Evil genius is a phrase that could have been invented to describe Augustus,

the first emperor of Rome. He butchered his way to power in the chaos that followed

Julius Caesar's assassination and then showed the political cunning necessary to remain there

for four decades. In conversation with

Spencer Mizzen, in this Life of the Week episode, Ed Watts considers the secrets of the success

of an extraordinary individual who transformed the ancient worlds. So Ed, we're here today to talk about one of the most significant figures

in, I think, the entire span of ancient Roman history, and that is Octavian, who is better known

as the first emperor Augustus. So, Ed, can you start by spending a couple of minutes introducing us to Augustus?

Who was he in a nutshell?

So I guess in a nutshell, Augustus is the figure who refashions the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.

And the way that he does this, it's, I think, quite amazing that Rome was, in a way, fortunate enough to have a figure like this and also unfortunate enough to have a figure like this.

Because I think when you're talking about Augustus, it is really useful to disaggregate the career of Augustus from the career of Octavian.

If you were to talk about the career of Octavian, you would be talking

about somebody who is a mass murderer, a very willing civil warrior, a person who is completely

able to tolerate killing people for just instrumental reasons, and somebody who is very willing

to use people and discard them in whatever fashion serves is his best interest.

He's an incredibly destructive figure. And with Augustus, even though it's the same man,

you have a figure who is actually incredibly constructive. So Octavian, I think, bears very

significant responsibility for the destruction of the Roman Republic, and Augustus unquestionably

bears responsibility for the creation of an imperial system that ends up lasting in various forms

for another 1,200 years. And so, you know, it really is, I think, in some ways useful for us to

see them as two figures, even they are very much the same figure.

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