Augustus boasted in his res gestae not only that he had handed down many old examples (exempla) of the ancestors, but also that through his person he had created many new things for posterity to imitate. The volume traces the tension created here between "old" and "new" exempla, between legitimation through recourse to the past using exempla and the ever-present assertion of relevance to the present by exempla using the conceptual instrument of exemplarity and exceptionality.