. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. nct in using them. He simply collected scrapsfrom various sources and grouped them under headings. For alist of virtues he would go to a courtiers panegyrics and thenturn to a seditious pamphlet for a catalogue of vices. His owninstinctive preference being for scandal, he has touched nothingwhich he has not defiled. It is chiefly due to Suetoniusthat Augustus appears as a selfish hypocrite, Tiberius as alibidinous tyrant, Gains as a maniac, Claudius as a pedanticclown, and Nero as a monster of wickedness. And yet undert
. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. nct in using them. He simply collected scrapsfrom various sources and grouped them under headings. For alist of virtues he would go to a courtiers panegyrics and thenturn to a seditious pamphlet for a catalogue of vices. His owninstinctive preference being for scandal, he has touched nothingwhich he has not defiled. It is chiefly due to Suetoniusthat Augustus appears as a selfish hypocrite, Tiberius as alibidinous tyrant, Gains as a maniac, Claudius as a pedanticclown, and Nero as a monster of wickedness. And yet underthese five reigns the Empire was growing steadily in peace andprosperity. The rulers who were omnipotent cannot have beenaltogether such as they are described. The factious senatorswho still dreamed of unreal republican glories and stilltreasured the memories of Cato as a saint and Brutus as amartyr were not, of course, allowed free criticism of theirmonarchs. They revenged themselves by writing secret libels,many but not all of which logic and common sense can easily162. t/2 WPi< KH J AUGUSTUS disprove. When it came to popular reigns like those ofVespasian or Hadrian the censorship of the press was removedfor a time, and then the senatorial Republicans like Tacitusand Juvenal took ample revenge upon the dead. The scurrilouspamphlets were unearthed and exalted into historical documentsand so passed down to our historians as history. It is asuspicious and thankless task to attempt the rehabilitation ofthese emperors. The world is rightly sceptical of the processwhich it calls whitewashing. Moreover the necessary dataare wanting. We can only allow our imaginations to suggesthow different the story would look if it had been told from asympathetic point of view. It is very difficult to form any complete idea of thecharacter of Augustus as a man. He had shown daring andambition when as an obscure lad he had crossed to Italy in44 to take up his perilous inheritance as Csesars
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