CEREMONY FOR THE DIVINE AUGUSTUS
For the Ludi Augustales Bimillenarii
in Provincia America Transappalachiana,
Republic of Nova Roma
St. Cornelia C. Aemilio cos.
a.d. XIV Kal. Sep.
MMDCCLXVII a.u.c.
AUG 19, 2014 (2767 AUC)
Performed by
L. Vitellius Triarius, Pontifex
Among extant historical documents there is none that outweighs in importance the account of his stewardship which the Emperor Augustus left among the papers deposited with the Vestal Virgins before his death, preserved to us in a copy chiseled upon the walls of the Temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra in Asia Minor,
the modern Angora. This copy, known as the Monumentum Ancyranum, has justly been called the "Queen of Inscriptions."
Suetonius, in Augustus 101, states that Augustus had deposited with the vestal Virgins, along with his will, three other documents, all of which were opened and read in the Senate. The first contained instructions for his funeral; the third, a summarized statement of the condition of the whole empire; the second, the one with which we are here concerned, contained "a résumé of his acts which he wished to have engraved upon bronze tablets to be set up before his mausoleum." More than forty years before his death Augustus had built this mausoleum on the Tiber at the northern edge of the Campus Martius, in the midst of
a small park, which was opened by the Emperor to the public. The mausoleum itself was probably surrounded by an enclosing wall, at the entrance to which,
facing the Campus Martius, stood the pillars, or pilasters, on which was engraved the index rerum gestarum. The shell of the mausoleum itself has outlived the centuries and is still standing on the Ripetta, but the bronze tablets have long since disappeared. The original document, however, was copied on the walls of many of the temples of Augustus throughout the empire, and remains of three copies have come to light in Asia Minor alone. In addition to the Augusteum at Ancyra, inscribed with both the Latin text and a Greek version, there was found another ruined temple at Apollonia with remnants of the same Greek version; it is fairly certain that the Augusteum at Pergamon had both the Latin and the Greek versions; and finally at Antioch in Pisidia (Colonia Caesarea) Sir W. M. Ramsay discovered, in 1914, a number of fragments of the Latin text from a fourth copy. But the inscription on the temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra is relatively so complete,
although marred in places by the scaling of the stone, that it outweighs all the others in importance, and the designation Monumentum Ancyranum has become synonymous with Res Gestae Divi Augusti.
MONUMENTUM ANCYRANUM
To follow come the acts of the Deified Augustus by which he placed the whole world under the sovereignty
of the Roman people, and of the amounts which he
expended upon the state and the Roman people, as engraved upon two bronze columns which have been set up in Rome.
At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order, in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; it also gave me the imperium. As propraetor it ordered me, along with the consuls, "to see that the republic suffered no harm." In the same year, moreover, as both consuls had fallen in war, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for
settling the
constitution.
Those who slew my father I drove into exile, punishing their deed by due process of law, and afterwards when they waged war upon the republic I twice11 defeated them in battle.
Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the world, on sea and land, and when victorious I spared all citizens who sued for pardon. The foreign nations which could with safety be pardoned I preferred to save rather than to destroy. The number of Roman citizens who bound themselves to me by military oath was about
500,000. Of these I settled in colonies or sent back
into their own towns, after their term of service, something more than 300,000, and to all I assigned lands, or gave money as a reward for military service. I captured six hundred ships, over and above those which were smaller than triremes.
Twice I triumphed with an ovation, thrice I celebrated curule triumphs, and was saluted as imperator twenty-one times. Although the Senate decreed me additional triumphs I set them aside. When I had performed the vows which I had undertaken in each war I deposited upon the Capitol the laurels which adorned my fasces. For successful operations on land and sea, conducted either by myself or by my lieutenants under my auspices, the senate on fifty-five occasions decreed that thanks should be rendered
to the immortal gods. The
days on which such thanks were rendered by decree of the senate numbered 890. In my triumphs there were led before my chariot nine kings or children of kings. At the time of writing these words I had been thirteen times consul, and was in the thirty-seventh year of my tribunician power.
