Roman Historian admits Augustus was a Monarch

[C. Fabius Lupus]

Indeed we have a different definition of monogamy. The biological act of mating is irrelevant for me, since it is beyond control of the corresponding society. What happens behind closed doors is impossible to know or to prevent. For my definition only the legal framework counts. With such different definitions we will of course not reach the same conclusions.

 

A fallacy is an erroneous method of reasoning. It is erroneous no matter how the brain works that is using it, based on different neurochemicals or on semiconductors or whatever.

However in our case we are not dealing with a fallacy, as I have come to realize now, but with different definitions right from the beginning. This means it is essentially a communication problem.

 

Regarding the differences between the Catholic and the Roman understanding of a priest:

A Catholic has to study theology first, a Roman pontifex was trained on the job - a more pragmatic and less esotheric view of priesthood.

[caldrail]

No, the wiki page is inconsistent. It later lists four marriages. He had children by Cleopatra but never married her (they both committed suicide before the ceremony was conducted)

 

Regarding Lupercal...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupercal

 

 

 

You got some explaining to do in how a Roman Catholic isn't gonna grasp the status of a officially appointed roman priest to a state cult.

Roman priests were not ordained devotees in the christian sense, but men appointed religious office in the same manner as political roles. I would be careful of using the phrase 'state cults', as this implies a formal relationship that was not the case. The Roman cults were far less formal and not actually controlled by the state, other than by those who achieved offices, as religous worship in Roman times was not the organised communal affair that christianity espoused. True, there were communal festivals (and quite a lot of them) which required organising (hence the need for religious management besides any opportunity for influence), but the relationship of worshippers to deities was the same client/patron system, where worshippers visited the 'atrium' of the god they wished favour from - in actuality the shrine or temple - and attempted to conduct business with the deity remotely via prayer and sacrifice.

[Maty]

Can I add two bits worth?

 

A good definition of marriage among the Roman elite is 'serial polygamy'. That is, you can have a large number of wives, but only one at a time. Cato even divorced his wife so that she could marry Hortensius, and remarried her after Hortensius died. I'd recommend this as a starting point to the discussion

 

http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/010903.pdf

 

With Augustus the autocrat (which is where we started) we need to remember that the position of emperor was dynamic. The line between the Principate and Dominate is largely artificial. Labels like 'emperor' or 'king' cover a much more complex reality, and are labels rather than definitions of what the role entailed.

 

Augustus probably saw himself more as a princeps senatus rather like Crassus or Aemilius Scaurushad been, though with more power and authority. By the time of the Lex de imperio Vespasiani the princeps is not a person but a job description, and this law details the titles and powers that a new emperor would take up. Likewise we see Caesar move from a cognomen to a rank (Galba was the first non-Julian to call himself Caesar).

 

However, we can't argue even Tacitus' interpretation of what being emperor meant to Augustus, let alone Zosimus' interpretation. The office evolved much too fast for that. Even Augustus was not the same emperor in AD 14 as he was in 30 BC.

[Onasander]

It is quite possible for society to control non-marital offspring, natural born sons and daughters. It has a long precedent going back to Greek days. Its harder to detect admittedly if the father wasn't frank about it, but with laws primogeniture could be enforced on the proper children. I'm not in a position to affirm or refute Maty's input. I'll take the serial monagamy (Brazilian style apparently) under advisement.

 

Faulty reasoning? Reconsider what your saying here. Show me evidence of blunt trauma or mental retardation, or severe malnutrition, and I might agree there are hardware specs at fault in the individual. Shirt if this, I don't presume faulty reasoning, except on the part of a moderator or academic, or enforcer of presupposed parliamentary procedure.

 

Can you tell me how many synapses are in the brain? How many water molecules in your arm? Hairs on your ass? We don't know ourselves, we make projections of being. A very faint simulacrum is all we have of personhood. We apply logic, if its voluntary, from this perspective.

 

If person A can debate person B with a argument largely judge by a panel of experts to be exquisite, lacking in logical fallacies, it would prove nothing except a systematic bias (which they likely would agree to, begrudgingly). However, what are they actually judging? Let's say thus exact argument between A and B was exactly the same, save person A was a schizophrenic, and B was a illusion. Still no logical fallacies? Of course they begin to pop up, as knowledge is as much about our understanding if the other and ourselves as the argument at hand. Anyone trying to argue certain kinds of knowledge is immune to this, such as a discussion of pure mathematics, mearly wittles the argument to aspects of mind, to which my point lays. A logical fallacy presupposes aspects of mind are universal, and carries an ideology in regards to how argumentation should unfold A Priori. We already have a A Priori system, its our neurology, its our brain's architecture. If I accept logical fallacies, I have to allow for an alien set of restrictions to favor set feedback loops in the brain over others. This is in and of itself disadvantageous to philosophy and the dialectic, and Socrates spent half of each debate just feeling this out before progress could be made.

