Augustus at War

Augustus at War challenges the conventional image of the first emperor’s reign as an era of effortless peace. From the settlement after Actium in 31 BC to Augustus’s death in AD 14, Roman armies were almost continuously engaged in conquest, punitive expeditions, frontier defence or the suppression of revolt. Lindsay Powell follows operations in Spain, the Alps, the Balkans, the eastern provinces and Germania to show how war underpinned the political order later remembered as the Pax Augusta.

The study presents Augustus less as a great battlefield commander than as an organiser who selected, rewarded and controlled effective deputies. Marcus Agrippa, Tiberius and Drusus carried out many of the campaigns through which Roman territory nearly doubled, while Augustus claimed their victories as commander-in-chief. Maps, orders of battle and profiles of officers and units connect imperial policy to the practical structure of the army. The work first appeared digitally in 2016, before later hardback and paperback editions.