The dictatorship offered me by the people and the Roman Senate, in my absence and later when present, in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius I did not accept. I did not decline at a time of the greatest scarcity of grain the charge of the grain-supply, which I so administered that, within a few days, I freed the entire people, at my own expense, from the fear and danger in which they were. The consulship, either yearly or for life,
then offered me I did not
accept.
In the consulship of Marcus Vinucius and Quintus Lucretius, and afterwards in that of Publius and Gnaeus Lentulus, and a third time in that of Paullus Fabius Maximus and Quintus Tubero, when the Senate and the Roman people unanimously agreed that I should be elected overseer of laws and morals, without a colleague and with the fullest power, I refused to accept any power offered me which was contrary to the traditions of our ancestors. Those things which at that time the senate wished me to administer I carried out by virtue of my tribunician power. And even in this office I five times received from the senate a colleague at my own request.
For ten years in succession I was one of the triumvirs for the re-establishment of the constitution. To the day of writing this I have been princeps senatus for forty years. I have been pontifex maximus, augur, a member of the fifteen commissioners for performing sacred rites, one of the seven for sacred feasts, an arval brother, a sodalis Titius, a fetial priest.
As consul for the fifth time, by order of the people and the senate I increased the number of the patricians. Three times I revised the roll of the senate. In my sixth consulship, with Marcus Agrippa as my colleague, I made a census of the
people. I performed the lustrum after an interval of forty-one years. In this
lustration 4,063,000 Roman citizens were entered on the census roll. A second time, in the consulship of Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius, I again performed the lustrum alone, with the consular imperium. In this lustrum 4,233,000 Roman citizens were entered on the census roll. A third time, with the consular imperium, and with my son Tiberius Caesar as my colleague, I performed the lustrum in the consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Apuleius. In this lustrum 4,937,000 Roman citizens were entered on the census roll. By the passage of new laws I restored many traditions of our ancestors which were then falling into disuse, and I myself set precedents in many things for posterity to imitate.
The senate decreed that every fifth year vows should be undertaken for my health by the consuls and the priests. In fulfilment of these vows games were
often held in my
lifetime, sometimes by the four chief colleges of priests, sometimes by the consuls. In addition the entire body of citizens with one accord, both individually and by municipalities, performed continued sacrifices for my health at all the couches of the gods.
By decree of the senate my name was included in the Salian hymn, and it was enacted by law that my person should be sacred in perpetuity and that so long as I lived I should hold the tribunician power. I declined to be made Pontifex Maximus in succession to a colleague still living, when the people tendered me that priesthood which my father had held. Several years later I accepted that sacred office when he at last was dead who, taking advantage of a time of civil disturbance,
had seized it for himself,
such a multitude from all Italy assembling for my election, in the consulship of Publius Sulpicius and Gaius Valgius, as is never recorded to have been in Rome before.
The Senate consecrated in honour of my return an altar to Fortuna Redux at the Porta Capena, near the temple of Honour and Virtue, on which it ordered the pontiffs and the Vestal virgins to perform a yearly sacrifice on the anniversary of the day on which I returned to the city from Syria, in the consulship of Quintusº Lucretius and Marcus Vinucius, and named the day, after my cognomen, the Augustalia.
At the same time, by decree of the senate, part of the praetors and of the tribunes of the people, together with the consul Quintus Lucretius and the leading men of the state, were sent to Campania to meet me, an honour which up to the present time has been decreed to no one except myself. When I returned from Spain and Gaul, in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius, after successful operations in those provinces, the senate voted in honour of my return the consecration of an altar to Pax Augusta in the Campus Martius, and on this altar it ordered the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins to make annual sacrifice.
Janus Quirinus, which our ancestors ordered to be closed whenever there was peace, secured by victory, throughout the
whole domain of the Roman people on land and sea, and which, before my birth is recorded to have been closed but twice in all since the foundation of the city, the senate ordered to be closed thrice while I was princeps.
