Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh

“ The constitutional history of the reign is that which has generally engaged most attention. I have striven to state the facts clearly. Of their exact significance opinions will differ. I have given my own for what it is worth, and can only say that it has been formed independently by study of our authorities.
I have not tried to represent my hero as faultless or to make black white. Nothing can clear Augustus of the charge of cruelty up to B.C. 31. But in judging him regard must be had to his age and circumstances. ”

“ He and not Iulius was the founder of the Empire, and it was to him that succeeding emperors looked back as the origin of their power.
Yet his achievements have interested men less than the conquest of Gaul and the victories in the civil war won by the marvellous rapidity and splendid boldness of lulius. Consequently modern estimates of the character and aims of Augustus have been comparatively few. ”

“ As Cæsar's government of Gaul terminated at the end of B.C. 49, Pompey would have imperium and an army when Caesar left his province. He would naturally indeed be in Spain ; but the Senate now passed a resolution that it was for the good of the State that Pompey should remain near Rome. He accordingly governed Spain by three legati, and remained outside the walls of the city with imperium. The great object of the Optimates was that Cæsar should return to Rome a privatus while Pompey was still there in this unprecedented position. Cæsar wished to be consul for B.C. 48. ”

“ Town after town surrendered, and the garrisons placed in them by Pompey generally joined the advancing army, till finally a large force, embracing many men of high rank, surrendered at Corfinium. Cæsar had entered Italy with only one legion, but others were summoned from winter quarters in Cisalpine Gaul, and by the time he reached Brundisium Pompey had given up all idea of resisting him in Italy, and within the walls of that town was preparing to cross to Epirus, whither the consuls with the main body of his troops had already gone. ”

“ By long prescription the Senate had the right of deciding when a provincial governor should be " succeeded." But then Caesar's term of provincial government had been fixed by a lex, which was superior to a Senatus-consultum ; and he might also argue that if it was unconstitutional for a man to be elected consul while holding a province, the Senate had violated the constitution in allowing Pompey to be consul in B.C. 52.↑ The Senate did not insist on the professio, from which Cæsar had been exempted by name in Pompey's law. ”

“ The elder branch had produced five consuls and other Roman magistrates, but of the younger branch Gaius Octavius, the father of Augustus, was the first to hold curule office. According to the inscription, afterwards placed by his son in the sacrarium of the palace, [2] he had twice served as military tribune, had been quæstor, plebeian ædile, iudex quæstionum, and prætor. After the prætorship (B.C. 61) he governed Macedonia with conspicuous ability and justice. He is quoted by Cicero as a model administrator of a province ”

“ Pompey safely out of Italy, he went to Rome to arrange for his regular election into the consulship. Meeting with opposition there [11] —one of the tribunes, L. Cæcilius Metellus, vetoing all proposals in the Senate—he hastened to Spain to attack the legates of Pompey, stopping on his way to arrange the siege of Marseilles (which had admitted Ahenobarbus, named successor of Cæsar in Gaul) , and sending legati to secure Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. Of these the only failure was in Africa, where Curio was defeated and killed. This province therefore remained in the hands of the Pompeians ”

“ He succeeded in re-constituting a society shaken to its centre. We must acknowledge that and accept the bad with the good. But it is false criticism to deny or blink the one from admiration of the other. ”

“ But we cannot suppose him incapable of understanding their importance or being an uninterested spectator. His stepfather Philippus was Pompeian in sympathy, but his close connection with Cæsar kept him from taking an active part in the war, and he was allowed to remain in Italy, probably for the most part in his Campanian villa. From time to time, however, he came to Rome ; and Octavius, who now lived entirely with him, began to be treated with a distinction natural to the near relative of the victorious dictator. ”

“ After his death the actual provocations to Cæsar had certainly increased. The depriving him, under the pretext of an impending Parthian war, of two legions which were being kept under arms in Italy ; the insult inflicted upon him by Marcellus (Consul B.C. 51) in flogging a magistrate of his new colony at Comum, who if the colony were regarded as legally established would be exempt from such punishment ; these and similar things shewed Cæsar what he had to expect if he gave up office and army. He elected therefore to stand on his legal rights.
Civil war. ”

“ Eventually, however, Cæsar drew him into Thessaly ; and the great victory of Pharsalia (August 9th) made up for everything. Pompey fled to Egypt, to meet his death on the beach by order of the treacherous young king ; and though Caesar still had weary work to do before Egypt was reduced to obedience, and then had to traverse Asia Minor to crush Pharnaces of Pontus at Zela, when he set foot once more in Italy in September, B.C. 47, he had already been created Dictator, and was practically master of the Roman world.
Octavius takes the toga virilis and is made a pontifex, B.C. 46. ”

“ Octavius follows Cæsar to Spain, B.C. 45.
Octavius was too weak to accompany the Dictator when starting for Spain against Pompey's sons in December B.C. 46. But as soon as he was sufficiently recovered he determined to follow him. He refused all company except that of a few select friends and the most active of his slaves. He would not admit his mother's wish to go with him. He had yielded to her before, but he was now resolved to take part in a man's work alone. ”

“ The young Octavius. [13] . dangerous to one now practically a prince uncontaminated by the grosser vices of Rome. Stories to the contrary, afterwards spread abroad by his enemies, are of the most unsubstantial and untrustworthy kind.
Wishes to go to Africa with Cæsar.
But though he seems to have quietly submitted to this tutelage, he soon conceived an ardent desire to share in the activities of his great-uncle. Cæsar had been very little at Rome since the beginning of the civil war. ”

“ He returned in B.C. 60 to stand for the consulship, and soon after the consulship, early in B.C. 58, he started for Gaul, from which he did not return to Rome till he came in arms in B.C. 49. But though occupied during the summers in his famous campaigns beyond the Alps, he spent most of his winters in Northern Italy—at Ravenna or Lucca—where he received his partisans and was kept in touch with home politics, and was probably visited by his relatives. ”

“ These were the two points of active danger in the Empire, and Cæsar desired to crown his public services by securing their peace and safety. For this purpose six legions were quartered in Macedonia for the winter, in readiness to march along the Via Egnatia to the eastern coast of Greece. Returning from Spain Dictator for life, Caesar was to have two "Masters of the Horse." One was to be Octavius, who had meanwhile been created a patrician by the Senate. ”

“ His tribuneship ended on the 9th of December, B.C. 50, and he immediately started to visit Cæsar at Ravenna. He told him of the inveteracy of his opponents, and urged him to march at once upon Rome. But Cæsar determined to justify himself by offering a peaceful solution—"he was willing to hand over his province and army to a successor, if Pompey would also give up Spain and dismiss his armies." Curio returned to Rome in time for the meeting of the Senate on the 1st of January, B.C. 49, bringing this despatch from Cæsar. ”

“ He worked ceaselessly to maintain the order thus established, and nearly every part of his great empire had reason to be grateful for increased security, expanding prosperity, and added amenity of life. ”