CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
(From 31 B.C. to A.D. 180.)
Reign of Augustus Cæsar (31 B.C. to A.D. 14).—The hundred years of strife which ended with the battle of Actium left the Roman republic, exhausted and helpless, in the hands of one wise enough and strong enough to remould its crumbling fragments in such a manner that the state, which seemed ready to fall to pieces, might prolong its existence for another five hundred years. It was a great work thus to create anew, as it were, out of anarchy and chaos, a political fabric that should exhibit such elements of perpetuity and strength. "The establishment of the Roman empire," says Merivale, "was, after all, the greatest political work that any human being ever wrought. The achievements of Alexander, of Cæsar, of Charlemagne, of Napoleon, are not to be compared with it for a moment."
The government which Octavius established was a monarchy in fact, but a republic in form. Mindful of the fate of Julius Cæsar, who fell because he gave the lovers of the republic reason to think that he coveted the title of king, Octavius carefully veiled his really absolute sovereignty under the forms of the old republican state. The Senate still existed; but so completely subjected were its members to the influence of the conqueror that the only function it really exercised was the conferring of honors and titles and abject flatteries upon its master. All the republican officials remained; but Octavius absorbed and exercised their chief powers and functions. He had the powers of consul, tribune, censor, and Pontifex Maximus. All the republican magistrates—the consuls, the tribunes, the prætors—were elected as usual; but they were simply the nominees and creatures of the emperor. They were
