius after Julius Caesar, who conquered Pompeius; and Sextilis was called Augustus, after the second of the Roman Emperors. The next two months Domitian altered to his own titles, but not for any long time, as after his death they resumed their old names of September and October. The last two alone have preserved their original names without change.

The purchaser, who is granted anonymity by virtue of his status as a representative of the Goddess of Egypt, receives Diodora into his legal ownership and from this day will possess, own, and have proprietary rights over the girl. Choiak henceforth has no power to take back his daughter and through this sale agreement, written in two copies, gives his consent and acknowledges payment. Signed on behalf of Choiak, who knows no letters, by Haran ben Philip Levias, this day in the month of Epeiph, in the 32nd year of the reign of the illustrious emperor Augustus Caesar.

It's not the Virgin Mary," Emily said, "though it is a virgin mother. It's actually Bona Dea, the Roman goddess of fertility, healing, virginity — and of women in general. Her foot on the snake indicates her power over the phallus. She, in turn, was modeled after Isis holding Horus with the serpent of wisdom at her feet. Later Augustus allowed this antique goddess to be identified with the cult of his mother Maia, who was said to have lain with a serpent in the temple to be impregnated with the son of Apollo — and bore Augustus Caesar." She explained that the image of Bona Dea was found on many early Republican coins.

There are certain men who are sacrosanct in history; you touch on the truth of them at your peril. These are such men as Socrates and Plato, Pericles and Alexander, Caesar and Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Trajan, Martel and Charlemagne, Edward the Confessor and William of Falaise, St. Louis and Richard and Tancred, Erasmus and Bacon, Galileo and Newton, Voltaire and Rousseau, Harvey and Darwin, Nelson and Wellington. In America, Penn and Franklin, Jefferson and Jackson and Lee. There are men better than these who are not sacrosanct, who may be challenged freely. But these men may not be. Albert Pike has been elevated to this sacrosanct company, though of course to a minor rank. To challenge his rank is to be overwhelmed by a torrent of abuse, and we challenge him completely. Looks are important to these elevated. Albert Pike looked like Michelangelo's Moses in contrived frontier costume. Who could distrust that big man with the great beard and flowing hair and godly glance? If you dislike the man and the type, then he was pompous, empty, provincial and temporal, dishonest, and murderous. But if you like the man and the type, then he was impressive, untrammeled, a man of the right place and moment, flexible or sophisticated, and firm. These are the two sides of the same handful of coins. He stole (diverted) Indian funds and used them to bribe doubtful Indian leaders. He ordered massacres of women and children (exemplary punitive operations). He lied like a trooper (he was a trooper). He effected assassinations (removal of semi-military obstructions). He forged names to treaties (astute frontier politics). He was part of a weird plot by men of both the North and South to extinguish the Indians whoever should win the war (devotion to the ideal of national growth ) . He personally arranged twelve separate civil wars among the Indians (the removal of the unfit) . After all, those were war years; and he did look like Moses, and perhaps he sounded like him.

The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke which was ready to be imposed upon them. Augustus, the successor of Caesar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his own country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars; and being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion, which had subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he recommended it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of the Romans. Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by his generals, made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his inactivity [k].

Why trust this account when humanity has never been so rich, so healthy, so long-lived? When fewer die in wars and childbirth than ever before—and more knowledge, more truth by way of science, was never so available to us all? When tender sympathies—for children, animals, alien religions, unknown, distant foreigners—swell daily? When hundreds of millions have been raised from wretched subsistence? When, in the West, even the middling poor recline in armchairs, charmed by music as they steer themselves down smooth highways at four times the speed of a galloping horse? When smallpox, polio, cholera, measles, high infant mortality, illiteracy, public executions and routine state torture have been banished from so many countries? Not so long ago, all these curses were everywhere. When solar panels and wind farms and nuclear energy and inventions not yet known will deliver us from the sewage of carbon dioxide, and GM crops will save us from the ravages of chemical farming and the poorest from starvation? When the worldwide migration to the cities will return vast tracts of land to wilderness, will lower birth rates, and rescue women from ignorant village patriarchs? What of the commonplace miracles that would make a manual labourer the envy of Caesar Augustus: pain-free dentistry, electric light, instant contact with people we love, with the best music the world has known, with the cuisine of a dozen cultures? We’re bloated with privileges and delights, as well as complaints, and the rest who are not will be soon.

