Augustus Quotes

“Rome became a republic in 509 B.C., after driving out its king and abolishing the monarchy. The next two centuries saw a long struggle for power between a group of noble families, patricians, and ordinary citizens, plebeians, who were excluded from public office. The outcome was a apparent victory for the people, but the old aristocracy, supplemented by rich pledeian nobles, still controlled the state. What looked in many ways like democracy was, in fact, an oligarcy modified by elections.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“He had become a well-loved figure in Apollonia and many of its citizens came to his house begging him to stay.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Turn not your country’s hand against your country’s heart!”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Livy’s worldview was moral and romantic, and most thinking people of his age shared it. In the preface to his magnum opus, he stated that writing history was a way of escaping the troubles of the modern world: “Of late years wealth has made us greedy, and self-indulgence has brought us, through every kind of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death both individual and collective.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“For him, bravery was not an assertion of collective defiance and solidarity among colleagues but a solitary, obstinate act of will.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Whoever makes his journey to a tyrant’s court Becomes his slave, although he went there a free man.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“The optimates, the “best people,” represented conservative opinion, traditional values, and a collegiate approach to politics. They resented any challenge to the ruling oligarchy and, because they controlled the Senate, were able to block reform. The optimates’ opponents, the populares, claimed to stand, as their nickname suggests, for the interests of the Roman people, of the citizenry at large. Although some of the populares were genuine reformers, others were simply ambitious individualists.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Tiberius outlasted her only by eight years, and expired old and lonely in his island retreat in A.D. 37.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Livia died in A.D. 29 at the considerable age of eighty-six.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Eventually, only one person was left beside the ashes—Julia Augusta, widow and now daughter of the dead princeps.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Augustus’ body was laid on a pyre in the ustrinum, or crematorium, next to the mausoleum.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Now that Livia had become Julia Augusta, she had an official constitutional position”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“pay the ferryman to carry Augustus’ spirit across the river Styx to the underworld.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Tiberius, being his closest relative, called him by name and said, “Vale,” “Farewell.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Augustus’ signet ring was removed from his finger. His eyes were closed.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“and wanted to replace Tiberius with Agrippa, and that Livia acted to defeat him.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“The most important charges that I have rejected are that Augustus changed his mind about who should succeed him”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“The focus for any trouble would be Agrippa Postumus, the last male representative of the Julian”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Tiberius was persuaded to remain silent. The matter was closed.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“The tribune in command of Agrippa’s guard told a centurion to see to the matter.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Immediately, a codicillus, an order, was sent to Planasia to execute Agrippa Postumus.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“He had been ruler of the Roman empire for almost forty-four years.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“The date was August 19, a little more than a month before his seventy-seventh birthday.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Finally, the princeps wrote (or revised) his will, complex and surprising; it took up two notebooks”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Tiberius, now fifty-six, received equal powers.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“In the following year, A.D. 13, Augustus’ imperium was optimistically extended for a further ten years,”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“the Rhine was to be the permanent boundary between Romanized Gaul and the barbarians of central Europe.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“he made no attempt to recover Germania as a Roman province, and the empire was never again to reach beyond the Rhine.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!” He kept the anniversary as a day of deep mourning.”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

“Victims’ heads were nailed to trees in the forest as a warning”
― Anthony Everitt, Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor