History of August: Who Is It Named After?

Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century. Image: Wikipedia

HISTORY OF AUGUST

What’s in a name? The name of this month was not always August; previously, the Romans referred to it as Sextilis. Because the calendar then started in March, this was the sixth month. This was back in the days of Romulus in 753 B.C., when there were originally ten months (… Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec… or seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth). In 8 B.C., the Roman Senate decided to honor their first Emperor, Augustus Caesar, by changing the month’s name to Augustus.

Now, Augustus wasn’t his name; it was a description of his importance. He was born Gaius Octavius, though he is known in the history books as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus or Octavius to his friends. Custom suggested he append Octavianus to mark his birth family — a name he studiously avoided, though history has fastened it on him. He preferred to be identified with his adoptive father Gaius Julius Caesar.

The title Augustus in Latin comes from augere, “to increase,” and was granted to him in 27 B.C. by the Roman Senate.

It meant “venerable” or “consecrated,” signifying his religious role in the Roman cultus. We use the term in English to describe someone auspicious, grand, or lordly… or with imperial qualities. The Greek equivalent is Sebastos (Σεβαστός).

What do we know about Augustus?

Augustus in History

You know about Augustus from the Christmas story in Luke 2:

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth [i.e., the Roman Empire].

A bust of Augustus as a younger Octavian, dated c. 30 B.C. Capitoline Museums, Rome. Image: Wikipedia

Back in Rome, his mother was the niece of Julius Caesar, and his father was the governor of Macedonia. However, his family was of the equestrian order, and his father was the first of the line to reach the Senate — a respectable but not aristocratic pedigree. Nevertheless, the young Octavius rose in status.

He was elected to the College of Pontiffs and later joined his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, on the battlefield. The General (and Dictator) was so impressed that he changed his will and named the boy his principal heir; his will left him three-quarters of his estate. As Caesar was childless in the eyes of Roman law, this adoption meant Octavius would succeed him.

Octavius took the name Gaius Julius Caesar, though Roman tradition required that he append the surname Octavianus (or Octavian) to denote his biological family; as noted above, he never used it himself. He is alternatively known as Octavius, Octavian, or Augustus.

Official Roman Emperor

Augustus was the first official Emperor of Rome, not Julius, as some suppose. Julius had been “dictator for life,” dictator perpetuo, though his life lasted barely a month after he gained that title, ending in his assassination.

Death of Julius Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini. National Museum of Capodimonte, in Naples. Image: Wikipedia

During Octavian’s rise to power, the powerful First Triumvirate — an informal pact among Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus — gave way to a legally sanctioned Second Triumvirate comprising himself, Antony, and Lepidus.

Eventually, after the victory over Sextus Pompey, Lepidus overreached by claiming Sicily for himself; his legions deserted to Octavian, who stripped him of his triumviral powers in 36 B.C. Meanwhile, Antony’s invasion of Parthia ended in costly failure. Relations between the two remaining triumvirs broke in the late 30s B.C. before they fought a final war, the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., from which Augustus emerged as the victor.

With the end of the Second Triumvirate, Augustus’ reign became known as the Principate, or more colloquially, the Roman Empire.

Where does Cleopatra Fit In?

Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra. Image: WSJ

As you remember from that late, great teacher of history, Elizabeth Taylor, in the 1963 movie Cleopatra, she was, in glorious Technicolor, the Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. She, at 21, had an affair with Julius Caesar (52), resulting in the birth of their son, Caesarion (“little Caesar”). Despite Cleopatra making repeated official declarations about Julius Caesar being the father, Caesar himself, whose wife Calpurnia was in Rome, remained publicly silent about the boy, meaning he did not acknowledge paternity. Consequently, Julius Caesar had no legitimate male heir, making adoption of Octavius a necessity.

Historical Trivia:

Cleopatra was a descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and one of Alexander’s leading generals, part of the group of successors known as the Diadochi. Ptolemy took the satrapy of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great beginning in 323 B.C. Like all her predecessors, she spoke Koine Greek, or Common Greek, the same language the New Testament was written in. While she was the first of her dynasty to learn the Egyptian language, she was ethnically Greek, not Egyptian, despite ruling Egypt. After her death, the Ptolemaic Dynasty, founded in the wake of Alexander’s death, came to an end., and Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.
 

The Roman Republic (green) and Ptolemaic Egypt (yellow) in 40 B.C. Image: Wikipedia

Why Does August Have 31 Days?

There is a myth that August has 31 days because Augustus took a day from February to match Julius’ July. But it was invented during medieval times; Sextilis had 31 days under the Julian reform before the renaming to August. 

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com