 

Note I don't rule out restrictions CAN'T be made, and rules to kinds of debate can't be followed, to methodologically produce stable systems of logic, but I won't presume for a second they are full proof, or even very efficient even if they have been worked on for centuries. I'm well known for turning logic systems upside down on their head (cynic trait). If a discussion naturally drifts towards logical fallacies, there tends to be a reason, and we should be very open to understanding why the gravity of the debate keeps pushing in that direction. Though the first order of logic might essentially fail, secondary and subsequent orders might be naturally and intuitively linked by nature or learning. I don't presume in the debate, even when I feel it in my gut and can predict where itvis going in advance, that I know every possible twist and turn anyone engaded in can take. I more or less farm the possibility of new ideas and possibilities in myself and in others, and so have very little tolerance when someone shouts "logical fallacies". Unless it can be shown a Categorical Imperative is violated, such as putting others at risk by a known route of reasoning (such as debating the validity of the National Electric Code's safety rules, or allowing arguments of genocide against a clearly peaceful people), I largely dismiss it. I see it as a certainty of mental disease worthy of a straight jacket and repeated beatings by hairy Russian men wielding large stream caught fish in a insane asylum. It's a just punishment that fits the crime of furthering this silky, outdated academic cult. One idiot professor published on Kindle a book of over 300 logical fallacies, many if which he claims he alone "discovered". I question if such a man after a while can even tie his shoe without violating a rule against his own consciousness. Logical Fallacies occupy that same intellectual space as a Fatwa, they only apply to the scholar who pronounced the advice, and no one else, and a second opinion can always be reached. We have 16 ceainial nerves in the brain, and multiple layers per part, and the parts interconnect to one another. There tends to be multiple ways around in a discussion without the folly of an imposed detour.

 

Most people don't even question the origins of logical fallacies. They just blink and accept. Its very unnerving how programmable people become by teachers after a while. Teachers don't know where they come from either for the mist part, though a few learned how to explain the idea to a combative student unwilling to accept one.

 

Its absolutely sick.

 

And legality didn't invent mating, or the need for community. The law doesn't make a society, its a outgrowth of it. Marriage, its most obvious traits, what most can (this would qualify as a logical fallacy in se systems, but I dare you to denounce it) reduce it to its bare essential elements, governs fucking and child rearing, near universally among human societies that use it. Those who don't marry still do the fucking and the child rearing, just not in a recognizable order or predictable parents (biological). There are communities in Israel based on this idea, that kids are brought up by the community. There was a sex cult (can't remember the god, think Hermes) where a husband or wife would leave the marriage for a year, head off to the temple, and be coupled with a stranger, and make a baby. I presume the child stayed (or not) after the mother returned home. Romans did that. Cults in Carthage and Phonecia where parents would kill their children. Same here with abortions. These are our rules from one age to the next. Sometimes we embrace marriage, sometimes not. Given the sickening rate of abortions (we kill more in any year of last year from abortions than the entirety of the US lead Iraq Wars), perhaps marriage isn't worth much any more. Children in very socialistic, atheistic countries see their parents split earlier and earlier, causing psychological trauma and a devaluation of the worth of themselves, their potential sex partners, and of the idea of family. Such societies are also the quicker to intellectually stagnate, and unnervingly quick to repress minorities (whereas they didn't before).

 

But us a perfectly stable monogamous society without faults, or even those faults? Not always. We have blunders across history. The British destroyed any long term chance of making a univied empire in the very beginning, when Henry the 8th started executing his wives. He had to start his own church, thus alienating the Catholics and radicalizing his population. It ensured the US and Ireland wouldn't be a part of the empire at a crucial man power shortage mid twentieth century. Didn't quite work out in anyone's favor, those be headings and need to make "legitimate" male children. That's just one dynastic mishap, I can point to many more across the world.

 

So I put very little stock in advoiding this by saying different definitions. Its simply not the case. The Romans definitely had at the very least a very widespread sub culture of orgies and swinging for a considerable chunk of its history. This doesn't remove from them the counter that they also built up the idea of marital loyalty and monagamy in its true sense.

