The Republic of Augustus

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The people empowered by Augustus were the people more or less of families that had gotten citizenship but had not yet risen to the highest levels of Roman offices and senatorial offices during the republic. As you move to the next dynasty, what you see is they start expanding and bringing in people from Spain and northern Italy and southern France and Greece. That's where no works of patronage and loyalty are created. And so what Augustus was able to create was a dynamic structure that if managed well, everybody who mattered could be made to have an investment in this being stable.

When many of us think “Ancient Rome,” we think of the Empire and the Caesars. But the Empire was preceded by the Roman Republic, which flourished for a full five centuries. Why, after such a long and prosperous run, would an essentially democratic form of government change — with a good deal of approval from its citizens — into an autocracy? That’s the question I discuss with today’s guest, historian Edward Watts. It’s a fascinating story with many contemporary resonances, especially how reformers choose to balance working within the system to overthrowing it entirely. Lessons for modern politics are left largely for listeners to draw for themselves. Support Mindscape on Patreon or Paypal. Edward Watts received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University. He is presently the Vassiliadis Professor of Byzantine Greek History at UC San Diego, where he was formerly Co-Director of the Center for Hellenistic Studies. He is the author of several books on ancient history, the most recent of which is Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny. UC San Diego Web Page Center for Hellenistic Studies Page Mortal Republic on Amazon Academia.edu page See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.