«Республиканская монархия»:
метаморфозы идеологии и политики императора Августа

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The mo­no­graph „The Re­pub­li­can Mo­nar­chy“ : the Me­ta­mor­pho­ses of Ideo­lo­gy and Po­li­cy of Em­pe­ror Augus­tus con­sists of an intro­duc­tion, six chap­ters and a conclu­sion. At the be­gin­ning Augus­tus’ ti­me is cha­rac­te­ri­zed as an im­por­tant landmark in Euro­pean his­to­ry and the mea­ning of the La­tin term “Res pub­li­ca” is spe­ci­fied. It is poin­ted out in the sur­vey of his­to­ri­cal sour­ces that the as­sessment of Augus­tus’ prin­ci­pa­te as a ca­mouf­la­ged mo­nar­chy can be found on­ly in works writ­ten ma­ny years af­ter his death.

Chap­ter I con­tains an ana­ly­sis of the Wes­tern and So­viet his­to­ri­cal works on the is­sue in its bea­ring on the events of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Chap­ters II and III show how the Ro­man pat­rio­tic idea of res­to­ra­tion was sha­ping it­self du­ring the fi­nal de­ca­des of the Re­pub­lic, whi­le the pe­riod of the Ci­vil Wars re­vea­led the vi­ta­li­ty of views ba­sed on “the Ro­man myth” and eve­ry­day va­lues of the ci­vic com­mu­ni­ty. Oc­ta­vian’s po­li­ti­cal ta­lent displayed it­self in his abi­li­ty to feel the po­ten­tial of tho­se ideas and to use them op­por­tu­ne­ly. This was far from dif­fi­cult, sin­ce his con­scio­us­ness was part of the pub­lic men­ta­li­ty. The “re­turn of the re­pub­lic” in Janua­ry 27 B. C. was not brought about by any craf­ty sche­ming, but ca­me a na­tu­ral re­sult of events and pro­ces­ses de­ve­lo­ping in the Ro­man so­cie­ty and the Ro­man spi­rit. Chap­ter IV treats of mea­su­res in the sphe­res of re­li­gion and mat­ri­mo­nial le­gis­la­tion. The res­to­ra­tion cha­rac­ter of this ac­tions is em­pha­si­zed. Chap­ter V shows the con­ti­nual mo­di­fi­ca­tion of the le­gal and po­li­ti­cal ba­sis of the prin­ci­pa­te with due re­gard for the evo­lu­tion of the pub­lic mood. Chap­ter VI con­tains an ana­ly­sis of chan­ges in the po­li­ti­cal out­look of Oc­ta­vian/Augus­tus and his con­tem­po­ra­ries. It draws on frag­ments of Oc­ta­vian’s ear­ly works, Res ges­tae, ar­chi­tec­tu­ral mo­nu­ments and works of the poets of the Augus­tan age. Spe­cial at­ten­tion is paid to the search of the sour­ces of ideo­lo­gi­cal op­po­si­tion. Tho­se who wit­nes­sed the settle­ment in Janua­ry of 27 B. C. did not doubt that they li­ved in the res­to­red (if so­mewhat impro­ved) re­pub­lic of their an­ces­tors. La­ter on, in spi­te of ma­ni­fes­ta­tions of re­sentment and plots di­rec­ted against Augus­tus, his con­tem­po­ra­ries were not awa­re that they had cros­sed the boun­da­ry of a new epoch. On­ly so­me in­di­rect da­ta point to the la­tent ges­ta­tion of the re­bel­lio­us idea of the death of the re­pub­lic in the se­cond half of the Augus­tan prin­ci­pa­te. Howe­ver, the idea ca­me to be re­gar­ded as a cri­mi­nal one on­ly un­der Ti­be­rius (the ca­se of Cre­mu­tius Cor­dus in A. D. 25).

It is stres­sed in the conclu­sion that the transfor­ma­tion of “rei pub­li­cae” in­to a mo­nar­chy tur­ned out to be a con­ti­nuo­us pro­cess, ba­sed not on iso­la­ted le­gal and/or po­li­ti­cal acts, but on the complex me­ta­mor­pho­ses in the pub­lic men­ta­li­ty. The sig­ni­fi­can­ce of the up­hea­val was rea­li­zed on­ly by the on­co­ming ge­ne­ra­tions, when “re­pub­li­ca­nism” was transfor­med in­to an ideo­lo­gy of op­po­si­tion to the ty­ran­ni­cal encroach­ments of the prin­cep­ses, on the one hand, and in­to a neg­li­gib­le de­cor on the strengthe­ning mo­nar­chy, on the ot­her. Yet the con­tem­po­ra­ries were unab­le to dis­cern the splen­did but­terfly of mo­nar­chy in the chry­sa­lis of “rei pub­li­cae res­ti­tu­tae”.

The aut­hor, Jakob Mez­he­ritsky, is the lec­tu­rer and head of the chair of fo­reign his­to­ry of the Ka­lu­ga sta­te pe­da­go­gi­cal insti­tu­te.