Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 17, 2006

Augustus Caesar is a fascinating study. While he was not much of a soldier, and not terribly personable by most accounts, he became the master of Rome's political game following the death of Julius Caesar, and within a number of years he eliminated all of his enemies and established himself as a de facto King of Rome. The Republic was dead, and the Empire that Augustus replaced it with would endure for many centuries.This book is quite readable, and it really does serve to give the reader a feel for what Augustus Caesar was really like. We see that he was heartless as regards marital matters, repeatedly requiring his inner circle to marry or divorce against their wishes for political reasons. This ended up causing him much trouble. While he led a tough and adventurous life by modern standards (and perhaps any standard) he was apparently not competent militarily, and had a penchant for becoming ill on campaigns. But he was smart enough to rely on his hyper-competent client Marcus Agrippa, and he was able to keep Agrippa's loyalty throughout the latter's life. The Roman people were tired of civil war, proscriptions, and turmoil, and welcomed the calm and peace of Augustus' dictatorship. Republics have fallen for these kinds of reasons since.This is an insightful book and an enjoyable read. Highly recommended. RJB.

If you enjoy reading Roman history, this is a great book for you. Very detailed, but interesting. Through this book, one gets a very good picture of what life was like in Rome, not only for Augustus, but for everyone around him. Everitt chronicles the difficulties of empire building and sustaining, and draws comparisons between Augustus and his uncle/adoptive father, Julius Ceasar, which are most interesting.

Tony Everitt writes clean English. He gives up to date analysis on what Augustus was up to in his military campaigns and political reforms. This is not an easy feat given the recent explosion of high-grade research on Augustus. He has an appealing way of mixing into the action of Agustus' life descriptions of how Romans bathed, ate, and celebrated important rituals, such as the first shaving of a pubescent boy (Augustus did not shave until he was 24).I have only two comments for improvement. The first is that Agrippa does not get his full due. In Augustus: The Biography by Jochen Bleichen the author goes into depth on how intellectually powerful and sophisticated Agrippa was. He was learned in hydrology, and the arts. He once called Mycaena's promotion of Virgil as the pushing on to the public of a new form of bad taste. We need to learn more about Agrippa.The second comment is that Everitt tends to oversimplify the complexity of Agustus' first and second settlements and the mental exercise and logic behind them. For that you need to read Bleichen's book.I have a third critique but not for Everitt but rather for his "book designer" (whatever that means) Simon L. Sullivan. I am assuming Sullivan was in charge of typography. Whoever was, they should cower in shame. On many pages the baselines are not aligned. This is such an amateur error in typography that a first term student would get flunked. Even worse, many pages differ extremely in the number of lines on each page. Given such gross incompetence of typography it would be too much to ask for optical margin alignment to be used but that is a forlorn wish, as most people born after Word have no idea of what this means and almost everyone who worked on a Linotype is now long gone. InDesign has this as an option and I urge all typographers to use this.

This is one of the best biographies I have ever read. Everitt is a serious historian, but is not staid. Up front, he lays out an interesting scenario of Augustus's death based on what is known, but fills it out with he knows about the Roman society in general and the Augustan period in general. The picture is a bit different than that painted by Robert Graves.Next, he talks about the historical record. What do we know based on the preserved record and what we know that has been lost (which is a lot!). He exams what is likely to propaganda supported by Augustus but also poured on by supplicants, such as Horace. He notes that Augustus encouraged relatively freed dialogue, but limits existed (witness, Ovid. Ovid is a minor figure here in a much larger tapestry than "An Imagined Life", and has a much less favorable portrayal).I liked the fact that he clearly delineated what Augustus was (a great politician and social thinker) and what he was not (a great general). He portrayed Augustus as the scion of a well-to-do country bourgeois family whose move into high aristocracy was made possible through his adoption by the Dictator. From there, Augustus hangs on by the skin of his teeth through cunning and luck to become all that he could be.Some of the incidences that Everitt lays out are quite interesting (the Egyptian Asp is 6 feet long full grown, too large to be smuggled in a basket of fruit. The small ones are far less deadly). Some are hilarious. In 41 AD Mark Antony's brother, Lucius Antonius, turns on Octavian and is besieged in the town of Perugia for a long time. Some of the large iron and stone rocks fired by the sides were excavated and found to have engravings by the soldiers, including "I seek Octavian's arse" and "Hi, Octavius. You suck cock". So there was a precedent for "Eat this Tojo!"Try it. You'll like it.

