"The whole of Italy swore allegiance to me”, wrote Augustus in his Res Gestae, the account of his life’s accomplishments and political testament.
He was referring to the oath which Italy in its entirety pledged to Octavian in 32 BCE, sanctioning his leadership of the Italics in the war against Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The threat from the east, along with the symbols of the corruption and immorality of Octavian’s adversaries, were countered in ideological terms by the concept of an independent ethnic identity of Italy, which Augustus managed to imbue with a new value. Following the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, the victorious Octavian embarked on a programme of cultural renewal. With the years of civil war and instability now over, a new golden age was about to begin, with the harmony and prosperity of an entire society now ensured by a single man and his dynasty. Everything took place in the utmost respect for the institutions.
ùThe state, or res publica, was symbolically handed back to the senate and to the Roman people, whose mythical ancestry was celebrated and exalted. Octavian’s adoption of the name Augustus, with its direct connotations to the sacred sphere, shrouded the new leader in an aura of spirituality. His new cultural policies permeated every aspect of the public and private lives of the Romans. Expertly drawn up by the princeps, a new system of values was supported by fresh decorative motifs, architectural formulae, community rituals and regular activities which spread everywhere, reaching every strata of the population. This slow, constant process of cultural and ideological standardisation and unification – into which the local traditions of all populations converged – was now recognisable as part of the broader, and by now consolidated, concept of Tota Italia.