The Christian family’s radical roots
Augustus Caesar seemed a savior.
In his long reign as Roman emperor, he unified lands and peoples stretching from Britain to Egypt. He eradicated piracy on the sea. He developed a system of roads and a postal service for worldwide communication. He inaugurated a period of relative peace in the world, and commerce thrived.
Yet, at age 70, Caesar saw that all his achievements were doomed. The reason was simple: Romans were not reproducing. They weren’t even marrying. Over decades of ease, they had come to enjoy a leisurely lifestyle, drifting from pleasure to pleasure without the encumbrance of children. Now, in the year we call A.D. 9, Caesar observed that there was not much that he could call a younger generation.