I’m reading Everitt’s new biography of Augustus on my Kindle. Relations between men and women haven’t changed too much in 2000 years:
“I couldn’t bear the way she nagged at me,” [Octavian] explained [his reasons for divorcing his first wife].
Politics were a bit different.
The voting system was weighted in favor of property owners in the belief that they would act with care because they had the most to lose if any mistakes were made. …
[To finance a war] An unprecendentedly severe income tax was levied (25 percent of an individual’s annual earnings) and riots immediately broke out.
War in the Middle East was more profitable than it has been for the U.S.
Possession of Egypt solved Octavian’s financial problems once and for all. When in due course the kingdom’s bullion reserves were transported to Rom, the standard rate of interest immediately dropped from 12 percent to 4 percent.
[Keep in mind that Egypt had not yet been invaded and conquered by Arabs. It was part of the Hellenistic Empire created by Alexander the Great. Cleopatra and the rest of the upper class in Egypt in the First Century B.C. were of Greek ancestry and spoke Greek (according to Everitt many Egyptian aristocrats did not bother to learn to speak the Egyptian language). The descendants of Cleopatra and her circle would be Coptic Christians today.]
The minimum age in 81 B.C. for a quaestor was 30. The minimum age for a consul was 42. Octavian was considered physically weak and prone to illness. He died after 76 years of delicate health.
Newlywed women were carried over the threshold in Rome, to avoid the bad omen of tripping. The Romans had freedom of speech, even after Octavian became Augustus. They even had Little Caesar, though this was a reference to Cleopatra’s son by Julius Caesar rather than a pizza delivery restaurant.