to do. Do not think that I was blind to the waste of sending to their deaths two otherwise decent, law-
abiding Roman citizens of good (albeit plebeian) birth. But it was not I who created this waste, and to
be fair, neither was it that of Potitius and Secundus. It was the Senators who insisted on this, who feign
that the Republic exists while accepting my reign over them. If I were simply a king, worthy equites
such as Potitius and Secundus could simply have begged boons from my hand, or performed service to
my royal stature, and been rewarded as they merited. It would have been open and honest, respecting
my august personage and their forthright loyalty. Instead, they felt obliged to go in for absurd lies to
signal the illusion of merit, and I was forced to pull the rug out from under them. And still the senators
will not understand.
It sickens the depth of my divine soul, this hidden monarchy, this illusion of a republic. I am the
third generation of my family to rule. Do I rule because of my human achievements? What human
achievements? Do I rule because I am trusted by the senators? Hilarious! No, I rule because of who and
what I am: Caius Julius Caeser Augustus Germanicus, the God of the Roman world. Yet I must pretend
to be a mere Princeps Senatus, who happens to be Pontifex Maximus, who happens to be imperator
with proconsular imperium. The senators who lick my boots for favor will not permit me a crown. Yet
when I restored elections, they were aghast. Offended, that I should empower the rabble they think
worthy of nothing but slaves. There's that for their love of liberty and tradition. They are swine in silks,
nothing more. They deserve every humiliation I rain on them.
It would be so much easier if we could simply restore the monarchy. I would rule as a humble
rex (and God, of course), guarunteeing to the senators and the people alike their due rights, acting
without restraint to secure Rome and her imperium. But they will not have it. They will re-enact the
stage-play Augustus wrote for them, again and again and again. How can they stand the monotony of
it? How does the gulf between their words and their actions not rip their minds in twain?