My sons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, whom fortune snatched away from me in their youth, the senate and the Roman people to do me honour made consuls designate, each in his fifteenth year, providing that each should enter upon that office after a period of five years. The senate decreed that from the day on which they were introduced to the forum they should take part in the counsels of state. Moreover, the entire body of Roman knights gave each of them the title of princeps iuventutis and presented them with silver
shields and spears.
To the Roman plebs I paid out three hundred sesterces per man in accordance with the will of my father, and in my own name in my fifth consulship I gave four hundred sesterces apiece from the spoils of war; a second time, moreover, in my tenth consulship I paid out of my own patrimony four hundred sesterces per man by way of bounty, and in my eleventh consulship I made twelve distributions of food from grain bought at my own expense, and in the twelfth year of my tribunician power I gave for the third time four hundred sesterces to each man. These largesses of mine reached a number of persons never less than two hundred and fifty thousand. In the eighteenth year of my tribunician power, as consul for the twelfth
time, I gave to three hundred and twenty thousand of the
city plebs sixty denarii apiece. In the colonies of my soldiers, as consul for the fifth time, I gave one thousand sesterces to each man from the spoils of war; about one hundred and twenty thousand men in the colonies received this triumphal largesse.
When consul for the thirteenth time I gave sixty denarii apiece to the plebs who were then receiving public grain; these were a little more than two hundred thousand persons.
I built the curia and the Chalcidicum adjoining it, the temple of Apollo on the Palatine
with its porticoes, the temple of the deified Julius,
the Lupercal, the portico at the Circus Flaminius which I allowed to be called Octavia7after the name of him who had constructed an earlier one on the same site, the state box at the Circus Maximus, the temples on the capitol of Jupiter Feretrius and Jupiter Tonans, the temple of Quirinus, the temples of Minerva, of Juno the Queen, and of Jupiter Libertas, on the Aventine, the temple of the Lares at the highest point of the Sacra Via, the temple of the Di Penates on the Velia, the temple of Youth, and the temple of the Great Mother on the Palatine.
The Capitolium and the theatre of Pompey, both works involving great expense, I rebuilt without any inscription of my own name. I restored the channels of the aqueducts which in several
places were falling into
disrepair through age, and doubled the capacity of the aqueduct called the Marcia by turning a new spring into its channel. I completed the Julian Forum and the basilica which was between the temple of Castor and the temple of Saturn, works begun and far advanced by my father, and when the same basilica was destroyed by fire I began its reconstruction on an enlarged site, to be inscribed with the names of my sons, and ordered that in case I should not live to complete it, it should be completed by my heirs. In my sixth consulship, in accordance with a decree of the senate, I rebuilt in the city eighty-two temples of the gods, omitting none which at that time stood in need of repair. As consul for the seventh time I constructed the Via Flaminia from the city to Ariminum, and all the bridges except the Mulvian and the Minucian.
I freed the sea from pirates. About thirty thousand slaves, captured in that war, who had run away from their masters and had taken up arms against the republic, I delivered to their masters for punishment. The whole of Italy voluntarily took oath of allegiance to me and demanded me as its leader in the war in which I was victorious at Actium. The provinces of the Spains, the Gauls, Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia took the same oath of allegiance. Those who served under my standards at that time included more than 700 senators, and among them eighty-three who had previously or have since been consuls up to the day on which these words were written, and about 170 have been priests.
I extended the boundaries of all the provinces which were bordered by races not yet subject to our empire. The provinces of the Gauls, the Spains, and Germany, bounded by the ocean from Gades to the mouth of the Elbe, I reduced to a state of peace. The Alps, from the region which lies nearest to the Adriatic as far as the Tuscan Sea, I brought to a state of peace without waging on any tribe an unjust war. My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea, and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans of that same region through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people. On my order and under my auspices two armies were led, at almost the same time, into Ethiopia and into Arabia which is called
the "Happy," and very large forces of the enemy of both races were cut to pieces in battle
and many towns were captured. Ethiopia was penetrated as far as the town of Nabata, which is next to Meroë. In Arabia the army advanced into the territories of the Sabaei to the town of Mariba.
