L'Empereur Augustus - Paris, France
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Metro2
N 48° 51.666 E 002° 20.138
31U E 451271 N 5412227
This sculpture of Roman Emperor Augustus is located in the Louvre Museum in Paris...adjacent to a bust of him and other Roman Emperors.
Waymark Code: WMEFPZ
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 05/23/2012
Views: 12
This lifesized marble sculpture depicts Augustus standing, wearing a toga with elaborate folds, and holding a scroll in his left hand. He appears fairly young...but with an expression of disinterest. The placard at the Louvre indictaes that the work is an expression of the Greek ideal...and dates it to the 2nd century.
Augustus served as Emperor from 16 January 27 BC – 19 August AD 14.
Wikipedia (
visit link) further informs us that Augustus:
"...is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC via his last will and testament, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the revered one"), and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.
The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces. The triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian's fleet under the command of Agrippa in 31 BC.
After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Octavian restored the outward facade of the Roman Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, but in practice retained his autocratic power. It took several years to determine the exact framework by which a formally republican state could be led by a sole ruler; the result became known as the Roman Empire. The emperorship was never an office like the Roman dictatorship which Caesar and Sulla had held before him; indeed, he declined it when the Roman populace "entreated him to take on the dictatorship"."