It was by this
fortunate accident that the young heir and adopted son of the first Caesar
not only escaped assassination, but was enabled to postpone indefinitely
the final and military struggle for the vacant seat of empire, and in the
mean time to maintain a coequal rank with the leaders in the state, by
those arts and resources in which he was superior to his competitors. His
place in the favor of Caius Julius was of power sufficient to give him a
share in any triumvirate which could be formed; but, wanting the formality
of a regular introduction to the people, and the ratification of their
acceptance, that place was not sufficient to raise him permanently into
the perilous and invidious station of absolute supremacy which he
afterwards occupied. The _felicity_ of Augustus was often vaunted by
antiquity, (with whom success was not so much a test of merit as itself a
merit of the highest quality,) and in no instance was this felicity more
conspicuous than in the first act of his entrance upon the political
scene. No doubt his friends and enemies alike thought of him, at the
moment of Caesar's assassination, as we now think of a young man heir-elect
to some person of immense wealth, cut off by a sudden death before he has
had time to ratify a will in execution of his purposes.
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