I didn't know what to expect, to be honest, when Professor Jeremy Paterson stood up to speak, with a straight face, about Augustus, benefactor of mankind.

I confess that I was still doubtful when he began by telling us that he was writing a book on the economies of the ancient world - after all, they do call economics 'the dismal science.'

But then he told us a story from Suetonius' life of Augustus, and everything looked up, and didn't look back. The story was about the last days of Augustus' life, when he lived largely in the Bay of Naples, oftern on Capri. They took him on boat trips round the bay, and one day they sailed near a ship coming from Alexandria. When the Alexandrians realised who was in the boat, passengers and crew put on a show for him. They donned togas, they offered incense, and finally came on board and loaded the emperor with compliments. Among other things they ascribed the good weather to him, seeing him as the author of their prosperity. He was touched, and gave them 40 aurei each - a huge sum.

Prof Paterson admitted that many historians would be cynical about the story. They wouldn't even be concerned if it was true or not. Everyone ascribes good weather to the powerful ruler. Look at the praise of Augustus in Georgic 1, the best Latin poem. Even if the story were true, well, the sailors would have said such things, wouldn't they? It was expected.

But  what if they were sincere? Augustus brought peace, and so brought prosperity. JP had written on the jokes that circulated about Augustus (found in Macrobius' Saturnalia); one joke was this: As Augustus returned victorious from Actium to Brundisium, a man met him with a talking crow, who said, as he had been trained, 'Hail Augustus victor!' Augustus was impressed, until a bystander said: 'You should hear the other crow, that he trained to say "Hail Antonius victor!"'

Other jokes were about how Augustus sugared the pill when he had to refuse requests. Whether apocryphal or not, such jokes represent a reality about the relationship between ruler and ruled. Is this true of the Suetonius tale, too?

There are two theories about how the emperor was an agent of prosperity. The 'soft' one says that he only caused prosperity as a by-product of peace. The 'hard' one says that he really did have an economic policy. Historians have not followed this second line, partly because it is easier to show the bad effects of a bed ruler than the good effects of a good one.

Without going through all JP's arguments, and his disagreements with other historians, let us speed to some positive indications that Augustus had what we can justifiably call an economic policy.

Dio in book 52 records at length the debate between Maecenas and Agrippa about how Augustus should act. Although the details no doubt reflect the concerns of Dio as a senator in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, this is an important passage.

Maecenas says that the emperor must look after his soldiers. Where is the money to come from? He should sell off all state possessions that he does not actually need. He should let out land to small farmers at moderate rates; then they will become prosperous, and the successful agricultural sector that is formed will yield good taxes.

Now the Romans never went in for public borrowing. Instead, they confiscated the property of senators and debased the coinage. Moses Finlay claims that emperors simply robbed their subjects like Marcos in the Philippines and some African rulers today. But Dio is advocating the raising of money to maintain a strong army to protect the whole empire.

Trajan instituted the system of alimenta, to provide for orphans. He lent money to local communities which they were to invest to provide for the orphans. There is evidence from 50 cities in Italy of this system at work, so it was probably applied to ever city. Was the aim just crisis management? No; it was to benefit both the poor and the farmers. To the question whether this is social policy or economic policy, the answer is that the two are inseparable.

So emperors had long-term schemes to combat poverty. Then there was the road-building, which was not merely to get the army quickly from A to B, but also encouraged trade.

Recent study in the USA by Jean Kirkpatrick asks whether we can show that democracies beget better economies than tyrants. In the ancient world, embarrassingly, tyrants did best. But autocrats can be anywhere on the line between totalitarian and tinpot. There is another spectrum: kleptocrat to benevolent despot. The Emperors and Ptolemies called themselves benevolent, but were actually further along the spectrum.

JP discussed the theory of the 'stationary bandit.' Whereas small groups can bring about peacful order among themselves by agreement, this is not true of large groups. An example is China in the 1920s. Warlords fought each other and despoiled the people; but when a warlord settled down in one place, the people accepted him as being better than anarchy, and he treated the people well in order that they should continue to provide him with wealth.

So in the Roman Emprie, many inscriptions praising the Emperor were true!

We should read Augustus' will, to be found in Suetonius chapter 101. Augustus admits the vast sums that he received from other people's wills, but claimed to have spent more himself on his people, 'in rem publicam.' Wealth, as a matter of historical fact, is redistributed more efficiently under dictators than in democracies.