 

Its at root all about who is diddling who, and given most people in high school and university are of the prime diddling age, and find themselves suddenly free to do so without seeming repercussion, they are loathe to do accept outside restrictions. Professors want to look cool, and keep their jobs by not offending the students, so in many ways preach this morality. It seems unwise, as they aren't weighing the risks to benefits for society on a long term sociological platform. I see at least the single dualism of Aristotle vs the Stoa in Aristotle, but as educators they should be aware of much more. Kids should have informed knowledge. There is definitely benefits to a classical 1950s style marriage, to the individuals and society as a whole.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Onasander

[C. Fabius Lupus]

You have a misunderstanding of what logic means. It is a set of rules that can be expressed in symbols and is th basis of every programming language. It is not arbitrary and does not depend on the person or the structure of program code that uses it.

You might find it easier to compare it with mathematics. Both are a priori valid and do neither depend on empiric data nor on the personality of the person using it nor on environmental factors. An AAA-1 syllogism or a modus ponens inference are always valid, and a quaternio terminorum is always fallacious.

 

Mating does not equal marriage. To define marriage outside of a legal background is pointless. You could just use the word "mating" without any further misleading implications, if you just mean that.

A marriage is commmonly understood to include legal privileges and obligations and it is not necessarily voided if no children are born or no proof of sexual intercourse is provided, although in some few primitive societies this is the case.

A definition should not be overly broad or ambiguous.

In Rome there were different legally established forms of marriage, the coemptio (divorce possible) and the confarreatio (divorce not easily possible). The latter one was a requirement for certain priests. Both of them were monogamous (no simultanous marriage to more than one partner).

[caldrail]

 

 

The British destroyed any long term chance of making a univied empire in the very beginning, when Henry the 8th started executing his wives. He had to start his own church, thus alienating the Catholics and radicalizing his population. It ensured the US and Ireland wouldn't be a part of the empire at a crucial man power shortage mid twentieth century.

Erm... What?

 

Clearly you're not reading the same history books as the rest of us. The antics of henry 8th were aimed at satisifying a number of monarchial conditions, not least the surety of a male heir, and not even the Pope and the Catholic Church were going to stop him. Quite why that wrecked the British Empire is a bit strange though... It's not until the 1750's that Britain starts accumulating an empire, mostly at the expense of the French. And as for the Americas, didn't you rebel against British rule in our colonies? Canada didn't. The later 1812 war finished off the last British interests in your country with regard to the Oregon Territory. The loss of the colonies wass simply a function of trans-Atlantic distance and poor colonial administration (and arguably, second best military strategy and action), but then, many of the colonists in British held territories were not British nationals anyway. In fact, Henry 8th's seperation of the churches set Britain on a course for independent greatness, which the Isles had to fight hard for, and it was the huge conflicts of the twentieth century that rduced the British Empire in many colnial eyes, espeically after commonwealth troops returned as war veterans with renewed vigour and confidence, not to mention a Great Britain that was econimically knackered.

 

Regarding Roman marriages, this was a somewhat amorphous subject for the Romans despite tradition (parts of which still survive in the modern west today). On the one hand, there were traditional forms to be observed. On the other, a man's prerogative to exercise his virility. The morality of married couples, and thus the rules that enforced it, eroded from the late Republic and christian writers in the later  empire sermonised against such immorality, especially compared to the barbarians who were much strictter in cultural expectations by then.

[Onasander]

You need to study up on the English Civil War Caldrail, Henry 8th policies directly impacted Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania severely here on EXACTLY that line, and caused severe problems for Parliament from Plymouth to Ireland. It was at root a dynastic succession issue. Its where the Church of England can point to for origins. It had a very big impact here (not literally here, it was Indian land, but the families who migrated here came from those three states).

 

I can give you history books and stories from various genealogies. His decisions were built around marriage concepts inherent in the Catholic Church of that period (his new church was pretty much a clone of the catholic customs, wasn't protestant yet). You fast forward to bloody Mary and then the glorious revolution, you can see how English society began to radically separate. This lead to indefinite opposition that would eventually culminate into the American Revolution and Ireland leaving the empire. England absolutely needed those two colonial bases for its manpower to keep the empire going.

