File:Rome - its rise and fall; a text-book for high schools and colleges (1900) (14761786336).jpg

Identifier: romeitsrisefallt00myer (find matches)
Title: Rome : its rise and fall ; a text-book for high schools and colleges
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Myers, P. V. N. (Philip Van Ness), 1846-1937
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Publisher: Boston, Ginn & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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and strong enough to remoldits crumbling fragments in such a manner that the state,which seemed ready to fall to pieces, might prolong itsexistence for another five hundred years. It was a greatwork thus to create anew, as it were, out of anarchy andchaos, a political fabric that should exhibit such elementsof perpetuity and strength. The establishment of theRoman empire, says Merivale, was, after all, the great-est political work that any human being ever wrought.The achievements of Alexander, of Caesar, of Charlemagne,of Napoleon are not to be compared with it for a moment. The government which Octavius established was a mon-archy in fact, but a republic in form. Mindful of the fateof Julius Caesar, Octavius carefully veiled his really abso-lute power under the forms of the old republican state.He did not take the title of king. He knew how hateful 315 316 ROME AS AN EMPIRE. to the people that name had been since the expulsion ofthe Tarquins, and was mindful how many of the best men
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AUGUSTUS. (Vatican Museum). of Rome, including the great Julius, had perished becausethey gave the people reason to think that they were aiming ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EMPIRE. 317 at the regal power. Nor did he take the title of dictator, aname that since the time of Sulla had been almost asintolerable to the people as that of king. But he acceptedat the hands of the senate the title of Imperator, — whencethe name Emperor, — a title which, although it carried withit the absolute authority of the commander of the legions,still had clinging to it no odious memories. He also re-ceived from the senate the honorary surname of Augustus,a title that hitherto had been sacred to the gods, andhence was free from all sinister associations. A monumentof this act was erected in the year. It was decreed by thesenate that the sixth month of the Roman calendar shouldbe called Augustus (whence our August) in commemorationof the imperator, an act in imitation of that by which thepreceding month had be

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