at records the rise to power of Augustus and the establishment of his rule , embracing the years 44–23 B.C. (chapters vii–xxi

patriotic Roman of Republican sentiments even submission to absolute rule was a lesser evil than war between citizens. 1 Li

which a united Italy and a stable empire demanded and imposed. The rule of Augustus brought manifold blessings to Rome, I

law and consent. The Dictatorship of Caesar, revived in the despotic rule of three Caesarian leaders, passed into the predo

ogative of liberty or frankly acknowledge the drab merits of absolute rule : writing of the transition from Republic to Monar

s of the closing age of the Republic and for their last sole heir the rule of Augustus was the rule of a party, and in certa

he Republic and for their last sole heir the rule of Augustus was the rule of a party, and in certain aspects his Principate

ming like a monarch out of the East, would subjugate Rome to an alien rule . Italy suffered devastation and sacking of cities

It is all too easy to tax the Roman nobility in the last epoch of its rule with vice and corruption, obscurantism and oppres

e government which he established lasted for nearly twenty years. Its rule was threatened at the outset by a turbulent and a

ests, might have perpetuated in Rome and Italy its harsh and hopeless rule . The Empire broke it. The repercussions of the

ffice and power. From time to time, families rise and fall: as Rome’s rule extends in Italy, the circle widens from which th

y waited in patience to assert their ancient predominance. When the rule of the Etruscan Tarquinii collapsed, the earliest

and of women of the Metelli. 4 The dynasty of the Metelli could not rule alone. Both the framework and the bulk of the gov

rence and courage to make the reforms that might save and justify the rule of class and privilege. The ten years’ war in Ita

been a senator. The decay of the Republic, the impulsion towards the rule of one imperator, were patent and impressive. 1

ispute but not at Rome. By armed force he might have established sole rule , but by that alone and not in solid permanence. T

principes strove for prestige and power, but not to erect a despotic rule upon the ruins of the constitution, or to carry o

a Catoni. PageBook=>051 defied and then destroyed the Senate’s rule . Each had sought armed domination. 1 Had Pompeius

g a revolutionary programme, Caesar established his Dictatorship. His rule began as the triumph of a faction in civil war: h

mple, Ahenobarbus’ son (Cicero, Phil. 2, 27). PageBook=>052 To rule , he needed the support of the nobiles, yet he had

eful sharply to discriminate between Dictator and Princeps. Under his rule Caesar the Dictator was either suppressed outrigh

ated an institution unheard of in Rome and unimagined there monarchic rule , despotic and absolute, based upon worship of the

ivus Julius to that very different person, Caesar the Dictator. The rule of Caesar could well be branded as monarchy on a

pel all hope of a return to normal and constitutional government. His rule was far worse than the violent and illegal domina

r meaning may attach to that phrase. The Dictatorship was enough. The rule of the nobiles, he could see, was an anachronism

c position. It meant the lasting domination of one man instead of the rule of the law, the constitution and the Senate; it a

hat he had escaped from the shackles of party to supreme and personal rule . For this reason, certain of the most prominent o

front came back to earlier alliances. Sulla restored the oligarchic rule of the nobiles. Thirty years later they clustered

s of Pompeius,4 and strengthening Caesar’s hands for action, gave his rule as party-leader a personal and monarchic characte

berators. The Dictator left, and could leave, no heir to his personal rule . But Antonius was both a leading man in the Caesa

er to formulate an ideal than a policy. The defenders of the Senate’s rule and prerogative were not, it is true, merely a na

erpretation. Libertas is a vague and negative notion freedom from the rule of a tyrant or a faction. 1 It follows that liber

t of power and wealth. The libertas of the Roman aristocrat meant the rule of a class and the perpetuation of privilege. Y

ith T. Sextius, the governor of Africa Nova. PageBook=>190 The rule of the dynast Pompeius in 60 B.C. and during the

ctor of Philippi proceeded eastwards in splendour to re-establish the rule of Rome and extort for the armies yet more money

r, there is no reason to imagine that Pollio expected a son of his to rule the world, no indication in the poem that the con

rban plebs that had rioted so often against the Triumvirs. Their iron rule in Italy, while it crushed liberty, had at least

to write verses himself and extend his patronage to others. Under the rule of the Triumvirate he was known to be composing t

age, habits and religion of his own people. It was much more than the rule of the nobiles that had collapsed at Philippi. Th

iance of Caesar’s heir, had shown the way. The new monarchy could not rule without help from the old oligarchy. The order

