The Constitutional Settlements: How Augustus created the Empire Part One

"In my sixth and seventh consulships (28-27 BC), after I had extinguished civil wars, and at a time when with universal consent I was in possession of all power, I transferred the res publica from my power to the discernment of the Senate and the People of Rome. For this merit of mine, I was named Augustus by decree of the Senate, and the doorposts of my house were publicly wreathed with laurels and a civic crown was fastened over my door and a golden shield was set up in the Julian Senate house; the inscription on this shield attested that it was given me by the Senate and People of Rome on account of my courage, clemency, justice, and sense of duty. After this time I excelled all in influence (auctoritas), but I possessed no more official power (potestas) than others who were my colleagues in several magistracies"
- Res Gestae, 34

Restoration:

• Egypt had been conquered - coins with that legend show a crocodile snapping its jaws
• Antony was dead, and the long, excruciating period of civil war had come to an end
• As Augustus put it in Res Gestae (34.1), at the age of 32, he was "in possession of all power"

Above is the Aureus of Octavian, minted in the province of Asia in 28 BC.

• On its front, it shows Octavian with a laurel crown and the legend IMP(erator) CAESAR - DIVI F(ilius) CO(n)S(ul) VI. On the reverse, we see him seated in the magistrate's chair, the sella curulis, holding a scroll in his right hand, with a document box on the ground to the left. The inscription reads LEGES ET IURA P(ublicae) R(ei) RESTITUT. It can be translated as "he restored laws and rights to the res publica" or "he restored the laws and rights of the res publica" - the ambiguity may well be deliberate

What does this coin tell us?

• He did not rush into setting up a hard and fast mode of governance . After Alexandria fell, he spent several months in the east and passed the winter on the island of Samos
• He had learned from the fate of his adoptive father, who had died at the hands of men whose relatives he had pardoned, and he had not taken many prisoners
• It was not a transformation that could be taken for granted, and many of his contemporaries, who had seen him in action as a murderous killer, were understandably far from trusting the appearance of a kinder, gentler version of the same man
• His previous behaviour still weighed heavily and, several decades later, Seneca wrote that Augustus was "moderate and merciful, but that was, to be sure, after having reddened the Actian sea with Roman blood - after, to be sure, smashing his fleets and those of his enemies in Sicily; and after, to be sure, the human sacrifices and proscriptions at Perusia"