caldrail

The colour of light through my bedroom curtains this morning was unmistakeable. Definitely snow. Not a great deal of it, but the yard and car park beyond had been given a white sheen. As I wearily glanced outside, the snow was still falling - it's tailed off right now and the sun is breaking through. Winter has a bit of a problem right now. It doesn't seem to know what sort of weather to throw at us. Wind, rain, snow, bitter cold sunshine, it changes on the hour every hour. Yesterday it started to hail. British hail is somewaht weedy compared to the icy cannon projectiles you get in some parts of the world, but that makes it a mere inconvenience to us Brits. Especially when a hailstone drops straight down the back of your neck, which is what happened to me. There I was, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I'm squirning uncontrollably in the street and making strange moans of discomfort. People notice this sort of thing, usually when they don't know what caused it. Crawling Into Work Another cold morning. TIme then to answer the call of the alarm clock at some ungodly hour of the morning, ignore the protests shouted through the walls of my home, and head down to the bus stop, hopefully fully dressed, for that all important bus to work. I feel so ordinary these days. The town has an empty clammy feel. A long high street is almost deserted and tinged in an amber glow, aside from some guy who I know will be taking the the same bus as me. He stops at a cash machine to pay for his ticket. He's already paid for his cigarettes which he'll chainsmoke as he waits behind me at the bus station. That's his business of course, it's just that he has the annoying habit exhaling as noisily as possible. Swindon's bus station is doomed. They're going to build a new one sooner or later but for now the dull brick edifice hiding under the shadow of a disused multi-story car park will do. A few hardy souls hang around here and there, aside from my chainsmoking fellow passenger who queues up behind me every day so I can derive such pleasure fro listening to his cigarette habit. A van turns up to drop off piles of newspapers. The Devizes bus turns in off the main road. That'll be full of several passengers shortly and probably on its way. Second comes our bus showing 'No Service' as it turns into the bay. The driver gets out and heads into the admin offices for a few minutes. Eventually he'll be back, fussing with the controls of the ungainly double decker, and then allowing us to present travel passes, coins, or desperate pleas for assistance. Some bus drivers are quick, others aren't. Some struggle with issuing ticketrs, some are incredibly efficient. I see the same people boarding or disembarking at the same stops. No-one says hello. We're all too miserable at having to get out of bed to go to work. My Day At Work One of the team leaders goes through the register. After four weeks of persuasion I finally managed to get them to put my name on it. "Caldrail?" Yup. "Pallets today please" That means I'll be wandering around the racks finding empty pallets so the guys unoading containers can put more boxes on them. Well that's the next eight hours sorted then. End Of The Shift Finally it's time to go home. Suddenly the warehouse comes alive and it's a life or death sruggle to find your bag, wrap up for the cold weather outside, and clock out out as the next shift rushes in desperately trying to arrive on time. Hard Hat, my chilled out colleague at work, never rushes at any time. He's never frantic, breathless, urgent, or even remotely rushed for any reason whatsoever. At lunchbreaks he sometimes takes a quick nap. When we wait at the bus stop after work, he's guaranteed to amble up the road long after we've settled who's going to be first to board the bus. A couple of times I've mentioned that my life would be complete if I ever saw Hard Hat running for the bus. My life is complete. And The Winner Is... As a fourteen year old I went with the school on a skiing trip to Austria. All a big adventure at that age, made embarrasing by parents giving us last minute advice and emotional send off's. No matter. We negotiated the unfamiliar hazards of a Dan Air flight to Munich and a long coach journey across the border, finally arriving at the resort. One kid got caught smoking and would have been sent home had that not meant a teacher would have cut short their holiday. On the other hand, the much hated geography teacher got hit by a snowball. By the end of the week, it was time to settle the most important question of all. Who was the best skier? Naturally the dominant lads, the ones good at football, pretty much figured it was one of them, with one character a clear favourite in the stakes. So we gathered on the slopes that last morning for a timed slalom run, not just the school, but every tourist at the site. I was number five in the running order. With mounting trepidation I watched the others head off. Gate 1.. Gate 2... Gate 3... Then Gate 4, a nasty tight left turn on the brow of a steep drop. Every skier in front of me fell over at that point. Okay. I'll make a note of that. Ready!... Three... Two... One... GO! I was off. My mind was absolutely focused on the task. I didn't harbour any fantasies of doing well, but I sure as heck was going to try. Then I arrived at Gate 4. Snowplough braking... turn as I reach the edge and lean in.. Oh yes. That's how it's done. I carried on and headed for the finish line quite satisified with my efforts. The austrians at the finish line were yelling at me, urging me on enthusiatically, and somewhat bemused I gave myself a few pushes with the sticks. They were all thumbs up and germanic appraisals, which I failed utterly to understand. Here's the thing. I was the only skier that day who did not fall over at Gate 4. The only one. I watched amused as each and every contestant did a sort of helpless swan dive off the dip. Not only that, I sat there in disbelief that night when the instructors handed out the certificates. My name wasn't appearing. Until the end. Not only had I beaten my classmates, I'd beaten everyone at the resort, adults as well. Defintely one of my finest moments.

