2025/05/05 by Ronald T. Ridley · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Classical Antiquity Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1515/9783111705446-015
openalex publication_date 2025/05/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/05
Augustus' Res Gestae is used as a major source for his regime, mostly accepted very uncritically (for example, claims that a public document cannot lie!).The present essay is intended to turn the text upside down and use it for a purpose its author never imagined: to track his career as a revolutionary, how he won supreme power and how he kept it.The text will be revealed as remarkably informative for answers to these questions.Not without reason Theodor Mommsen labelled the Res Gestae "the queen of Latin inscriptions".It is a unique document as the political testament of the man who overthrew the Roman Republic after half a millennium of history, and therefore a text of intense propaganda intent. 1 There has rarely been a more dense text, every word (2,500 of them) of which had been long thought about, and which therefore bears great significance. 2 I trust that I may be allowed to refer here to my own attempts to come to grips with it: Ridley ( 2003) and Ridley (2011).I will say here only that critics' reaction has shown an entire inability to distinguish fact from fiction, which is a fundamental exercise for every one of us in our daily lives.They aspire to defend half-truth against truth, not understanding that a half truth is an untruth, and in the case of a person who well knew the whole truth, it is a lieas every legal court knows.A recent analysis suggests: "The distortions of the truth are so far understandable that no ruler so powerful as Augustus (my emphasis) would insert known errors into his will and therefore detract from his deeds and himself in the future", Eberle (2006) 8. What so powerful ruler has ever not believed that he could do whatever he wanted?And Augustus was totally right: most of the world still believes him!The following analysis will be focussed on editions of the Res Gestae, as the most direct aids to our understanding; the general bibliography is overwhelming.It must be noted here, at the outset, however, that even the second edition of Mommsen ( 1883) was, of necessity, devoted mainly to discussion of the lacunose Latin text.Hardy (1923) and Gag (1950) similarly are devoted to a literal historical commentary, assembling parallel texts.Gag's most important comments are restricted, in fact, to his introduction.Gag (1950) 34-36: Augustus must be granted some sincerity, his account accords with Augustan literature, there is 'a monarchical tone', but 'that Augustus believed he must uphold here so perseveringly the Republican version of his revolution is something for us to think about'!Volkmann's third edition (1969) is also mainly an (exemplary) collection of parallel texts.The illustration and control of Augustus' own words by other texts is, of course, the first step, but then surely comes the most important exercise: what does it all mean?Read Edwin Ramage's outburst, (1987) 11; this is a book full of the most incisive good sense. It can be argued that Augustus must have begun to think about it when he built his mausoleum (28because that was where it was set up), or when he was seriously ill (23), or when he lost crucial members of his family, notably his grandsons and intended heirs (5 and 2).NB: All dates are BC unless otherwise indicated.