lly and
statuesque--tyrant, or statesman, or politician,--as to besiege
the senate-house and clamor for an extension of his powers? And
this chilly statuesque person was the man who delighted in
sharing in their games with children!

Another reason why there was no talk of a king: he was no Leader
of a spiritual movement, but merely dealing with politics, with
which the cycles will have their way: a world of ups and downs,
not stable because linked to the Heart of Things. Supposing he
should find one to appoint as his worthy successor: with the
revolutions of the cycles, could that one hope to find another to
succeed him? Political affairs move and have their being at best
in a region of flux, where the evils, and especially the duties,
of the day are sufficient therefor. In attending to these,--
performing the duties, fighting the evils,--Augustus laid down
the lines for the future of Rome.

He tried to revive the patriciate; he wanted to have, cooperating
with him, a governing class with the ancient sense of responsibility
and turn for affairs. But what survived of the old aristocracy
was wedded to the tradition of Republicanism, which meant
oligarchy, and doing just what you liked or nothing at all.
The one thing they were not prepared to do was to cooperate
in saving Rome. At first they showed some eagerness to flatter
him; but found that flattery was not what he wanted. Then
they were inclined to sulk, and he had to get them to pass a
law making attendance at the senate compulsory. Mean views as to
his motives have become traditional; but the only view the facts
warrant is this: he lent out his personality, not ungrudgingly,
to receive the powers and laurels that must fall upon the central
figure in the state, while ever working to vitalize what lay
outward from that to the circumference, that all Romans might
share with him the great Roman responsibility of running and
regenerating the world. Where there was talent, he opened a way
for it. He made much more freedom than had ever been under the
Republic; gave all classes functions to perform; and curtailed
only the freedom of the old oligarchy to fleece the provinces and
misdirect affairs.

And meanwhile the old Rome that he found on his return in 29,--
brick-built ignobly at best, and now decaying and half in ruins,
--was giving place to a true imperial city. In 28, eighty-two
temples were built or rebuilt in marble; among the rest, one to
A