The Lost Memoirs of Augustus and the Development of Roman Autobiography

Augustus' Memoirs, written probably in the mid 20s BC, might have been one of the most revealing texts of Roman history - had they survived. Far longer than his surviving Res Gestae, the Memoirs seem to date from a period at which the wounds of Rome's civil wars were fresh, and the emperor's partisan past might be recalled with discomfort. Existing fragments and testimonia have suggested that the work was apologetic in purpose. In this, the first ever comprehensive study of the subject, a cast of internationally-respected scholars reconstruct aspects of the work, its importance for historians, and its relation to Roman literary genre. The book also contains, by kind permission of Oxford University Press, the fragments and testimonia of the Memoirs as they will appear, newly edited by Christopher Smith, in 'The Fragmentary Roman Historians'. CONTENTS 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 INTRODUCTION 6 1 THE MEMOIRS FO AUGUSTUS: TESTIMONIA AND FRAGMENTS 10 2 CATO THE ELDER AND THE ORIGINS OF ROMAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY1 24 3 WAS THERE AN ANCIENT GENRE OF ‘AUTOBIOGRAPHY’? OR, DID AUGUSTUS KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING? 50 4 SULLA’S MEMOIRS 74 5 FELICITAS AND THE MEMOIRS OF SULLA AND AUGUSTUS 96 6 AUGUSTUS, SULLA AND THE SUPERNATURAL 120 7 DIVINING A LOST TEXT: AUGUSTUS’ AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND THE BIOΣ KAIΣAPΟΣ OF NICOLAUS OF DAMASCUS 134 8 CANTABRIAN CLOSURE: AUGUSTUS’ SPANISH WAR AND THE ENDING OF HIS MEMOIRS 154 9 AUGUSTUS’ AGE OF APOLOGY: AN ANALYSIS OF THE MEMOIRS – AND AN ARGUMENT FOR TWO FURTHER FRAGMENTS 182 10 ALTERNATIVE MEMOIRS: TALES FROM THE ‘OTHER SIDE’ OF THE CIVIL WAR 204 INDEX 233