Становление официальной идеологии принципата императора Августа

Sum­ma­ry.
To­ka­rev A. N. For­ma­tion of the Of­fi­cial Ideo­lo­gy of the Em­pe­ror Augus­tus’ Prin­ci­pa­te.

с.265 The ori­gins of the of­fi­cial ideo­lo­gy of Em­pe­ror Cae­sar Augus­tus’ prin­ci­pa­te are wit­hin the sco­pe of ideo­lo­gi­cal op­po­si­tion between dif­fe­rent po­li­ti­cal for­ces in the age of La­te Ro­man re­pub­lic.

Po­li­ti­cal struggle of that ti­me has its dis­tincti­ve fea­tu­res. In the I cen­tu­ry B. C. the­re were no po­li­ti­cal par­ties in Ro­me. In the ti­me of pea­ce the struggle was car­ried on between aris­toc­ra­tic co­te­ries (small, unstab­le in ti­me fac­tions that were for­med around a po­li­ti­cian-lea­der which inclu­ded friends, re­la­ti­ves and po­li­ti­cal sup­por­ters con­sti­tu­ting its con­si­lium) and single po­li­ti­cians-aris­toc­rats. Lar­ger unions cal­led par­tes, that in­vol­ved both their sup­por­ters and tho­se who «expres­sed sym­pa­thy» with them, ap­pea­red on their ba­sis in the pe­riods of ho­me dis­cords. Dis­tincti­ve fea­tu­res of the­se unions were per­so­ni­fi­ca­tion and dua­lism. It should be no­ted, that nei­ther of the­se po­li­ti­cal groups had their own «po­li­ti­cal ideo­lo­gy», though two dis­tinctly tra­cing and op­po­sing to each ot­her ten­den­cies are ob­ser­ved in la­te re­pub­li­can ideo­lo­gy. It was due to the exis­ten­ce of two «ideo­lo­gi­cal­ly-po­li­ti­cal» ten­den­cies, that were cal­led op­ti­ma­tes (or bo­ni) and po­pu­la­res, which were res­pon­sib­le ideo­lo­gi­cal­ly for the de­ve­lop­ment com­pe­ti­tion between the com­pe­ting si­des. Most of them, uni­ted in co­te­ries and sup­por­ted by the se­na­te, sha­red the op­ti­ma­tes views, the ot­her part, «po­li­ti­cal out­si­ders», ac­ting through peop­les’ mee­ting used po­pu­la­res in­terpre­ta­tion.

A sig­ni­fi­cant pe­cu­lia­ri­ty of la­te re­pub­li­can ideo­lo­gy was the use of si­mi­lar com­mon Ro­man tra­di­tio­nal va­lues by both op­ti­ma­tes and po­pu­la­res sup­por­ters in po­li­ti­cal pro­pa­gan­da. It ga­ve the pos­si­bi­li­ty to overwhel­ming majo­ri­ty of re­sear­chers to treat the la­te re­pub­li­can ideo­lo­gy as a who­le. As a re­sult such mo­dern terms as «re­pub­li­ca­nism» and «tra­di­tio­na­lism» de­no­ting this phe­no­me­non ap­pea­red, the­se being equa­ted by ma­ny re­sear­chers. But scru­pu­lous ana­ly­sis car­ried on the main op­ti­ma­tes and po­pu­la­res slo­gans such as res pub­li­ca, li­ber­tas and pax showed car­di­nal dis­tinctions in their in­terpre­ta­tion.