It is true that Cleopatra wanted her dead for dynastic reasons. Caesar also wanted to despatch her, both to secure Cleopatra's favour and also to punish Arsinoe for attempting to grab power from under the noses of the Romans (You could also argue that he wanted to reduce the number of potential power rivals, secure divine favour in true Roman martial manner, or that having her killed would be a propaganda victory for his political career). Unfortunately the crowd rather sympathised with her so Caesar had her incarcertaed at the Temple of Artemis until Antony sent soldiers to desptach her for much the same reasons, although in Antony's case he was committed to a Roman/Egyptian dynasty and thus was less concerned about public opinion, but I suspect he wasn't so politically astute as Caesar anyway.

Caesar was very quick to be cruel if he felt it necessary. He used Vercingetorix for propaganda before he had him executed. He tried the same with Assinoe, Cleopatra's younger sister who had tried to grab power briefly. The crowd didn't like seeing a young girl treated like a display piece and so Caesar had to abort his plans to prevent him being seen as cruel.

"You've had a wonderful life" My claims advisor had told me, having gleaned that pearl of wisdom fom my CV. Of course like all CV's it merely accentuated the positive. All those disasters and mistakes over the years never made it to the final draft, never mind the interminable hassles that life forces us to endure. She was of course trying to win my approval for her state sponsored rebuild of my appearance, character, and history, in the vain hope I might actually become employable. Little did she know that my lucky rabbit's foot would strike again and I'd get a job by my own efforts, unemployable or not. Is my life wonderful? That's an interesting question. It is true I've done things many people never will, but then again, the price was high. I've lost out on many aspects of life that those same people take for granted. Okay, the decade of being an aspiring musician gave me some purpose in life. And the following decade of fast cars and flying aeroplanes was very enjoyable, thank you very much. The following decade of unemployable mediocrity and occaisional disaster hasn't been quite so fun, no matter what Eva believes. Is my life wionderful right now? Erm, no. I'm doing a job that is the most physically demanding I've ever undertaken, at a relatively unfit and unhealthy fifty plus. Not well paid or secure, either, not to mention being forced to use a bus to get to and from my home, which for me is tantamount to raising a white flag. Truth is I'm just not used to going home barely able to walk. On the bright side, I can of course thumb my nose at Eva, my domineering and ignorant claims advisor. Maybe life ain't that bad after all. Pallet Man Having to cope with my persistent cold means I've taken to imbibing some much needed Lemsip during my lunchbreak. I hate the stuff. True, it helps me get through the day, but the taste is foul. They say medecine only works if you can barely swallow it. Hard Hat, my afro-carribean colleague who believs NASA overlooked him in the race to land on the moon, noticed I was getting abit drowsy. He generously offered me a can of some energy drink or other. I don't usually have much time for the stories of how these drinks affect people, but ye gods, that on top of Lemsip did the trick. I feel myself changing... Growing stronger... Stand back mortals. I am now Pallet Man, superhero and defender of the oppressed warehouseman. Up up and stack 'em! Wonderful Life Of The Week Right now I'm sat at a computer cubicle at my local library. Next to me is the same guy I always seem to be sat next to, irrespective of when I actually sit down for a couple of hours. He looks sort of like Bilbo Baggins evil twin brother. I wouldn't ordinarily take any notice but he talks to himself all the time. I get a running commentary of his internet activity. Almost as annoying as BFL, and the last time she sat down beside me (obviously losing a struggle with Gibbering Baggins for that accolade), she very loudly proclaimed what she was doing and moaned when she couldn't. It's been several years and she still hasn't got the message that I'm not interested in being her best friend. That lady who moans about my presence at the library moaned at me again today. And last night, a lady on the bus demanded to know where I got my travel pass from. Why, the bus fairy, of course. All I have to do is lay down a large sum of cash on a particular desk and it magically appears in my hand. Easy.

