Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/442

Rh 424 AUGUSTUS. closes with the deposition of the son of Orestes ; and, strangely enough, the last exnperor combined the names of the first king and the first emperor of Rome. [Orestes, OnoACER.] (Amm. Marc. Excerpta, pp. 662, 663, ed. Paris, 1681; Cassiod. Chronicony ad Zenonem ; Jomand. de Regnorum Successione^ p. 59, de Reb. Goth., pp. 128, 129, ed. Lindenbrog; Procop. de Bell. Goth. i. 1, ii. 6 ; Cedrenus, p. 350, ed. Paris; Theophanes, p. 102, ed. Paris; Evagrius, ii. 16.) [W. P.J AUGUSTUS, the first emperor of the Roman empire, was bom on the 23rd of September of the year B. c. QZ, in the consulship of !M. Tullius Cicero and C. Antonius. He was the son of C. Octavius by Atia, a daughter of Julia, the sister of C. Julius Caesar, who is said to have been de- scended from the ancient Latin hero Atys. His real name was, like that of his father, C. Octavius, but for the sake of brevity, and in order to avoid confusion, we «hall call him Augustus, though this was only an hereditary surname which was given him afterwards by the senate and the people to express their veneration for him, whence the Greek writers translate it by 1^Sa(Tr6s. Various wonderful signs, announcing his future greatness, were subse- quently believed to have preceded or accompanied his birth. (Suet. Aup. 94; Dion Cass, xlv. l,&c.) Augustus lost his father at the age of foilr years, whereupon his mother married L. Marcius Philip- pus, and at the age of twelve (according to Nicolaus Damascenus, De Vit. Aug. 3, three years earlier) he delivered the funeral eulogium on his grand- mother, Julia. After the death of his father his education was conducted with great care in the house of his grandmother,..Julia, and at her death he returned to his mother, who, as well as his step-father, henceforth watched over his education with the utmost vigilance. His talents and beauty, and above all his relationship to G. Julius Caesar, drew upon him the attention of the most distin- guished Romans of the time, and it seems that J. Caesar himself, who had no male issue, watched over the education of the .promising youth with no less interest th.in his parents. In his sixteenth year (N. Damascenus erroneously says in liis fifteenth) he received the toga virilis, and in the same year was made a member of the college of pontiffs, in the place of L, Domitius, who had been killed after the battle of Pharsalia. (N. Damasc. Z. c. 4 ; Veil. Pat. ii. 59 ; Suet. Aug. 94 ; Dion Cass. xlv. 2.) From this time his uncle, C. Julius Caesar, devoted as much of his time as his own busj' life allowed him to the practical education of his nephew, and trained him for the duties of the public career he was soon to enter upon. Dion Cassius relates that at this time Caesar also brought about his elevation to the rank of a patrician, but it is a well attested fiu;t that this did not take place till three years later. In B. c. 47, when Caesar went to Africa to put down the Pompeian party in that country, Augustus wished to accom- pany him but was kept back, because his mother thought that his delicate constitution would be un- able to bear the fatigues connected with such an expedition. On his return Caesar distinguished him, nevertheless, with military honours, and in his triumph allowed Augustus to ride on horseback behind his triumphal car. In the year following (B.C. 45), when Caesar went to Spain against the sons of Pompey, Augustus, who had then completed his seventeenth year, was to have accompanied his AUGUSTUS. uncle, but was obliged to remain behind on account of illness, but soon joined him with a few com- panions. During his whole life-time Augustus, with -one exception, was unfortunate at sea, and this his first attempt nearly cost him his life, for the vessel in which he sailed was wrecked on the coast of Spain. Whether he arrived in Caesar's camp in time to take part in the battle of Munda or not is a disputed point, though the former seems to be more probable. (Suet. Atig. 94 ; Dion Cass, xliii. 41.) Caesar became more and more attached to Lis nephew, for he seems to have perceived in him the elements of everything that would render him a worthy successor to him- self: he constantly kept him about his person, and while he was yet in Spain he is said to have made his will and to have adopted Augustus as his son, though without informing him of it. In the autumn of b. c. 45, Caesar returned to Rome with his nephew ; and soon afterwards, in accordance with the wish of his uncle, the senate raised the gens Octavia, to which Augustus belonged, to the rank of a patrician gens. About the same time Augustus was betrothed to Servilia, the daughter of P. Servilius Isauricus, but the engagement ap- pears afterwards to have been broken off. The extraordinary distinctions and favours which had thiis been conferred upon Augustus at such an early age, must have excited his pride and ambi- tion, of which one remarkable example is recorded. In the verj' ^-ear of his return from Spain he was presumptuous enough to ask for the office of magister equitum to the dictator, his uncle. Cae- sar, however, refused to grant it, and gave it to M. Lepidus instead, probably because he thought his nephew not yet fit for such an office. He wished that Augustas should accompany him on the expedition which he contemplated against the Getae and Parthians ; and, in order that the young man might acquire a more thorough prac- tical training in military affairs, he sent him to Apollonia in lUyricum, where some legions were stationed, and whither Caesar himself intended to follow him. It has often been supposed that Cae- sar sent his nephew to Apollonia for the purpose of finishing his intellectual education ; but although this was not neglected during his stay in that city, yet it was not the object for which he was sent thither, for Apollonia offered no advantages for the pui-pose, as may be inferred from the fact, that Augustus took his instructors — the rhetorician ApoUodorus of Pergamus and the mathematician Theogenes, with him from Rome. When Caesar had again to appoint the magistrates in B. c. 44, he remembered the desire of his nephew, and con- ferred upon him, while he was at Apollonia, the office of magister equitum, on which he was to enter in the autumn of b. c. 43. But thingb turned out far differently. Augustus had scarcely been at Apollonia six months, when he was sur- prised by the news of his uncle's murder, in March, b. c. 44. Short as his residence at this place had been, it was yet of great influence upon his future life : his military exercises seem to have strengthened his naturally delicate constitution, and the attentions and flatteries which were paid to the nephew of Caesar by the most distinguished persons connected with the legions in Illyricum, stimulated his ambition and love of dominion, and thus explain as well as excuse many of the acts of which he was afterwards guilty. It was at Apol-