We read in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel that “it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from CÆsar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.” The common version of the New Testament says, “taxed.” But the revised version, following more closely the original Greek, says, “enrolled.” It was what we call at the present day a registration, made in order that none should escape the subsequent taxation.

The sacred narrative continues. “All went to enroll themselves, every one to his own city.” Dr. James Stalker remarks:

“This does not seem a very thrilling fact with which to begin the Christmas story; it seems, even, prosaic. But when the stern emperor’s edict went forth there was one young woman’s heart which thrilled with the keenest dread. That was the heart of Mary of Nazareth, called of God to be the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. It meant for her a long hard journey of eighty miles, in the winter season, over the mountains and along the roughest paths; it meant that she must suffer pain and privation when she was frail in body and anxious in mind, and all because she could not escape going to Bethlehem to be enrolled. For she and her husband Joseph were both direct descendants of Israel’s best-beloved King, David, and must obey the law requiring people to go back to the city from which their family had first come and be enrolled and taxed there. So there was nothing for her but to set out on the difficult journey, this sweet and gentle maiden with her crown of supreme honor from God and her burden of human anxiety and pain.”

We can imagine one subject of the conversation between her and Joseph on the way. Their poverty and obscurity had hidden from public notice the fact of their lineage, so direct from David. But all the Jews were wont to preserve with great care everything pertaining to their genealogies, and it was especially the case with those whose certainty of Davidic descent gave them ground for hoping that the Messiah would appear in their own line. We may believe that Joseph took with him a copy of the official family records, those that Matthew and Luke have preserved for us, and that he pleased himself and Mary along the toilsome way with the thought that now their specially honorable descent would have to be in some measure publicly recognized. CÆsar Augustus himself had not so good a patent of nobility as had they. Although the dark shadow of that monarch was about to fall, by reason of this decree for enrollment, across the very beginning of the holy Child’s life, they were afterward to realize that God’s providence had been leading them and had caused human government to become an involuntary agent for bringing about the fulfillment of the prophecy that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem.

Now who was this CÆsar Augustus, that is assumed to have had so great authority in the whole world that at his bidding a registration had to be taken in every part of it? He was no less than the first sole master of Rome’s united empire, one of the most conspicuous figures in the history of the human race.

He had ascended the throne as the climax of a series of very startling and tragic events. Julius CÆsar,—that man so wonderful alike for military genius, political sagacity, and literary skill, to whom first the Roman Senate gave the imposing title of Imperator, and who, if he had lived longer, would probably have become all that this title later grew to mean,—had been assassinated by a group of conspirators at Rome in the year 44 before the beginning of the Christian era. These assassins claimed that they were doing a great service to the state by delivering it from the schemes of so ambitious a man; but none can deny that jealousy was among the motives that impelled them to commit the bloody deed, which took place in the building in the Campus Martius where the Senate that year convened, adjoining the Theater of Pompey, and we are told that it was at the feet of great Pompey’s statue that CÆsar fell. Mark Antony, who had been his colleague in the consulship and in the control of the army, dramatically pronounced a funeral oration after CÆsar’s death from the rostra in the Forum and then endeavored to make himself the successor to CÆsar’s remarkable power and popularity.

But just then a new and strong competitor for the military and political leadership appeared in the person of a young man only nineteen years of age, who is the subject of this sketch.

The name of this young man was at that time Caius Octavius. He was the son of a Roman noble of the same name and of his wife Atia,—who was a niece of Julius CÆsar. They lived in a modest home on the Palatine Hill. Caius Octavius was also Julius CÆsar’s adopted son, and had been chiefly educated under his provision and direction. Moreover, CÆsar had designated him as his heir.

Caius Octavius proposed, therefore, now to become the great dictator’s successor and avenger. He assumed the longer name, Caius Julius CÆsar Octavianus, and artfully secured,—first of all,—a pledge from a large part of the army to support and obey him. He found a great helper to his ambitions in the most distinguished statesman of that day, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Marcus Tullius Cicero also welcomed Octavianus to Rome, especially as he saw in this young aspirant a rival to Mark Antony, whom Cicero intensely hated. Indeed, that famous orator made exciting speeches against Mark Antony, which greatly impaired the influence of that commander.

Soon there was civil war. Octavian, as we may now call him, was on one side, Mark Antony on the other. In two battles the latter was defeated. He barely escaped with his life; and so Octavian now attained unto the superior authority, imposing his will upon the government and securing his proclamation as consul on the 22d of September, forty-three years before Christ.

Having reached this stage of success, Octavian began to plan the securing of the humiliation of Brutus and Cassius, who had taken part in the assassination of Julius CÆsar, and who, with their comrades, called themselves “liberators,” in view of their opposition to the concentration of power in one man. To rid himself of annoyance by them, Octavian needed all the help he could get. He now, therefore, took a most amazing step and one that betrayed his utter lack (at that time) of moral principle. He changed his attitude toward Mark Antony, conciliated his friendship, and actually succeeded in forming an agreement with him and with another ambitious competitor named Lepidus, who had also been a prominent military officer.

