What Are Augustus's Achievements

During the reign of Augustus, peace was finally established throughout the Roman empire. After years and years of consistent wars, the empire was finally quiet, and the people were grateful to Augustus for bringing about such peaceful times. To the people, Augustus was a man who needed to be honored for his genius, and for his ability to help the Roman Empire prosper once again. Augustus, too, saw himself as someone who's comprehensive list of accomplishments needed to be remembered and documented for future generations to come, and with that idea came the Res Gestae. The Res Gestae Divi Augusti is an account of all the things Augustus was able to carry out during his reign as emperor in terms of military prowess, leadership abilities, and

He wanted to be remembered in a positive manner, so only things that can be seen as accomplishments were placed on the Res Gestae. He never included anything that would make him look bad, for obvious reasons. This means that anything that happened during Augustus' reign that he did want to be included, was not included. We only see his reign from his own perspective. Although all of these things he listed were probably true, they only show one side of him. He also choose to focus most of the attention on the things he did for the people; instead of focusing on his military or political career. If he focused too much on his military conquests, he would have been seen like a tyrant, like Caesar. He also wanted to put more of an emphasis on the peace that was seen throughout his reign, and more of an emphasis on the fact that he preferred to handle foreign affairs in a more civil manner by settling disputes utilizing diplomacy instead of force. He also did not choose to focus on his political career. Augustus spent most of his political career trying to grab as much power as he possibly could without making it seem like he was constantly trying to grab power. He would give up power in the eyes of the public only to gain more power behind the scenes, or in the form of a different position, new law, etc. All those details about his political career were conveniently not included in his Res Gestae. The main goal of the Res Gestae was to show the people how much he did for them, and to attempt to quantify the love he had for his people. About 60% of the Res Gestae was Augustus ranting on about all the wonderful things he did for his people. In the summary he includes at the end, he claims to have "contributed to the treasury or to the Roman plebs or to discharged soldiers… 600,000,000 denarii" and the money he spent on "theatrical shows, gladiatorial sports, for exhibitions of