Rome

Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire in 27 BC, was a thoroughly ambiguous man: At once a republican and an autocrat, a conqueror and a peacemaker, he was the inventor of a tradition who governed like a sphinx. A biography has just come out that emphasizes the topicality of his reign.

How can political life be rendered moral? By reconsidering the supervision of mores (“regimen morum”) in Ancient Rome, Clément Bur demonstrates that virtue was long considered a necessary condition for preserving the authority of rulers over citizens.

In ancient Rome, the State did not meddle in the private religious lives of its citizens, even though the gods were part of the community and lived among them. The Roman religion accepted diverse forms of worship – provided that they did not seek to impose transcendence. In this essay John Scheid restores to the Roman religion its immanent and physical attributes.