For a just view of the character of Augustus, it is important to decide how far he acquiesced in the cruelties of the proscription. With the general policy he seems to have been in full accord; and as far as a complete vengeance on those implicated in the murder of Iulius was concerned, he was no doubt inexorable. But his administration as sole head of the state was so equitable and clement, that many found it difficult to believe that he did more than tacitly acquiesce in the rest of the proscriptions. Augustus himself, in the memoir left to be engraved after his death, omits all mention of them, and conveniently passes from the legal condemnation of the assassins to the assertion that he spared the survivors of Philippi. Paterculus only alludes to them in a sentence, which contains a skilful insinuation that Augustus only joined in them under compulsion. Appian makes no distinction between the three. He tells us, indeed, some stories of mercy shown by Augustus, and of his expressing approbation of acts of fidelity on the part of friends or slaves. But he also credits Antony with at least one act of a similar kind. Plutarch says that most blame was thought to attach to Antony, as being older than Cæsar and more influential than Lepidus. Dio goes more fully into the question. He affirms that Antony and Lepidus were chiefly responsible for the proscriptions, pointing out that Octavian by his own nature, as well as his association with Iulius, was inclined to clemency; and moreover, that he had not been long enough engaged in politics to have conceived many enmities, while his chief wish was to be esteemed and popular; and lastly, that when he got rid of these associates, and was in sole power, he was never guilty of such crimes. The strongest of these arguments is that which claims for Cæsar’s youth immunity from widespread animosities; and it does seem probable that outside the actual assassins and their immediate supporters, Augustus would not personally have cared to extend the use of the executioner’s sword. But he cannot be acquitted of a somewhat cynical indifference to the cruelties perpetrated under the joint name and authority of the triumvirs. None of them have been directly attributed to him, except perhaps in the case of his (apparently unfaithful) guardian Toranius; but neither is there any record of his having interfered to prevent them. Suetonius seems to give the truer account, that he resisted the proscription at first, but, when it was once decided upon, insisted that it should be carried out relentlessly. The proscription was an odious crime; but a proscription that did not fulfil its purpose would have been a monstrous blunder also. I do not, however, admit Seneca’s criticism that his subsequent clemency was merely “cruelty worn out.”[169] The change was one of time and circumstance. Youth is apt to be hard-hearted. With happier surroundings and lengthened experience his character and judgment ripened and mellowed.

While these horrors were just beginning Cæsar lost his mother Atia, the tender and careful guide of his childhood and youth, the first of his near kin to recognise and approve his high destiny. She died while he was still consul, that is, between the 19th of August and the 27th of November, B.C. 43. Devoted to her in her life Cæsar now obtained for her the honours of a public funeral. During the campaign of Mutina she was, it seems, at Rome; and when his estrangement from the Senate made her position unpleasant or dangerous, she had taken sanctuary with the Vestal Virgins accompanied by Octavia, and was ready to greet him when he returned to Rome. Nicolas of Damascus gives an attractive picture of Octavian’s relations with his mother; and even the uncomplimentary Suetonius owns that his dutiful conduct to her had been exemplary. She had brought up her son with strictness, and the author of the de oratoribus classes her with the mother of the Gracchi. But her strictness had not forfeited her son’s affection, nor failed to impress upon him a high sense of duty. Her second husband Philippus survived her several years.[170]