Two years ago in Paris, while giving a course of lectures on Augustus at the Collège de France, I happened to say to an illustrious historian, a member of the French Academy, who was complimenting me: «But I have not remade Roman history, as many admirers think. On the contrary, it might be said, in a certain sense, that I have only returned to the old way. I have retaken the point of view of Livy; like Livy, gathering the events of the story of Rome around that phenomenon which the ancients called the 'corruption' of customs – a novelty twenty centuries old!