These three met together for three days on a small island in the river Rhenus, and there agreed to be a “triumvirate,” as they called it, for the reconstitution of the commonwealth. This triumvirate, which was to last for five years, was a most high-handed conspiracy,—an insult to the dignity of the Roman senate, a violation of many previous professions and alliances, and a tyranny over the rights of private citizens. Three hundred senators and two thousand knights were arbitrarily proscribed by the three usurpers of power. The estates of these victims were plundered and many of them were hunted to their deaths.

Each one of the triumvirate in this arrangement sacrificed some one of his friends to please the others. Thus, Octavian himself outraged all feelings of honor and justice by allowing Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose influence and advocacy had done great things in his behalf, to be put to death. This was a concession to Mark Antony,—or rather, to Mark Antony’s wife Fulvia, who, it is said, had cherished a bitter grudge against Cicero and now triumphantly and dramatically thrust a needle into the once eloquent tongue of the murdered man, when his bleeding head was exposed to view in the Forum. It was a horrible satisfaction of cruel spite!

The combined forces of Octavian and Antony soon met those of Brutus and Cassius in the famous battle of Philippi in Macedonia, a city far away from Rome, but made more memorable later by the imprisonment and deliverance there of the Christian missionaries Paul and Silas. As the result of their humiliating defeat in that battle, both Brutus and Cassius committed suicide. This was in November, forty-two years before Christ.

Octavian returned to Italy to receive great honors at Rome, and Mark Antony remained to be the ostentatious ruler of the East. But the latter soon became infatuated with the notorious Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt.

This woman played a large part in the case. She had come to Mark Antony at Tarsus in Cilicia to win him back from the wrath he had manifested because she had not sent aid to him and Octavian in their war against Brutus and Cassius. She made her appearance before him in the most sensational manner. In the summer of the year 41 B.C. she sailed up the river Cydnus in Asia Minor, on which the city of Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was situated. She was reclining upon a gilded couch, under a stately canopy, upon the deck of her galley, which was propelled by silver oars and purple sails. She was personating the goddess Venus, attended by the Graces and fanned by Cupids. Pipes and lutes discoursed delightful music and the air was perfumed with sweet odors. The Apostle Paul, when he was a youth at Tarsus, doubtless heard related this strange incident that had taken place in his native city two generations before his time. Mark Antony disgracefully became Cleopatra’s complete slave and, carried away by her insidious allurements, he yielded to her capricious dictation in many atrocious acts of oppression and cruelty.

There followed a period of disagreement and bloody conflict between Octavian and Mark Antony. It was connected with the appropriation of private lands in Italy in order to reward Octavian’s soldiers. The principal event in that short civil war was the siege and capture of the strong hill-town of Perusia (the modern Perugia), where an old Roman gateway still bears the name of the Arch of Augustus. I strayed out of that gate, I remember, on my visit to Perugia and looked up at the massive stones that frowned upon the modern intruder. At the period of history of which we are speaking Mark Antony was still in the East, but his brother, Lucius Antonius, leading an army in his behalf, occupied this famous old hill-town. Octavian encamped around it, and finally subdued it by siege and famine. It was only saved from plunder by his soldiers, after his capture of it, because it was set on fire by one of its own citizens, although many of these were put to death by the relentless victor.

In order to offset the injury to his prospects caused by this defeat of his brother and to carry out plots which he had been making with his allies in Italy, Mark Antony crossed the Mediterranean sea from the East, invaded Italy, and expected to fight with Octavian. But these plans were frustrated, because his soldiers and those of Octavian, having fought together at Philippi, were not enthusiastic for any such engagement with each other. Negotiations followed. A new treaty was made at Brundusium on the Adriatic coast. A new division of the world was mapped out between the two leaders, and the treaty was supposed to be confirmed by a notable marriage that then took place. This was between Mark Antony, whose wife Fulvia had died, and Octavia, the sister of Octavian. It was celebrated with great pomp and joy. Fond hopes were entertained on the occasion for an era of great peace and prosperity. The poet Virgil is thought to have celebrated this treaty of Brundusium in his famous Fourth Eclogue. In glowing language,—reminding us of the metaphors, if not of the spirit of Old Testament Messianic predictions,—he speaks of the birth of a predestined boy who should inaugurate a reign of peace and blessedness on earth. Exactly what boy he meant has been a subject of much discussion. Some Christians of the Middle Ages in their zeal claimed that he meant Jesus, the Christ; and, as he refers to the Sibyl of CumÆ as having foretold the happy period, her name, in a later age, was curiously coupled in the old Latin hymn “Dies IrÆ” with that of the psalmist David as giving her prophetic testimony:

And so, Raphael and Michaelangelo both depicted her as a prophetess in their Christian frescoes, now to be seen in Rome. There were so many Jews in Rome in Virgil’s time that he may have read the prophecy of Isaiah and may have caught something of his imagery; but it is not probable that in his lines he expresses anything more than an optimistic pagan’s general hope of a glorious prince and a brighter day.

