Augustus Caesar in Augustan England: The Decline of a Classical Norm

by Howard D. Weinbrot

Overview

Howard D. Weinbrot challenges the view that the period 1660-1800 is correctly regarded as the "Augustan" age of English literature, a time in which classical Augustan ideals provided a main source of inspiration. Scholars have held that British writers of the Restoration and eighteenth century considered Augustus Caesar to be the model of the wise ruler who enabled political, literary, and moral wisdom to flourish. This book shows on the contrary that classical standards, though often invoked, were often rejected by many informed citizens and writers of the day.

Anti-Augustan sentiment consolidated by the 1730s, when both Whig and Tory, court and country, viewed Augustus as the enemy of the mixed and balanced constitution that was responsible for British liberty. Professor Weinbrot focuses in particular on literature and its classical backgrounds, reinterpreting major works by Pope and Gibbon.

Originally published in 1978.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691643809
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1681
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

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Augustus Caesar in Augustan England

The Decline of a Classical Norm

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By Howard D. Weinbrot

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1978 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06344-7

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CHAPTER 1

The Classical Legacy of Augustus Caesar in "Augustan" England

THE PEACE OF THE AUGUSTANS DIED SOME YEARS AGO. Unfortunately, the "Augustans" themselves are not only alive, but also the subject of squabbles concerning who they are and how they wrote — whether they lived between 1660 and 1700 or 1700 and 1745; whether they belong to another specified period, or are all the "conservative" and "orthodox" humanists between 1660 and 1800; whether they are essentially pessimistic or optimistic, realistic or unrealistic, gloomy moralists or comic writers. Such vague terminology has obvious pitfalls; but it would be harmless if it were, as one of its recent advocates claims, merely a neutral form of shorthand for some authors in Britain during some of the years between 1660 and 1800. Within the last two decades or so, however, "Augustan" has become prescriptive rather than descriptive; readings of particular texts or authors, the "age," genres, taste, and literary practice in general often regard the Augustan as good and the non-Augustan as less good, less interesting, and suspiciously aberrant.

In an influential work, for example, Reuben Brower states that the unnamed Augustans, also called the "true Augustans," saw in "Horace's poetry a concentrated image of a life and civilization to which they more or less consciously aspired." Students of Pope commonly argue that the Epistle to Augustus contrasts ironic with real praise of an Augustan monarch. V. de Sola Pinto believes that Augustan is an appropriate label for the Restoration and eighteenth century, since it was "actually used during the period" and, he implies, used positively: "It is difficult for us to realize the enormous prestige enjoyed by the Roman Augustan age all over Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." In light of these and comparable remarks, it is no wonder that, as David L. Evans observes, "'Augustanism' is gradually replacing 'neo-classicism' as a term for what we admire in the literature of the eighteenth century."

The use of Augustan by the twentieth century thus assumes favorable use by the eighteenth century. Then as now, Augustan implied a variety of excellences, but may be reduced to the omnibus belief that during the reign of Augustus Caesar the throne was a center of value. The exalted character of the monarch induced stable government, the arts of peace, protection by heaven, refinement of literary style, and patronage of great authors. These characteristics combined to create civilizing forces of permanent achievement for all mankind and standards against which further achievements should be measured. This pretty notion now dominates the view of the relationship between the Augustan eighteenth century and its presumed Roman parent and is, accordingly, being disseminated in lecture halls as well as scholarly publications. Hence a college anthology, entitled English Augustan Poetry, tells us about Augustus' establishment of "peace, consolidation, and expansion" after turmoil and civil war, and of his protection of literature and frequent thanks from the populace during his reign from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14. We also hear of the many parallels between Augustus and Rome and post-Restoration English monarchs and civilization, as in the restored Charles II and the London — "Augusta" — he ruled. Under George II the Augustan backdrop was used ironically, and so in To Augustus Pope adapts a satire "where Horace flatters Augustus on his bravery and taste — as if George II represented no falling off." English Augustan poetry has certain identifiable traits that stem, it would seem, from its Roman forebears. "As distinguished from mid-seventeenth-century poetry, the poetry we recognize as Augustan is written within a consciousness of taking place in a safe environment, or at least an environment, like that in Gay's Trivia, where the threats are interesting and amusing rather than really terrifying. English poetry which deserves to be called Augustan assumes a world so well lighted and stable that menaces to its felicity can be kept at bay largely by satire or clarity or honesty or belittlement."

