Res Gestae Divi Augusti

Augustus’s autobiographical Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Achievements of the Deified Augustus) might, at first sight, seem like a simple list of the emperor’s achievements. A closer inspection of what Augustus chose to include and exclude, what he chose to emphasize, and how he chose to organize his material suggests he was in fact making a quite deliberate argument.

Your job in this response paper is to reflect on what you think the intended argument might have been. If you had to reduce the many details of the Res Gestae to a single take-home message, what would it be? And how do you think that message might have affected Augustus’s decisions about what to include and in what order?

Citation: In citing the Res Gestae, the conventional abbreviation is simply RG, which should be followed by the number of the section to which you are referring, e.g.: RG 34.

This paper is due during session 3.