Disappointments and sorrows have taught me the vanity of human expectations, quieted the exultings of youthful hope, and cooled the ardour of anxious desire.

By means of statues and coinage depicting his wife Livia in the guise of Ceres and himself in the Cereal crown of the Arval Brethren, Augustus implied that his own godlike charisma helped keep the plebeians fed […]

But this is not the best:—look, pr'ythee, Charmian, / How this Herculean Roman does become / The carriage of his chafe.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.