Julio-Claudian Emperors
Dynasty on coins

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The Julio-Claudian Emperors brought about much change in a place that had previously known only civil wars and a republic. In 31 BC Octavius, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the battle Actium. The Romans after years of civil strife, gladly gave up political freedom for a dictatorship that assured tranquility. Octavius, as Caesar Augustus, became, in effect, the first emperor of Rome. However, it was one thing to be declared an emperor or dictator, it was quite another to have people accept another when you died.

One of the major problems Augustus faced was how to ensure an orderly succession after his death to the new form of power he had created; in the absence of sons, he used the time-honored Roman strategies of adoption and controlling the marriages of the women in his family (especially his daughter, Julia). From his actions, it is clear that his aim was to secure a blood relative-preferably a direct descendant in the Julian line-as his successor. It is one of the ironies of history that this strategy resulted in the emperor Gaius (Caligula), hardly the kind of ruler Augustus had envisioned. Gaius followed by Claudius and then ultimately by Nero is perhaps far from what Augustus envisioned as the Roman Empire, but what is certain is that the methods employed by Augustus in securing his bloodline were secure enough to last till almost one hundred years later.

The way that I propose to tell this interesting and complex story of relationships and control of the entire Roman Empire is to look at the coinage that was produced during the reigns of the Julio-Claudian emperors in order to see how they saw themselves, their family line, and just how they proposed to keep the Roman people believing the people who were declared emperor were actually supposed to be in power.