The se­na­te sup­por­ters lin­ked such va­lues as li­be­ra res pub­li­ca, li­ber­tas, pax, that were fun­da­men­tal for each ci­ti­zen of Ro­me with the exis­ten­ce of their power, and the loss of the lat­ter — with their di­sap­pea­ran­ce. In their turn, po­pu­la­res put the idea of the Ro­man peop­le so­ve­reignty and its sup­re­ma­cy in с.266 the sta­te in­to the sa­me slo­gans. Hen­ce, la­te re­pub­li­can ideo­lo­gy can’t be trea­ted as a who­le, and such mo­dern terms as «re­pub­li­ca­nism» and «tra­di­tio­na­lism» can’t be sy­no­nyms. It’s evi­dent, that «tra­di­tio­na­lism» was the ba­sis both for the ideo­lo­gy of op­ti­ma­tes, and for that of po­pu­la­res. The­re­fo­re it’s ne­ces­sa­ry to dif­fe­ren­tia­te between «tra­di­tio­nal» and «re­pub­li­can» ten­den­cies be­cau­se their displa­ce­ment may re­sult in mi­sun­derstan­ding in­ten­tions and fi­nal aims which so­me Ro­man po­li­ti­cal fi­gu­res put be­fo­re them­sel­ves. Ac­cor­dingly, two mo­re hy­po­the­ti­cal ba­ses for ear­ly Prin­ci­pa­te of­fi­cial ideo­lo­gy: «tra­di­tio­na­lism» and po­pu­la­res ideo­lo­gy to­ge­ther with «re­pub­li­ca­nism» ap­pear be­fo­re us.

The «re­pub­li­ca­nism» influen­ce upon Oc­ta­vian ideo­lo­gi­cal po­li­cy, es­pe­cial­ly at the be­gin­ning of his po­li­ti­cal ca­reer, is extre­me­ly ove­res­ti­ma­ted in his­to­rio­gra­phy. It may be clear­ly seen in the pe­riod be­fo­re the battle at Phi­lip­pi. The ana­ly­sis of the sour­ces shows, that Bru­tus and Cas­sius sup­por­ters though they sha­red ideo­lo­gi­cal views of op­ti­ma­tes, con­scio­us­ly bor­rowed suc­cessful ideo­lo­gi­cal slo­gans or ac­tions of «Cae­sa­rians»; all this was cau­sed by the weak­ness of ideo­lo­gi­cal po­si­tions among plebs and ve­te­rans. At the sa­me ti­me the main Oc­ta­vian tasks at the be­gin­ning of his po­li­ti­cal ca­reer were le­ga­li­sa­tion of his ac­ti­vi­ty and crea­tion of the ima­ge of «new Cae­sar» among ve­te­rans and plebs. As a re­sult, no of his ac­tions can be con­nec­ted with «re­pub­li­ca­nism». On the contra­ry, he dwelt on «tra­di­tio­nal» ima­gi­na­tion and used «Cae­sa­rian» slo­gans. His ac­ti­vi­ty in 44—43 B. C. ful­ly joins the sco­pe of po­pu­la­res po­li­cy and it isn’t surpri­sed be­cau­se crea­tion of the «new Cae­sar» ima­ge re­qui­red in­he­ri­tan­ce of the po­pu­la­ris Juli­us Cae­sar ac­tions on his si­de.

By the middle of the 30th B. C. he hadn’t enjoyed po­pu­la­ri­ty among the Ro­man aris­toc­ra­cy. The ba­sis of his ideo­lo­gy was «re­ven­ge for Cae­sar». But at the sa­me ti­me he put the new slo­gans: pax, se­cu­ri­tas, pros­pe­ri­tas, which mar­ked the tran­sit to the pro­pa­gan­da of pea­ce, sta­bi­li­ty and pros­pe­ri­ty of the who­le Ro­man com­mu­ni­ty. By the way the­se slo­gans al­so didn’t be­long to the «Pom­pe­nians» po­li­ti­cal le­xi­con too. By the end of the 30th B. C. the pro­pa­gan­da of tra­di­tio­nal Ro­man va­lues had co­me forward. The new Oc­ta­vian ima­ge as a suc­cessful ge­ne­ral and a de­fen­der of the­se va­lues, to which M. An­to­ny cor­rup­ted by the Orient was op­po­sing, was for­med.

