Competing Views of Octavian Essay Assignment

Introduction Octavian (63 BCE-14 CE), also knowns as Augustus, has, since the time of his reign as the first Roman emperor, been a polarizing figure. Indeed, since ancient times, two sharply divergent schools of thought regarding his rule and the changes to the Roman political system that he secured have dominated. The first holds that he was a power-hungry tyrant who destroyed the Roman republic; the second instead maintains that he was an enlightened despot who succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of fixing the myriad problems of the late republic and in restoring order to a Roman state that had experienced an unbroken century of conflict, corruption, intrigue, and outright civil war. Two documents best exemplify the two sides in this debate: Octavian’s Res Gestae, written shortly before his death, and the scholar Tacitus’s (56-120 CE) The Annals, written in the early second century CE. This assignment focuses on this debate. Specifically, it calls on you to draw a conclusion about Octavian and the changes he made to Rome based on those two documents, several other primary-source documents (linked below), the textbook, and the class lessons on the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Parameters Your paper must be 700-900 words in length, which is equivalent to about 3-4 pages, but you are welcome to go over the word limit within reason (i.e., try to keep it under 1,000 words). Directions To complete the assignment, please do the following: First, review the Competing Views of Octavian Essay Rubric for details regarding how you will be assessed on this assignment (doing so is important!). Review ALL of the assigned readings. You should also review the relevant sections of the course lessons and textbook. Drawing on the assigned documents, complete a draft essay of 700-900 words that answers the following questions: Based on the class lessons on the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, the textbook, and, especially, the assigned the primary-source documents linked below, which interpretation of Octavian–the favorable one outlined in the Res Gestae or the critical view which Tacitus presented in The Annals–do you find more persuasive? Why?