Augustus, 2,012 years on: the sickly man who founded the Empire

Augustus: 2,012 years since the death of the first emperor of Rome

How could a short, fair-haired man who hated the cold and was constantly ill become the founder of the most stable empire in the West? Today marks 2,012 years since the death of Augustus, who died on 19 August AD 14 after ruling from 27 BC to AD 14. He seemed the least likely candidate, and yet he buried half a century of civil wars.

The man does not match his legend. He identified with Capricorn and minted it on coins as a talisman; in private he bundled up in several layers of wool. Yet this great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar won every power struggle and designed a regime that survived for centuries. Interpretations of the outcome disagree: some highlight the end of the civil wars, others point out that the democratic republic died in the process.

The Spanish chapter remains the thorniest. The campaign against the Cantabrians and Astures was long, dirty, costly and yielded little booty. Defenders argue that protecting the south of Hispania required closing that route, just as the Rhine served as a barrier against the Germanic tribes; critics would have preferred the conquest of Britain, far more rewarding in glory and propaganda. Two thousand years later, history seems to side with the former: the empire endured.

Augustus died, like any mortal, without taking the office with him. The remarkable thing is that two millennia later, the system he built remains a byword for stability, even if its founders, the republicans, came off worse. Therein lies the paradox.