Augusta
- Under the emperors, a litle of the mother, wife, daughter, and sister of the emperor; like our Imperial Majesty, Imperial Highness, Tac. A. 1, 8; 15, 23; 4, 16; Tac.12, 26; id. H. 2, 89, Suet. Calig. 10; 15; 23; id. Claud. 3; id. Ner. 35, id. Dom. 3; cf. Plin. Pan. 84, 6 Schwarz.—
- II The name of several towns, among which the most distinguished were,
- A Augusta Taurinorum, now Turin, Plin. 3, 17, 21, § 123; Tac. H. 2, 66; cf. Mann. Ital. I. p. 191.—
- B Augusta Praetoria, in Upper Italy, now (by a corruption of the word Augusta) Aosta, Plin. 3, 5, 6, § 43; 3, 17, 21, § 123; cf. Mann. Ital. I. p. 186 sq.—
- C In Treveris Augusta, now Treves, Mel. 3, 2, 4 (colonia Treverorum, Tac. H. 4, 72).—
- D Augusta Vindelicorum, now Augsburg, Itin. Anton.; cf. Tac. G. 41, n. 4 Rupert.—
- E Augusta Emerida on the Anas, in Lusitania, now Merida, Plin. 4, 21, 35, § 117; cf. Mann. Hispan. p. 331.
- 1. titel v.d. vrouwelijke leden v.h. keizerlijk huis: keizerin, keizerlijke hoogheid, majesteit;
- 2. naam v. verschillende door Augustus en andere keizers gestichte steden, bv.: ~ Treverorum Trier, ~ Vindelicorum Augsburg; — inw. v. deze steden: Augustānī, ōrum m.
Hac ipsa tempestate cum præfata Augusta(Chrotechilde Chlodovei uxore) S. Lupus Episc. venit de superioribusBurgundiæ partibus.
AUGUSTA (Eth. Augustanus, Steph. B. s. v. Αὔγουστα), a Cilician town, in the interior. (Plin. Nat. 5.27.) The name shows that it was either founded under the patronage of some Roman emperor, or a new Roman name was given to an old place. Ptolemy places this town in a district named Bryelice.
[G.L]The name of several towns founded or colonized by Augustus. Of these, one of the most important was Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), a town of the Salassi in Upper Italy, at the foot of the Graian and Pennine Alps. The modern town still contains many Roman remains, the most important of which are the town gates and a triumphal arch. In all, seventy cities in different parts of the Roman Empire were named Augusta, among them London (Londinium), which was sometimes styled Augusta Trinobantia from the British tribe, the Trinobantes (Tac. Ann. xiv. 31). See Londinium; Sebasta; Treviri; Vindelici.
Just over 16 km N of Adana in a loop of the river Seyhan (Sarus), and at the W end of a narrow plain bounded N and S by low hills. With the Roman urbanization of the E Cilician plain after the fall of the Tarcondimotid house in A.D. 17, the city (named for Livia, the widow of Augustus) was founded in A.D. 20. Represented at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the city probably did not long survive, as an important center, the Moslem invasion of Cilicia in the 7th c.
The site, discovered by chance in 1955, was identified by ancient literary references and from the presence there, and in the neighboring village of Gübe, of local semiautonomous coins of Augusta. In the same year (1955) Gübe, and with it the ruins of Augusta, disappeared below the waters of the Seyhan dam, but not before the site had been partially surveyed and individual buildings planned. Among these were the foundations of a triumphal arch, two colonnaded streets crossing each other at right angles in the manner typical of town planning in Roman Cilicia, a theater, a civic basilica, some shops, a bath building, and a dam on the river. These structures were all of brick and mortar, and probably of 3d c. date.
BIBLIOGRAPHYF. Blumer, Kleinasiatische Münzen (1902) III 436-37; M. Gough, “Augusta Ciliciae,” AnatSt 6 (1956) 165-77; M. Akok, “Augusta şehri harabesi,” TürkArkDerg 7.2 (1957) 15-20; A.H.M. Jones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (2d ed. 1971) 206.
M. GOUGH