Augustus Trivia
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68 free Augustus trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Augustus trivia quiz covers the sickly great-nephew of Julius Caesar who marched on Rome at 19, outlasted Antony and Cleopatra, and spent forty years building an empire while pretending to restore a republic. The easy questions cover the outline: his birth name, his great-uncle, the triumvirate, Actium, the meaning of the title Augustus, the month named after him and the stepson who succeeded him. The harder half is for readers of Suetonius and Syme: the cognomen from Thurii, the share of Caesar's estate, the illness at Philippi, the executions on the Ides of March, the golden shield's four virtues, the town in Spain he governed from, the physician who saved him in 23 BC, the standards recovered from Parthia, the size of the standing army, the tax on slaves, the fossil collection on Capri, the fig, and the last words about a play well acted. Every answer was checked against Augustus's encyclopaedia entry before publishing. If you enjoy this, try our Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Roman Empire quizzes next.
30 of 68 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Augustus's reign opened a roughly 200-year era of stability and prosperity known as what?
The Pax Romana
The Pax Romana. The calm was relative, since revolts and frontier wars went on, but by convention the era runs from 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in AD 180.
Q 02Augustus founded which dynasty of Roman emperors?
Julio-Claudian
Julio-Claudian. Five emperors from two intermarried clans ruled for nearly a century; the line ended in AD 68 when its last emperor killed himself, and a year of civil war followed.
Q 03On which Roman hill, later the home of the emperors, was the future Augustus born in 63 BC?
The Palatine
The Palatine. Suetonius puts his birth at a spot there called Ox Heads; he later lived on the same hill, and the imperial residences built on it gave English the word 'palace'.
Q 04Suetonius links Augustus's boyhood surname Thurinus to his father's victory over runaway followers of whom?
Spartacus
Spartacus. His father crushed a band of runaway slaves near Thurii, one of two origins Suetonius offers for the name; Mark Antony later used 'Thurinus' as a taunt in his letters.
Q 05Octavius's mother Atia was what relation to Caesar?
His niece
His niece. Atia's mother Julia was Caesar's sister, and the young Octavius made his first public appearance giving the eulogy at that grandmother's funeral.
Q 06Where was Octavius when Caesar was assassinated in March 44 BC?
Apollonia, in Illyria
Apollonia, in Illyria. Caesar had sent him ahead to study there before a planned war in the East; on the news he thought of appealing to the nearest legions, then sailed for Italy to claim his inheritance.
Q 07Besides most of his estate, Caesar's will gave the 18-year-old Octavius which priceless political asset?
His name
His name. As Gaius Julius Caesar, the unknown teenager could rally the dictator's veterans, though his own stepfather urged him to turn the inheritance down.
Q 08At 19, Octavian marched his legions on Rome in 43 BC to force the Senate to grant him which office?
Consul
Consul. When the Senate hesitated, a centurion from his army showed the hilt of his sword and said, 'This will make him consul, if you do not'; the legions then marched and he was elected.
Q 09With Mark Antony and which third man did Octavian form the Second Triumvirate in 43 BC?
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Unlike the private deal between Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, this triumvirate was an office created by law, giving the three men five years of near-absolute power.
Q 10At an island conference in 43 BC, the triumvirs traded names for a death list whose most famous victim was who?
Cicero
Cicero. His speeches against Antony had made him a marked man; Octavian is said to have held out for two days before giving him up, and his head and hands were displayed in the Forum.
Q 11What name is given to the triumvirs' posted lists of 43 BC, which outlawed their enemies and seized their estates?
Proscriptions
Proscriptions. The word comes from posting a man's name as an outlaw; killers were paid a bounty per head, and the confiscated estates funded the triumvirs' troops, as under Sulla.
Q 12At which 42 BC battle did Antony and Octavian defeat Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius?
Philippi
Philippi. Cassius killed himself after the first battle on a false report that Brutus had lost too; about three weeks later Brutus was beaten in a second battle and followed him.
Q 13Brutus's troops overran Octavian's camp in 42 BC; what did he say had warned him to get out in time?
A friend's dream
Q 21Which naval commander won the Battle of Actium for Octavian?
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa commanded Octavian's fleet at Actium, as he had against Sextus Pompey; he later married Julia and was raised to powers almost equal to the emperor's.
