Economics fascinates me and seems a terribly important consideration for politics. Even early people taught their children how to make a living and the task of preparing the next generation for economic success seems like the most important priority for any government. Meanwhile, we're between the Democratic and Republican conventions and they seemingly prefer to talk about culture.
Economics gives us progress; culture gives us legacy. Politicians, who tend to be old men, prefer the latter. Progress is the concern of children - or would be, if they knew how dependent their future was on it.
For nearly five centuries, Rome was a Republic. At that time, no one person ruled. Julius Caesar began - and his heir completed - the task of turning Rome into an empire, something it remained until its fall about four centuries later.
Julius Caesar's heir eventually took the name Caesar Augustus. He'd had popular senators like Cicero assassinated, putting an end to dissent and the republic in which power was shared and debated. He defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra, driving them to suicide after revealing that Antony - with whom he'd shared power - was no longer a "real" Roman, having fallen in love with an Egyptian and written a will stating his wish to be buried with Cleopatra.
Augustus ended a republic, but gained a legacy.
The ancient Greeks had Homer. The Romans had Virgil. As the historian John Lewis Gaddis points out, "The Aeneid, unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey, is a commissioned work. Augustus encouraged its completion and subsidized its author." Virgil - unsurprisingly - made Augustus look good.
Augustus was the first to take the title, “Pontifex maximus,” which meant greatest priest. Every Roman emperor after did until that title was taken by the pope.
As Roman emperor when Christ was born, Augustus is also in the Bible.
Augustus was immortalized in Virgil’s Aeneid, the Bible, and the Catholic Church. Those legacies are almost minor, though.
The months September, October, November, and December indicated that they were the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth months in the Roman calendar. Before September came Sextilla, the sixth month of the Roman year. During his reign, Augustus had this sixth month renamed after him. 2000 years after his death, you say his name every time you mention August. Now that’s a legacy.
Progress depends on old men more worried about how their grandchildren will live than how they will be remembered, showing a greater concern for economics than culture. The thought of being an inescapable part of every summer, though, must be incredibly alluring.
For all the remnant glory of past generations, though, there is little evidence that per capita income rose at all between the time of Homer and Shakespeare. Glorifying any one person doesn't drive progress. For that you need to change the life of ordinary people.
As these conventions play out here in Augustus's month, worry less about how much they say about how great is their candidate (spoiler alert: they are really great) and listen more for how they will make life great for your children and grandchildren.
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