Might help if you open your eyes a little. As for not being at risk in Gaul, are you serious? He was sometimes found in the front rank fighting alongside his men. I call that a little risky, never mind the hazards of war lasting for years, involving not only the defeat of an entire region but twice making a landing on foreign shores. Caesar did not destroy the sovereignty of the Senate. They never had any to begin with. But as it happens, Caesar was careful enough to recognise that the Senate contained the most influential men in society and treated them respectfully even after assuming full ruling power as dictator-for-life. Hardly Rome's greatest enemy, and bear in mind, it was a minority of senators who acted against him, typical of their comnspiratorial behaviour.

Marc Antony was always very much a military man. I don't know whether he compared himself to Caesar in the way you suggest - that would suggest some kind of jealousy, and in fact, the two were close political associates. Antony would later lead an army of something like 35 legions against Octavian's 30 or so. Tht's not an easy undertaking at all, requiring a capable leader able to motivate, reward, and feed his troops in the ancioent world. Antony even asked the Senate for permission to sackk a roman town in order to supply/reward them. Whilst he did eventually get ambitious regarding a new Roman/Egyptian dynasty, his campaigning was well organised, and it's noted by many commentators that Caesar was good on the battlefield, but less gifted in other military matters.

This time Scooby Doo has bitten off more than he can chew. But still astonishing, if true.

Woo hoo! 2015! Yeah. 2015. Who would have thought we'd make it this far? What with the Nostrodamus prophecies of global apocalyptic disaster, global warming, outbreaks of Ebola, christians preaching the return of Jesus and mysterious disappearances, the relentless advance of the electric car, my unemployment benefit payments cancelled, no heating in my home, and finally discovering that being more than fifty years of age really does mean you have to resort to a bus pass. The other day I had a phone call from somebody. Not sure who it was, but they enquired about my involvement in a road accident two and half years ago. Hang on... That would mean the summer of 2012... I haven't driven a car since 2008, which means the only auy I could have gotten involved was if I had driven through a time-space anomaly, the sort of thing my claims advisor stops a claimants money for. Wow. Some accident. New years Resolution I faithfully undertake not to have so many car accidents. Bird In The Hand "Look!" Said the slovakian forklift driver, pointing toward the edge of the racking. Yes. I can see it. What's the big deal? I mean, it's just another piece of rubbish on the floor. I'll pick it up as I go by... "No, look!" He insisted. Then I saw what the big deal was. Not a piece of rubbish, but an actual little brown bird, sat there on the squeaky pale blue dusty floor, trapped in a strange rectilinear forest of cardboard, wood, and steel that we know as a warehouse. I know how it feels. A Pop Song Too Far I happened to catch a television documentary the other day. All about those Swedish superstars, Abba. You know, they may not be exactly the coolest artists to remember from the seventies, but face it, without them, where would Brotherhood of Man be? Truth is I found listening to all those familiar hits from long ago difficult to deal with. So synonomous with my formative years that all those uncomfortably embarrasing memories of being an awkward teenager came flooding back. It wasn't that I had any particular fantasy about the two lovely ladies (and none about their male partners), it's just that Abba were everywhere in those days. Television, radio, music stores... Inescapable. Of course these days I'm a bit older and now I've reached the age where being embarrasing is fun. Such as my guitar playing, military surplus trousers, and a complete inability to balance when the bus is in motion. Mystery Of The Week So now if you'll excuse me, I have another episode of Star Trek related entertainment to wait for. In the meantime I sit there watching the Father Dowling Mysteries. Not that the program entertains me you see, it's just that I live in hope I'll catch the episode where Father Dowling finally succumbs to temptation and seduces Sister Stephanie on one of their late night stakeouts of the villains HQ. I know this sort of thing goes on... I've listened to Abba lyrics.

