This book presents seven fresh and original views of Caesar Augustus, as the authors of the papers collected here consider the image which he presented of himself, how poets and historians reacted to him, the nature of his rule, and the representation of the newly established monarch among his subjects in the provinces. The contributors are well-known historians and scholars: Zvi Yavetz (Tel Aviv), Fergus Millar (Oxford), Claude Nicolet (Paris), Emilio Gabba (Pavia), Werner Eck (Cologne), Glen Bowersock (Princeton), and Jasper Griffin (Oxford).

These papers were first given at a colloquium held at Wolfson College, Oxford, to celebrate the eightieth birthday of the late Sir Ronald Syme, author of The Roman Revolution (OUP 1939) and other seminal works. A substantial amount of documentation has been added in the notes, but the main texts retain the form in which they were given as lectures, and with it a freshness and immediacy in approaching a central moment in history from a number of new angles.