But he would run up no new (corrugated iron or reinforced concrete) astral molds, nor smash down any old ones.  There should be no talk of a king, or, perpetual dictator.  Chief citizen, as you must have a chief,—­since a hundred years had shown that haphazard executives would not work. Primus inter Pares in the senate:  Princeps,—­not a new title, nor one that implied royalty,—­or meant anything very definite; why define things, anyhow, now while the world was in flux?  Mr. Stobart, who I think comes very near to showing Augustus as he really was, still permits himself to speak of him as “chilly and statuesque.”  But can you imagine the mob so in love with a chilly and statuesque—­tyrant, or statesman, or politician,—­as to besiege the senate-house and clamor for an extension of his powers?  And this chilly statuesque person was the man who delighted in sharing in their games with children!

Another reason why there was no talk of a king:  he was no Leader of a spiritual movement, but merely dealing with politics, with which the cycles will have their way:  a world of ups and downs, not stable because linked to the Heart of Things.  Supposing he should find one to appoint as his worthy successor:  with the revolutions of the cycles, could that one hope to find another to succeed him?  Political affairs move and have their being at best in a region of flux, where the evils, and especially the duties, of the day are sufficient therefor.  In attending to these,—­ performing the duties, fighting the evils,—­Augustus laid down the lines for the future of Rome.

He tried to revive the patriciate; he wanted to have, cooperating with him, a governing class with the ancient sense of responsibility and turn for affairs.  But what survived of the old aristocracy was wedded to the tradition of Republicanism, which meant oligarchy, and doing just what you liked or nothing at all.  The one thing they were not prepared to do was to cooperate in saving Rome.  At first they showed some eagerness to flatter him; but found that flattery was not what he wanted.  Then they were inclined to sulk, and he had to get them to pass a law making attendance at the senate compulsory.  Mean views as to his motives have become traditional; but the only view the facts warrant is this:  he lent out his personality, not ungrudgingly, to receive the powers and laurels that must fall upon the central figure in the state, while ever working to vitalize what lay outward from that to the circumference, that all Romans might share with him the great Roman responsibility of running and regenerating the world.  Where there was talent, he opened a way for it.  He made much more freedom than had ever been under the Republic; gave all classes functions to perform; and curtailed only the freedom of the old oligarchy to fleece the provinces and misdirect affairs.