before in favour of other dynasts; and Caesar asserted both legal and moral rights to preferential treatment. In the last res

for him, rancorous and incorruptible. A jury carefully selected, with moral support from soldiers of Pompeius stationed aroun

of the Dictator, took the opportunity to sketch a modest programme of moral and social reform. 2 Having written treatises abo

psa iam diffluxerunt severis legibus vincienda sunt. ’ Caesar carried moral and sumptuary legislation (Suetonius, Divus Iuliu

words, Virgil, Horace and Livy tell the same tale and point the same moral . 1 Yet speculation cannot be debarred from play

st and his association with the Queen of Egypt were vulnerable to the moral and patriotic propaganda of his rival. Most of th

a specious unity to the action or permits apology or condemnation on moral and emotional grounds. All conventions are baffle

him to treat Caesar’s heir with loyalty and respect. Yielding to this moral suasion, Antonius agreed to a formal and public r

virtus (without always being able to prevail against posterity or the moral standards of another age), Brutus was not only a

c are embodied in types as perfect of their kind as are the civic and moral paragons of early days; which is fitting, for the

survivors of the proscriptions, of Philippi, of Perusia. With this moral support Antonius confronted his Caesarian rival.

t a distance from Rome. Contemporaries were pained and afflicted by moral and by social degradation. True merit was not the

s of a war between classes. Through experience of affairs, candour of moral pessimism and utter lack of political illusions t

isms were borrowed, men said, lifted from Cato; not less so the grave moral tone, flagrant in contrast with his earlier life.

anus evaded the charge of breach of contract. Preferring a topic with moral and emotional appeal, he turned the weight of his

l of Rome and Italy. But violence was not enough: he still lacked the moral justification for war, and the moral support of t

not enough: he still lacked the moral justification for war, and the moral support of the Roman People. The charges and coun

ion, produce votes of the local senates and facilitate by money or by moral suasion the levying of ‘volunteer’ armies in a pa

legions to a general of Caesar’s dash and vigour; but they lacked the moral advantage of attack and that stimulating dose of

l dominions and a firm authority to enforce a programme of social and moral regeneration. The constitutional settlement of

ounced a return to Republican practices and a beginning of social and moral reform. 4 That process was to be celebrated as th

d, despite the inferences plausibly to be derived from the social and moral programme which he was held to have inspired. He

elements’, some two hundred were induced to retire by the exercise of moral suasion. 2 The true character of the purge, so

C.: he delayed until 18 B.C., the year of the introduction of the new moral code, when, in face of opposition and by complica

ght a national war against a political woman, the Queen of Egypt. The moral programme of the New State was designed to keep w

rinceps her father had promulgated the laws that were to sanction the moral regeneration of Rome. 7 It may be tempting, but i

’ PageBook=>427 Augustus was bitter and merciless because his moral legislation had been baffled and mocked in his ow

liticians could hardly afford in this critical season the luxury of a moral purge of high society. What induced him to court

cal lady. Her paramours the five nobiles are not innocent triflers or moral reprobates but a formidable faction. Gracchus bea

and frugality. 4 How could they be restored? About the efficacy of moral and sumptuary legislation there might well be dou

quo facilius possint maiora discere’ (Cicero, De república 1, 30). No moral or political value ‘nec meliores ob earn scientia

of firm, dignified and decent worship of the Roman gods. That was the moral source of Rome’s power: nam quantum ferro tantu

to the authentic and revolutionary Gracchi were at one in awarding to moral and military excellence the primacy over pecuniar

ious, and the unspeakable Vedius Pollio; and in his own household the moral legislation of the Princeps was most signally baf

granddaughter though in truth their offence was political rather than moral . Nor is it certain that the Princeps himself was

whole conception of the Roman past upon which he sought to erect the moral and spiritual basis of the New State was in a lar

imonious, successful in business life, self-righteous and intolerably moral . The Italian bourgeoisie had their sweet revenge

as a party leader and sufficient confidence to persist in the task of moral and social regeneration. The political structure

Despite the varied checks and disappointments in Augustus’ policy of moral and patriotic regeneration, the effort had not be

ue, attacking both oligarchy and the power of money, with advocacy of moral and social reform. 2 The Dictator further encoura

er abest rei. 2 Without need of apology and more naturally came the moral , rustic and patriotic vein to the poet Virgil. Th

ompositions fostered by the government, Livy’s history was patriotic, moral and hortatory. Even antiquarianism had its uses.

ke. Like the early Germans depicted by Tacitus, he did not think that moral laxity was a topic of innocent amusement. 4 Nor

ech, as no order else in the New State. They demonstrated against the moral code and later clamoured loudly that Julia should

cluded. Already in the Triumviral period Pollio was quick to draw the moral of the times, intelligent to anticipate the futur

ew what Patavium was a city notorious for material prosperity and for moral worth. 4 PageNotes. 485 1 Tacitus, Dial. 21,

ble. The word ‘Patavinitas’ sums up, elegantly and finally, the whole moral and romantic view of history. 1 Pollio knew what

erted into recognition and love: exstinctus amabitur idem. 2 This moral platitude became a wild paradox under the Empire.

uetonius, Divus Aug. 85, 1. PageBook=>507 The argument and the moral may readily be inferred Cato, always an advocate

4 The Republican profession was not so much political as social and moral : it was more often a harmless act of homage to th

new settlement, 333 ff.; acts in 22 B.C., 339; in the East, 371, 388; moral programme, 443 ff.; in Gaul and Spain, 388 f.; af

314, 330, 336, 394 f., 406; administrative reforms, 401 ff., 410 f.; moral reforms, 443 ff. His real power, 2 f., 322 f., 37

, 155; on Augustus, 3; on the Restoration of the Republic, 324 f.; on moral legislation, 455; on virtue and vice, 105; on Rep

asant soldiers, 449, 451; on freedmen, 354; the interpretation of his moral and patriotic poetry, 451 f., 461 f.; his Ode to

, 456 ff.; total after Actium, 304; in 13 B.C., 389 f. Legislation, moral , 53, 443 ff.; efficacy of, 442, 455 f. Leges Ju

2; prerogatives of, 322; loss of prerogatives, 404 f.; need for their moral reform, 442; rivals of Tiberius, 433 f.; in compa

Reate, 90, 354. ‘Rechtsfrage’, slight importance of, 48. Reform, moral , the need for, 52 f., 335; carried out by Augustu