# Did Emperor Augustus really say he would "make Rome great again"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2023, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537 "2023-01-02T16:56:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/1 "2023-01-02T16:56:46Z")
Did Emperor Augustus really say he would “make Rome great again”? I have not been able verify that. If he did say it how would he have put it in Latin? ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/2 "2023-01-02T17:16:32Z")
Considering he was the nephew of Julius Caesar who came, saw, and conquered Gaul (France) and took over the Republic, then he earned the top spot and declared himself emperor after wiping the map with Mark Anthony in Egypt, and presided over an expansive empire encompassing the Mediterranean, whose main rival Carthage was also wiped off the map a while before - I fail to understand why he would need to use the words “make” or “again” to describe Rome’s greatness. If we were talking about some of the later emperors as the western Empire went into decline, it might be a plausible fabrication. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/3 "2023-01-02T17:48:54Z")
Especially an Eastern Empire emperor - say [Justinian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I) [he sent Belisarius off to the west to reconquor the western Roman Empire] Justinian did actually write a compendium of [laws,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Justinian) and was responsible for some decent rebuilding. [Procopius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procopius) wrote about Justinian and his court. SO yes, I agree, Augustus probably said absolutely nothing about making Rome great again, that would go to one of the later emperors, and I would postulate Justinian as the one who would have said something like that. [though not likely] ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/4 "2023-01-02T18:06:12Z")
> [@Octagon](#): > > If he did say it how would he have put it in Latin? This is I suppose the bit that would be tricky trying to locate such a quote. One can imagine someone in his age saying more something like “We shall work to restore in Rome the Virtue of the past” or something like that, as a way to refer to the prior two generations of turmoil and disorder, but “make great again” is a kind of phrasing that just hits me as pretty modern. Writers from after Augustus said “he found a city made of brick and left one made of marble” so indeed if anything he was often mentioned in history as the one to achieve the plateau of “greatness” _to begin with_. And yes, we all are failing to answer the FQ, but it may be we can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/5 "2023-01-02T18:52:51Z")
Make Rome Great Again is obviously a meme, but I can’t find anything suggesting that it originates from anything that was actually _said_ in Rome or specifically connected to Augustus. However - OP, have you been reading this? It is specifically about Augustus. > **[Making Rome great again: fake views in the ancient world](https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/making-rome-great-again-fake-views-in-the-ancient-world)** > > A political leader who seeks to make his nation “great again” and a time when ‘post-truth’ rhetoric appears to support political ambitions. Not Trump’s I don’t know how tongue-in-cheek it is, but it purports to be an entire book of serious academic research that looks for parallels to Trump’s “post-truth” rhetoric in Ancient Rome. A skeptic might wonder if it’s _bona fide_ research, but perhaps repackaged with a post-Trump spin to try to sell more copies? > “My interest in Augustan poetry and its tendency to reshape traditions and place facts in a position of secondary, subsidiary importance was inspired by my experiences as a millennial growing up in Berlusconi’s Italy,” says Giusti. “My research focuses on what, after the events of 2016, we might dub ‘post-truth poetics’ – and a reading of Virgil’s _Aeneid_ as a form of poetics and politics that aimed to shape public opinion by appealing to feelings rather than facts.” > In Giusti’s view, Virgil was in all likelihood commissioned by Augustus to write the _Aeneid_, and there is certainly plenty to suggest that he wrote his epic work in compliance with the new regime. > In alluding to the [Punic] Wars, from which Rome emerged victorious, Virgil transports the reader back to a “mytho-historic” time of strength and glory in Rome’s past. The real threat from Carthage ended after the defeat of Hannibal in 201 BC, but Virgil uses Carthage to evoke _metus_ _hostilis_ or ‘fear of the enemy’… But the headline of the article doesn’t imply that the author is making the case that Augustus (or Virgil) actually used those words or anything resembling them, so far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/6 "2023-01-02T19:27:04Z")
Anyway - having made an attempt at a serious answer, sooner or later we do need to get around to the equally serious business of the jokes obviously set up by the OP. Like whether Augustus’ concerns about election irregularities were justified, whether Senator Hilaria properly sealed certain confidential papyrus scrolls, and why the Tribune failed to pursue his investigation into the corruption of Venator and his father. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/7 "2023-01-02T19:56:45Z")
Would it not simply be: Fac rursum magnam Romam Edit: I mean, you could do a subjunctive clause, but I don’t see a need to. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/8 "2023-01-02T20:35:12Z")
Sounds more like a Mussolini thing to say. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/9 "2023-01-02T20:36:05Z")
Obviously, it wouldn’t be in Latin though. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/10 "2023-01-02T20:57:39Z")
The people called the romans they make the great? ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/11 "2023-01-02T21:28:14Z")
Around the end of his life Augustus released a long self-congratulatory text that was effectively his official biography and how he wanted his legacy to be read. Its known as [Res Gestae divi Augustus - Works of the Divine Augustus](https://www.livius.org/sources/content/augustus-res-gestae/). Obviously being a career statement its looking back, so two points can be made - as sole leader of one of the great empires while it was very much on its up trajectory he had a lot he could brag about, both personally and as leader, and as the first Emperor they had ever had, a lot of the language was careful to stress his continuity with the past and respect for it, to legitimize his own assumption of power. Well worth a read, and a lot of its tone was similar to but not quite MRGA. We studied this in high school, but just re-reading the translation now made me think that post-Trump, all such self-congratulatory statements will be read with very different eyes. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/12 "2023-01-02T22:34:42Z")
I could imagine him saying he was making the roman _Republic_ great again, or words to the effect. While in the process of making sure the republic’s overthrow (by his uncle) was permanent. And replacing it with the empire (not that he would have called it that). He went to great lengths to show the republic appeared to be restored, and everything was back to normal, even if nothing could be further from the truth in reality. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/13 "2023-01-02T22:54:22Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > be read. Its known as [Res Gestae divi Augustus](https://www.livius.org/sources/content/augustus-res-gestae/) I think this quote from that is closest to “make X great again”… > I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction Utter bullshit of course, in the 1st century BC as in the 21st century AD. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/14 "2023-01-03T00:30:06Z")
Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, **per quem rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi**. The bold part is your quote, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/15 "2023-01-03T01:53:44Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > > [@Banksiaman](#): > > > > be read. Its known as [Res Gestae divi Augustus](https://www.livius.org/sources/content/augustus-res-gestae/) > > I think this quote from that is closest to “make X great again”… > > > I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction Thanks griffin1977. From my reading Mussolini was inspired to say more of less the same thing but probably not “make Rome great again.” I’d be very interested in Mussolini’s actual words in Italian. ---
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/16 "2023-01-03T02:00:16Z")
Mussolini actually said the words “…make America great” in English > **[WATCH: That time fascist dictator Benito Mussolini said "Make America great"...](https://www.newstalk.com/news/watch-that-time-fascist-dictator-benito-mussolini-said-make-america-great-in-a-speech-584742)** > > While Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s speeches have been widely criticised o... Addressing the camera in English, Mussolini offers some timely words of advice to the 1.8m Italian nationals making a new home in the United States. “I greet with wonderful energy the American people and I see and recognise among you the salt of your land, as well as ours, my fellow citizens who are working to make America great.” ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-emperor-augustus-really-say-he-would-make-rome-great-again/977537/17 "2023-01-03T04:12:45Z")
To be contrasted with the statement by former New Zealand Prime Minister, Robert ‘Piggy’ Muldoon, who referred to the large diaspora of New Zealanders settling in Australia as ‘helping to raise the average IQ of both countries’. [end of delicious detour]