Roderick Conway Morris in The Spectator of 15 February, discussing the contemporary imagery of the Roman emperor Augustus, noted a few things about Augustus's rise to power and his maintenance of it thereafter.

Among other things he says that "Augustus ruled as an autocrat but maintained the fiction that he was no more than the Republic's First Citizen." ... With the wealth of Egypt and other provinces now pouring into his own coffers, he became by far the richest man in the Empire. In Rome itself he created a staggering dependency culture by paying out of his own pocket for the regular corn-dole, with additional periodic distributions of wine and oil, for a quarter of a million plebs, thus guaranteeing their perpetual devotion."

I may be too swayed by caricature, but my first thought on reading this was, apart from the differences in the details, that in Thailand we have our own would-be Augustus ready to return, not from Egypt, but Dubai, to the perpetual devotion of millions, and to refill the coffers seized by the courts in 2010.

History repeats itself in strange ways. Or it might, mightn't it?

Nice to see you back, XSH.

I haven't noticed Thaksin patronising (in a good sense) culture, have you? Perhaps he's still looking for a modern-day Maecenas.

I really think your comparison is very far-fetched! Thaksin spent Government money to further his populist policies; Augustus spent his own (even though the way he obtained it was probably no more ethical than Thaksin's). Augustus spent a few years consolidating his grip on power, and after that would certainly not have allowed massive demonstrations on the streets, processions of disaffected people to the capital, and so on. First Citizen, yes, but also very plainly a dictator. The firmness of the grip he had on power is demonstrated by the fact that the series of lunatics who followed him couldn't destroy the empire.

So try as he might, Thaksin's no Augustus.

He leapt to mind though when I read those comments in the magazine.

A "dependency culture".

I always saw Thaksin as a Suharto wannabe