After the festivities of his marriage with Octavia, Antony went back to his eastern domain, with larger projects and many promises. But it was not long before his profligate tastes again manifested themselves. Not even the thought of the noble character of his new wife, Octavia, could restrain him. He went on from one great folly to another. Although he came back once to southern Italy and renewed with Octavian, at Tarentum, the terms of “the triumvirate” for another five years, it was all in vain. The wily Cleopatra had again established her influence over him. Finally, at her instigation, he placed himself at the head of an oriental fleet and army and prepared to meet the forces of Octavian. The decisive battle between them was fought on the sea at Actium, northwest of Greece, on the 2d of September, B.C. 41. Antony was completely routed. He narrowly made his escape on the galley of Cleopatra, which opportunely appeared upon the scene for his rescue. Almost immediately, in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, both he and his infamous enchantress perished tragically by suicide.

Thus Octavian became the sole master of practically the whole world. Great success had been achieved by his army over the Parthians in the far East. Herod the Great, an IdumÆan, was confirmed about this time in his authority as King of Judea.

Jerusalem had been captured by the Roman general Pompey, in 63 B.C., and Judea had then become a part of the Roman province of Syria. The Roman control of it had, however, been intermitted until this time, when Herod entered it and reigned triumphantly. Several other important cities were also added to his domain. But it was only as a subject of Rome that he had this power. He was supported in his authority by the army of Octavian, and was expected to obey every beck and motion made to him by that emperor. His administration of the affairs of that country was vigorous and splendid, though it was characterized by revolting cruelties. It is interesting in this connection to remember how in early Old Testament days Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob, who henceforth supplanted him. There had often, since that day, been enmity between the children of Esau and the children of Jacob. Now, for a time, this prince from Edom, a descendant of Esau, sat upon the throne of Judea and reigned over the posterity of Jacob, albeit he was overshadowed and controlled, as we have seen, by Octavian—a mightier potentate than himself.

It was when Herod was king at Jerusalem in this way,—fawning upon the favor of Octavian and fearing to incur that monarch’s displeasure,—that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem.

The Messiah, whom prophets had foretold and whom the Jews were longing for, made His advent in the humblest way. The Prince of Peace came as a little child into a world of awful selfishness and cruelty and conflict. Herod must have died not long after that event. The sufferings of his final illness are thought to have exasperated his anxiety and cruelty and perhaps were among the causes which led to his ordering the slaughter, as described by Matthew, of the few young male infants in the village of Bethlehem, the number not being large enough to make the Jewish historian Josephus record the incident alongside of Herod’s other and more extensive iniquities. While that ruler alienated the affections of the Jews, yet he professed to be a Jew in religion and, with scrupulous care, rebuilt the temple at Jerusalem, which temple continued to stand during the ministry of Jesus and of the Apostles. After the death of Herod there was made among his sons a distribution of the provinces of Palestine by the emperor Octavian. It was because of fear of one of these sons, Archelaus, who ruled in Judea, that Joseph and Mary, returning with the young child from Egypt, did not go to Bethlehem, but turned aside and went to Nazareth in Galilee. Sextus, the son of Pompey, who had commanded a piratical fleet on the Mediterranean, intercepting ships bound from Alexandria to Italy, was conquered by the forces of Octavian and was slain. The reputed son of Julius CÆsar and Cleopatra, CÆsarion by name, was also put to death.

Octavian was now made Imperator, and Censor of the Empire for life. This does not mean that all of the forms of a republic were at once destroyed, but that the government was administered in the spirit of an absolute monarchy.

Octavian retained the family name of CÆsar, which was also assumed by his successors, as an official designation, even when they belonged to other lines of descent; just as are the modern titles of “Kaiser” in Germany and “Czar” in Russia, which are, indeed, derived from the Roman name.

Octavian was a man of great ambition and had overcome the violence and perfidy of others by often using their own methods. He was reserved in speech and bearing, and was somewhat simple in his manner of living. He had a large degree of coolness and self-control. He was shrewd, politic, and far-seeing in adapting means to his ends. He gathered all the lines of power into his hands almost before the people realized that he was doing it. We are told that he had under his direct management “the disposal of revenues, the movements of the army, the execution of the laws, the administration of internal reforms and the adjustment of foreign relations.” First the senators then the plebians yielded to him many of their long-cherished rights. Under his management the famed Republic became an empire; and he was the emperor indeed. His dominions extended from the Atlantic to Arabia and from the islands of Britain to the sands of Africa.

While Rome had been conquering the world she had been losing her liberties at home. Nothing had really been left of liberty except its name. But it must be admitted that, intense and stern as Octavian was in grasping after power, he showed wise moderation in its exercise. He reconciled the people to the loss of their freedom by securing to them greater material prosperity and many exciting amusements. He expended great sums on public roads and splendid buildings, sewers, reservoirs, bridges, quays, parks, gardens, and public offices in great profusion. Many of his associates followed his example and erected costly edifices, ornamented with columns and statues in marble and bronze. It was his boast that he had found Rome built of brick and would leave it made of marble. He patronized the arts and the sciences. He gathered around him men of brilliant talents,—statesmen, orators, philosophers, historians, painters, sculptors and poets. Vipsanius Agrippa, his prime minister, MÆcenas, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, besides many lesser lights, distinguished his reign and adorned his court. What the age of Pericles was to Greece and that of Elizabeth was to England the reign of this man was to the Roman empire. In religion he was not much more than a stoic philosopher, but he recognized the value of a religious faith among the people and so was glad to encourage them in the maintenance of pagan altars and temples, many of which he built. It is said that in the year 28 B.C. not less than eighty-two temples were rebuilt in Rome itself. He erected and restored the temple of Apollo upon the Palatine, and near it he established a splendid library. The Senate decreed that he should have the then unique title of Augustus,—THE AUGUST ONE. It was a title that Octavian’s successors tried to retain, but it has become his own special and superb designation in the pages of history, so that we now often forget that it was really only an adjective and not his proper name. The eighth month in the year was called August, in his honor, just as the seventh month had been called July, in honor of Julius CÆsar.

