Lampas - Volume 52, Issue 3, 2019

Summary This paper demonstrates the importance of viewing the Res Gestae not just as a document intended for an audience at Rome, but as a text that was adapted for display in different provincial urban contexts, via its incorporation into different monumental settings at Ancyra, Apollonia, and Antioch, via the addition of a translation in Greek that modified the original emphases of the Res Gestae, and via the addition of an Read More

Summary For a long time the text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti was studied mainly as a political or historical document. Yet recent criticism has capitalized on its primary function, that of an inscription on bronze slabs adjoining the entrance of Augustus� Mausoleum on the Field of Mars in Rome. The present article continues the exploration of the text's functioning in that original position, interpreting it in the light of its mon Read More

Summary This article places the Res Gestae of Augustus against the background of political autobiographies written during the civil wars of the Late Republic. I will look in particular at (fragments) of the autobiographical writings of Sulla, Cicero, Caesar and Augustus himself, in order to get a better grip on the specific characteristics of the Res Gestae.

Summary Word order and lexical cohesion are the main devices by means of which the coherence of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti is made explicit. Word order is used to structure the text as a whole, while lexical cohesion functions as a cohesion device on the level of the caput; on this level, the particle autem is used as well. In brief asides, usually relative clauses, the author evaluates his deeds. An analysis of tense usage (both q Read More

Summary This article examines the rhetorical style of Augustus' Res Gestae. Ancient sources, including Suetonius (Life of Augustus 86), describe Augustus' style in terms of elegantia and temperantia. These qualities are indeed characteristic of the style of the emperor's private letters (of which some fragments survive) and the Res Gestae. Augustus' style was influenced by his great uncle Julius Caesar and his Greek teache Read More

Summary This paper discusses a number of linguistic and interpretative aspects of the Greek translation of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Linguistically, the text gives a good idea of the development of Koine Greek at the beginning of the 1st century. Even though the translation is clearly aimed at rendering the Latin original as faithful as possible, there are still a considerable number of deviations from the Latin ver Read More

Summary The present article compares Augustus’ portrayal of the beginning of his political career, in Res Gestae 1-2, with what is otherwise known of the events mentioned or suppressed by the princeps in these chapters. He rewrote the story of his remarkable political acrobatics in 44-43 BCE so as to fit in with the ideology of the principate: a leadership embedded in constitutional legality and based on a consensus rooted in re Read More

Summary This article describes a tour along noteworthy Augustean sites and monuments on the campus Martius in Rome. It starts at Piazza Monte Citorio where now the obelisk stands which was once part of Augustus’ Horologium. From there the walk goes 200 meters northwards to the original site of the obelisk/Horologium which is marked by an inscription, and then onward to the original site of the Ara Pacis. From ther Read More