GOOD

completely satisfied

Although Adrian Goldsworthy’s “Augustus: First Emperor of Rome”, published in 2014, is newer and marginally better reviewed on Amazon.com than Anthony Everitt’s 2007 “The Life of Rome's First Emperor”, I chose to buy the (Kindle version of the) Everitt biography and was certainly not disappointed. I based my choice on a reading of the short excerpts which come up when one clicks on each book’s cover for a “Look Inside”. Everitt’s narrative was novelistic and compelling whereas Goldsworthy seemed to be trying too hard to get the facts placed solidly before the reader. As it turned out, Everitt maintained the lively pace and light touch throughout the book while managing to infuse his account with all the background facts and commentary which I thought I wanted.I do not in any way recommend against Goldsworthy’s Augustus but can certainly recommend in favour of Everitt’s.

The book about Augustus is like a novel, which makes it, pleasure to read. I Was interested in finding out if anything could he learned from the practices of Augustus considering the importance of the rule of law already at that time. By the time Augustus came to power the rule of law had already been practiced for many years.Not knowing very much but keenly interested I was surprised that the government both before, during, and after Augustus rule, was dominated by a few powerful elite families and even though there was a senate and election the system of government was not anywhere close to a democracy. My belief was in away naive, as I knew that the Romans' high levels of culture and standard of living depended on slaves.I did also did not realize the extent o which the Romans and emperors were depending on conquering other countries; take all their wealth and many slaves. Augustus had to organize the conquest of Egypt, take their wealth in order to pay his soldiers to which he was in debt. At that time winning wars was very profitable.Augustus had some interesting insights. He recognized that in the long run power was not sustainable without consent, and that consent could best be won by associating constitutional change with a traditional and moralizing ideology.An important event was his declaration that peace had been established and announced that there would be no need for more conquests. A magnificent temple was built to celebrate peace in 9BC, the Ara Pacis in Rome. Well worth a visit to Rome. I read the book while spending some time in Rome and visited this monument. By the way, reading the book at that time made my stay in Rome far more interesting and exciting.Augustus died at age 76 that is after 23 years of relative peace. During that period he improved the rule of law without however abolishing his position as a dictator. He made the people feel in Rome that they were not victims of the empire, but its stakeholders.He was a leader and established a great empire as large if bon larger that than the European Union, less in the North but far more in North Africa, the Middle including Turkey and Egypt.The author refers to two remarkable qualities. Augustus had one quality Caesar did not have: patience and he did not revel in power: he tried to understand it..To be the head is government and succeed is still very difficult. The risks at the time of Augustus were far greater. The head of state realized having members in the Senate and may be even in the government that would try to take over his position, using violence including assassination, rebellion, and poisoning. He was well aware that his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar had been assassinated. To survive required ruthlessness and killing potential rivals before being killed.His family life was a disaster with several marriages conflicts in the family and only one possible family successor, a stepson Tiberius he adoptedWas he a great leader?He was definitely a great leader in terms of winning wars and conquest and maintaining control over a huge territory and with his ability to survive in a hostile political environment as a leader of a country. He used qualities and methods in this respect that are not relevant to day.His belief that in seeking power for the sake of power was ineffective is still important and contributed to his survival; so did his mastery of having patience and taking action at the right time. He also recognized the importance of public sentiment as influenced by the rule of law. These qualities and convictions are still very important and poorly practiced by many heads of state.

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