What was the role of the military during the Augustan principate?

I did a paper on this and spoke primarily on the fact that it brought him alot of power since whoever controlls the army controls all else. I'm just curious.



What other roles did the military have during the principate?



Any links to sites or information would be super so that I can do some reading up on it myself.



Thanks in advance!What was the role of the military during the Augustan principate?Quite apart from keeping order and keeping Augustus firmly in power, the army was kept busy with engineering projects, especially road building.



But, in fact, under Augustus, the Roman army conquered more lands than any of his predecessors or successors. Here is a brief description of the more important campaigns. You will get more detail at the source listed below. I can also recommend any of the books about the Roman army by Adrian Goldsworthy.



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In 30BC, following the death of Cleopatra, Egypt was the first major gain. The frontier was advanced to the First Cataract of the Nile by the prefect Cornelius Gallus. In 25BC there was another successful expedition against raids by the Ethiopians.



In 26-25BC, the army campaigned in Spain, but it took a further six years before the whole of Spain was brought under Roman rule.



During the same period, other legions were engaged in defending northern Italy from raids by the Salassi, who were raiding into Cisalpine Gaul from Aosta in the western Alps.



In the east, the main problem was Parthia, which could unsettle Roman control in neighboring Armenia, and further west into Galatia. Augustus wanted to avoid open war with Parthia, because of the high cost and probably small returns from any conquest. He relied mainly on diplomacy, mixed with the threat of force, and on maintaining strong defensive forces in the east.



In 15BC Tiberius and Drusus completed the pacification of the northern Alpine frontier, that had begun in 25BC against the Salassi. Now on the eastern side of the Alps, the frontier was pushed up to the Danube river, including Raetia and Noricum. With Alpine passes open, Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul became more united and prosperous; the raids of the Alpine tribes of Italy were over, and Roman armies could more easily get to central Gaul and the Rhine.



From 13-9BC the northern frontier was further strengthened near Illyricum by the conquest of Pannonia. Roman control thus stretched from the Adriatic to the Danube, making an overland route from Rome to Illyricum through the easternmost Julian Alps, and connecting Macedonia to Italy and Gaul.



After an uprising in Thrace was quelled from 11-9BC, the Romans were in control of the territory south of the entire length of the Danube to the Black Sea.



Drusus campaigned in Germany from 12-9BC and tried to advance Caesar's German frontier of the Rhine as far as the Elbe, but he accomplished only raids between the two rivers.



Eventually, in 5 AD, Tiberius reached the Elbe, and then tried to subdue the Marcomanni, so that by linking the Elbe with the Danube a new frontier could be established all the way to the Black Sea. His efforts were interrupted and never resumed. In 6AD there was a great and bloody revolt in Pannonia and Dalmatia, which took 3 years to crush.



Though Tiberius did return to Germany, he and Germanicus were occupied in defending the Rhine after Quinctilius Varus suffered a disastrous defeat there at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, losing three legions and all the territory east of the river. Despite the recovery of the river and forays beyond it, Augustus gave up the thought of a frontier beyond the Rhine.