Augustus, the first Roman emperor.
Part I

The fights for power that had seen bloody battles (and bloody revenges) between the opposing factions of Mario and Silla, Caesar and Pompey and finally Octavian himself – first against Brutus and Cassius and then against Marco Antonio and Cleopatra – ended.

When peace returned - at least in Italy - the veterans were assigned new lands, the system of villas and centuriations was consolidated, agriculture, livestock and commerce expanded, and the economy flourished again.

A new "Golden Age" began, a season of peace and prosperity that laid the economic and social foundations for the subsequent enlargement of the empire, which reached its maximum extension during the reign of Trajan.

Augustus made numerous political, administrative and social reforms, made the borders more secure. He built new public buildings and was able to say that he had found a Rome of wood and stone, and that he left it splendid with marble.

With the victory of Actium in 31 B.C. Augustus became the only man in power, which he exercised with great prudence and wisdom. Mindful of the bloody death of Julius Caesar, he kept a low profile by alternating in the consulate with other senators, so as not to be accused of aspiring to dictatorship.

In 28 BC. the senators acclaimed him Princeps and in 27 BC. they gave him the title of Augustus.
With a formal act of submission to the Senate and the powerful Roman aristocracy, Octavian - who from that moment will simply be Augustus - proclaimed himself Primus inter Pares (first among equals): but in reality he was not at all equal to the others.

In 42 BC he had presided over the apotheosis ceremony of his adoptive father Julius Caesar, decreed by the Senate, during which a star or comet, the Sidus Iulium, had appeared: a divine sign confirming his ascent to heaven among the gods.

In 29 BC he dedicated a temple to Caesar at the site where he had been cremated and the star had appeared. At the same time he assumed the highest Roman priestly office: Pontifex maximus.

With Caesar's deification, Augustus became semi-divine, being the son of a god (divi filius, a title that recurs in imperial epigraphs). Augustus belonged to the Gens Iulia which boasted descent from Aeneas and the goddess Venus. He was therefore one step above all the others, the intermediary between men and gods, and became emperor by explicit choice and divine will.

To demonstrate modesty, Augustus refused Agrippa's proposal to place a statue of him inside the Pantheon next to that of Julius Caesar; he asked and obtained that it be placed outside, to remember that he was not (yet) a god. However, divine honors were paid to his Genius while he was still alive.

In 9 BC the Ara Pacis was inaugurated, to commemorate the victorious military expeditions of Augustus which consolidated the Roman conquests in Spain and southern Gaul. The Trophy of La Turbie (today in France near Nice) was erected to remind everyone of the conquest of Rome.

The Ara Pacis was a real propaganda poster of the Gens Julia and of its descent from Aeneas and the goddess Venus; Augustus and his family members are depicted in procession; inside there was an altar.

In the same year the Horologium Augusti was built, a gigantic sundial which was used to check the accuracy of the Julian calendar: Augustus had reformed it to bring it up to date with the seasons due to a discontinuous application of the leap year, which had offset the seasons.

Two monuments that have a precise archaeo-astronomical meaning, linked to the sacredness of Power as explained in the book by Marina De Franceschini and Giuseppe Veneziano "Villa Adriana. Architettura Celeste. I segreti dei Solstizi".