The vic­to­ry in the battle at Ac­tium ma­de Oc­ta­vian the so­le ru­ler of a tre­men­dous sta­te though the­re were no le­gal grounds for his being in power. It ma­de Augus­tus do ma­ny ef­forts in the sphe­re of pro­pa­gan­da in or­der to jus­ti­fy his ac­tions. One of the prin­ci­pal­ly im­por­tant de­ci­sions was car­rying out res­ti­tu­tio rei pub­li­cae in 28—27 B. C., that led to the «res­to­ra­tion» of all sta­te sphe­res and that was wide­ly ad­ver­ti­sed though it wasn’t a de­ci­sion of the es­sen­tial prob­lems, but on­ly a pro­pa­gan­da ac­tion. At the sa­me ti­me the «res­to­ra­tion» of the sta­te wasn’t con­cer­ned with the re­vi­val of the «re­pub­li­can» tra­di­tions and to the «res­to­ra­tion» of the Re­pub­lic in par­ti­cu­lar. Such slo­gans as res pub­li­ca res­ti­tu­ta, vin­dex li­ber­ta­tis (po­pu­li Ro­ma­ni), pax were bor­rowed с.267 The from the po­pu­la­res po­li­ti­cal le­xi­con in or­der to un­der­lie ideo­lo­gi­cal dis­tinctions with the op­po­nents of the first Ro­man em­pe­ror. Be­si­des, Augus­tus tried to put the new con­tent in­to the terms lis­ted abo­ve in or­der that they should be per­cei­ved as the central ba­ses of a new mo­nar­chy sys­tem.

At the sa­me ti­me, the pre­vai­ling ten­den­cies in the of­fi­cial ideo­lo­gy in 20th B. C. were «mo­nar­chy» ones. This it poin­ted by the new na­me of the mo­narch — Augus­tus. Ad­mit­ting a spe­ci­fic term as a na­me that be­longs to the sphe­re of cult, re­li­gion, and the na­me that cha­rac­te­ri­ses things and no­tions clo­se­ly lin­ked with gods was a frank chal­len­ge to the «re­pub­li­can» tra­di­tions. To the great ex­tent the idea of the em­pe­ror per­so­nal power was expres­sed in the Greek con­ge­ner of this na­me. The «mo­nar­chy» ten­den­cies were al­so strongly expres­sed in the pro­pa­gan­da of Augus­tus vir­tues. Pre­sen­ting Oc­ta­vian with the gold shield for his «cou­ra­ge», «jus­ti­ce», «cha­ri­ty» and «pie­ty» op­po­sed him sharply to the who­le Ro­man so­cie­ty and dec­la­red him as a bea­rer of the mo­ral su­pe­rio­ri­ty.

Thus, both at the be­gin­ning of his po­li­ti­cal ca­reer, and in 30—20th B. C., Augus­tus didn’t use «re­pub­li­can» ideo­lo­gy. He dwelt on the tra­di­tio­nal Ro­man rep­re­sen­ta­tions and no­tions, la­te re­pub­li­can ter­mi­no­lo­gy and po­li­ti­cal slo­gans, that were applied in the po­li­ti­cal fight of the Re­pub­lic pe­riod being wide­ly bor­rowed. Howe­ver, trying to avoid the re­vi­val of the op­po­si­tion un­der the flags of the op­ti­ma­tes ideo­lo­gy, he un­der­li­ned the po­pu­la­ris soun­ding of his pro­pa­gan­da. In ot­her words, the ideo­lo­gy of the ear­ly Prin­ci­pa­te not on­ly wasn’t ba­sed on the «re­pub­li­ca­nism», but al­so op­po­sed it. By the way, using po­pu­la­res slo­gans, ba­sed on the tra­di­tio­nal Ro­man rep­re­sen­ta­tions, in the man­ner that wasn’t pe­cu­liar to them and chan­ging their in­ner con­text and mea­ning, prin­ceps im­po­sed the mo­nar­chy ideas to the Ro­man so­cie­ty with their help. It was shown in the 20th B. C. when the «mo­nar­chy» fea­tu­res of the of­fi­cial ideo­lo­gy of the Augus­tus prin­ci­pa­te be­ca­me pre­vai­ling.