While Agrippa never ruled in his own right his genes were intermingled in the blood of the Domus Augusta and it was his descendants who were destined for prominence. His daughter Vipsania Agrippina married Augustus’ step-son Tiberius, and through her Agrippa was grandfather to Drusus the Younger. As son-in-law to Augustus, his other daughter, Agrippina the Elder, married Germanicus, the son of Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus), and through her Agrippa was the grandfather both of the future emperor Caligula and Agrippina the Younger, the mother of Emperor Nero – Agrippa’s great-grandson. Iulia also bore Agrippa three sons who were adopted by Augustus himself as his heirs, all of whom met tragic ends while still young men. Had they lived, and one of these succeeded him as emperor, the story of the Roman Empire may have taken a very different course.

But suppose – ignoring all suspicions – that the stories are entirely accurate, that the ordinary people had been merely gullible and that Rome had been under the rule of a mad sadist somewhere between a clinical psychopath and a Stalin. The truth is that, beyond making it absolutely clear that emperors had become a permanent fixture, the killing of Gaius had no significant impact on the long history of imperial rule at all. That was one thing the assassins of 41 CE had in common with the assassins of 44 BCE, who killed one autocrat (Julius Caesar) only to end up with another (Augustus). For all the excitement generated by the murder of Gaius, the suspense, the uncertainty of the moment and the flirtation with Republicanism, as brief as it was unrealistic, the end result was another emperor on the throne who was not all that unlike the one he had replaced.

It was the ultimate triumph of spin over reality – Octavian, now renamed Augustus, had seen the fate of Julius Caesar (his adoptive father), when he appeared to his contemporaries to be a dictator, almost a king. Augustus had no intention of being stabbed on the steps of any entertainment venue, so he cloaked his power with egalitarian names. He wasn’t a dictator; he didn’t have ideas above his station. He was simply princeps senatus – the chief man of the senate. He was primus inter pares – the first among equals; it would be almost 2,000 years before George Orwell’s pigs recognised the powerful truth behind this idea: some animals really were more equal than others. Augustus wasn’t trying to be king; he had no more power than any elected official might have. He just had the power of all the elected officials rolled into one: he became the first Roman emperor.

So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.... He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Many men of honourable rank were first disfigured with the marks of branding-irons and then condemned to the mines, to work at building roads, or to be thrown to the wild beasts; or else he shut them up in cages on all fours, like animals, or had them sawn asunder. Not all these punishments were for serious offences, but merely for criticising one of his shows, or for never having sworn by his genius. Having asked a man who had been recalled from an exile of long standing, how in the world he spent his time there, the man replied by way of flattery: "I constantly prayed the gods for what has come to pass, that Tiberius might die and you become emperor." Thereupon Caligula, thinking that his exiles were likewise praying for his death, sent emissaries from island to island to butcher them all. Wishing to have one of the senators torn to pieces, he induced some of the members to assail him suddenly, on his entrance into the House, with the charge of being a public enemy, to stab him with their styles, and turn him over to the rest to be mangled; and his cruelty was not sated until he saw the man's limbs, members, and bowels dragged through the streets and heaped up before him. He used to say that there was nothing in his own character which he admired and approved more highly than what he called his ἀδιατρεψία, that is to say, his shameless impudence. He seldom had anyone put to death except by numerous slight wounds, his constant order, which soon became well-known, being: "Strike so that he may feel that he is dying." When a different man than he had intended had been killed, through a mistake in the names, he said that the victim too had deserved the same fate. He even used openly to deplore the state of his times, because they had been marked by no public disasters, saying that the rule of Augustus had been made famous by the Varus massacre, and that of Tiberius by the collapse of the amphitheatre at Fidenae,​ while his own was threatened with oblivion because of its prosperity; and every now and then he wished for the destruction of his armies, for famine, pestilence, fires, or a great earthquake. While he was lunching or revelling capital examinations by torture were often made in his presence, and a soldier who was adept at decapitation cut off the heads of those who were brought from prison. At a public banquet in Rome he immediately handed a slave over to the executioners for stealing a strip of silver from the couches, with orders that his hands be cut off and hung from his neck upon his breast, and that he then be led about among the guests.

