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Imperial Image Key Scholarship - Coggle Diagram
Imperial Image Key Scholarship
Divi Filius
Beard: 'Caesar was Octavian's passport to power'
Goldsworthy: 'Augustus conscientiously distanced himself from the dictator'
Galinsky: 'To be the son of a slain dictator was a mixed blessing; to be the son of a god, an unmitigated one'
Clark: 'The name Gaius Julius Caesar was vital to recruit troops, money and followers in desperate days following Julius Caesar's assassination'
Wilson: 'His most powerful political tool in the power struggle was his association with Julius Caesar, who ... was wildly popular with the Plebs and with his legions'
Wallace-Hadrill: 'From Caesar Augustus had inherited a strong following from the city masses, which he consolidated with offerings'
Huard: 'It is in Rome ... that adoption reached its widest acceptance'
Goldsworthy: 'A young man who received his wealth and name inevitably also took on the political expectations of continuing the family's success'
Golden Age
Zanker: 'The victory in Parthia is... turned into a paradigm of salvation [Augustan Golden Age], in which the gods and the heavens act as guarantors'
Baker: 'everyone appeared to have a voice ... the majority of senators realised that their opinion counted for little in comparison to the wish of Augustus'
Edwards: 'Augustus put emphasis on a return to ancestral virtue' 'The Augustan period was a time to repair a broken nation'
Wallace-Hadrill: 'Augustus' goal was to identify his own glory with the past glories of Rome'
Galinsky: 'Romans were more interested in peace and stability rather than politics'
Zanker: 'the Apollo of Actium was celebrated not as the avenging archer, but as singer and bringer of peace'
Zanker: 'long dead ancestors were prized for their example'
Zanker: 'The health of the new saeculum was not merely an automatic, god-given blessing but was to depend on the moral effort of the Romans, the ruling class in particular'
Wallace-Hadrill: 'Augustus was adept at faking tradition'
Wallace-Hadrill: 'Moral reform stood at the heart of Augustus' new Rome'
Imperator
Beard: 'If you want to be an emperor, you have to look like a conqueror'
Beard: 'By focusing on Cleopatra, Octavian represented the war as one fought against a foreign rather than a Roman enemy'
Campbell: '[Augustus was] greatly embarrassed by Sextus Pompey's naval campaign in Sicily, and had probably accepted ... he should rely on others to look after the detail of military command for him'
Wallace-Hadrill: 'The capture of Egypt was a symbol of Augustus' termination of civil war'
Scullard: 'the ultimate sanction of his authority was force, however much the fact was disguised'
Sowerby: 'the main object of his foreign policy was to consolidate inherited gains and secure existing frontiers rather than acquire new territory'
Williams: 'war is seen as an evil which will one day pass away in the march of civilisation'
Pater Patriae
Wallace-Hadrill on Actium: 'the victory was one of Roman decency over barbarism and corruption'
McMaster: Men had to be 'the active member of any sexual encounter'
Edwards: 'women had large roles to play as ruling became a large family drama' 'Augustus and Livia were a glorious power couple' 'Livia was presented as the exact antithesis of Cleopatra'
Beard: 'Julia evidenced the imperfections of Augustus'
Cary and Scullard: 'Augustus' last duty was to provide it with a successor for his position'
Everitt: 'Opposites do not have to be mutually exclusive ... once he had established his authority, he governed efficiently and justly'
Eck: 'he could have dealt with the charges as a private matter but he brought the case before the Senate'
Stevenson: 'Augustus' title Pater Patriae was about giving life rather than taking it as he had in the civil wars'
Augustus (religious leader)
Dolia: 'After Augustus' death, there is an exponential increase in images relating him to the gods'
Zanker: 'Augustus was keen to promote the idea of Apollo being his patron god'
Goldsworthy: 'Augustus stood with one foot over the divine line'
Zanker: 'the misdeeds of the civil wars were to be redeemed through sacrifice and religious piety'
Syme wrote how each festival was an occasion for sharpening loyalty
Syme said Augustus just acted for power with no redeeming moral reasoning
Zanker calls Augustus 'Rome's saviour'
Sources
Syndikus: '[In Moral Decadence] Horace means to endorse Augustus' policies'
Thommen on the Sebasteion: 'The creation of temples and sanctuaries to honour the princeps expressed visual acknowledgement and acceptance of the propagandised values and virtues of the emperors'
Newmann on Aureus 43BC: 'Octavian ... needed to justify his position in relation to the Senate and the other two commanders [Antony and Lepidus]'
Harris suggests the literacy rate was 10% at best
Wilson: 'Augustan coins are clear, uncluttered and the symbols were easy for any Roman to decode'
Galinsky: 'The Res Gestae is a self-serving text which omits all sins and wrongdoings'
Cooley: 'By building such a massive tomb for himself at Rome, the young Caesar was eager to highlight the contrast between himself and Antony'
Smith notes the Sebasteion shows the emperors as new active members of traditional Olympian pantheon
Beard: 'The Res Gestae is a self-serving, partisan and often rose-tinted piece of work, which carefully glosses or entirely ignores the murderous illegalities of his early career'
Wallace-Hadrill on the Forum: 'a museum of the past, at the same time as converting it into a massive dynastic monument to his own family'
Zanker on the Forum: 'In this version, the Julii had always been Rome's most important family, for this family would produce Rome's saviour'
Zanker suggests the Ara Pacis 'was meant to be a vision of Roman civil religion'
Beard: 'The Roman empire was flooded with Augustus' face as part of a systematic campaign to spread the word that a new Rome had arrived'
A.H.M. Jones: 'Augustus was keen for himself to be embraced into the religion of his new province rather than dictate a new religion, as shown on the Kalabsha gate'
Trimble: 'Augustus' obelisks expressed the symbolic importance of ancient Egypt for representing Roman rule over space and time'
Rowan points out that First Settlement coin was possibly struck in Ephesus and questions why it was struck with such a message and by whom
Cooley points out that the RG only mentions his building programme in Rome, not the empire
Sowerby: 'Augustan art was to express the ideals and the deepest moral concerns of the Augustan age'