Status Updates From Augustus

“I fancied myself perfectly cynical, I thought ambition of any kind terribly vulgar, I was an inveterate gossip, and no one took me at all seriously.”

Every other dude’s name in this story is Marcus.

“we too easily assume a superiority to the "barbarians" of the West who are pleased to call themselves our masters. (I am, you see, becoming somewhat less the philosopher and somewhat more the man of the world.)… there is a kind of vitality here in Rome that a year ago I could not have been persuaded was even remotely attractive. A year ago, I had only heard of Rome; now I have seen it”