• Provincial Reforms: Augustus adopts a non-expansionist agenda; concentrates on keeping current holdings
• Consolidates territory, making it easier to manage
• Puts allies in charge
• Extends citizenship and creates class of freedmen
• Promotes Roman culture abroad→Romanization
• Military Reforms: professionalizes army and encourages their loyalty
• Strategic stationing along the borders
• Creates praetorian guard led by equestrians (non-senatorial bureaucracy)
• Pays soldiers annual salaries (donatives)
• Domestic Reforms: proclaims “golden age” of peace and prosperity
• Transforms “city of brick to city of marble”; makes “clocks run on time”
• Casts self as restorer of peace, of religious/cultural tradition, and of morals
• Becomes a literary patron: e.g. Livy and Virgil; they project a good image of Augustus
• Emperor and Senate: Augustus wins over civil-war-weary Senate by restoring latter's normal functioning and direct control over empire’s core (especially Italy); but outer (and, in east, wealthier) provinces, where army stationed as a border patrol, under emperor's exclusive authority and administered by equestrian bureaucracy loyal to him.
o Equestrians wealthy but lack senatorial ties (often provincial citizens), so emperor their easiest avenue to political influence.
• Romanization: low taxes for economic benefits of imperial security (trade via roads, no pirates, common currency and strong laws) win provincial loyalty; promise of eventual citizenship for assimilated communities furthers integration.
o Security and citizenship provided by emperor, not Senate.