What Emperor Augustus left us

The symbol engraved on Augustus’ signet ring was a sphinx. Julian the Apostate described him as ‘a chameleon’. He seized power declaring himself the saviour of the Roman Republic, but in the process abolished it. He ruled as an autocrat but maintained the fiction that he was no more than the Republic’s First Citizen — and left as his legacy a new system of imperial government that was to continue for another 400 years in the West and until 1453 in Constantinople in the East.

This year marks the 2,000th anniversary of Augustus’ death in 14 AD, on the 19th of the month by then named in his honour. His 40-year-long reign saw not only the transformation of Rome’s government and administration but also of its art, architecture and literature, which were harnessed to glorify Augustus himself and his regime, giving birth to models that continued to exert a powerful influence on imperial and dynastic art into modern times.