ABSTRACT
The religion, literature, and art of the age of Augustus appear as the most perfect expression of that Roman spirit of which we have followed the formation and progress from the beginnings of the city. By the end of the Republic it had reached its full maturity. After assimilating the elements of civilization of all ancient Italy, it had sat at the feet of Greece with passionate enthusiasm and had entered into full possession of the knowledge and crafts of the Hellenistic world. The age of Augustus, the half-century of his reign, shows us the complete mastery of the Romans in every branch of intellectual activity. Rome did not equal Greece in every domain; in some she surpassed Greece, and by far, at least the Greece of that time; in all she sought a new path and attained a perfection which she never surpassed or even reached afterwards. This period indeed marks the apogee of her spirit.