The word of no informer was doubted [by Tiberius]. Every crime was treated as capital, even the utterance of a few simple words. A poet was charged with having slandered Agamemnon in a tragedy, and a writer of history of having called Brutus and Cassius the last of the Romans. The writers were at once put to death and their works destroyed, although they had been read with approval in public some years before in the presence of Augustus himself. Some of those who were consigned to prison were denied not only the consolation of reading, but even the privilege of conversing and talking together. Of those who were cited to plead their causes some opened their veins at home, feeling sure of being condemned and wishing to avoid humiliation, while others drank poison in full view of the senate; yet the wounds of the former were bandaged and they were hurried half-dead, but still quivering, to the prison. Every one of those who were executed was thrown out upon the Stairs of Mourning and dragged to the Tiber with hooks, as many as twenty being so treated in a single day, including women and children. Since ancient usage made it impious to strangle maidens, young girls were first violated by the executioner and then strangled. Those who wished to die were forced to live; for he thought death so light a punishment that when he heard that one of the accused, Carnulus by name, had anticipated his execution, he cried: "Carnulus has given me the slip"; and when he was inspecting the prisons and a man begged for a speedy death, he replied: "I have not yet become your friend.

only two people known by name were also called “Son of God.” One was the Roman emperor—starting with Octavian, or Caesar Augustus—and the other was Jesus. This is probably not an accident. When Jesus came on the scene as a divine man, he and the emperor were in competition.

in the heart of every successful warrior is the secret belief that they cannot be defeated, that there is no man who can strike them down. It is a myth, a fantasy that we convince ourselves is true in order to give us the ability to wade into a fight without fear.

the verses of the Eclogue actually referred to Augustus. Virgil was clearly writing a disguised political commercial. Virgil composed Rome's great epic, The Aeneid, between 29 and 19 B.C. In the epic's vision of the future of Rome, Aeneas's guide, the Sibyl, tells him of: Augustus, promis'd oft, and long foretold, that Saturn rul'd of old; Born to restore a better age of gold. She continued, "Other verses in The Aeneid substantiate the identity of the long-expected virgin-born Messiah that Virgil referred to covertly in the Eclogue: 'Augustus Caesar… brings a Golden Age; he shall restore old Saturn's scepter to our Latin land.

Augustus actually had his poets and scribes rewrite his mythic biography to fit his own agenda that included changing calendar years in order to substantiate his divinity." His face crinkled into a smile. "I'm not completely certain what my findings add up to yet. I can tell you I've found convincing evidence that there's a fundamental identification between Octavius Caesar Augustus and Christianity as we call it today. I've studied comparative religions all my life, but only recently come to the conclusion that the Emperor Augustus was a comparatist extraordinaire, albeit a thoroughly pragmatic one. He was a master of turning the common themes in the religions of the cultures he conquered to the service of his empire, and of his personal reputation. He based his own spiritual practices on the moral principles he encountered in all religions,

Divus filius divi" — "god and son of god" — embossed across from the name "Jasius Augustus." Emily continued, "In 42 B.C., Augustus had broken ground in Rome for the Templum Divi Iuli — the temple of the divine Julius, after he'd lobbied the Senate to declare his adopted father, Julius Caesar, a god. That made him, of course, effectively the son of a god — the title that was, in fact, the new Emperor Augustus' exact objective. But he tired of being called son of god and preferred Jasius — Jesus — who Virgil referred to as 'Father Jasius, from whom our race descended' and was usually depicted as a wise man with a beard." Ryan's eyes grew large. "Just like the depictions of Jesus.

