The mall, the race, and wrestlers bright with oil? Ah wretch, bewail, bewail; and think for this On all thy past variety of bliss. I was the charm of life, the social spring, First in the race, and brightest in the ring: Warm with the stir of welcome was my home; And when I rose betimes, my friends would come Smiling and pressing in officious scores, Thick as the flowers that hang at lovers' doors: And shall I then a minist'ring madman be To angry gods? A howling devotee?A slave to bear what never senses can,Half of myself, sexless, a sterile man? And must I feel, with never-varied woes, The o'erhanging winter of these mountain snows, Skulking through ghastly woods for ever Threatening she spoke, and loosed the vengeance dire, Who gathering all his rage and glaring fire, Starts with a roar, and scours beneath her eyes, Scattering the splinter'd bushes as he flies: Down by the sea he spies the wretch at last, And springs precipitous:-the wretch as fast, Flies raving back into his living grave, And there for ever dwells, a savage and a slave. O Goddess! Mistress! Cybele! dread name! O mighty power! O Dindymenian dame! Far from my home thy visitations be: Drive others mad, not me: Drive others into impulse wild, and fierce insanity. -LEIGH HUNT. THE PEACE OF AUGUSTUS END OF FIRST CENTURY B.C. AND BEGINNING OF FIRST CENTURY A.D. In contrast with the conspiracies, civil wars, and proscriptions of the Ciceronian period, the outstanding political characteristic of the succeeding decades was the restoration of peace by Augustus. The Republic had finally worn itself out, and in its place was established monarchy. Republican forms were retained, republican formulæ continued to be used, but the old freedom and the widespread participation in public affairs had gone forever. The state was now controlled by an emperor and his armies. In such circumstances men's thoughts and pursuits of necessity were directed into new channels. Politics, with its accompaniments of controversy and oratory, was no longer attractive or profitable as a subject for writing; even history was not altogether safe, since it opened up old sores that should be allowed to heal. Practical affairs were in the hands of the ruler, and, so long as he proved wise and capable, were best left there. Men turned more and more to the world of the imagination and to their private lives for the material of their literary expression. The time of Cicero had been an era of prose, that of Augustus was an era of poetry. The wise Augustus set about many reforms in his efforts to revive the state from its exhaustion. Whether directly under his influence or indirectly through his example and through his advisers, or whether because of their own convictions, the men of letters attached themselves to the emperor's program and accomplished more than any other agency in bringing about general acceptance of the new régime. They busied themselves with turning their eyes upon the past to discover the qualities of character that had made Rome so great; they sang the glories of peace and the praises of the ruling house; they inculcated lessons in the appreciation of the beautiful and inspired men to the rebuilding of what had been destroyed; they encouraged the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and pictured the glories of Italian landscape; they promoted the revival of old customs; they realized fully for the first time the meaning of Rome as a great nation instead of as a city-state; and with their interpretation of Rome's mission in society they set aflame the pride of the people in their splendid enterprise. It was the great outpouring of the Roman genius. On the formal side there was much variety. Epic reached its supremacy in Virgil, satire and lyric in Horace, and elegy in Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid. Some success seems to have been achieved also in dramatic poetry, but no representative play has come down to us by which we may judge. There are no finer examples of the pastoral and the didactic than the Eclogues and the Georgics of Virgil. The sole_important piece of prose was Livy's history, and this takes rank with the best in Roman Literature. It was an age that fostered in every way possible the production of poetry. Patrons like Mæcenas and Pollio not only encouraged poets by suggestions and helpful criticism, but made it possible for them to devote themselves to writing by providing them with the means of livelihood. The new public library put at the disposal of writers the literature of the past, and public recitations, instituted now for the first time, provided them with a public. The profession of writing, especially of writing poetry, received full recognition, and a poet became now an artist rather than an artisan. I. ESTABLISHMENT OF EMPIRE The death of Julius Cæsar speedily plunged the empire into anarchy and civil war once more. At first Octavius, heir and adopted son of Cæsar, supported Cicero and the consuls in an attempt to save the state from the domination of Antony. This situation soon ended when Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus formed the combination known as the second triumvirate which signalized its assumption of power by the murder of Cicero in 43 B.C. The next year the triumvirate defeated the last forces of the Republic under Brutus and Cassius at Philippi. Thereupon Antony and Octavius with Lepidus a negligible third, divided the empire between them. Antony took the East, Octavius took the West, including Italy. This settlement could not be permanent; but for some ten years, during which each leader had wars to wage in his part of the empire, peace was maintained between them. Finally, civil war broke out once more, and at Actium in 31 B.C. Octavius won a victory which soon gave him undisputed control of the Roman world. a Rome was exhausted by the series of civil wars which had extended over period of twenty years. Peace was longed for by all citizens, and by the leadership of Octavius they believed it could be secured. Without opposition he was then enabled to reform the constitution. Using the old form of