Augustan War and Peace: Analyzing the Role of the Military in Maintaining the Pax Augusta in the Augustan Age

The end of the Roman Republic was affected by decades of civil war, leaving the Roman population desperate for an end to the violence. Augustus’s rise to power was the solution for this violence. Augustus’s victory over Marc Antony both effectively ended the Roman Republic and the long period of civil unrest. As the new sole and undisputed ruler of the Roman world, Augustus sought to bring Rome into an era of peace, which would be known as the Pax Augusta, meaning the Augustan Peace. However, given that the Romans viewed peace as existing when an enemy had been completely subjugated militarily, Augustus continued to use the military heavily in all aspects of the new Roman Empire. The military remained important in Augustus’s diplomacy, his many different military campaigns, and in his succession plan for the empire. Given the involvement of the military in these various aspects of Augustus’s reign, it is important to ask how peaceful the Pax Augusta actually was. For my research, I used a variety of primary sources including the works of classical historians such as Suetonius and Tacitus, as well as Augustus’s own work to gain an understanding of what Augustus did in his reign and how it related to peace. Through this research, it is clear that the Pax Augusta, while certainly more peaceful and stable than before Augustus took control, was not an era of peace, and the Roman world continued to be involved in conflict around the Mediterranean. Augustan diplomacy, such as the Parthian Settlement, served to create and preserve peace, but remained firmly connected to military necessity rather than a desire for peace. Augustan architecture also represented this peace, but depicted military success at the same time, or held military function. Augustus also reorganized the military to make it a more effective force at keeping peace, but he engaged in countless military campaigns and expanded the empire more than any other ruler. Augustus’s succession plan, which saw him promoting his heirs as future rulers of the state to avoid the reemergence of civil war upon his death, was based on military success. This made it necessary for Augustus to continue sponsoring campaigns for his successors, in order to grow their popularity. Given this evidence, while the Pax Augusta ended Rome’s period of civil wars, it did not bring Rome an era of undisturbed peace