I've been reading a lot (Syme, Southern, and others) about this period of Augustus' life . . . and my feelings about it are changing. At first, I thought "oh well, just a return to Sulla" - but from what I can find, the Triumvirate was much nastier than the Sullan proscriptions, which is saying a lot. First, Sulla had reams of political enemies when he proscribed, powerful enough to destroy him - with the Triumvirate, it was apparently a cold-blooded appeal for money to pay to the armies, and secondarily to blatantly settle old scores (i.e., Cicero). But even after the worst of the proscriptions were over, Appian certainly paints a picture in which the three men didn't even attempt to portray themselves as 'restoring the Republic,' they just killed people and set up a real police state remarkably quickly. What's even odder, since Caesar was killed for much less, they justified everything they did by an actual proclamation saying, more or less, "Caesar was merciful and forgave people and look what you did to him - so don't try any of that on with us!!"

When you think that the semi-legal Triumvirate ruled for over ten years, it must have been a terrifying time for whatever was left of the Republican spirit. A three-part dictatorship, as violent or more so than Mussolini - yack!