Augustus, as we must now call him, was the CÆsar for whom was named the city of CÆsarea, which Herod the Great built on the seacoast of Palestine, to be the political capital of that country, and which the book of the Acts has led us to associate later with the centurion Cornelius, in whose house the Apostle Peter preached. It was the home city of the Evangelist Philip and his four daughters (Acts xxi:8, 9) and the scene of Paul’s great speeches before the Roman governors, Felix and his wife Drusilla, Festus, and King Agrippa II, and his sister, Bernice. (Acts xxiv:24; xxv:13.) Herod, as another act of obsequious flattery, also built a marble temple to Augustus at Paneas, at one of the sources of the Jordan, near the base of Mount Hermon, at the place that his son Herod Philip II, the tetrarch, afterward rebuilt and called,—from the emperor and himself,—CÆsarea Philippi, whither Jesus Christ once came during his ministry, the most northern point he ever visited, and held one of the most significant conversations with his disciples.

My memory recalls with great pleasure the day when a little group of tourists in Palestine (one of which I had the privilege of being), there pitched after a weary day’s journey their white tents, amid desolation and fragmentary ruins, and gazed upon the spring waters rushing, fresh and cold, from the venerated cave under the hill. Around this cave some architectural niches for statues are cut into the natural rock, but the statues have long since disappeared. Its original name of Paneas, derived from the rustic god Pan, is now corrupted into Baneas. A massive castle of the crusaders frowns down from a great height, but in the valley only wrecks of man’s ambitious structures make a pathetic contrast with the beauties of nature. It was in that region, probably, on one of the foothills of Mount Hermon, that the Transfiguration took place.

If we turn to consider the family life of the Emperor Augustus, we learn that after one or two betrothals in his early youth, which engagements were not followed up, he married a lady of high rank named Scribonia, by whom he had one child, a daughter, named Julia. Afterward, when he was known as Octavian, and was one of the triumvirs, he either fell desperately in love with another man’s wife or he was swayed by his intense ambition at the time to ally himself with the aristocratic families of Rome. At any rate, he divorced Scribonia and carried off as his wife Livia Drusilla, who was the wife of a prominent citizen, Tiberius Claudius Nero. By him Livia had one son, who afterward became the Emperor Tiberius. She was soon to be the mother of another, the celebrated general Drusus. So far was Tiberius Claudius Nero from resisting her divorce from him to marry Augustus, that, it is said, he gave her a dowry and was present at the wedding. Some historians, indeed, think that it was in accordance with his own plans. He was old and infirm. His wife was only nineteen and he may have been glad to provide for her marriage, possibly, with the young and rising triumvir, and thus conciliate him to a better treatment of the aristocratic party.

However this may have been, it illustrates the loose Roman views of marriage in that day. It put Livia in a strange and trying position. Her own father had been among those aristocrats whom the triumvirs had proscribed and hunted. He had fought with Brutus and Cassius and had died by his own hand after being defeated with them by the army of Augustus at the battle of Philippi. Two years before this marriage Livia had fled from Italy with her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, to escape the vengeance of Octavian. Now she leaves the former to become the wife of the latter. She had to turn away for a time from her own son Tiberius and, three months later, when her child Drusus was born in the home of Augustus, this second son was sent to the house of his father, Tiberius Claudius Nero.

Serene and practical, Livia seems to have accepted the fate assigned her and endured all the sacrifices it involved. A few years later, however, when Tiberius Claudius Nero died, he appointed Octavian,—who had then become the Emperor Augustus,—the guardian of his sons, and Livia received them back and cared for them with a mother’s devoted solicitude. She seems truly to have won the admiration if not the affection of Augustus. He was proud of her ability, her faithfulness, her household thrift, her wise counsel in the affairs of state. They lived simply in their house upon the Palatine. It was devoid either of magnificent display or precious objects of art. The furniture was exhibited in the second century of our era and was wondered at for its plainness. She superintended personally the treatment of the wool, its distribution among the slaves, and its weaving for family use. Augustus never wore any togas that were otherwise made. Their several villas at Lanuvium, Palestrina, and Tivoli were all unpretentious. They sometimes entertained prominent people at dinner, but only on extraordinary occasions were there six courses served,—usually there being but three.

On one public occasion Augustus made a long speech in which he cited Livia as a model for the ladies of Rome. He set forth minutely the details of her household management,—what she did, how she dressed, at what expense, how she amused herself, and what amusements she deemed suitable for a person of her position. The Romans regarded her as the perfect type of an aristocratic lady. She seems to have been dignified and handsome in person, and thoughtful in spirit. Her two sons,—Tiberius and Drusus, the stepsons of Augustus,—were also very popular. Notwithstanding the outrageous wrong of her compelled divorce from her former husband, many annoyances from her stepdaughter Julia, and the temptations of a royal court, she maintained a strong and self-controlled character, and, during a married life of fifty years, kept to the last the affection of her husband. It is reported that he said to her at last, as he lay upon his death-bed:

“Preserve the memory of a husband who has loved you very tenderly.”