J. W. Johnson, Jay Arnold Levine, and Ian Watt have challenged the concept of benevolent English Augustanism and made clear that by the early eighteenth century Augustus was often regarded as a tyrant, murderer, and threat to the order of the state. These beliefs were so firmly a part of the Tory opposition to George II and Walpole that once the Craftsman finished its work, it was no longer possible, in Johnson's words, to regard Augustan "as a political accolade." As the proliferation of modern pro-Augustan remarks suggests, however, these revisionists have had little influence and much resistance; in some cases they themselves are uncertain of the scope of the eighteenth-century rejection of Augustus. Howard Erskine-Hill reviews the evidence, as he sees it, and concludes that though it was "journalistically convenient to the Tories to attack George II by stressing the bad side of Octavius Augustus," there is little basis for Professor Johnson's "astonishing generalisation"; that "is refuted by Pope's Imitations of Horace, especially by To Augustus, and by the fact that Hume, Warton and Goldsmith could use the term [as positively] as they did in the 1750s."

I suggest that Professors Johnson, Levine, and Watt have been cautious, not astonishing. As I hope to show, disapproval of Augustus Caesar was a bipartisan venture common to Whig court "favorites" like Thomas Gordon and Conyers Middleton, "Tories" like Bolingbroke and Pope (who were only part of the opposition), ordinary citizens who did not meddle with political office or ambition, and students of art, poetry, history, and biography, among others. The firm tradition of Augustus as usurping tyrant actually has roots in the classical historians themselves.

We need, then, to study Augustus' reputation in Britain between about 1660 and 1800 and to determine whether his values and achievements are consistent with dominant native values and achievements of those years. By so doing, we should be able to determine the validity of modern and prescriptive uses of the term Augustan. In the process I hope that we will do more than turn a thriving cottage industry into a depressed area. The current Augustanism not only allows us to read history through purple-tinted glasses, but also induces sloppy scholarship by encouraging us to ignore massive contrary evidence; it distorts our perception of the realities that Augustus represented for the eighteenth century; it offers an erroneous "vision" of the past that makes it seem distant, unapproachably "mythic" in outlook, and far less immediate and valuable than it is; and it inhibits our seeing the major implications that the eighteenth century's rejection of Augustus had for literature, history, and politics.

If we reexamined the notion of positive Augustanism, surely new and more appropriate hypotheses would suggest themselves, and surely some would cast new light on Restoration and eighteenth-century Britain. For example, Augustus' miserable reputation as transmitted by several classical historians helped to place him at the heart of fervid discussion of an important constitutional issue — the proper balance between the people, aristocrats and monarch. It also influenced the way in which modern historians would look at Roman history and portray it as a positive or negative model for Britain; it would influence some aspects of the historical and literary tactics used both by the opposition to Walpole and by his defenders; it would have the highest significance for judgments regarding the value and morality of the classical authors Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal, and the relative merits of the different kinds of satire the latter two wrote; and it would have comparable significance for the interpretation of a specific literary text, Pope's imitation of Horace's epistle to Augustus (Epistles, bk. ii, epistle i).

These developments were not likely to have been limited to Britain, since Voltaire read the same Tacitus and Suetonius as Gibbon. The French were chronologically about a generation behind the British in judging Augustus harshly; but they also had to clear away the rubbish of absolutism before they could begin to build their new republic (Napoleon, of course, had other things to say). As Jean Dusaulx pointed out in 1770, once the philosophes finished with Augustus, his reputation was very tarnished indeed. Dusaulx himself contributed to this movement through his characterization of the servile Horace, the antityrannical Juvenal and the value of each as a satirist. The philosophes were plainly anglophiliac in their admiration for Britain's freedom and balanced constitution; they learned to make some of the same literary and historical as well as political judgments. Moreover, anti-Augustanism, or more broadly anti-Caesarism, was a force in framing the American Revolution and constitution, or at least some of the thought behind it, for its insistence on checks and balances is as much anti-Roman imperial as anti-Georgian-Britannic. The rejection of Augustus thus tells us a great deal about the eighteenth century's literary, political, and historical concerns, far more than the amorphous and fossilized talk of an Augustan age's "enormous prestige," or the ungenerous acceptance of Augustanism as "what we admire" in eighteenth-century literature. Considering the subject's complexity, it would be best to start with the attitudes toward Augustus of the classical historians and, in some cases, the makers of Roman history. Such an examination should help to determine the classical legacy of Augustus Caesar in Augustan Britain.