nvoked in the struggle, whatever name the victor chose to give to his rule , because it was for monarchy that the rival Caesa

eater part of the eastern territories was consigned to four kings, to rule as agents of Rome and wardens of the frontier zon

erties of the Roman People, to subjugate Italy and the West under the rule of an oriental queen. An expedient and salutary b

class it would have to abate its ambitions and narrow the area of its rule . Rome could not deal with the East as well as the

tally different, possessing its own traditions of language, habit and rule . The dependent kings were already there: let them

foreign and civil. To the population of the eastern lands the direct rule of Rome was distasteful and oppressive, to the Ro

of his ulterior ambitions. Was it the design of Marcus Antonius to rule as a Hellenistic monarch either over a separate k

last few years. Lampoon and abuse had likewise been silent under the rule of the Triumvirs. Now came a sudden revival, hera

ublic was now recalled, bewildered and unfamiliar, from the arbitrary rule of the Triumvirate. Since the time when the entry

c title honoured, the last of the monarchic faction-leaders based his rule on personal allegiance. Dux partium became prince

was, Antonius’ system of reducing the burdens of empire by delegating rule in the East to dependent princes diminished the p

ence. The better sort of people in Italy did not like war or despotic rule . But despotism was already there and war inevitab

fy the ends of the earth, subjugating both Britain and Parthia to the rule of Rome. 1 No themes are more frequent in the dec

r to be apprehended, save when civil war loosened the fabric of Roman rule . There were to be no more civil wars. So much f

It was never a serious preoccupation to its conqueror during his long rule . The menace of Parthia, like the menace of Egypt,

ar of Trojan stock, destined himself for divinity, but not before his rule on earth has restored confidence between men and

n enlisted in an emergency, he turned his powers to selfish ends. The rule of Caesar and of the Triumvirs bore the title and

ate to go, under what name were the Caesarian party and its leader to rule ? He had resigned the title of Triumvir, but it mi

imperator could depend upon the plebs and the army. But he could not rule without the help of an oligarchy. His primacy was

estige and success in war, as an almost religious consecration of the rule of the sole imperator. 4 Not only prestige was at

remove them all. Octavianus decided upon a half-measure. Under the rule of the Triumvirate, and after its nominal decease

left the more important, deprived of proconsuls, under the immediate rule of Octavianus presented a fair show of restored l

political dynast, exerting illicit power, or ‘potential for personal rule :2 ‘principalis’ also acquired the force and mean

r evoke surprise nor reveal to a modern inquirer any secret about the rule of Augustus which was hidden from contemporaries.

expression of a doctrine first formulated by Stoic philosophers, the rule of the ‘best citizen’. 4 Only a votary of truth t

ber (CAH XI, 367) alleges that Augustus had conceived the idea of the rule of the ‘optimus civis’ from Panaetius through Cic

been Philippus and Balbus. To retain power, however, he must base his rule upon general consent, the support of men of prope

auctoritas and legally granted powers does not exhaust the count. His rule was personal—and based ultimately upon a personal

his ‘constitutional’ settlement the beginning of a strict monarchical rule ; he observed that the pay of Augustus’ military g

ding record of Augustus’ own life and honours. The two pillars of his rule , proconsular imperium and the tribunician powers,

2 Thus did Virgil hail the end of fratricidal strife and the restored rule of law. The perverse ingenuity and positive ignor

ustus disappear, the scheme of things was saved. A democracy cannot rule an empire. Neither can one man, though empire may

ambitions and their dissensions broke the compact and inaugurated the rule of one man. No sooner destroyed, the Triumvirate

with auctoritas beyond all others, he could invite to a share in his rule allies who would not be rivals. It was hardly t

s municipalities in the West, the Empire was too large for one man to rule it. Already the temporary severance of East and W

e more discreditable accretions supervened later during the arbitrary rule of a Triumvirate which was not merely indifferent

he age of Pompeius, accelerated by the wars of the Revolution and the rule of the Triumvirate. Knights had been of much mo

ect of Egypt found peer and parallel in the middle years of Augustus’ rule when a pair of Roman knights was chosen to comman

oval by students of political science, especially by such as take the rule of the People as their ideal. The Romans, who dis

h no official standing. 1 Rome was glad when Augustus returned. His rule , now more firmly consolidated, went on steadily e