When asked at one time how she contrived to retain his affection, Dion Cassius tells us that she significantly replied:

“My secret is very simple: I have made it the study of my life to please him, and I have never manifested any indiscreet curiosity with regard to his public or private affairs.”

In all the life of the imperial court, not only in the reign of Augustus but, as we shall see, in that of her son Tiberius, the able and tactful management of this commanding lady was an important factor.

But, aside from his regard for Livia and in spite of all his wealth and power and the flattery of his subjects, Augustus was far from happy. He had been bereaved by death of many of those whom he esteemed and loved, such as Drusus, Caius and Lucius CÆsar. He was often the victim of mortification, sorrow and moroseness. His daughter, Julia, disgraced him by her immoral conduct. There was always incompatibility between her and Livia. His grandsons died soon after. He did not take much delight in the thought of his stepson, Tiberius, as his successor, and the marriage of Julia to Tiberius did not improve the situation. But the jealousies and intrigues of his court made for him constant trouble.

In his last days he made a generous will, distributing thereby gifts to many of those who had served him, including huge donations to the soldiers, to the public treasury, and to the populace. He also compiled a list of achievements by which the empire had been benefited under his reign and for which he had received public honors. This memorial he intended to be cast in bronze for the doors of the great mausoleum that he had built in Rome for his burial place. We are indebted for its preservation, however, to the Galatians, who, inhabiting a province in the heart of Asia Minor, had erected during the life of Augustus a temple in his honor at their city of Ancyra, the modern Angora. They obtained a copy of the memorial and inscribed it upon the walls of the vestibule of this temple; and there, though greatly marred and broken, it can be read even at the present day,—a fine record of the great monarch’s deeds.

It was the propensity of Augustus to use the vast riches at his disposal for the benefit of the people. Sometimes he distributed freely corn, wine, and oil and sometimes allowances in money. He asserted that he spent in gifts what was equivalent to the sum of twenty-six millions of dollars (American money). To these many other donations must be added; so that it has been reckoned that his expenditure for the benefit of the people amounted to ninety-one millions of dollars. Says Lanciani:

“Were we not in the presence of official statistics and of state documents, we should hardly feel inclined to believe these enormous statements.”

Augustus died at Nola in Campania, Italy, August 19, A.D. 14, when he was nearly seventy-six years of age. Before he died he had a long conversation with his stepson Tiberius. On the day of his death, when some friends entered his room, he said to them:

“Do you think that I have acted my part well on the stage of life? If you are satisfied, give me your applause!”

Soon after, he expired in the arms of his wife Livia.

“His body,” it is said, “was transported from village to village, from city to city, along the Appian Way by the members of each municipal council in turn. To avoid the heat, the procession marched only at night. At the foot of the Alban Hills the whole Roman knighthood had come out to meet the bearers. Thence, over the last ten miles of the road, the progress was like a triumphal one, till the bier was placed in the vestibule of the Palace on the Palatine Hill. Afterwards the body was carried to the Forum, to the space in front of the Temple of Julius CÆsar, where from the rostra a panegyric was read by Tiberius. Another oration was delivered at the opposite end of the Forum by Drusus, the adopted son of Tiberius. Thence the senators, the high priests, the knights, the army and a large part of the leading citizens continued the march by the Via Flaminia to the Ustrinum, or enclosure for cremation. Officers and men threw on the pyre the decorations which Augustus had awarded them for bravery, and the torch was applied by the captains of the legions which he had often led to victory.”

Five days afterward Livia and the chief men of the Equestrian order gathered up his ashes and bore them to the Mausoleum.

During the lifetime of Augustus he had been venerated as a god in the provinces; now he was actually worshiped in Rome itself. Adoration was paid to him in many private homes. He also had a cult, sanctuaries, and a priesthood assigned to him. Livia became the special priestess of the new divinity.

There have come down to us, in a remarkable state of preservation, many statues, medallions, busts, and coins, which have kept for us his face, his form, and his bearing. In the Hall of Busts in the Vatican Museum we have that beautiful head which was found at Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, in 1808.2 It is admired by all, and is always spoken of as “the Young Augustus.” It represents the future emperor with a prominent nose, an intellectual forehead, wavy hair, a rounded chin, and an expression both thoughtful and amiable. What was he thinking of when the sculptor caught his expression? Had he premonitions of the successes and responsibilities before him? Our knowledge of his subsequent career illuminates for us his marble features. They have an attractive ideality, which we can hardly associate with one who afterward became such a stern warrior; and we are drawn to him for the moment with tender sympathy and exalted hopes.

