"As Rome's pre-eminent citizen, Augustus quickly became the empire's pre-eminent patron of the arts, and many of the people within his ambit enjoyed similar roles. In the sphere of art and architecture, the Augustan building programme was extensive, prompting his famous quote: "I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble." Augustus himself proudly boasted of the dozens of building projects (constructions, restorations, and adornments) he undertook at his own expense. These projects exclude the innumerable acts of munificence carried out by members of his household, his inner circle, or the elite at his instigation. Among his major monuments in the city were his Forum (still an impressive ruin), the Ara Pacis Augustae, and Agrippa's extensive activity in the Campus Martius, which generated the Baths of Agrippa, the Stagnum and Euripus, the Pantheon, and the Saepta Julia. Throughout, the Augustan style is a mixture of conservatism and innovation and often strives for a Greek look so that it has been termed "classicizing" in tone, which is aptly demonstrated by the way Augustus's ageless portraits stand in sharp constrast with the sometimes brutally frank "veristic" representations of the Late-Republican elite."
http://www.roman-emperors.org/auggie.htm
"The Age of Augustus is known as the Golden Age of Roman literature, for during this time flourished the greatest poets of Rome. Under Augustus, poets and artists were patronized not by individuals, but solely through the princeps himself. To this end, Augustus appointed a cultural advisor, Maecenas, to aid him in extending patronage to poets. The result was an incredibly powerful system for identifying the best poets who could further the ideology of the Augustan government.