Roman Civil War And Caesar Essay, Research Paper

If anyone had hoped that the assassination of Julius Caesar would bring about

the return of Republican rule, they must surely have been disappointed, for the

political turbulence simply continued. Caesar?s assassins and his old

commanders battled for control, while orators like Cicero labored to save the

old Republic. In the and, Julius Caesar?s great nephew and adopted son

Octavian known to history as Augustus Caesar outmaneuvered and outfought

everyone. The year after his uncle?s death, Octavian and his allies of the

Caesarian faction joined forces in an alliance called the second Triumvirate. By

means of intriguer and threat, they coerced the senate into granting them and

their legions the power to rectory peace to the Roman state. In the battle of

Philippi, in northern Greece in 42b.c., Octavian and his allies defeated the

conspirators who had assassinated Julius Caesar. However, peace was not at hand.

Octavian split with his former allies, especially with Mark Antony, who was now

Cleopatra?s lover. In a climactic naval battle at Actium in 31b.c., Octavian

defeated Mark Antony. Antony?s death and Octavian?s victory effectively

ended the Roman Civil war. In the thirty seventh poems in his first book of

Odes, the poet Horace wrote in response: Nuncest bibendum nuncpede libero

pulsanda tellus! Octavian took power, and Horace hailed him as ?Caesar,?

which, for the first time, becomes a horrific title. Gaius Julius Caesar

Octavianus held both military command and tribunician power he was both chief

priest. He was also politically astute enough to adorn reality with palatable

outward forms, replacing democracy with autocracy in a way that did not

antagonize the public. He called on the services of culture, religion,

literature, architecture, and the visual arts to help create a new picture of

the world, with the result that there was a politically inspired aesthetic

revolution, which led to the legalization of absolute power. In 27b.c., Octavian

formally divested himself of all authority. In response, the Senate and the

people promptly gave it back to him, voting him the title Augustus. Although he

was never officially emperor of Rome at all, within four years he had assumed

complete power including the right of veto over any law. The Republic was

formally dead. During the forty-five years that Augustus ruled, the Senate and

popular assemblies continued to meet. However, the election of consuls,

proconsuls, tribunes, and other officials required his blessing, the Senate was

filled with Augustus? finds, and the popular assemblies seem to have lost all

political function. As commander of the armies, he rule all the vast territories

of an empire that reached to the Rivers Rhine and Danube in what is now Germany.

He commanded in the name of his uncle, Julius Caesar, and on the basis of his

own military victories, claiming that he brought peace and order after a century

of civil wars. He rebuilt temples to the Olympian gods, the ?divine? Julius

Caesar, and to ?Rome and Augustus.? He built roads, bridges, and aqueducts,

established a sound currency, nurtured honest government, and maintained peace,

which lasted nearly two hundred years.