Without stopping to describe other figures of him, it is interesting to contrast this one with that splendid full-length marble statue, also in the Vatican, which was not discovered until 1863. It was found buried in the ruins of the villa of his wife, Livia, seven miles from Rome. This also bears every mark of being a portrait from life. How impressive that it has been hidden in the earth for so many centuries, during which many kingdoms have risen and fallen; and now it has been brought forth, almost like a resurrection, and we can stand, as it were, face to face with him! It shows him to us in all his majesty, late in his career, when he had become the grand master of the world. He stands in a calm and commanding attitude, bearing his weight on his right foot, wearing his military breastplate, with drapery carefully arranged around his hips and thrown over his left arm. His left hand carries a scepter, while his right is extended as if he were deliberately addressing his army. The countenance bears the stamp of much experience and of deep seriousness, if not of anxiety. He seems to be oppressed by the weight of empire. On his breastplate or cuirass, which appears to be copied from the metallic original worn by him, are seen Greek designs, which have been compared with cameos for the beauty and delicacy of their detail. The central group of these embossed figures represents a Roman general receiving some military standards from a conquered foe. It is very probably commemorative of the victory won by the Roman army over the Parthians about 17 B.C., when Augustus had deputed his stepson Tiberius to carry on the campaign and afterward to secure in a formal manner from Phraates, the king of the Parthians, those bronze eagles that the Parthians had taken away from the Roman general Crassus and his soldiers more than thirty years before. That defeat had been a bitter recollection to the Romans ever since it occurred, and the restoration of the standards was a matter of corresponding rejoicing. They were sent to Rome, where they were placed by Augustus in the Temple of Mars Ultor. It seems probable that this statue was carved soon after that time, about 17 B.C. On the two sides of the representation, bent over in sorrow, sit two symbolical figures, the probable genii of two conquered nations. Near the neck of the cuirass appears the god CÆlus emerging from the clouds, holding a scarf blown by the wind and arching above his head, while before him Apollo riding in his chariot reminds us of the figures of Guido’s famous fresco of Aurora on the ceiling of the Rospigliosi Casino in Rome.3 No figure could better personify the conscious gravity of universal lordship than does this stately statue of Augustus. When first discovered some portions of it bore traces of coloring. A little cherub riding upon a dolphin is placed against the right foot, supporting the work and, by contrast, setting forth its dignity.

I have spoken of the great buildings erected in the time of Augustus. Notwithstanding the fact that the medieval Romans made the ancient ruins of their city such a quarry for building material out of which to construct their palaces, some evidences of this emperor’s noble edifices still exist. The Regia, or Royal House (of which now only a few traces are found), in the Forum, had been the residence of the rulers of the early Roman kingdom and afterward of the leaders of the Republic; but, as Augustus had been born upon the Palatine and as that historic hill afforded a much more spacious and commanding site, the people,—when they made Augustus Imperator twenty-eight years before Christ,—there erected for him a splendid palace. Foundations of this building, which are probably not yet fully excavated, are still to be seen.

The beautiful mosaic pavements and frescoed walls of some of the chambers of the house of Livia his wife can also be visited on the Palatine Hill. This is the only building of its kind in the midst of the ruined palaces of the emperors. Livia had received it from her first husband, the father of Tiberius, and to it she retired after the death of her second husband, Augustus. A flight of six steps descends to the marble floor, which is laid out in patterns. From this three chambers can be entered. The paintings upon the plastered walls of the dining-room and sitting-room are very artistic in design and coloring. They are among the most ancient paintings in existence. They represent mythological scenes and characters,—Mercury, Polyphemus, and Galatea, with fruits, flowers, masks, and sacrificial offerings. Some of the tints are still bright, and suggest a homelike warmth. The triclinium or dining-room is recognizable by an inscription.

Near the Tiber we have the five columns and other parts of the Portico of Octavia, which was erected by Augustus and dedicated to his sister Octavia. In the days of the republic, porticoes or open colonnaded buildings for public resorts had been almost a rarity; but Augustus introduced a fashion and taste for them. In less than twenty years the Campus Martius (now covered by modern Rome) is said to have been full of them. They added much to the architectural splendor of the city. The Portico of Octavia is said to have had three hundred columns, enclosing a court with temples to Jupiter and Juno.

The massive architecture of what is left of the Theatre of Marcellus, in the same region, reminds us of Octavia’s son, to whose memory Augustus dedicated it. Twelve arches of the outer circular wall are now used as blacksmiths’ and other shops. The lower story is partly sunk in the earth. Its columns are much battered. Its arches and capitals are also badly bruised. In the eleventh century it was used as a fortress. Afterward a palace was built on the mound of rubbish within it. The historian Niebuhr, when he was the Russian ambassador, occupied it as his home.

The temple of Mars Ultor (Avenger) is another of the buildings of Augustus. Before the battle of Philippi, which was such an important turning-point in his career, he made a vow that should he be victorious he would build a temple to Mars the Avenger, because the assassination of his foster-father Julius CÆsar would be avenged by such a victory over Brutus and Cassius on that occasion. With the fulfillment of this vow he combined the construction of a new Forum, or public exchange, for Rome.

These noble edifices were sometimes in later centuries degraded to very commonplace uses. The Portico of Octavia, for example, was for many generations and until lately used as a fish market. The buildings mentioned were all large and costly constructions. As Augustus deposited in the Temple of Mars Ultor the rescued standards of Crassus, so for several generations victorious generals stored away their insignia in the same place. One of its features was a gallery of statues of the military heroes whose victories had enlarged the territory and glory of the empire. The costly pavement of the Forum now lies twenty feet below the present level of the ground. It requires an effort of the imagination to reconstruct the ancient scene from the old, soiled fragments. Yet it can be done by the student of all the surroundings; and future excavations will reveal much more. For a people among whom the army and war were so important, the Temple of Mars was a center of the greatest interest. Its beauty is described as of the highest sort. Augustus says in his will that the Roman citizens who fought under his orders numbered five hundred thousand. At the time of his death one hundred and sixty thousand Roman citizens were still serving under the flag. The number of men-of-war captured, burnt or sunk is stated at six hundred.

