Wolfgang Havener, Imperator Augustus. Die diskursive Konstituierung der militärischen persona des ersten römischen princeps (Studies in ancient monarchies 4), Stuttgart 2016

The monograph “Imperator Augustus. Die diskursive Konstituierung der militärischen persona des ersten römischen princeps“ is the slightly revised version of Wolfgang Havener’s doctoral thesis. In this work, Havener undertakes the difficult task of examining the way in which the first Roman emperor Augustus was represented as a successful military leader. Unlike previous works, which have usually only analyzed a few incidences of the military representation of the first Roman emperor, Havener’s study uses an extraordinarily broad basis of literary, numismatic and archaeological evidence. This results in a comprehensive overview of the different strategies by which Augustus’ military exploits were propagated. Crucially, the author does not regard the Augustan self-representation as a monolithic construct, which the emperor and his closest advisers ingeniously drafted behind closed doors in the beginning of the principate and then never changed again. Instead he understands the Augustan self-representation as a discourse in which a large variety of people – amongst others the emperor himself, the senate and the soldiers – participated and which had to respect the different interests and needs of all the people involved. By using such a multifaceted discourse about Augustus as a basis for his approach, Havener achieves to shed light on the way the image of Augustus’ military persona developed in a long and difficult negotiating process, which encompassed the emperor’s entire reign.

The book is divided into five main chapters, which treat certain aspects of Augustus՚ military representation in a mainly chronological order. The first two chapters focus on the civil wars and the propagation of Octavian’s victory at Actium. Here Havener rejects the widespread assumption that Octavian in his triplex triumph of 29 B.C. tried to disguise the delicate fact that he had won his victory mainly against a Roman enemy (Marc Antony) and not against a foreign power. Quite to the contrary, Augustus did in fact not downplay the conflict with Mark Antony, but blatantly propagated – as Havener plausibly argues – his victory as a success in a civil war. His goal thereby was to reassure the people of Rome that the time of horrible bloodshed amongst Romans was finally over. In the other chapters of his book Havener examines the official treatment of Augustus’ early career after the establishment of the principate (IV.), the importance of the idea of pax for the emperor’s propagation of his victories (V.), and the development and organization of triumphal processions during the reign of Augustus (VI.).

In summary, Havener covers an abundance of different sources and gives an example of how to use the concept of discourse for historical research. Therefore, his work might prove helpful not only for classicists but also for historians examining related subjects in later periods. Moreover, the clear and understandable language, the examination of some of the most famous monuments of the Augustan period and many interesting findings will certainly make Havener’s book a fascinating read for everyone interested in Rome’s first emperor.