No astrologer or doctor could have foretold that the frail youth would outlive, by a quarter of a century, his ally and contemporary, the robust Agrippa; no schemer could have counted in advance upon the deaths of his nephew Marcellus, of Drusus his beloved stepson, of the young princes Gaius and Lucius, grandsons of Augustus and heirs designate to the imperial succession. […] Among the old nobility persisted a tradition of service to the State that could transcend material interests and combine class-loyalty with a high ideal of Roman patriotism and imperial responsibility. […] Such were the resources which ambition required to win power in Rome and direct the policy of the imperial Republic as consul or as one of the principes. […] But the power and splendour of that imperial house, the conquerors of Carthage and of Spain, belonged only to the past. […] Urban humour blossomed into scurrilous verses about Gauls newly emancipated from the national trouser, unfamiliar with the language and the topography of the imperial city. 2 The joke is good, if left as such.