@Skallagrim
While you are right that Augustus does put the empire back together, you are wrong on who he is. He was not Caesar’s opposite he was the successor he upheld all Caesar did. He was not a conservative optimate but the descendant of populares. The conservatives who supported the rich oligarchs were purged by him and Antony. The only thing he was conservative about was sexual morality. He was not your ideal small government guy he increased the power of romes government.
In many cases, the Augustus figure is a monumental hypocrite -- albeit a very successful one -- who adopts a mantle of legitimacy, even as he alters it to suit his needs. In the event, Augustus himself was the heir of Caesar, and Caesar was murdered when he was still extremely popular.
Naturally, Augustus exploited this. That is not to say that he actually continued Caesar's policies. In fact, he went against them in key ways. The important fact is that he didn't adopt the policies of the (thoroughly defeated) Optimates, either. He left the ideological vendettas of the civil wars far behind, and got "back to business".
We must take care not to mistake the Opimates for "conservatives" (or rather, not to mistake them for
traditionalists). They are the established elite of the era. The Populares are the populist opposition. Augustus is neither. He is precisely the man who defeats all opponents and then leaves behind the factionalism of the civil wars. He does this through an appeal to tradition, which gains in legitimacy in turbulent times-- because people yearn for stability and the comfort of the known; the tried-and-tested.
To say that Augustus was only conservative about sexual morality is a profound error. Any decent study of his life will inform you that he consistently leaned towards tradition. Not just because that mindset suited him, but also because embacing it allowed him to maximise his own legitimacy. He wasn't throwing out all sorts of respectable institutions! No, sir: he was merely
restoring a lot of
even more ancient institutions. And if a lot of what he was "restoring" was partially or entirely made up... well, it helps when you're the one who commissions the definitive histories to be written, doesn't it?
Again, this is pure hypocrisy. But it
works.
If the plot against Caesar had failed, and he had been given a few decades to become a properly paranoid tyrant, then the ATL equivalent to Augustus would have defined himself as a sworn enemy of Caesar. But upon winning, his policies would have been near-identical to those of the actual Augustus. Because the policies that initiate the Principate phase of a civilisation are
always roughly the same! (Why? Simple: because the cyle of civil wars goes on until someone capable seizes power and implements such policies. Because they are the
only ones that work.)
And, certainly, they do involve shrinkig back the size of government. Why? Because in the preceding period, government has ballooned beyond reasonable proportions (as it has in our current age!) -- it has become larger than the underlying economy can realistically sustain. So for the age of chaos to end, and for properity to be restored, government
must be reduced. Which Augustus did. He certainly increased the power of his own position, and he greatly increased the government's efficiency. But he did not, as you suggest, incease the overall power or size of the government. He reduced its size, and he restored many liberties that had been lost in the civil war. He abolished quite a few of the useless odds and ends of the old administration, and he reformed the tax apparatus to not only streamline the system, but to reduce the tax burden substantially. He also significantly reduced the size of the military (which he could afford to do, with the civil wars put behind him).
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*The chaotic, jumbled screed of a confused mind*
The way you appear to talk to an imaginary audience, as if autistically narrating your warped view of what is actually being discussed, serves to underscore the revelation that you are evidently talking with (or rather: to) an imaginary version of myself. A version that, in your mind, is heard saying things I never claimed.
Take your delusions elsewhere, please.
I understand that references to
the topic of this thread may confuse you (indeed, many things appear to confuse you), but the fact is that you are creating a bizarre derail to spew your dogmatic nonsense about economics. You don't anwer arguments (in fact, you literally pretend they don't exist), and you veer off to rant maniacally about your pet obsession regarding free trade and its supposed evils. Just above, someone complained about derails, but that derail was minor compared to your persistent harping on this off-topic matter.
Seriously, take your obsession elsewhere. It's no crime for you to be ignorant of economics, but it's irritating when you then insist on ventilating your dogmatic views very insistently and repeatedly, in a thread not even about the subject, while actively complaining about all attempts to connect the tangent (or even steer it back) to the actual topic under discussion. (Although I understand your reluctance to discuss it, since you obviously don't grasp the issue. You even completely misinterpret my comments about the religious developments during the Principate to suggest that we're talking about intolerance, which I didn't mention. But then again, that idea of "religious universalism" meaning "intolerance" is another obsession of yours, so I shouldn't be too surprised...)
If you want to warble about the gospel of Keynes,
do start a thread about. I'll be sure to stay far away from it.