Certainly makes my CV look dull...

It's very common these days to see history interpreted in modern terms, because it's a more populist and easier method of describing the subject. It does however tend to create anomalous situations that shouldn't exist, such as this recently topical example... Mordern interpretation: Augustus comes to power and rules Rome as their first emperor. He makes a lot of political fudges to avoid public objection My analysis: Augustus avoids becoming a ruler per se because he saw what happened to Julius Caesar after he'd taken full ruling power permanently from the state. Instead, Augustus makes himself the most important Roman (he calls himself princeps, or 'First Citizen'), and thus becomes patron to his client, Rome, a situation the Roman public are perfectly happy with because it's merely an extension of normal social structures. There is no fudge. OF course Augustus was a control freak and thus tends to advise rather more strongly than a typical patron might. You see what I mean? Relationships betwen human beings are often subtle and individualistic. To simply label two guys as gay because they have a close friendship is quite possibly wrong. It is true, for instance, that samurai often developed homosexual relations because women were not supposed to be trusted, and that they considered this normal and acceptable. The ancient greeks however weren't so obvious. Their relationships did not have the masculine boundaries of the Roman (or indeed our modern western world), thus close friendships were developed for different reasons than say the Samurai. That does not necessarily imply sexual behaviour (I'm sure it went on, human beings have always included a proportion among them with a prediliction toward such behaviour), but instead a tactile relationship which has more to do with instinct than sex - note how apes and monkeys groom each other to build relationships - the greeks essentially were doing something similar.

Welcome to my life

Three weeks of winter mayhem they promised us. We do tend to get wintery weather second hand from the States, albeit weakened by its long journey across the Atlantic, and the news reports of deep snowdrifts over there certainly seemed to confirm our impending doom. So what happened? We've barely had a cold day and it's end of December. No white Christmas then. And now the weather warnings are telling us to expect more winter mayhem. In fairness it does seem that some of us are being stopped by snow. Is there any other country in the world so completely unable to cope with a few flakes and icy conditions? License To Kringe Someone at work said you can always tell it's Christmas when a James Bond movie gets aired on television. That might have been the case ten years ago, but high definition digital tv has pretty much destroyed the significance of MI5 and their loveable assassins in our xmas celebrtations. I'm suprised there isn't a James Bond channel by now. Or perhaps there is. I've got so many channels on freeview now that finding something I want to see is turning into anything between a desperate search for the lost entertainment and a nail biting agonising decision over which program is the one to watch. I never knew being a couch potato was so stressfull. Now I come to think about it, Christmas seemed to be a bit muted this year. Even my local supermarket didn't start their annual assault on the nerves with Christmas Hits Of The Last Century until they had two weeks to go. Just enough time to fit them in on a never ending loop interminably then. Not that I'm complaining mind you - one of their shop assistants said hello to me for the first time since I started shopping there twelve years ago. Just another step on my ladder to fame and fortune I guess. I don't know about James Bond movies any more, but certainly at Christmas there's a sudden outbreak of singing and busking. Sure enough this hapened just recently. A smiling rastafarian making the worst racket you've ever heard on some badly tuned tin drums, a small choir in the town centre who hadn't realised that singing in tune sounds better, and a down and out guitar player who repeats the same song over and over just to pass the time of day. It wasn't all bad. There was an amusing puppet mandolin player (the actual player was in an oversized backpack). Funnily enough there were none of these people around when a police car idled by along the pedestrian way. No Deal Of The Week According to the letter from the Department of Work and Pensions, they can't pay me the benefits I claimed from November. Cute. So I exceeded the terms of my Jobseekers Agreement by an order of magnitude, conducted a consistent jobsearch record even when I wasn't being paid for it, and accepted an offer of paid employment way below my level of skill, education, and experience. Worse, I suffered accusations of fraud, defamation of character, and found myself financially coerced into a deal that pretty much amounted to enslavement. Sorryy Eva, but you should have been honest. You reneged on the deal, not me. Lord Rail is back.

