Things could be worse… It could be Octavian.

While the US Republican party (who lost the last two elections) seems bent on doing as much damage as they can to the country in a petulant tantrum, and things look bleak, we can at least say things today are better than Rome during the summer of 41 BCE.

That was when Octavian returned to Rome after he and Antony defeated Brutus, Cassius and the other assassins of Caesar. Octavian, only 22 years-old, was nominally in charge of the western empire by his rights of conquest (and the power he comm...