Not to be content with what they had, but always to strive and fight for more, this had been the destiny of the Republic’s citizens—and it gave to Augustus and his mission a time-hallowed glow. In the Romans’ beginning was their end. In 29 BC, the same year that Octavian returned from the East to push forward his program of regeneration, Virgil started a poem on the theme of Aeneas. This was to become the great epic of the Roman people, an exploration both of their primordial roots and of their recent history. Like specters, famous names out of the future haunt the
