Arabia Eudaemon ed Aethiopia: le altre facce della vittoria augustea

Abstract

Caesar Augustus did not need “spin doctors” because he himself was one of their number; his own work in the field of political propaganda, the celebrated Summary of the Deeds that his contemporaries were already used to call Res gestae diui Augusti, stands out conspicuously as an excellent means of self-promotion and a very interesting example of literary Latin. Here we will show how he made a rather shrewd use of two problematical expeditions for propaganda aims. Both military campaigns were fought by the Roman army of Egypt. Caesar Augustus gave the order to start the war in Arabia Eudaemon, but it ended in a strategical failure; the other in Aethiopia (scholarly known as kingdom of Kush or Nubia) was only a sudden counter-attack without his knowledge, but it brought home a brilliant victory. Nevertheless, Caesar Augustus dared to claim that both wars had been launched on his order and had achieved clean victories. The last part of the paper will be devoted to two military issues. After sharing some guesses on size and composition of the field armies in Arabia Eudaemon and Aethiopia, we will argue the peculiar place of the exercitus Aegyptiacus in the broader framework of Augustan strategy in the Near East.