Episode 58. Augustus, Part Two: The Succession He Could Not Arrange

Works CitedPrimary SourcesActa Ludorum Saecularium (CIL VI 32323). The inscribed contemporary record of the Secular Games, recovered in 1890 from the banks of the Tiber.Cassius Dio. Roman History, Book 54. The narrative spine for 23 to 17 BCE, including the moral legislation and the equestrian reaction in the Forum.Donatus. Life of Virgil. The Octavia scene and the account of Virgil's death and the deathbed request to destroy the Aeneid.Horace. Carmen Saeculare. The Secular Hymn, performed June 3, 17 BCE. Note the prayer for marriage and childbirth that directly references the Lex Julia.Horace. Odes, Book 4. The retrospective on the Parthian settlement.Macrobius. Saturnalia, Book 2. The Julia anecdotes, preserved from earlier sources.Propertius. Elegies, Book 3. Contemporary elegy on Marcellus.Res Gestae Divi Augusti, sections 6, 8, 14, 19–21, 29. Augustus's own account of the laws, the building programme, and the family arrangements.Seneca the Younger. Ad Marciam de Consolatione. The fullest ancient account of Octavia's grief.Suetonius. Life of Augustus, chapters 21, 29–30, 34, 63–64. The moral legislation (chapter 34), the literary circle, and the family arrangements.Tacitus. Annals, Books 1 and 3. Retrospective on the succession and on the moral legislation. The analysis of the Julian laws in Book 3, chapters 25–28, is the sharpest ancient critique of the legislation.Virgil. Aeneid, Book 6, lines 860–886. The Marcellus passage, in the descent to the underworld.Secondary SourcesFantham, Elaine. Julia Augusti: The Emperor's Daughter. Routledge, 2006.Galinsky, Karl. Augustan Culture. Princeton University Press, 1996. Essential on the moral legislation and its relationship to the literary programme.Goldsworthy, Adrian. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2014.McGinn, Thomas. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press, 1998. On the Lex Julia de Adulteriis and its enforcement.Syme, Ronald. The Roman Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1939.Treggiari, Susan. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford University Press, 1991. The standard reference on Roman marriage law and the Augustan legislation.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/real-roman-history/donations