"Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young"
About this Quote
Authority is being staged here as a relay race: Augustus doesn’t just ask to be heard, he frames listening as a tradition with pedigree. The line’s slyness is in its self-credentialing. “Hear an old man” sounds humble, almost pastoral, but the second clause snaps the leash tight: he was the young man other old men listened to. Obedience is presented not as submission to one ruler, but as joining an intergenerational chain of deference that somehow always leads back to him.
That doubling is the trick that made Augustus so durable. As Rome’s first emperor in all but name, he governed a city allergic to kings and haunted by civil war. His public persona leaned on restraint and continuity: restorer, father, caretaker of mos maiorum. This sentence performs that politics in miniature. It offers youth a role (receptive, teachable) and offers age a justification (experience), while quietly erasing the messy fact that Augustus’ authority was also built on force, patronage, and the careful monopolizing of institutions that once checked any single man.
The subtext is a warning disguised as counsel. In a world where “young men” could mean ambitious nobles with armies or street-level factions, listening isn’t just polite; it’s stabilizing. Augustus sells stability as wisdom, and wisdom as inevitability: if elders listened to him when he was young, the proper order is proven, almost natural. It’s propaganda with a grandfatherly voice, the empire speaking as common sense.
That doubling is the trick that made Augustus so durable. As Rome’s first emperor in all but name, he governed a city allergic to kings and haunted by civil war. His public persona leaned on restraint and continuity: restorer, father, caretaker of mos maiorum. This sentence performs that politics in miniature. It offers youth a role (receptive, teachable) and offers age a justification (experience), while quietly erasing the messy fact that Augustus’ authority was also built on force, patronage, and the careful monopolizing of institutions that once checked any single man.
The subtext is a warning disguised as counsel. In a world where “young men” could mean ambitious nobles with armies or street-level factions, listening isn’t just polite; it’s stabilizing. Augustus sells stability as wisdom, and wisdom as inevitability: if elders listened to him when he was young, the proper order is proven, almost natural. It’s propaganda with a grandfatherly voice, the empire speaking as common sense.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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