After Philippi and the suicide of Brutus; after Actium and
Antony's death, for the first time in ages, the gates of the
Temple of Janus were closed. There was peace in the world; but it
was the sword of Caesar, not of Augustus, that brought the
insurgents to book. At each of the victories he was either asleep
or ill. At the time of battle there was always some god warning
him to be careful. The battle won, he was brave enough,
considerate even. A father and son begged for mercy. He promised
forgiveness to the son on condition that he killed his father. The
son accepted and did the work; then he had the son despatched. A
prisoner begged but for a grave. "The vultures will see to it," he
answered. When at the head of Caesar's legions, he entered Rome to
avenge the latter's death, he announced beforehand that he would
imitate neither Caesar's moderation nor Sylla's cruelty. There
would be only a few proscriptions, and a price--and what a price,
liberty!--was placed on the heads of hundreds of senators and
thousands of knights. And these people, who had more slaves than
they knew by sight, slaves whom they tossed alive to fatten fish,
slaves to whom they affected never to speak, and who were
crucified did they so much as sneeze in their presence--at the
feet of these slaves they rolled, imploring them not to deliver
them up. Now and then a slave was merciful; Augustus never.

Successes such as these made him ambitious. Having vanquished with
the sword, he tried the pen. "You may grant the freedom of the
city to your barbarians," said a wit to him one day, "but not to
your solecisms." Undeterred he began a tragedy entitled "Ajax,"
and discovering his incompetence, gave it up. "And what has become
of Ajax?" a parasite asked. "Ajax threw himself on a sponge,"