The greeks didn't have the same straight/gay debate we do today. For them relationships between men were perfectly normal, and that sort of attitude has been present in other societies such as medieval japan. Sex is not necessarily involved (we do tend to assume that it was these days), and since the strongly masculine Romans took greek mythology and made it their own, perhaps some adjustments to the image presented to the public were indeed made, although in fairness I don't recall seeing anything that suggersted Zeus was gay.

Clearly human beings have a propensity toward sexual behaviours whenever they feel they can get away with it.

But the system was basically the continuation of republican politics and Tiberius opted out because he couldn't stand the pettiness of it. His retirement to Capi was a good sized portion of his reign. To be blunt, he was only too happy to let someone else run Rome - hence his mistake over assuming Sejanus as "the partner of his labours", and the consequent 'police state' Sejanus instituted to bolster his own attempt to reach the top.

Although I've already mentioned I'm currently a dustman inside a warehouse, the company did briefly try me on unliading containers. That's where I got the bruises from, both physical and ego related. It turns out that my age and physical fitness have somewhat reduced my ability to handle boxes in excess of twenty five kilos in weight. There's quite a few of them packed into a typical container. Some are more a hundred kilos. Help. Of course I'm not working alone. I joined a bunch of cheery youths engaged in the task of unloading. One lad vanished deep into a gap between boxes to help push them out. Obviously a former housebreaker, he was quickly nicknamed 'Gerbil'. I on the other hand inevitably got called 'Grandad'. Cheers guys. Another chap happened to be in the wrong plae at the wrong time as a box corner buried itself into his groin. "Mind the penis!" He said, somewhat concerned for the continued safe operation of his anatomy. "Nah, you don't need it." I quipped, clearly stung by references to my advancing age. Later on he noted my wheezing helplessness. "I'm not young any more" was my excuse. With some artistic license he replied that he was twice my age and hence my excuse was invalid. "Twice my age?" I answered, "That's why you don't need your penis". Warehousing is such fun. Houston We Have A Challenge One of my colleagues is a very laid back afro-carribean chap. So laid back that the word horizontal loses all meaning. Imagine my suprise then when he told me he liked a challenge. Pardon me? Face it, you're not NASA material. He insisted he could be. Houston - "Ahh, Apollo Thirteen, we have some strange readings back here. Is everything okay up there?" Astronaut - "Housten, we have no problem at all. Houston - "Right. We're showing oxygen leakages. Please confirm." Astronaut - "Oh yeah. Sorry 'bout dat. Heh heh..." I have to work with this guy. Not that any work gets done. On A Mission One of the team leaders called me over. For a moment I thought I was about to get told off for some obscure misdemeanour, but no, the warehouse needed two boxes from the overflow warehouse across the road. So me and a company veteran popped over to the deserted building to risk life and limb in a vain search for two boxes among thousands stashed in tall rows in utter darkness. He found them because he had a torch. I just bumped into a lot of cardbiard and got lost in the darkness. So once I'd been rescued we girded our loins and heaved the boxes out into the damp dark night. Talk about ridiculous. We would have been fine but with strong blustery winds our simple task turned into a sort of kamikaze mission. Once the wind caught the box staying on the pavement was all but impossible, you either wandered helplessly into the road or fall over a herbaceous border. Fear not. Mission accomplished. Eventually. Criticism Of The Week Thee I was minding my own television when some udiot outside the house shouted "Your blog is rubbish!" What? Again? Oh well. At least he read it.

Gasp! Ghost, what are you saying? A roman male should say "Can I shag it?"

Working for a living is pretty much an unavoidable necessity. Firstly as unemployedI cannot officially refuse an offer of paid employment. Secondly, since the Job Centre have been pulling every trick in the book to avoid or delay paying me, I'm now looking forward to a christmas £1000 worse off than I should have been. Not sure which game is more mug-friendly.

I don't think there's a set format as such. Explain your reasons for theorising, present your evidence, explain your findings, then present your conclusion. Don't forget to list sources and credits. It's the quality of your argument that matters, not the juxtaposition of texxt. As long as it's rational and readable it'll probably be okay.

