Res Gestae Divi Augusti

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The Res Gestae Divi Augusti, literally meaning the "The Deeds of the Divine Augustus" was a monumental inscription composed by the first Roman emperor, Augustus, providing a first-person record of his life and accomplishments. Originally inscribed on two bronze columns set up on Rome, copies of it were installed in various provinces and cities across the Roman empire. The text is believed to have been completed just one month before Augustus' death (19 August 14 CE).

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Overview

The text consists of a short introduction, 35 body paragraphs and a posthumous addendum. The paragraphs are conventionally grouped in four sections, political career, public benefactions, military accomplishments and a political statement.

Notable Copies

circa

Monumentum Ancyranum
The Monumentum Ancyranum or the Temple of Augustus and Rome contains a copy of the Res Gestae, which is most likely the most complete one. The inscriptions are the primary surviving source of the text, since the original inscription on bronze pillars in front of the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome has long been lost, and two other surviving inscriptions of the text are incomplete.

The introduction and first two pararagraphs of the inscription found at the Monumentum Ancyranum of Ankara read as such:

...Below is a copy of the acts of the Deified Augustus by which he placed the whole world under the sovereignty of the Roman people, and of the amounts which he expended upon the state and the Roman people, as engraved upon two bronze columns which have been set up in Rome.

At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order, in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; it also gave me the imperium. As propraetor it ordered me, along with the consuls, “to see that the republic suffered no harm.” In the same year, moreover, as both consuls had fallen in war, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for settling the constitution.

Those who slew my father I drove into exile, punishing their deed by due process of law and afterwards when they waged war upon the republic I twice defeated them in battle.

References

Augustus (14 May 2009). Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84152-8.
Cf. Mitt. 1904, 57; Kornemann, Mausoleum und Tatenbericht des Augustus, 16.
Martial, Epigram 5.64; translation by A.S. Kline.
Rodolfo Lanciani (1892). Pagan and Christian Rome. Houghton, Mifflin. p. 177.
Platner & Ashby (1929). A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome.
Ferdinand Gregorovius (1895). History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, Vol. III.
Keppie, Lawrence (1991). Understanding Roman Inscriptions. Routledge. p. 131. ISBN 978-1-134-74617-0.
de Ste Croix, G.E.M. (1981). The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests. Cornell University Press. p. 362. ISBN 978-0-8014-1442-8.
Richardson, J. S. (2012). Augustan Rome 44 BC to AD 14. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 197–198. ISBN 978-0-7486-5533-5.
Eck, W. (2007) The age of Augustus. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 169. ISBN 978-1-4051-5149-8.
Barini, Concetta (1937), (in Ancient Greek and Latin) Res Gestae Divi Augusti ex Monumentis Ancyrano, Antiocheno, Apolloniensi, Rome.
Cooley, Alison (2009), (in English) Res Gestae divi Augusti: Text, Translation and Commentary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-521-84152-8.
Gagé, Jean (1935), Res gestae divi Augusti ex monumentis Ancyrano et Antiocheno latinis, Paris. Mommsen, Theodor (1865). Res gestae Divi Augusti ex monumentis Ancyrano et Apolloniensi. Berolini: Weidmannos, 1865.
Scheid. John (2007). (in French) Res Gestae Divi Augusti: hauts faits du divin Auguste. Paris: Belles Lettres, 2007. ISBN 978-2-251-01446-3.
Volkmann, Hans (1942), Res gestae Divi Augusti Das Monumentum Ancyranum, Leipzig.

Res Gestae Divi Augusti

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Overview

Notable Copies

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References

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