“I Saved the Republic, Everyone Agrees”

Res Gestae 1-2

Augustus composed (or had composed?) his public accomplishments before his death and they were published on his mausoleum and temples soon thereafter. We have Latin and Greek versions from  the Temple to Rome and Augustus in Ancyra (Modern Turkey).

(The Full text in Greek, English and Latin from the 1924 Loeb is made available by Lacus Curtius. A simpler Latin text is on The Latin Library.)

“1 When I was nineteen I raised an army on my own counsel and at my own expense, with which I restored the republic, then best by the oppression of a faction, to freedom. In recognition of this, the senate enrolled me in its order with honorific decrees during the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, granting me as well the consular place in the declaration of opinion and they also gave me military command [imperium]. The senate ordered me, along with the consuls, to ensure that the Republic suffer no injury. When, in the same year, both consuls died in war, the People elected me consul and a triumvir, because I preserved the state.

2 I drove the men who murdered my father [Julius Caesar] into exile as a punishment for their crime according to legitimate legal judgments. And later when they waged war on the Republic, I defeated them twice.”

[1] Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quem rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi. [Ob quae] senatus decretis honorificis in ordinem suum me adlegit, C. Pansa et A. Hirtio consulibus, consularem locum sententiae dicendae tribuens, et imperium mihi dedit. Res publica ne quid detrimenti caperet, me propraetore simul cum consulibus providere iussit. Populus autem eodem anno me consulem, cum cos. uterque bello cecidisset, et triumvirum rei publicae constituendae creavit.

Qui parentem meum trucidaverunt, eos in exilium expuli iudiciis legitimis ultus eorum facinus, et postea bellum inferentis rei publicae vici bis acie

1 Ἐτῶν δεκαεννέα ὢν τὸ στράτευμα ἐμῆι γνώμηι καὶ ἐμοῖς ἀναλώμασιν ἡτοίμασα, δι᾽ οὗ τὰ κοινὰ πράγματα ἐκ τῆς τῶν συνομοσαμένων δουλήας ἠλευθέρωσα. Ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἡ σύνκλητος ἐπαινέσασά  με ψηφίσμασι προκατέλεξε τῆι βουλῆι Γαϊωι Πάνσᾳ  Αὔλωι Ἱρτίωι ὑπάτοις, ἐν τῆι τάξει τῶν ὑπατικῶν 7 ἅμα τὸ συμβουλεύειν δοῦσα, ῥάβδους τ᾽ ἐμοὶ ἔδωκεν. Περὶ τὰ δημόσια πράγματα μή τι βλαβῆι, ἐμοὶ μετὰ τῶν ὑπάτων προνοεῖν ἐπέτρεψεν ἀντὶ στρατηγοῦ ὄντι. § Ὀδὲ δῆμος τῶι αὐτῶι ἐνιαυτῶι, ἀμφοτέρων τῶν ὑπάτων πολέωι πεπτωκότων, ἐμὲ ὕπατον ἀπέδειξεν καὶ τὴν τῶν τριῶν ἀνδρῶν ἔχοντα ἀρχὴν ἐπὶ τῆι καταστάσει τῶν δημοσίων πρα γμάτων εἵλατο.

2 Τοὺς τὸν πατέρα τὸν ἐμὸν φονεύσαντας ἐξώρισα κρίσεσιν ἐνδίκοις τειμωρησάμενος αὐτῶν τὸ 17 ἀσέβημα καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα αὐτοὺς πόλεμον ἐπιφέροντας τῆι πατρίδι δὶς ἐνείκησα παρατάξει.