. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. xample of virtuousliving and moderation. Self-control was perhaps his mostpowerful quality. Twice his self-command broke down. Once when he heardof the defeat of Varus in Germany with the loss of his threelegions, and again when some one, probably Livia, revealed tohim the scandal concerning Julia. Apart from the blow to hishonour as a man, it was the undoing of all his measures forreform and the open publication of their futility. Her orgies,men said, had been conducted upon the very rostra whenceher fathers laws again
. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. xample of virtuousliving and moderation. Self-control was perhaps his mostpowerful quality. Twice his self-command broke down. Once when he heardof the defeat of Varus in Germany with the loss of his threelegions, and again when some one, probably Livia, revealed tohim the scandal concerning Julia. Apart from the blow to hishonour as a man, it was the undoing of all his measures forreform and the open publication of their futility. Her orgies,men said, had been conducted upon the very rostra whenceher fathers laws against adultery had been proclaimed. Heraccomplices included the flower of the old aristocracy, a Scipioand a Gracchus. Augustus hid himself from the sight of men,banished his daughter to a remote island and officially informedthe senate by letter of her disgrace. He was heard to cry outthat he envied the father of Phoebe, one of Julias slaves whohad hanged herself when the scandal went abroad. He quoteda Greek verse: O tliat I had been unwedded and died without a child,230. <a a KH O < <: o O < ►J<a. o 3 AUGUSTAN ROME and he spoke of his wicked daughter as the cancer of hislife. Legislation was obviously futile, and example had brokendown. It was only from within that Roman society could bereformed, only by supplying a spiritual influence which couldcounteract the materialism and immorality of the had tried in the provinces to raise up a new religionof loyalty and patriotism centred round the altar to Romeand Augustus. But that was obviously impossible in Romeitself. The only inspiring motive—in addition to Stoicismwhich could never be a popular creed—had been, for the lasttwo or three centuries, patriotism, the worship of the sacredcity and her glorious destinies. But even that had beenshattered by the civil wars. Augustus now set himselfdeliberately to the task of creating a new Rome and a newRoman culture. He himself, like most of the nobles of
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