Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary

by Alison Cooley (editor) & Augustus

“The long list of ‘the achievements of the deified Augustus, by which he made the world subject to the rule of the Roman People, and of the expenses he incurred for the republic and the Roman People’, was composed to be inscribed on bronze and set up on two bronze pillars in front of Augustus’ monumental tomb on the Campus Martius in Rome. We know it from the copy—both in the original Latin and in a Greek translation—that was inscribed on the walls of a temple at Ancyra in the province of Galatia (modern Ankara in Turkey) and discovered and transcribed in the sixteenth century. Obviously, Augustus’ own account is of fundamental importance for understanding his life and times, and Alison Cooley has done a brilliant job both of translation and of historical commentary. A lot of the detail will be more than the general reader needs, but there’s an immense amount of information here”—Peter Wiseman, recommending the best books on Augustus.