Word: augustus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There was no simple touchstone, no all-embracing word to sum up the world organization that emerged this week from San Francisco. Augustus had sought the security of his world through Roman "justice"; Gregory through Christian "brotherhood"; Napoleon through "law" and the Grand Army; Metternich through "legitimacy"; Wilson through "democracy." The San Francisco conference had no comparable key; it just said "security." By stressing the goal rather than the path, it opened the door to all opportunities-and to all contradictions...
Perhaps that was the only way. In spite of radio, cables, telephones and the airplane, the world of 1945 was a far more various world than that of Augustus or even of Wilson. The oilcans, the machine guns, the bomb-wrecked homes looked alike. But the aspirations of men, from land to land, were vastly different. All wanted security ("Give peace in our time, O Lord"). But on what other fundamental did they agree? Area of Agreement. Yet for nine weeks, and in surprising amity, the delegates at San Francisco labored together. One thing they had in common-nationhood...
...ships of the imperial squadron were heading for the Adriatic port of Brundisium (Brindisi). The largest ship carried vast purple sails; its prow bore a golden lion's head. Lounging in a tent beneath the ornamented rigging was Augustus Octavian Caesar, Emperor of Italy, Gaul and the lands of the Nile. Lying on a pallet in the next ship was the Roman poet Virgil, coughing 'blood and clutching the manuscript of his unfinished masterpiece, The Aeneid...
Virgil was dying. He would have preferred to die abroad, in peace. But his friend the Emperor had discovered him in Athens and brought him home again. Was it simply because Augustus feared the loss of the epic poem which celebrated his great deeds and the spirit of Rome? Or was it also because fate had ordained that by dying among his own people in Italy, Poet Virgil would learn the supreme lesson of his life...
Through Misery Street. 'At Brundisium, slaves raised Poet Virgil's gilded litter to their shoulders, marched off toward Augustus' palace. The road led through the slum of Misery Street...