 

After WW2, it was the US that gave the English loans to avoid bankruptcy (the English almost collapsed in Greece), it was our liberty ships that kept England fed. It was our Navy that held the defensive lines for Australia and New Zealand. We could very easily of remained Neutral and the empire would of collapsed. Bose and his Fascists would of held India. We didn't, so England floated for a while.... but whenever the US refused support, such as in English colonies in Africa, the Empire fell apart. Had the US remained a colonial possession, it wouldn't of been a issue. The British Empire could of had access to our taxes, bases, and manpower. It didn't, and the root cause was..... Henry 8th. Chief person to blame. He more or less killed the empire at its earliest beginnings.

 

This is one of those nasty side effects of marriage. It effects the concepts of property and alliegance, responsibility, etc in ways a society not built on feudal relations wouldnt.

 

I'll reply to the other two posts here soon, at work, its a physically intensive job.

[Onasander]

That's the word I was reaching for in my brain,confarreatio.

 

Mark Anthony didn't have senatorial status, and thus couldn't become priest of the cult, because his former marriage wasn't conducted by that rite. That's the word I remember reading.

 

Are you sure you want to argue the validity of sylligisms? The reason they state that is because of Boolean processing of linguistic information prior to its casual ordering. Certain personality types, like INTJs (which I am one) have a way to root around this using comedy or explemptive language. Its why Zizek is so successful, as well as a few French philosophers like Badiou.

 

Furthermore, your position on the Semiotic emphasis on logic (sign and signal) falls apart on the Theoria-Theosis axis, which is a Roman era philosophy. Einstein often expressed his ideas at their most profound operated at a level without words. There was in fact a hugh medieval debate if Da'at linked up with the right hemisphere at all in Jewish caballah circles. We now know the pathways of the cranial nerves do link up in consciously in certain personality types, but is present in all types unconsciously and effects the thinking style of everyone.

 

And I didn't say anything about arbitrary logic. Logic is always neurological based, even in pure mathematics. I'm a student of Ramon Llull, he was a pioneer of communications theory and logic in the medieval period, also built primitive computers built on logic.

 

What your trying to corner are precise points of the brain where we process information as accurate or not to a predetermined mental template. I don't refute this, I refute the limitations of debate to JUST these paths at the expense if denying explorations of alternatives.

 

Say Chryssipus declared a logical fallacy on counting one as a number. He would have justifications to do as (as justified as any supposed logical fallacy). Everyone who counts one as a number would be ruled invalid from the start. Accounting would of evolved differently.

[C. Fabius Lupus]

Sorry, I fail to understand what the structure of the brain or personality types have to do with the validity of the laws of logic. There is not even a need for a brain, since logic also applies to dead matter. The physical world will follow the laws of logic regardless if you are able or willing to process them with your brain.

 

It doesn't matter, whether or not Chrysippus declared the number one a fallacy. An argumentum ad auctoritatem is also a fallacy. For something to be a fallacy it is irrelevant, which authority declared it as such. It is either a fallacy or not, i.e. it does not preserve the truth value of the premises or it does. BTW a proposition alone (1 is not a number) cannot be a fallacy. It can only be true or false. Only faulty syllogisms and inferences can be fallacies.

[caldrail]

 

 

You need to study up on the English Civil War Caldrail, Henry 8th policies directly impacted Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania severely here on EXACTLY that line, and caused severe problems for Parliament from Plymouth to Ireland. It was at root a dynastic succession issue. Its where the Church of England can point to for origins. It had a very big impact here (not literally here, it was Indian land, but the families who migrated here came from those three states).

I need to study up on the English Civil War? The one that occurred between 1642 and 1651? The one that saw a transition between Charles I, Cromwells regime, and Charles II? Henry 8th lived from 1491 to 1542, which is a century earlier and neither Henry nor the later civil war had any implications for colonial America, serious or otherwise.

 

As for the concept of Indian Land, it must be pointed out that the majority of native americans had no concept of land ownership since it was merely a wilderness in which they lived, and in any event, some tribves legally sold land under agreement to the settlers. The sort of confrontational greed that spurred later Indian Wars was a product of valuable rsources rather than land as well.

 

 

 

You fast forward to bloody Mary and then the glorious revolution, you can see how English society began to radically separate. This lead to indefinite opposition that would eventually culminate into the American Revolution and Ireland leaving the empire. England absolutely needed those two colonial bases for its manpower to keep the empire going.

Rubbish. The colonies were not sources of manpower. Far from it, since from the 1600's slaves were imported to provide it. They were sources of profit and taxation, but religious arguments in Europe had nothing to do with colonial resentment at remote government which inspired political revolt in the colonies, of which two thids of colonists either opposed or were disinterested in.

