Fame was Caesar’s destiny, but true greatness was Octavian’s. Imperium was almost written on Octavian’s face: his bright eyes and magnetically handsome features were somehow accentuated by a tousled, slightly dishevelled experience, which would have suggested an utter lack of vanity were it not for the fact that he wore steel-heeled shoes to raise him above his natural height of 5’7”. Octavian succeeded were Caesar had not, avenging his father’s death and defeating his enemies in battle, eventually emerging as Rome’s sole, uncontested ruler. As Augustus he accrued himself all the carefully separated political powers of the Republic, effectively playing senator, consul and tribune, pontifex maximus (high priest) and supreme military commander all at once. Augustus’ character divided Roman opinion – was he a high-minded visionary and peerless soldier-politician, or a corrupt, bloodthirsty, treacherous tyrant, wondered the historian Tacitus (c. AD 58-116), without committing to either judgment. But his achievements as emperor – or as he preferred it, First Citizen (Princeps civitatis) – were impossible to gainsay. On taking power he stamped out the embers of the late Republic’s debilitating civil war. He transformed the city of Rome with grandiose building projects – some of them already begun under Caesar and others of his own design. The 500-acre Field of Mars (Campus Martius), littered with temples and monuments, was radically rebuilt. New theatres, aqueducts, and roads were commissioned. Only the finest building materials passed muster: on his deathbed Augustus bragged that he had found Rome a city of brick, but left it a city of marble. He carried out sweeping reforms to government, concentrating power in his own hands at the expense of the Senate, and encouraging a personal cult of imperial magnificence, which evolved under his successors until some emperors were venerated as demi-gods.  

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Fame was Caesar’s destiny, but true greatness was Octavian’s. Imperium was almost written on Octavian’s face: his bright eyes and magnetically handsome features were somehow accentuated by a tousled, slightly dishevelled experience, which would have suggested an utter lack of vanity were it not for the fact that he wore steel-heeled shoes to raise him above his natural height of 5’7”. Octavian succeeded were Caesar had not, avenging his father’s death and defeating his enemies in battle, eventually emerging as Rome’s sole, uncontested ruler. As Augustus he accrued himself all the carefully separated political powers of the Republic, effectively playing senator, consul and tribune, pontifex maximus (high priest) and supreme military commander all at once. Augustus’ character divided Roman opinion – was he a high-minded visionary and peerless soldier-politician, or a corrupt, bloodthirsty, treacherous tyrant, wondered the historian Tacitus (c. AD 58-116), without committing to either judgment. But his achievements as emperor – or as he preferred it, First Citizen (Princeps civitatis) – were impossible to gainsay. On taking power he stamped out the embers of the late Republic’s debilitating civil war. He transformed the city of Rome with grandiose building projects – some of them already begun under Caesar and others of his own design. The 500-acre Field of Mars (Campus Martius), littered with temples and monuments, was radically rebuilt. New theatres, aqueducts, and roads were commissioned. Only the finest building materials passed muster: on his deathbed Augustus bragged that he had found Rome a city of brick, but left it a city of marble. He carried out sweeping reforms to government, concentrating power in his own hands at the expense of the Senate, and encouraging a personal cult of imperial magnificence, which evolved under his successors until some emperors were venerated as demi-gods.  " in the context of "Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages (2021), pp. 15-16" to mean that wisdom is timeless.