Octavian’s use of the exemplum of Numa Pompilius in 31-27 BC

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초록

This paper aims to explore how Octavian emulated the exemplum of Rome’s second king, Numa Pompilius, especially during the transitional period between 31 and 27 BC. With Octavian’s victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, the year 31 BC marked the end of the tedious civil wars that had lasted for nearly a century. From this moment onward, Octavian started to craft a two-faced image, an image of both victor and peace-bringer. In 27 BC, as a token of gratitude for Octavian concluding the civil wars and returning the Republic to the hands of the Senate and the people of Rome, the Senate bestowed the new title of “Augustus” on Octavian.
There were two obstacles to the transition from Octavian to Augustus: first, that Octavian himself had been a ringleader against Mark Antony, his fellow Roman citizen, and the war he had waged against Mark Antony (nominally against Cleopatra) had in essence been another civil war; second, that the memory of Julius Caesar as an abortive aspirant to kingship, who had adopted Octavian posthumously and thereby offered him a foothold to engage in the political arena, was still vivid in people’s minds. In the former case, however, Julius Caesar after his death also provided his adoptive son with a solution that could erase the stigma of his agency in the civil war. Upon the consecration of Julius Caesar in 42 BC, Octavian began to refer to himself as the son of the deified Caesar and he was able to justify the wars against Brutus and Cassius under the pretext of retaliation for their murder of the apotheosized Caesar, not the dictator. In doing so, Octavian proved his pietas to his now immortal father.
In the meantime, the memory of the dictator Caesar, who was suspected to have attempted at kingship through the status of dictator perpetuus, provides a clue to why Octavian had to choose the “priest-king” Numa Pompilius as an example for imitation in 31-27 BC. Romulus, the founder of Rome, could have been attractive to Octavian as he sought to promote his new image as the second founder of Rome; however, Romulus was the son of Mars and was invested with the image of the “warrior-king”; he was, therefore, unsuitable for another image of Octavian as peace-bringer. Octavian’s achievements, such as thrice closing of the gates of the temple of Janus, as would be later recollected by Augustus in his Res Gestae, could have been juxtaposed with the accomplishments of Numa Pompilius, who built the temple of Janus and pacified the Romans and the neighboring peoples with his pietas and metus deorum. Likewise, Octavian’s restoration of dilapidated temples and his assumption of ancient priesthoods recall Numa Pompilius’s installation of the priesthoods.
After 27 BC, when Octavian was elevated to Augustus and princeps, Augustus found an alternative to Numa Pompilius, more appropriate for his propaganda of the domus Augusta. Aeneas, the protagonist of Vergil’s Aeneid, who also appeared on the Ara Pacis Augustae, was not only known for his pietas to his father as well as to the penates but also related to the gens Juliae genealogically. Still, it is hard to assert that Augustus adhered to one exemplum throughout his entire principate. In the history of Rome, as Livy has already propounded in his praefatio, there were many exempla embodying diverse Roman virtues, as those summi viri displayed in the Forum Augustum had proved in the course of history. In case Augustus intended to promote a specific virtue for himself, Augustus needed to select the most appropriate paragon of that virtue and to fashion himself after the paragon.

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