 

 

 

Henry 8th. Chief person to blame. He more or less killed the empire at its earliest beginnings.

Rubbish. He had nothing to do with it. The British Empire was a later development, post English Civil War.

Byt the way, I must confess to an error. It was 1846 when Britain ceded interests by treaty in the Oregon Territory, which then comprised the modern Oregon, Washington State, British Columbia, and was expected until then of becoming a seperate republic from the Untied States.

Edited April 22, 2015 by caldrail

[GhostOfClayton]

Just say the word, and we can have Redcoats marching up Lexington Avenue by Tuesday.

Edited April 22, 2015 by GhostOfClayton

[caldrail]

A new monarchy? No, he didn't, though clearly he had something like that in mind. The Caesrs of Rome were not technically Rome's rulers, they were simply VIP's with enough status, popularity, wealth, and military clout to dominate Roman politics under the client patron system. What Augustus created was a rival system of government (the Senate was still in business albeit a lot less forward) based on influence and military command, something Dio discusses. Remember that Cassius Dio says that Augustus was 'as good as a monarch', which implies he was not one. Augustus family members did not achieve power by any official selection process either. There was no such system of succession in Roman law, it was simply a matter of popularity and dominance. No-one for instance seriously thought Claudius would rule, and indeed, the Senate assumed they were running the empire when Caligula was assassinated. In the event, the Praetorian Guard insisted that Claudius be installed whether the Senate liked it or not. The title of monarch was never considered. Since a monarch has some right to rule established by society, consider the ease with which Caesars changed - and that the Romans only admitted a son had inherited his fathrs throne for the first time when Commodus came to power - the first Caesar 'born to the purple'.

[Onasander]

To Lupus:

 

Syllogisms cannot operate without a neurological basis, your arguing Epistemology without Ontological awareness.

 

In the beginning, before Syllogisms were solidified into rationalizing the order of axiomatic rules for predication, it roughly meant a lateralization of Abstract Ideas (Non-Visual) to Visual. Your basic PowerPoint sideshow embraces this, or elementary constructs in Algerbra, mixing numerics with geometry. This is Ye Old Fashione Platonic Dialectics, and has its roots in the Pythagorean tradition.

 

Your making projections of dead matter in your case, which already underwent Syllogistic encoding in your mind, and tried to show that syllogist rules apply to syllogisms (which can be correct, but often is wrong depending on the teleology, which in your case I doubt your aware of any beyond completion of this argument).

 

The very syllogistic rules you proposed as always right and always wrong can easily be be shown to be incorrect, and prone to unintended paradox (a paradox exists in every idea, its just how our brains process information).

 

Say I made a pun, or used a word with a dual meaning, or substituted a emotional response inspired by my wording of a phrase to add to the syllogism (I threw a cup in a debate once at a moderator once in a debate to prove a point). Or I referee to a Noun by a characteristic, say "White" for Horse..... it was debated for centuries in China if something could be "Horse" and "White" at the same time.... the way nouns are categorized in a language determines syllogistic rules, and no language is perfect in this.

 

Due to knowing the abstract to visual spectrum of Syllogisms, I know they are price to pattern recognition falsification, known as Lateral Inhibition. The rules you just presented are a example, they appear congruent and stable, but why? Honestly, why? There is a lateralization process in our visual process that staggers like to gradients of unlike yet similar, effecting depth and haptic assumptions, and thus our spacial thinking. We inhibit further (using neural inhibitors) so we can process the info back through our visual cortex from right to left to rework its abstract properties.

 

Have you ever asked yourself why a rule begins or ends? There is a neural inhibitor at work, as well as constraints in neural processing the information in packets.

 

You can structure Syllogisms via a system similar to molecular geometry, using Di-Polar Spheres. The rule base is much larger and less restrictive than they thought possible in the 19th and 20th century. It is neurologically based. In the mind, not outside of it. Even in pure mathematics. If anything, they are more aware of this, and try to figure out methodologies to break out of logical paradoxes by finding feedback loops that break out of the syllogistic rules of earlier forms of logic. There are several million dollar prizes for anyone able to do this if your interested, people actively speculate on this.

 

When in doubt, ask yourself this: "If I am thinking, and my mind isn't thinking, what is? My elbow, chin, foot, a external object like a rock for me?"

