Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, Episode 53, Reigning Supreme.

Octavian had transformed himself into Caesar Augustus by skillfully using the mechanisms

and rhetoric of the Republic to carve out an infallible little niche for himself, where

Julius Caesar had made bold and inflammatory declarations about how obsolete Republican

institutions were.

Augustus was careful to never admit publicly what he was really up to.

This was all about restoring the Republic, you would say.

This is not about some personal power grab.

It was all charade, of course, but there was much to be gained by keeping the charade going,

for example, not being stabbed to death on the floor of the Senate.

But before we get going on the next few years of Augustine rule, I have to start this

week by correcting what I said about the Pantheon last week.

I'm not sure how exactly I managed to swing and miss so badly on my facts, but I did,

so let's set things right.

The Pantheon was indeed first built by Agrippa in 28 BC, and subsequently gutted by a fire

in 80 AD.

But when it was rebuilt in 126 AD, the construction was overseen by the Emperor Hadrian, not the

Emperor Trajan, who had, of course, died in 117.

And the blueprints were not set to a grip as original specifications, but rather new

plans were drawn up, that some have attributed to Hadrian himself, who was a big fan of

architecture, but most likely simply came from his staff architects who were engaged in

multiple urban renewal projects initiated by the Emperor.

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