Octavian did not attempt to distinguish himself by
active exertions or feats of personal prowess. The splendid examples
of his uncle the dictator, and of Antonius[14] his rival, might have
early discouraged him from attempting to shine as a warrior and hero;
he had not the vivacity and animal spirits necessary to carry him
through such exploits as theirs; and, altho he did not shrink from
exposing himself to personal danger, he prudently declined to allow a
comparison to to be instituted between himself and rivals whom he
could not hope to equal. Thus necessarily thrown back upon other
resources, he trusted to caution and circumspection, first to
preserve his own life, and afterward to obtain the splendid prizes
which had hitherto been carried off by daring adventure, and the good
fortune which is so often its attendant. His contest therefore with
Antonius and Sextus Pompeius was the contest of cunning with bravery;
but from his youth upward he was accustomed to overreach, not the bold
and reckless only, but the most considerate and wily of his
contemporaries, such as Cicero and Cleopatra; he succeeded in the end
in deluding the senate and people of Rome in the establishment of his
tyranny; and finally deceived the expectations of the world, and
falsified the lessons of the republican history, in reigning himself
forty years in disguise, and leaving a throne to be claimed without
challenge by his successors for fourteen centuries.

[Footnote 14: Mark Antony.]

But altho emperor in name, and in fact absolute master of his people,
the manners of the Caesar, both in public and private life, were still
those of a simple citizen. On the most solemn occasions he was
distinguished by no other dress than the robes and insignia of the
offices which he exercised; he was attended by no other guards than
those which his consular dignity rendered customary and decent. In his
court there was none of the etiquette of modern monarchies to be
recognized, and it was only by slow and gradual encroachment that it
came to prevail in that of his successors. Augustus was contented to
take up his residence in the house which had belonged to the orator
Licinius Calvus, in the neighborhood of the Forum; which he afterward
abandoned for that of Hortensius on the Palatine, of which Suetonius
observes that it was remarkable neither for size nor splendor. Its
halls were small, and lined, not with marble, after the luxurious
fashion of many patrici