And the blood of Augustus, of the divine, triumphant, absolute sovereign of bodies and souls, of the man in whom seven centuries of national pride had culminated, was to descend through the ages, through an innumerable posterity with a heritage of boundless pride and ambition.

For it was fatal: the blood of Augustus was bound to spring into life once more and pulsate in the veins of all the successive masters of Rome, ever haunting them with the dream of ruling the whole world.

And later on, after the decline and fall, when power had once more become divided between the king and the priest, the popes--their hearts burning with the red, devouring blood of their great forerunner--had no other passion, no other policy, through the centuries, than that of attaining to civil dominion, to the totality of human power.
But Augustus being dead, his palace having been closed and consecrated, Pierre saw that of Tiberius spring up from the soil.

It had stood where his feet now rested, where the beautiful evergreen oaks sheltered him.

He pictured it with courts, porticoes, and halls, both substantial and grand, despite the gloomy bent of the emperor who betook himself far from Rome to live amongst informers and debauchees, with his heart and brain poisoned by power to the point of crime and most extraordinary insanity.
Then the palace of Caligula followed, an enlargement of that of Tiberius, with arcades set up to increase its extent, and a bridge thrown over the Forum to the Capitol, in order that the prince might go thither at his ease to converse with Jove, whose son he claimed to be.