blic never
assumed the definite design of conquering the world; its people had only
the vaguest conception of whither the world might extend. They merely
quarrelled with their neighbors, defeated and then annexed them.

At almost any time after Hannibal's death, Rome might have marched her
legions, practically unopposed, over all the lands within her reach. Yet
she permitted a century and a half to elapse ere Pompey asserted her
sovereignty over Asia. It was left for Augustus to take the final step,
and, by absorbing Egypt, make his country become in name what it had
long been in fact, the ruler of the civilized world.

Thus, too, we think of Augustus as a kindly despot, supreme, and
governed only by his own will. But his compatriots looked on him as
simply the chief citizen of their republic. They considered that of
their own free will, to escape the dangers of further civil war, they
had chosen to confer upon one man, eminently "safe and sane," all the
high offices whose holders had previously battled against one another.
So Augustus was Emperor or Imperator, which meant no more than general
of the armies of the Republic; he was Consul, or chief civil
administrator of the Republic; he was Pontifex Maximus, high-priest of
the Republic. He could have had more titles and offices still if he
would have accepted them from an obsequious senate.

But the title of "king," so obnoxious to Roman taste, Augustus never
sought, nor did his successors, who were in turn appointed to all his
offices. For nearly three centuries after the one-man power had become
absolute, Rome continued to call itself a republic, to go through forms
of election and ceremonial, which grew ever more and more meaningless
and trivial.

Augustus seems to have felt the tremendous weight of his position, and
to have tried honestly to divide his authority. He invested the
trembling senate with both power and responsibility. In theory, it
became as influential as he. But the appointment of its members, and
also the supreme control of the armies, remained always with the
Imperator; and thus the senate continued in reality little better than a
flickering shadow. Under the reign of a well-meaning emperor, it loomed
large, and often dilated into a very valuable and honorable body. In the
grip of a tyrant, it sank at once to its true aspect of helpless and
obsequious submission.

THE "ROMAN PEACE"

To the outside world the reign of the emperors was welcome