hable crime. He also passed sumptuary laws, such as importation laws, that restricted luxury items and extravagance, in order to encourage the people of Rome to lead more simple lives. These laws stemmed from Augustus basic religious belief in monogamy, chastity, and piety, and by them, he was able to press religion into the state by inter-weaving traditional morality and religion with his social policy. Lastly, in addition to public monuments and religious laws, Augustus ideas about religion were largely circulated throughout the state by literature, namely poetry. In literature, Roman military success and prosperity were often attributed to religious piety. The foremost contributors to the atmosphere in which the political system of Augustus became stabilized, were the poets Virgil, Horace, and Livy. Their works mirrored Augustus sentiments that the re-adoption traditional moral standards were needed to create a strong, unified, state, and that prosperity and military supremacy were achieved only through the piety of obedience to the will of the gods. Through their didactic works, these poets greatly aided Augustus in extolling the virtues of morality, piety, and family values. There were, however, some writers who flouted Augustus moral agenda, most notably, Ovid. Ovids works, mock didactic in nature, were often laced with cynicism and immorality, and encouraged the licentious actions such as adultery and fornication which Augustus was trying so hard to abolish. Such writing could have had destructive effects on the renewed religious and moral attitudes in Rome, and so, in keeping with his moral agenda, Augustus had Ovid banished to the Black Sea for the remainder of his life. In this way, Augustus allowed only the literature that reflected his religious sentiments, to circulate throughout the state to educate the people and encourage them to adopt a more moral and pious way of life. Clearly, by the reconstruction of pu...