Egypt I added to the empire of the Roman people. In the case of Greater Armenia, though I might have made it a province after the assassination of its King Artaxes, I preferred, following the precedent of our fathers, to hand that kingdom over to Tigranes, the son of King Artavasdes, and grandson of King Tigranes, through Tiberius Nero who was then my stepson. And later, when the same people revolted and rebelled, and was subdued by my son Gaius, I gave it over to King Ariobarzanes the son of Artabazus, King of the Medes, to rule, and after
his death to his son
Artavasdes. When he was murdered I sent into that kingdom Tigranes, who was sprung from the royal family of the Armenians. I recovered all the provinces extending eastward beyond the Adriatic Sea, and Cyrenae, which were then for the most part in possession of kings, and, at an earlier time, Sicily and Sardinia, which had been seized in the servile war.
I settled colonies of soldiers in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, both Spains, Achaea, Asia, Syria, Gallia Narbonensis, Pisidia. Moreover, Italy has twenty-eight colonies founded under my auspices which have grown to be famous and populous during my lifetime.
From Spain, Gaul, and
the Dalmatians, I recovered, after
conquering the enemy, many military standards which had been lost by other generals. The Parthians I compelled to restore to me the spoils and standards of three Roman armies, and to seek as suppliants the friendship of the Roman people. These standards I deposited in the inner shrine which is in the Temple of Mars Ultor.
The tribes of the Pannonians, to which no army of the Roman people had ever penetrated before my principate, having been subdued by Tiberius Nero who was then my stepson and my legate, I brought under the sovereignty of the Roman people, and I pushed forward the frontier of Illyricum as far as the bank of the river Danube. An army of Dacians which crossed to the south of that river was, under my auspices, defeated
and crushed, and afterwards
my own army was led across the Danube and compelled the tribes of the Dacians to submit to the orders of the Roman people.
Embassies were often sent to me from the kings of India, a thing never seen before in the camp of any general of the Romans. Our friendship was sought, through ambassadors, by the Bastarnae and Scythians, and by the kings of the Sarmatians who live on either side of the river Tanais, and by the king of the Albani1 and of the Hiberi1 and of the Medes.
Kings of the Parthians, Tiridates, and
later Phrates, the son of King Phrates, took refuge with
me as suppliants; of the Medes, Artavasdes; of the Adiabeni, Artaxares; of the Britons, Dumnobellaunus; of the Sugambri, Maelo; of the Marcomanni and Suevi, Phrates, son of Orodes, king of the Parthians, sent all his sons and grandsons to me in Italy, not because he had been conquered in war, but rather seeking our friendship by means of his own children as pledges. And a large number of other nations experienced the good faith of the Roman people during my principate who never before had had any interchange of embassies or of friendship with the Roman people.
From me the peoples of the Parthians and of the Medes received the kings for whom they asked through ambassadors, the chief men of those peoples; the Parthians Vonones, son of
King Phrates, grandson of
King Orodes; the Medes Ariobarzanes, the son of King Atavazdes, grandson of King Ariobarzanes.
In my sixth and seventh consulships, when I had extinguished the flames of civil war, after receiving by universal consent the absolute control of affairs, I transferred the republic from my own control to the will of the senate and the Roman people. For this service on my part I was given the title of Augustus by decree of the senate, and the doorposts of my house were covered with laurels by public act, and a civic crown was fixed above my door, and a golden shield was placed in the Curia Julia whose inscription testified that the senate and the Roman people gave me this in recognition of my valour, my clemency, my justice, and my piety.
After that time I took
precedence of all in rank, but of power I possessed no more than those who were my colleagues in any magistracy.
