ambition, lay his security. He had been adopted by his grand-uncle,
Julius. That adoption made him, to all intents and purposes of law, the
son of his great patron; and doubtless, in a short time, this adoption
would have been applied to more extensive uses, and as a station of
vantage for introducing him to the public favor. From the inheritance of
the Julian estates and family honors, he would have been trained to mount,
as from a stepping-stone, to the inheritance of the Julian power and
political station; and the Roman people would have been familiarized to
regard him in that character. But, luckily for himself, the finishing, or
ceremonial acts, were yet wanting in this process--the political heirship
was inchoate and imperfect. Tacitly understood, indeed, it was; but, had
it been formally proposed and ratified, there cannot be a doubt that the
young Octavius would have been pointed out to the vengeance of the
patriots, and included in the scheme of the conspirators, as a fellow-
victim with his nominal father; and would have been cut off too suddenly
to benefit by that reaction of popular feeling which saved the partisans
of the Dictator, by separating the conspirators, and obliging them,
without loss of time, to look to their own safety. It was by this
fortunate accident that the young heir and adopted son of the first Caesar
not only escaped assassination, but was enabled to postpone indefinitely
the final and military struggle for the vacant seat of empire, and in the
mean time to maintain a coequal rank with the leaders in the state, by
those arts and resources in which he was superior to his competitors. His
place in the favor of Caius Julius was of power sufficient to give him a
share in any triumvirate which could be formed; but, wanting the formality
of a regular introduction to the people, and the ratification of their
acceptance, that place was not sufficient to raise him permanently into
the perilous and invidious station of absolute supremacy which he
afterwards occupied. The _felicity_ of Augustus was often vaunted by
antiquity, (with whom success was not so much a test of merit as itself a