He was Rome's first emperor (63 BC to 14 AD), born Octavian, the adopted heir of Julius Caesar, who won the civil wars and founded the Roman Empire.

Was Augustus a great general?

Not personally on the battlefield. His decisive victory at Actium was won by his admiral Agrippa; Augustus's real genius was political, and he relied on able commanders.

What happened at the Battle of Actium?

In 31 BC Octavian's fleet, led by Agrippa, defeated the navy of Mark Antony and Cleopatra off the coast of Greece, leaving Octavian sole master of the Roman world.

Why is he called Augustus?

'Augustus,' meaning 'the revered one,' was an honorary name granted to Octavian by the Senate in 27 BC; he is known by it as Rome's first emperor.

What was the Pax Romana?

The 'Roman Peace,' a long era of relative stability across the empire that began under Augustus and lasted roughly two centuries.

How was Augustus related to Julius Caesar?

He was Caesar's great-nephew and, by Caesar's will, his adopted son and heir, which gave him his claim to power after Caesar's assassination.

Augustus: Rome's first emperor

Augustus never counted among Rome's great battlefield generals, yet he ended a century of civil war and built the Roman Empire. As Julius Caesar's teenage heir he out-manoeuvred every rival, won the decisive war at Actium through his brilliant admiral Agrippa, and turned victory into a new order that gave the Roman world two centuries of peace.

Caesar's heir

Born Gaius Octavius in 63 BC¹, he was the great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar. When Caesar was murdered in 44 BC², the eighteen-year-old claimed his name and his soldiers' loyalty, and joined Mark Antony and Lepidus in a triumvirate¹ that hunted down Caesar's assassins.

Painting of a vast columned hall where toga-clad senators raise their daggers while Caesar's body lies at the foot of a statue — The Death of Caesar by Jean-Léon Gérôme, painted between 1859 and 1867: the conspirators leave the body of Julius Caesar in the Senate hall on the Ides of March, 44 BC. Public domain

Actium

The alliance did not last. Octavian and Antony turned on each other³, and the war was settled at sea off Actium in 31 BC. There Octavian's fleet, commanded by his gifted admiral Marcus Agrippa, crushed the ships of Antony and Cleopatra¹. Within a year both were dead⁴ and Octavian was master of the Roman world.

Portrait of the emperor Augustus — The emperor Augustus. Public domain.

He was no great battlefield general; his genius was politics, and his admiral won Actium.

The first emperor

Rather than take a crown, Octavian claimed to have restored the Republic while keeping real power⁵ in his own hands. In 27 BC the Senate gave him the name⁵ Augustus. He ruled for over forty years², reformed the army and the state, and boasted, in a line reported by Suetonius, that he had found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble⁶.

The Pax Romana

Augustus was a soldier only by necessity; his true gift was politics, and his lasting achievement was peace. The order he built, the Pax Romana, held for some two centuries, and the office he created endured for centuries after him. He is counted among Rome's greatest figures less as a commander than as the founder of an age.

Black and white map of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean with Parthians and Germanic tribes beyond its borders — The Roman Empire at the death of Augustus in AD 14, map by J. F. Horrabin for H. G. Wells's The Outline of History (1920). Public domain

See the sea battle that made him at Actium, or meet the other great commanders of ancient Rome.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

World History Encyclopedia (Joshua J. Mark), “Augustus” ↩ a b c
Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome (Yale University Press, 2014). ↩ a b
Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1939). ↩
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of Actium” ↩
Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Chapter 34: the transfer of the res publica to the Senate and people, and the name Augustus, 27 BC. ↩ a b
Suetonius, The Life of Augustus (Lives of the Caesars), 28.3, the city found in brick and left in marble; 7.2, the name Augustus. ↩
Wikipedia, “Augustus, Wikipedia”