While I was administering my thirteenth consulship the senate and the equestrian order and the entire Roman people gave me the title of Father of my Country, and decreed that this title should be inscribed upon the vestibule of my house and in the senate-house and in the Forum Augustum beneath the quadriga erected in my honour by decree of the senate. At the time of writing this I was in my seventy-sixth year.
SUMMARY OF THE RES GESTAE DIVI AUGUSTI
The sum total of the money which Augustus contributed to the treasury or to the Roman plebs or to discharged soldiers was 600,000,000 denarii.
The new works which he built were: the temple of Mars, of Jupiter Tonans and Feretrius, of Apollo, of the Deified Julius, of Quirinus, of Minerva, of Juno the queen, of Jupiter Libertas, of the Lares, of the Di
Penates, of Youth, of the Mother of the
gods, the Lupercal, the state box at the circus, the senate-house with the Chalcidicum, the Augustan Forum, the Basilica Julia, the theatre of Marcellus, and the grove of the Caesars beyond the Tiber.
He restored the Capitol and sacred buildings to the number of eighty-two, the theatre of Pompey, the aqueducts, the Flaminian Way.
The expenditures provided for theatrical shows, gladiatorial sports, for exhibitions of athletes, for hunts of wild beasts, and the naval combat, and his gifts to colonies in Italy, to
cities in the provinces which had been destroyed by
earthquake or conflagration, or to individual friends and senators, whose property he raised to the required rating, are too numerous to be reckoned.
Adapted from Lacus Curtius Texts:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Augustus/Res_Gestae/home.html 
PUBLIC RITUS TO THE DIVINE AUGUSTUS
[ABLUTIO]
I washed both hands in clean water and, in capite velato, prayed:
Haec aqua a corpore impuritates velut
plumbo ad aurum mutando eluat.
Purga mentem.
Purga carnem.
Purga animum.
Ita est!
May this water cast out all impurities from my substance as from lead to gold.
Purify my mind.
Purify my body.
Purify my heart.
It is so.
Dive Auguste!
Dive Auguste!
Dive Auguste!
Divine Augustus!
Divine Augustus!
Divine Augustus!
[PRAEFATIO]
Dive
Auguste,
te hoc ture commovendo
bonas preces precor,
uti sis volens propitius
Novis Romanis, amicis meis,
mihi, domo, familiae!
(I offered incense)
Divine Augustus,
by offering you this incense
I pray good prayers so
that you be benevolent and propitious
to the Nova Romans, to my friends,
to me, to my household and to my family.
[PRECATIO]
Dive
Auguste,
ut te ture commovendo
bonas preces precatus sum,
eiusdem rei ergo
macte vino inferio esto!
(I offered wine)
Divine Augustus,
as by offering incense
I have prayed good prayers,
for the very same reason
be thou blessed by this wine.
[REDDITIO]
Dive Auguste,
in hoc potissimum die,
commemorat duo milia
et divinitatem, digno mortis,
rogo te, ut custodiant,
Novi Romani populi,
Novi Romani,
et dirige conatibus
ad restituendam libertatem
ad pristinum suum gloriam.
Quarum rerum ergo,
macte hoc vino libando,
hoc ture ommovendo,
esto fito volens propitius
mihi, domo familiae!
(I offered wine and incense)
Divine Augustus,
on this special day,
commemorating the two thousandth
anniversary of your death and divinity,
we humbly ask you to watch over
the Nova Roman peoples,
the New Roman Republic,
and guide our efforts
to restore the Republic
to its former glory.
As of now,
by the libation of this wine,
by the offering of this incense,
be benevolent and propitious
to me, to my household and to my family!
[PIACULUM]
Dive Auguste,
Omnes Di Immortales quocumque nomine:
si quidquam vobis in hac caerimonia displiceat,
hoc vino inferio
veniam peto
et vitium meum expio.
(I offered wine)
Divine Augustus,
All Gods Immortal, by whichever name:
if something in this ceremony was unpleasant to you,
by this wine
I do apologize
and expiate my mistake.
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Note: My apologies in advance for grammatical irregularities (mistakes) in my Latin.