government as a basis both because of its worth and to satisfy the conservative feelings of the Romans, Octavius essentially changed the Republic to a constitutional monarchy. In theory he was himself an official of the state, his military powers being an expansion of the powers granted Pompey in the East a generation before, and his executive authority being centered largely in the tribunician power, an expansion of the age-old position of tribune. Augustus, as he was now called, in fact publicly declared that he had restored the Republic. However, with the army entirely at his disposal, there was never any doubt where power actually lay. In Tacitus' phrase, there were still the same names of offices. But consul, prætor, senate still had a very real part to play, though subordinate to the ruler. Emperor he really was; but the term he preferred was princeps, chief citizen of the state. From that term the government is known as the principate. Augustus had done wisely in not openly establishing monarchy. Time justified him, for the structure whose foundations he laid withstood the shocks and storms of many centuries. ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE FIRST EMPEROR 1 AUGUSTUS Gaius Julius Cæsar Octavianus Augustus was born in 63 B.C. and died in 14 A.D. When not yet twenty years of age, at the death of Julius Cæsar, whose adopted son and heir he was, he made himself a leader in the state by the support of many of the dictator's veterans. On the conclusion of the civil wars he reformed the constitution and by general consent was made head of the state. During his long rule the empire enjoyed peace and economic prosperity, while literature and the arts flourished. Augustus was himself a serious and appreciative patron of letters and an author of no little distinction. But, with the exception of a few quotations from his letters preserved in later authors, only one of his writings is extant, the Res Gestae divi Augusti. A plain, unadorned account of the achievements of his career, a kind of official autobiography, it is of historical significance not only for the information it gives, but also because it comes from the pen of the first emperor and gives his interpretations of events as he would have Rome understand them. He represents the victory over Brutus and Cassius as the 'From Augustus, by E. S. Shuckburgh. Copyright by T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. Reprinted by permission. avenging of his father's murder, and he considers his reform of the constitution as a restoring of the Republic. This document Augustus caused to be inscribed on bronze tablets which were placed be side the door of his tomb. The original has not survived; but a copy in the Greek and Latin languages cut on the walls of the temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra, Asia Minor, has preserved it to modern times. When I was nineteen I collected an army on my own account and at my own expense, by the help of which I restored the republic to liberty, which had been. enslaved by the tyranny of a faction; for which services the Senate, in complimentary decrees, added my name to the roll of their House in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; and gave me the imperium. It ordered me as pro-prætor "to see along with the consuls that the republic suffered no damage." Moreover, in the same year, both consuls having fallen, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for revising the constitution. Those who killed my father I drove into exile, after a legal trial, in punishment of their crime, and afterwards when these same men rose in arms against the republic I conquered them twice in a pitched battle. I had to undertake wars by land and sea, civil and foreign, all over the world, and when victorious I spared surviving citizens. Those foreign nations, who could safely be pardoned, I preferred to preserve rather than exterminate. About 500,000 Roman citizens took the military oath to me. Of these I settled out in colonies or sent back to their own towns, after their terms of service were over, considerably more than 300,000; and to them all I assigned lands purchased by myself or money in lieu of lands. I captured 600 ships, not counting those below the rank of triremes. I twice celebrated an ovation, three times curule triumphs, and was twentyone times greeted as Imperator. Though the Senate afterwards voted me several triumphs I declined them. I frequently also deposited laurels in the Capitol after performing the vows which I had taken in each war. For successful operations performed by myself or by my legates under my auspices by land and sea, the Senate fifty-three times decreed a supplication to the immortal gods. The number of days during which, in accordance with a decree of the Senate, supplication was offered amounted to 890. In my triumphs there were led before my chariot nine kings or sons of kings. I had been consul thirteen times at the writing of this, and am in the course of the thirtyseventh year of my tribunician power. The Dictatorship offered me in my presence and absence by the Senate and people in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius I declined to accept. I did not refuse at a time of very great scarcity of corn the commissionership of corn supply, which I administered in such a way that within a few days I freed the whole people from fear and danger. The consulship-either yearly or for life-then offered to me I declined to accept. In the consulship of M. Vinicius and Q. Lucretius, and P. and Cn. Lentulus, and of Paulus Fabius Maximus and Q. Tubero, when the Senate and the people of Rome unanimously agreed that I should be elected overseer of the laws and morals, with unlimited powers and without a colleague, I refused every office offered me which was contrary to the customs of our ancestors. But what the Senate at that time wished me to manage, I carried out in virtue of my tribunician power, and in this office I five times received at my own request a colleague from the Senate. I was one of the triumvirate for the reestablishment of the constitution for ten |