SEG 29.168 Honours for Augustus

Honours for Augustus

SEG 29.168 Date: 27 BC – 14 AD

(This statue was erected for) Emperor Caesar the saviour Augustus.^[1]

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References:

SEG 29.168 (Translated text) (PHI)

Højte, Statue Bases Augustus 128

Schmalz 114

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Statue base

Findspot: Athens, Sepolia

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This statue base for Emperor Augustus (r. 30 BC – 14 AD) was found built into a modern well in Plateia Orthodoxias, Sepolia, in northern Athens (O. Alexandris, Arch. Delt. 29B, 1973-1974, 84 = SEG 29.168). The use of the title Augustus indicates a date after 27 BC. There is a hole on top from a secondary use.

Augustus gained control of Athens and the rest of the eastern Mediterranean after defeating Marcus Antonius at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. When he visited Athens shortly afterwards, he confirmed the city's freedom, distributed grain (Plut. Ant. 68.6), and was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries (Dio Cassius 51.4.1; I Eleusis 296), but his relations with Athens were initially chilly. Dio Cassius reports that, when Augustus visited Athens in 22 BC, the statue of Athena on the Acropolis, "turned to the west and spat blood," and, as a result, Augustus removed Aigina and Eretria from Athenian control and banned the Athenians from "making anyone a citizen for money" (Dio Cassius 54.7.2-3, cf. Plut. Mor. 207e-f). A flurry of decrees and reforms from the archon year of Apolexis (24/3 or 21/0), including the establishment of cult worship of Augustus (Agora XVI 336), reforms for the Athenian settlement on Lemnos (SEG 47.143b, l. 29), reforms to the Eleusinian Mysteries (I Eleusis 300), perhaps the institution of life-tenure for public priesthoods, and perhaps genos reform have been linked to this frosty visit (G. Schmalz, GRBS 37, 1996, 381-98), whether as cause of or response to Augustus' anger. Augustus' third visit to Athens in 20/19 BC, on his way back to Rome after negotiating an agreement with Parthia, was much more friendly and he received the second stage of initiation into the Mysteries (Dio Cassius 54.9.7-10, Donatus, Life of Virgil 35; Geagan AJP 100, 1979, 62-65). In 12 BC, he was apparently in Athens a final time, funding gladiatorial shows at part of the Panathenaia festival (Cassius Dio 54.28.3). At some point before 9 BC, he funded the completion of the Roman Agora, which had been begun by his adoptive father Julius Caesar (IG II³ 4, 12 with notes). Athens was important for a strand of the Augustan regime's self-representation which forged parallels between Augustus' victory at Actium and the Athenian victory over the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC (A. J. S. Spawforth, Greece and the Augustan Cultural Revolution, 2012, 103-17).

Athenian honours for Augustus were extensive. Agora XVI 336 established cult worship of Augustus in 24/3 or 21/0 BC. This cult often associated Augustus with Apollo (see SEG 29.167 with notes). A small shrine dedicated to the cult of the Goddess Roma and Augustus Soter was built to the east of the Parthenon on the Acropolis (IG II³ 4, 10-11). The double annex built into the back of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios may have been a pair of temples for Augustus and another (H. A. Thompson, Hesperia 35, 1966, 171-87). There were designated seats in the Theatre of Dionysos for a priest of Augustus Caesar (IG II³ 4, 1928) and a second priest of the Goddess Roma and Augustus Caesar (IG II³ 4, 1984). The former would evolve into the Athenian high priest of the Imperial cult (see F. Camia in E. Mackil and N. Papazarkadas, Greek Epigraphy and Religion, 2021, 150-159 and I Eleusis 361 with notes). A priest is also attested in I Eleusis 297, which, on one interpretation, indicates that the Athenians had already established a cult of Augustus in the early 20s BC. The revival of the Dodekais pilgrimage to Delphi may also have had some connection to Augustus (see F.Delphes III 2, 59 with notes).

For other monuments in honour of Augustus at Athens, see I Eleusis 297 (as Zeus Boulaios), SEG 29.167 (as the New Apollo), I Eleusis 296 (with his wife Livia), IG II² 3253 (with his heirs), I Délos 1588, 1590-1591 (on Delos), Choix de Delphes 213 (at Delphi). Fragments of at least six statues of Augustus have been found at Athens (NAMA 2710, 3290, 3758, 5263, Ag. S 356, Acropolis Museum 2282, and possibly a head from the Roman Agora) and around twenty altars dedicated to him (see Agora XVIII 275 with notes). IG II³ 4, 242 was dedicated to Ares and Augustus and may indicate that the new Temple of Ares in the Agora was associated with Augustus and his family (cf. Augustus' dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor, the Roman version of Ares, in Rome). IG II³ 4, 556 A and 797 B dedicated the new stoa of the Asklepieion on the Acropolis to Augustus alongside Asklepios and Hygieia.

Monuments were also erected for Augustus' wife, Livia (see IG II² 3238 with notes), his second-in-command and son-in-law Agrippa (see IG II² 4122), his daughter Julia (I Délos 1592), his grandsons and adopted sons Gaius Caesar (see IG II² 3250), Lucius Caesar (see IG II² 3251), and Agrippa Posthumus (I Délos 1593), his younger step-son Drusus the Elder (IG II² 3249), and his step-son and eventual heir Tiberius (see Agora XVIII 253 with notes). .

Added: 24 Jul 2026
Updated: 24 Jul 2026
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