27 BC

Augustus

The Senate grants Octavian the name Augustus

Octavian publicly handed the state back — and emerged with a ten-year command over the provinces containing most of Rome's legions.

16 January 27 BC: a name with sacred overtones

At the second of two pivotal Senate meetings in January 27 BC — the settlement unfolded across sessions on the 13th and the 16th — the Senate conferred the honorific name Augustus on Octavian. Ancient commentary credits the senator Lucius Munatius Plancus with proposing it.

The award followed Octavian's formal claim, preserved in his own Res Gestae, that he had transferred the res publica from his control to the authority of the Senate and Roman people. With it came honors he carefully recorded: laurels on his doorway, a civic crown above it, and a golden shield in the Curia Julia commemorating his valor, clemency, justice and piety.

The trade beneath the ceremony

The settlement divided Rome's provinces: Augustus received a ten-year command over the strategically important ones containing most of the legions, while the other provinces remained under public or senatorial administration. He had restored the republic in form while retaining command where the legions were.

'Augustus' was an honorific name, not a package of legal powers that made him emperor at the instant it was voted — and the republic was never formally abolished. Dating the Roman Empire from 27 BC is a historian's convention, not something enacted that January.

Reading the winner's account

Augustus's own Res Gestae is indispensable evidence for the settlement — and also a carefully constructed account of how he wanted his rule remembered, including his insistence that after the settlement he surpassed his colleagues only in standing, never in legal power.

The arrangement inaugurated the governing structure later called the Principate, and Augustus went on revising it — most notably in the further settlement of 23 BC.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 3 audit passes Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at -0027-01-16.

What the sources leave uncertain

The modern date January 16, 27 BCE is well established for the grant of the name, but it is expressed using modern/proleptic calendar notation.
The settlement unfolded across Senate meetings on January 13 and 16; accounts that reduce the entire constitutional settlement to a single vote on January 16 blur that sequence.
Augustus's Res Gestae is indispensable primary evidence but is also a carefully constructed account of how he wanted his rule remembered.