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Literature of the Augustan Age

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Submitted By letsgotropics
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Literature in the Augustan Age is often referred to as the golden age of Latin literature. While many authors contributed works in this time, which ran roughly from 42 BCE to around 17 CE, the most prominent in this time were Virgil, Horace and Livy. The most important historical aspect of the literature at this time was how it served to support Emperor Augustus’ rule and his strong beliefs in traditional Roman values. This paper will focus on the ways in which these authors supported the values and beliefs of Augustus, and to what aspect their literature helped and supported the change in Rome during the transition from Republic to Empire. These authors’ works were intrinsically tied to the era in a very unique and important way. The theme of traditional rural Roman values, and the importance of the countryside to the integrity of Rome were extremely prevalent in their works, as well as in the policies of Emperor Augustus. This signified the extreme importance of Augustus’ focus on restoring traditional Roman values, and when supported by the writings from Virgil, Horace and Livy, has proven to be one of the most significant aspects towards the success of Augustus’ transformation of Rome into the Empire it would become. When we examine the contribution that Virgil, Horace and Livy made to the Augustan rule in the newly formed Roman Empire, we cannot begin without mentioning some of the skepticism that occurred during the initial years of the transformation. This is evidenced well in an excerpt in Livy’s The Early History of Rome: I would have [the reader] trace the process of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices

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