Last night I wearily wound my way home from work. That's right, I'm working. Or at least I'm trying to. I've discovered that being over fifty years old isn't what I thought it would be. Blisters on my feet, a long bruise on my leg when a sixty eight kilo carton fell on it, stiff legs from constant walking, and worst of all, a well and truly bruised ego. Being a dustman in a warehouse isn't exactly what I 'd planned for. Across the street were two doormen outside a gentlemans club. I've always called them the 'Bruise Briothers', identikit bruisers with overcoats and bald heads, looking like refugees from a Bond movie audition. They don't think much of me. I'm not bothered about that, but making it known at the top of their jocular voices wasn't welcome. So I'm living in dreamworld, eh? Feels more like a nightmare right now. But maybe you're right. Maybe I should stop believing the world is about possibilities, that I should be arrested for conspiring to be success, or that a migistrate should punish me most severely for several counts of gross assistance to others? Perhaps I should take their example, and stand in a doorway all night haranguing passers by? Then it occurs to me. These two idiots have nothing in their lives other than the right to obstruct whoever they don't like from entering a premises. So they feel powerful. Big fish in a very tiny pond. You know what? They're welcome to it. Okay. Back to the dreamworld. Well And Truly Mistered There is also a rumour that I've had my title taken away. Not true. I can squish that rumour with one sentence. What did happen was that instead of an interrogation, my claims advisor then decided to try and become a sort of mother figure. Why is it that middle aged women from northern England have to be so odious? Or is that people in the north push these harridans elsewhere because they can't stand them either? In an impossibly condescending tone, she informed me that my title was 'just a bit of paper' and that it was a serious impediment to getting a job? Pardon me? I've had more interest from employers in the last six months than I did in the last six years. Well. She's devalued all my efforts to find a job, reduced me to plebian status in the eyes of the Job Centre, accused me of acting illegally, virtually blackmailed me by witholding dole payments, and then had the gall to think I would in some way begin to respect her. No wonder I'm feeling a bit woebegone. The irony of this is that barely minutes before I was obliged to change my CV on the internet to a politically correct and colourless mini-me version, my somewhat more colourful CV with title and heradlry finally got me a job. As a dustman in a warehouse. Unfair Life Of The Week It so happens that one of my colleagues at work is a caucasian immgrant from Bradford. He sympathised with my description of my claims advisor - maybe I was right about northern women after all - but what amzes me is how this twenty one year old is getting interesting things to do. Technicaly he's supposed to be doing the same sorts of things as me, but on one day he was asked to go upstairs into the IT department to help out, then the other day, got a message that he would spend the next day in the offices doing photography for their marketing department. Yeah. See you at work mate. At least I've still got the weekend to feel sorry for myself and find the will to do the dishes.

Interesting choice. He wasn.t particularly happy about his role as Caesar and being such a gruff no-nonsense type, soon got tired of the petty squablling of the Senate. I've always seen him as something of a misanthrope with a considerable chip on his shoulder. In any case he preferred to let Sejabus run the Imperial Houselhold and avoid having to deal with the Senate. Which was a problem because SEjanus was plotting to replace him. Once caught, Tiberius left the state in the hands of the Senate and retired to Capri. He was not well liked, and unusually for the celebrity laden Julio-Caludians, was not well liked by the lower classes because he didn't invest in games the same way that Augustus had. Tiberius didn't like such things. Whilst his reign was otherwise stable, it included a period of brutal tyranny by Sejanus, the state was being left to the Senate to run, the Praetorians were amalgamated in one barracks (which Augustus had avoided doing for obvious reasons), and as far as I can see, SPQR simply muddled on without him.

Some caesars defintely were. Caligula for instance is recorded as receiving adoration from a crowd. He hears one shouting "How about a days games, Caesar?", which the indulgent Caligula duly organised for him.

Oh come off it, Ghost, this is lunacy

The role of Caesar is not as clear cut as you might think. Caligula, for all his excesses, was beloved by the common people - so was Nero - but because Caligula treated the Senate with disdain and started assuming powers, his chances of keeping the Senate sweet rapidly diminished. He went through this same process of deterioration, too, in almost all other respects. Thus, he had seemed at first most democratic, to such a degree, in fact, that he would send no letters either to the people or to the senate nor assume any of the imperial titles; yet he became most autocratic, so that he took in one day all the honours which Augustus had with difficulty been induced to accept, and then only as they were voted to him one at a time during the long extent of his reign, some of which indeed Tiberius had refused to accept at all. Indeed, he postponed none of them except the title of Father, and even that he acquired after no long time. Roman History Book 59 (Cassius Dio) What's important to realise is that Caesars who were tyrannical and openly flaunted their power were rapidly unpopular by those in influential positions, many of whom were directly vulnerable to their machinations. Antoninus Pius was so popular as a Caesar because he allowed the Senate to rule. He didn't interfere. The idea of benificient or democratic rule was as important in imperial times as before, only more difficult to assure.

