Augustus (Roman)

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Cameo with the portrait of Augustus

Augustus is a historical novel by the American author John Williams . The theme of the letter novel is the rise of the young Octavius ​​to Augustus , the first emperor of the Roman Empire .

The book is the fourth of only four novels by the author, was published by Viking Press in 1971 and won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1973 . It sold just as badly as its predecessor, the Roman Stoner , which was largely ignored by the criticism and by then had already disappeared from bookstores.

shape

The novel is structured like a classic drama. It begins with a prologue , followed by three books, and it ends with an epilogue . The epilogue and prologue each consist of a single letter. The three books are made up of letters from various correspondents and are supplemented by excerpts of different lengths from memoirs and diary notes, by anonymous letters, Senate minutes, leaflets and military orders, which with a few exceptions are fictitious . The arrangement of the letters and documents does not follow any chronology, and like a puzzle, a coherent overall picture only emerges as the number of text parts increases.

content

The prologue consists of a letter from Caesar from 45 BC. Chr. To his niece Atia . In the letter he confirms that he has planned her son Gaius Octavius ​​as his successor, although his adoption in the Senate had failed because of the intrigues of Mark Antony . After his return to Rome from Spain, Caesar wants to use Octavius ​​as a horseman .

The first book covers the period from the assassination of Caesar to the defeat of Mark Antony at Actium . The topic is the explosive situation after the murder of Caesar, the open fights, the intrigues and gambles of the applicants for power.

Octavius ​​leaves Apollonia and returns to Rome almost unnoticed. He is accompanied by a small group of armed men and his close friends Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa , Salvidienus Rufus and Gaius Cilnius Maecenas . Only nineteen years old and in fragile health, completely inexperienced in day-to-day politics, he is not taken seriously by his competitors. His mother and stepfather beg him not to come into Caesar's legacy. Cicero , who sympathizes with the conspirators who want to restore the republic and the old balance of power, writes to Brutus about the "foolish boy": "The boy is nothing and we don't have to be afraid."

The correspondence between Livy and Maecenas, kept in a confidential, light tone, occupies a large space . As a historian, Livy is interested in the internals of the triumvirate and, above all, in Augustus' motives, why on the one hand he cooperates with opponents like the conspirator Decimus , on the other hand he sacrifices comrades and former friends, like Mark Antony brutally fought. To save Cicero, the “hopeless conspirator”, as Octavius ​​calls him, but whom he values ​​as a philosopher and author, he does not lift a finger while he appoints a number of conspirators to important offices. What offends Maecenas is the moralizing undertone in Livy's inquiries, and he writes to him:

“And in my eyes there is no more useless, despicable creature than a moralist. He is useless because he wastes all his energy making judgments instead of increasing his knowledge, and only because judgments are easy to make, but knowledge is difficult to obtain. And he is despicable because his judgment reflects a self-image that he imposes on the whole world in his pride and ignorance. "

The second book is about Augustus' private relationships. Poets and philosophers around Maecenas, men of politics, come together in societies in which a friend of the emperor or Augustus himself plays the host. There is gossip about his wives, poems are read and jokes are cracked. One exchanges in letters, the subliminal tensions among the guests, among them old and new friends, former enemies and current opponents, are registered and commented on. The book begins with a report by his former nanny, Hirtia, who lived as a child of freedmen in the Julier household in Velitrae . She is only ten years older than Octavius, whose parents spend most of their time in Rome. She becomes his playmate and adolescent supervisor until her protégé “Tavius” is sent to Rome at the age of nine. Now an old woman of 60, she visits the city with her son and by chance meets Augustus on the Via Sacra . The two recognize each other, and Augustus congratulates the woman on having five sons but no daughter.

The main theme of the second book is the relationship between Augustus and his only daughter Julia . Julia, who was the plaything of her father's power and dynasty politics, was banished to the island of Pandateria by Augustus for violating his marriage laws . She reviews her life in a diary and, in retrospect, tries to understand the reasons for the father's actions. Already engaged to a son of Mark Antony as a child for political reasons, she was married successively to Marcus Claudius Marcellus , Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and finally Tiberius . The open dealings with changing lovers finally brought her to the banishment by her father. Most of the book is taken from excerpts from this diary. The book ends with the news that Augustus has adopted her hated husband, Tiberius. Her diary closes with “Tiberius has won”.

The third book consists of a single, very personal letter from Augustus to Nicholas of Damascus , dated Naples, August 9-11 , 14 AD , i.e. H. a week before his death in Nola . Augustus is on his way from Ostia to Naples on board his yacht. Under pressure from his wife Livia, he undertakes the trip for reasons of state , in order to signal his support for his designated and popularly unpopular successor Tiberius with a visit.

