You may be right about the state supporting a former dictator, but on the whole I think Livy is probably closer to the story than you. In fact, I kind of like the story of a government that was so far from corrupt that a dictator would have to worry. Livy certainly didn’t derive that story from his personal experience with the Principate.
You perhaps recall that Thomas Jefferson wasn’t very wealthy at the end of his life, and didn’t get much help from the smallish country of which he had twice been elected president. If only we had such an honest and austere government today, and perhaps tomorrow!
TJ, if I remember correctly, owned well over 100 slaves when he died. Only a few of these were freed by his will, because he was so deeply in debt that the rest had to be sold to pay his creditors.
TJ had lived a life of luxury and extravagance. Monticello always had to have the latest luxuries, including expensive French wines. When TJ died, his slaves paid the price.
George Washington, OTOH, ordered his lfe so that when he died he was able to free his slaves.
I know who I consider the more admirable person. TJ, while an accomplished writer, is vastly overrated as a man, IMO. He was kind of a jerk.