Augustus at War ─ The Struggle for the Pax Augusta

The words Pax Augusta – or Pax Romana – evoke a period of uninterrupted peace across the vast Roman Empire. Lindsay Powell exposes this as a fallacy. Almost every year between 31 BC and AD 14 the Roman Army was in action somewhere, either fighting enemies beyond the frontier in punitive raids or for outright conquest; or suppressing rebellions within the borders.

Remarkably over the same period Augustus succeeded in nearly doubling the size of the Empire. How did this second-rate field commander, known to become physically ill before and during battle, achieve such extraordinary success? Did he, in fact, have a grand strategy? Powell reveals Augustus as a brilliant strategist and manager of war. As commander-in-chief he made changes to the political and military institutions to keep the empire together – and to hold on to power.

His genius was to build a loyal team of semi-autonomous deputies (legati) to ensure internal security and to fight his wars for him, claiming their achievements as his own. Lindsay Powell profiles more than 50 of these men and their campaigns.