The Cunning Architect: 15 Fascinating Facts About Augustus

1. Augustus refused the titles of dictator and "Lord" and ruled as Princeps, the "First Citizen".

After years of civil war that followed the murder of Julius Caesar, Augustus understood that openly claiming a crown was dangerous in Rome. In 27 BCE he formally handed his extraordinary powers back to the Senate, which in return granted him the name Augustus and control of the most important provinces and their armies. He preferred the modest title Princeps, meaning First Citizen, and according to the biographer Suetonius he rejected the title "Lord" as insulting. Behind the republican facade, real power rested with him. This careful political theater let him rule for more than four decades and die in his bed, unlike his adoptive father.

2. The month of August was named after him because it was the month of his greatest triumphs.

In 8 BCE the Roman month of Sextilis was renamed Augustus in his honor. According to the ancient sources, he chose it because it was the month of his first consulship and of several of his victories, including the conquest of Egypt. It was not his birth month: Augustus was born on 23 September. The renaming gave him a month next to July, which had earlier been named after Julius Caesar.

3. He exiled his only biological child under the very morality laws he had introduced.

Augustus was worried about falling birth rates among the Roman elite and passed laws in 18 BCE that punished adultery and rewarded families with several children. His daughter Julia the Elder, however, became notorious for her love affairs. In 2 BCE he banished her from Rome, first to the tiny island of Pandateria. Suetonius records that he denied her wine and every luxury and let no man visit her without his permission. Augustus reportedly said he would rather have been the father of a daughter who hanged herself than of one who behaved like Julia.

4. He was frail, sickly, and terrified of thunderstorms.

Despite his image as a conqueror, Augustus suffered from poor health throughout his life. According to Suetonius, in winter he wore four tunics, a heavy toga, an undershirt, a woolen chest protector, and wraps on his thighs and shins. He was also afraid of lightning. During a night march in Cantabria a bolt grazed his litter and killed the slave who was carrying a torch in front of him. Afterward he reportedly carried a piece of sealskin as protection and retreated into an underground vaulted room during storms. He also built a temple to Jupiter the Thunderer in thanks for his escape.

5. He relied on his friend Marcus Agrippa to win his greatest battles at sea.

Augustus was a brilliant politician, but he was not known as a gifted field commander, and he suffered from illness before important battles. At Philippi he was driven from his camp, and at Naulochus in 36 BCE he reportedly lay in a stupor, staring at the sky, until Marcus Agrippa's fleet had defeated the enemy. Agrippa, his friend since youth, also commanded the fleet at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, which destroyed Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Augustus took the triumphs, but he knew how much he owed to his most loyal general, and he later married Agrippa to his own daughter Julia.

6. He lived in a surprisingly modest house on the Palatine Hill.

According to Suetonius, the first emperor's home had short colonnades and no marble decorations or fine pavements. He is said to have used the same bedroom for more than forty years, winter and summer. He also wore clothes that had been made by the women of his own household. This image of simplicity was carefully cultivated. Modern archaeologists note that the house traditionally identified as his may in fact have been larger and more luxurious than the ancient writers admit.

7. He created Rome's first permanent fire brigade and night watch.

Rome was overcrowded and constantly threatened by fires, and earlier attempts to organize firefighting had been temporary. In 6 CE Augustus established the vigiles, a permanent corps that served as both a fire brigade and a night police force. It was divided into cohorts and stationed around the city under a prefect of the watch. Many of its members were freed slaves. The corps remained in service for centuries and is often seen as an early forerunner of a municipal fire and police service.

8. He boasted that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.

Suetonius records that Augustus could justly claim to have found the city built of brick and left it in marble. He rebuilt temples, built a new forum, and filled the Campus Martius with monuments. The claim should not be taken too literally, however. Marble existed in Rome before him, and the splendid center contrasted with the crowded, fire-prone apartment blocks where most Romans lived.

9. He had Caesar's son, Caesarion, put to death after conquering Egypt.

Augustus based his power on being Julius Caesar's adopted heir, so a living biological son of Caesar was a threat. After he captured Alexandria in 30 BCE, he had Caesarion, the teenage son of Caesar and Cleopatra, caught and killed. Plutarch reports that he was advised by a philosopher that "too many Caesars is not a good thing." He spared Antony's other children by Cleopatra and raised them, although Antony's eldest son Antyllus was also killed.

10. He took dreams and omens seriously, and even begged in the street once a year.

Despite his shrewd reputation, Augustus was superstitious. At Philippi, he left his tent because of a friend's dream, and his camp was overrun soon after. Suetonius adds that on certain days of the year he sat down and held out his hand for coins from passersby, following the advice of a dream. He also made his horoscope public and issued a silver coin stamped with Capricorn, the sign under which he was born, to show that the stars had destined him for greatness.

11. He turned the Roman army into a permanent, professional force.

In the Republic, armies were often raised for a campaign and their soldiers were loyal to individual generals. After the civil wars, Augustus kept a standing army of roughly twenty-eight legions, down from about sixty, and stationed most of it on the frontiers. Soldiers served fixed terms, and in 6 CE he created a military treasury to pay retirement bonuses. This tied the army's loyalty to the emperor and the state rather than to ambitious commanders.

12. He created a rapid imperial courier service.

Suetonius reports that, to have news from the provinces reach him faster, Augustus first stationed young men at short intervals along the military roads, and later introduced post-chaises. Because the same messenger could be questioned about conditions on the road, the system worked well. It developed into the cursus publicus, the state postal and transport network that carried official messages and officials across the empire for centuries.

13. The loss of three legions in Germany devastated him.

In 9 CE Germanic tribes led by Arminius ambushed the army of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the Teutoburg Forest and destroyed three legions. Suetonius calls it the most serious defeat of Augustus's reign. He writes that the emperor, then in his seventies, let his hair and beard grow for months and sometimes beat his head against a door, crying out, "Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!" The disaster ended Rome's attempt to make Germany a province, and the Rhine became the long-term frontier.

14. He styled himself "Son of the Deified" without ever claiming to be a god.

After the Senate declared Julius Caesar a god, Augustus began to use the title Divi Filius, "Son of the Deified." It lifted him above other politicians without making him a living god in Rome. In the eastern provinces, where rulers had long been worshipped, cities built temples to Roma and Augustus together. Such arrangements helped bind a diverse empire to its ruler and paved the way for the later imperial cult.

15. His last words are said to have been a line from the theater.

Augustus died on 19 August 14 CE in Nola, shortly before his seventy-sixth birthday. Suetonius writes that he asked his friends whether they thought he had played his part in the comedy of life well, and then quoted the closing lines of a Greek comedy: "Since the play has been so good, clap your hands and all of you dismiss us with applause." Whether or not he said it, the story fits a ruler who spent his whole life playing a role: the humble servant of a republic that he had in fact replaced.