. Then after the Pact of Brundisium the nature of their revolutionary rule shows itself clearly on the Fasti. In the seven y

tus, they grow with the passage of dynastic politics into monarchical rule and emerge into open day in the court life of the

oreign both to the Roman spirit and to the personal and opportunistic rule of the Princeps; and special commands could be cr

dent, for the Princeps intended that the military achievements of his rule should be glorified at the expense of their real

daea after the deposition of Archelaus the ethnarch, introduced Roman rule by ordering a census and crushed the insurrection

decided in secret by a few men. 1 He is right. If Augustus wished his rule to retain the semblance of constitutional liberty

n demonstrated. The domination of Pompeius gave a foretaste of secret rule his Mytilenean client Theophanes was an intriguer

gning family were probably present at most deliberations. Whether the rule of Augustus be described as Republic or Monarchy,

Virgil had gone eleven years before. In the last period of Augustus’ rule , literature not merely languished from the loss o

f open violence. The deed could be done in secret and in advance. The rule of Nerva by its impotence threatened to precipita

intained the stability and augmented the prestige of the dynasty, the rule of the young princes was to be consolidated in hi

ere princes and would succeed him. The aristocracy could tolerate the rule of monarchy more easily than the primacy of one o

ion of the nobiles might have appeared the most serious menace to his rule . On the contrary, it proved his surest support.

ment. Security of possession, promotion for loyalty or merit and firm rule in Rome, Italy and the provinces, that was not en

ands, the successors of the Macedonian; and they had subdued to their rule nations more intractable than the conqueror of al

e decline of Italy and the transformation of her governing class, the rule of wealth was conveniently masked as a sovran ble

g foreshadows the sad fate of literature under the Empire. When the rule of Augustus is established, men of letters, a cla

s of Rome, the continuity of Roman history and its culmination in the rule of Augustus. As he wrote early in the poem, nas

ption rendering them the honours due to heroes and anticipating their rule : nam quom te, Caesar, tem[pus] exposcet deum cael

ial treatment. The justification for Roman intervention and for Roman rule was the defence of Gaul against the German invade

Rome, Italy and the provinces illustrate the different aspects of his rule he is Princeps to the Senate, Imperator to army a

uba, the King of Mauretania, a man of peace and letters, enjoyed long rule , though not undisturbed by the nomad Gaetulians.

rst census, provoking the insurrection of Judas the Galilaean. Rome’s rule was hated still, for good reasons. PageNotes. 4

nt to exert their rights, if such they were, is another question. The rule of Rome in the Empire represented no miraculous c

d. The person and habits of Augustus were no less detestable than his rule . Of his morals, the traditional stories of varieg

sh the writings of Virgil and Livy from the public libraries. 3 The rule of Caligula brought no freedom, no benefit to his

on. By force or craft he had defeated the Aemilii and the Antonii: to rule at Rome, he needed their descendants. The heir to

e was not a monarchy in name. That made it all the worse. The duty of rule was a grievous servitude: to the burden was added

dynasts’ pact in 60 B.C. through civil wars and Dictatorship into the rule of the Triumvirs. The man from Gades, consul in 4

and revolutionary origins. In the first decade of his constitutional rule , Augustus employed not a single nobilis among the

ave preserved a sufficient testimony to unmask the realities of their rule . The halo of their resplendent fortune may dazzle

Augustus, not to rehabilitate anarchy, the parent of despotism. The rule of law had perished long ago, with might substitu

heory as well as in fact, the very absence of any alternative form of rule was an encouragement to the more irresponsible ty

y were united in the Principate of Nerva which succeeded the absolute rule of Domitian. 1 There was another side to this fai

ught prevailed and freedom of speech, the Principate of Nerva and the rule of Trajan. 2 He turned instead to the sombre them

was not hopeless. A good emperor would dispense the blessings of his rule over the whole world, while the harm done by a ba

Caesar Augustus was absolute, no contemporary could doubt. But his rule was justified by merit, founded upon consent and

Augustus used the word ‘statio’: so did contemporaries. 3 Augustus’ rule was dominion over all the world. To the Roman Peo

illi viribus opus est, ita et huic capite. ’ PageBook=>521 His rule was personal, if ever rule was, and his position

et huic capite. ’ PageBook=>521 His rule was personal, if ever rule was, and his position became ever more monarchic.

et the incidents of his career, the achievements and character of his rule . The record is no less instructive for what it om

ovinces and all armies. Yet these powers were the twin pillars of his rule , firm and erect behind the flimsy and fraudulent

. Nerva, the Emperor, 415; his connexions, 501 f.; character of his rule , 517, 518. Neutrality, in civil war, 5, 51, 62, 6