Octavius, immediately after the Persian war, gave his veterans all the lands belonging to the citizens of Mantua and Cremona, thus recompensing murder by depredation.
It is but too certain that the world was ravaged, from the Euphrates to the extremities of Spain, by this man without shame, without faith, honor, or probity, knavish, ungrateful, avaricious, blood-thirsty, cool in the commission of crime, who, in any well-regulated republic, would have been condemned to the greatest of punishments for the first of his offences.
Nevertheless, the government of Augustus is still admired, because under him Rome tasted peace, pleasure and abundance. Seneca says of him: "Clementiam non voco lassam crudelitatem"—"I do not call exhausted cruelty clemency."
It is thought that Augustus became milder when crime was no longer necessary to him; and that, being absolute master, he saw that he had no other interest than to appear just. But it appears to me that he still was pitiless rather than clement; for, after the battle of Actium, he had Antony's son murdered at the feet of Cæsar's statue; and he was so barbarous as to have young Cæsarion, the son of Cæsar and Cleopatra, beheaded, though he had recognized him as king of Egypt.
Suspecting one day that the prætor Quintus Gallius had come to an audience with a poinard under his robe, he had him put to the torture in his presence; and, in his indignation at hearing that senator call him a tyrant, he tore out his eyes with his own hands; at least, so says Suetonius.
We know that Cæsar, his adopted father, was great enough to pardon almost all his enemies; but I do not find that Augustus pardoned one of his. I have great doubts of his pretended clemency to Cinna. This affair is mentioned neither by Suetonius nor by Tacitus. Suetonius, who speaks of all the conspiracies against Augustus, would not have failed to mention the most memorable. The singularity of giving a consulship to Cinna in return for the blackest perfidy would not have escaped every contemporary historian. Dion Cassius speaks of it only after Seneca; and this passage in Seneca has the appearance rather of declamation than of historical truth. Besides, Seneca lays the scene in Gaul, and Dion at Rome; this contradiction deprives the occurrence of all remaining verisimilitude. Not one of our Roman histories, compiled in haste and without selection, has discussed this interesting fact. Lawrence Echard's History has appeared to enlightened men to be as faulty as it is mutilated; writers have rarely been guided by the spirit of examination.
Cinna might be suspected, or convicted, by Augustus of some infidelity; and, when the affair had been cleared up, he might honor him with the vain title of consul; but it is not at all probable that Cinna sought by a conspiracy to seize the supreme authority—he, who had never commanded an army, was supported by no party, and was a man of no consideration in the empire. It is not very likely that a mere subordinate courtier would think of succeeding a sovereign who had been twenty years firmly established on his throne, and had heirs; nor is it more likely that Augustus would make him consul immediately after the conspiracy.
If Cinna's adventure be true, Augustus pardoned him only because he could not do otherwise, being overcome by the reasoning or the importunities of Livia, who had acquired great influence over him, and persuaded him, says Seneca, that pardon would do him more service than chastisement. It was then only through policy that he, for once, was merciful; it certainly was not through generosity.
Shall we give a robber credit for clemency, because, being enriched and secure, enjoying in peace the fruits of his rapine, he is not every day assassinating the sons and grandsons of the proscribed, while they are kneeling to and worshipping him? After being a barbarian he was a prudent politician. It is worthy of remark that posterity never gave him the title of virtuous, which was bestowed on Titus, on Trajan, and the Antonines. It even became customary in the compliments paid to emperors on their accession, to wish that they might be more fortunate than Augustus, and more virtuous than Trajan. It is now, therefore, allowable to consider Augustus as a clever and fortunate monster.
Louis Racine, son of the great Racine, and heir to a part of his talents, seems to forget himself when he says, in his "Reflections on Poetry," that "Horace and Virgil spoiled Augustus; they exhausted their art in poisoning the mind of Augustus by their praises." These expressions would lead one to believe that the eulogies so meanly lavished by these two great poets, corrupted this emperor's fine disposition. But Louis Racine very well knew that Augustus was an exceedingly bad man, regarding crime and virtue with indifference, availing himself alike of the horrors of the one and the appearances of the other, attentive solely to his own interest, employing bloodshed and peace, arms and laws, religion and pleasure, only to make himself master of the earth, and sacrificing everything to himself. Louis Racine only shows us that Virgil and Horace had servile souls.