The creative spark in Augustus' eyes warned Virgil that the emperor was personally invested in these particular lines. Augustus Caesar would be the centerpiece, the awaited one, the anointed one, the savior of the world, the Messiah, the reborn Apollo, god and son of god, whose destiny it was to bring the Roman world through blood and sweat and tears to its fated greatness. His poem would make the emperor eternal.

Virgil's eyes fell on the papyrus, where Augustus' distinctive cursive had recorded the lines he had recited. Farther down he could just make out the sketchy words to mean, "Augustus Caesar… brings a Golden Age; he shall restore old Saturn's scepter to our Latin land." The poet rolled his eyes. And hoped to Hades that his Praetorian escort hadn't noticed.

How unfair the fate which ordains that those who have the least should add to the treasury of the rich. But that seems to be the fate that the present authorities have in store for us. Taxes are now due to be raised as high as the colonnades on the villas that they are constructing. The only taxes which are due to be rescinded are those imposed by Caesar upon certain luxury goods I have heard. One should be a friend to business, but not to corruption …We must cleanse the augean stables.

Here, amid the murk of such contradictory opinions, was ample opportunity for Augustus to consolidate his position yet further. Who better qualified than the Restorer of the Republic, after all, to realise the full potential of hypocrisy?

Early in the Morning" Early in the morning The dark Queen said, "The trumpets are warning There's trouble ahead." Spent with carousing, With wine-soaked wits, Antony drowsing Whispered, "It's Too cold a morning To get out of bed." The army's retreating The fleet has fled, Caesar is beating His drums through the dead. "Antony, horses! We'll get away, Gather our forces For another day..." "It's a cold morning," Antony said. Caesar Augustus Cleared his phlegm. "Corpses disgust us. Cover them." Caesar Augustus In his time lay Dying, and just as Cold as they, On the cold morning Of a cold day.

Vae, puto deus fio." "Dear me, I think I'm becoming a god" Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus - 23 June 79 A.D.

In 378, the emperor Valens confronted roving war bands of Germanic Goths at Adrianople near Constantinople. With a massive cavalry charge, the Goths shattered Valens’s army and killed the emperor. It was a disaster of the first order.28 The capital managed to shut its gates against the German invader. However, the price of the Eastern Empire’s survival was the loss of the West. One Germanic tribe after another—Goths, Vandals, Franks, Allemanni, Burgundians—shot westward through the Balkans, overrunning the Rhine frontier and the Roman provinces on the other side, including Italy. The basic framework of imperial government, like the Roman road system dating back to Caesar Augustus, collapsed under the strain. So did law and order. Only the Church held firm. In virtually every town, starting with Rome itself, its leaders became symbols of resistance. Like the young Genovefa (later canonized Saint Genevieve) in Paris, they rallied citizens to stand fast and defend their cities; like Pope Leo I with Attila the Hun, they struck deals with the invaders to spare their congregations. When negotiations failed they organized humanitarian relief for the devastated areas and offered words of comfort and hope when everything looked its bleakest. The Catholic bishop became the one upholder of a social and cultural order to which the people living in his diocese, including pagans, could still cling.

Octavianus took the name Caesar Augustus, and the title princeps et imperator. However, Augustus was shrewd enough to see that the best way to secure his reign was to present it not as the establishment of something new, namely a Roman empire, but as the restoration of something old: Polybius’s and Cicero’s balanced constitution. Augustus was like the architect who renovates an old apartment building by keeping the original Gilded Age façade but putting in completely brand-new fixtures. The façade included the conveniently dead figure of Cicero, who would be posthumously elevated to the status of a Roman Socrates—the virtuous man made impotent by the viciousness of his enemies, including the hated Mark Antony. It was a reputation Cicero would retain without interruption through Victorian times.

She wouldn’t have traded being there for any other location in the world. Wouldn’t have traded it for all the exotic destinations flaunted in Pan Am travel brochures. Not Tahiti, not Monte Carlo, not Hong Kong. No, she wanted to be here, in this ramshackle market not a ten-minute drive from her humdrum house and life. Except it wasn’t a humdrum life anymore, was it? No, I’m at the most exciting place on Earth. The center of the world. The Roman Forum during the reign of Augustus Caesar. “Let’s explore more,” John said after he deposited a head of broccoli into the cart.