But Augustus honored peace no less than war. He thrice took the census of Rome, showing an increase of the inhabitants from four millions sixty-three thousand to nearly five millions. In the inscriptions, already referred to as existing in the ruins of the temple of Angora in Asia Minor, he tells us that in the year 13 B.C. the Senate ordered an altar to be built in the Campus Martius to the divinity Pax Augusta (Augustan Peace), upon which magistrates, priests, and vestal virgins might offer a yearly sacrifice. In after ages this altar became covered with rubbish and above the rubbish was accumulated in time a cemetery belonging to the adjoining church of San Lorenzo in Lucina. But this cemetery, it is said, was ten feet below the present level of the city. In the latter part of the thirteenth century, over it and over the altar of Peace beneath it Cardinal Evesham built a palace, which has since passed through various hands. In the early part of the sixteenth century five carved panels of remarkable beauty were brought to light from this ground. Other pieces were found, but were carried to various places,—even to Paris, Vienna, and England. It was not until about the beginning of the present century that it was proved that they belonged to the famous Augustan Altar of Peace. Excavations have since been made upon the original site, sixteen feet below the street level.

Vaulted passages have been constructed, so that it is possible to pass along two sides of the altar’s foundation; and at the end of one of these passages, practically embedded in earth and rubbish, may be seen to-day a most beautifully carved panel showing a sacrificial procession. The altar stood upon a platform three and one-quarter feet high and measuring nineteen and a half by eleven and one-half feet. It was approached by steps on four sides. All this was placed in the midst of a sacred area thirty-eight feet by thirty-five feet, enclosed by marble walls elaborately carved in relief on both sides. Among the representations is a procession moving toward a sacrificial scene. The figures are characterized by great dignity and their drapery is arranged to produce a graceful effect. Augustus himself and many of the persons high in rank and power during his reign are grouped as if in conversation. It is evident that the whole structure was a most highly wrought and artistic composition, a fitting monument to him whose boast it was that he had secured unity and peace throughout his empire and had caused the gates of Janus, the god of war, to be closed for a long time. Professor James C. Egbert, of Columbia University, in his description of this altar in the “Records of the Past” for 1906, to which I am indebted, thus described two of the panels, which are now in the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence:

In one of these there are two family groups both marked by the presence of husband and wife. The tall young man on the left is Drusus, who died B.C. 9, greatly mourned by the emperor and the people. He wears a military cloak, as he has left his command in RhÆtia to attend the dedication of the altar. His wife, the beautiful Antonia, stands immediately before him and their conversation is interrupted by the warning gesture of the figure between, who calls for silence lest they mar the sanctity of the occasion. The child at their feet is either Germanicus or the later emperor, Claudius. The group to the right may be Tiberius and his wife Julia, whom he, much to his disgust, was compelled to marry after the death of her former husband, Vipsanius Agrippa. The wife may be the sister of Antonia in the first group. Then the husband would be Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the grandfather of Nero. Vipsanius Agrippa played a very important part in bringing about the reign of peace and we should expect to find him among the members of the imperial group. The central figure in another panel has been recognized as Agrippa because of the distinction suggested by the repose of the countenance. Some see here a sadness of expression natural to one who has suffered much. He is preceded by a young man who bears on his shoulder the official ax, for Agrippa appears here as a high-priest. The boy grasping his toga is Lucius CÆsar, his son, and the beautiful woman on his left may be Julia, his wife, or Vipsania Agrippina, his daughter.

To this description we may add that such graceful and charming sculptures, with their portraits of leading personages, could not have been unveiled to the Roman public without awakening great admiration.

To the period of Augustus also belongs the foundation, at least, of the Pantheon. His prime minister and son-in-law, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, erected a temple, twenty-seven years before Christ, at the north end of the warm baths, which he had established here in the Campus Martius. It was dedicated to several gods. It has often been repaired and probably altered and enlarged by restorations. The emperors Hadrian, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla all contributed to its preservation and development. In antiquity the portico was reached by five steps, which are now covered by the rising of the ground. Since A.D. 609 it has been consecrated as a Christian church. Notwithstanding this, in A.D. 663 Constans II, emperor at Constantinople, carried away to his city the gilt-bronze tiles of the roof.

Throughout the middle ages this temple was prized as the palladium and emblem of Rome. The main part of the building is circular in form,—the height and diameter of which are said to be equal, each being one hundred and forty-two feet,—and is composed of that concrete that the ancient Romans knew how to make so lasting. It is lighted by an uncovered aperture, thirty feet in diameter, in the center of the dome, rimmed by an elegant ancient cornice of bronze. The rich columns of different kinds of marble and the other decorations of the interior are most imposing, and correspond well with the stately Corinthian portico which forms the front of the edifice and under which once stood colossal bronze statues of Augustus and Agrippa.