I: Some Positive Views and Negative Reactions

There were, to be sure, numerous positive remarks made about Augustus, a remarkable man who turned himself from the sickly boy with few hopes of survival into the master of the world's most extensive empire and most effective propaganda machine. Messala, Zosimus, Eutropius, Cicero, commentators on Livy, Tacitus, Velleius Paterculus, Suetonius, Florus, Appian, Dio Cassius, and Sextus Aurelius Victor, all offer varying forms of approval. A conflation of their praise would include the following: Young Octavian was quickly recognized as the brilliant and proper heir of his uncle Julius. Under Cicero's wise sponsorship, the senate elevated him to praetor and defender of the state and senate against the malicious Antony. In concert with Hirtius and Pansa, both of whom died during the battle at Mutina, he defeated Antony and drove him out of Italy. Owing to the exigencies of the situation and the need for a unified front, he later joined Antony and defeated the assassins Brutus and Cassius. Shortly thereafter he formed the triumvirate with Lepidus and Antony and was forced to kill Cicero and many others, though he himself preferred clemency. As governor of Rome he made a naval war in Sicily against Sextus Pompeius, and though often defeated by the more experienced sailor, showed his strength in adversity and his wisdom in selecting his lieutenant Agrippa, who finally helped him to defeat Pompey and return free navigation to the seas and food to Rome. Thereafter, Octavian bravely stripped the wicked and ineffectual Lepidus of his army, made the city of Rome a safe and pleasant place to live, restored discipline and loyalty to the legions, and made the Roman people love him as the father of the country. When Antony proved himself an enemy to Rome and friend to the Egyptian whore Cleopatra, Octavian reluctantly went to war again and conquered Antony at Actium, for the gods had ordained that he was to be the sole ruler. Upon returning to Rome, he was idolized by the people, established peace and plenty, encouraged the arts and sciences, made kings bow to him and nations bow to Rome, defeated the barbarians, reformed the senate and the law, earned the title of Augustus, which the grateful people and senate bestowed upon him, ruled with great moderation as prince of the senate rather than king, and left a solid empire that not even many evil successors could shake.

This view was supported by various subsequent translators and scholars. For example, commentators often noted that Livy's apparent republicanism, perhaps clear in the books now lost, earned the label of "Pompeianus" from Augustus. "Yet," Edmund Bohun reports in 1686, "that Generous Prince did not for all that refuse him his Friendship." In 1744 an anonymous translator repeats Bohun's belief that Livy wrote "at a time which afforded not only the noblest patterns, but the strongest encouragements to cultivate his natural endowments." A later adapter of this edition seconds Rene Rapin's eulogy upon the historian and his emperor, and mentions the "sublime delight" that the imagination obtains in contemplating those noble times.

Other Renaissance and later commentators and historians also add affirmative observations. Justus Lipsius praises Augustus' restraint in reducing the number of praetors from 67 to 12; Giacomo Filippo Tomasini insists on Augustus' perception in offering Livy his patronage; Joannes Rosinus urges the excellent military achievements and victories of Octavian, who deserved to be called imperator; and Joannes Braun praises Augustus' restoration of civil and moral order, financial solvency, moral achievements, and his introduction of major new architecture.

But the classical historians and history-makers themselves are the most important, and so I shall report representative remarks by Cicero, Velleius Paterculus, and Dio Cassius.