Ephesus was also home to the Roman emperor cult. The worship of the emperor was a prominent feature of life at all levels in Asia at this time. Caesar Augustus was spoken of as the “Savior.” His birth was hailed as “the beginning of good tidings to the world,” and the calendar was adjusted in light of his birth (Thielman, Ephesians, 21). So there was a “gospel conflict.” Coins, statues, temples, and other items proclaimed the gospel of Augustus, but the church was proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. Today you can see the statue of the Roman emperor Trajan among the ruins in Ephesus. He ruled after Paul’s lifetime, but you can catch the spirit of Roman rulers at his time. The statue shows Trajan’s foot on top of the world, giving the idea that he was a god. Now compare this picture with 1:21-22. Only One has all things under His feet: the Lord Jesus. When Christians said, “Jesus is Lord,” they were saying that Caesar is not.

Roman citizenship became universal when it was no longer a privilege but a burden

Alexander died in 323 BCE, Augustine in 430 CE. Historians divide this long stretch of time into two main periods, the Hellenistic and the Imperial. Alexander’s death marks the end of the classical and the beginning of the Hellenistic period, while the end of the latter is placed at the start of Augustus Caesar’s principate in 27 BCE, which inaugurates the Imperial period. Four hundred years later, in the lifetime of St Augustine, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and for more than the next thousand years philosophy was almost exclusively subordinated to the demands of Christian doctrine and Church authority.

I think an excellent case can be made for dating the Gospels earlier, but let's go with the more generous estimations. That's still extremely close to the event themselves, especially compared to many other ancient historical writings. Our two best sources on Alexander the Great, for instance, weren't written until at least four hundred years after his life. “As for Caesar Augustus, who is generally regarded as Rome’s greatest emperor, there are five chief sources used by historians to write a history of his adulthood: a very brief funeral inscription, a source written fifty and a hundred years after his death, and three sources written between a hundred and two hundred years after he died. So it’s really remarkable that in the case of Jesus, we have four biographies that even liberals agree were written within thirty-five to sixty-five years after his execution.

Perhaps they had been slaves to the emperor for so long that they no longer had a spark of freedom that could be ignited. Augustus Caesar and his successors had cleverly wooed them, turning defiant citizens into submissive slaves, all in exchange for Roman peace, beautiful roads, free food, and entertainment.

Augustus lacked the flair of his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, but he possessed one valuable quality to which Caesar could not lay claim: patience. He had the practical common sense of an Italian country gentleman, for it was from that stock that he grew. He made haste slowly, seeking permanent solutions rather than easy answers. He did not revel in power; he sought to understand it. Plutarch has an anecdote that sums up Augustus’ approach to his responsibilities. Hearing that Alexander the Great had been at a loss about what to do next after his vast conquests, the princeps remarked: “I am surprised the king did not realize that a far harder task than winning an empire is putting it into order once you have won it.

Brutus was high-minded, an intellectual who took ideas seriously. He saw the assassination of Caesar as a sacrifice rather than a political act. He was a man with “a singularly gentle nature,” who feared civil war almost (although not quite) as much as tyranny.

He sent me a very good cartoon of you and he standing by a statue of Caesar Augustus." Henry mad a sharp, exasperated sound. "That was in the Vatican," he said. "All day long he made loud remarks about Dagos and Catholics." "At least he doesn't speak Italian." "He spoke it well enough to order the most expensive thing on the menu every time we went to a restaurant," said Henry curtly, and I thought it was wise to change the subject and did.

Profession of a “lord” is not merely religious language for adoration on some spiritual plane; it is also a matter of social and political allegiance. When it came to who was running the show, the Christians knew that there were only two options, either the son of Augustus or the son of David. By singing and preaching about Jesus as Lord, they were opting for the latter, a claim regarded by political authorities as seditious. As N. T. Wright suggests, “For Paul, Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.

We can write morals into law, and enforce those morals harshly, or we can return to a true Free Enterprise System, which has the sink-or-swim justice of Caesar Augustus built into it. I emphatically favor the latter alternative. We must be hard, for we must become again a nation of swimmers, with the sinkers quietly disposing of themselves.