The five front steps by which it was entered in ancient times, are now covered by the raising of the ground all around the building. The entrance is still closed by the ancient massive, bronze doors. In 1632 Pope Urban VIII, one of the Barberini family, took away the bronze columns and ceiling of the portico to make out of them the elaborate pillars which support the canopy of the high altar in St. Peter’s, and also cannon for the Castle of St. Angelo. This occasioned the circulation of a popular epigram of Pasquin. “What the Barbarians did not do the Barberini did.”

The Pantheon is the noblest and best preserved building of ancient Rome,—the only one, indeed, having both its walls and vaulting intact, and it is still closed by its ancient heavy bronze doors. Lord Byron’s lines concerning it are well worth quoting because of the conciseness of his description.

It is not strange that it was deemed the most fitting place for the burial of the great artist, Raphael, and for that of the King of United Italy, Victor Emmanuel.

Of the former event the poet Rogers says:

Victor Emmanuel’s tomb is always covered with wreaths, tributes by the living to his honor.

The remnants of the great mausoleum of Augustus,—in which not only he but many of his successors were interred,—are not now sought out by many except students of antiquities. The last of the emperors buried here was Nerva. Near the river Tiber, on what was then the Campus Martius or field of Mars, on a great platform of stone, now beneath the ground, rose the huge circular building of two stories, in which were the chambers for the dead. Augustus was buried in the central chamber, which was covered with a dome. From this radiated fourteen smaller ones, most of which can now be traced, though in a ruined condition. Above these was a pyramidal mound of earth in terraces planted with cypress trees and surmounted with a large statue of the emperor himself. The whole was surrounded by an attractive park.

For centuries the monument was well known to the people. War, earthquake and neglect have now made its ruins one of the least conspicuous sights in Rome, but some will ever find in them a deep pathetic interest. After some searching I found the entrance to them not far from the Via Di Ripetta. Upon my application, the custodian, who was an old woman, admitted me from a sort of court, where I could look up at a part of the circular exterior and where there was a fountain at the side. An inscription tablet let into the wall informs the visitor (in Latin) that here is the western wall of the mausoleum of Augustus disclosed by the removal of buildings. What seemed to be electric wires, stretched down along the side of the building, suggested a curious connection between the beginning of the first century and the beginning of the twentieth. Within the structure I paced the corridors, gazed at the arched ceiling, and could see out through the large windows into the central space. In the twelfth century the central dome was thrown down by an earthquake. Afterward the center was used as an open-air arena and was occupied by a popular circus until a few years ago. At the time of my visit it was a storehouse for the great plaster models for the sculptures to be placed on the new monument that was building to the memory of King Victor Emmanuel. The Egyptian obelisks, forty-five feet high, which stood before the entrance in the first century, now are to be found, one of them in front of the Quirinal Palace,—which is the royal residence,—and the other one in the square by the great church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Thus, long ago rifled of its contents, the burial-place of the celebrated master of the ancient world has stood for centuries, broken and neglected.

Since the time I was there, however, a new interest in it has awakened and a change has been made. The circular interior has been cleared out, and furnished with platform and seats. It has become a place again of public entertainment and is known as The Augustean. Orchestral concerts of a high order are there performed. In the interlude of the music the visitor can ponder upon the march of the nineteen centuries which have passed away since the walls around him were erected.

Augustus had been upon the throne about twenty-four years when Jesus was born. That holy Child had come to share our lot and to reveal clearly to men the knowledge of the Heavenly Father at a time when all its political kingdoms had thus become consolidated by force or treaty under one name of power, when better conditions and roads were preparing for the diffusion of Christianity, and when men were beginning to dream that there might be such a thing as a common loyalty to one great sovereign. Was it too difficult a step as yet for their minds to take from the contemplation of a universal dominion to the doctrine of a universal brotherhood? The quiet and unobserved beginning of our Lord’s spiritual and gracious mission was thus put in striking contrast with the outward magnificence of the world’s great conqueror, and the purely spiritual methods of the Gospel with the noisy forces of a ponderous army.

When Augustus died Jesus was about eighteen years old. In a time of such infrequent communication between distant places a quiet town in Galilee, like Nazareth, would have slight relations with any higher authority than Herod. Yet Jesus must have often seen in his boyhood Roman military standards and groups of soldiers. He must have gazed with eager interest and curiosity upon their strong armor and shining weapons and watched with wonder their well-ordered movements. Roman coins must have been familiar objects to him, with their medal and superscriptions of the reigning monarch. He must have often discussed with his companions the various pieces of news that came from time to time from the great metropolis of the Empire. The death of the emperor in Italy, and the succession of Tiberius to the throne, as these were announced by couriers throughout the realm, must have stirred in him many serious reflections and exalted aspirations, many thrilling purposes of righteous zeal and tender love for men. Along with his gradual increase of knowledge as to the wide extent of CÆsar’s magnificent empire, there developed in his mind the sublime conception of the Kingdom of God, his prophetic vision of its blessed sway, and his consciousness that he himself was to be the Messianic King.

Never will the thoughtful part of the world finish the study of that wonderful life, the childhood and the youth of which were among the things that came to pass in the days of CÆsar Augustus.