Q 22What city did Octavian found near the site of the Battle of Actium?
Nicopolis
Octavian founded Nicopolis, 'victory city', on the site of his camp across the gulf from Actium, and held games there every four years to commemorate the battle.
Q 23After its conquest in 30 BC, Egypt was treated as what?
Octavian's personal property
A friend's dream. Ill as he was, Octavian had himself carried out of camp, he wrote in his memoirs; Brutus's men then stabbed his empty litter through and for a while believed him dead.
Q 14Who was the mother of Julia, Augustus's only biological child?
Scribonia
Scribonia. Octavian divorced her on the very day she gave birth to Julia; he blamed her temper in his memoirs, and within months he had married Livia.
Q 15When Octavian fell for Livia, she was already married and pregnant by which man?
Tiberius Claudius Nero
Tiberius Claudius Nero. He not only agreed to the divorce but gave Livia away at the wedding, as a father would; she was six months pregnant with Drusus, who was born in Octavian's house.
Q 16After the siege of Perusia in 40 BC, Octavian is said to have executed prisoners on which symbolic date?
The Ides of March
The Ides of March. Suetonius passes on the report that 300 prisoners were sacrificed that day at an altar to the deified Julius, and says Octavian met every plea for mercy with 'You must die.'
Q 17The renegade Sextus Pompey used which island as the base for his blockade of Italy?
Sicily
Sicily. From its ports his fleet cut off Rome's grain, and in 39 BC Octavian and Antony had to recognise his hold on the island by treaty in return for letting the corn ships through.
Q 18At which battle in September 36 BC was Sextus Pompey's fleet all but destroyed?
Naulochus
At Naulochus, on 3 September 36 BC, Octavian's admiral sank or captured most of Sextus Pompey's ships; Sextus fled east and was executed the following year.
Q 19After forcing a fellow triumvir into retirement in 36 BC, Octavian let him keep which office for life?
Pontifex maximus
Pontifex maximus. Octavian refused to take the chief priesthood from a living holder, even when the people offered it to him, and assumed it only after the exile's death, in 12 BC.
Q 20The Battle of Actium, where Octavian beat Antony and Cleopatra, was fought off the coast of which modern country?
Greece
Greece. Antony's fleet was bottled up in the Ambracian Gulf on the west coast; when Cleopatra's squadron fled he followed with a few ships, and the forces he abandoned soon surrendered.
Octavian's personal property. A prefect answerable to him alone governed it, and its treasure cleared his civil-war debts; so much coin reached Rome that interest rates there fell.
Q 24Which group did Augustus forbid to enter Egypt without his permission?
Senators
Senators. Augustus let none of them set foot there without his leave; Tacitus says he feared that anyone who seized the country, with its grain, could starve Italy into submission.
Q 25What does the honorific title 'Augustus', granted by the Senate in January 27 BC, mean?
The revered
Augustus means 'the revered' or venerable one, a word of religious rather than political flavour that set him above ordinary men without making him a king.
Q 26Which name was proposed for Octavian in the Senate before it settled on 'Augustus'?
Romulus
Some in the Senate suggested Romulus, as a second founder of Rome, but the name smacked of kingship, and on Munatius Plancus's motion the Senate chose Augustus instead.
Q 27The golden shield the Senate gave Augustus in 27 BC listed four virtues: valor, piety, justice and what?
Clemency
Clemency. By his own account the shield, hung in the Senate house, was part of the Senate's thanks for his handing the state back to Senate and people that year.
Q 28From 26 to 24 BC Augustus ran the Empire from which city on Spain's Mediterranean coast?
Tarraco
Tarraco. Too ill to campaign in Cantabria, he stayed in what is now Tarragona; when its people boasted that a palm had sprouted on his altar, he said it showed how rarely they lit a fire there.
Q 29Which nephew of Augustus, married to his daughter Julia, died in 23 BC and has a theatre named for him?
Marcellus
Marcellus. Widely expected to be Augustus's heir, he died at about 19; his uncle gave him a public funeral and laid him in the new family mausoleum, the first to be buried there.
Q 30In the 23 BC settlement, Augustus was granted for life the powers of which office, without holding it?
Tribune of the plebs
Tribune of the plebs. As a patrician he was barred from the office itself, so he took its powers instead, the veto and a sacrosanct person, and counted the years of his rule by them.