Augustus. Buchan John
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conscience. The one man of genius, Tacitus, also wrote long after the event, and, as was said of Carlyle, he “preferred seriousness to truth.”
Happily the imperfect literary sources can be supplemented by important archaeological and epigraphical matter. Since the envoys of the Emperor Ferdinand II first copied the Monumentum Ancyranum in 1555, every century has brought new discoveries. Papyri have made clear many points in the administration of Egypt, and inscriptions containing laws, edicts and senatusconsults have extended our knowledge of provincial government. The brilliant work of the excavators has shed new light upon Augustan sculpture and architecture. But, when all has been said, we have still scanty materials to estimate the man and his work. A principal guide must still be tradition; we know that succeeding ages believed certain things about him, and a long-continued belief cannot be without warrant.
A great scholar has written of the fallibility of all historical reconstruction: “The tradition yields us only ruins. The more closely we test and examine them, the more clearly we see how ruinous they are, and out of ruins no whole can be built. Tradition is dead; our task is to revivify life that has passed away. We know that ghosts cannot speak until they have drunk blood, and the spirits which we evoke demand the blood of our hearts. We give it to them gladly, and if they then abide our question something from us has entered into them.”1 I am conscious that my interpretation of Augustus is a personal thing, coloured insensibly by my own beliefs. But, since the historian is most at home in an age which resembles his own, I hope that the convulsions of our time may give an insight into the problems of the early Roman empire which was perhaps unattainable by scholars who lived in easier days.
I have been compelled to make large drafts on the kindness of my friends in Europe, and would especially thank for their generous assistance Professor Hugh Last of Oxford and Count Roberto Weiss.
J. B.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, OTTAWA.
1 Wilamowitz, Greek Historical Writing and Apollo, 26.
CONTENTS
III. THE BREACH WITH ANTONY: ACTIUM
THE EMPIRE UNDER AUGUSTUS
SOME BLACK JACKET BOOKS
LIBYAN SANDS
SERVICE OF OUR LIVES
ON ENGLAND
OUR INHERITANCE
SHALL WE JOIN THE LADIES?
THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON
MARY ROSE
QUALITY STREET
DEAR BRUTUS
A WINDOW IN THRUMS
MARGARET OGILVY
AUGUSTUS
HOMILIES AND RECREATIONS
THE KING’S GRACE
MONTROSE
MY MYSTERY SHIPS
THE LEISURE OF AN EGYPTIAN OFFICIAL
LADY ROSE AND MRS. MEMMARY
GREAT MOTHER FOREST
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP
THE CHARM OF BIRDS
THE HUNDRED YEARS
THE HUNDRED DAYS
THE VANISHED POMPS OF YESTERDAY
THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY
HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
GOOD-BYE, MR. CHIPS
TO YOU, MR. CHIPS
THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST
ENGLAND
SO SHALL YE REAP
SIXTY POEMS
SAILING ALL SEAS IN THE ‘IDLE HOUR’
THE HOME OF THE BLIZZARD
DAILY READINGS FROM THE MOFFATT TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE
A SHORTER VERSION OF THE MOFFATT TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE
FEAR AND BE SLAIN
HENRIETTA MARIA
GONE RUSTIC
EVEREST 1933
BORZOI
GINO WATKINS
THE VOYAGE OF THE ‘CAP PILAR’
WILD ANIMALS AT HOME
NANDA DEVI
THE GOSPEL OF THE HEREAFTER
A BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ LIFE OF CHRIST
MOUNTAINEERING HOLIDAY
AN ALPINE JOURNEY
CAMP SIX
KAMET CONQUERED
THE SPIRIT OF THE HILLS
OVER TYROLESE HILLS
AFTER EVEREST
ENDLESS