Now 76 years old, weak and sick and marked by the ailments of old age, Augustus reflects on his life, which is drawing to a close. He compares his work, the establishment of the Roman Empire, with the work of the poet Virgil . Unlike the Aeneid , which Rome will no doubt survive, time will destroy Rome. It was his destiny to change the world. Rome has been able to experience forty years of peace, the borders seem secure, legal security has been created through a judicial reform, no Roman has to go hungry. Nevertheless, he has to resignedly state that despite all the peace and prosperity, the old Roman virtues have disappeared. This is exemplified by the fate of the old Roman inland port near Puteoli , in which the Roman fleet was once ready for battle to destroy the "pirate" Sextus Pompeius , while today he only supplies the tables of the rich in Rome with oysters. Although he leaves behind an orderly empire, he has no illusions that peace and order will long outlast him. He despises his designated successor, Tiberius. Tiberius is not only the real cause of the disaster of the Roman legions in the battle against Arminius , he also holds him responsible for the fate of his daughter Julia. Tiberius is a cruel man, but "the cruelty of a ruler is a lesser mistake than weakness or stupidity."

The epilogue is a letter to Seneca from the year 55, with Philip of Athens, for a few months the personal physician of Augustus, who had accompanied the sick emperor for the last few months until his death, answered a request from the philosopher and sensitively a picture of the by him admired and revered man designs.

Reviews

Johann Schliemann from the Süddeutsche Zeitung calls the book "an exciting story from a revolutionary era in world history", it tells of power and its price. "[...] what is special is how John Williams, with his clear, flexible language, throws light on characters who appear to be figures from human life itself." And so it happens that, in the midst of colorful staff, the central figure himself, the emperor who was already considered a chameleon in antiquity, is not personally tangible - but an exception and a sad everyone at the same time ”.

Alexander Camman von der Zeit calls the novel a "breathtaking book". “This applies to the perfection of his realistic storytelling as well as to the choice of this particular historical material, for the successful composition, but above all for the unusual form of this novel.” Williams did not “write conventional history ham”, but rather used Augustus for it to depict eternal problems: “... the price of historical greatness, the loneliness and melancholy of power, the peculiar will to recognize one's fate and to carry it out as one's tool. All of this happens in a clear, reduced existentialist sound ”.

Stefan Kister from the Stuttgarter Zeitung writes that the novel is as exciting as a thriller. Williams' specific narrative method lends the historical material a “deeply sharp presentness”, which the historical junk of monumental hams of the cinema, the melodramas of Marc Anton and Cleopatra - d. H. Richard Burton and Liz Taylor - all the way to Asterix aside. “But contrary to the motto of Horace , promoted by Augustus , according to which poets should either entertain or benefit, this novel creates both at the same time. Across the abyss of time, he paints the subtle portrait of a man who wanted to improve the world at a young age, who has achieved a lot, but perhaps lost even more, and who in the end no longer because of the numerous roles he had to play knows who he is. "Kister explicitly pays tribute to Bernhard Robben's translation :" [...] saved from the Latin spirit from the American into today's Germanic. "

expenditure

Audio book

Web links

The New York Review of Book. A comprehensive introduction to the novel and a preface to the new edition of the book by NYRB, 2014.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Williams: Augustus . A novel. Vintage Books, London 2003, ISBN 978-0-09-944508-1 , pp. 32 (English): “The boy is nothing, and we need have no fear”
  2. ^ Letter from Marcus Antonius to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in Narbonne from Mutina. Book 2, Chapter 3, p. 55.
  3. ↑ "And it seems me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend its energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. ”Brief Caius Milnius Maecena to Titus Livius. Book 1. Chapter 6. P. 128. Translated from B.Robben.
  4. ↑ Williams: Augustus . A novel. 2003, p. 296 .
  5. ↑ Williams: Augustus . A novel. 2003, p. 295 .
  6. ↑ Williams: Augustus . A novel. 2003, p. 308 (English): “Cruelty in an Emperor is a lesser fault than weakness or foolishness.”
  7. ^ Johann Schliemann: Einsame Spitze in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 23, 2016, accessed on January 15, 2017
  8. ↑ Alexander Camman: Aus Liebe zur Macht in: Die Zeit, November 17, 2016, accessed on January 15, 2017
  9. ↑ Stefan Kister: The emperor's blue eyes in: Stuttgarter Zeitung.de December 1, 2016, accessed on January 17, 2017