For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC] but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty third year, 8 days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar [29 or 30 AD], while Rufus and Roubellion and Gaius Caesar, for the 4th time, and Gaius Cestius Saturninus were Consuls.” (tr. Tom Schmidt). Ἡ γὰρ πρώτη παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν ἡ ἔνσαρκος, ἐν ᾗ γεγέννηται ἐν Βηθλεέμ, ἐγένετο πρὸ ὀκτὼ καλανδῶν ἰανουαρίων, ἡμέρᾳ τετράδι, βασιλεύοντος Αὐγούστου τεσσαρακοστὸν καὶ δεύτερον ἔτος, ἀπὸ δὲ Ἀδὰμ πεντακισχιλιοστῷ καὶ πεντακοσιοστῷ ἔτει ἔπαθεν δὲ τριακοστῷ τρίτῳ ἔτει πρὸ ὀκτὼ καλανδῶν ἀπριλίων, ἡμέρᾳ παρασκευῇ, ὀκτωκαιδεκάτῳ ἔτει Τιβερίου Καίσαρος, ὑπατεύοντος ούφου καὶ Ῥουβελλίωνος. Commentary on Daniel of Hippolytus - n 4.23.3

Herod the Great achieved power in Judea with Roman backing; he brutally suppressed all opposition. Herod was a friend of Marc Antony but, unfortunately, an enemy of Antony’s mistress Cleopatra. When Octavian (Augustus) Caesar defeated Antony and Cleopatra, Herod submitted to him. Noting that he had been a loyal friend to Antony until the end, Herod promised that he would now be no less loyal to Caesar, and Caesar accepted this promise. Herod named cities for Caesar and built temples in his honor.

Athenodorus’s final lesson to Augustus was one Seneca would have appreciated. Asking to be relieved of his duties so that he might return to his home, Athenodorus offered one last piece of practical advice to the emperor—something he wanted him to follow always. “Whenever you feel yourself getting angry, Caesar,” he instructed, “don’t say or do anything until you’ve repeated the twenty-four letters of the alphabet to yourself.

Flipping the bird—or showing the middle finger—has a storied history. Those who study the gesture (apparently these people exist) trace its roots all the way back to ancient Greek texts. The Romans then adopted the gesture from the Greeks and carried it into their mainstream culture. In fact, Augustus Caesar once banished an actor from all of Italy for giving the finger to an audience member who hissed at him during a performance.

And it came to pass in those days, that there came a commandment from Augustus Caesar, that all the world should be taxed. (This first taxing was made when Quirinius was governor of Syr ia.) Therefore went all to be taxed every man to his own City. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of a city called Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and linage of David,) To be taxed with Mary that was given him to wife, which was with child. And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

The eastern Augustus, Galerius, compromised and agreed for Constantine to become the west’s Caesar instead.

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus would be known throughout his life and throughout history as Caligula.

The Julian Calendar was instituted by Julius Caesar. The months of July and August were added in honor of Julius and Augustus Caesar.

and Augustus Caesar.

For no matter what they made of him, Caesar Augustus always knew that he was nothing but mere mortal.

Ancient Roman names are known for their length and complexity

so much so, that they are often the bane of historians attempting to tell one famous Roman apart from another.

Octavian’s mother, a still fairly young and eligible woman named Atia,

would remarry shortly after her first husband’s passing.

AUGUSTUS CAESAR

politicians in the Senate may not have liked his arrival too much, but they were far outnumbered but the average Roman citizen

Octavian knew he needed some strong political allies on his side.

In April of 43 BCE, the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian would face off once again.

Antony had been tipped off that a contingent of Octavian’s troops would be traveling from Bologna to Mutina.

Octavian’s commanders had foreseen just such a contingency,

and at the last minute sent an additional legion as well as Octavian’s Pretorian Guard to trail the group as potential reinforcements.

Mark Antony assembled his troops on the side of the road hidden in the brush, and when Octavian’s men passed by, they struck.

Mark Antony’s men were caught completely off guard and decimated in short order.