Cicero hopes that Octavian will counterbalance Antony and help restore the republic. He offers important praise of Octavian in his fifth Philippic, against Antony, in which he urges the senate to confer the office of praetor upon the valuable defender of Roman liberty. One need not fear the ambition or passions of Octavian, since that young man is "the very opposite" of Julius, has already recovered Rome's safety, and supports her hopes of liberty. Cicero is confident that the youth wishes "only to strengthen, not overturn" the state, and that "nothing is dearer to him" than the republic, "nothing more important than" the authority of the senate. Cicero promises, pledges, undertakes, and solemnly engages that Octavian will always subject himself to the command and authority of the senate.

Velleius Paterculus was the warmest in praise of Augustus. At nineteen, after having already attempted and performed difficult and honorable deeds, Octavian "discovered a greater Concern for the State, than the whole Senate," and, with the aid of Hirtius and Pansa, defeated Antony at Mutina and forced him to flee Italy. Upon the later victory over Pompey, Lepidus attempted to expel Octavian from Sicily and evoked an act beyond anything that "the Scipio's, or the Bravest of the Roman Heroes have attempted or executed." Wrapped only in his cloak, and armed only with his name, he entered the camp of Lepidus, escaped the arrows and lances thrown at him and bravely "seized the Eagle of the Legion. Now ... the armed follow the Unarmed, and ... Lepidus ... sculking among the last of those who stood gazing at Caesar ... threw himself along at his feet" (p. 176: bk. ii, par. 80).

After Augustus' comparably brilliant generalship at Actium, all civil and foreign wars were over and the happiness in Rome made clear that "Mankind could desire nothing more from the Gods" and the gods grant nothing more to men. "The Force of the Laws, the Authority of the Judge, and the Majesty of the Senate was restored." The old form of government was revived, as were the lands, religious rites, stability of estates, elections, and the authority of government itself. Indeed, Augustus "constantly rejected the Dictatorship, which the People obstinately forced upon him" (pp. 189-90: ii. 89).

Like almost everyone else in the third-century empire, Dio Cassius was reconciled to the inevitability of the principate, and therefore was viewed as a monarchist in Restoration and eighteenth-century Britain. His translator Francis Manning believes that Rome's alteration from republican to absolute government confirmed and heightened her glory. "The Empire," he says, "was more flourishing from Augustus's time to that of Trajan than the Commonwealth had ever been." Manning takes his cue from his own temperament and Dio's history — or at least Xiphilinus' epitome — where we see that Brutus and Cassius were defeated because "Heaven had decreed to give a better form of government, by making a Monarchy of a Popular State" (vol. 1, p. 84: xlvii. 39-40). After Actium and the metamorphosis of Octavian into Augustus, the emperor "redoubled his cares for the well-governing of the Empire, ... publish'd abundance of Laws" in which the people, the senators, and other patricians were able "to change what they thought fit" (1:143) and thus gained "the esteem of all the world" (1:14445: liii. 20-22). The princeps' many excellences as a ruler compensated for his excesses as a triumvir, and the "most virtuous" loved him and regarded him as an indulgent father. Finally, Augustus was beloved by the Romans because "he had blended Monarchy and the Popular State together, ... every body was happy ... under a Royalty, which leaving an honest freedom, took not away the form of a Common-Wealth, but only banish'd all the Disorders of it" (1:203-4: lvi.44).

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. vii
• Preface, pg. ix
• 1. The Classical Legacy of Augustus Caesar in "Augustan" England, pg. 1
• 2. The Legacy Improved, Part I. Augustus Praised and Blamed: His Personal Weaknesses and Destruction of Art, pg. 49
• 3. The Legacy Improved, Part II. Augustus in Theory and Practice: Constitutional Balance and Political Activity, pg. 86
• 4. "Let Horace blush, and Virgil too": The Degradation of the Augustan Poets, pg. 120
• 5. "Juvenal alone never prostitutes his muse": The Juvenalian Alternative, pg. 150
• 6. Pope's Epistle to Augustus: The Ironic and the Literal, pg. 182
• 7. Conclusion: Mutatis Mutandis, pg. 218
• Appendix: Two Notes on Pope's Epistle to Augustus, pg. 243
• Index, pg. 253