By becoming ‘Augustus’ he signalled his choice. He would rule not against the grain of the Republic but with it. He would instruct his countrymen in an ancient lesson: that ambition, if not pursued for the general good, might be a crime. And he himself, the ‘best guardian of Romulus’ people’,27 would revitalise the ideals of citizenship so that never again would they over-reach themselves and degenerate into savagery and civil war.
