Augustus can hardly be said to have had a negative impact of the Roman Empire. He saved the empire. He won the Final Civil War of the Roman Republic (the last of a series of devastating civil wars which brought down the Republic) and became the sole ruler of the empire and the first Roman emperor. He re-established the stability of the empire by becoming an absolute ruler and creating a strong government capable of controlling the governors of the Roman provinces, who had previously treated the provinces as their personal fiefs, and tackled the corruption and inefficiencies of the government of the Late Republic. The strong governance he created laid the foundations of the Pax Romana (Roman Peace) a 206-year period of relative political stability in the empire which led to great prosperity due to its facilitation of the development of thriving networks around the empire and beyond (Arabia, Persia, India, China and Ethiopia).
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The Roman empire was an empire before Augustus. It was an empire under the republican form of government. In other words Rome was governed as a republic before Augustus. During and after Augustus the empire was governed by the principate form of government.
Augustus was the ruler of the Roman Empire when the Aeneid was written. In fact, he specially commissioned Virgil to write it.
He knew the Senate wanted the other type of government, but, however, he also knew that the republic had been too weak to solve Roman's problems. Although he gave some power to the Senate, he really put himself in charge.
Julius Caesar overthrew he senate and started the Roman Empire. Augustus Caesar, Julius' grand-nephew, was the first emperor.
He was a Roman emperor but he mostly governed the Eastern half of the empire