 

And to eliminate a misunderstanding, Chryssipus didn't declare one a formal logical fallacy. The concept of logical fallacies was embryonic back then, just starting to come into vogue. He was very much opposed to the idea that one is a number (as am I). My point was that HAD he (and he would of been just as justified as anyone else who constructs and declares them) we wouldn't have the kind of mathematics we do today. The fundamentals of accounting and statistics would shift to accomidate just his style of thinking, everyone would say a individual using one to count was a uneducated fool, etc. We simply wouldn't tolerate it, and would have logical arguments to explain the justifications. However, his number theory list out (and not on the merits), so we approach numbers differently. I do not claim he actually did declare a formal fallacy, so please no one say that. I just used a classic philosopher and his idea as an analogy. Greeks and Romans did this very thing often.

Edited April 22, 2015 by Onasander

[Onasander]

To Caldrail.... Tiberius was adopted. Caesar's dynasty mostly adopted. I figured something fertility related, like the lead pipe theory for Rome's decline, was at play. But it wasn't uncommon prior to Caesar for this to happen. Adoptions happened in other Royal lineages.

 

Were now arguing a semantic variable so low I don't particularly care to fight it, as "as good as a monarch" more or less equals Monarchy, when you consider the variables inherent in monarchies around the world.... no monarchy is exactly the same, and the Romans didn't exactly use Salic Law. They were using a system borrowed from the republic to establish status via wealth and lineage, and this model came from a system of nobility from the Etruscans. As a Monarchy, they had a generally universally held right of royal houses to set their own inheritance laws.

 

I do recall (the name escapes me) one of the Julian-Claudian dynasty had to be locked up because he was excessively mad or brutal, more or less denied the post.

 

And the Senate could think whatever they wanted, they only had control of things to the extent the emperors wanted. I recall Marcus Aurelius reassuring the Senate they had Fiscal powers. That's a sign to every senator present that "hey, this guy will not interfer in us debating and enacting fiscal duties". Its not assured till the big guy says so, and if he changes his mind, you got a good excuse for pass actions.

 

A near modern parallel example, Soviet leaders, like American, always put on a insightful philosophical bent to their papers. Bush and even Obama did this, trying to express timeless principles of government, history, in the context of the present and the (respective) revolutions, and the ideas of the leaders before them. We had this trait in common.

 

In the Soviet Union however, freedom of speech wasn't in existence, and even some of Karl Marx's works were banned and suppressed. Generally, philosophers were employed by the state, and had the very hard position of trying to figure out how to come up with new ideas without antagonizing the leadership by accident. So.... they would follow the great leader's writings, and follow suit, expanding on ideas. It was relatively safe. Well, Stalin became the head guy, and Stalin put nothing out. He wasn't a theorist on much of anything, so Soviet Philosophy during his years more or less ceased, save for state directives to produce this or that kind of propaganda, or challenge the westerners on X, Y, and Z. There was only one exception, Stalin wrote a few papers on language. So, there was a explosion, in this very narrow area. It was the only area people felt safe to publish and openly debate about.

 

You gotta get your cues from the big guy, or at least have his go ahead, support for you or your clique. Romans didn't have much in the way of stable regulations and separations of powers, and as I've noted before, the emperors treated the senate like a occordian, expanding and contracting membership at will, sometimes violently.

[caldrail]

 

 

Tiberius was adopted. Caesar's dynasty mostly adopted. I figured something fertility related, like the lead pipe theory for Rome's decline, was at play.

Augustus only  had one child, the wayward Julia. Tiberius was the son of his wife Livia by her previous marriages. Since Augustus had no male heir he did what Romans traditionally did, and adopted male heirs. Adoption was a frequent part of Roman society because life was often short, and for some, a means of progressing in society.

 

 

 

"as good as a monarch" more or less equals Monarchy,

No, it doesn't, it means what it says. Augustus did not want the same accusations of kingship that Julius Caesar had to contend with and officially rejected that path. He found an alternative. That said, as I have repeated before, his 'rule' was not absolute, constitutional, or in fact empowered by the state. He merely kept a lot of armed men under his influence and demanded that people observe his social status. The traditional Roman government remained in place and did not recognise Augustus as a king, merely his status as First Citizen and the 'guidance' he provided (albeit grudging in many cases).

 

There are no modern parallels to this arrangement that I know of. No modern country would tolerate a general from a noble family telling their government what to do.

 

 

 

Romans didn't have much in the way of stable regulations and separations of powers

They had plenty. The rules enabled Augustus to dominate politics in the manner described.