Caesar’s Comet, the Julian Star, and the Invention of Augustus
Octavian is credited with turning a comet seen in 44 b.c.e.  into a symbol of Julius Caesar’s divinity and using it to advance his own political aims. Yet historical evidence argues against this account. Moreover, representations of the sidus Iulium (Julian star) on coins and in poetry adopt diverse and autonomous perspectives on the princeps. The idea that Augustus circulated the sidus as part of an image campaign seems instead to originate with Ovid, whose deification narrative at Metamorphoses 15.745–851 retrojected the princeps ’s mature power onto his early career and fueled the belief that Augustus gained and maintained power through propaganda.
The emperor in the Roman world: 31 BC-AD 337
This book offers a large scale reassessment of the function of Roman emperor over three centuries (from Augustus to Constantine) and of the social realities of this exercise of power. Concentrating on the patterns of communication between the emperor and his subjects, the author shows that such communications were normally initiated by the subjects whether grouped in cities or other associations, or individually and that the emperor fulfilled his role primarily by making responses to them or giving decisions or verdicts between them.The book casts new light on a number of detailed historical questions such as the sources of the emperor's wealth and the ways he spent it; the imperial residences and the mobility of the court; and the relatively small and simple entourage that the emperor needed to perform his functions. But above all, it emphasizes two major historical themes: the steady detachment of the emperor from the republican institutions of the city of Rome; and the way in which relations between Emperor and Church were shaped by the emperor's long-standing relations with cities, temples and associations in the pagan world.Drawing on a wide range of evidence, from literature and legal writings to inscriptions and papyri, the main text can be read without any knowledge o f Latin or Greek."
Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers
Prodigy lists and the use of the "Annales Maximi" L.Crassus and Cicero - the formation of a statesman the literary sources for the pre-Marian army Cicero the historian and Cicero the antiquarian Scipio, Laelius, Furius and the ancestral religion the eastern "Clientelae" of Clodius and the Claudii the interpretation of Cicero's "De Legibus" religion and politics in the late second century BC at Rome Caesar's heritage - Hellenistic kings and their Roman equals architecture and sculpture - the activities of the Cossutii the Ciceronian aristocracy and its properties "Homo Novus Arpinas ex M.Crassi familia" more on the "Clientelae" of the patrician Claudii the first Latin annalists the identity problems of Q.Cornificius Caesar, Etruria, and the "Disciplina Etrusca" the introduction of logical organization in Roman prose literature M.Aeficius Calvinus and his "grammaticus" Caerellii, Juno Populona, and Aquinum L.Cornelius Sisenna and the early first century BC chariot-racing in the Roman Republic history, historiography, and Cicero's "exposito consiliorum" "Crassorum Funera" the life and death of Asclepiades of Bithynia Cicero and the Areopagus theatrical life in Republican Rome and Italy Cassius and Brutus - the memory of the Liberators "Discrimina Ordinum" - the "Lex Julia Theatralis" Sallust on the '80s "Speciosa locis morataque recte" the antiquarian tradition - spoils and representations of foreign armour.