He had two friends, men of some genius both: Vipsanius Agrippa the general, and Cilnius Maecenas the statesman. Both appear to us as great personalities; the master whom they served so loyally and splendidly remains and Impersonality,—which those who please may call a ‘cold abstraction.’ While Octavian was away campaigning, Maecenas, with no official position, ruled Rome on his behalf; and so wisely that Rome took it and was well content. As for those campaigns, ‘luck’ or Agrippa won them for him; in Octavian himself we can see no qualities of great generalship. And indeed, it is likely he had none; for he was preeminently a man of peace. But they always were won. Suetonius makes him a coward; yet he was one that, when occasion arose, would not think twice about putting to sea in an open boat during a storm; and once, when he heard that Lepidus was preparing to turn against him, he rode alone into that general’s camp, and took away the timid creature’s army without striking a blow: simply ordered the soldiers to follow him, and they did. If he seems now a colorless abstraction, he could hardly have seemed so then to Lepidus’ legions, who deserted their own general—and paymaster—at his simple word of command. Or to Agrippa, or to Maecenas, great men who desired nothing better than to serve him with loyal affection. Maecenas was an Etruscan; a man of brilliant mind and culture; reputed somewhat luxurious when he had nothing to do, but a very dynamo when there was work.—A man, be it said, of great ideals on his own account: we see it in his influence on Virgil and Horace. In his last years some coldness, unexplained, sprung up between him and his master; yet when Maecenas died, it was found he had made Augustus his sole heir.—But now Augustus is still only Octavian, moving impassively and impersonally to his great destiny; as if no thing of flesh and blood and common human impulses, but a cosmic force acting;—which indeed the Impersonal Man always is.
What he did, seems to have done, or could not help doing, always worked out right, whether it carries for us an ethical look or no. The problems and difficulties that lay between that time and Peace flowed to him: and as at the touch of some alchemical solvent, received their solution. We get one glimpse of the inner man of him, of his beliefs or religion. He believed absolutely in his Genius (in the Roman sense); his luck, or his Karma, or—and perhaps chiefly—that God-side of a man which Numaism taught existed:—what we should call, the Higher Law, the Warrior, and the Higher Self. There, as I think, you have the heart of his mystery; he followed that, blindly,—and made no mistakes. In the year 29 B.C. it led him back to Rome in Triumph, having laid the world at his feet. He had been the bridge over that chasm in the cycles; the Path through all the tortuosities of that doubtful and wayward time; over which the Purposes of the Gods had marched to their fulfilment. He had been strong as destiny, who seemed to have little strength in his delicate body. With none of Caesar’s dash and brilliance, he had repeated Caesar’s achievement; and was to conquer further in spiritual