Yet it was
the whole Roman people that conferred upon him his title of _Augustus_.
But Sir William, ascribing no force to the acts of a people who had sunk
so low as to exult in their chains, and to decorate with honors the very
instruments of their own vassalage, would not recognise this popular
creation, and spoke of him always by his family name of Octavius. The
flattery of the populace, by the way, must, in this instance, have been
doubly acceptable to the emperor, first, for what it gave, and secondly,
for what it concealed. Of his grand-uncle, the first Caesar, a tradition
survives--that of all the distinctions created in his favor, either by the
senate or the people, he put most value upon the laurel crown which was
voted to him after his last campaigns--a beautiful and conspicuous
memorial to every eye of his great public acts, and at the same time an
overshadowing veil of his one sole personal defect. This laurel diadem at
once proclaimed his civic grandeur, and concealed his baldness, a defect
which was more mortifying to a Roman than it would be to ourselves, from
the peculiar theory which then prevailed as to its probable origin.
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