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Ideas And Values Of The Ancient Romans

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How a person chooses to live his life could be based on many factors; most often it is cultural or societal norms that dictate a person’s actions and their path in life. For others it is the people around them such as their children or spouses. For the ancient Romans it was a specific set of ideals and values that were adhered to as closely as possible. These ideals were: “pietas, conduct toward parents, relatives, ancestors, gods, and country; gravitas, a serious attitude toward life, including decision-making through sober reasoning as well as the acceptance of responsibilities; simplicitas, plainness of speech and lifestyle, singleness of purpose, directness, and honesty; virtus, physical courage and moral virtue; and dignitas, personal …show more content…

This brought upon Antony much hatred from the Romans and disintegrated his alliance with Octavian. However, before Antony and Cleopatra could attack Rome, Octavian attacked and destroyed three-quarters of the Egyptian fleet in the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, thus adding the entirety of Egypt to the Roman Empire and causing Cleopatra and Antony to commit suicide (“Augustus”). Octavian’s quick thinking and his capacity to attack his once ally was a display of pietas, as he was protecting the interests of the Roman people, gravitas, as he made the decision to attack and held responsibility for the consequences, and simplicitas, as he never lost focus of his goals and showed singleness of purpose. These circumstances put Octavian in the same position of power that Caesar had been in before his assassination and he feared that, as he had no rival, he would start to look like a king, a reviled figure in this ancient Roman period. Octavian devised a way to make his position appear more tolerable to the Roman people and it is here that he became the princeps senatus. He used propaganda to iterate that he was not a king but a highly respected and powerful Roman aristocrat (Sizgorich). Octavian’s

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