The Lost Memoirs of Augustus [Hardcover]

Augustus' Memoirs, written probably in the mid 20s BC, might have been one of the most revealing texts of Roman history - had they survived. Far longer than his surviving Res Gestae, the Memoirs seem to date from a period at which the wounds of Rome's civil wars were fresh, and the emperor's partisan past might be recalled with discomfort. Existing fragments and testimonia have suggested that the work was apologetic in purpose. In this, the first ever comprehensive study of the subject, a cast of internationally-respected scholars reconstruct aspects of the work, its importance for historians, and its relation to Roman literary genre. The book also contains, by kind permission of Oxford University Press, the fragments and testimonia of the Memoirs as they will appear, newly edited by Christopher Smith, in 'The Fragmentary Roman Historians'.Cato and the origins of the memoir - Tim CornellWas there a genre of the memoir? Or, Did Augustus know what he was doing? -Christopher PellingOctavian the runaway: defending a military reputation in the Memoirs? - Anton PowellWhy end at the Cantabrian War? - John RichSulla's Memoirs and Roman autobiography - Christopher SmithFelicitas and the Memoirs of Sulla - Alexander TheinDivining a lost text: Augustus' autobiography and the Bios Kaisaros of Nicolaus of Damascus - Mark ToherAlternative memories: tales from the other side in the civil war - Kathryn WelchAugustus, Sulla and the supernatural - Peter Wiseman Christopher Smith is Professor of Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews, UK. Anton Powell is Director of the University of Wales Institute of Classics & Ancient History, and author of Virgil the Partisan . The contributions here... offer a great deal on Augustus' early career, the form and likeliest antecedents for his Commentarii (Sulla looms much larger here than Julius Caesar), and their functilÃ"