[73] Kleine Schriften, p. 455.
[74] Gardthausen, I, p. 477: “Der Friede war der Preis, um den Rom sich die Herrschaft des Augustus gefallen liess; und auch seine Nachfolger haben im Wesentlichen eine Politik des Friedens befolgt.” Cf. Lang, op. cit., p. 56: “Sein [Tiberius] Ziel war es daher, als er zur Herrschaft gekommen war, im Sinne und in Fortsetzung der Politik seines Adoptivvaters und Vorgängers Augustus, ihnen [den Provinzen] diese Ruhe und Ordnung zu verschaffen.”
[75] Suet., Aug., 22: “Ianum Quirinum, semel atque iterum a condita urbe ante memoriam suam clausum, in multo breviore temporis spatio terra marique pace parta ter clusit.”
[76] Davis, Outline Hist. of the Rom. Empire, New York, 1907, p. 59.
[77] Dio, 54, 20; Suet., Aug., 23.
[78] See Eduard Meyer, Kleine Schriften, p. 230: “He [Augustus] might have followed the precedent of Caesar and have aspired to world-conquest and absolute monarchy; by shrinking from it, by giving the state a new constitution and retaining for himself only limited powers, he made world-conquest impossible”; Ibid., p. 470 f.; Gardthausen, I, p. 1069; Drumann, Röm. Gesch., IV (1910), p. 300; Gibbon (see above [p. 57]). It is refuted also by the emperor Julian, who shows himself to be singularly well-informed regarding the history of the early empire (Cf. J. Geffcken, Kaiser Julianus, Leipzig, 1914, p. 150: “Julian zeigt ... wie gründlich er sich mit der Geschichte jener Zeit beschäftigt hat”). In The Caesars, 326 C, he represents Augustus as saying: “For I did not give way to boundless ambition and aim at enlarging her [Rome’s] empire at all costs, but assigned for it two boundaries defined as it were by nature herself, the Danube and the Euphrates. Then after conquering the Scythians and Thracians I did not employ the long reign that you gods vouchsafed me in making projects for war after war, but devoted my leisure to legislation and to reforming the evils that war had caused.” (Trans. by Wilmer Cave Wright).
[79] Op. cit., p. 12. There is at least consistency in von Ranke’s position. The only conceivable reason for the conquest of Germany would be precisely such a fantastic dream of universal empire. But the weakness of the whole argument of those who claim that Germany’s conquest was intended is that its logical consequences lead to absurd results, contradicting all that we know of the character of the emperor and of his times.
[80] II, 39.
[81] Cf. Drumann, Gesch. Roms,² 1910, IV, p. 300: “Octavian ergriff als Imperator das Schwert nur zu seiner Verteidigung; er führte nur gerechte Kriege; die Lorbeeren reizten ihn nicht, und darin, nicht in der Ueberzeugung, dass ein endloss vergrösserter Koloss in sich zusammenstürzt, lag die erste und vorzügliche Ursache seiner Mässigung. Gern hätte er den Tempel des Janus für immer geschlossen.”
[82] “Zum Monum. Ancyr.” Beiträge zur alten Gesch., II (1902), pp. 141-162.