Augustan literature

There were a series of walkways, and at the very top of the cavea area, there was a colonnaded portico as well.

So very much a kind of facsimile of what the Colosseum in Rome looked actually look like and the entirety of the structure dating to the Augustan period that is during the time of the reign of Emperor Augustus.

Remember, he was technically declared emperor in 27 B.C. until the early part of the first century after.

And so we're talking about an amphitheater built right around the time of Christ and which survives again as testimony to the importance of the city.

Uh, so the loss of the standards is a deep, deep shame for Rome, and the multiple losses that they have suffered at the hands of the Parthians is, you know, a very bitter pill for the Romans to swallow.

Which is why, I think, in the Augustan literature prior to the return of the Parthian standard, there's such a heavy emphasis on avenging this defeat, this shame.

So let's think about these Parthian standards in this central scene.

What's going on here?

That makes Parthia plausible.

What also makes Parthia particularly plausible is the dominance of Parthia in Roman literature, both prior to the return of the Parthian standards in 19 BCE and afterwards.

So the Augustan poets make a really, really heavy, heavy emphasis on how Rome will conquer Parthia, will avenge the taking of the Parthian standards prior to the return.

And then after the return, we still see this emphasis on, uh, the extent of Rome's power and empire through the conquest of Parthia and, and compelling the Parthians to return the standards, which is what Augustus tells us in Res Gestae, chapter 29.

It was said that he found Rome built in brick and left it in marble.

And part of that Augustan legacy still stands today.

The Pantheon, built by his right-hand man, Marcus Agrippa, as a temple for all the gods of Rome, exudes a sleek, muscular authority.

This was a building fit for a city that was taking on the headship of the world.

foreign barbarian woman

that's right this is a quote from a humantis article called how augustus used the marble of rome to shape its memory by mary margaret fanning quote augustus forever tied himself to rome's cultural memory by making it his own memory a strategy he did not invent but one he almost certainly perfected temple of mars ultor in the forum of augustus the julian forum the Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Forum Romanum, the Theatre of Pompey and the Campus Martius, only to name a few, are all buildings which, whether by original intention or not, are now Augustan in association and in ideology due to Augustus' brilliant understanding of how architecture shapes cultural memory and what role memory plays in the everyday lives of people in the past, present, and future.

Leaving Rome as a city of marble was, quite simply, the shrewdest policy Augustus ever undertook, as it guaranteed his legacy, his public image, and indeed his memory for centuries to come.

End quote.

Apollo became a huge part of Augustus' mythic brand building, and he wanted to use this construction project on the Palatine as a way to really cement their association together.

No pun intended.

This is a quote from Digital Augustan Rome.

So Digital Augustan Rome is super cool.

The, the, the narrative of this unbelievably violent, uh, confusing, um, sort of deeply conflict-filled period of history compressed into a few sentences so that you can sort of skip over [laughs] this period of extraordinary bloody period of civil war and emerge into the sunlit uplands where Augustus wants you to be.

Augustus, looking back from his cloud, his deified cloud, wants us to forget about this stuff and just focus on, uh, the, the, the glories of the August- the peace and, uh, stability, ho ho, of the Augustan Age.

But I think this is, uh, you know, one of your achievements in this book really is to, is, like, is to sort of shake that out, unpack it, and say, and, and really show us these sort of confusing and horrific battles with your, with your historical imagination.

And I, I thought that was, I thought that was terrific.

So it's, and it's not only does he not...

He comes from nowhere, then he sort of disappears.

And you get all, all these great Augustan poets celebrating, say, um, you know, Augustus's fantastic victory in the helm at Actium.

Uh, you know, he wasn't in the helm.

Can you explain why there was this kind of remarkable flowering in this particular period?

Well I think it's often one of the periods of huge upheaval often do produce art and it was the golden age and Augustus was a great patron of the arts and it was part of the whole regime image building that Not only did he have the heroic statues of himself and build these enormous buildings, these great marble halls, which of course have been aped by the Americans since, he encouraged the arts and Virgil was practically the sort of poet laureate of the Augustan age.

And it was a moment that I really enjoyed writing the novel because Agrippa, I don't think, took much of an interest in all of this.

And he goes to dinner at Mycenaeus and has to listen to these two poets reciting after the meal.

We've covered his building projects, his military reforms, his family drama.

But today I want to talk about the poets Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and how they helped create the Augustan age.

Oh, I love that.

So poems were like political tools.

No pressure, but it does mean a lot.

And now back to Ovid.

His exile really is the dark underbelly of the Augustan age.

You have all this brilliant art, but it's built on the whim of one man.