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Review
| Augustus and the Creation of the Roman Empire, by Ronald Mellor. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. 192 pages. $45.00, cloth; $14.95, paper.
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| The Roman Empire remains the only lasting political unity the West has ever known, and its founder, Caesar Augustus, has been the object of numerous studies. The immediate importance and lasting impact of both Augustus and his Empire are universally acknowledged, while his personal motives and political motivations have been questioned and debated. As Mellor points out in the introduction, since Augustus' family ruled Rome for a century, it was neither easy nor safe for opponents to speak out against the Julio-Claudian dynasty and, as a result, the historian must look to later sources for opinions hostile to the princeps. Mellor does just that, using not only historians but also poets, grammarians, legal texts, images, and inscriptions to piece together a well-rounded view of the founder of the Roman Empire. As one might expect, a figure so pivotal to world history has attracted diverse opinions about his motivation and his legacy that make it difficult to view the Emperor without distortion. |
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Mellor has written a 50 page introduction in Part I that is tightly linked to the sources in Part II. The introduction is divided into thirteen topics along chronological lines, because Augustus approached different sets of problems at different stages of his career. Part II contains 59 documents divided into 10 sections (shown hereafter in quotation marks) roughly corresponding to the topics in Part I, as well as 12 images and one map. Beginning with "The Collapse of the Roman Republic" that sets the stage for Augustus' entry into Roman history, Mellor describes "The Rise of Augustus," frequently referencing the sources in Part II. The Emperor had to create a new role for himself, "Augustus as Princeps," as well as a constitutional basis for his reforms, "The New Constitution." To support his new regime he needed a new aristocracy, and he went about "Creating a New Elite: Senators and Equestrians." To provide a moral framework, Augustus embarked on "Social and Religious Reforms." He had come to power through the army, and he had to find a place for "The Army in War and Peace." Augustus traveled frequently, trying to tie together into one Empire both "Italy and the Provinces." Since he had one daughter and no son, he was preoccupied with "The Imperial Family and Succession." The capital was beautified and left "A City of Marble," while, at the same time, writers were subsidized in the "Golden Age of Latin Literature." After ruling for forty-five years, Augustus died in a.d. 14, and the book explores "The Death and Legacy of Augustus" before embarking on "The Evaluation of Augustus." In a short fifty pages, Mellor has not only sketched Augustus' background, career, and legacy, but he has used a diverse group of sources to illustrate how the historian can use many different types of evidence to create an image of a bygone era. |
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Since ancient history is not familiar to all teachers and students, Mellor provides numerous aids to understanding the Roman past. In addition to the ample headnotes to the reading selections (the headnote to Augustus' Achievements of Augustus is a page in length), the author provides an introduction to the principal literary sources for the age of Augustus. Here he briefly describes the authors, the times in which they lived and wrote, and their contributions to historical scholarship. Following the sources in Part II, Mellor provides a glossary of Greek and Latin terms, a chronology of events, questions for consideration, a select bibliography, and an ample index. This book is suited to classes in Western Civilization or World History because it allows students to examine documents clearly sited in a historical framework, to draw inferences from those sources, and to frame opinions about Augustus. A student or teacher who fully utilizes this small volume will have learned how evidence from poets and historians, grammarians and sculptors, legal experts and politicians, can be joined together to better understand the distant past. And that understanding, independent of Augustus or the Roman Empire, is surely something that all history teachers desire for their students. |
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| California State University, Long Beach |
David Hood |
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