Lilly’s Reviews > Augustus > Status Update

“With those legions, he (Antonius) would be invincible; and the world would lie like an unguarded treasure house before his plundering ambition. We simply faced the death of Rome for which Cesar had given his life.”

“ how do you oppose a foe who is wholly irrational and unpredictable-and yet who out of animal energy, and the accident of circumstance, hesitate to the most frightening power?”

“ it is still possible to lead a decent life in the privacy of one’s own heart and mind”(27). Atia, Augustus’s mother, as she urges him to reflect on the meaning of his father’s death and what it means for his own future.

“ I have conquered the world, and none of it is secure; I have shown liberty to the people, and they flee it as if it were a disease; I despise those whom I can trust, and love those best who would most quickly betray me. And I do not know where we are going, though I lead a nation to its destiny.”

“ from what source does that lie suck its energy, so that it grows strong stronger than the truth? We have seen murder, theft, and pillage in the name of the Republic-and call it the necessary price we pay for freedom”(18).

“ how all the pain in English enjoy merge together, and even the ugly and dead seem beautiful, and even the fear of death and defeat are like the steps of a game!”

“But there is much that cannot go into books, and that is the loss with which I become increasingly concerned”(16).

But now he is Emperor of the world, and I must look beyond that to see him as he was then; and I swear to you that I, whose service to him has been my knowledge of the hearts of both his friends and enemies, could not have foreseen what he was to become(15).

Perhaps we are wiser when we are young, though the philosopher would dispute with me. But I swear to you, we were friends from that moment onward; and that moment of foolish laughter was a bond stronger than anything that came between us later- victories or defeats, loyalties or betrayals, griefs or joys. But the days of youth go, and part of us goes with them, not to re-turn(13).

“Overtime, our sense of who we are can be irrevocably altered by circumstance and accident” (ix).