In stature Augustus hardly exceeded the middle height, but his person
was lightly and delicately formed, and its proportions were such as to
convey a favorable and even a striking impression. His countenance was
pale, and testified to the weakness of his health, and almost constant
bodily suffering; but the hardships of military service had imparted a
swarthy tinge to a complexion naturally fair, and his eyebrows meeting
over a sharp and aquiline nose gave a serious and stern expression to
his countenance. His hair was light, and his eyes blue and piercing;
he was well pleased if any one on approaching him looked on the ground
and affected to be unable to meet their dazzling brightness. It was
said that his dress concealed many imperfections and blemishes on his
person; but he could not disguise all the infirmities under which he
labored; the weakness of the forefinger of his right hand and a
lameness in the left hip were the results of wounds he incurred in a
battle with the Iapydæ in early life; he suffered repeated attacks of
fever of the most serious kind, especially in the course of the
campaign of Philippi and that against the Cantabrians, and again two
years afterward at Rome, when his recovery was despaired of. From that
time, altho constantly liable to be affected by cold and heat, and
obliged to nurse himself throughout with the care of a valetudinarian,
he does not appear to have had any return of illness so serious as the
preceding; and dying at the age of seventy-four, the rumor obtained
popular currency that he was prematurely cut off by poison
administered by the empress.
[Footnote 13: From the "History of the Romans Under the Empire."
Merivale's purpose in writing this book was to fill in the interval
between the unfinished history by Thomas Arnold and Gibbon.]
As the natural consequence of this bodily weakness and sickly
constitution, Octavian did not attempt to distinguish himself by
active exertions or feats of personal prowess. The splendid examples
of his uncle the dictator, and of Antonius[14] his rival, might have
early discouraged him from attempting to shine as a warrior and hero;
he had not the vivacity and animal spirits necessary to carry him
through such exploits as theirs; and, altho he did not shrink from
exposing himself to personal danger, he prudently declined to allow a
comparison to to be instituted between himself and rivals whom he
could not hope to equal. Thus necessarily thrown back upon other
resources, he trusted to caution and circumspection, first to
preserve his own life, and afterward to obtain the splendid prizes
which had hitherto been carried off by daring adventure, and the good
fortune which is so often its attendant. His contest therefore with
Antonius and Sextus Pompeius was the contest of cunning with bravery;
but from his youth upward he was accustomed to overreach, not the bold
and reckless only, but the most considerate and wily of his
contemporaries, such as Cicero and Cleopatra; he succeeded in the end
in deluding the senate and people of Rome in the establishment of his
tyranny; and finally deceived the expectations of the world, and
falsified the lessons of the republican history, in reigning himself
forty years in disguise, and leaving a throne to be claimed without
challenge by his successors for fourteen centuries.
[Footnote 14: Mark Antony.]
But altho emperor in name, and in fact absolute master of his people,
the manners of the Cæsar, both in public and private life, were still
those of a simple citizen. On the most solemn occasions he was
distinguished by no other dress than the robes and insignia of the
offices which he exercised; he was attended by no other guards than
those which his consular dignity rendered customary and decent. In his
court there was none of the etiquette of modern monarchies to be
recognized, and it was only by slow and gradual encroachment that it
came to prevail in that of his successors. Augustus was contented to
take up his residence in the house which had belonged to the orator
Licinius Calvus, in the neighborhood of the Forum; which he afterward
abandoned for that of Hortensius on the Palatine, of which Suetonius
observes that it was remarkable neither for size nor splendor. Its
halls were small, and lined, not with marble, after the luxurious
fashion of many patrician palaces, but with the common Alban stone,
and the pattern of the pavement was plain and simple. Nor when he
succeeded Lepidus in the pontificate would he relinquish this private
dwelling for the regia or public residence assigned that honorable
office.
Many anecdotes are recorded of the moderation with which the emperor
received the opposition, and often the rebukes, of individuals in
public as well as in private. These stories are not without their
importance, as showing how little formality there was in the tone of
addressing the master of the Roman world, and how entirely different
the ideas of the nation were, with regard to the position occupied by
the Cæsar and his family from those with which modern associations
have imbued us. We have already noticed the rude freedom with which
Tiberius was attacked, altho step-son of the emperor, and
participating in the eminent functions of the tribunitian power, by a
declaimer in the schools at Rhodes: but Augustus himself seems to have
suffered almost as much as any private citizen from the general
coarseness of behavior which characterized the Romans in their public
assemblies, and the rebukes to which he patiently submitted were
frequently such as would lay the courtier of a constitutional
sovereign in modern Europe under perpetual disgrace.
On one occasion, for instance, in the public discharge of his
functions as corrector of manners, he had brought a specific charge
against a certain knight for having squandered his patrimony. The
accused proved that he had, on the contrary, augmented it. "Well,"
answered the emperor, somewhat annoyed by his error, "but you are at
all events living in celibacy, contrary to recent enactments." The
other was able to reply that he was married, and was the father of
three legitimate children; and when the emperor signified that he had
no further charges to bring, added aloud: "Another time, Cæsar, when
you give ear to informations against honest men, take care that your
informants are honest themselves." Augustus felt the justice of the
rebuke thus publicly administered, and submitted to it in silence.