This fine collection of papers is a record of the ‘Commemorating Augustus’ conference held in Leeds on 19 August 2014 to mark the bimillennium of Augustus’ death. The contributors, a combination of young scholars and more experienced academics, have written a series of smoothly authoritative essays. In combination, these essays give a broad overview of Augustus’ reception history and surely provide the ‘sound context for future work’ (p. 3) hoped for by the editor. The collection is, in effect, a ‘companion’ volume of a type and quality with which many prospective readers will be familiar from, for example, the Companion to Julius Caesar (2009) edited by M. Griffin.
Goodman's introductory essay, ‘Best of Emperors or Subtle Tyrant? Augustus the Ambivalent’, makes the point that Augustus has received little attention from scholars interested in reception matters. Yet the possibilities are vast, partly because of the widely varying terms in which he has been discussed since ancient times, and because of the long succession of autocratic regimes which have employed him as a model. Augustus’ ambivalent public image was an important factor in his success as a ruler, and it has proved a source of endless fascination for those dealing with rulers of later times.
The papers that follow may be divided into four groups. The first relates to notable receptions in ancient times. All these papers are informed by the insight, formulated by C. Martindale but stressed powerfully by Goodman in her introduction (pp. 22–4), that authorial intention is often outweighed by audience reception, so that texts take on lives of their own through subsequent ages and changing interpretations. A. Cooley, in Chapter 2: ‘The Last Days of Augustus’, shows that our evidence for the weeks and days leading up to the death of Augustus has been carefully crafted to make his deification seem natural. The possibility is raised that this was Augustus’ aim at the time. If so, the process of transmission has taken the focus away from imperial intention to audience interpretation in a way that surely served his purpose. S. Green, in Chapter 3: ‘Seneca's Augustus: (Re)calibrating the Imperial Model for a Young Prince’, contrasts the complex Augustus of De clementia with the more straightforward and positive Augustus who appears in the earlier Apocolocyntosis. This change, in Green's view, is a response to fears arising from Nero's complicity in the death of Britannicus, so that the De clementia deliberately employs an Augustus whose youthful violence settles down to mature wisdom as a way of reassuring Nero's contemporaries that a positive outcome remains possible for the young Nero, given the character development of his imperial model.
In the fourth chapter, ‘Embodying the Augustan in Suetonius and Beyond’, P. Cook analyses the physical descriptions of Augustus and his Julio-Claudian successors contained in Suetonius’ Lives. It comes as little surprise to learn that the successors are contrasted against the Augustan model, with physiognomic peculiarities linked to personality traits, and that the Augustan model is itself a product of deliberate image propagation, but the details are carefully and evocatively explained, and there is much in this paper that helps with interpretations in other media, especially sculpture. In Chapter 5, ‘The First Emperor? Augustus and Julius Caesar as Rival Founders of the Principate’, J. Geiger argues that imperial models were subjected to renewed scrutiny in the second century, with Augustus’ status as founder of the Principate proving contentious, and Trajan preferring Julius Caesar for his military abilities. Tacitus’ (Ann. 1.9–10) famous account of the dichotomous judgements expressed at Augustus’ funeral makes it very likely that the Augustan model was debated in contemporary Rome, but Trajan's ‘preference’ for Julius Caesar is perhaps overplayed. After all, Caesar's assassination was at least as famous as his military victories. In Chapter 6, ‘Julian Augustus on Augustus: Octavian in the Caesars’, S. Tougher demonstrates that Julian found the ambiguity of Augustus’ image a matter for special contemplation. In pursuit of his aims, Julian too might need to show youthful forcefulness and mature wisdom. The Augustan model could prove intellectually fascinating and politically reassuring at the same time.
The second group of papers treats aspects of early Christianity and the Middle Ages. M. Sloan, in Chapter 7: ‘Augustus, the Harbinger of Peace: Orosius’ Reception of Augustus in Historiae Adversus Paganos’, underlines how Orosius credited Augustus with establishing the imperial peace that coincided with the birth of Christ and provided ideal conditions for the spread and success of Christianity: Augustus was part of God's grand plan. K. Simić, in Chapter 8: ‘The Byzantine Augustus: the Reception of the First Emperor in the Byzantine Tradition’, demonstrates how Byzantine emperors found value in Augustus as a model, given his connections with the advent of Christianity, with Rome as a seat of power and with congenial ideas about his imperial style. J. Strothmann, in Chapter 9: ‘Augustus and the Carolingians’, argues that Charlemagne was interested in Augustus as both a title and a model that would link him explicitly to the Augustan age, the line of Roman emperors and the history of the Church. Augustus was able to unite the ‘Holy’ and the ‘Roman’ dimensions of the Holy Roman Empire. In Chapter 10, ‘Augustus as Visionary: the Legend of the Augustan Altar in S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome’, K. Boeye and N. Pandey use a collection of ‘Sibylline’ oracles of Christ's birth, along with art and material remains, to reconstruct the tradition that Augustus foresaw the birth of Christ and responded by building an altar in Rome on the spot later identified with the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. This tradition proved enormously valuable to the Roman Papacy in its struggles to establish the primacy of its claims to leadership of the Christian Church.
