Here ends the old Roman history: the last contest was the death struggle, and from henceforth the history changes its character. Here I hope also to end my (large) work. The events which followed, down to the fall of the empire, may most suitably be divided into the histories of the several emperors, the first of whom the ancients themselves quite rightly deemed Augustus to have been; for Augustus he was now already called. Yet there is still to be described the transition from an usurped _tyrannis_ into a regularly constituted monarchy. ROME A MONARCHY. EASURES OF AUGUSTUS FOR THE CONSOLIDATION OF HIS POWER. Augustus had already been more than once invested with the consulship. His first was in 709; the second, which he immediately afterwards resigned, was ten years later; two years afterwards came his third; the others, down to the eleventh, followed year by year: he was altogether thirteen times consul. It was soon after the end of the war of Actium, that he behaved as if he wanted to lay down his power as dictator. This was, as every body knew, a farce; nor could he have been taken at his word, as the whole army had sworn obedience to him, and besides the soldiers, no citizens were under arms. And no man in his senses could have wished him to resign his authority: for, if under far more favourable circumstances, when very many eminent men were living, and people were still quite accustomed to the republic, the free constitution had not been able to stand its ground, and the state was ruled by individuals; how should it now have held its own, if Augustus had given up his power: some one else, and very likely some more unworthy person, would have been placed at the helm; and thus there would only have arisen new civil wars. The senate therefore may have been quite in earnest when beseeching him; and Augustus may also have put on a serious face, as he hoped thus to have his former cruelties forgotten. To show the exact date of the rise of his power might be impossible, or at least very difficult. The name of _Imperator_ was now—this was a peculiar form of flattery—given him as a _prænomen_; so that instead of C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus, he was now called Imperator Julius Cæsar Octavianus: from thence, _Imperator_ was always the _prænomen_ of the Roman emperors; as we may see from the coins. In the second century, this was forgotten: in official style indeed one said Imperator Antoninus Augustus, but otherwise Imperator M. Antoninus Augustus as well. Octavian in fact wished to have Romulus as a kind of _agnomen_; but as some took umbrage at this, it was resolved on the motion of L. Munatius Plancus—who now distinguished himself by his flatteries, just as had been done among the Greeks with regard to their Macedonian rulers—to call him Augustus, which the Greeks at once translated into Σεβαστός. The dictatorship was offered to him; but he declined it: this may have been owing to superstition, from which he was not free.