Augustus

I just finished a novel by John Williams, Augustus. I enjoyed it a lot, but realize it's likely not for everyone. If I didn't learn much new, the book did lead to a great deal of thinking. Can a book, fiction or otherwise, receive any higher a compliment? When we think of Augustus, we think of power, of authority. As the first emperor of Rome (creating the Roman Empire), he had as much power as modern-day dictators (with allowances for technology, military advances, etc.).  He had many titles, Imperator (military conqueror, almost like emperor), Caesar (after his uncle and adoptive father, who was declared a god), Pater Patria (Father of his country), Consul (the highest "elected" office, elected by the Senate), Magisterium (highest judge), and Augustus ("Revered One") and Pontifex Maximus ("Great Bridge Builder") both religious titles. But among them all, his favorite title was Princeps, which implied he was the first citizen of Rome, but nevertheless, a citizen of Rome first and foremost. Despite all of his power, he was quite tolerant.  When a poet wrote a satirical, demeaning, and perhaps even blasphemous poem about Augustus, he not only took no action against the poet, but decreed nobody else was to do that either.  In effect, this poet was being protected by the man he had lampooned.  "I was never hurt by the bark of a dog" it was claimed he once said. In addition, he re-created Roman society, its economic life, so that any Roman citizen, regardless of the station of his birth, could become as wealthy as his efforts  (and accidents of life!) would take him. Forty or more years of Roman civil war, "Romans killing Romans" he lamented, were ended, too, at least for a while. In his last days, Augustus wrote, "It is remarkable to have grown so old that one must depend upon the work of others to search into one's own life."  He was a valetudinarian, no, not the graduate with the highest GPA in his/her class. He was like a hypochondriac on steroids, often thinking he was on his deathbed. How close he actually was might be questioned, but at least six times before he died at the age of 76 he thought he was checking out. He also warned his successors of policies that would, in a little more than a century after his death, lead down the long road to the downfall of Rome.  He was incredibly prescient. The legacy of Augustus isn't merely that he was the first and greatest of all the Roman emperors. It is that he saved Rome, "the world" at the time.  In doing so he also paved the way for (saved?) the Western Civilization to come a millenium and a half later.  Had he not saved Rome, is it likely that the West would have become what it did, the beacon for the rest of the world to emulate (although much of it chooses not to do that)? I know it's not fashionable to pay tribute to old white men, but Augustus is deserving of accolades.