CHAPTER III. THE ROMAN MONARCHY. HE "mask of hypocrisy" which Octavius had assumed laid aside," was now at the age of thirty-four made to tell to the utmost in firmly establishing himself in the place of supreme power which he had attained. Having before him the important lesson of the fate of Cæsar in the same position, when the Senate bestowed upon him the flatteries, the titles, and the dignities which it had before bestowed upon Cæsar, he pretended to throw them all back upon the Senate and people, and obliged the Senate to go through the form of absolutely forcing them upon him. For he "was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation that the Senate and people would submit to slavery provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom." He therefore"wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies by an image of civil government.' Gibbon.1 - In this way he finally merged in himself the prerogatives of all the regular officers of the State-tribune, consul, prince of the Senate, pro-consul, imperator, censor, Pontifex Maximus with all the titles and dignities which had been given by the Senate to him, as before to Cæsar. In short, he himself became virtually the State; his will was absolute. Having thus drawn to himself "the functions of the Senate and the magistrate, and the framing of the laws, in which 1 Decline and Fall," chap. iii, par. 17, 18. he was thwarted by no man," the title of "Father of his Country" meant much more than ever it had before. The State was "the common parent" of the people. The State being now merged in one man, when that man became the father of his country, he likewise became the father of the people. And "the system by which every citizen shared in the government being thrown aside, all men regarded the orders of the prince as the only rule of conduct and obedience."-Tacitus. Nor was this so merely in civic things: it was equally so in religious affairs. In fact there was in the Roman system no such distinction known as civil and religious. The State was divine, therefore that which was civil was in itself religious. One man now having become the State, it became necessary that some title should be found which would fit this new dignity and express this new power. 2 The Senate had exhausted the vocabulary of flattering titles in those which it had given to Cæsar. Although all these were now given to Octavius, there was none amongst them which could properly define the new dignity which he possessed. Much anxious thought was given to this great question. "At last he fixed upon the epithet Augustus,' a name which no man had borne before, and which, on the contrary, had been applied to things the most noble, the most venerable, and the most sacred. The rites of the gods were called august; their temples were august. The word itself was derived from the holy auguries; it was connected in meaning with the abstract term "authority," and with all that increases and flourishes upon earth. The use of this glorious title could not fail to smooth the way to the general acceptance of the divine character of the mortal who was deemed worthy to bear it. The Senate had just decreed the divinity of the defunct Cæsar; the courtiers were beginning now to insinuate that his successor, while yet alive, enjoyed an effluence from deity; the poets were even suggesting 2" Annals," book i, chap. 4. |