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Tacitus on how Augustus won power

c. 30–20 BCE, Rome. His own words.

Where and when

c. 30–20 BCERome

about 2,050 years ago

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Tacitus

, RomeHis own words

In plain words, ours

He won soldiers with gifts, the people with cheap grain and everyone with peace, and bit by bit took the powers of Senate, officials and laws.

Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.

Tacitus, Annals 1.2Translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)Read the full passage (Tacitus, Annals 1.2, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

Tacitus sums up how Augustus gained power. Brutus and Cassius had been destroyed and Antony was dead; Augustus dropped the title of triumvir and called himself consul. No one opposed him, Tacitus says, because the boldest men had fallen.

Checked claim by claim against: the passage around the quote.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

  1. 44 BCEabout 19 years earlier Caesar and the soothsayer, in Suetonius Also in Rome
  2. 44 BCEabout 19 years earlier Caesar on the best death, as Plutarch tells it Also in Rome
  3. 30 BCEabout 5 years earlier Antony and Cleopatra take their own lives Same years
  4. 27 BCEabout 2 years earlier Octavian takes the name Augustus Also in Rome
  5. c. 30–20 BCEThis momentTacitus on how Augustus won power
  6. c. 10–14 CEabout 36 years later Tacitus on how few had seen the republic Same passageMore from Tacitus
  7. set in 14 CEabout 38 years later Tacitus on Augustus' peace stained with blood More from Tacitus
  8. 62 CEabout 86 years later Tacitus on Nero's answer to Seneca More from Tacitus
  9. c. 115–120 CEabout 141 years later Tacitus on writing without bitterness Same passage

Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred. Hence my purpose is to relate a few facts about Augustus—more particularly his last acts, then the reign of Tiberius, and all which follows, without either bitterness or partiality, from any motives to which I am far removed. When after the destruction of Brutus and Cassius there was no longer any army of the Commonwealth, when Pompeius was crushed in Sicily, and when, with Lepidus pushed aside and Antonius slain, even the Julian faction had only Cæsar left to lead it, then, dropping the title of triumvir, and giving out that he was a Consul, and was satisfied with a tribune's authority for the protection of the people,

The quote: Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.

He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion, so that, aggrandised by revolution, they preferred the safety of the present to the dangerous past.

Tacitus, Annals 1.1–2Translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
c. 30–20 BCE. Tacitus describes Augustus' rise after Antonius died in 30 BCE; he wrote c. 115–120 CE.
Whose words
His own words.
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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