Whilst you're welcome to disagree, there is nothing in the Roman sources that says Augustus was a monarch. Neither does his role in Roman society indicate that he was. His powers were not based on official allocation from the Republic, but the use of personal influence. He was defintiely a control freak - even his wife said that - and he acted in much the same way as a mafia gangster, influencing politics both openly with a beneficient face and enforcing it behind the scenes in a rather more ugly tone. Remember that Augustus refused official honours more often than not and officially handed power back to the Senate. When Augustus proposed that he was princeps, he meant it. He was holding on to status and influence, not power, especially since a man - Juluius Caesar - who had taken every power that Rome had to offer, had been so brutally removed from the office he had been given by consent. And it's worth rememering that early on Augustus more than once left the Senate house with jeers at his back, as senators demanded to know when they'd be allowed to make a decision. The adoption of 'Augustus' was not as clear cut as most people believe. He won a propaganda war in many ways - he would have died as brutally as Julius had he lost. There is no similarity between Augustus and Julius in terms of official power - Julius had the lot and permanently. Augustus preferred to be seen to be honoured in the same way as other politicians might thus his official powers were limited. In any case it doesn't matter. There is nothing in the Roman constitution after the Republic was founded that said they had kings ruling them - that was unacceptable by tradition and sensibility - nor was the position of princeps, or the role of Caesar that followed it, anything more than political opportunism. There is no argument that in theory a Caesar had immense control and influence. Not all of them did. Didius Julianus was disdained for buying the job from the Praetorians who had murdered Pertinax shortly before. Didius had not earned his status, even after serving as consul, by any acceptable means up to and including lethal conspiracy - he had simply promised a large sum of money (and didn't even pay that). Thus when rebel armies marched on Rome, he appealed to the Senate for help, and mindful of potential purges to come, they ignored him. Of course they did. The whole reason that the Caesars had been tolerated was because there were too many swords behind them. The reason they were accepted was because some politicians saw their influence as useful to their own careers, and so licked their backsides for all they were worth. The reason they not dismissed legally was because too many senators believed that with sufficient opportunity, they could achieve the same influence and status, and that by removing Caesars from politics, there was no further chance of dominating Roman politics in the same way - and profit - as before. The Senate did not prevent the warlords of the late Republic from seizing power because they preferred to do business with dominant characters rather than have to fight them. There is a concept prevalent in the study of Roman history that the Republic ended at some point and the Empire began. This simplification is rather naive and doesn't reflect Roman politics accurately at all. It's the result of a historical categorisation that appeals to the general public - it's easy to understand the republic stopping somehow and the Caesars ruling like kings thereafter. Also, rather than than using the word 'birth', we should perhaps speak of emergence, since the features of the Augustan monarchy that were adopted by its successors took shape gradually, bit by bit, within the Republican institutional edifice. For the Principate was not created ex nihilo, but put slowly into position using existing forms, and following no preconceived plan but, rather, added to and modified according to circumstance...[/] A History of Rome (Le Glay, Voisin, & Le Bohec) In his Acts and on his coins he (Augustus) stressed that he was the Liberator who had saved the lives of citizens, that he had held no post 'contrary to ancestral tradition', that he had 'transferred the state from his own control to the free will of the Senate and the Romanie', and to those traditional components of the Roman state, the S.P.Q.R., there are many honorific references on his coins. It may seem suprising that in spite of their vigilant Republicanism many members of the Italian governing class were satisfied by what seems to us a fiction. Yet the Romans, although their intense anxiety to preserve everything good in the past made them instinctively averse to open changes, had a fairly impressive record for modifying their institutions when this was necessary. The World Of Rome (Michael Grant)