Augustus. He regarded the welfare of Society and the State, of the family and the individual citizen, as bound up with a belief in the gods whose agency was so clearly visible in bringing the world to that state of perfection which it now enjoyed, and which promised to be eternal. No one now even dreamed of doubting the identity of the gods of Rome with those of Greece, and Plutarch carries the identification to the extent of including the gods of almost every people constituting the Roman Empire.[1] These universal powers had the world in their providential care, and Rome was the divinely chosen instrument of their beneficent purposes. The Emperor is the depository of the sacred governing power of the world.[2] When Tiberius shut himself up in Capreæ, this divine potency never left him. And though expressions of this kind may be interpreted as a merely formal recognition of the official dignity of the Head of the World, Plutarch's many eloquent descriptions of the blessings of the Pax Romana leave us in no doubt respecting the character of his views on this subject. "I welcome and approve," says Theon, "the present position of affairs, and the subjects about which we now consult the oracle. For there now reigns among us a great peace and calm.
- ↑ The antiquarian regret of Propertius for the old simple worships of Rome—"Nulli cura fuit externos quærere divos Cum tremeret patrio pendula turba sacro" (Eleg., v. 1)—touched a chord which very few Romans would have responded to in Plutarch's time.
- ↑ De Exilio, 602 E. This recognition of the sacred character of the Emperor does not preclude criticisms of individual rulers, e.g., Nero: De Sera Num. Vindicta, 567 F; and Vespasian: Amatorius, 771 C.
