Roman Civil War And Caesar
If anyone had hoped that the assassination of Julius Caesar would bring
about
the return of Republican rule, they must surely have been disappointed,
for the
political turbulence simply continued. Caesar’s assassins and his
old
commanders battled for control, while orators like Cicero labored to save
the
old Republic. In the and, Julius Caesar’s great nephew and adopted
son
Octavian known to history as Augustus Caesar outmaneuvered and
outfought
everyone. The year after his uncle’s death, Octavian and his allies
of the
Caesarian faction joined forces in an alliance called the second
Triumvirate. By
means of intriguer and threat, they coerced the senate into
granting them and
their legions the power to rectory peace to the Roman
state. In the battle of
Philippi, in northern Greece in 42b.c., Octavian
and his allies defeated the
conspirators who had assassinated Julius Caesar.
However, peace was not at hand.
Octavian split with his former allies,
especially with Mark Antony, who was now
Cleopatra’s lover. In a
climactic naval battle at Actium in 31b.c., Octavian
defeated Mark Antony.
Antony’s death and Octavian’s victory effectively
ended the Roman Civil war.
In the thirty seventh poems in his first book of
Odes, the poet Horace
wrote in response: Nuncest bibendum nuncpede libero
pulsanda tellus! Octavian
took power, and Horace hailed him as "Caesar,"
which, for the first time,
becomes a horrific title. Gaius Julius Caesar
Octavianus held both
military command and tribunician power he was both chief
priest. He was also
politically astute enough to adorn reality with palatable
outward forms,
replacing democracy with autocracy in a way that did not
antagonize the
public. He called on the services of culture, religion,
literature,
architecture, and the visual arts to help create a new picture of
the world,
with the result that there was a politically inspired aesthetic
revolution,
which led to the legalization of absolute power. In 27b.c., Octavian
formally
divested himself of all authority. In response, the Senate and the
people
promptly gave it back to him, voting him the title Augustus. Although he
was
never officially emperor of Rome at all, within four years he had
assumed
complete power including the right of veto over any law. The Republic
was
formally dead. During the forty-five years that Augustus ruled, the
Senate and
popular assemblies continued to meet. However, the election of
consuls,
proconsuls, tribunes, and other officials required his blessing, the
Senate was
filled with Augustus’ finds, and the popular assemblies seem to
have lost all
political function. As commander of the armies, he rule all the
vast territories
of an empire that reached to the Rivers Rhine and Danube in
what is now Germany.
He commanded in the name of his uncle, Julius
Caesar, and on the basis of his
own military victories, claiming that he
brought peace and order after a century
of civil wars. He rebuilt temples to
the Olympian gods, the "divine" Julius
Caesar, and to "Rome and
Augustus." He built roads, bridges, and aqueducts,
established a sound
currency, nurtured honest government, and maintained peace,
which lasted
nearly two hundred years.