Papers dealing with receptions (evolving towards the negative) of Augustus in the Renaissance and Enlightenment may be assigned to a third group. In Chapter 11, ‘From Peacemaker to Tyrant: the Changing Image of Augustus in Italian Renaissance Political Thought’, R. Black shows that the image of Augustus was sharply contested in fifteenth-century Italy, partly through the influence of Seneca's De clementia, and because attitudes to monarchy varied widely and were expressed strongly. Chapter 12, ‘Augustus in Morisot's “Book 8” of the Fasti’, by B. Xinyue, takes us to seventeenth-century France and to a notable attempt by the poet Morisot to explore the contemporary usefulness of Augustus by impersonating an Augustan poet, in this case Ovid, whose Fasti miraculously re-acquires its lost eighth book.
The fourth and final group of papers concentrates on receptions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. J. Chlup, in Chapter 13: ‘The Proconsul and the Emperor: John Buchan's Augustus’, presents a remarkable account of the composition and influence of Buchan's famous 1937 biography of Augustus. Not only did Buchan's research shape the way in which he approached his service as Governor General of Canada, but his biography became situated in ‘Canadian political and cultural discourse’ (p. 236) through the agency of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who was at face value the last man to consult a laudatory account of an imperial autocrat. M. Lindner, in Chapter 14: ‘In Search of a New Princeps: Günther Birkenfeld and His Augustus Novels, 1934–1984’, traces the evolution of Günther Birkenfeld's novels about Augustus through varying circumstances: pre-war, mid-war, Cold War and posthumous, which left clear traces on the different editions. The paper demonstrates how changing conditions required corresponding changes in the presentation of Augustus as a heroic saviour-leader. In Chapter 15, ‘Augustus in the Rhetorical Tradition’, K. Lamp makes the point that art, architecture and material evidence more generally have great persuasive influence and ought to be considered alongside, and indeed as part of, the rhetorical tradition. When this is done, Theodor Mommsen was plainly incorrect to argue that the principate of Augustus coincided with a decline in rhetoric. Nevertheless, it might have been stressed that senatorial oratory changed in character and that elite expression became more inclined towards social harmony than political competition, as had been the case under the Republic. Certain types of high-profile rhetoric at least appear to have declined. The next chapter, Chapter 16: ‘The Parthian Arch of Augustus and its Legacy: Memory Manipulation in Imperial Rome and Modern Scholarship’, by M. Popkin, contains an excellent account of the influence of the Parthian Arch of Augustus, not only on subsequent perceptions of what had really been a ‘diplomatic’ triumph over the Parthians, but also on perceptions of the triumph as an institution by modern scholars.
Politics plays a key role in the final three papers. F. Hobden, in Chapter 17: ‘Augustus and the Politics of the Past in Television Documentaries Today’, analyses the interpretations of Augustus offered in three recent documentaries from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany respectively. It emerges that Augustus is more a figure of elite than popular culture and that the approach of such documentaries tends towards the conservative, despite traces of unease about absolute power. A. Clareborn, in Chapter 18: ‘Augusto Reframed: Exhibiting Augustus in Bimillennial Rome’, offers an interesting account of the fortunes of several exhibitions mounted in Rome in connection with the bimillennium of Augustus’ death. Each in its own way, and with varying success, dealt with the legacy of Mussolini's Mostra Augustea of 1937–8. This fascist legacy, regrettably, continues to dog modern efforts to present the age of Augustus to the world. Shortfalls in funding and political harmony even resulted in Italian authorities sending treasured components of the year's most outstanding exhibition to the Louvre – during peak tourist season. K. Galinsky, in Chapter 19: ‘Augustus’ (Non)reception in America and Its Context’, rounds off the collection with an insightful paper that outlines reasons for Augustus’ relative unpopularity in the United States. Not only is he an autocratic figure in a strongly republican political environment, but he is obviously less useful than Caesar for illustrating what might happen to a President who oversteps his executive authority. Even discussions of US imperialism, or of the Pax Americana, find little place for him. Often mindful of fascist appropriations of the 1930s, very different American governments have resisted the image of an empire ruling the world under a wise monarch. Such is the distinctive stance of the most powerful Western democracy.
It might have been made clearer that Augustus, like Caesar, has become an instrument of power, who can still be used to promote or diminish the power of an individual or cause in the modern age. Reception studies, therefore, are particularly valuable for arguing the contemporary importance of classical studies and ancient history. There are, moreover, periods and topics overlooked in this impressive survey of receptions, notably fascist Europe and the work of ‘Augustan’ poets, such as Dryden, Pope and Swift, but this is the result of a conscious decision (p. 18), and it makes sense, given the attention directed to such topics in earlier scholarly work. This book is designed to establish the framework into which that work might be slotted and to indicate future possibilities. It surely does these things at a high level of quality, so that the editor and her team should be soundly congratulated.
