Laudator Temporis Acti

Ronald Syme, "History and Language at Rome," in his Roman Papers, III (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 953-961 (at 960):

In his ordering of the Commonwealth Augustus appealed to Republican past. No Roman could have acted otherwise. Not only were all new things detested, and tradition worshipped. Archaism, ever a highly respectable tendency, acquired new strength in the years of change—for archaism too was an escape and a reaction from the present. Words normally avoided by Cicero, such as 'tempestas' and 'proles' return to prose usage.³³ The latter is especially significant in the light of the demographic policy of the Princeps; he once read to the Senate the speech of the censor Metellus 'de prole augenda'.³⁴ The poet takes to calling himself a 'vates' ;³⁵ and 'priscus' becomes popular—Livy describes with affection the earliest history of Rome as 'prisca illa'.³⁶ Above all, the venerable word 'augustus', a felicitous revival.<sup>37

33</sup> Cf. Cicero, De oratore 3, 154. For 'tempestas', Livy i 18, 1. On 'proles' note the observation of Norden, P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneis Buch VI³ (1934), 321.
³⁴ Suetonius, Divus Aug. 89, 5.
³⁵ In Epodes xvi 66, the word means 'prophet'. But cf. Odes i 31, 2; iv 6, 44; 9, 28.
³⁶ Livy, Praef. 5: 'dum prisca illa tota mente repeto'.
³⁷ The word had a religious atmosphere, and it suggested Romulus' founding of Rome, 'augusto augurio' (Ennius, quoted by Varro, RR iii 1, 2).

Eduard Norden on Vergil, Aeneid 6.784:

Bei proles fühlte der romische Leser altertümlich-feierlich und grade in der Zeit des Augustus hatte das uralte (schon von Cicero de orat. 3,154 als tot bezeichnete, von Caesar gar nicht und von Livius nur in der ersten Dekade gebrauchte) Wort einen besonders guten Klang: z.B. Hor. carm. 4, 5, 23 laudantur simili prole puerperae von dem goldnen Zeitalter unter Augustus, ähnlich 4, 15, 27. Wenn man bedenkt, dass die Bestrebungen des Augustus de augenda prole anfingen, als Vergil mit der Aeneis begann, und durch eine lex Iulia ihren Abschluss fanden, als er sie beendete, wird man das Pathos der Worte nachfühlen.